Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/22/22: Putin Escalation, Nuke Threats, Trump Investigations, Fed Rate Hike, Gas Price, Home Depot Workers, & More!

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover the Russian war escalation, nuclear threats, Trump investigations, interest rate hike, Biden's covid comments, gas prices, Adnan Syed, & Home Depot workers!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Chicago Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/449151/breaking-points-live-tickets Vince Quiles: https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1572660496951832576?s=20&t=mcOFhco6Abmp428kGgEjsA  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Your hard-earned money is gonna help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. I know I always say lots of big stories to dig into, but today it is like extra, super, really true.

Lots of stuff going on with Russia and Ukraine. Putin going ahead and calling up somewhere around 300,000 Russian citizens. That mobilization has begun. Protests and reaction to that are happening. Plus, he's made new threats regarding potential nuclear weapons. So, dig into that. We'll dig into Biden's big speech at the UN. We've also got a massive new legal developments for the former president, including some rulings that are going against him with regard to the special master and the classified documents. And also, Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, announcing a new civil suit against Trump, Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. So we have

all those details for you. We also have big economic news. We have new indications about the housing market. We have the Fed going ahead and moving forward with that 75 basis point rate hike. And actually, I just saw the Bank of England is moving forward with a rate hike as well. So that's that global tightening that we were talking about. New comments from the White House. President Biden got a lot of attention, I guess I would say, some support, some flack for saying that COVID is over. Now they're kind of trying to clarify those comments. So we'll dig into that debate. Sagar's looking at gas prices. I'm looking at the case of Adnan Syed, who, of course, was the subject of the Blockbuster podcast, Serial.

It was literally the first podcast I ever listened to. Same. I would not be the person I am today without Sarah Koenig. Shout out to her. No, literally. I listened to Serial, and at the top was an ad, one of the only ads that's ever worked. Mailchimp. It was for Audible. Oh, it was for Audible. It was always Mailchimp when I was listening to it. At the beginning, that's ever worked, was for Audible. Oh, it was for Audible. It was Audible. It was always MailChimp when I was listening to it. At the beginning, I guess in 2014, it was Audible.

And it was like, hey, if you like this, check out audiobooks. And I was like, oh, okay. And I've probably since listened to like over a thousand audiobooks as a result of that. It was funny because I went back. I talk about this in the monologue, but I went back and re-listened to not every episode because there's 12 of them, that would be a lot, but maybe like four episodes, the sort of key ones, the ones about Jay, the ones about like, you know, that lay out the whole case, et cetera. And there were so many parts of it that were so nostalgic, like the phone call coming in

from the penitentiary and like Adnan Syed. Adnan Syed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Anyway, Adnan is free. Is he innocent? I'm going to dig into what we know. Also, I'm super excited to talk

about to our guest today. So this guy is the lead worker organizer for a new effort to unionize a Home Depot outside of Philadelphia. He also happens to be a big Breaking Points fan. He's a big Breaking Points fan. So it's pretty cool. I'm excited to talk about to him. Home Depot is like the fifth largest employer in the whole country. It's huge, yeah. So if they were able to succeed there, you know, that could be a potentially, you know, really significant moment in terms of the growing grassroots labor moon. He actually said in an interview, he was like, listen, if Chris Smalls could do it with an Amazon warehouse, I thought,

you know, certainly I could do it with the 300 people here at Home Depot. So we'll see how that effort is going. Before we get to any of that, though, we've got a couple of announcements. Reminder, live show in Chicago. Let's put it up there. Vic Theater, October 15th. Buy tickets now. There we go. All right, so we released a couple of clips from the live show yesterday.

Actually did quite well. So if you want to go ahead and check those out, it's a fun vibe. We have a really, really good time with it. And it's all just about thank you to the audience. And it's very participatory. We're all having a great time. We reveal our verbal tics. That was my favorite segment.

Yeah, people really liked that. People enjoyed it, so that's great. I'm glad you did. Go ahead and buy tickets. If you're in the Midwest, go ahead. There's a link down there

in the description. All seems to be going well. Number two is the discount going on right now for CounterPoints. As we said, 10% off on an annual membership here for Breaking Points.

Helps us fund our expansion and hire the person who needs to help, Ryan and Emily. Because James is swamped right now, Mr. Producer James. He took a bow at the end of the show in Atlanta, and he loved it. Much deserved, much earned. The audience is very appreciative, as we are, of James and the work that he does. I also, I just want to remind people who are already premium subscribers

because frankly my dad was asking me about this yesterday so I wanted to make sure I was really clear. There's no added subscription or whatever. If you are a premium subscriber you get our show,

you get CounterPoints, you get the whole thing for that same, you know, price that it's always been. In fact right now it's obviously at a discount. It's delivered to you

in the same way that our show is delivered to you. So nothing really changes. You just get an extra show in your inbox on Fridays. So pretty cool thing. Oh, yeah, that was the last one. We sent out the full live show to all of our premium members.

They can watch the full thing. A lot of you guys did. You guys seemed to really enjoy it. So we're not going to release the full thing to everybody. If you do want to watch the live show and see exactly what was going on, sign up for premium membership. It's part of your discount. You can watch it. You can listen to it, whatever you want. Okay, let's get to the show. Let's start with Putin. Obviously, this is the biggest news. Not only what Putin announced late Tuesday, well, I guess Tuesday to Wednesday, very early in the morning, but all of the geopolitical reaction. We're going to start

very first with what Putin had to say. Let's put this up there on the screen. Putin declares partial mobilization of the Russian defense forces. The decree was signed that says, quote, this is a translation, only citizens who are currently in the reserved and above all, those who served in the armed forces have certain military specialties and relevant experience will be subject to conscription. It's effectively the same as the United States calling up, like, the National Guard or the U.S. Army Reserve. So not going fully to the general population, like drafting them into basic training, but people who have already previous military experience. So let me say, though, that, you know, that's what they're saying and that's how they're selling it. But the order that he signed does not actually specify those limitations.

So it's actually just in his speech, not actually in his order. Yeah. So in terms of how they're implementing it now, it appears that that's the direction they're going in. But the order actually is a much broader potential mobilization. So important thing to keep in mind. Very important one. And look, this gives us a lot of insight to the state of the Russian military. It's like how many of the best people have already been called up?

How many have they churned through? There's a lot of so-called refuse-nics, people who are just refusing not to serve in the quote-unquote special operations zone. Because they're like, we don't want to go to war with Ukraine. I don't want anything to do with this. Well, there's reports of huge lineups at the border of Russian men trying to get out of the country before this comes for them. There were reports that I think were kind of unconfirmed that the airlines had been told to stop selling tickets. There's a lot of rumors going out of Russia.

Yeah, so I don't know if that one is accurate or not, but there certainly is a lot of video floating around of, you know, big lineups at the border of people like, I'm getting the hell out of here before I have to go and fight in this stupid war that I didn't want anything to do with. People are freaking out. And, you know, immediately after the Putin speech, let's put this up there,

the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shogu, he came out and said that Russia is going to draft 300,000 reservists to support the military campaign in Ukraine. He also gave us one of the most laughable statistics yet, that only 5,937 Russian soldiers have been killed since the start of the conflict. That is ludicrous. The actual, I mean, look, nobody knows the actual number,

but it's probably more along the lines of like 10,000 to 20,000 than it is 6,000. And we know that based on actual open source stuff coming out of Russia of people who are posting and, you know, mourning their loved ones. This is just like what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan. They always tried to cover up their death toll. And in the end, people knew the truth, because at the end of the day, you've got to notify somebody's family when they die. And then people start talking, going to funerals.

It's like, hey, there's all these funerals now, all of a sudden. And you weren't even supposed to grieve. It was one of the biggest, it's one of the factors, actually, that led to the decline of the Soviet Union, especially in terms of a lack of confidence in the state. So what does all of this mean? Well, there's a lot of different ways in order to read it, but I think let's focus first on Russian society because Putin, this is a big loss for him. He sold this war as, you know, I was thinking about it recently in the context of the Iraq war. We were sold the Iraq War. Light footprint, 150,000 guys go in.

Lightning, come out. We're out. That's it. And Eric Shinseki and a lot of other guys told the U.S. public and the U.S. Congress, like, no, you're probably going to need like 400,000 people. Otherwise, you're going to have a massive insurgency on your hand. The Bush administration didn't want to listen. In this case, that's Putin.

And so Putin thought, I can do this with a couple hundred thousand guys, all this military equipment. We have one of the world's great power militaries. It's going to be over in like two weeks. Well, six months into this thing, obviously they've now also suffered a humiliating defeat. So this is kind of like the quote unquote surge for Putin. He's doubling down on the war in Ukraine and saying, okay, fine. My initial sell to the Russian population that this wasn't going to really affect your life and I wouldn't have to call up reserves, a quote-unquote special operation, not a war. This is a big domestic loss, I think,

no matter which way that you want to spin it. Another fascinating thing, you know, I found, Crystal, he cited nationalist criticism of him on Russian television, which really makes me think that it was all a Kremlin plot in the beginning. To manufacture dissent coming from the right, saying, why aren't you doing more? Why aren't you calling up? He acknowledged them in his speech and was like, I have heard you. I have listened to you.

And that has led me to this decision. I mean, it's possible because you also saw, like, we covered here the amount of criticism that was coming on state TV and from these bloggers that, you know, normally isn't really allowed. So the fact that it was allowed, that's possible. I mean, it's also possible that, look, genuinely the place he feels pressure from is from his right, from the harder core nationalists. And so after this, you know, what has been a series of stunning advances by the Ukrainian military and stunning setbacks for Russia, he kind of had to do something. And so the bulk of the political pressure was coming from that more nationalist front. And he certainly, you know, for him, this is existential.

Like if they just lose, that's going to be a disaster for him. He cannot allow that to happen. It probably would be the end of his presidency. So to me, nothing lays out the sort of context here better than that image of the day that they're suffering these humiliating defeats in Ukraine. Putin is there inaugurating a new Ferris wheel. trying to hold on to this idea that the bulk of the public could be isolated, insulated from this conflict and that it wouldn't have to impact their lives. It became, you know, this was just like a total defeat of that original strategy that, okay, we can do a little bit of war over here and the public won't even notice. So, so I guess the, the more hopeful spin is that he is trying to find a way. I've seen some analysts saying he's trying to find a way ultimately to get out of this but save enough face so that he's able to hold on to his presidency.

So, you have to strengthen your hand because the Ukrainians certainly aren't going to agree to a ceasefire or peace deal right now when they see total victory in sight. So that was one analysis that I saw that this is an attempt to sort of strengthen the hand so that he might be in a position to negotiate for some sort of ceasefire that wouldn't just be utter and total humiliation. But there's no doubt about it from the beginning, how he thought this would go, it has not gone anything like that from hoping that it could just be this sort of limited effort that the public was protected from, from thinking they could just roll right into Kiev, every step of the way, it has been a disaster for them and has not gone according to plan. Now, I think it's also important to ask, like, this is a lot of people they're calling. 300,000 people

is a lot of people. Now, a lot of them don't have much, if any, training. This is certainly, you know, they're not sending their best, so to speak. They've lost a lot of their sort of most skilled military, well-trained folks, soldiers already. So how much of the difference is this going to make? Are they really prepared and are they organized enough to have this kind of surge into the field, into Ukraine? I think those are all big, big questions to ask. And it seems to me like this winter, for a variety of reasons, is really going to be determinative. Not only because we'll see whether this surge of personnel makes a difference for Russia, helps them to turn the tide and regain the upper hand. That's number one. Number two, and we'll get to this more when we talk about Biden's UN speech, it'll also be a question politically how the US population

is still responding to this war. Are we still all in the European populations? How does it go with energy prices? What, you know, how much austerity and pain does this winter bring to European populations? So I think a lot will be determined over the course of this winter. Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, we also have to acknowledge some of the heroes across Russia. I mean, let's put this up there on the screen. Spontaneous protests broke out all across the country. Here's a video just from Moscow. I'm not going to say this is the entire Russian population, but that's a lot of people that I'm looking at. There's clearly an organic pushback among some percentage. Yeah, right. Exactly. I mean, even if it's 10%. And remember, look, to live in an authoritarian

country like Russia, and it's not like these people can easily leave, and to risk your literal life in imprisonment, to do this takes some serious, serious courage. So we want to acknowledge those people. In terms of the military, let's put this up there. Michael Kaufman, he's that military analyst that we relied on several times throughout this invasion. I think he put it in a very measured and important way. He's like, look, first and foremost, of course, we don't know. So we should not make any deterministic or definitive claims. But here's what he says. I would not suggest that this can turn around Russia's fortunes in the war, as in, are they going to be immediately on the offensive? Probably not. However, here's what he says, I would take care of being dismissive,

especially looking towards the medium term of this winter in 2023, because force availability and manpower matters. Hence, the implications can vary. What he essentially comes to and arrives at in this thread in his analysis is that the Russian military can use these forces to plug up their weak defenses, like those that folded in the Ukrainian offensive, and just make it into much more of a war of attrition and make it, frankly, far more difficult for the Ukrainians to try and advance. Are they capable enough to go on the offense? What Kaufman points out is that the Russians have bled through some of their best generals, some of their best fighting forces. Their logistical challenges are obviously, you know, terrible. And it would take probably more than the quote-unquote partial

mobilization to actually... They would have to basically fully mobilize their entire society and army in order to wage war, which was not supposed to be the case for a great paramilitary fighting a quote-unquote third-rate army. Well, they've proven themselves that when you're fighting for your life, you're going to fight very differently on top of the weapons that we have supplied to the Ukrainians. This is going to actually probably bring it even more balance to the conflict, which does unfortunately mean that everybody's kind of locked in at this point. The Ukrainians now, they've really only got, I don't know, let's say what, eight to 10 weeks left of these people. Obviously, they're not called up yet. They're not yet on the front line. They've really not that got much time before winter strikes and in which they can still

continue to capitalize on it. That's why they're begging for weapons right now harder than they ever have in a long time. So it's a very mixed bag in terms of what it tells us. Is it overly deterministic? No, probably not. This does not mean the end of Ukraine. Does it mean though that Putin is on his very last legs? Also no. This is somewhere mean the end of Ukraine. Does it mean, though, that Putin is on his very last legs? Also no. This is somewhere in the middle, which is why it's hard to describe to people. Yeah, I think it's important to have a lot of humility about what this will actually mean in the battlefield. Because, first of all, all the analysts have gotten things wrong.

Like, dramatically, every step of the way. You know, in Afghanistan, they were dramatically wrong. So, I just, like, at this point, I'm just, you know, it might mean something, it might mean nothing. We'll see how it all unfolds in terms of what happens

on the battlefield. You know, I do want to say, with regards to those protests, there are credible reports that those who are being arrested are being immediately conscripted. So, like, taken into custody and immediately conscripted. Wow. So, like, taken into custody and immediately conscripted.

So, just to underscore how courageous it is to actually go out there in the streets and make your voice heard, I mean, that is incredible. Yegor shared with me this morning there were actually 130 Chechen women arrested in Chechnya for protesting, which, again, I mean. That takes some serious. Real, real courage. So we have no insight into how widespread these protests are. We really have very little insight into how much of a societal backlash there is.

But I would say, I mean, just logically thinking about this, the way that Putin sold this to the public as this isn't even a war. It's not going to affect you. Here I am, like, you know, inaugurating this Ferris wheel. Don't worry about what's happening over here. To go from that to we're going to mobilize, we're going to send in 300,000 more conscripts, you know, the order, like, they're not stupid. They can see that the order is actually for a full mobilization. So no one is feeling particularly safe right now. So anyway, I could certainly imagine that there is significant deep concern and backlash to the movement in this direction. So we'll see how all of that plays out. Yeah, absolutely. Let's move on then next to the

most, frankly, important one, which is nuclear. We opened one of our shows on Biden's response to Putin on nuclear weapons. And Putin has issued a new and very troubling taunt, both to President Biden and to the entire West. So let's put this up there on the screen. This is analysis from Andrei Baklatisky. So he is specifically a nuclear analyst. And he breaks down President Putin, what seemed like an offhand comment about nuclear weapons actually was a change in Russian nuclear doctrine and why it is just so important in order to break it down. Here's what he said. He said that, quote, some high-level representatives of key NATO states made statements about the possibility and admissibility of use of WMD nuclear weapons

against Russia. First of all, I don't know what he's talking about, and that seems to be complete bullshit. So just let's all be clear about what exactly Putin is saying. However, in response to said fake comments, here's what he says. He reminds those people Russia has different, quote, means of destruction, meaning nuclear weapons. If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It's not a bluff. He continues, the citizens of Russia can be sure the territorial integrity of our motherland, our independence, and freedom will be ensured. I emphasize this again, with all the means at our disposal. So why does this matter? Two fronts. Number one, because at the same time those partial mobilizations were announced,

Crystal, they also announced those fake referendums that are going to occur in four separate regions across Ukraine. We don't know the full date, all of that. All of those referendums will be much like the Crimea referendum, a fake pretext in order to fully annex these territories into Russia and officially as part of Russian law would be part of the Russian Federation. Why does that matter? Because then if we are talking about fighting in those areas, in Crimea, in Kursk, in the Donbass, in Luhansk, in these regions, they could claim a part of this new nuclear doctrine that this violates their, quote, territorial integrity with weapons used by the West. This is the real nightmare scenario in terms of we obviously are not going to accept person, even Crimea, you know, as part of Russia. But if they think that is,

and then as part of their new doctrine say that it is, it would open the gates to a new higher level of warfare. So the fact that he added territorial integrity is very important because previously Russian doctrine said that first use in a conventional war when the existence of the state is threatened, not territorial integrity. That was one of the first things. And the quote unquote abstract protection of people, independence, and freedom. So nuclear doctrine is very important to understand. We have very, very laid out first use cases as to when we would use a first use strike of a nuclear weapon. So do the Russians. Theirs has generally been the integrity of the regime, the integrity of the

state. To add territorial integrity, again, and this is what Andre says, coming from the person who has the sole decision making power regarding nukes, this should be taken very, very seriously. You combine the referendum with this new addition to Putin's nuclear doctrine. And look, we have no choice in this country but to take it seriously. Is he lying? Is he bluffing? I don't know. He says he's not. He's bluffed in the past. He is obviously a liar. This pretext of all this is completely fake, but that doesn't mean that you can't take it seriously whenever he says these things. That's 100% correct. Zelensky's response was basically like, nah, he's bluffing. Maybe. You might be right and you might not. But the reporting is the White House and the Pentagon do take this possibility relatively seriously.

And that's what we covered before when Biden was asked in that 60 Minutes interview, you know, what would you say to Putin about his use of nuclear, potential use of nuclear weapons? And he was like, don't. And then he was pushed about, OK, well, what would the response be? And ultimately his answer was, well, obviously I'm not going to tell you right now, but it also would depend on what the nature of it was. So one thing that one scenario they've been considering is would there be some sort of a like test or tactical detonation as sort of like a warning? Those sorts of things are very, very scary, even as, you know, oftentimes the way the media covers it is like, oh, this would be no big deal. But make no mistake, it would be a huge deal. It's also no accident that these referendum are going forward.

Are they referenda when it's plural? Anyway, referendums are going forward at the same time that he makes this comment. I mean, those two things are definitely linked. There's no question about it. So that he's saying at the same time, we are claiming this as this is Russia, this is our territory. And he's shifting the line as to when and how they would potentially use nuclear weapons and saying we will use them to defend our territorial integrity, not just when we see an existential threat to Russia. Those things are incredibly significant. In terms of the territories that they're trying to lay claim to here, the latest reporting is that they're going to run polls there for five days starting tomorrow. There's four regions that they're going to conduct these

fake polls and elections in, and those four regions represent about 15% of Ukrainian territory, so it's a very significant part of the state. Yeah, this, look, it's a lot of parts of Ukraine and these is the most contested parts where a lot of fighting is happening. It also overlays something that we talked about in one of our previous shows, which is that President Biden very much considering the exact type of weapon systems that we're sending over there because the Ukrainians are like, hey, we need these long range weapon systems to hit Crimea. And he's like, I don't know if I want you to hit Crimea with directly US provided systems. Well, if this territory now goes the direction of Crimea in that, now we have to consider the Russian responses, what that means with the update of the doctrine. And look, I mean,

this is why the nightmare is whenever authoritarian countries have nukes, because they can just wave their finger in your face. And I mean, there's not a lot you can do about it without really upping the ante all the way. And we're starting to get close to that line. Anytime one of the world's great powers calls up 300,000 people and then changes its nuclear doctrine and then threatens nukes in the middle of an active conflict that you're semi-involved in. It says, I am not bluffing. It says, I'm not bluffing. Pay attention, people. So this is a new phase of the war. Who the hell knows what's going to happen? Let's move on to Presidenting. Pay attention, people. So this is a new phase of the war. Who the hell knows

what's going to happen? Let's move on to President Biden. So obviously, the way that the United States is going to respond to this is also going to impact the conflict both on the ground and geopolitically. President Biden happened to be speaking the next day on Wednesday at the UN General Assembly, where he directly addressed President Putin. Let's take a listen. Let us speak plainly. A permanent member of the United Nations Security Council invaded its neighbor, attempted to erase the sovereign state from the map. Russia has shamelessly violated the core tenets of the United Nations Charter, no more important than the clear prohibition against countries taking the territory of their neighbor by force. Again, just today, President Putin has made overt nuclear threats against Europe and a reckless disregard for the responsibilities of the non-proliferation regime.

This world should see these outrageous acts for what they are. Putin claims he had to act because Russia was threatened, but no one other than Russia sought conflict. In fact, we warned it was coming. And with many of you, we worked to try to avert it. For those who are just listening, you showed a couple stone-faced Russians sitting there taking the exact translation. Now, let's at least understand also beyond the warnings, the chastising of Russia, how the US is spinning this along with the Western coalition. Let's put this up there. Directly in response to this, the United States said that Putin's mobilization was a quote, sign of weakness and Russian failure. That was specifically from the US ambassador to Ukraine, calling it a failure, taunting the Russians, saying it is a sign of weakness and Russian failure. That was specifically from the U.S. ambassador

to Ukraine, calling it a failure, taunting the Russians, saying it is a sign of weakness. Now, they're not wrong that it is a sign of weakness. Obviously, nobody calls up more troops in a sign of strength, but also accused them of, quote, nuclear blackmail in terms of the new threats that are being made. So the reason why it matters is that we are putting this in the league of this is why we all have to remain united. And this is also why it is foolish on Putin's part. I mean, things are not good right now on the European continent. I think that if he hadn't done this, let's say that the war hadn't changed all that much, there might have been some opening for protests in France and Germany, especially as it gets colder in the winter.

These governments, they're dug in. You can't change policy whenever the guy is calling up 300,000 people and waving a nuclear weapon in your face. It just makes, like, why would the German chancellor change policy then? Like, now he's moving forward. They're nationalizing, like, a Russian oil plant in Italy right now. One of their biggest suppliers is also a Russian oil giant. They're probably just going to take it over. This is basically bifurcating the two economies and making it much more difficult for them.

Now, Russia obviously is going to continue to – I'm doing a monologue on this. They're going to be fine-ish on oil. They'll still sell to India and China. But any hope I think they had of reconciliation with the West in the interim six months to one year period, no Western government is going to change its policy when you're calling up 300,000 people and waving a nuke in your face. Yeah. Well, Putin, I mean, the reality is at this point he's left with no good options. Yeah, right.

I mean, that's the fact of the matter is like they are in such rough shape in Ukraine right now, and he's facing so much domestic political pressure, whether real or manufactured, to, you know, have a more wholesale mobilization and have more of a full throated like actual war footing that I don't know that he felt he had any other hand he could play. But I think you're right about it. We talked a lot about heading into the winter, though, was a big question mark. That's why Zelensky orchestrated this particular push right now, to keep the Europeans and to keep us on board and to keep us enthusiastic and to convince us like, okay, these weapons that we're sending and all this aid that we're sending, it's worth it. It's working. The pain that we're going to feel this winter, it's all worth it. The plan is coming together and the Ukrainians can actually succeed. So he executed that. It worked pretty much flawlessly in terms of what they were able to accomplish, both in reality on the ground and

in terms of the sort of massive PR victory with regards to our public and to the European public. You have not had yet big signs that there is a real faltering of commitment either, you know, in any part of the NATO alliance. So, you know, if Putin was betting on, okay, we're going to go into the winter and things are going to be tough and the public is going to revolt against what the European and American governments are doing, that might still happen, but there aren't signs of it yet. And I think you're right that if that's what he was originally betting on and what Zelensky was originally concerned about, the fact that he is moving forward with this, you know, 300,000 person mobilization and saying, hey, by the way, I might use nukes. Yeah, that's going to

harden commitment to opposition to Russia here. He gives us no choice. I mean, and again, would I run everything differently? Yeah, I would. But I'm telling you, in reality, the way that the West is currently positioned, they are locked in now for the entire winter. No matter how the gas price goes, no matter how high energy prices are on the continent, they can't give in because that's just, look, politically in that dynamic that everybody's locked into, he has secured his, he secured higher NATO spending when he invaded.

And now he has secured the political dynamic geopolitically for time to come. And this is why I always want to acknowledge, like, look, this is on him. Nobody forced his hand to invade Ukraine. And then nobody asked you to call up 300,000 people and use nuclear blackmail against the West. So don't be surprised, like, when your don't be surprised when your economy is tanking and then even when there is domestic political strife in Europe that they're just not going to give in. It's like this is what happens when people get locked into conflict.

In one more sign of how much things have gone off the rails for the Russian military, there was a report this morning, you know, take it with a grain of salt, et cetera, et cetera, but there was an interesting report this morning that Putin is actually personally directing troops on the battlefield, which is like- Yeah, right.

That's some LBJ Vietnam shit. Right, like if you have a functional military- That never happens. That should not be happening. That's literally, I mean, let's do a little history lesson, right? Like one of the problem ones with the Vietnam War was that literally the president of the United States has like a Rolling Hills model of Vietnam and is picking B-52 targets.

Yeah, once that happens, things have gone bad. Like very, very bad. Especially in the age of a great power, modern military. It shows he's a narcissist, doesn't trust anybody who's around him. They've also taken hits in terms of some of their top generals being taken out with help from our intelligence. So yeah, I guess he's feeling like the ranks are pretty thin at this point. Okay. But at the same time, and there is some important polling, this is why it's always important to balance. Let's put this up there. The Concerned Veterans of America, they're a great group. They do a lot of very realist stuff. And they actually do polls on how Americans feel about US policy towards Russia and Ukraine. And they dig down

into the nitty gritty. That's why I like it. So here's what they say, quote, only 15% of the American public support sending more military and financial aid to Ukraine than wealthy European countries with twice as many people who want to send less assistance than we currently are. This, of course, comes at the same time the Biden administration wants $15 billion more for Ukraine. Furthermore, 54% of respondents said the United States should only continue to provide aid to Ukraine if the Europeans are willing to match our support. Fact check, not happening right now. Second, around half of respondents of the United States said that the U.S. should provide the same level of support for Ukraine as wealthy countries and not $1 more. Then,

57% strongly do not want direct American military intervention in the war in Ukraine, only 14% support strongly or somewhat. They all live here in Washington, D.C. And then finally, the plurality of respondents said that Biden should make lowering or eliminating inflation his top priority. Only 2% said they believe that ensuring a defeat of Russia and Ukraine should be the president's main priority. So I love this poll because it ranks, these are tests, you ain't going to get this from Politico or from anybody else. They're like, hey, Europe spends X, America spends Y, and that's 10 times more than all of Europe combined. How do you feel about that?

People are like, hey, that's bullshit. But they don't even know. They don't even know the date unless they watch this show. Even then, it's very difficult in order to get this information out. So when people are confronted, they're very nuanced. Of course they want to help Ukraine, but they think the Europeans should step up. They think that, and they also strongly oppose intervention. I love this because it just shows you Americans are good people, but they also don't want to get, you know, embroiled in a multi-decade war and all this.

And the establishment people in this party and in the media, they don't represent any of this view. Yeah. What these numbers really underscore to me is, again, what a sort of like pivotal moment this is because public opinion does hang on kind of a knife's edge. So right now there continues to be support for the direction, obviously with Zelensky being able to notch some significant victories, that's going to continue to encourage that support. And, you know, the fact you've had gas prices coming down,

you're going to cover whether that's going to continue in that direction or not, has helped to sustain that support. European governments are starting to put together packages so that they can help their populations out to get through the winter. But it really does show you why both Putin and Zelensky saw this moment right now as such a critical moment in terms of the future trajectory of this war. So again, I think a lot is going to be determined this winter based on how energy prices go, how domestic populations feel about this, what happens on the battlefield. Does this surge of new troops from Putin doesn't make a difference

or does it just kind of continue the status quo? Yeah, I don't know. I did though, I'm feeling very conflicted. I just read a report about how high energy prices in Europe means that European companies now have to manufacture in the U.S. And I was like, I don't know, man. I'm like, maybe I'm cheering on the high gas prices. A little silver lining there for us.

Yeah, a little bit of a silver lining for us. So, sorry, Europe. All right, let's move on to this next part. The final, this one's very important in terms of Zelensky, who we alluded to. Let's put this up there on the screen. He said, quote, I don't believe the world will let Putin use nuclear weapons. Zelensky happened to be doing an interview with a German television network, Bild, I probably said that wrong, that he doesn't

believe Russia will use nukes, but he doesn't completely rule out the possibility either. He says, quote, in response to Putin, tomorrow Putin can say, in addition to Ukraine, we also want a part of Poland. Otherwise, we will use nuclear weapons. We cannot agree on such compromises. Now, obviously, Poland is actually a NATO ally. Ukraine is not. And it's not a surprise or accident that he's saying Poland because that's what precipitated the outbreak of World War II. He's a very smart operator. I have to give it to him. I mean, he has an incentive also to downplay the potential of Putin using nuclear weapons, because from the beginning, that's been one of the fears that has constrained U.S. support. So, you know, the reason that we don't

just willy-nilly send them the longer-range missiles that they want that could strike inside of Russia is exactly because of this fear. The totality of the strategy that the U.S. government has employed has all been designed to keep us from having a dramatic escalation that would provoke this type of, you know, potentially world-ending response from Russia. They talked about it as the boil the frog strategy, where it's, you know, step by step by step by step, but very carefully. Now, again, it's not exactly how I would have done things, but this is the way that they're thinking about it. And reportedly, Biden has sort of frustrated some of his aides and some of the hawks in his own party by saying, hey, guys, at the end of the day, we don't want to start World War III. So that's why Zelensky has an

incentive to say basically like, yeah, don't worry about that. That's definitely not going to happen. He's just full of it. And it's a bluff. Yeah, no, it's a very difficult one. At the same time, let's put this up there. In that interview, he said Putin wants to, quote, drown Ukraine in blood, including that of Russian soldiers, including the blood of his own soldiers. And that was his immediate reaction. So I think it was very noteworthy on our part that the very first thing he said is don't worry about the nuclear thing. He's completely bluffing and then kind of pivoting to his standard message about how Putin wants to erase Ukraine as an existence, which, you know, if you listen to his speech from February, it's true in terms of what he, he doesn't believe it's a real country along with all the other Baltic states, which is kind of crazy. But not that out of step, I guess, with your typical

Russian czar. I thought it was important, you know, to include the Zelensky comments too, how he's spinning, what exactly he wants the U.S. to continue to do. Clearly, this is frankly the best thing that ever happened to him because now he can just – he's got a much more united West. He can beg for more weapons, and we're probably going to give it to him. I think that's the TLDR that people need to take away. We will see. turning to domestic politics as i referenced before some major legal developments some more major legal developments for the former president who is you know continues to face a number of investigations on a variety of fronts so let's start with this attorney general leticia james

of new york she announced and this she's been telegraphing this for a long time she's been coming for before we kind of expected this was going to happen. But yesterday, we got all of the details of exactly what she's announcing here. This is a civil suit. And it's not just targeting the former president. It's also targeting three of his adult children. That would be Eric, Ivanka, and Don Jr. This has to do with their tendency, alleged tendency,

to dramatically overstate the values of their properties so that they could obtain loans from Deutsche Bank in particular, but from other lenders as well, and then to turn around and dramatically understate those values when it came to tax purposes. Let's listen to how AG Letitia James presented this at her press conference. Mr. Trump and the Trump organization repeatedly and persistently manipulated the value of assets to induce banks to lend money to the Trump organization on more favorable terms than would otherwise have been available to the company to pay lower taxes, to satisfy continuing loan agreements, and to induce insurance companies

to provide insurance coverage for higher limits and at lower premiums. So let me give you a few more of the details here. This is according to the New York Times write-up. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So the reason this is a civil suit is because her office actually lacks authority to file criminal charges, but she has referred some of these findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan. So we will see whether any criminal charges are filed there. In terms of what this would mean, so first of all, she's seeking $250 million in damages. So that is a sizable chunk of change, even for someone as wealthy as President Trump is. She's also seeking to prevent the family from acquiring real estate in New York for five years in order to preclude

the company from reinventing itself in Florida while expanding its New York operations. She's also seeking to bar Trump and his children from serving as officers or directors in any New York company, essentially chasing them out of the state. And just to give you a sense of some of the, you know, some of the evidence she cited here and has been proffered before about what exactly they were up to. One example is, I think his Park Avenue apartment, he inflated the size of it by three times. So it's actually 10,000 square feet. And with a price that had never been sold before. 30,000 square feet. And with a price that had never been sold before. 30,000 square feet.

And it's worth, yeah, it's valued at an amount that literally no residence in New York has ever been sold for. So that's one example. Another one they gave here, this one was new to me. There was a group of rent-stabilized apartments in their building on Park Avenue. Don Jr. apparently once described them as being the bane of his existence. Instead of acknowledging that the value of some of these apartments was capped in the building, the company listed the overall residential units as worth $292 million, multiplying by six the figure that appraisers had assigned to the building's residential units and storage spaces.

So the Trump reaction has been to say basically, like, Letitia James is a partisan actor and she's just doing this as a campaign stunt and it's political, etc., etc. I think it's hard. You have to acknowledge this is someone, Letitia James is a Democrat. When she was running for attorney general, she talked about going after Trump. But also, I also haven't heard them deny that this were the sort of chicanery that they were up to, nor would anyone be surprised if these are the sorts of dramatic overstatements that they were engaged in. And also, you know, to me, she built some credibility when she was the person who really brought down Andrew Cuomo, who obviously is of her same party. And she was the person who, she went after Amazon over firing Chris Smalls. She was the lead on this lawsuit alleging Facebook's a monopoly. So she does have

some credibility in terms of some of the investigations coming out of her office. Some of the stuff here is just so crazy. Like the apartments that they once, yeah, like you were saying, $750 to $50 million. Like how is that possible? Right. I don't even understand. Like I literally, you know, we run a business. I don't know how you do that.

We wouldn't, I mean, oh my God. With a straight face. Like we would not get away with it. Yeah. Like there's no way. And that's the thing. I'll give you their defense in just a moment. But some of these things, it's just so brazen.

I cannot imagine with a straight face putting this stuff forward. Another thing he did is he counted as cash money that was actually his partner's. So it was in these accounts for some, you know, joint development they were doing, but it wasn't his. And he's like, yeah, that's my cash. I can't imagine. I can't imagine doing that. Now, okay, so here is their defense.

And by the way, legal analysts say that this case could be kind of hard to prove. What they'll say is Deutsche Bank is a sophisticated financial institution. They were perfectly able to do their own due diligence. be kind of hard to prove. What they'll say is Deutsche Bank is a sophisticated financial institution. They were perfectly able to do their own due diligence. And ultimately, you know, their implication is basically this is a victimless crime. And by the way, the loans that they were able to secure, they paid back in full with interest, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not like these fraudulent valuations ultimately harmed even Deutsche Bank because they were able to make good on their commitments here.

So that's their side of the story. I mean, I think that's not a terrible case. I mean, essentially, what we're seeing here is that Trump, shocker, had shady business practices for the last 40 years. And if she does get her way, also criminality, as I understand it, what she's really seeking is that he has to sign a document saying he can't be a corporate officer in the state of New York. Of New York, yeah. Right. So like that, you know, of course, since the Trump organization, Trump properties and all those other things are headquartered in them, that would be a nightmare. But really what they're pointing to is they're just uncovering what I think a lot of people knew from all this. I'm not absolving any of the behavior. Do I think

though that it's going to have like some major political impact? No. But on a personal level, there is no doubt, this is a dagger into the heart of their business just because it uncovers some of this stuff. And it could unravel other loans and other corporate deals that they have going on right now. Yeah. Well, and the next question is, okay, is there a tax fraud? Is that the piece that comes out from the prosecutors if they look at criminal charges? Are there federal tax avoidance schemes as well that are actually, you know, reach a point of being illegal? Now, some of the reasons why this could be more irksome to Trump than you might think is, number one, as you're pointing at, like, this is a significant potential blow to his business. I mean, that's real. Number two,

his children are named. So it hits, you know, in a personal way there that this is not just about him. It's about his, about three of his adult children as well. And then also it does kind of strike at the core of his whole brand and image and mystique and like his, you know, his projection of lavish, extreme wealth. And the dollar figure she is seeking here is ultimately pretty significant. A couple other legal details that are worth mentioning. Apparently, reportedly, they had offered a settlement and Letitia James said, no, thank you. Another thing was two of the four, so Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, two of them pled the fifth when they were questioned about this. I think it was Trump and Don Jr.

And then the other two, Eric and Ivanka, did not. And one thing I learned in reading about this that I didn't know is in a civil suit, you are actually allowed to use against them the fact that they pled the fifth. This is a New York-specific law, I believe, but you are allowed to basically make the worst possible inference from that, that if they had responded, it would have implicated them in a negative way. So that's what I know about that. That's a lot. Yeah, it's fun learning about the New York corporate law. Who knew?

Having to go get a law degree after all this freaking stuff. It's crazy. Well, why don't we get to the special master? Okay, yeah. So this broke yesterday evening and this is maybe even a bigger deal than the Letitia James suit at this point. So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.

Government securing a pretty significant victory here with an appeals court panel. They have granted the DOJ's request for a stay of parts of Judge Cannon's ruling. Specifically, what the government won here, and this is a big deal, is the right to be able to use the classified documents, about 100 classified documents that were seized in the search, they're allowed to use them in their ongoing criminal investigation. Previously, they had been blocked from doing that, and that was going to significantly delay what they were able to do in terms of deciding whether or not to file

charges. So this panel of three judges, two of whom were Trump appointees and one of whom was an Obama appointee, and they ruled unanimously in the government's favor saying, no, you can go ahead and use these classified documents. And furthermore, the other piece here, as I understand it, is that means that the special master who has been agreed, you know, appointed to go through all the documents, now those hundred classified documents are out of the special master's purview. So this is a pretty significant win for the government. As I understand it, there are a couple of possibilities for the Trump side to appeal this. One would be to ask the 11th Circuit to consider this, quote, en banc, which is like with all of the judges of the three-judge panel. That's, from what I read, unlikely to happen.

The other avenue would be to take this to the Supreme Court. Also unlikely that the Supreme Court would take this up just because it's this kind of like nitty gritty procedural matter. So looks like a significant victory for the government that will allow them to continue to investigate this and potentially build a case and not create these long delays that they were concerned about. Right. So two parts of this, right? Yes. As I understand it. Number one, the special master is basically like, if you can't prove that you didn't declassify these documents, you're done. Yeah, so that's a separate one from the special master.

Let me break that one down. Oh, God. I know. I can't get my hands, my head, because I was going to say, at the same time, though, but the documents can be resumed being looked at. Yes.

So it's like, okay. Yeah, well, it does sort of seem like it almost negates this previous part of the story, but this part is interesting just because it shows the direction the special master is going. So let's put this next piece up on the screen. So this happened before, a couple days back.

The special master really had a pretty spicy exchange with Trump's lawyers where he was like, hey, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Meaning you can't float this idea of, oh, maybe he declassified all of this, and so you should worry about the fact that it's classified, but then not enter any specific evidence of the fact that these documents were declassified. Now, this ultimately, again, this may end up being kind of meaningless from a legal standpoint because now we have this other ruling that says basically, hey, special master, don't worry about these classified documents at all. But why this is significant in terms of reading the tea leaves is because remember this special master was on a list that the Trump team had picked. So this was someone that they thought,

according to reporting, was going to be on their side. They thought he was a real deep state skeptic. He was involved in the whole, like, I'm sorry to go back to all of this, but the whole Carter page, FISA court stuff. He was actually on the FISA court and apparently was very critical of how all that was handled. So they thought, oh, this is one of our guys.

Well, from these exchanges, he basically was like, I don't really know what I'm even expected to do here. It seems like it's pretty simple answer. If it turns out you guys aren't going to offer any evidence that these documents are declassified. So it didn't seem like he was just going to fall into their, you know, taking their side of the debate in all of these issues was what seemed significant about it to me. Okay, so two things. Number one, the government can restart looking at the documents. Number two, Trump's defense looks really shady. Well, he was on with Sean Hannity, and he was again talking about whether or not these documents were declassified. And he said

that a president, even, even just thinking about declassifying documents, that that's enough. So that's his defense. I mean, that's just, that's just not going to fly in court. So like, let's put that all together. Look, I think they've got him dead to rights and this is not a judgment of like, of whether the case is good or not. I'm just telling you, on the merits from everything I've read, if that's your defense and you can't show that you legally signed something, well, as your government argued in court, whenever they said just because Trump tweets something declassified, that it doesn't mean it's declassified because you have to go through paperwork. That's right. I don't see how old Donnie wriggles his way out of the door. I mean.

Honestly, I really don't. It is a, let's just say it's an extreme legal view to take to be like a president can literally just declassify documents by thinking about it. But there's no jurisprudence to even back that up. I can't imagine that anyone serious really believes that. Because remember, declassification isn't just like a willy nilly thing. That means that then, you know, Ken Klippenstein and other investigative journalists can FOIA those documents. Like the public then gets access to them.

Which we should. Right. So the idea that this can be done in such a casual or even just like a thought exercise, I can't see that withstanding scrutiny. And then even if you were to grant them that or they come up with some standing order that they had, or whatever, Kash Patel produces some proof that they actually declassified these documents, it's not even clear then that that really matters. Because ultimately, the statutes that they are evaluating for potential indictment and charges don't require that the documents are actually classified. So, you know, when you put it all together, and this is, to me, the most significant part of the Letitia James civil suit as well,

is you just have so many mounting issues on so many different fronts. You've got the investigations into a super PAC. You've got the investigations into January 6th and incitement. You've got the fake electors investigations, both in D.C. and down in Georgia. You've got the investigations into January 6th and incitement. You've got the fake electors investigations, both in DC and down in Georgia. You've got the documents issue. Now you've got the civil suit in New York that could hobble his businesses. It's just a lot that can, and I'm probably like forgetting one or two things in this list, by the way. It's just a lot that continues to mount and continues to mount and makes it increasingly difficult to see number one, how he totally gets out of it, and number two, how the government avoids

charging him with something because there is just far too much out now in the public sphere to then say, well, yeah, we see that he committed all these crimes, but we're not actually going to do anything about it. Yeah, I just think it's substantially different from the Mueller investigation. There is, frankly, just more there

on almost every single front. Yeah. On these and on this one in particular, like, I just don't see how you can get out of it. Like, it's possible that they decline to indict. But, I mean, all the facts and all of that make it clear, like, if he didn't sign some paperwork, he doesn't have a case, as his own special master now says. So good luck in court. I don't see any other way that it can turn out, which is crazy from a macro political view. But we'll just zero in on this until that actually happens.

I'm just saying from what I can read and many other conservative legal experts and more, I haven't seen a single one say that that isn't the case either. Yeah. Well, and I think it's significant that on this 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, this three-person panel, two of them Trump appointees. And it was a unanimous decision in the government's favor. So that tells you, like, his people that he put on the court are not really too inclined to bail him out at this point. Yeah, well said. Okay. We also have big economic news. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So the Federal Reserve did go ahead and move forward with what was expected.

Here's the Boston Globe says Fed attacks inflation with another big hike and expects more. So that might be the most critical part. They hiked the rates by 75 basis points. That's 0.75 of a percent. So there had been some analysts that are saying, oh, they might even do a full 100 basis points. They didn't do that. They stuck with's 0.75 of a percent. So there had been some analysts that were saying, oh, they might even do a full 100 basis points. They didn't do that. They stuck with the 0.75. That being said, that is still quite extraordinary of an action. This all comes as, you know, there was a hope that inflation was really starting to be brought under control. Those

hopes were dashed, I would say, somewhat by the last reports we got about exactly what the inflation numbers are. And as I said before, their expectation is they're going to continue in this direction. And I know we're a broken record on this, but it's a dangerous situation because, number one, you're using a tool that isn't really well-suited to deal with the underlying problems here. Number two, there is a lagging effect where when you hike the rates, it takes a while for the impact to hit. They're very clear about, hey, we want to get wages down.

We want to get unemployment up. This all could potentially be a disaster for you all because the worst possible scenario is you continue to have a high inflation, but you also have a severe recession. Yeah, exactly right. And all of the downstream effects are just becoming completely crazy. Let's throw this next one up there on the screen. Existing home sales fell dramatically in August, and prices are softening significantly. And then furthermore, I mean, put the next one up there. This is a crazy one that you found.

The median American household would need to spend 44.5% of their income to afford payments on a median price house in the United States. That's insane. The highest percentage on record going back to 2006. Wow. So what is going on here? Here's another way. Somebody just sent me this, and it's actually completely insane whenever you consider it. In terms of mortgages, if you secured a 30-year fixed mortgage on a $600,000 home at a 2.6%

interest rate in 2021, you now have the same monthly mortgage as someone that just bought a $392,000 home at today's 6.2% interest rate. That's how much interest rates matter whenever you buy property. Almost, what, two-thirds of the value of the house. And so that's why what we say is like, look, just because the sticker price goes down, you ain't paying less. I mean, unless you got a ton of cash in the bank. That's right. You're not doing so well.

Yeah, it really is the worst of all possible worlds. Because if you're a homeowner, number one, you're stuck in your house because you can't afford to give up the mortgage rate that you've got locked in. I mean, you're in the best possible position, but you're also watching your equity go down as prices are coming down in most major markets. Right now, as of now, you've only had two markets across the country, Boise and Fairbanks, Alaska, that have actually seen year-over-year declines, but you have a majority of markets that have seen prices come down from their peak, okay? So we are in that prices are softening, they are headed downwards, so homeowners are stuck and they're seeing the equity in their house decline. But they're in the best possible position, right? People who have a

dream of one day in their life being able to afford a home. I mean, this is a disaster because, yeah, you might got tons of cash and you can come in and benefit from, you know, the fact the prices are going to come down, well, that's going to be great for them. And they're all positioned to, like, want to be America's landlord. And it's a disaster in terms of, like, building middle class wealth and having some reasonable track to get to the American dream. So that's who ultimately this state of affairs benefits. But you can see a huge slowdown in terms of the number of homes that are sold. So in sales were 19.9% lower than in August of 2021. So when you look year over year, the number of homes being sold down 20%. So you can see the market has sort of seized up, even as you don't have this dramatic fall in prices because the other pieces, you still have low inventory.

Home builders are still, because rates are going up, home builders are still sort of holding off in terms of what they're putting into the market. So it is a terrible situation and isn't going to benefit any ordinary Americans right now. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I mean, it's just it's a very, very difficult situation and everyday life, both on inflation and in terms of mortgages now, much more unaffordable for people on top of squeezing the rental market. So it's very sad. And ironically enough, only contributes even more to rental inflation. That's exactly right. So that's one of those effects that, as we pointed to, when the Fed hikes rates, it's not all anti-inflationary.

There are some effects here, like increasing rent prices that actually go against what they're trying to accomplish. There you go. Okay, finally. The fun block. A little bit of a controversy this week based on President Biden's, in my opinion, totally anodyne comments about the COVID pandemic and where we are. This is on 60 Minutes. You know, they were so anodyne. We're like a day late to it.

They were like, we're not even going to cover it. Yeah. But I didn't even think it was worthy covering. No. I was like, whatever. Yeah. But now since then, there's been some other developments we'll get to in a minute. So let's take a listen to what the president said on 60 Minutes.

Is the pandemic over? The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it's changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it. So, Sagar, personally, what irritated me about the backlash to this among, you know, liberals who are super committed to, like, COVID forever politics is it really ignored that second part of what he said, because he didn't say, like, the pandemic is over and COVID is gone and that's

it. He added some very reasonable caveats here that basically indicates, like, it's not a pandemic anymore. It's now endemic to the population. And yeah, we still have a problem, but we're in a better place. Like how can you deny that that's ultimately the case? He's also descriptively correct. Like people do not predominantly wear masks anymore. People are not predominantly like pulling their kids out. It's like some people are, I live around a lot of them and you know, I feel bad for them, but Hey, look, you know, it's a free country that you can do whatever you want. That's what he was saying on a population wide level. Most people are not behaving like they're a pandemic. Nor should they, in my opinion. But that's my opinion.

So descriptively, he was stating a fact. And yet, of course, you know, the Branch Covidians freaked out at these comments, Crystal. Prompting then— I haven't heard that phrase before. Oh, it's my personal favorite, Branch Covidians. There's so much you can do with it from a meme perspective. Then, though, as a result, because apparently these people have tremendous cultural cachet, this is why we have to cover it, the White House press secretary gets involved in that.

It's not just they have cultural cachet. It's that they have a lot of sway within the Democratic Party. Because you're talking about them being disproportionately represented among the donor base. And there's a piece of that that's important in a moment. But so, yeah, these, in my opinion, accurate and anodyne comments that shouldn't have sparked any sort of like disagreement. It was just like manifestly true. They got enough pushback so that the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, got asked about it with the folks over at Morning Joe. Let's take a listen to that. Also in the 60 Minutes interview said that the pandemic is over. There's been quite a bit of pushback to that statement by the president. Where is he today

on that? So just to step back for a second, what we saw during that interview, 60 Minute interview, when he made those comments, he was walking through the Detroit car show, the halls of the Detroit car show, and he was looking around. We have to remember the last time that they had held that event was three years ago. Even as we're talking about UNGA, the president's going to speak shortly, as I just mentioned, that hasn't been held in person for about three years as well. So we are in a different time. He's been very consistent about that. And the reason why is because we are now prepared. We are now ready. We know how to deal with this pandemic. It is now more manageable. It's not as disruptive as it's been in the prior in the prior years. personally pushing back personally my only issue with her response

there is number one don't say unga yeah you're talking about the un general assembly like literally no one knows what you're talking about number one don't say unga also it's just like a i don't know i don't like it's a very inside washington i was telling the guys in the control room i was like that's one of my most hated things when people in dc say around these acronyms it's like me when i'm like the center for financial you know i'm like we call it syph, that's one of my most hated things when people in DC say acronyms. Throw around these acronyms. It's like me, when I'm like, the Center for Financial, you know, Investors. I'm like, we call it CFIUS. That's, you know, it's like, and then I'll move on.

But you don't just open with CFIUS. That's nuts. It's obnoxious. Anyway, okay, so that. But also, like, there's clearly a very, like, defensive crotch here. Yes. Where, I mean, you should just be like,

yeah, we're in a better place. So who can deny that? The pandemic is over. I think it speaks, I was listening to Dr. Vinay Prasad, who we had on this show. Shout out to him. Yeah, who was on with Breonna Joy Gray on Bad Faith. And I thought he made a really good point, which is that, you know, this has kind of been an issue for Democrats throughout COVID. overly responsible, responsive to this group within their own base, rather than trying to lead that group to a different, like less fearful response, they instead sort of like cater to them.

And I think there's a little bit of that in the messaging here where it's like, don't be defensive. What he said was fine. Like just own it and be good with it. I completely agree. Why is the White House contradicting him and be like, no, actually what he meant was, but no, he meant the pandemic was over. This is just, again, it gets to the Taiwan thing. It's like the Why is the White House contradicting him? No, actually, what he meant was, no, he meant the pandemic was over. This is just, again, it gets to the Taiwan thing. It's like, the president is the president. He was elected, not you. Why are you pushing back? Tell these MSNBC commentators

just be like, yeah, that's what he said. That's exactly what he said. And you know what? He was right. Like, why don't you just, your job is to defend what he says. You're not wearing a mask right now, are you? Yeah, you're not wearing a mask. Mike Barnacle. Mike Barnacle. Mike Barnacle. Mike Barnacle's old as hell, by the way. I didn't see her really as contradicting

him. She just didn't state it as succinctly. Because he also, part of why it feels like a contradiction from her, like she's undermining him, is because everybody who seized on these comments didn't include the other portion where he's like, we still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one's wearing masks.

So they didn't include that other piece of him being like, obviously, guys, it's still here. So to me, hearing her cleanup comments, it wasn't really a contradiction. It just felt to me a little bit too defensive. And then just to show you of sort of where the energy of this comes up, Biden had to speak to it at a DNC fundraiser. Go ahead and put this up on the screen from The Hill. Biden clarifies COVID comments. The pandemic is, quote, basically not where it was. So clearly it was sort of like under pressure again from the donor class to explain what did you mean when you said the pandemic is over? Again, I don't really see that being a contradiction from what he said earlier because he had the caveats in there.

But to me, it was noteworthy that, you know, the donor class, clearly he had to sort of, you know, make amends to them and tell them what he meant. You know, it doesn't help that the Keebler elf, let's put this up there on the screen, you know, Dr. Anthony Fauci says, quote, we are not where we need to be if we are going to, quote, live with the virus. Like, what does that mean? Because people are all living with it right now. So I genuinely don't know. What are you saying? Like, where are you coming from? What fake numbers are you making up at this point? You know, he says even now, even now more than 67% of our population is only vaccinated. Only one half of those have a single boost. So it's like, what are you saying? If the entire population was 100% boosted,

then we could move on because A, that's not going to happen. B, is there any evidence to support that that's actually true? And it would actually, quote unquote, stop COVID. Because we don't have a hell of a lot right now. That's why it's just so insane. I just want to say, obviously, there are still people that are dying every day from COVID. They are overwhelmingly people who are either really elderly or a lot of them didn't decide to get vaccinated. And we can't lock down the whole population forever and be on this footing forever when, you know, these are individuals that I'm not trying to like shame them or be mean to them or whatever. But they made their own personal choices about this and they decided to take on that risk. So anyway, this whole thing has been kind of frustrating to me because the thing that really irritated me about it was the freak out to start with when I thought

ultimately his comments were extremely reasonable and had all the necessary caveats. I mean, COVID is not like measles or polio where we have an expectation that it can be totally eradicated, right? It's a different beast. I wish it was, but it's not. We're going to have to deal with variants. We're going to have to deal with, you know, I mean, trying to match up, and some are going to be worse than others, and that's just, that's life now that we all have to deal with.

And, you know, most people, frankly, are. So I think the president's comments just reflected that. Agree with that. Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, we all knew that this time would come, but it's still sad nonetheless. Yesterday, for the first time in 99 days, the average price of gas did not go down. The previous 99 days were an important political lifeline for the Biden administration, lowering at least the severity of inflation at the pump

and reducing the flashing sign every American has to drive past as a daily reminder of his failed policy. Now, it's not an exaggeration to say that a decline in gas prices is one of the reasons midterm elections are even close at all. So in an environment where we return to possibly $5 gas, the entire landscape could be completely different. We have exactly 48 days until the election, which you can either look at as just around the corner or political eternity. With gas, I'm going to choose the latter because of just how much it hits people's pocketbooks. So let's do a deep dive into gas and where it's going. First and foremost, why were gas prices down in the first place? It would be nice to say it was a result of competent policy by the White House and the West after Ukraine. But the sad truth is data from AAA and other motor analysts say that after gas hit $5 a gallon, people just

stopped driving so much. AAA found in July that drivers are, quote, almost two-thirds of U.S. adults changed their driving habits or lifestyle since March, 23% making, quote, major changes. Drivers' top three changes to offset high gas are driving less, combining errands, reducing shopping, and dining out. That was always my fear with high gas prices. We wouldn't solve it through policy. The only way would just be make people live less comfortable lives. In fact, in the first week of September, demand for gas was 7% lower than the first week of July. That is a stunning drop, even when you consider July is part of the major driving season in the United States. Further explanations on gas also come from demand, just not demand here in the U.S.

The economic crisis in Europe has significantly reduced gas demand on the continent, and China's zero-COVID idiocy has helped too, because it literally forces people not to drive. To their limited credit, the Biden administration has at least been releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the last few months, which have helped further drop the price of oil. To date, they released 155 million barrels of oil from a set promise of 180 million. They just announced a further sale of 10 million barrels in November. And that's going to help a little bit. But the numbers show they are nearing the end of their rope.

And the reason I'm setting it up this way is because it's important to understand why prices were dropping in the last 99 days. It was a confluence of mega high gas driving down U.S. demand, demand destruction in China, and Europe for a variety of different reasons. It was bolstered similarly a little bit by U.S. policy with the SPR. The problem with all those factors is this is probably the low point. And to borrow a phrase, the price is still too damn high. The national price of gas right now is $3.68 a gallon. For most of the Western United States, that price is above $4 a gallon. And in California, their gas is still an average of $540.

So to put that in context, that is still 43% higher than the average gas price in September 2019 pre-pandemic, almost 60% higher than gas in January of 2020, the last month truly before the effects of COVID were fully known here. If this is the bottom, that's not good. It's not a victory. And with a slight uptick for the first time in 99 days, things can get real ugly. As we discussed earlier, Russia is showing no signs of backing down, holding referendums, they're partially mobilizing 300,000 of their people, gearing up for what looks like a long, long conflict. The disruption to the global supply chain, the European oil squeeze, is going to continue. Furthermore, while I supported using the SPR to stop the oil crisis, while we got our policy figured out, the problem is we didn't actually figure out any policy in the meantime.

Right now, the SPR reserve is at the lowest level since 1984. Again, wouldn't be a problem if foreign policy and other plans could have brought more oil online, but there appears to have been no structural changes made to global oil supply in the meantime. Meaning, we just depleted a ton of oil from the SPR, we can't really tap it in the future, and in fact, we'll probably have to buy more oil to fill it back up. On the foreign policy front, Biden had four months to secure some sort of agreement somewhere. What they landed on was the dumbest scheme of all time. Number one, trying to cap the global price of Russian oil. Of course, that literally only works if you have total control over the global market. Immediately

after announcing their genius plan, the Russians came out and said, okay, we just won't sell it to anyone at that price cap. And the Indians and the Chinese are like, hey, we'll buy more at whatever price as long as you want. As long as that Russian price is lower than the global market price, they're making a killing. So outside of Russia, what did they do? Instead of securing some agreement with the Saudis, the Venezuelans, or anyone else with oil, the majority of OPEC countries instead chose to actually cut back oil production two weeks ago. That cut was less about depleting supply, but about signaling to the global market. OPEC, they are loving high gas prices. Specifically, they will defend $100 a

barrel, a price which is now floating much of these petro economies. It was described this way, quote, OPEC plus is demonstrating it is willing to shrug off the entities of the Biden administration, which has been lobbying Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other producers to increase output and help bring down the price of gasoline. So in effect, Biden's slob-job trip to Riyadh accomplished nothing. In fact, all indications currently say the Saudis are two-timing us, both buying oil from Russia at a discount that they burn domestically, and then selling as much of their oil at high price to us. It's all a big game to them, except for the people here at home who are getting gouged. I don't really have a hopeful way to end this. The stoppage and decline of price indicates we have probably hit the floor.

Now we're in for the fun times. Another single shock to send us right back up to $5 a gallon. Maybe beyond. Hurricane could do it. More developments on the Russian front. Maybe in China. The fact is, the last three months, it was more of a vacation away from reality. And it seems to be coming back hard. And that's really what I took away from this. I was like, hmm.

Well, I was like, hmm, you know, why did it stop? And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, there was huge news this week for Adnan Syed, the now 41-year-old man who was convicted of murdering his former girlfriend when he was just 17. Adnan's case and his life would have been just one more loss to a messy and often unjust criminal justice system were it not for Sarah Koenig's smash podcast hit, Serial. Over the course of 12 episodes, Koenig pulls apart the details of the case against Edna

and finding a ton of holes and inconsistencies and failures in the process. But in the end, Koenig is no closer to unraveling the mystery of who murdered Hayman Lee than when she started. She did, however, successfully launch a true crime podcast frenzy, which continues to this day. So here is the big update. After serving 23 years in prison, Adnan is free. Specifically, Baltimore judge vacated his murder sentence because they found that information about two other possible suspects

was kept from the defense in the original trial. One or both of those suspects had a criminal record that involved violence against women. One of them had a family connection to the area where Hay's car was ultimately found. And one had allegedly threatened Hay and had a motive to kill her. Now, we don't know who these alternative suspects are, but there is some speculation one could be. Ronald Lee Moore, Moore is brought up in the final episode of Serial as a potential alternative suspect. That was due to the fact that he was out of prison at the time of Hayes' murder and that he had committed similar crimes in that area of Baltimore. Now, Koenig herself is not saying who the alternative suspects are, but she does say she knew of them while she was recording the podcast series. So basically, the bombshell that led to this

conviction being vacated was that the state hid the ball, illegally hiding information from the defense that could have helped Adnan get off in his original trial. It's important to underscore, none of this means that he is actually innocent or was found to be innocent. In fact, prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to try this case again, although it appears unlikely at this moment that they will actually do so. That being said, DNA evidence is still being analyzed using techniques that weren't available when the murder first happened, so I suppose there could always be another plot twist here. Now, as far as what I think goes, I was a big serial listener back in 2014. I'm pretty sure it was literally the first podcast that I ever listened to. And while I was listening,

I was always looking for ways to give Adnan the benefit of the doubt. I know it sounds simplistic, but he just didn't feel like a killer. And I suppose it says something about my own views of human nature, being the overly trusting, often to the point of naivete, person that I am. So when I first heard the news and saw the information about the alternative suspects, my initial instinct was satisfaction that even though this wasn't exactly what the judge ruled, Adnan must have been innocent after all. I thought about the unbelievable cruelty and living hell of spending decades in prison for a crime you did not commit. But I went back and I re-listened to the key episodes from the original podcast. I kind of found myself right back at square one, especially with regards to the state's key witness and a star player in the podcast, Adnan's friend, Jay. Now, as a little bit of a refresher here, Jay is with Adnan for key

stretches of the day when Hay is murdered. It's Jay who ultimately fingers Adnan as the killer, saying that Adnan told him he was going to do it, that Adnan showed Jay Hay's dead body in the trunk of Hay's own car, and that Jay then even helped Adnan dispose of the body. At the time, the state used cell phone data to corroborate key portions of Jay's story, but since the original trial, that type of data was found to be much more problematic and inaccurate than originally thought. Still, though, while a lot of the cell phone data was kind of a mess and conflicted with both Jay and Adnan's story, there were key parts of that record that backed up Jay's telling of events.

Based on what we know of the new alternative suspects, neither of them appears to be Jay. Bottom line, new alternate suspects don't explain away the fact that Adnan's friend Jay knew where Hay's car was located. So is Adnan innocent? It is still really not clear at all. What is clear is he never should have

been convicted. There was more than enough evidence at the time of his trial to create reasonable doubt. That, of course, is the standard. And it is a true disgrace that he was sent to prison based on a story that to this day has a million holes and a million inconsistencies, solely based on the testimony of Jay, someone who admitted to being a liar. As Koenig herself put it, quote, Yesterday there was a lot of talk about fairness, but most of what the state put in that motion to vacate, all the actual evidence was either known or knowable to cops and prosecutors back in 1999. So even on a day when the government publicly recognizes its own mistakes, it's hard to feel

cheered about a triumph of fairness because we've built a system that takes more than 20 years to self-correct, and that's just this one case. What's more, let's be honest, if Adnan hadn't been made into a celebrity, he would almost certainly still be in prison today. This case was extraordinary for the national obsession over it, but in another way, it actually was entirely ordinary. Whether Adnan is innocent or guilty, it is quite clear his conviction was secured through an unjust, rigged process. And in that, he is far from alone. Between 1989 and 2019, there were at least 2,400 exonerations. 44% of those exonerations were due to the exact same reason that Adnan himself was ultimately released. And that was, prosecutors failed to turn over

potentially exculpatory evidence. Untold numbers of these cases of injustice go unnoticed with no hit podcast to draw attention to the rampant misconduct of police and of prosecutors. In the Innocence Project, they do incredible work trying to right as many of these wrongs as possible, and I really recommend you support them if you are able to. In the meantime, I guess this case kinda ends where it began, with messiness, whole lot of doubt, and a still grieving family that really doesn't care what new theories Reddit is able to come up with, they just want their little girl back.

We may never know who really killed Haemin Lee, but we know for absolute certain that everyone from victims to the accused deserve a hell of a lot better from our justice system. So that's where I came to, Sagar. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now is Vince Kielas. As I just said, he is the lead worker organizer at that effort to unionize a Home Depot outside of Philly. Great to see you, Vince. Hey, good to see you, Vince.

Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate your guys' coverage. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. We're grateful to have you here today. I know you must be very busy. More Perfect Union. Our friend Jonah Furman over there had a good write-up of your effort. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They say, new inside the historic Union Drive at Home Depot, over 100 workers at the Philly store signed on in five weeks. Managers were immediately flown in to hold captive audience meetings. And here's a quote from you. You say that it is backfiring. Another quote you had in this piece that I loved, Vince, was you said, listen, if Chris Smalls could do that at a warehouse of over 8,000 people, we can do it in our store of 300. So Vince, just tell us a little bit about what gave you the idea and how the effort is going so far. I mean, it's kind of a multifaceted thing. I also have to give

a huge shout out to you guys. You know, a lot of like the coverage that you guys gave and honestly too, just you guys making the move to breaking points, to being independent and, you know, a lot of like the coverage that you guys gave and, and honestly too, just you guys making the move to, to breaking points, to being independent and, you know, challenging yourselves to, to step out into a new field and to do something different was extremely inspiring, you know, and taking that in conjunction with just some of the circumstances in the store, we felt that this was the best move for us. You know, we, I tried having conversations over the last like month and a half with people in various, you know, parts of Home Depot, trying to let them know the concerns of the store. And it just felt like, honestly, we were getting a lot of spin. We weren't really

getting the answers that we were looking for. And so, you know, kind of just taking a temperature in the store, we felt like, Hey, this is, this is going to be the best move for us. And myself and some other individuals within the store felt that, you know what, we have the courage and we have the capacity to be able to get this done. That's so incredible to hear, Vince. It means very much to us in terms of the impact of our work. But important, let's focus on you and your store. Talk to us.

Why is this a step that you're considering making? What are you guys looking for? What can make your lives better at your workplace? So, I mean, we're kind of focused in on, you know, various things like wages, staffing in the store, proper training, and overall just wanting a say in how things operate in our store. You know, Home Depot has a tendency to kind of make blanket decisions that go across all stores. And look, we're $110 million a year store. We have very high volume. It's not going to work out the same that it does in a $30 million store. And we just felt decisions that were being made, things that were being told to us were just not true.

I guess some of the things that I was able to kind of pull people's attention with was to just speak on some of the value that that store in particular was generating. Over 2020 and 2021, throughout the course of the pandemic, that store made $58 million in profit. I don't know an exact estimate, but about like $2 million was actually invested into the people that work in the store. And it's just when you started to see those large levels of disparity, like I was just dumbfounded. Particularly when you would look at conversations where we would tell people like, hey, we're being overworked. We've got a lot going on. People are freaking out at us because they're not getting enough help. We're getting thrown all across the store. We're being asked to do all of these additional tasks. And then when it comes time to be paid in order to say thank you for the work that we're putting in, it was, oh, well, the company can't afford it.

The investments that they've made in compensation over the last couple of years has kind of expended them a bit. And it's like, well, you guys had $15 billion to spend on stock buybacks last year. Maybe spend a little bit less on your stocks and spend a little bit more on us. You know, at the end of the day, you wouldn't have that money on the work that we're doing. I think that is an excellent point. One that I believe will resonate with our audience. It also strikes me, I mean, part of why this is significant is, first of all, Home Depot is a company that did extraordinarily well during the pandemic. People were stuck at home. They decided to, you know, invest in their space and making their space better and all kinds of DIY projects, making sourdough bread and whatever,

like that was all happening during the pandemic. So I'm sure you all were completely swamped. I know they were making huge profits. So the opportunity to be able to reward the workers who helped them to make those profits is certainly available to them. Is that big picture? Are you hearing that from your co-workers? Like that big picture, is that a concern for them? Do you think that the impact of the pandemic and the way they were treated, do you think that was kind of an eye-opening experience? Because that seems to be a similar thread throughout a lot of these efforts. And even through a lot of the things we're seeing throughout the workforce, including, you know, white collar service sector and blue collar workers, is it just changed the way they were thinking about their job?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one of my coworkers said it perfectly when our district HR person came to the store to see us. And she said, honestly, we felt abandoned. You know, they didn't come into the store for about a year. And an interesting tidbit for us, and I'm sure it can probably resonate at other stores, district didn't walk in for about a year. And when we had our first walk, when they came back, we got ripped to shreds. We got, you know, criticized on everything that was wrong with the store. And it's like, you know, is this what you guys really think? Like, people were getting threatened. People were like, there's a guy that got beat up and carjacked out in the parking lot. Like, you know, somebody had to go get checked mental hospital for working a 32 hour shift straight. Like there, there are some serious issues and some serious concerns that are happening in this building. And again, like I tried my best to be fair, you know, I'm

not, I'm not somebody when, when I'm trying to get something done, I don't want to be like super combative. I don't want to, you know, try and come at people's personal character, but I tried to give them the opportunity to say like, Hey, like we know the numbers, we know how you guys are doing and we're just not seeing the effort. Right. You know, one of the things that they're trying to kind of do right now in the statements that they're making is, Oh, well, you know, I'm uninformed when it comes to the idea of a union and what it is that they can get done. But if you guys were to walk into my store right now, they've literally doubled or tripled the payroll with all of the salaried managers in there with all the help that they're getting in. So it's like, you guys can go and you

can invest all of this, you know, to provide a union, but you can't, you know, invest this, you know, in a proactive manner to take care of the people that took care of you, right? Because you want to, you want to brand yourselves as, oh, we're taking care of our essential workers. We're looking out for our people. Well, where is it? We don't feel it. You know, it wasn't a petition was filed that I could see the hope in people's eyes in that store. You know, before then, everyone had their life sucked out of them. Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say, it does remind me so much of some of the things that Chris Smalls told us about when he was fighting for the Amazon union.

Is they tried to paint him as like, oh, he was stupid. I remember the famous, like, oh, he's inarticulate, he's not smart. And they really tried to persuade people, like, this guy doesn't really know what he's doing. And I actually think some of the large unions here too, I think that's why there was a reluctance among some progressive politicians even to back them because it was like, oh, this guy, he'd never done this before. He doesn't really know what he's up to. But talk to us about, my understanding is you are going a similar path. You're forming a Home Depot specific grassroots workers union. What made you decide to go in that direction rather than going to one of the larger, more established unions that could, you know, give you that support, give you that guidance and give you that funding up front?

So, again, I mean, look, shout out to Chris Maltz, you know, watching a lot of interviews with him, whether it was with you guys, you know, Breakfast Club, a bunch of different places, you know, that was kind of the framework that I tried to follow just because I was like, all right, like, look, this is about organizing, right? The point of it is to garner the faith of the people, you know, and I was like, look, these are people that I've worked with for five and a half years, you know, I was a supervisor in that store. And, you know, I did my best to try and help people however I could. And that that carried me a lot of favor and a lot of trust. So it was a matter of how do we deliver on that trust? And, you know, there had been attempts to unionize in my store before that had been unsuccessful. You know, a lot of people kind of looking around saying, oh, we're a little bit skeptical of any outsiders coming in saying, hey, we're here to help you. So I said, look, you know, honestly, I feel that I have the wherewithal and the capacity to get this done.

You know, it takes a firm resolve and it takes remembering that, hey, you're fighting for your people. And again, as I could see in the conversations that would be had with the different associates there whenever corporate will come through and they'd be talking to individuals and you would say, oh, yeah, we care about you. We really respect you. And it's like you're not showing it. At the end of the day, I could sit here and I could say a bunch of nice things to my colleagues and to the employees that work with me, you know, but it's up to me to show them, right? Not just to say things, but to actually do things. And you guys are a $300 billion company. Like you have the capacity to, it's just a matter of if you choose to, you know, and that's just what I saw was that there was no choice to.

Right. You know, there's half a million people who work at Home Depot. It's one of the largest employers in the country. So I think that your experience probably resonates with a lot of them. Hopefully they watch this show. So we really appreciate you joining us, Vince. It means a lot to hear what you said about us. And we wish you the best of luck. Keep us updated.

And we're happy to have you back on. Honored to talk to you, Vince. Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thank you guys so much. And just again, thank you guys for caring. Our store really appreciates all the coverage we're getting. Thank you, sir. Yeah, it's truly our pleasure. It's the least we can do. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. As we said, live show, Chicago, it's here. You can watch the clips. I think it

was awesome, and it's going to be even more awesome in Chicago. We learned a couple of lessons. And then number two, we've got the discount going on. You can help support our work. It's interviews like that, Crystal, that make it all work. I can't tell you when they reached out. Actually, Jonah Berman reached out and was like, you know, Vince is a fan of Breaking Points. And like, you guys were part of what gave him this. I mean, that's like, I can't tell you how much it means to me. It really is like everything.

Plus, you improved my relationship with my dad. Those two, I'm like, wow. We do that with even like three people. It's way more than we ever could have imagined. So thank you guys so much for making it possible. We are so incredibly grateful to you. Enjoy CounterPoints. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Enjoy CounterPoints. We got the discount going on right now. If you want to help support them, help support continued expansion, it means so much to us. Link is down in the description for all that stuff. We'll see you all next week.

Love y'all. See you next week. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success.

You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.

Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy. But to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to voiceover on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance.

Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son, but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening

to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.