Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/22/23: Murdoch Steps Down As Fox Chairman, Sound of Freedom Sexual Misconduct Allegations, Pope Knew Early About Holocaust, Obesity and Cardiac Death Rising, Partisan Futures, Spencer Snyder on Impossible Surviving on Minimum Wage

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

This week we look at Rupert Murdoch stepping down as Fox Chairman, the "real life hero" based on Sound of Freedom under investigations for sexual misconduct, letters reveal that The Pope knew the Holocaust was beginning to occur and did nothing about it, Obesity and cardiac arrest deaths rising in the US, Ryan and Emily look at people feeling bleak about the future on both sides, and Spencer Snyder looks at how it's impossible to live on the current minimum wage.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn

to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. What up, y'all? This your main man, Memphis Bleak, right here. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Whatever I went through while I was down in prison for two years, through that process, learn, learn from it.

Check out this exclusive episode with Ja Rule on Rock Solid. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Rock Solid, and listen now. Hey, guys. Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Some breaking news happening in the media world.

A titanic event. Maybe not that titanic. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch is officially stepping down as the chairman of Fox and News Corp. Here's what he writes in a memo to colleagues. Dear colleagues, I'm ready to let you know I've decided to transition to the role of chairman emeritus at Fox and News for my entire professional life. I've engaged daily with news and ideas that will not change. The headline is that he will be turning all responsibilities

over to his son, the sole runner of the company, Lachlan Murdoch. He writes, quote, my father firmly believed in freedom. Lachlan is absolutely committed to this cause. Self-serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose. Elites have contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth. Bit rich coming from the multi-billionaire who has made really the same business as doing the exact same thing. But for other people, hey, you know, who amongst us has done that? It does, of course, set the stage for a major succession-related

drama because Lachlan will be in charge of the company for now. But the 92-year-old Murdoch, whenever he dies, there's actually a clause, I believe, in his trustor as well, whereas four surviving children will all have equal voting shares for the future of the company. James Murdoch, one of his other sons, very much disagrees with Lachlan and with the future of Fox News and News Corp. He's very much more like a Hillary Clinton type liberal supporter and would probably be more likely to either sell it off or to change the editorial direction of the company. Apparently, the other two children are probably more inclined to agree with James, but there's no real way to

change this. So it really is like the drama from Sixth Sense. But as long as he's alive, Lachlan will remain in charge, but it may not be that long. So for the Sixth Sense fans, I guess James is more like Siobhan. Yes. Is that the idea? Well, yeah. And Lachlan is like. Siobhan was actually an interesting character, though.

James appears to me to just be like your standard variety multibillionaire son, Liv. I'm sure there are layers there, Tucker. I'm sure there are layers there. But, I mean, the idea is that Lachlan was like buddies with Tucker and sort of embraced this Trumpy persona, at least. He was more comfortable with that. To an extent. So, yeah, so you can slot in whichever succession character you feel like he fits. But at least for now, we have an answer of who is going to take over the reins in the

immediate future. And obviously, I mean, this really does come at a critical juncture for Fox News in particular, because the entire cable business and certainly the entire cable news business is on a on a downswing, probably a permanent one. You know, they're trying to figure out their streaming and how they continue to compete in a new era. And then obviously on the political front, they threw all in with Ron DeSantis and didn't work. Ron DeSantis is in fifth place in New Hampshire right now. Like he his decline has been precipitous. He clearly, he's, you know, maybe barely hanging out into second place in most polls, but is

not even close to challenging Trump for the brass ring here. And so, you know, that bet was off. They're still continuing to be in legal trouble over their coverage and stop steal nonsense. They're still embroiled in lawsuits there. So that has been an issue for them. So there's a lot of questions about the future of this organization, how they position themselves in a potentially next Trump administration, throughout the Republican primary, how they position themselves for the future with streaming, et cetera.

They have very, all the cable news companies have a very elderly audience base, so that's a risk for them as well. So it does come at a kind of pivotal moment for the industry and Fox News included. Just think back to our focus group. Only one person said Fox News was where they got their names. That's right. One out of eight. So that tells you everything you need to know.

Of Republican base voters. Ten years ago, every single one would have said Fox. Twenty years ago, they would have named every single one, Fox, Fox. They would have named every single one of their favorite shows. That time is dead, guys. The internet has completely taken over. So, yeah, he's got a tough thing going for him. If I were them, I mean, Fox is not where the, I mean, that's where

the money was, but obviously the one bet of their entire portfolio that I think is the best is Wall Street Journal, you know, that they still have their hands on. But that's not how they look it over there because it doesn't print the same amount of cable carriage fees. He's got a lot on his hands, I think, for the future. Indeed. I did a monologue about the Sound of Freedom not that long ago,

but there's been some very troubling developments with the leadership of the organization that was behind it, specifically Tim Ballard. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So Tim Ballard has now had to depart the Operation Underground Railroad after a sexual misconduct investigation internally. They said, quote, our has dedicated to combating sexual abuse and does not tolerate sexual harassment or discrimination by anyone inside of the organization. So what they said is that while Tim Ballard allegedly is preparing for a Senate run, Crystal, he, quote, has invited women to act as, quote,

his wife on undercover missions which were aimed at rescuing victims of sex trafficking. He would then, quote, allegedly coerce these women into sharing a bed or to showering together, claiming it was necessary to fool traffickers. So obviously that's incredibly creepy behavior. They're believed, quote, to be higher than seven in terms of the number of women that would account for some employees who were coerced into this. And, you know, the organization itself has distanced himself. They said, quote, he is permanently separated from the organization. We're dedicated to combating sexual abuse. We've retained an independent law firm to conduct a comprehensive investigation to all the relevant allegations. What I actually thought was most noteworthy was the Mormon church rang in. Let's put this up there on the screen. The Church

of Latter-day Saints actually denounced many of the claims made by Tim Ballard, saying, quote, his activities were morally unacceptable and that they had betrayed the French. This was after a previous allegation about how he had been betrayed and how the president of a church had his name used in terms of Tim's, quote, personal or financial interests. It's pretty rare to see the Mormon church actually come out and basically disavow and denounce the claims, which were made that basically that the church was standing by him. As I said, the backdrop of all this is he wants to run for Senate in Utah. And then at the same time, with other things dropping, let's put this up there

on the screen, one of the producers behind the film, quote, held an allegedly underage trafficking victim's breast and was found during an investigation for sexual misconduct during one of these investigations and or trips that were made with the, to go into rescue victims of human trafficking. So some contrary behavior to what was shown in the film, Crystal, I think to say the least. Indeed. And listen, to be clear, Tim Ballard denies everything. Denies the allegations. Says he did nothing wrong, that they had really strict guidelines in place, et cetera, et cetera. But you now have a lot of women who, you know, effectively said very similar behavior that they experienced. There was a letter that

was going around throughout the Utah philanthropic community, basically warning about this HR investigation that was occurring within his own organization, which again, he has now been forced out of, into these sexual harassment allegations. Part of what the letter said is it was ultimately revealed through disturbingly specific and parallel accounts that Tim has been deceitfully and extensively grooming and manipulating multiple women for the past few years with the ultimate intent of coercing them to participate in sexual acts with him under the premise of going where it takes and doing whatever it takes to save a child. So the allegation here is that effectively he would use

these women's real concern about trafficking victims and say, well, you know, how far would you go to make sure that these kids are okay? Well, I guess you have to, you know, sleep in the bed with, I guess you have to shower with me. I guess you have to pretend you're my wife for this trip. Those are the allegations. And I think, you know, the fact that he was pushed out of his own organization says something. And there's also, there is a long documented track record of him being caught in overt lies about some of the work that his organization has done, including, you know, things that he has told Congress about specific trafficking survivors,

the details of which he made up, the involvement of his organization with these trafficking survivors he also invented and embellished. So there were some red flags about this dude already, even in advance of these allegations. And then the other thing that, you know, within the world of organizations that are genuinely working to combat human trafficking, there were a lot of questions about their tactics. And that ties into the other allegations about this executive producer and how he ends up, you know, groping this maybe underage, potentially underage 16-year-old potentially sex trafficking victim, is the other organizations say, listen, part of what you're doing here is you're actually creating more demand for sex trafficking,

and in particular, underage sex trafficking victims by going into these communities and the tactics that you're using. So there were a lot of red flags. That doesn't mean you can't like the movie. That doesn't mean that you can't really support the core underlying mission. But just in terms of these particular individuals being heroes,

a lot of problems. I think that's the key point, right? Which is that the movie was popular for a reason. It was actually one of the biggest films in South America as well. Like a lot of people, the idea behind it really resonated in terms of a problem probably, which is very present, but that the people behind it, you know, people behind it at the very least have not conducted themselves in the most a problem, probably, which is very present, but that the people behind it, you know, people behind it, at the very least, have not conducted themselves in the most professional manner,

regardless of whether it's true or not. And I actually think that's a shame for the organization. And unfortunately, I've seen a lot of people will be like, this is a witch hunt and all of that. And I'm like, listen, you know, these are people who are in the organization, who agreed with the cause, who, it's like, they're not like liberals or something like that.

They agreed so much that they were on these trips. Exactly, who were on the trips, who agreed with the cause, who, it's like, they're not like liberals or something like that. Who agreed so much that they were on these trips. Exactly, who were on the trips, who were involved, the Church of Latter-day, like the freaking Mormon, you're accusing them of being like liars

and good working guests. Yeah, it's like, what are we talking about here? Anyway, let's all just be honest. Let's have a discussion, especially because I know that the film resonated with so many people.

That doesn't mean, though, that it's all about real life. So important to always keep that in mind. And we'll see you guys later. We love history over here. And Crystal actually suggested this. So I decided to do a little bit of a dig and give everyone the facts. So this is some fascinating stuff released from the Vatican archives. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. A new letter shows that Pope Pius XII probably knew about the Holocaust much earlier than the Vatican has ever admitted to. So this letter, it was sent actually in 1942, and it warns about Nazi attempts explicitly to exterminate Jews in the Holocaust. The letter, which was reproduced, shows that years before the Vatican has previously maintained that they knew about the mass extermination campaign against Jews in the Holocaust, that a priest, a German Catholic priest, had given a heads up to

the Vatican that, quote, 6,000 Poles and Jews a day were being killed quote, in SS furnaces at the Belzec camp near Rava Ruska, which was then part of German occupied Poland, now in Western Ukraine. Apparently they also referenced Auschwitz and Dachau, some of the most infamous and worst death camps in the entire Holocaust. Now, the reason why this is very significant is because there's been always a lot of debate about the Vatican and how they handled World War II and specifically Nazi Germany. And so what this brings up is the fact that the Pope at that time actually never spoke out against Hitler while he was in power. Now, the key part of that, though, is that while he didn't, yes, technically do that, the Vatican has always argued that they used diplomacy to try and prevent a Nazi backlash, that really what they did is they worked like behind the scenes.

There's always been a lot of controversy around this because there's questions about like the pope at that time's motives themselves. The allied powers actually begged the Vatican to get involved. I don't know. I mean, after reading this, it does seem pretty clear, like you knew exactly what was going on in December of 1942. At the same time, I mean, like I'm like somewhat sympathetic, I guess, because it was a crazy situation. The Nazis had long been like anti-Catholic, but politically, there was some interesting stuff going on between these two parties when the Nazis rose to power. But then of course, they were also going after, in some cases, priests and others who were working in the resistance movements like in France. So I don't know, maybe in their justification,

I'm assuming is they didn't want to invite like explicit backlash against the church. Like that's what that's what they're saying. That's their spin. I mean, I don't know. To me, it seems pretty clear cut. Like you knew they were death camps and you didn't say anything about it. So, and there, it's also interesting. This, as you said, it was found in the Vatican archives in letters, correspondence that they said was like haphazardly stored. And the letter seems to not just be a one-off. It seems to be a series of correspondence between this individual and the Pope. So the idea being that, you know, there were letters before this, even before this letter now that we've found,

that they have not yet located. Either they've been, you know, misplaced forever or they're somewhere else in the Vatican archives that haven't been turned up yet. Right. But the idea being that, like, this wasn't even your first signal. You knew what was going on even before this.

You were in this ongoing correspondence with this individual. So to me, it seems pretty hard to justify. Yeah, especially because the allied powers were literally begging them to do it. There was actually an interesting new book that just came out last year, a guy named David Kurtzer. It was called The Pope at War. It really puts the, it puts the Pope on blast. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, he didn't have this document, but he knew and inferred enough. What effectively he concluded is, quote, he thought he could negotiate with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and temper Nazi hatred with diplomacy while the Pope acted carefully, quote, amid initial

concerns that Axis powers may eventually control Europe. Pius never changed his approach, even as evidence and pleas for the Vatican to take a stand mounted. So, quote, as a moral leader, he must be judged a failure. Also, because he was in power. I mean, you know, it's a crazy situation. He came to power, I think it was like March 1939, and he died in almost 1960, like 1958. So he was the Pope for almost 20 years. And so even afterwards, apparently they did quite a bit to just, just, uh, cover up some of the things that were going on. And even his predecessor, they never really knew what to do with Hitler and with all the rise of power until they explicitly turned against the church because they hated communists just as much as some of the German

conservatives. Anyway, there's a lot we could go into here. But the letter itself, fascinating stuff, and I guess just proves really the point of David Kurtzer's entire book, which is like, yeah, this is a huge failure on their side. And a lot of the justifications and stuff that they came up with really just don't stand the test of time. Yeah, they don't hold water. Wanted to keep an eye on a very troubling trend in the United States, which we're all aware of, but which the numbers are really stark. Let's go and put this up there on the screen.

A new analysis from the CDC of death certificates over the last 20 years shows that obesity is a factor, and cardiac deaths has tripled over the last 20 years. So there were 281,000 deaths from heart disease linked to obesity in the last 20 years. So there were 281,000 deaths from heart disease linked to obesity in the last 20 years. The death rate has tripled from 2.2 deaths per 100,000 to 6.6 per 100,000 in the database, which are linked to obesity. And the increase in obesity-related deaths is with the steady decline, actually, of heart disease overall. So the reason why this is troubling is that overall deaths from heart disease are actually down by 18%, but obesity-related heart disease is up by 20. So as obesity continues to be a factor, the advance in medicine and statins and all this other stuff that were used

in non-obese cases of heart disease are still going to continue to be a problem. They also show that obesity currently is, and this is stunning, 115 million people in the United States are now, as they put it, affected by obese or classified obese themselves. 42% of adults, but the worst part, and this is always the one that kills me, 20% of children now, according to the CDC. And the issue with that figure is that that is just obese. That's not even just BMI overweight. And then if you really dig into it, a stunning like 8% or so are like 40 or 50 BMI, like incredibly overweight relative to where they should be. And the issue with that is that leads to all kinds of insane conditions like type 2 diabetes with small children, teenagers, and others. I mean, that's just a lifetime of suffering. And it will shorten your lifespan,

your healthspan. It's a disaster. So there's a lot of issues that are happening here. And the overall health impact is so stunning and so immense. I saw a recent chart, actually, that deaths related to sugar and or obesity outstrip any drug in the history of the United States. If you classify sugar as an actual drug, which I mean, you know, there's a good case to be made. Like we talk a lot about alcohol-related deaths,

fentanyl-related deaths. Now this wipes every single one of those You know out of the water and it's just because it's more I guess societally accepted. All right We don't think of it that way. I mean probably should there's when you see statistics like this Like I saw a map recently that showed the obesity rates by every state and if you go back to the 90s and look at the same map the state in the 90s that had the highest obesity rate now is actually a lower than the state now that has the lowest obesity rate. Like that's, things have shifted so much dramatically over time. And when you look at those sort of society

wide numbers, you realize there are big picture systemic things happening here that are so much, so much further beyond just obviously people have agency and I don't want to tell anybody they can't improve their lives and make their situation better. But I also think people need to cut themselves some slack that this is a massive society-wide trend that is driven by some huge factors. I mean, obviously like big ag, big food, the way we've been like systematically lied to thanks to the corrupting influence of big companies in terms of what actual nutritional guidance should look like and what is actually good for us and what is not good for us. I mean, the sugar lobby has been and big soda has

been a tremendously negative impact in our society. And by the way, the Washington Post also had an article about how many of these so-called dietitians are now paid by the food industry to go on TikTok, to go on Instagram, etc. And promote things that, again, are just like flat out lies and further confuse people about how even to make good choices for themselves and for their kids. So there's a lot going on here. I wanted to ask you, Sagar, if you think that Ozempic can be any sort of a realistic improvement, let alone solution, but it can be an improvement. I don't know. I know doctors who are on one side. I know doctors who are on the other side. I personally, here's my belief. I do not believe that there can be a quote unquote medical cure to

such a systemic problem. I don't believe in magic solutions. I don't believe in magic pills. And I think there's always a catch. Now, maybe the catch is better than the alternative. So for example, people who are like, yeah, right. So people who are like, well, I took it. And then when I went off of it, I gained my weight back. So that means I have to stay on it forever. And, you know, I mean, that sounds very profitable for Novo Novartis or whatever, who's the manufacturer. So I start to get skeptical. There's been previous also reports about like muscle mass loss and also by people who use Ozempic, but that could also be biased to the population who wants to lose a little bit of weight and gain some muscle. We're not talking about the morbidly obese. I genuinely don't know. I think there needs to be a lot of study. But like

I said, I am just skeptical of some sort of like one size fits all pill solution that you have to take on a consistent basis. Side effects can be numerous. You know, there's lots of stuff about, and just in general, like slowing down your gut when you tell me that, and that's the solution. I'm just like, I don't know, man. Like, I don't know how exactly this all works out. However, that could be better than being morbidly obese

and being 700 pounds. So, you know, maybe that is an answer. I think it's probably a case by case basis that people can make, especially for people who are morbidly, morbidly obese. I think that is so horrifically bad for you that getting out of that is, you know, is better is this the most imperative thing that you can do for your health? The question then comes for people who are like on the edge, who are overweight and or on the obesity line, like what's the best way to get there? I am still a big believer in the tools like mother nature gave us, which is diet and exercise. I mean, it's just very incredibly, incredibly hard, even for people who

are disciplined, people who have money, willpower and all that the modern environment is not set up for you to succeed. And I just, I don't know what the, I mean, we've talked about this. It's like when you want to walk 10,000 steps. Yeah. If you have any semblance of a desk job, it sucks. Like you'll be like, it's like 6 p.m. You're like, okay, I got to go for a one hour and 15 minute walk today. Yeah.

Or carving out moment in your day. And I've been trying to burn like 500 calories of cardio per day on top of any resistance. It takes me like an hour and a half. Maybe I'm just slow. Maybe I'm bad. But it's also, I mean, in other countries that have rely more on walking, public transportation, like when I lived in New York city, it was built in. I walked to work every day. It was roughly like, you know, a little over a mile, um, in each direction. And so just like built into my day is at least three miles of walking without ever going to the gym. And so when so much of our, like the way our cities and towns are constructed

is just about, you know, getting in the car and yeah, there's no, there's like basically zero physical activity built into the average American's day. That's one thing. Then, you know, you have all of the, we subsidize things like corn. That's why there's like every type of corn in your food every day, high fructose corn syrup and whatever. We subsidize things that are unhealthy. We make junk food, like the cheapest food that you can possibly buy. And then we turn around and wonder like, oh, why is, why do we have these skyrocketing obesity rates? And then even, you know, even things like rice. It's like, well, you can make the rice, you can soak the rice, you can put it in the rice kicker, or you can buy that Uncle Ben's

five minute rice. That sounds pretty nice. It's, but it's super processed. And it's like, well, if you're busy, what are you going to do? I have so total sympathy. You know, I see moms and stuff at the grocery store. I've got like three screaming children. I'm like, listen, you know, for you, like this sucks. That is another thing, isn't it? Like the amount of hours that we work, how stretched people are having to work two and three jobs. Like you think you have time to cook some like perfect, healthful meal, even if you could afford the ingredients that that would entail. And we make it impossible for people to succeed. And then we only look at like the individual part, which again, and blame them, which again, listen, I don listen, I don't ever want to

take away from people the agency to improve their life, to make changes that are going to help them in whatever they're going through. But when you only are focused on the like, you know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps conversation and you're not looking at these overall trends, I think that can be very dishonest. And I think it can also end up being extremely unhelpful for the people that most need that assistance. Totally agree. New Pew Research Center survey finds that everybody thinks everything sucks. Yes. And for more details on that, basically, the breaking news is that Americans have correctly assessed the state of America.

Yes. So this is new research from Pew. We can put the element up on the screen where majorities of Americans say the political process is dominated by special interests, flooded with campaign cash and mired in partisan warfare. Elected officials, Pew goes on to say, are widely viewed as self-serving and as ineffective. And Pew says that actually this study finds, quote, no single focal point for the public's dissatisfaction. There's widespread criticism of the three branches of government, both political parties, as well as political leaders and candidates for office. Now, this is, they say, coming amid historically high levels of voter turnout in national elections. So they find that contrast to be somewhat interesting.

I think it's worth noting some specific results here. Just 4% of U.S. adults say the political system is working extremely well or very well. 4%. That's not just among people who say extremely well. That's extremely well and very well. Another 23% say it is working somewhat well. About six in 10 say they have not too much confidence or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. political system. Pew says positive views of many governmental

and political institutions are at historic lows. Just 16% of the public will say they trust the federal government always or most of the time. That's even including people who say most of the time. Again, usually you can see numbers like that for people saying, oh, I always trust this or that. But you're concluding both of those views. That's extremely bad for America, obviously, it goes without saying. Now, while trust has hovered near historic lows, Pew says, for the better part of the last 20 years, today it stands among the lowest levels, dating back nearly seven decades. And more Americans have an unfavorable than favorable opinion of the Supreme Court. That's the first time this has occurred in polling going back to the late 1980s. A growing share of the public dislikes both political parties.

Nearly three in ten express unfavorable views of both parties. The highest share in three decades of polling and a comparable share of adults do not feel very represented by either party and candidate choices are underwhelming. 63% of Americans say they're dissatisfied with the presidential candidates that have emerged so far. Now, I was actually going to make that point too, in that we have a leading candidate for the Republican nomination that is not participating in the debate so far. And we also have a president that is currently the sitting president of the U.S. who is not debating, despite actually the majority of his party. It's not, of course, it's normal for the president not to engage in the debates during the primary process, but his voters are on the side of wanting him to

debate. Most of his own voters think he's too old to be in elected office right now. So you have, even among the party voters for the two main political parties right now, dissatisfaction with the leading candidates, both of those leading candidates clinging to their power. And this is as you have six and 10 Americans saying they have not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. Ryan, we see numbers like this all of the time. It's no real surprise. You're always going to have some level of distrust high with some institutions. You're're always going to have some level of distrust high with some institutions. You're not always going to have perfect trust across all institutions. But man, these numbers

are steep. They're really bad. And there are contradictions within these numbers and within the views that people are holding that can't be worked out by the political system necessarily. And one of them being that essentially the number one thing that people say, besides complaints about politicians, that people say to Pew here is that they don't like the way that partisan, that the way that things have become so partisan, that they think that Democrats and Republicans care more about fighting each other than they care about solving the problems of the country. Massive numbers of people agree with that obviously true statement. At the same time, they also, in other Pew surveys and somewhat in this one, express their deeply, deeply negative views about

the other party. So they are expressing the very thing that they think in aggregate is bad. And that's why it can't be worked out because while everybody agrees what the problems are, people disagree on what the solutions are. Everybody agrees that the two-party system stinks, but certainly the parties are not going to agree to dissolve themselves and allow in new parties or a multi-party system. Nor would there even be a mechanic for that outside of a constitutional convention. And then everybody agrees that partisanship is the problem, but they will say that it's the other side that just needs to go away and stop being in the way of things. Well, and this, by the way, is why the whole mansion no labels movement that John Huntsman

are, we've talked about this before. Doesn't resolve that contradiction at all. Right. And it actually is, it's the exact opposite read. So they look at polls like this. And by the way, Pew did a word bubble of Americans' top description in the current state of politics. Biggest word is divisive, but then the second biggest word is corrupt. Messy, bad, polarized, chaos, dysfunctional, crazy. One of them is just shit, which Pew blurped out. But they look at this and they say, oh, big opening for the no labels movement to the point where they're seriously flirting

with a third party presidential bid. And they really are. But what, right, what they're forgetting is two things. One, lots of people who are independents and don't like one of the parties disagree with each other. You've got right wing independents, you've got left wing independents, and then you've got independents

who are kind of all over the place. And then you have independents who are kind of checked out and are like, sort of pay attention to the news, sort of don't, might show up for the election, might not. And to say that all 40% of those people would then support Joe Manchin through no labels is absurd. And then your point about the corruption and money in politics is key key because no labels is funded by dark money, like private equity goons, people that own baseball stadiums, like secretly writing checks to get this party, this non-party, no labels party on the ballot in 50 states. For who, for what, for what purpose? Who knows why? Who's to benefit, who's funding it. And so the idea that you would approach a population that is saying it's one of its

top concerns is the corruption of politics by month, by big money interests. Yeah. Then you'd come at them with $70 million in dark money. Yeah. Supporting Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan and Lisa Murkowski or whatever, and that everybody from the socialist left to the libertarian right who are registered as independents are going to flock behind that. It's like, give that money back. You're stealing it from them. But actually, it should all be confiscated. They don't want that. I mean, absolutely nobody wants that. And when compromises are brokered in Washington, it's by industry, it's by lobbyists. And so if you're ever hearing Joe Manchin say there's like the problem solver caucus, right? That's a no labels product.

Yeah. And they have like, it's all just like establishment politicians that are so close to the center on the right and the left that they can sit in a room together. It's not bringing, you know, Matt Gaetz together with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some centrist Josh Gottheimer, right? Like if you can do that, then talk to us. But you actually, what you want to do is relegate both of the populist wings to the fringes further. And you want the sort of adults in the room is what they like to call themselves to take over. That was the explicit mandate of no labels. No labels launched after the Tea Party wave and then surged, surged as it, like as it, you know, it's 50 people giving a lot of money after Bernie Sanders. And so their argument was the Tea Party is bad.

Bernie Sanders is bad. You know, let's, let's build a wall of money. Right. And keep these angry people out and they think that's the solution to the crisis it's also amazing to me

that you can have this level it's like when people say they lament the level of trust in media a lot of journalists all the time will be frothing, they're very upset because trust in media is low and for journalists all the time will be frothing. They're very upset because trust in media is low. And for me, I'm like, oh, thank God. These numbers are low because genuinely, if numbers and trust in media were high right now, and they've been higher than they should be in the past, but people have caught on to the media's corruption and lies, that's a good thing.

It's bad for the country that we can't trust the media, but it's good that we recognize we can't trust the media because then you can sort of look to different sources and you can make decisions in a different way. But then some of those sources have their own agendas and are then just filling a vacuum and manipulating people themselves. This is all a thinly veiled, I don't know, I think you do a pretty good job veiling it, Ryan. This is all a veiled advertisement for Ryan's new mushroom company, psychedelic company. He will foment distrust. There's no realities, you might as well just enjoy these mushrooms. Then he steps into the vacuum

sells you Right, but in all seriousness, there's no answer to this. I mean, that's like that's probably the biggest problem The answer is either no labels or I think This wave might be cresting. I think and that maybe we can't see it because Trump is still around and He's going to be around for a very long time. But I feel like at least on the Democratic side, there's a lot of people are checking out. Like you've seen stories about big Democratic donors and small Democratic

donors are stepping back in a big way. And I think that part of that is this wave that we saw from 2016 and 17 with with Trump coming in and everybody experiencing politics as this like minute-to-minute phenomenon is unsustainable I think people gradually are kind of pulling back from it, though they will return through 2024 as Trump, you know, exerts his gravitational force on our on our political field. But I think that that's obviously that is temporary. Yeah. And I think it's possible that we're seeing a fading. On the right, though, are you seeing a decoupling a little bit for the connection or are people just as frothing at the mouth as they always were?

No, I think it's a huge problem on the right because it's so specifically attached to Donald Trump and the Trump factor looms over absolutely every other conversation. So if you want to have a sane conversation that would appeal to the average voter about weaponization of the Department of Justice, you're going to have to be litigating these completely thorny cases against Donald Trump, where some of them it's like, okay, did he do something wrong? Yes. Would they be bringing charges against Biden if he did this? Probably not.

It gets tangled up in these kind of meta discussions instead of the central discussions. That means the entire sort of populist movement is specifically tied to one man. And that one man happens to be very unpopular outside of the sort of Trump base. He might be something that people tolerate and will vote for if their other choice is Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.

But sort of in a broad sense, he's not like a popular, someone who's going to like build bridges between this wide swath of voters on the left and the right, he's pretty unpopular if you look at his numbers. And that's a big problem because it means Republicans who are trying to broaden the base and are trying to let some populism in the door have to contend with that. And that makes the populism unpopular. Yeah, in the short version of the Pew survey rules, nobody likes this, but this is what we got. We're going to keep muddling forward.

We're going to keep, yeah, exactly. All right. Stick around for more muddling. You know, it's funny. You wouldn't tell an employer that you plan to put in so little effort that if you put in any less effort, it would be illegal. And yet that is exactly what minimum wage is. And is it possible to live anywhere on a US's minimum wage and not just subsist, not just barely scrape by, but experience some level of comfort? Because the origin of the minimum wage in the US is a commitment to the idea that if you're working full-time, you shouldn't have to experience poverty. You work 40 hours a week,

whatever you're doing, developing software, or working on an assembly line, or behind a deep fryer, you should be able to relax after work and not worry about whether or not you have enough money to both pay rent and eat. In the late 1800s, sweatshops were a big issue in the US. And one way of combating this was to institute a minimum wage. In 1938, this was set at 25 cents. When FDR was pushing for this legislation, he called it a living wage, saying that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. And he meant every single business

and every single worker, and he went out of his way to clarify living wage as a decent wage. And this was when he was pushing for a minimum wage. So I think it's safe to say that a minimum wage was meant to be a decent wage. Fair day's work for fair day's wage. So now that I've said wage too many times, where do you have to go to live New York and here minimum wage is $15 an hour. If you're working 40 hours a week, you are going to be left with about $1,800 a month after taxes. Well, if you should spend roughly a third of your income on rent, that's $600 a month, which is insane here.

Let's see what that gets you. Nothing, which is why New Yorkers spend more like two-thirds of their income on rent. So what can we get for less than $1,200? Two apartments in the entire city under $1,200, at least on this site. But $1,000 for an apartment is really good. So $1,000 plus a subway pass, $300 on food, 204 electric gas, internet, and your phone. It's gonna be really tough. Even if you find a roommate situation where you can save a few hundred dollars on rent, you're not gonna have much left over at the end of the month to get drinks with friends or see a movie. Obviously a child is going to be way over the budget.

Definitely don't do that. But you know what? New York, that's one of the most expensive places in the world. There are places in the US, I'm sure, with a way lower cost of living. So, where could you live? According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Arkansas has the lowest cost of living. Median rent for a studio apartment is $528. $860 is what the average person spends on their car and transportation. $250 for food, $200 for electric gas internet and your phone. If you can

delete the car because you just happen to live near some public transit, that may actually be really cheap. Let's say you are so lucky and you never have to stay at work until 9 or 10 after the bus has stopped running. Well, hey, you could be doing worse. And it just so happens that a living wage in Arkansas is $15.25. Not too far off. One problem though, Arkansas's minimum wage is not $15 an hour, it's $11. But you know what? You're still doing a lot better than all these states that are making $7.25 an hour. Now as it turns out, only about 2% of the workforce make exactly minimum wage. But that's 1.6 million people.

And yes, some of them are teenagers, but most of them are not. And these are only the people making exactly federal minimum wage. There are a lot more people making $7.50, $7.75, $8, $9 an hour. About 14% of all US workers make $15 an hour or less. That's 19 million people. On average for the United States, if this is the poverty threshold and this is a living wage, this is minimum wage. If you're splitting the rent with someone, it gets easier. But as soon as you add a couple kids to that, the gap between you and poverty gets a little smaller, and the gap between you and comfort gets a lot bigger. So where can you live on 725? Well, Belgium has a lower cost of living. Maybe you could move to Belgium. Belgium's

poverty line is 1,366 euros for a single person. The work week there is 38 hours, and the minimum wage before taxes is 1,955 euros. For some reason, you move to Belgium and you're working remotely from the US, making the US minimum? A scenario I can't imagine exists outside of this video but that's the game we're playing. At $7.25 an hour it would take almost 72 hours a week to make Belgium's minimum wage. So Belgium is out. The UK also has a lower cost of living. Again, why are you working remote from England making an American's minimum wage? That makes no sense. Evidently, a living wage in the UK is £10.90. The minimum wage there is £10.42, so they're lagging behind a little bit as well. And in pounds, the US federal minimum wage comes to

£5.85, which is apparently the minimum wage for 16-year-olds there. Not doing so great. Uruguay is pretty affordable. Looks like you can live for as little as $14,000 US dollars there. And as far as I can tell, they won't charge taxes on income that is earned outside the country. But you do still have to pay American taxes on that money earned, so that's too much for us as well. It goes without saying, it's almost impossible to buy a house when you're making minimum wage. It's only the rarest of circumstances that will allow you to pull this off.

But this didn't have to be the case. Economist Dean Baker explains that until 1968, the minimum wage not only kept pace with inflation, it rose in step with productivity growth, which according to him, would place minimum wage at more like $24 an hour, which would make it way more possible for a couple each earning minimum wage to actually buy a home. Clearly, that is not the timeline we're living in. Okay, so moving down the cost of living list by country, you can live in Taiwan for $1,100 a month, but again, $725 take-home is more like $950 a month. Cuba, cost of living is $995, getting closer.

Continuing down the list, the first place that we find that's under $9.50 a month take home is Jordan. The cost of living for a single person with an apartment outside of a city center is apparently $920 a month. Some cursory and lazy research has confirmed this. The point being, if you make $7.25 an hour, there are places you can go where it will be a decent living. Those places just aren't in America. Also, it will be thousands of dollars for you to actually move to those places, so you're definitely trapped here no matter what. Fortunately, there is progress being made, in no small part, to groups like Fight for 15, states have individually raised their minimum wage and brought more and more people into a

higher standard of living. As far as what's going on federally right now, the Republicans have a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour, which clearly isn't enough. And it's only for people who can prove citizenship, which means it will exclude the probably 5 million undocumented workers in the US. But you know what? If you're not slipping poison pills and needless cruelty into the bills you're authoring,

that takes the whole sport out of legislating, right? But a much better bill was introduced this summer in the Raise the Wage Act of 2023, which would bring the federal minimum wage to $17 an hour by 2028, which is much closer to what we actually need in this country. And that will do it for me. I hope you found this video interesting. I hope you learned something. If you did, make sure you are subscribed to Breaking Points. You can also follow me on Twitter or at my own YouTube channel, where I talk about media and politics and things. Liking and sharing always helps.

Thank you so much to Breaking Points. Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you in the next one. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband.

The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.

A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. What up, y'all?

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