Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/2/25: Modi Xi Putin Screw You To Trump, Demfluencers Rage After Dark Money Scandal

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Modi Xi and Putin meet in screw you to Trump, Demfluencers rage after dark money scandal.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hi, I'm Jennifer Lopez, and in the new season of The Over Comfort Podcast, I'm even more honest, more vulnerable, and more real than ever. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? Join me for conversations about healing and growth, all from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen.

Listen to the new season of the Overcombered podcast on the IHeart Radio, app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell. And the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen.

I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life.

This is Wisecrack. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com,

become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Trump, bringing the world together, perhaps not in the way that he intended. We'll take a look at that big summit with China and India and Russia,

all coming together, among others. Sager and I are also going to do a little deep dive into that Dem influencers. scandal, the dark money funding of 90-plus Democratic Party influencers. So a lot that's really interesting there, I think, to dig into about media and the future of the Democratic Party, what is even independent media. So excited to talk about all of that. I'm a little obsessed with the story, to be totally honest with you. We're also going to take a look at some big questions about Donald Trump's health. He has been very scarce, hasn't spoken to the press on camera in quite a number of days, very unusual for him. And Sager, I don't know if you have

latest updates, but the pizza tracker was off the charts. Yeah, the pizza tracker's been off the charts for weeks, though. That's part of the issue. Look, we're going to get into it. And just in general, I'm enjoying them. I'm enjoying everyone having fun on the internet, which we should all come together. Absolutely. I told you guys on my planning call, the most fun I ever had was speculating about Hillary's health in 2016. So to the left, you're welcome back to the internet. We're all about having fun. No more taboos. Let's get down into the conspiracy land. Let's zoom in on Trump's Brow. Let's make shit up.

This is the fun stuff, all right? So this is what we live for. I have a lot of questions about the pictures that have been posted. Walter Reed, entrances to it were closed. Like, the roads were closed. The camera that's across from it was turned off. There are many details to dig into, and we will bring you all of those. As a former White House correspondent who's actually been to Walter Reed with Trump and more,

I can also give you some of my, so I'm not debunking per se, but I can give you some context. We will see Trump later on Canada. Sounds like a buzzkill soccer. Yeah, listen, I will entertain and enjoy, and I will also give some of the facts. Trump is scheduled, though, by the way, to speak sometime later today. So who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? The plot thickens. All right. So, and then we'll turn to some very serious news with regard to Israel. Two United States senators were actually blocked by Israel from being able to fly over Gaza.

We also have now revealed the potential Gaza-Riviera plan, which is one of the sickest and most dystopian documents I have literally ever laid my eyes on. Also, a group of scholars just overwhelmingly voted the top genocide scholars in the world just overwhelmingly voted. Yes, of course. In fact, this is a genocide. And then on a lighter note, we're going to take a look at a U.S. Open controversy that did grip the internet when a Polish CEO stole the hat from a young boy who had been given it by a star tennis player who had just won his match. So we'll take a look at that. We're also going to, inshalla, do the AMA live today. Yes, yes. No, it's happening. It will happen in some form. We promise, and we're very sorry about all the technical difficulties.

I won't bore everybody with exactly what's been happening, but we have been agonizing and working to make sure that we get it all done. So thank you all very much to our premium subscribers for sticking with us. And if you want to be able to support the show, breaking points.com. Actually, you know, maybe I'll even save the pitch for a little bit later on, but a lot of what we have done to design the show the way that it's funded and more not only keeps us inculcated from scandals like this chorus thing going on with the influencers block, but I do recommend for people to stick around for that block in particular just to tell everyone the exact mechanics of how this stuff all works and why we are set up the way that we are, which is pretty

unique compared to most like, you know, independent shows or whatever. And there are reasons for that that keep us away and, you know, insulated from some of the major pressure. that are out there, business pressures, political pressures, and more. Yeah, we set up the show, as you guys know, very intentionally to try to avoid any sort of even appearance of impropriety. And, you know, Sacher and I both jointly and separately have learned a lot about the sort of influence that can be exerted on you or attempted to be exerted on you. And so we wanted to make sure to insulate this show and guarantee that we would never be in that position. So talk about the scandal with the Democrats. We'll talk about, you know, why we set up the show the way that we did.

And I think there's a lot to think about as we consider what is even independent media and how do we build an ecosystem that actually is genuinely better than the mainstream press. I totally agree. With all that being said, let's go ahead and get to this summit saga. Yes, some major news out of the SEO. If you're wondering what the SEO is, if we hadn't heard about, it's the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It was set up back in 2001. It's kind of been China, it's difficult to describe. It's not really like a G7 alternative.

It was originally kind of set up as a regional summit by the Chinese to exert power in East Asia, not just there, but specifically to try and group together non-U.S. allies. It was Warsaw Pact might be, you know, semi-apped example, but it's not NATO. It's not any of these types of things. It's just a meeting kind of of the minds. It has become kind of an alternative to the U.S. and Western-led order. Now, China this year in particular capitalizing on some of the alienation by the Trump administration of many of the global powers. And the number one story that has come out of the SEO this year is the just red carpet rolled out for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India as well as president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

The three of them, President Xi, President Putin, and Prime Minister Modi put on a full display of friendship. very non-subtally signaling to the United States that their pressure of sanctions and all of that is not going to work. And the most stunning images really was the trilateral meeting between those three leaders walking together, smiling together, and sending a massive middle finger to Washington.

So here is some of the footage from the SEO. Putin and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi held hands as they met before the summit and appeared jovial together as they spoke with Xi surrounded by translators. At a bilateral meeting, Putin addressed Modi as his dear friend and said relations were developing dynamically. So you could see that Prime Minister Modi was there with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Xi Jinping joined the three of them.

Prime Minister Modi actually called Putin, his dear friend. They announced continuing plans to buy Russian oil. Another major story that came out of the SEO this year is actually a pipeline that was announced between China and Russia deepening the energy ties. So basically all of U.S. policy currently towards India, towards China and Russia, has been trying to end the war in Ukraine. And some of the things that we've been covering now here for years has been how the U.S.-led financial system has just simply not been able to deliver what was promised. They said that they would crush the Russian war machine. It hasn't happened. They've gone after India with 50 percent tariffs. They said that they would buckle. Instead,

the opposite. Narendra Modi flying to, I think, is Tianjin, where he met with these three leaders, and again, just holding up a giant middle finger to Washington and basically embracing China and saying, hey, look, we will cooperate with whoever we need to cooperate with. Part of the reason this matters is that since 2011, there has been a assessment here in Washington about the so-called pivot to Asia, which I believe with all my heart, which is that Western Europe and the Middle East have diminishing returns for our relationship with those two places, that we're too obsessed with them, which we spent too much of our money, obsessing over these foreign conflicts. Israel and Ukraine are the perfect poster children for that.

50% of global GDP will be in East Asia in just a few years. You're already watching now the limited value of dollar sanctions. The BRICS phenomenon has been one that's been talked about for quite some time. But this is kind of the closest that BRICS in particular has come to becoming a real thing. And we're going to be covering it now. But in the China, you know, in the China sense in particular, it is just stunning to see how they have, especially use the Trump years and the Trump administration to put themselves as the official, like, number two superpower in the world. And in my opinion, you know, operating very smartly. So let's put this up here on the screen. This was Xi Jinping outlines China's ambition to reshape the world order in show peace summit a quote unquote shock and awe victory day military parade.

There's a real military parade, by the way. They actually do know how to march over there, China. This week. old busted, rusted out tanks and be guys who don't know how to march, none of that. Seeks not sponsored by Palantir or to Coinbase or any of those guys. You know, they don't do that over there. Seeks to, quote, recast the Second World War narrative. He's called on to Russia, India, and other China countries in the region to join China in leveraging their economic influence specifically to challenge the West at a time of rising

geopolitical and trade ambitions, hosting the regional security forum on Monday. with more than 20 leaders, he said that the world is undergoing turbulence and change, that they need to un-uphold a, quote, orderly, multi-polar world. So you could not make it more clear what their goal was. And put A3, please, on the screen. I thought the Washington Post did a pretty decent job of kind of summing it up here. They just say, China tries to use Trump turmoil to unite leaders against the U.S.-led order. And it's interesting because all three of these leaders, the flagship leaders that gathered at the SCO,

have their own reasons for challenging the U.S.-led status quo. Putin has Ukraine. China just has its, you know, they want to declare complete independence from the West and seek to build a second financial system, a second global order that they run, which obviously is to their benefit. It's the same thing the United States did with the so-called U.S. world order. India has always kind of played its cards close to its chest. They've been very suspicious of the United States since the 1970s.

The U.S. alliance with Pakistan is something that continues to grind their gear. Here in Washington, there has been an agreement under the so-called pivot to Asia. It's like, well, if we want to quote-unquote isolate China or keep U.S. friends in the region, then we need to make sure that Japan, South Korea, and India, the three most powerful nations in East Asia are rock-solid with the U.S. But the Trump tariffs have done more to offset the pivot to Asia than any single, like, piece of foreign policy that I could think of in just the last 20 years. Like, yes, the Israel obsession, the Ukraine obsession, indirectly takes away. but the levying and the targeting of India and then the failure of the sanctions on Russia are just two glaring opportunities for China. And you're really watching like a reverse Nixon

happen where Nixon famously opens China, wants to separate China from Russia and the Soviet Union, to split the two powers to establish and break apart, you know, global communism. And instead, what we have seen happen is that we had forced the two together through basically you know, and entirely a fault of our own. So it is the most important story in the world. There's no question. No doubt about it. We're tracking here for a long time. And then you add Brazil to that mix. Yes. And you have, of course, we've been following the way that, you know, a series of tariffs have been levied on Brazil because Trump isn't happy about what their court system is doing with regard to Bolsonaro trying to, you know, do his own coup

in Brazil in a very Trumpian fashion. And so you truly have a situation where he has united these nations in an alliance that, you know, was previously, would have been very difficult because they are very different nations. They have very different interests. They have their own, you know, concerns, squabbles, et cetera. And yet in the face of this insane tariff regime, they truly have sort of come together in this way. It's also very interesting. The narrative, like the rhetoric coming from China, recasting the end of World War II and their own role, really highlighting their own role in defeating fascism and building that post-war international order. And effectively what they're saying is, listen, the U.S., they're a bunch of hypocrites,

they've dropped the ball on this. We're going to actually build out the inclusive multipolar world based on international law and be the true inheritors of the legacy of the post-war international order and build out this new multipolarity in a way that respects the interest of all these countries around the world. So, you know, for a lot of nations that are being hit with tariffs and, you know, subjected to this very sort of like capricious foreign policy from the Trump administration, this is obviously extremely appealing. And it also is a recognition of the reality of where we are as a, as, you know, a globe as the world right now. You know, the funny we were sharing with India, one of the reasons

that Trump got like upset with India and started throwing all these tariffs on them and like throwing a fit about India is because Modi wouldn't accept his narrative about brokering the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. He was like, that really didn't have anything to do with you. And then Trump wanted him to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. And he was like, uh, not doing that either. I'm good, actually. Yeah. And so, and that is what sparks Trump's rage at India.

So, you know, you can't deal with someone like that. Like, you can't work with someone who is so unsurious, so capricious, and so frankly insane in the way that he operates. Something I just have come to deeply respect about many of these nations is the level of seriousness, which they take their geopolitics. So in China, you know, we've talked to, I've talked to here endlessly about industrial policy. They have orders of engineers in every bureau managing the state, its capitalism, making sure that the factories are being built properly, put in the right places, spreading economic development, building roads, high speed,

and all that. The alternative to that is I recently saw a video of a guy who was the equivalent of Google searching the word dictator, and they call him in, they call it, you need to come for tea to the Chinese police department. They literally go through your search results. I'm like, why'd you search for this? Why'd you search for this? Why'd you search for this? That's just part of the social contract. In India, for example, they, Jay Shanker, who's their foreign minister and many of these other, these are serious students of U.S. global foreign policy who sit around and are like, okay, what are all the big mistakes that we have made here? How can India further itself? We have all these problems, all of this poverty and corruption, and we also have our own political issues. How do we

square this circle, set India up for the future, have technological development, make sure that the country is insulated from the West. Their seriousness around tariffs and, look, I'm not saying I support their tariff system, but because it's bad, it is bad for us, empirically. But one of the reasons why they have such massive capital controls on the country is they're like, we will not be messed with by other countries, period, even if it means sacrificing interim economic growth. I recently just read a book by a guy named Dan Wang about China. It's such an incredible book. I highly recommend everybody go out and get it.

One of the things that she determined some 10 years ago is he's like, financial markets and stock market shareholderism is good for the super elite. It's bad for companies. It's bad for development. So that's just not something that we're going to do as a nation. Boom. I mean, and they have the ability to be able to do that. I'm not saying I favor their system, but I favor the seriousness and the level of thought

that they put into how they're going to try and challenge the West. Hey, sis, what if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance, bro, tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. When you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates,

I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with, your local credit union, shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt when it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand. Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown ambition on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hola, it's Honey German, and my podcast, Grasias Come Again, is back. This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment, with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't audition in, like, over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there.

Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing Vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community.

You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know what I'm me? but the whole pretending and cold, you know, it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasas Has Come Again as part of my Cultura podcast network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed. Hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself.

My dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin, so, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. The 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house.

So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wise. where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's put A4 please up on the screen, and you can just see here. I mean, this is the biggest troll that you could ever have. Right after the Putin-Trump summit, Modi posts this photo of him in the Russian presidential vehicle.

And he says, after the proceedings of the STO, President Putin, and I traveled together to the venue of our bilateral meeting. Conversations with him are always insightful. Apparently they spent nearly an hour, you know, in the car together, just talking, I guess, really about the challenges of Trump, about how they're going to navigate the relationship between their two countries. And meanwhile, you know, we just have the absolute base level of idiocy here in our nation for our discourse. Peter Navarro, who is the trade counselor for Donald Trump, has, I mean, he's the attack dog. Right? And by the way, I actually respected Peter in the first term. I read his book. I don't think he's wrong necessarily about tariffs. But the worst problem with Peter is that he turned himself into like this January 6th hero. You know, he's Trump's most loyal warrior. So when Trump decides to declare war on India because he's butt hurt that they won't nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, he goes all in. He adopts the rhetoric. He's like a household name now in India if you watch the news over there. I've been checking in just to see.

how they tolerate this. And this is the level of discourse that we're currently hearing for Peter Navarro and from the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson on India. Let's take a listen. Modi's a great leader. I don't understand why he's getting to bed with Putin and Xi Jinping. He's the biggest democracy in the world. So I would just simply say the Indian people, please understand what's going on here. You got Brahman's profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. to stop. So this is going to be a deep cut for those who you are not familiar with the Indian caste system. But what Peter Navarro basically is saying there, it's that these high caste Indians, the Brahmins in India, are profiteering. Now, if you knew anything about said caste system,

you would know that the Brahmins are actually not the business class and not the major oligarchs who are in India. Just saying this is an empirical fact check. But it just shows the extent to which They're basically just grasping for whatever, like, low IQ, you know, cast slash, like criticism that you can have of India and then broadcasting it to the world. Their new line is that India is a democracy, so they need to align with democratic values. I have news for you, Peter. India is a democracy, and they know who you are, and they know who Trump is. They know who America is.

They've been pissed at America ever since Biden singled them out about Russian oil. You guys are making it 10 times worse. I can guarantee you. By the way, Modi, you know, it's not like he won a stunning re-election. He's probably more popular than ever right now doing these types of moves. The Indian intelligentsia, the Indian from like the people who can not even read who vote all the way up to the intelligentsia are literally united against the United States right now in a way that I have never seen from a country which, you know, how many millions of people in India originally wanted to come here. There's still a lot of Indian immigrants. you know, apply H-1B visa.

We talked about that. That's more of a domestic political issue. But I see a lot of that changing over in the next period, which, you know, I know some of the white nationalists and other people will be happy about that. But at a very base level, like America, the global empire is basically crumbling all around us. For what? For Ukraine or for Trump's ego, for Israel?

I mean, you know, all of these things are actually all interconnected. Israel is actually probably the most important part of the story, which sounds crazy to say. But the reason why is that for years, the United States goes abroad and wags its finger. It's like, oh, you can't be doing this. You're authoritarian and you're bad. You're feeling bad things around the world. And the Chinese and the Russians and the Indian were like, oh, yeah, how's Iraq doing? Is it a thriving democracy?

But now, you know, you have Iraq, you have Libya, you have Syria, you have Israel, you have Ukraine, right? All of those things together. And they're like, we're not listening to you anymore. We don't care what you have to say. And you put that together, and that's how you get the staying high, the SEO meeting of 2025, which I do think will be a landmark moment. Yeah. And Ukraine is complex, right?

So it's less clear cut. You know, Russia did invade. So there is a sort of, there is a liberal international value that is being upheld there truly. Israel is not complex. Like, we are supporting a genocide. We are supporting colonization. We are supporting outright occupation. We're going to talk later about this, just like PowerPoint, ethnic cleansing,

plan that's being floated where, by the way, the U.S. is going to be the protectorate. So I'm sure you guys are all going to be really excited about that. It is so glaringly obvious. In fact, you know, truly, I know they put on a sort of like joint statement about Israel in the context of this summit. They should do more. I mean, the opening is there's truly, it's truly wide open. You know, the vast majority of the world's population is in horror and shock at what is being

done in Gaza right now and disgusted with Israel. I mean, Israel truly is a pariah nation everywhere, except in like this particular area where we sit right now in D.C. among elites right here. And so, you know, there really is a wide open lane to show global leadership and to show, no, we really are the true arbiters. We really are the true representatives of this international world order. Yeah. And look, I think it's important in that context just to show you how a lot of the rhetoric is just crumbling. Let's put A8 up on the screen, please. And you can see very clearly, like what they say from the SEO is that member states strongly condemn the military strikes by Israel and the United States of America against Iran in June of 2025, quote, such aggressive actions against civilian targets, including nuclear energy, which result in the devout of civilians are a gross violation of the principles and the norms of international law and the UN Charter and infringement on the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They undermine regional and international security and have serious implications for global peace and stability.

Now, no one should delude themselves into thinking that China and, you know, Russia in particular care all that much about civilian casualties. But that's where the rhetoric and all that stuff matters because, you know, Russia, the United States basically accused Russia of committing a, quote, genocide over Bucca, all right? I mean, if you look today in the U.S. intelligentsia, they're like, Putin is a child murderer, right, for the strikes in you. And that's true. It's true, right? You know, yes, strikes have killed children's civilians all across. of Ukraine. But how can you sit there and say that you need to use the full weight of the empire when you're also backing up what's going on in Israel? You can't. The thing doesn't square.

So then it's actually not about any of that. What it's really about is power. And that's what those countries understand more than anything. You know, the Chinese for long have held on this thing called mutual respect where they're like, look, well, you guys do what you want to do and we're going to do what we want to be hearing about any Uyghurs. We don't want you guys be talking about Taiwan or any of this other stuff because that's our business and we don't tell you how to run Alaska or Hawaii or any of that type of stuff. Well, I think that that hits even harder again in the year 2025 in the context of everything that is all happening. And again, just to highlight all this brick stuff, let's put this video here of between Lula and between Modi. I mean, this is not really

something that you would see. It's not that long ago. You could see the two leaders grasping hands, hugging, you know, coming together, basically trying to broadcast to the world that this alternative system is one, which they are fully embracing. These are both two leaders who have been hit with some 50% tariffs, both capriciously, under the Trump administration, with no, you know, strategy or any of that behind it. And meanwhile, Trump is just, you know, spouting off. Here's his latest, we could put it up there on the screen. Quote, what few people understand is that we do very little business with India. This is not true, by the way. It's the 10th largest training partner with the U.S. But they do a tremendous amount of business with us. In other words,

they sell us massive amounts of goods, their biggest client, but we sell them very little. Until now, a totally one-sided relationship. It has been that way for decades. The reason is that India has charged us until now such high tariffs, the most of any country that our businesses are unable to sell into India. It has been totally one-sided disaster. India buys most of its oil and military products from Russia, very little from the U.S. They've now offered to cut their tariffs to nothing, but it's getting too late. They should have done so years ago, just some simple facts for people to ponder. But what Trump doesn't really get is that this is a vindication of the Indian strategy. Their high tariffs, high capital controls and more on the country are exactly what

insulate them from tariff threats. Because they know, they planned for this for years. They saw what happened with their nuclear program. By the way, they banned Bitcoin a long time ago. Anything that challenges the primacy of the state of the rupee and of the ability for India to remain sovereign, they nuke it. And they see it very early. TikTok over there, not even. even a question. They're like, it's done. They banned it years ago. Because, again, for them, they care about sovereignty. It would be nice to live in a country that actually cared about things like that. Same with the Chinese. And so they know, and they've studied this Russian sanctions now for years. And they see, they're like, oh, it doesn't matter so much. Got oil, got guns.

We got a lot of production capacity. Some of the world's, I think the world's largest population in India, we'll be all right. And that's basically the path that they are choosing. We can do enough business to sustain themselves. I'm not going to say it's going to hurt. It certainly will. But broadly, they're making enough of a bet that especially, you know, everyone again talks about democracy. Over there, it would not be popular to capitulate to Donald Trump. I can guarantee you that if people in China or Russia could vote too, like for real vote, all of them would probably back up standing up against the U.S. So that's part of the democratic principle that a lot of people in the West are not ready for. Democracy doesn't ultimately mean we're all good friends here.

It means will of the people. And I'm pretty sure that what's happening there over there, is actually the will of the people, 100%. Well, I mean, it's ironic, too, because Trump and Modi, in a lot of ways, were natural allies because they actually share, like, similar nationalist ideologies. And in the first administration, there was much more, you could see much more of that overlap and, you know, that sort of simpatico view of the world. Can we put A6 back up on the screen there, Sager? Just take a look at this image and tell me, do you think that this is the cure for the toxic

masculinity of the manosphere? Do you think this is it right here? What do you mean? This is very tender, loving, affectionate, between these two powerful alpha males. Sure, yeah. I think this is a model for the world. Yeah, I guess I could go with that. I can see it.

I mean, you know, Modi is an interesting character. I wouldn't call him like an alpha male. He is a lot of respect for things like yoga and fast. I mean, it's like Indian male in their context. It doesn't really translate to the West. But I don't know. I don't really know enough about Lula to be able to say the same. But I do know watching all of this is it's one of the most broadcasted screw yous against the United States.

Genuinely, I mean, I can't think of another time that the leaders of the most powerful states outside of the Western Hemisphere would gather together and in an explicit go fuck yourself to the United States. Well, I keep thinking about what Professor Jeffrey Sachs told us, which is that our decision to levy these sanctions on these tariffs on. India as a result of their decision to continue buying Russian oil, he called it one of the most foolish policy mistakes, foreign policy mistakes that the U.S. has made in years. And that's saying a lot, because we've made a lot of really horrific mistakes in recent years and decades. And this is why. I mean, this playing out in front of you is exactly why.

He has united these countries, and it really is on him. Now, there are other things that lead to this point. I'm not saying it's the only factor. But his tariff policy has to already be deemed, like in terms of American interests, one of the most disastrous economic policies ever pursued, ever pursued, certainly in modern American history. It has made our economy here. We can already see the effects in certain goods, prices going up.

You can see, you know, you can see the rate of growth in the economy slowing. You can see more and more consumer debt being taken on, like, all sorts of red flags flashing here in our economy because of his economic policy. So we aren't benefiting quite the contrary. And meanwhile, he has clarified for the rest of the world, okay, it's time that we get together and we move on from this mess because this is a disaster and we can't count on these people. This guy's a psycho. This country is hypocritical. They're insane. We've got to figure out how to do our own thing over here and make sure that we are protecting our own nations. And it really does lay at the feet of Trump. Absolutely. It is, it's about Trump's ego.

It's about a misreading, I think, entirely of the way that geopolitics and all of this works. It also is completely counter to many of the things that were talked about by Donald Trump and all of the people who work for them. It's not an exaggeration to say this is the exact opposite. This is the Lindsey Graham course. You know, oh, we got a leverage on 500% tariff on India because of the war in Ukraine. While we continue to back up, you know, it's like it's as if the Israel and Ukraine conflict are the sun, the moon, and the stars. and everything just revolves around them

and that this entire, you know, part of the world is just these secondary or tertiary characters. In reality, Japan, number three trading partner in the world. You think that the Japanese people are happy about that trade deal and all the bullshit that they went through? They're not, okay? You can go and read their press.

Same with the South Koreans. I mean, the South Koreans similarly are in this weird limbo state where they're like, you know, they used to be understood as a massively important U.S. ally, they're basically just on the back burner. They pay them no attention. When they do pay them attention, it's to hit them with some tariffs or to get mad at them over Samsung or any of the other companies that they make. We're just playing, we're playing like Little League Baseball. And that is what, you know, again, I have nothing but admiration. Maybe that's bad and it

speaks to me. But like, this, that is a, that, those are countries run by actual statesmen. And yes, Putin, all of them, they do terrible things. I'm not, you know, absolving them of, of, of All of the bad, I wouldn't want to live in Russia. I wouldn't want to live in India, and I definitely wouldn't want to live in China. But I have nothing but admiration for the seriousness, which they run their countries, and we don't have any of that. We do not have any of that. And that's the starkest and the most depressing part, because you and I know for the next three and a half year, probably the next eight years, let's be honest. It's just, we're locked in.

And the Chinese century, it just seems more likely than ever before. Yeah, we're run by a bunch of clownish evil buffoons who make some of the worst decisions of all time. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. From a very rural background myself, my dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different.

On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. Well, 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hola, it's Honey German, and my podcast, Grazie's Come Again, is back. This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment, with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't audition in, like, over 25 years. Oh, wow.

That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing vibras you've come to expect.

And, of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community. You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know what I mean? Yeah. But the whole pretending and cold, you know, it takes a toll on you.

Listen to the new season of Grasas Has Come Again as part of my Cultura podcast network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Janica Lopez, and in the new season of the Overcover podcast, I'm taking you on an exciting journey of self-reflection. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? I wanted to be successful.

on my own, not just because of who my mom is. Like, I felt like I needed to be better or work twice as hard as she did. Join me for conversations about healing and growth. Life is freaking hard. And growth doesn't happen in comfort. It happens in motion, even when you're hurting. All from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen. Honestly, these are going to come out so freaking amazing.

Be a part of my new chapter and listen to the new season of the Overcomper podcast as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Very interesting story here. I am a little bit obsessed with it. So Taylor Lorenz over at Wired Magazine, really breaking some significant news here about an incubator program funded by a dem-aligned dark money super pack called the 1630 Fund. So let's put her reporting up on the screen, and I want to break down very specific.

specifically what she reports out in this piece. So her headline here is a dark money group is secretly funding high-profile Democratic influencers. An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line. All they have to do is keep it secret and agree to restrictions on their content. So the TLDR here is that this incubator named Chorus was set up by Brian Tyler Cohen, who you guys probably know is a big like resistance creator on YouTube, giant channel, four million subscribers, etc. And a guy who used to be an aide for John Yarmouth, who was a congressman from Kentucky. So they set up this thing. And the way they fund it is by taking money from this billionaire-backed dark money super PAC called the 1630

fund. That fund has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to back Democratic candidates and causes. It's very influential. It's very well known. You can read a bunch of reporting about it. But because it is a dark money group, their donors are kept a secret. Okay. So 90 plus Democratic Party aligned influencers were selected for this program. They're paid anywhere from $250 a month, which like we all are really selling out for the cheap if you're on that plan, but we'll get back to that all the way up to $8,000 a month. It has everybody from small creators I certainly had never heard of. Granted, I'm not on TikTok that much, so I'm not trying to like smirch the level of their influence.

But all the way up to people like David Packman, who has a, you know, multi-million sub-channel, who has already been quite successful and has been around for longer, actually, than we have. David Packman's been in this game for a long time. So it's like everybody from the small and the brand new all the way up to the David Packman's of the world. So specifically, Taylor was able to talk to people who were approached about participating in this program, some of whom were put off by the terms of the contract and said, this is not something that I can be part of. She was given access to some of the group chats that were flying around between some of the people who did end up in the cohort, who were also expressing concerns about some of

the terms of the contract. And she also apparently was able to get her hands on the contract themselves. And so here's specifically what the contracts that it says were viewed by Wired, what they indicated in terms of restrictions on the way these individuals can operate. So according to copies of the contract viewed by Wired, creators in the program must funnel all bookings with lawmakers and political leaders through chorus. Creators also have to loop chorus in on any independently organized engagement with government officials or political leaders. So one of the creators who was approached about participating in chorus said to Taylor, she said, quote, if I want to work with another politician, I have to fully collaborate with

course. If I get Zoran and he wants to do an interview with me, I don't want to give that to them. So that was one of the concerns. Also, it says, creators in the program are not allowed to use any funds or resources that they receive as part of the program to make content that supports or opposes any political candidate or campaign without express authorization from chorus in advance and in writing per the contract. So if they want to support a candidate, Graham Platner, let's say, in Maine, they have to get approval from Chorus before they can say anything supportive of any sort of candidate or campaign. In addition, the contracts reviewed by Wired prohibit standard partnership disclosures, declaring that creators will not

publicize their relationship with Chorus or tell others that their members of the program, quote, without Chorus's prior express consent. A screenshot from a slideshow was shared with Wired Volume's article's publication by Graham Wilson, a lawyer working with Chorus that offers several talking points if a member of the gohort wanted to discuss Port Chorus publicly. So they're expressly saying, you can't talk about being in this program and certainly can't disclose the dark money funding of this program. They also forbid creators from disclosing the identity of any funder and give course the

ability to force creators to remove or correct content based solely on the organization's discretion if that content was made at a course organized event. One other piece that I thought was really noteworthy saga is it also says you are not allowed to criticize any of the other influencers who are part of the chorus program. So, for example, if you have a beef over David Pacman either not saying anything about Gaza or in the early days of the genocide, he was actively defending Israel, if you have a problem with that and you're an influencer in this cohort and you want to talk about it, you are banned from doing that. So you have a combination of a lot of restrictions on the way that you operate having to run things through this course program. You have the forced secrecy around it that you're not allowed to disclose course, and you're certainly not allowed to disclose the funding source of course. And then you also, on top of that, have these requirements that they check in, that they go to these daily messaging meetings to, you know, get the view of course. and we're going to show you some of the responses from the creators themselves about the revelation that they're part of this program.

And, you know, they actually affirm that, yes, much of this is, in fact, true. They show relevant parts of the contract and then, you know, give reasons why it's not such a big deal and it's not really a problem. But they actually confirm Taylor's reporting here. So this seems pretty rock solid at this point. Well, okay, so let's put that aside. I think the question is about why is this important. I think it's important not only for the context of what you laid out about specific issues, it is an incentive and media ecosystem, which is so much worse than allegedly what the

Dem and Republican alternative medias were trying to go after. Like, look, we can say a lot of bad things about Jake Tapper, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News. They do not get direct checks cut to them that specifically say you can't criticize X, Y, and Z. They are actually less controlled in this particular way. And so that's what I think. I wanted to cover the story early, and I want people to grapple with that, is that in this new ecosystem, just like in the original days of the printing press, it's gone wild. The norms don't exist. Everybody is a creator and a business person. They have not had well-established norms to try and create a firewall, a separation. Probably the most important is nobody is thinking

about the downstream consequences in that. Because originally, you're like, oh, you know, a couple thousand a month, great. I can pay my bills. I can do this. I don't have to have a second job. and all that, but you don't ask what comes next. And, you know, two people who've been in this industry now for a long time and experienced much of the downside of what that type of stuff look like. Now, to be clear, I've never taken a single dollar from a Republican group or any of that type of stuff in the same way, which, you know, again, I don't really know how you ever thought it was cool. Because even when I was absolutely broke, I never would have signed some sort of contract like that. But the point remains that I think most of them didn't think about it. And now

they're retreating to their corners because for them they have to defend it at this point. But really, you are either controlled, quasi-controlled, or at the very least, you are not truly free to say what you want. Now, the mainstream is controlled in a separate way, right? As in Fox News guys can't criticize each other. They also know that if they cover X, Y, or Z, that's not going to look so nice to Rupert Murdoch or to Lachlan, who are rabidly pro-Israel and pro-Ukraine. So there's all these separate, you know, issues and incentive structures that come with them. So don't get me wrong that obviously exists with the mainstream media and I still hate them for a variety of reasons. But this is really, really bad.

And it is bad because I think that the Democrats in particular, I know that there are a lot of Dems, they're energized, they're ready. You know, we're going to talk about Trump health. Everybody wants to be online, having fun, and resisting. But you're being part of a machine. And that machine is being controlled for very specific purposes and ends, which Unite may not be aware of. That's what I think is very important. Right. And it would be one thing if this was disclosed. Yeah, that's right. But, and what they say is, oh, well, here are some videos where people did talk about being in chorus, and here's the course website, and it lists some of

the creators who were participating in the program. So there was some disclosure. Was there disclosure around a dark money super PAC funding this? No, there was not. And there's, you know, so there's a reason why Taylor had to do an investigative journalism piece in order to reveal the details of this program. It expressly prohibits them in the contract from disclosing their funders, specifically from disclosing their participation in the program. And, you know, in terms of like the ethics of all of this, that is almost the biggest red line here. Because, listen, it's very complicated all of the different business structures within quote-unquote independent media, right? Most places are different from us. Most of them will do ad reads, which means they are directly

talking to advertise. It's actually much more direct relationship than, like, for example, when I was at MSNBC, there was a firewall between the host and the, you know, people who were selling ads. You had no idea what was on during the commercial break. That wasn't your, you know, you were not paying attention to that. That had no bearing on your, like, day to day. So, you know, there's that. But at least that's up front. Everybody knows I'm paid to read this ad for Casper mattresses or whatever the heck it is, you know, Zins or whatever thing that they're selling. So that's up front. And, you know, frankly, those corporate interests are going to only collide with your coverage in sort of certain specific instances, whereas if you are backed by this kind of group where you're going to daily messaging check-ins, you're having to run by them, you're supposed to run by them, every government official that you interview and you have other restrictions on your content.

And they have a specific, they mention in one of these contracts that actually in the response video, one of the members of the cohort put up a part of the contract and referred to Koresa's policy platform. So like, what is that? You know, and are you having to buy into a certain set of policies? I'm going to guarantee you that based on the lack of coverage of Gaza by Brian Tyler Cohen and sometimes at times the incredibly terrible coverage of David Pakman, two of the biggest creators that are associated with this. I'm going to bet that, you know, the fact that, for example, Gaza has been officially deemed a genocide by all of the world's genocide scholars, I'm going to bet that's not part of the policy platform. I'm going to bet that's not part of the daily messaging guidance. And I want to be clear because some of the way this has been portrayed, especially in the rebuttals, has been very caricature-ish. We're not saying that they're being told, you're going to do a video on this. And if you don't, you're kicked out of the program. And here's your talking points. You're going to say these freaking talking. talking points are you're out. It doesn't work like that. It works through several mechanisms. First of all, the choice of who participates. I guarantee you many of these people, they genuinely their authentic view is that the Democratic Party is like, you know, vote blue no matter who,

they are vastly superior. The focus should all be on Trump. Like for many, if not all of them, that is their genuine view. So number one is the choice of who you even include. in the cohort. But then there's all these sort of like human pressures and incentives. You see who's in the in-group with you. You see the sort of topics that are being pushed. You know where the sensitivities are. And so if you're weighing, covering, let's say, you know,

the Gaza genocide versus another topic that is also very important that isn't going to create some sort of discomfort with the program that you're in that you're receiving monthly cash from, maybe you're gonna choose the one that's not gonna sort of not going to be uncomfortable for the group, not going to be uncomfortable for your future potential prospects of staying in this program. And as you get down the line,

if these influencers become financially dependent on getting this monthly stipend, then you have a lot of control over them. So that's the way these things work. It's far more subtle than just like, you're getting your talking points, and you're going to stick to them, and you're not going to do videos on this,

and you are going to do videos on that. It happens in a much more subtle way. And I saw it, you know, I've told this story before, you know, just to give an example from my own personal life and why, like, the lessons we've had to learn through our careers and how we came to the business model that we have. When I was at MSNBC, this was back in 2015 before Hillary, actually I think it was 2014, before Hillary officially got in the race for president. I did a monologue that was like, don't run, please don't run, because you are not the person for the moment. I talked about her, you know, her speeches to banks. I, you know, said this is not the populist champion we need. it was very critical at a time when nobody on the Democratic side, nobody on MSNBC was being

critical of Hillary. They let me do it. But after the fact, I was informed that any future commentary I did on Hillary Clinton had to be run by the president of the network. Okay, that is not a normal thing. Message was sent to me that this was not appreciated. And in the future, I needed to make sure I run it up the flagpole. So can I say for certain that that didn't impact my coverage going forward, that that didn't

make it so that if I was weighing two different monologue? topics. I was like, well, I could do this one on Hillary again or I could do this other topic that I didn't take the easy way out and say, well, they're both important. So let me do this one so I don't have to actually get all of my words approved by the president of the network and piss off everybody involved this day. That's the way these things work through these subtle influences and pressures that every human is subject to. And so I think a lot of these individuals, they feel like, well, we're not corrupt. You know, we genuinely believe in the Democratic Party. And, you know, we've got to fight fire with fire. We got to get in there

we've got to fight against Trump, and we've got to build up this creator ecosystem. Like, I think that's the way they're thinking about it without realizing the subtle way that your coverage can be shaped and influence the minute that you start taking cash. And especially when you have these sorts of very specific restrictions on the way you're supposed to go about your content creation and you're required to go to a daily messaging check-in every single day, of course that's going to impact the way that you approach things, not because you're like inherently corrupt, because you're a human being and we are all subject to those sorts of incentives and pressures, whether we even realize it or not. I will just quote the great Noam Chomsky, quote, the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum, even encourage the more critical and dissident views that gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on while all the time the presuppositions of the system are reinforced by the limits put upon the range of the debate.

And then similarly, when he was asked in that famous BBC interview about whether people self-censor, he says, I don't say you're self-censoring. I'm sure you believe everything that you're saying. But what I'm saying is if you believe something different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting. That's the question around a court. So like you said, it's not that these people are. And let's even think about the whole Gaza thing. You think they're doing it because they believe it? I don't. I don't know Dave. I mean, I have talked to David one time. I have no hate for the guy. Brian, we know we interviewed him here. It seems nice. I don't think that they, are actively covering anything up. You know what it is. It's division for Democrats, right? That's it. They're like, well, we can't divide the Democratic Party. Well, Patman at the beginning of the genocide, actively backed up as real. Fine, but BTC, all right? I don't think, I think for him, he's like, I don't want to cause problems for Alyssa Lutkin. I don't want to cause problems for Gavin Newsom. We need to train 100% of our fire on the right, on the right. By the way, the right does us all the time, too, right? Although it's more complicated. More recently, they are willing to go after people on the issues that they care about, immigration in particular.

Thomas Massey, right? They'll go single him out, or at least some people have. I'm trying to think more establishment of Mitch McConnell and others. They'll get their fire whenever they, quote, go against the base. And Republican creators, generally, are more likely to be able to do that. The Democrats, though, they all seem to have internalized this thing about Kamala, where protesters and people who spoke out against Kamala and Biden were nothing but trouble, and that that's the reason that she lost. Folks, it's just not true. Yeah. And it's like, that is, what they don't get is that, you know, iron sharpens iron.

Going through a deeply competitive, brutal primary does not weaken the candidate. It actually makes them stronger. It means that you definitively won the debate. Kamala never won shit, literally, from the primary to her coronation at the Democratic Party. Those Gaza people, by the way, get mad at them all you want. They voted in good faith for Donald Trump or Jill Stein in the state of Michigan. and they were the exact margin of victory. Now, maybe it wouldn't have mattered

in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, all these other. I know for a fact, 100% it mattered in the state of Michigan. So that's on you. That's not on anybody else. That's not on some protester or anybody else. And that's where their theory of politics is just dead wrong. I mean, think about 2016 for Trump.

It was savage. And he won. And not only that, he won the election. Obama, Hillary, that was true. I mean, the juggernauts went. at each other. Obama got to blow out victory. And he was definitely straight. If you watch him the beginning of those debates to the end,

he was strengthened so much Biden. But even put aside like the Gaza piece and all of that, probably the worst mistake that Democrats made, political, tactical mistake was circling the wagons around Biden. 100%. And keeping out any sort of actual primary process and dissent, where his weakness could have been exposed earlier, you could have ended up with a much stronger candidate

who actually had won a democratic process and had some sort of democratic mandate behind them. By circling the wagons and keeping all the dissent out, they led themselves down this disastrous path where then you have the debate and we all know the rest of, you know, how that history unfolds. So, you know, I think the lesson that Democrats should just shut their mouths and not ever criticize anything that any Democrat has ever done, I think that that lesson has, I think that has been one of the single most devastating ideas for the Democratic Party. If you just care about Democrats winning, I think that has been an utter and complete disaster. On the piece around the future of the Democratic Party, too, for me, there's a battle right now.

And this is why I think that even though, you know, it's whatever, it's one dark money group. Let's all be really clear. There's tons of dark money flowing through independent media. There's tons on the right. Okay. This is not something that's unique. the way, a lot of these creators spoke out against the tenant media scandal when that happened, which we did too, by the way, because it was growth and it was corrupt, but, you know, they can't see the problem when it is on their side. But to me, you know, there's a battle for the future of the Democratic Party right now. And I don't want to be overly simplistic about it, but it really is a battle between, is this going to be a party that's run by billionaires or run

by the grassroots? Is that, you know, is it going to be Zoron or is it going to be Kamala Harris? Is it going to be Gavin Newsom or is it going to be someone like a grand planner who has a true, like, grassroots behind him? That's the battle of the Democratic Party right now. And we saw through the Kamala Harris campaign when she started relying on, you know, the Mark Cubans of the world and this billionaire-backed and approved strategy, that's when she truly sort of nix, that's when she truly destroyed her campaign and made it impossible to win. So I also see this as a real struggle because if you're. taking this dark money from a billionaire-backed group, you are laying your chips down on the side of basically we're going to keep doing the same thing we did in the past. And let me tell you something. If you consider yourself left of center in any way, you are not going to win

a contest of who has more billionaires and for whom which party is more comfortable for those billionaires. You have to play a different game. And that's why I think that this is really important and very symbolic of the fights that are going on, the struggles that are going on within the Democratic Party. And of course, Gaza ties in as well because that's an area where you have a lot of organized money on the side if we're going to be with Israel no matter what. And so it's not the case that none of these influencers in this cohort have said anything about Gaza. It's not been a complete prohibition. But if you look at their body of work, there has been notably less, less focus on Gaza than among people, people who are, you know, much more independent, who really are out there, you know, saying what they think about what's going on in the world right now.

Hey, sis, what if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance, bro, tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. when you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates, I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union, shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees

and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt and it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand.

Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it, and in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hola, it's HoneyGerman. And my podcast, Grasias Come Again, is back.

This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned in like over 25 years. Oh, wow.

That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles,

and all the issues affecting our Latin community. You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me. Yeah. But the whole pretending and coat, you know, it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasas Come Again as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was.

Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha.

On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let me go ahead and play for you guys. Brian, a couple of the responses here. Let me go ahead and start with a portion of Brian Tyler Cohen's research. response, which I also have to say, I found these responses to honestly be kind of shocking

in how dishonest they were, how frankly, like, Trumpian, they were in their character. So let's go ahead and take a listen to Brian Tyler Cohen, who, again, is one of the co-founders, of course, so he is actually, like, at the head of this thing. So here's what chorus is. It is a scholarship program to teach creators how to grow their accounts, foster engagement, launch their own shows, and become profitable on their own. It's an incubator program to build the pro-democracy ecosystem. Influencers and creators have never been more important when it comes to how Americans are consuming their news. The right has been doing this for years and the left needs to catch up.

That's why we're doing this with Chorus. So let's talk about what Chorus is and what it's not. Chorus does not pay creators for content, does not tell them what to say, does not control who they talk to or work with, and there is absolutely nothing in the contract that could even be reasonably interpreted to say that we do. Period. Full stop. I don't know a single creator who would willfully sign up for a program that would tell them what they can or can't say.

That's not what this program is. We pay people to show up to workshops and technical trainings to optimize their content online. For example, we've got trainings on how to package content for YouTube, trainings on how to optimize audience retention for Instagram and TikTok, trainings on how to form an LLC. There's the implication in the article that this is some arm of the DNC or the Democratic Party. We have literally nothing to do with the DNC. I spend zero minutes of my day thinking about the DNC. The creators do not tow any party line.

How could we? There isn't a party line. Creators are absolutely allowed to speak out against the Democrats, and in fact, plenty do. And frankly, course creators should and do criticize Democrats when they suck. And quite often, they do suck. 1630 Fund is our fiscal sponsor. One of the largest documented donors to 1630 Fund

is the same person funding a mid-year's Reporters and Residence Program, which Taylor Lorenz herself is a part of. And guess what her monthly stipend is, $8,000 per month? So she's criticizing an entity that is funded by someone that she is currently taking money from. I guess it's okay when Taylor Lorenz gets paid, but no one else. There are people like Taylor Lorenz

who are desperate to tear the left apart, and in fact, it becomes clear who her efforts help when you hear stuff like this. Genuinely, I kind of like Taylor Lorenz because I know that she actually believes what she says. You get what I'm saying? So, yeah, I generally don't align myself with friends of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. Calling Taylor Lorenz a friend of Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens is wild, wild.

And he opens up this thing. It was kind of long, so we, like, you know, clipped it up and didn't play the whole thing. I wanted to give you the pieces where he's doing his best defense, whatever, to be fair to him. But he opens up the whole thing by being like, at the risk of giving more attention to an internet troll. You can say a lot of things about Taylor Lorenz, but this is a fully reported piece in Wired magazine. He also spends a lot of time doing like, well, this person online said this thing about it, which is totally untrue. And it's like, okay, but you don't actually deal with the very specific claims that she makes in her report about the requirement of non-disclosure, about the fact that they're required, contractually required to run all of the guests that they book, all of the government official guests that they booked through you guys in this like approved channel that you have to go to. daily messaging meetings. You don't deal with any of that. Instead, you, you know, shift the focus

to these internet claims that were untrue rather than the actual reported out pieces. I want to deal with the piece that he says here about Pierre Amidiar, which I think is important. And I, listen, I think it would be fair to, you know, question whether Taylor should be taking money from Pierre Omidyar. You know, he has this reporter in residence training. But here's what's different. She was public about that. And we know who's funding her. And it's, you know, it's on the website and she announced it. That is very different than a program that you're not allowed to say you're part of and you're not allowed to disclose the funders and you're supposed to keep it secret. And by the way, we still don't know who all is funding the 1630 fund. So I think

it's fair. There could be criticism of Taylor there too. But to posture like these are the exact same things. That is just fundamentally dishonest, and he's smart enough to know that. Well, look, there's a four-year track record here of criticizing Taylor. I read the story. I don't take her word for it. You know, I read the story. I make sure that it's sourced and then I see the response. It seems to hold up. I think that's really what it's all about. So this isn't about Taylor Lorenz. No great big fan or any of that over here. I do think it was really dishonest to be like, well, Candace says, you know, that Candice and Tucker say that Taylor believes what I actually agree with that is one thing I mean I don't like most of what Taylor

believes but I do think she actually believes her she genuinely believes it yeah we can talk about that it's kind of a different story but the question here and I think people are like oh is this ponderous why we're spending so much time a lot of you guys are watching this stuff on the internet and not enough people talk about the behind the scenes to what you just talked about with MSNBC talked a lot about here our experience at the hill multiple phone calls problems with coverage because it could affect advertising. And it's not, again, it's not in the stuff that people would think. Like, people would think it's gazaers sometimes, you know, if it's controversy.

It's really about business. And, like, that's the stuff that people don't get, you know, criticizing or creating problems for potential events with Bank of America or Pharma or TikTok, Chinese advertising, where the actual dollars hit the bank. We were speculating with our staff. Like, what's the stuff that we cover that would be a problem? I'll give you a perfect example. gambling. The gambling stuff would be a real issue if you and I were advertising 100% focus.

A serious problem because back in 2021, wouldn't have thought much about it. Maybe, oh, Draft Kings, you know, Fandle, they're offering Googles of money, right? Or Polly Market, like some people out there. By the way, Polymarket is now getting into sports betting, as you covered, I think, previously. Robin Hood, any of the, so financial services, credit cards. How much do I talk about user's credit card rates and stuff like that on the show? That's not happening if you're taking American Express, American Express is a blue chips, you know, brand, great brand. Who has anything bad to say about it? I do. Well, that would be an issue. I could go on forever, man. Like in terms of DTC that we talked about, all of these DTC company, BetterHelp, I gave that one.

How could you be against therapy? James Lee, who does segments for us, did a segment about BetterHelp. That's not happening if you have a $1.5 million a year contract with BetterHelp. You'd probably sign up for it, and you think, it's therapy. What's so bad about it? Well, maybe something. There's so many. of the examples. Like, yes, Casper mattresses and all that stuff, probably wouldn't be an issue, but you never know. And that's why we don't do it. And I'm left, and I'm not exaggerating, millions of dollars on the table, and have created instead an alternative funding structure, which enables us to just do what we want to do. But not enough people have thought about that. And I do, broadly, I do think that the reason why these people can't escape criticism

is not disclosing who you're getting paid for, is the scum of the earth behavior when you are doing public media consumption for other people? Because they have to know. One of the things, again, the mainstream media in them, is in ways they're more transparent

who they take their money for them. They're public companies. They publish their financials. I know exactly who CNN gets this money from. And also, they'll tell you during the ad breaks, presented to you by Pfizer, presented to you by American Express, or any of these other people.

And that has all kinds of pernicious downstream effects in a Nome Chomsky sense. But it's very different than actually getting a direct check wired to you by your bank account. Mainstream media people are just W-2 employees. They get cut a check, which they don't really know all the sauce gets made. So that's why this is honestly kind of worse.

It absolutely is. It absolutely is. And it is also, so like you can think about, first of all, we need to come up with an agreed-upon definition of who gets to call themselves independent media. Yeah, smart. Because if you're taking dark money from a party-aligned super PAC, sorry, you're not independent media.

I mean, you're just like, you can call yourself something else, but it ain't that. The next level, so that's like kind of like the worst level is you're taking secret party-aligned money from billionaires. That and, you know, and you're contractually obligated to not disclose that. That is the worst level of, you know, potential compromise and puts you the furthest from truly being able to call yourself independent media. You know, the next tier is like, okay, it's funding from these various corporate entities, but it's disclosed. You're doing the ad read, right? It's up front. You know, that's another level. You're, you know, you're getting sponsorships from this company or that company and you're disclosing it. You know, I don't put, take any of these decisions like lightly because we're really fortunate. We were able to build a business. You know, you guys signed up right away. We're able to fund it really quickly. You know, we were, we stepped into the breach and you guys were there for us. And I know that that's not going to be. case forever because Sager and I were already established at the Hill, and we had the benefit

of establishing ourselves at the Hill when somebody else was paying the overhead before we went out on our own. So I don't really, like, I don't judge people who are making somewhat different choices than what we are making. But I think transparency has to be at the core of what you're doing, at the very least. If you're not in a position to say, listen, we're not going to talk to any advertisers at all, which is the position that we have taken to keep from having to ask ourselves questions about what about this sponsor versus that sponsor is this ethical whatever is somebody going to think that we're not covering the story because we're taking money from this place we've just decided we're putting all of that off the table if you aren't in the position to make that choice

i have some i have some sympathy for that it's just you have to be transparent and if you're not you cannot call yourself independent media like i hope that we can all agree that that's the case and that's if you're on the left if you're on the right and maybe it's unfair but i do think that the left should hold themselves to a higher standard because we are supposed to be the people who oppose billionaire influence, who want campaign finance reform, who want to represent public interests and not have all of this nefarious dark money that is controlling so much of our politics. So yes, that is your obligation if you're going to call yourself someone who is on the left, is to be more pure than the, you know, the Tim Pools or whoever taking the tenant

media or whatever cash they can grab. Because frankly, that's more consistent. consistent with their idea. If you're Ben Shapiro and your standard issue conservative and you don't think there's anything wrong with billionaires and billionaire influence and politics and whatever, that is actually more consistent with your ideology. So I have scorn for those funding models as well. But I do think if you're going to hold yourself out as being on the left, you do have to meet a higher bar and a higher standard. And as I said before, you're not going to win playing the game of who can get more billionaire dollars. You're not going to win that. And you are certainly not going to win a movement that for working class people if you are relying on billionaire funding to get there. Not going to happen. So that's why I think this is so important. I want to play a little bit of there's at least one person in here who is, she's a TikToker. She has been, you know, critical on Gaza. She's been critical of Andrew Cuomo, of Corey Booker. So she's gone after Democrats. And she put together her response. She's a member of Cora. She's in the chorus cohort or incubator as well. She put together part of her response. And it was amusing to me because she put up parts of the contract

that she claimed were debunking what Taylor was saying in the article, but actually just fully confirmed what Taylor had reported out. And then she does the thing that I found so incredibly gross. And there have been other instances of this in the defense of chorus where they're once again, using identity politics to protect, you know, to sort of rebut these claims of, you know, potential like corruption and being compromised by this dark money. So let me go ahead and play this B5. Let me go ahead and play a little bit of this. In the contract I signed, there is some language that says, hey, please like before you make a public statement about what course is, just check with us. The reason for that is that as the article states, there's over 90 influencers

in the program, many of whom have very small accounts and joined the program to get like mentorship and happened to be immigrants or trans in a red state, right? And like already happened to be kind of an extra danger right now. And so the goal with the like, please check with us clause is to make sure that small creators who already had targets on their back weren't accidentally like featured on a huge page and then suddenly have an onslaught of threats from the right. Ors has never been kept some nefarious secret, right? People have been talking about it. It was more just, hey, this is already an unsafe job for some people. Check with us in advance so you don't accidentally like add to someone's unsafety. That doesn't make any sense. Okay. She's literally saying,

that they are keeping their dark money funding secret in order to protect transcreators in red states. That is her argument. That makes zero sense, okay? Now, maybe it would make sense to say, hey, don't talk about the other people who are in the cohort. But for you yourself, like,

how is it protecting a transcreator or an immigrant in a red state for you to not talk about your dark money funny? I'm having serious Hillary 2016. Yeah. Identity politics, weaponized against the left, flashbacks with all of this. There were other allegations that Taylor was like anti-black woman for publishing this. I mean, I'm sure there are black women in the color. This lady appears to be white. Like, there's all kinds of people. It's just, it reminded me of why it became

such a vociferous critic of this type of identity politics, because you see the way it is being weaponized here. When you genuinely have these communities that are under threat, and they're cynically using this to protect their dark money funding source. That is disgusting. And one more thing I'll say about these responses is, again, if you are on the left, look, I get that there are, I think the best case you can make for them is basically like, look, the right is doing this, and we just got it, we got to throw on through, we're dealing with fascism, we've got to throw on the playbook, and I get it's not ideal, but we got to fight against fascism in whatever way we can. And so that's why we're taking the money.

None of them even really acknowledge that there's an ethical question here. And that to me is a real red. How can you be, call yourself on the left? And you're not even contemplating the ethical dilemmas that are involved here and explaining, well, I get why it's a problem and maybe in another time, but here's why I came down on the side. No, it just was like all out attacking Taylor Lorenz's credibility, throwing up, you know, she's friends with Candace Owens, this very aggressive response of there was nothing wrong. We celebrate what we're doing. We did nothing wrong. There was no moral ethical dilemma here. We do it again 10 times over. And I find that to be a real red flag that there wasn't even a willingness to grapple with the clear, like,

ethical issues that are involved in taking this type of secret dark money. Totally. And I know you're looking at it for a left thing, but I actually think this is much bigger than you may even realize because this is all industry for all, quote, unquote, independent. If you look in the world of sports, gambling runs sports now. I listen to to a really interesting critique of sports journalism, which is actually very similar to where we are right now. It's not only that

gambling sponsors all of the podcasts, it's also that the people who succeed and the most famous sports journalists are basically people who tweet whether someone has signed a contract or not and they just get the first scoop. In terms of people who actually uncover information that makes people in power

very uncomfortable, they are very few and far between. What is basically being consolidated, is that industry and like money and influence is running the general ecosystem to make sure that things are positive in almost all cultural areas from sports to I mean here's politics that's number one finance is another one by the way like some of the biggest finance podcast all in is literally one of the biggest finance podcasts I mean think about that what the Chamath has like like conflicts of interest coming out of his eyeballs

like every single one of these is ridiculous or or Bloomberg or any of these places. I mean, it was like, it says it in the name, Bloomberg. You think you don't, you think you're getting like completely unfetched CNBC. I think this is actually a funding model question for quote unquote independent media where when they're rolled up basically into the ecosystem, I think they broadly become more corrupt than a lot of the mainstream media. And trying to make yourself like a separate part out of that is just very, very few and far between. The money is hard to say no to, all right? I mean, I'll lay it out for you. And that's just our show. Think about, you know, even the biggest shows. That's probably tens of millions

of dollars. And so for people to say no to that, you got to have some real stomach to actually be able to do it or bet on yourself in a different way and be true to some different values. So, you know, I think that's why it's important. Because that's a view into how it works for everything. I really do think it's everything. Yeah. And I just got to say, for the people who sold out for this shit for $250 a month, like, what are you doing with your life? That's actually... If you're not in the $8,000 a month cohort, I really... really don't. The $250 a month people, like, what is that?

Well, it wasn't Pat, correct me if I'm wrong. Packman was taking $8,000 a month? Is that true? That's the assumption, because that's the highest ban that you can be. He makes millions. He makes millions. I mean, that's the thing is... Just some back of the math on the YouTube revenue. Right. And that's what I want people to understand, too,

is like, we have left, there's no doubt we've left millions on the tape. By not doing AdRae, there's no doubt about it. But guess what, guys, we're doing fine. We are doing fine. Like, we are able to have a good life. We pay our people. Well, you know, when they ask for a raise, we're like giving them more of that. We're doing, you know, we're doing just fine over here.

We're able to build this new set, all of that. So it doesn't require selling out to some dark money super pack to be able to make it. And again, look, I get it. Sager and I were both established before we had the Hill, all of that. So we did have some advantages. I don't want to deny that. But, you know, Kyle didn't. And he's doing good, too, right?

You don't have to take this money. And if there is money, you have to disclose. That's my, that's really, to me, the most key piece is Sager and I, as much as we've set our business up to insulate ourselves from any sort of corporate or political pressures, we still are human beings that are going to run into biases. Saugher is friends with J.D. Vance, right? I'm friends with Kyle, so I'm not going to be criticizing him, you know, he's, he's my husband. So I'm not going to be criticizing him as another creator if he does something you disagree with. Like, but when there are, those instances,

people know that. We're upfront about it. And that's the, and that's, the thing is, look, we're all human beings. None of us are going to be able to exist in the world fully and completely free of bias. But when you run into something that is a clear conflict of interest and clear bias, or there is money that is being paid to you that could potentially impact your views and your coverage, you have to disclose it. That to me is like the most central piece. And then, you know, other decisions that are made around that, I think there are better and worse decisions that can be made there. But if you aren't being upfront about where your funding is coming from, I think that is, I think that is a real

mistake. And I think it's a real ethical red line. 100%. You know, by the way, it's not just them. You know, anytime we cover somebody where I'll be like, look, full disclosure, met them for dinner, friends, you know what I'm saying? You think I enjoy doing that? It's embarrassing sometimes. But you got to do it. I mean, because otherwise, how much worse would it look to do the coverage to say something favorable and then some photo or whatever comes out of the two? It looks horrible. So, like, That's what these people are in that position. So anyway, you've got to try and hold yourself up to an ethical standard.

That's why we spend a lot of time on it. Because, again, I know a lot of people watch this show, consume a lot of stuff, you know, on the internet. And I do think people should ask bigger questions. And this isn't just politics. It genuinely is all industries, and I'm seeing it get a lot. So true. I really think it has never been worse than, I don't think it's ever actually been worse, as bad as the mainstream media was, because they still have a lot of power. And a lot of the grifters are the ones who are succeeding the most, which means that both sides of the spectrum of like what you're consuming is more than likely like bot paid for shaped or whatever in some way. And that's that that's the real.

We need you guys to be discerning consumers and know who you're, you know, if you want to support independent media, truly support places that are actually independent media because, yeah, we're headed towards a worse cesspool than with mainstream media. And that was already a pretty low bar. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Honey German, and I'm back with season two of my podcast. Grazias, come again.

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