Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/23/21: Dems in Disarray, China's Economy, W Bush Confronted, Gates' Epstein Ties, Lewinsky Shamed, Midterms Forecast, Gabby Petito, Hunter Biden Emails, and More!

Episode Date: September 23, 2021

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That's a Chinese property development company that is in danger of collapse, potential contagion across the Chinese economy. Some people are calling it potentially a Lehman Brothers moment for China. Indications this morning that in spite of all expectations, the Chinese government may not actually bail them out. So we're going to talk about what's going on there. Some interesting updates on everyone's favorite ex-president. Of course, I'm talking about George W. Bush joining up with Liz Cheney, getting the whole band back together. Sagar, you love to see it. One thing you do actually love to see is he got yelled at by a war veteran for his many crimes. So that was very satisfying. We'll show you that. Interesting moment with Bill Gates getting asked about Jeffrey Epstein. I'm not going to say anything more. We'll show it to you and talk

about that. Also, the view, ladies, melting down over Monica Lewinsky reviving some great old debates from 1999. We also, very excited about a guest we have on today, Ben Schreckinger. He wrote a book about the Biden family, tracking Joe's career, talking about some of the family corruption. He also broke, you guys might have seen this, he broke the story that, oh, lo and behold, at least some of those emails on Hunter's laptop were actually legitimate. He tracked down the people who were the recipients of those emails,

specifically the ones about Joe Biden possibly getting a little bit of kickback and he was like, yeah, it's totally legit. I'm sure you're totally shocked to find out that the Hunter laptop was actually a real thing. But we wanted to start with a big old mess here in Washington and the most consequential game of chicken that anyone has ever seen between progressives and corporatists on what exactly is going to happen with this reconciliation bill. And the first thing I want to say is because the way they decided to do this is so complex, it's so mired in like procedure and the parliamentarian and reconciliation process

and all of this nonsense, I understand it's really easy for eyes to glaze over. But I want you to know that the potential implications here are absolutely massive. This is the Biden agenda, okay? If nothing happens on reconciliation, that's it for his presidency. That means that there is no changing the trajectory for working class people. There's no changing the trajectory for climate change. All of union rights, all of these things that have been proposed to be included in this package. That's it. It's done. It's over. So the entire Biden presidency is basically at stake right now in this moment.

That's right now in this moment. So on one side, you have the progressives. Their position has always been, look, these two pieces, the bipartisan infrastructure proposal, which we think kind of sucks and don't really want to vote for, we will only vote for that if it's tied to the reconciliation bill. The original deal was that the corporatists were on the opposite side. OK, fine, we'll vote for the reconciliation piece if we get our infrastructure deal. In recent weeks, they've tried to tear those things apart so that they only get their stupid bipartisan infrastructure deal and that the reconciliation bill effectively gets tanked. So the question has been, number one, are progressives going to hold strong? Are they

actually going to stick to their position now that there's starting to be some pressure on them and the media is starting to turn on them? We're going to show you that in a moment. And number two, are the corporatists going to stick to their position? Are they actually going to let both bills fail, both their infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill, and effectively tank the entire Biden presidency? So far, neither side is blinking. Let me show you first the chair of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal, talking about their position. How many members are there of the House Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal, talking about their position. How many members are there of the House Democratic Progressive Caucus? There are 96 members and over half are absolutely committed to making sure we deliver both bills at the same time.

So 48 Democrats will vote against the House infrastructure bill if it does not come with the budget reconciliation package. Is that right? More than half, more than half of our members will vote for both bills. And this was the deal, Jake, that came out of the Senate when they passed, when progressive senators passed the bipartisan bill in the Senate. It was on the specific understanding and commitment that both bills would move together. And so now we want to make sure that both bills are moving together and we're going to hold to that commitment. And so, yes, half our members, more than half our members will not move the bipartisan bill without the reconciliation bill being passed. And that bipartisan infrastructure bill is supposed to come up for a vote on Monday.

So this is all coming to a head very, very quickly. But what she says there that is crucial is, look, we got 90 plus members of the House Progressive Caucus and at least half of them. So 40 to 50 members are not going to vote for the infrastructure bill. The infrastructure bill will fail if we don't have it tied together with the reconciliation bill. So, so far, the progressives hanging in there tough, being very clear about their position, at least with regards to that tactic. What they haven't been clear about is what they would accept on a scaled down reconciliation bill, which is where things may end up landing. On the other side, you have Josh Gottheimer and the corporate

Democrats. They're the ones who only want the infrastructure bill. They don't want the reconciliation bill whatsoever. They're saying that, listen, we're not going to vote for this reconciliation bill, especially if we don't get our infrastructure package, which we, again, are supposed to vote on on Monday. Let's take a listen to what Josh Gottheimer has to say. Well, first, the vote on infrastructure, of course, is out of the Senate sitting waiting for our vote. So we should all get behind that on Monday. And then we're going to, of course, keep working so hard as we have been on the reconciliation bill. There's so many things in there that are important from from climate to reinstating the state local tax deduction, which matters a lot to Jersey, where I'm from to get taxes down for our families.

You know, there's no reason why this can't get done. And I'm really optimistic that it will. But but it makes no sense to actually these are two separate bills that stand on their own. It makes no sense to vote against an infrastructure bill that's got two million jobs a year with it to help hardworking men and women of labor. It makes just no sense to me. So we're going to get that done. It's a key part of the president's agenda. And I know that every Democrat will ultimately be there at the end of the day. So effectively, what happened here is corporate Democrats have sort of blown up the truce in the deal that they had. They want the bipartisan infrastructure deal, which is very business friendly. They don't really want reconciliation, even though he says, oh, sure, there's great stuff in it. Clearly, their tactics are meant to kill the entire reconciliation

package. The last thing that I'll show you and then we can discuss is, of course, whose side is the media going to take? They're starting to take the knives out to go after progressives and act like they're the ones that are standing in the way of any sort of progress here. Let's take a listen to Kate Baldwin, who is sort of representative of this line of thinking from CNN, challenging House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth, who, by the way, is siding with the progressives in terms of tying these two bills together, which was the original deal. Let's take a listen to that. It makes no sense to vote against an infrastructure bill that does so much and has so much bipartisan support.

Do you agree with that? Yeah, I agree with that. I wouldn't vote against it. This is why this makes me feel, this is why I feel crazy because this thing, this is why people are right to feel crazy watching how this is going on in Capitol Hill right now. You agree, but we don't agree. I, no, I, I agree that I would vote for that and that Josh is right. This is a bill worth passing and we ought to pass it. And what is kind of cut off in that clip is he does, in fact, side with the progressive

in one of the two things together. But you can see the way that the media is taking the side of the corporate Democrats as they always do, Sagar. You know, it's really, watching this, it is stunning on a couple of levels.

Number one, of course, the media is coming in. They have a bias where anything getting done is better than nothing. Yeah. Even if that anything is bad. Especially if they've got the word bipartisan attached to it. They just like swoon. It's not even true that it's bipartisan this time because a lot of House Republicans aren't even going to vote for it. They're whipping against it. Exactly. They don't want to give the Biden administration a win. I think there'll

probably be about 10 or something defections, but that's not necessarily enough in order to pass the bill. Just to update everybody fully on the news. So let's put this up there on the screen from Jake Sherman. So each of the different factions actually met with the president, or at least at the White House, I think the president did talk with some of them. Gottheimer, Murphy, that's kind of the moderate crew, quote unquote, the Progressive Caucus, Jayapal, Mark Pocan, Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee, they met there also at the White House. Many senators were over there too. I do have to say on a macro level, as the Biden agenda is crumbling, where the hell is Joe Biden himself?

He has not done anything. I was telling you that he had this bizarre moment in the Oval Office where Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, was like, let's take questions. And he was taking questions from the British press while the American press was shouted down by these White House lackeys. And our president in our Oval Office is not taking questions about this bill. That's awkward. That's insane. Which is his key legislative everything. His literal legacy. You know, it could turn out here, Crystal, that Obama at least got some fake Obamacare thing at the end.

It was better than nothing. It's very likely that there's nothing that comes out here at all. Now, David Sirota seems to think that after this whole thing is killed, there'll be some other semi-reconciliation bill. I mean, sure, that's possible. But everything is coming to head right now. We've got the debt ceiling. We've got a possible government shutdown looming here because of a continuing resolution in order to fund the government. We've got the reconciliation bill. It all comes to head on Monday. Pelosi says, quote, we're on schedule, whatever the hell that means.

It's very clear that the votes are not there. There's also clear that there's no way in hell that the actual top line numbers on the reconciliation bill itself are agreed to by Monday. I just don't see that humanly possible. All of it is crumbling. The president himself is nowhere. I mean, look, Obama, to his credit, I guess, in the middle of Obamacare negotiations was always there. I actually was reading his book recently. I'm sorry, everyone. I had to in order to convey exactly the mindset as professional hazard. But look, like I said, he gave that special address to Congress on Obamacare

where Joe Wilson shouted, oh, you lie or whatever. He was actually down on Capitol Hill all the time. He was deeply invested in a lot of the negotiations. Biden, by all accounts, is nowhere to be seen. I mean, sure, he'll call Sinema, he'll call Manchin, but he hasn't even been down to Capitol Hill to whip any votes. What is he doing? Actually, during the Obama administration, who was it that they frequently sent down to Capitol Hill to try to twist arms and work on these negotiations? It was Joe Biden. I mean, this is a central part of the case that he made to the American people.

I'm going to be able to get things done. I was there. Because, yeah, I know these people. I know how the institution works. I know how to do these sort of backroom deals. There's an implicit critique of Obama in there because Obama was sort of famously above getting his hands dirty in these kinds of negotiations. Joe has always been the opposite kind of politician, very hands-on, very relationship

based. And yeah, I mean, you just don't really see that happening. You don't see an affirmative case being made to the American people about any of this either. So it is quite puzzling. A little update on what did happen in those White House meetings where he did at least insert himself a little bit yesterday with he had the conservative factions and he also had the progressive factions. So with this is from Manu Raju tweeted this out for the progressives. Progressive Democrats told Biden that September 27th date, that's Monday, for a House vote on the infrastructure bill is, quote, kind of arbitrary to us. And the president left it at and said, let me think it over and talk to Schumer and Speaker

Pelosi and get back to you. So that's kind of where they left things with the progressives, like, nah, let me think about it. With what Manchin said that Biden told him is, and again, take all of this with a grain of salt because everybody coming out of this room is trying to spin things in their favor. But what Manchin said is he basically said, find a number you're comfortable with on the reconciliation bill based on the needs that we still have and how we deliver to the American people. Please just work on it. Give me a number and tell me what you can live with and what you can't. So that would seem to indicate that they are trying to push in the direction of what Sarota has been indicating and what we've sort of speculated as well, that ultimately, even if this infrastructure vote gets pulled or fails on Monday, that there's going to continue to be negotiations and they'll come to some number. Is that number going to be acceptable? Is it going to be worthwhile?

Is it going to strip, remember, something we've been talking about here for a long time that suddenly the mainstream media just picked up on is that Joe Manchin heads the committee that writes all the climate change portions. So is that going to be remotely acceptable to progressives who have said no climate, no deal? Do they continue to draw a hard line?

All of these things, gigantic question mark, and still entirely possible that the whole entire thing collapses. As you said, there are two other major issues coming to a head right now as well, which is the debt ceiling. We're about to reach that sometime mid-October. And government shutdown at the end of the month if they don't pass a stopgap spending bill. John Yarmuth, who, again, is chair of the House Budget Committee, he, we have this tweet, I think, his staff says that there is no time to alter the reconciliation bill or write a standalone bill to lift the debt ceiling. Okay, what does that mean? It means

that they've left themselves in a position where they have to get Republican help to lift the debt ceiling before a default in October. They could have lifted the debt ceiling through the reconciliation bill if they had put that in the original budget instructions, but they didn't. And now what he's saying is there's no time to do that. We can't, we don't have time before October 15th to go back and do new budget instructions and start this process all over again. Because the Senate would have to vote them. Then they would have to kick it over to the House. They would have to redo it. It's a whole thing. It's a whole process. It takes floor time and there just isn't enough time between now and October 15th to do this in the way that Democrats could do it on their own. How is that going to get resolved? Don't know. Their theory of the case right now is that if they put the lifting of the debt ceiling

along with the stopgap budget bill that would basically allow the government to not shut down, that Republicans will be pressured and forced into helping them lift the debt ceiling. There's no indication that that is the case. I don't think that. And I explained this the last show. Every Democratic president, and actually Republican president, Trump fell for this too. Every president goes, American people aren't going to blame me. They're going to blame Congress for screwing around.

Trump made that gamble. Obama made that gamble twice. Who did it work out for everybody? It never works out for the people in power. Why? Especially in this particular case, people can say, hey, you run the government. What are you doing? You have all three, you have both houses of Congress and you have the president. If the government shuts down on your watch, they ain't going to blame Republicans. Even if it is 100% their fault, it feeds into the chaos. Biden's approval rating

is already tanking. The economy thing in particular is where he's already, has lost the most amount of ground. You have a government shutdown that always costs billions of dollars to the economy. I have zero doubt in my mind that the Biden administration would be the one that suffered the most. Republicans have no incentive. And actually, you know, to your point too, this again shows how much of a failure Biden is in terms of policing the actual coalitions within the Democratic Party. 11 senators, let's put this up there from, I think it's another Jake Sherman tweet, which is 11 senators have come out to back the House Progressive. So it's not just like the House who's rabble rousing here. You've got Cory Booker, Gillibrand, Hirono, Merkley, Padilla, Sanders, Warren, Brian Schatz, Tina Smith, even from Minnesota, Sheldon Whitehouse,

all those people in the Senate are actually backing the idea because they don't necessarily like the bipartisan infrastructure bill either. Biden has not done any real job here in trying to square the circle. And, you know, going to Manchin and saying, give me a number you can live with. I mean, he's one senator, but here we have 11 who have an entirely other different agenda. I'm just really struck by his complete lack of insertion into the process so far. This kind of hands-off thing. He styles himself as LBJ and FDR. And I can tell you that neither of those presidents,

I think, yeah, I've got books about coming behind me. Neither of those presidents did anything of the sort and were deeply and intimately involved in these negotiations. This is a big leadership failure, in my opinion, the fact that it even got to this point. And now it's so precarious, I don't see any other option but to fail. I don't see how else it could go. I mean, we're not geniuses here,

but we said as soon as the relief bill passed and they didn't put some of these things into it at the time when there was real momentum and there was this real push and there was a lot of pressure on centers to deliver after they promised these checks and all this stuff. When he didn't do that then, at that point, we both said this could be it for him. That's what I said. We both.

Political capital. Listen, I mean, look at the history of presidents, which I know Joe Biden has done. He's wanted to be president for like 87 years, okay? So he's studied the history of how these administrations unfold. He participated for eight years as vice president. Most everything happens in the first hundred days. What doesn't happen in the first hundred days is not likely to get done. So gigantic mistake number one is not trying to make some of these big permanent lasting changes, not just the little stopgap relief stuff that's already come and gone, to do that in the first 100 days. The fact that that didn't happen, you know, this bipartisanship fetish and obsession in Washington that has thoroughly rotted Joe Biden's brain and the brain of like 99% of the press corps here

led to them splitting these two pieces apart. And now it's creating a giant mess because an entirely predictable thing said at first the corporatists were like, yeah, sure, we'll go along with that. And then they sensed a moment to get the upper hand and they've taken it. So they're putting into peril his entire agenda. And yes, that's their fault. But it's also his fault because the entire strategy, the tactical decisions that were made led to exactly this moment that we're at. Also, they've known that this government shutdown was coming. Also, they've known the debt ceiling was coming. Also, they've known that this government shutdown was coming. Also, they've known the debt ceiling was coming. Also, they've known the Republicans are assholes

and aren't going to help them lift the debt ceiling. Like, this is breaking news to you somehow? Were you alive in 2010? Right, or any time. Like, what? You thought Mitch McConnell was going to help you with your little problem here? Of course he's not.

Of course he's not. So they've created a gigantic mess for themselves, and it is entirely unclear how any of this gets resolved. But I can tell you the idea of a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill or anything close to that getting through, dead. I remember you saying that, actually, almost immediately after the CARES Act. You're like, what are you doing? You're like, this is the time. And I remember I think I was looking at the schedule whenever they're like, well, nothing's going to pass until October. I was like, that's in four months.

Yeah, like, wait. You're like, we're not going to be able to get to it. Yeah, I was like, I know how to read a calendar. That just means you all want to go on vacation, which is what happened. Oh, and then they were like, their justification was, well, negotiations will happen during vacation. How did that work out? How did that work out? Amazing.

Another huge story we've been tracking here is what's going on in China. Yeah. So actually, I'll read some breaking news that actually came out this morning from the Wall Street Journal. So it's China makes preparations for Evergrande's demise. So we brought you previously Evergrande, that highly leveraged real estate company, which is in China. They have the largest debt burden of any publicly traded real estate company in the world. It's particularly significant in China because it's kind of the leading edge of this real estate boom, which compromises about one third of their entire economy. So it's such a huge sector. At the same time, a huge amount of the Chinese public is actually very invested in Evergrande because,

I think, what is it, 1.5 million, something like that, people have deposits with the company and are waiting for delivery on their houses. Now, the company itself has not even been able to, barely been able to make payroll. They have been paying out huge amounts of dividends to their shareholders. Oh, coincidentally, also their CEO, who's made $5 billion actually from the companies alone in dividends. One of the richest men in China. One of the richest men in China. All of this being said, and the reason why it's very significant, is that Evergrande itself, both its bonds as well as its stock, is actually held by a significant number of American companies, specifically private equity guys, BlackRock and more, you know, God bless them, I guess, who are in real trouble. You just hate to see it right now. But what they have done,

essentially, is we have globalized and interconnected our entire economy. So, I guess, who are in real trouble. You just hate to see it right now. But what they have done, essentially, is we have globalized and interconnected our entire economy. So back in 2008, when our economy crashed, obviously rippled over into China because they held our stuff. Oh, well, thanks to globalization, now we hold a lot of their debt and their bonds, which can affect our markets. So the demise of Evergrande itself could actually trigger an entire fallout within the Chinese housing economy as well as here at home. Now, the Xi Jinping and the Chinese government, you might say, why don't they just bail him out? Part of the issue is that the popular uprising against Evergrande is both there, so people are angry, but two is that Evergrande is in violation of something called the Three Red Lines.

So back, I think, a couple years ago, Xi Jinping recognized, like, hey, this thing is out of control. This is crazy. We have to draw some sort of lines in terms of our real estate market. And they drew the three red lines. Won't bore everybody with the details, but it involves debt. It involves the way that you operate your finances, kind of like the stress test that we have for our Federal Reserve on our major banking institutions. Evergrande right now is currently in violation of all three of the red lines. So if the Chinese Communist Party were to bail them out, they're basically sending a message to the entire real estate market and the Hong Kong

Stock Exchange that actually our rules don't matter anymore. Well, this morning, this brings us to the breaking news in the journal, China and Beijing has made calls to local officials across the country to prepare for a, quote, possible storm, meaning that the slowing Chinese economy. And the reason why is that Evergrande is actually intertwined with a bunch of interconnected deals with some of the biggest property developers all across of China. themselves up to such heights as long as the prices of houses continue to go up because they had appreciating assets which were on their books, which they could again borrow against. Housing prices are beginning to go down. We're beginning to see that these fake cities and all these things they've built are not there or are incomplete. The Chinese public itself is beginning to be outraged. Xi Jinping needs to show that he's the boss and that he will allow a company like this to fail. But the real thing that we all have to be worried about is contagion, which is that if the Chinese Evergrande goes out, we already saw three

different companies on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which were real estate companies, collapsed almost by 90% before the Chinese halted trading on that stock exchange crystal. And all of it comes together for the contagion, which could reach into our private equity holdings here in the United States, which of course don't just hold Evergrande. They hold all kinds of domestic companies. So if they have a cash crunch, they might have to call in stuff. Then we're going to see drops in our holdings.

It's just a total and complete mess. So there's a lot of seeming confidence among a lot of Wall Street analysts that like, oh, even if Evergrande fails and it's terrible for China, like we're going to be fine. And maybe they're right. Like these guys study this stuff for a living. Of course, they're routinely catastrophically wrong all the time and have their own interests and being like, the market's fine. Continue to invest. Don't worry about it. It's all good to go.

So I don't really take their word for it because even if, and their justification is basically like, listen, it's mostly domestic Chinese firms that are tied up in this thing. Yeah, BlackRock or whoever, they have some, but it's not like a huge exposure. You also have a difference from Lehman Brothers in that Evergrande has real assets that they can sell off. So it's not just a total fabricated gambling house of cards. But we all know that the stock market is basically fake. And we know that it's just a graph of rich people's feelings. So if China starts to have major economic issues, how can you be so confident that this isn't going to have follow-on effects? I mean, it just doesn't make sense to me, knowing the very basics of what we know about how interconnected the world is, how globalization has made it so that a problem in a gigantic economy like China's, how can that not be a problem for us as well? I mean, we see

even, you know, the way that our supply chains are all screwed up, partly because of our own issues here, partly because of global issues with regards to COVID. So to me, I just do not trust the idea that if China has a gigantic problem, it's just going to be contained to China and it's nothing for us to worry about. And they do have major issues here because, first of all, you have that 1.5 million average Chinese citizens who are like, where's my house? Evergrande employs 200,000 people, roughly, thereabouts. That's not including the contractors who, and again, a lot of this, there's very little transparency, but who seem to be, you know, needing payment and not receiving it. Because Evergrande and the other real estate development companies in China seem to have taken a similar approach, but Evergrande's the worst. I mean, they fueled their growth with debt, and it was all effectively kind of like a pyramid scheme. I mean, borrowing from

Peter to pay Paul, and then when the music stopped, and there stopped being so much demand for housing, and prices start to increase at a less rapid rate, and then these regulations come in, putting pressure on them, making it difficult for them to borrow more to continue to fuel this cycle. When the music stops, they're host. So you have, you know, all of so you have what was it, 280 cities or something in China that Evergrande has projects in. You've got 200,000 employees. You've got all of these contractors. You have in China, 171 domestic banks and 121 other financial firms that have exposure here. You have all of those you reference,

you know, a lot of these property deals and development deals are actually joint ventures with other smaller companies. So they're all exposed and screwed. And this is a third of China's economy. I mean, a lot of the way that they've been able to fuel growth is through this housing market that keeps going up and up and up and up, gigantic bubble created. And then on the other side, you have people who haven't been able to buy into that, you know, their version of the American dream, the Chinese dream of home ownership and all of that. And prices have just gotten to a point where it's wildly unaffordable for people. So that was part of why they wanted to tap the brakes here. They didn't want it to continue to escalate forever, creating an ever larger bubble, making housing

wildly out of reach for people. So they're in a very tough position. And, you know, it is a very similar dynamic to what we faced here and the choices that politicians made here terrible ones and many times with regards to our own housing crisis because they enshrined the idea here of too big to fail and they said to they sent a message to the banks that you can be as reckless and careless and despicable and criminal in your behavior as you want. And we're going to bail you out and there's not going to be any consequences. And your executives are going to get as rich as they possibly can. And they're worried about sending the same message domestically in China to these firms that they've been trying to kind of reel in

that like, well, actually, you are too big to fail. Actually, we are going to come to your rescue. And actually, everything we said was kind of bullshit. No, you're exactly right. And so S&P 500, let's put the CNBC tear sheet up there. The S&P Global actually put out a report saying they don't think China may bail out Evergrande here unless there's, quote, far reaching contagion. And well, one person who I think we should all take seriously is Jim Chanos. He's actually the guy, the short seller who predicted Enron's collapse. Let's put the New York Post tear sheet up there, which has written up his comments. He says that the collapse of Evergrande could actually be worse than Lehman Brothers. Here's what he says, and this echoes a lot of what you just said, Crystal. Quote, there's a lot of Evergrandes out there in China.

Evergrande just happens to be one of the biggest. But all the developers look like this. The whole Chinese property markets are on stilts. In many ways, you don't have to worry that it's a Lehman Brothers situation, Lehman type situation, but in many ways, it's worse because it's symptomatic of the whole economic model and debt that's behind the model here. So what we're pointing to is that Evergrande, just like Lehman, Lehman was the worst, right? It had the most mortgage-backed securities out of all of them. But that didn't mean that Morgan Stanley and Bank of America and Goldman and all these other people were like great actors.

They were just not as screwed. So Evergrande is just the tip of the iceberg here in terms of the Chinese property market. And actually, the real estate in China comprises more of their financial sector in terms of their overall economy than the financial sector did here in the United States at the time of that crisis. Now, look, at the end of the day, I can't foresee a total collapse just because they're an authoritarian state and they can literally just reach in and be like, yeah, no, none of this is happening. It's completely over. But some sort of contagion within our markets in particular is not too far to be seen. I absolutely think that he could be correct here in terms of even,

remember, that our investors have hundreds of billions of dollars which are invested out in China. Even a reduction of gain by 5% would have a massive impact on the returns of our traders. And as much as I wouldn't like it to be, those people supply a huge amount of liquidity and more to the rest of the financial sector. Yeah. I mean, it's very hard to predict how these things end up because, yes, it's an authoritarian country. Yes, they're going to, like, if there is a widespread contagion, they're going to jump in and do what they can. But it's just, it's almost chaos theory. You just don't know in a complicated and rigged and, you know, like unpredictable situation like our global economic system is, you just don't know what's ultimately going to happen. I was thinking this

morning, you know, the person we need to get on to talk to about this is Dylan Rattigan, who's like so insanely correct about the housing crisis and tends to be able to really understand these dynamics and see through sort of like the bullshit and the spin of everybody propping up whatever their own self-interest is in the crisis. But certainly something big

to keep an eye on and we'll see where it goes and continue to look for people like Dylan and others who we actually trust who were right last time. Just like don't listen to people who were wrong

last time around. Just sort of ignore that. On a rack or the financial crisis. Yeah, that's just a good rule of thumb. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for?

Become a premium member today by going to BreakingPoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. And that's actually a great segue. People who were wrong or got us into Iraq or lied us into Iraq and committed massive war crimes. George W. Bush. Speaking of criminals. Yeah, speaking of criminals. So he's having a little bit of a renaissance right now, Sagar. It is interesting because for a while he was just kind of quiet, like doing his painting at his ranch or whatever. I don't know if you agree with this,

but it seems like he's starting to feel, have the confidence to reinsert himself into our political conversation. We certainly saw that with that obnoxious, horrible 9-11 speech that he gave. No other president or former president spoke. I couldn't believe that.

But he did. Right. Horrible. And lacking in any, you know, repentance or self-reflection or any of that and making the case for a new domestic war on terror to match the horrific, you know, unconscionable war on terror that he launched during his administration. Well, now he's getting the band back together. Liz Cheney in a lot of trouble there in Wyoming in her congressional race. But don't worry,

the cavalry is riding in to back her up. Throw this invite up on the screen. Having a fundraiser with special guests, President George W. Bush and some other familiar names on there. Yeah. In particular, you might note one, Karl Rove is also on the committee, the finance committee there. So she's certainly not going to have an issue raising money. But I mean, this is why it's like, was so bizarre and troubling to see the way that MSNBC and CNN and mainstream Washington were like propping up

and cheering for Liz Cheney because she happened to be, you know, correct on the one issue that seems to matter to them, which is Donald Trump. But meanwhile, you're going to align yourself with this dude who, I'm sorry, was way, way, way worse. Just put aside their like personality traits. But in terms of the damage that he wrought on our country and on the world, there's no contest between George W. Bush and Donald Trump. And she's celebrated even as she's, like, bringing back to life and aligning with these horrific Bush-era neocon war criminals. There's nothing—that list there is like a murderer's row. Like Karl Rove, Harriet Myers, Kay Bailey, this is Bush mafia, Kay Bailey Hutchins, she was a senator from Texas

back whenever I was growing up. Yeah, my great senator, John Cornyn. A lot of these people from the Bush White House, and actually I recently reread a history of the Bush years just in order to get myself right before 9-11 so I could do that monologue that I did, I think, on September 14th. And it was incredible to me that even within the White House, so even within the neocon faction on Iraq, who do you think believed the most in the nation-building vision? It was Liz Cheney. She even believed in it more than her father, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, all of them. She was a true neoconservative believer,

which means she herself is just as responsible for justifying that war. She pushed President Bush in order to stay the course and all that. I mean, if you think about even the crimes of that as opposed to pushing for all the ridiculous stuff that she has in Congress, deregulation, etc., you put it all together and you're just like, this is the last person on earth anyone should be defending. And Bush is coming out for her for one reason, which is that she worked on his campaign. She worked in his administration.

But she advances the vision that he put forth on the world. We know the consequences of that. And we both saw this video with Great Relish, an Iraq war veteran who actually interrupted Bush at one of his more recent speeches. And you can just see the passion in his face. He said a lot of what I've always wanted to say, what I think a lot of people wanted to say. And he has the actual credibility in order to say it to him. Let's take a listen to what he did. Mr. Price, when are you going to apologize for the million Iraqis that are dead because you lied? You lied about weapons of mass destruction.

You lied about connections to 9-11. You lied about Iraq being a threat. You sent me to Iraq. You sent me to Iraq in 2003. My friends are dead. Joshua Castillo. You killed people. You lied. You lie about WMD. A million Iraqis are dead because you lie. My friends are dead because you lie. You need to apologize.

Apologize. Wow. Put it in my veins. Yeah, it's just amazing. And also, who are these women manhandling this guy? He served in Iraq. Like, get the hell out of here. You know? I mean, security, okay, that's one thing. But, like, these little female organizers or whatever, I'm like, show some respect. You know?

It looked like it was just, like, the lady who happened to be sitting next to him. Right. I was like, what are you doing? I did kind of like her beige jumpsuit, though. I will admit that. Yeah, look, they were dressed very nicely. I've been to some of these things, and sometimes these protests are just pretty annoying. But, like, these ones, veterans, you leave these people alone.

I've even seen, I think, Cindy Sheehan or whatever. She lost her son. She can do whatever the hell she wants. Agreed. And, by the way, so this is Mike Prisoner, who is, you guys may know, journalist Abby Martin. This couple, man, they go hard. They do not mess around. But, I mean,

I can't imagine anything more righteous. I mean, at the very least, at the very least, given that this man has faced zero accountability, is now like a hero celebrated by resistance liberals.

By the media. And absolutely, and routinely celebrated by the media. It's like, oh, those were the good old days under George W. Bush. At least for him to have to listen to that. At least for him to have to see the face of one of the men that he put through hell because of his lies and his atrocities. At least it's some modicum of something.

So kudos. I mean, it's an amazing thing to watch, and it's far less, obviously, than what George W. Bush actually deserves. It's far less than what he deserves. It gives me—I guess it makes me happy because what it is is that I was worried. I was like, are we forgetting? I'm like, are we forgetting what these people did? Are we like— My God, I've forgotten. forgetting what these people did? The totality of it is almost hard to remember and to realize. Iraq, the trillions of dollars, the Iraqis who are dead, the Americans who are dead. I mean, people who died for nothing. I mean, for lies. And I don't mean that in a derogatory term.

Their service always has to be remembered. I'm saying they were put in harm's way by our leaders for a straight up lie. And they're legitimate. This is what, you know, this is like, it just really disturbs me. They're legitimate feelings of patriotism and desire for service and desire to do good in the world. You manipulated that and you weaponized that and sent them in many cases to their death or to be maimed or to, you know, end up with PTSD or traumatic brain injury that ruined their life. The milestones they missed at home, whether it was the birth of a child or a birthday or a graduation or whatever it was, like, you did that. And at least for one moment, he had to look in the face of someone that he committed these crimes to. Yeah, so props to him. I guarantee you he will not remember it.

He sleeps just fine at night. He has like a religious zeal that he did the right thing. But, you know, I think the rest of us should remember. Yeah. Okay, speaking of people being confronted, I guess, evil people being confronted. Bill Gates recently gave an interview with PBS NewsHour's Judy Woodruff, and she pressed him pretty hard on Jeffrey Epstein, his past connections there. And Gates gives one of the most bizarre answers that I've ever heard. For those

who are watching, pay very close attention to his body language, the fidgeting, how uncomfortable he is. For those who are listening, we'll describe it to you on the other side. Let's take a listen. Was reported at that time that you had a number of meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, who when you met him 10 years ago, he was convicted of soliciting prostitution from minors.

What did you know about him when you were meeting with him, as you've said yourself, in the hopes of raising money? You know, I had dinners with him. I regret doing that. He had relationships with people he said, you know, would give to global health, which is an interest I have, you know, not nearly enough philanthropy goes in that direction. You know, those meetings were a mistake. They didn't what he purported, and I cut them off. You know, that goes back a long time ago now. There's, you know, so there's nothing new on that. It was reported that you continue to meet with him over several years and that, in other words, a number of meetings. What did you do when you found out about his background?

Well, you know, I've said I regretted having those dinners. And there's nothing, absolutely nothing new on that. Is there a lesson for you, for anyone else looking at this? Well, he's dead. So, you know, in general, you always have to be careful. And, you know, I'm very proud of what we've done in philanthropy, very proud of the work of the foundation. You know, that's what I get up every day and focus on. Ooh, he's dead. So there's no lessons? There's no lessons?

It's like, maybe I should have done more due diligence as the world's richest man. Like, maybe I shouldn't have tried to use Epstein as a vector to try and win the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe I shouldn't have been hanging out with him and venting about my wife. Yeah. Which, you know, as a reminder, put the New York Post thing up there. Obviously lying about the nature of his contact with Jeffrey Epstein. The New York Post article says Jeffrey Epstein gave advice to Bill Gates about ending his marriage to Melinda. Okay.

All right. Got it. Apparently, you know, this is probably leaked by Melinda's divorce team and all of that. But there have been multiple reports indicating. And there have been multiple witnesses who said, actually, they were boys. They were buddies. Like, this is where he went to escape. You know, he wasn't happy in his marriage. This was where he went to relax and that it was a point of

contention in their marriage because Melinda has worked on, you know, ending sex trafficking. And this is an issue that she's actually invested some time in. So she's like, what the hell are you doing with this dude? Question that we all continue to have. And remember, he was a convicted pedophile by the time that Gates was hanging out with him. This is not, there's no excuse. There's no, I didn't know. No, like he was already convicted whenever this happened and he got his little sweetheart deal and Gates hung out with him on multiple occasions. As I pointed out, I mean, the Norwegian press revealed that Gates actually flew with Epstein to France and that they visited the head of the Nobel Committee because Gates is obsessed, as he keeps pointing to, with getting the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Gates Foundation. And that is really what this was all about.

And it's funny, too. Whenever you listen to Gates talking there, first of all, he's the richest man in the world. He doesn't actually need outside financing. Right. So what's going on there? Like, what? Or I he's the richest man in the world. He doesn't actually need outside financing. So what's going on? Or I guess he's the second richest man in the world, whatever. So he's the second richest man in the world. He doesn't need outside financing whatsoever. So now what? Why are you meeting with Epstein? And Epstein, according to Gates, was promising him all of this, oh, these financing structures in order to get development work done.

I have said this a million times, like with Leon Black, who was worth $9 billion, who was a Wall Street titan, who says that he went to Epstein for tax advice for a lot of these guys. They can have, look, if the people who are worth $9 and $80 billion can't have access to the very top of the advisors in the legitimate world, the Goldman Sachs, what are you doing? Whatever you're going to Epstein. This whole tax advice stuff, it doesn't hold up whatsoever. I mean, Gates can call any bank and any billionaire in the world

in order to go sit down with them to talk development financing. You had to go to this guy? Why this guy? And I think we're beginning to learn some of that. Adam Johnson actually tweeted to this point. He was like, Gates keeps giving this line. He hung out with Epstein multiple times because Epstein had access to donors for public health. Yes. And not once does anyone ask the obvious question of, who specifically is this person?

Who are these people who Bill Gates cannot on his own get in touch with? And then he says, Secretary, Sir Bill Gates called again. He wants to talk about donating with you to cure AIDS. Mystery rich man, Bill who? Tell him I'll only deal with him through my disgraced child sex trafficker contact. That's a great point. And that's exactly what I'm talking about,

which is the Gates Foundation actually has a larger footprint in many countries than the USAID, our aid organization, to give you an idea of the scale of what she already is operating at whenever he's meeting with Epstein. Look, all we're saying is stop BSing us. The story makes no sense. We're all seeing through this. It's insane. Like the idea that you need Jeffrey Epstein for money. You're Bill Gates. You are Bill Gates. You are one of the richest men on the entire planet. And you need Jeffrey Epstein to have access to donors or access to money?

It's so silly and absurd. Like, we are not this stupid, Bill. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that Leon Black, we didn't have something made for this. He's the former private equity giant, former CEO of Apollo Global Management, billions of dollars under management, himself a longtime billionaire, was just recently accused by a second woman of violently raping her at Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2002. Obviously, he denies it, all the legal caveats and all that. But look, I'm just saying, we've got the Prince Andrews situation here where he's literally being protected by the palace guard from being served papers. Like they've got the metropolitan British police are protecting him from being able to be served with the lawsuit so that he cannot be tried in a civil court here in the United States. Leon Black, now accused, second person. He's forced out of Apollo specifically because he was hiding his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Now, Bill Gates, every time the guy does an interview, also did you notice he's like thumbing for his fake, for his old wedding ring? It's kind of sad, actually. I didn't notice that. Yeah, he's like fidgeting. It's not there anymore. So he's got that whole situation. He says, you know, and yet, look, the real problem is, and props to Woodruff for even pressing him, but somebody needs to ask that question. What were you getting from him that you can't get anywhere else in the world?

You're already one of the world's biggest philanthropists. Not a single one of these billionaires who have been caught up with this guy have ever answered. They all answer the same version of, I wish I never met the guy. Like Leslie Wexner or whatever, the Victoria's Secret guy, who signed over all his fortune to him for some reason. That one is really. Right. Seems to have been the key to how Epstein was able to live this lavish lifestyle. In the beginning.

And ingratiate himself into these circles to start with. But, yeah, well, Epstein's dead, so there are big things we should move on. It's amazing that he says there's no lesson to be learned. He's like, oh, I've got to do my due diligence. He's like, oh, well, he's dead. He's dead, so eh. Okay, all right. Interesting comment.

Next, speaking of things dredged up, some of you might have seen FX actually launched. A real retro show. This is very retro. Well, it's interesting because I've been trying to watch this series. It's not on Hulu or whatever, but FX, which did the O.J. Simpson trial, and something else, which I think

was the Versace thing. They just did a mini series on Lewinsky. So it's kind of, it's revived a little bit of the Lewinsky discussion. And I do actually think it's important for people my age and maybe even a little bit younger. We didn't, weren't fully cognizant, I think during the Lewinsky scandal, but I mean, it was, you know, the national story of the time. It was 100%, you know, what was happening. And one of the elements of it, which modern feminists would go crazy over, is the fact that a lot of these old school feminists in the Democratic Party, they didn't just go to bat. They went hard for Bill Clinton to smear Monica Lewinsky, turned her life upside down, basically slut-shamed her,

and not blamed the president who has had multiple allegations against him. We got a little bit of a preview of that from The View yesterday, when Joy Behar, who was exactly one of these people, channeling her inner 90s protection instincts. Listen to how she describes what the Lewinsky scandal meant for Monica Lewinsky and who the real victim was. Let's take a listen. I would submit here that the real victim was the United States of America because, and Hillary Clinton, because if you remember when the debate was going on between Trump and Hillary, Trump brought in all these so-called victims of Clinton's peccadilloes, right? Okay. If they had brought in, if Democrats

had done the same and brought in Donald Trump's victims and those who wouldn't have done anything, they would have needed an arena. Exactly. And to be clear, there were a lot of- He allegedly abused a lot of women, Bill Clinton. Yeah, but when he brought those women into that debate, that hurt Hillary Clinton. And that is the real victim. The country lost a great person. Hillary Clinton could have been the president instead of that criminal that we had there for four years. And that's the real victim.

And that's the real loser. I want to push back. The real victim was Hillary and the United States. Well, and what she means by that is that, like, oh, a good man was taken out as president and reputation tarnished. And a good woman who should have been our rightful president was, you know, was tarnished by all of this. I mean, I also love the way she says in this just voice full of contempt, alleged victims. It really does harken back. And even I was like, you know, I wasn't really super political when I was young.

So this was all sort of happening in the background. And I wasn't really tuning into all of the Washington debates and like Maureen Dowd columns and whatever when I was 17 or whatever it was at the time. So even for me, it's helpful to remember the way people like thought about this and portrayed this at the time. But yeah, all this language from the beginning about like, oh, if you drag a $20 bill through a trailer park and calling them bimbo eruptions. And then the way that these supposed feminists came in not to attack Bill for his exploitation. I mean, Monica, she was a young intern. She was like 23 years old. And her entire life has now become defined by this and ruined by this. And she goes on to say, oh, she's doing fine.

She's making money but like money is not everything you've had your entire life she had to move to europe yeah stolen from you by this man when you are a young intern and he's the most powerful man in the world and you don't think that that's relevant still today in 2021 you haven't figured that out and you're you know alleged victims the're, you know, alleged victims. The other thing, you know, we spoke with Juanita Broderick back when we were on. With Tara, around Tara Reid. Around Tara Reid and all that was happening there.

And you can see the way that because of how she was treated. I mean, she has her own agency and all of that. But because of the way she was treated so terribly by the Clintons, by everybody around, by everybody in the Democratic Party, like she is so far down the right wing rabbit hole. And you can see the way that they're just like sneering contempt pushes people away. I mean, you can see it very clearly in that instance. But this is just a disgusting way to view the whole situation and that she still unrepentantly views it the same way she did in 1999. It's pretty interesting. Whatever you think of Juanita, she's a sweet lady.

I think we at least got that from the interview. She's such a nice woman. And, you know, she was smeared viciously by these people. And, you know, she accused Clinton of rape back in the 70s. And the machine just destroyed her. And actually, I dug this up. So I didn't even know about this until the Me Too whole thing started in 2017, which was one person. Her name was Marjorie Williams. She actually wrote this back in 1998. Let's put this up there on the

screen. One of the only honest actors. And she was like, hey, Clinton's sordid entanglements with Flowers and Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky have drawn barely a squeak of protest from the powerful writers, lawyers, activists, politicians, and academics who call themselves feminists. And what she points to repeatedly is that a lot of the people who called themselves feminists back in the 90s, because politically Clinton actually defended a lot of the stuff they agreed with, they not only gave him a pass. Crystal, they were saying stuff like, oh, well, he's just like a virile southern man. I was like, oh, well, he's just like a virile southern man. I was like, okay, all right, all right. So that's justification for taking advantage of a 23-year-old intern

and turning her life upside down? He never apologized to her once. And, you know, the fact of the matter is, like, nothing's really changed. I mean, think about Time's Up. Like, think about this organization supposedly dedicated to Me Too and telling the stories of survivors and helping them fight back in court and all of that. And what you come to learn is like, no, actually, you just want to control what happens within the Me Too movement. So it doesn't come for any of the politicians you like, like Joe Biden, when Tara Reid comes to you

and says, here's what happened to me and are you going to help me? And the answer is hell no, absolutely not. And then with Andrew Cuomo, not only are they like, we're not going to help you. They're like, how can we assist in smearing Andrew Cuomo's accusers? So nothing's really changed. They have total blinders on when it comes to like who counts, whose allegations matter, how they should be handled. It's not really any different. And I guess that's what this moment with Joy kind of reveals is like they haven't actually changed. They may be a little better in general, like rhetorically about pretending.

They don't say he's virile. They care about all women. They wouldn't say that virile. They wouldn't like allow the bimbo eruption language or the $20 through the trailer park language. But underlying all of that, there's still entire levels of like hypocrisy and selective outrage when a woman comes forward with a credible allegation. That's right. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. Well, I know this is annoying. Instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcast I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. All right, Crystal, what are you taking a look at? virtual theory of politics, I believe that reality actually matters more than messaging or

misinformation or political ads, more than shutdowns even or procedure or poll numbers. The way people feel about their lives and their jobs and the future for their kids has a lot more to do with how and whether they'll ultimately vote than the sorts of debates on language and framing and ideology that normally dominate the cable news airwaves. Of course, part of why we've had these crazy swings in our politics from one team to the other is because reality has not been that great. The naive hopes of the Clinton tech bubble era, they've collapsed into a depression of elite crimes, financial precarity, and working class oblivion. The most brazen criminals in the country, they got rich. The most honest, salt-of-the-earth people in the country, they got screwed.

And we keep tossing out this party and then tossing out that party because neither one actually gives a damn about doing anything to restore some basic sense of fair play, of possibility, of just an expectation of a basic level of dignity. But to give you a few specific examples of my grand theory that reality actually matters, let's think about why Trump lost. It's pretty obvious. People felt crappy about a pandemic that was keeping them at home, their kids out of school, and threatening their loved ones. Even if Trump had done nothing different at all, but the pandemic happened to be easing and people were starting the fall with their kids headed back to school,

zero doubt in my mind that he would have been re-elected. Another example you can think to, back in 2012, things were not all that amazing in the economy, but the unemployment rate was consistently ticking down. The number of people in the country who felt the nation was on the right track was consistently ticking up. It was enough for Obama to defeat the cartoonish caricature of out-of-touch wealth that they skillfully defined Romney as. But things were very, very different just two years earlier in the midterms of 2010. Remember this? President Bush, when he went through a similar thing, came out and he said this was a thumping. You talked about how it was humbling, or you alluded to it perhaps being humbling.

And I'm wondering, when you call your friends, like Congressman Perriello or Governor Strickland, and you see 19 state legislatures go to the other side, governorships in swing states, the Democratic Party set back, what does it feel like? It feels bad. Now, I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I did last night. I'm sure there are easier ways to learn these lessons. A shellacking. Reality sucked in 2010. The left was furious. The right was furious. The economy was terrible. The recovery was slow. The mood was seething. And voters either stayed

home entirely or they showed up to register their fury by kicking out the party in power with gusto. That was the year I ran for Congress as a Democrat. Amazing timing on my part. But the truth of the matter is, Democrats that year, they deserved to lose. Remember, these people had a majority in the House. They had a supermajority in the Senate. They were entrusted with astonishing power, historic power, at the most critical moment imaginable, and they blew it. They deserved to lose because they didn't jail any bankers for their crimes, because they didn't end the wars they said they would, because they were more worried about Chuck Todd thinking they spent too much money in the stimulus than actually getting the policy right. They decided to do a giant too much money in the stimulus than actually getting the policy right.

They decided to do a giant giveaway to health insurers rather than actually rip out the corrupt health care mafia system root and branch and create in its place something that was actually about health and care. The Republicans, of course, they didn't deserve to win. But there is zero doubt Democrats suffered a righteous and fully deserved loss. Well, friends, where are we today with the Biden administration? We got some check-the-box executive orders. We got a short-term relief package that has now mostly expired. And we got a truly courageous withdrawal from Afghanistan that was marred unfairly by media coverage

and very fairly by a drone strike that murdered an entire Afghan family and their babies. The rest of the Biden promises on everything from unions to economics to civil rights and immigration, they have all collapsed in a heap at the feet of Joe Manchin, Josh Gottheimer, Kyrsten Sinema, and most importantly, Joe Biden himself. Think about it. He promised to raise the wage to $15 per hour. That's gone. He launched his campaign with the firefighters union, pledging to be the wage to $15 per hour. That's gone. He launched his campaign with the Firefighters Union, pledging to be the most pro-union president in history. But the PRO Act looks set to go down with the reconciliation bill or be cut out by the parliamentarian. Climate change is in the hands of

coal baron Joe Manchin. Voting rights, police reform, redistricting reform, campaign finance reform, all dead. Immigration reform has been killed by the parliamentarian. The entire populist economic agenda appears right now to be going down in flames. A base that was highly animated to end the cruelty of Trump-era immigration policies, they've been treated to images of horror at the border and the realization that the Biden admin is now engaged in one of the largest mass expulsions of migrants in history. Maybe nothing, though, exemplifies Democratic Party failure better than the doomed fate of prescription drug reform. Everyone in the party has been running on lowering drug prices for more than a decade. It is a policy supported by 80 or 90 percent of Americans,

and it's probably going to fail. What is a political party worth if they can't even deliver on something so incredibly basic, obvious, and long pledged as lowering prescription drug prices? Now, listen, you might be on one side or the other of some of these issues, but two things are abundantly clear. Number one, Biden voters were lied to. The promises were fake. Number two, reality right now sucks. Let me show you in one graph how people are feeling about the state of America right now. Just take a look at this chart. So the number of Americans who think we are on the wrong track has spiked dramatically over the past several months. You can see that at the end there. Wrong track has been besting right

track for a while now in America. But back just as recently as May, wrong track was only ahead of right track by a mere seven points. Today, that gap has exploded to 30 points as Delta has surged, supply shortages have widened, and Biden just looks on. He has burned up so much time fixating on this bipartisan infrastructure bill and the absurd belief that voters are going to care more about whether Lindsey Graham signed on to an unelected bureaucrat, to an unwillingness to end an arcane procedural rule called the filibuster, and a seeming unwillingness to use a single hardball tactic to bring the corporate sellouts to heel. Not to mention a disastrous political strategy that left the entire agenda hanging until right now. So just like 2010, Republicans don't deserve to win. They have zero to offer or say. But do Democrats deserve to lose? You betcha.

Unless something wildly changes, the party in power will get shellacked and they will deserve it. And listen, we talked about this starting the show. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, by now, you may have heard of the case of Gabby Petito. She was a young 22-year-old girl. She set off across the country this summer

in a van with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, for a trip out west. It was documenting her experience very meticulously on social media and her popular YouTube account. Now, the case actually has captured national attention after Petito's remains recently were identified in Grand Teton National Park. Preliminary finding is that her death was sadly caused by a homicide. Now, before I get to the specifics of the case, let's just say her death has caused a lot of takes. One of the most popular is this, who cares? People go missing every day. MSNBC's Joanne Reed, in particular, was outraged at the attention on Petito's death, saying it's a case of missing white lady syndrome. Let's take a listen.

If you've been watching the news for the past few days or on Twitter or TikTok, you're probably familiar with the name Gabby Petito, the 22-year-old aspiring social media influencer who was reported missing after her fiancé returned from their van life excursion without her. On Sunday, human remains believed to be Petito's were found in a national park in Wyoming. An autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow to confirm the identity. Now, it goes without saying that no family should ever have to endure that kind of pain. And the Petito family certainly deserves answers and justice. But the way this story has captivated the nation has many wondering,

why not the same media attention when people of color go missing? Well, the answer actually has a name, Missing White Woman Syndrome, the term coined by the late and great Gwen Ifill to describe the media and public fascination with missing white women like Lacey Peterson or Natalie Holloway, while ignoring cases involving missing people of color. Now look, is race a part of national coverage? 100%. And the cases of Natalie Holloway and Lacey Peterson were actually sensationalized two decades ago.

But what the entire media is missing here is that they were second to this story, not first. The reason that Petito's case gained such salience online is it was born of interest online. TikTokers, YouTubers, Instagram people, they considered Petito one of their own, and they got involved in the case to piece together the pieces that the cops had very obviously missed. And here's the thing. The facts of this case are actually crazy. After Petito's family lost touch with her in August of 2021, her boyfriend showed up back in Florida

two weeks later with the van that they were traveling in, and she wasn't there. Obviously, they had a lot of questions. Uh, what's going on, Brian? Where's Gabby? Then police showed up to his house to ask him, and he wouldn't talk to them. According to the Petito family, he wouldn't talk to them either. On September 15th, after Brian was named a person of interest in this case, he also went missing, according to that family, and nobody knows where the hell he is today. As people online became aware that Gabby was missing, a groundswell of online sleuths actually became involved. And what received particular attention was a resurfaced body camera footage of a police stop of the couple in Moab,

Utah, where Brian and Gabby were actually involved in a fight on August 12th, 2021. A bystander in Moab saw Petito and Laundrie arguing, in which Petito apparently hit Laundrie in the arm as he was keeping her away from her phone. Now, that bystander heard Petito say, quote, why do you have to be so mean? And he was so concerned, he actually called it in as a domestic dispute. Now, that call told police, quote, we drove by, a gentleman was slapping the girl. We stopped, they ran, and down the sidewalk. He proceeded to hit her, he hopped in the car, and they drove off together. Now, body camera footage reveals that after that couple was stopped in their van,

Petito was in very obvious distress when talking to the officers. So for those who are just listening here, the audio, it's a little bit muffled. Here's a very small tidbit that just gives you an idea of what it was like. Yeah, I don't know. of what it was like. Now look, according to the officers, she was like that the entire time. She was distraught emotionally and was apologizing over and over for being mean to her boyfriend, even though a caller said something otherwise. It doesn't take a genius to see some pretty telltale signs of domestic abuse here. But the cops wrote it off, and instead, they split them apart, asking the boyfriend to spend the night in a hotel while she slept alone

in a van. Now, from there, things get even stranger. She posted on Instagram on Utah on August 25th, and then her mother received a strange text saying that she was going to Yellowstone and would have no cell service on August 30th. That was five days later. Eleven days after that, she's officially reported missing after not being heard from, and you know that her boyfriend she was traveling with shows up back at his house in Florida with a van and no girlfriend. All of this were known

to the police at the time, who then came to the boyfriend's house to seize the van in question. But then when they try to ask him questions, he refers them to his lawyer, refusing to speak with them. What do the cops do? Nothing. They said her disappearance was odd, but that there was no evidence of a crime in their own jurisdiction of Florida, so they just took the van and then they left. They didn't put a car, they didn't pressure the family, nothing. So, lo and behold, a few days later, when the FBI decides that the Laundrie is now a person of interest, he's nowhere to be found. They literally let him skip town, even though the dude showed up at his house

with the van they were both in and refused to talk to them. Seriously, am I crazy? Is this not the easiest case to figure out ever? While the police were apparently letting the prime suspect go, people online were actually surfacing details everywhere, geolocating, figuring out her past whereabouts. In fact, it was a pair of YouTubers themselves who happened to drive past Petito's van on August 27th in Grand

Teton National Park, who then reviewed their footage and alerted authorities to the location where her body was eventually discovered. Various sightings of the couple have been reported, also on social media, the explosion of interest and a nationwide manhunt now underway for laundry at this time. But the review of the details is merely to underscore that both this is a pretty extraordinary case in which a person who already had a following on social media was involved in an objectively crazy situation and where others sought to do what they could to try and locate her.

And the nature of so much of MSNBC and CNN coverage in the last several days has been to essentially try and shame people for caring or tuning in or trying to help. But they ignore that unlike in the 90s, they aren't the ones who actually created the interest. It was organic. It actually stemmed from the facts themselves. I really don't know how many times we have to discuss on this show. Shaming people is likely to have the opposite reaction when you're trying to elevate something. And number two, I cannot think of a better opportunity than for anyone discussing the case, as I am right now, to draw

attention to two big crises that we have in our society. One is domestic abuse, which has actually skyrocketed during the pandemic and for which so many women suffer. And two is missing persons. Advocates are 100% correct in noting how many minorities go missing in the country. There are a lot of resources that people should look into if they're interested in helping and being aware to find other people who are missing. But what people who are apparently well-intentioned always miss is that talking down to people almost never works. While others have consternation at looking at the interest in the case, I actually see a good thing. The authorities failed Gabby Petito, but a lot of people stepped up to try and bring closure to her family and hopefully justice for her murderer. And I choose to see hope in that. And I see it as a spirit that perhaps that we can build on and help as

many people as possible. I'm curious what you think, Crystal, because I think the reflexive nature to be like, oh, it's missing white girl. Joining us now, we have Ben Schreckinger. He is national political correspondent for Politico. But the reason we have him today is he's also author of a brand new book. It is called The Bidens Inside the First Family's 50-Year Rise to Power. Great to have you, Ben. Good to see you, Ben. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. I think we have the book jacket we can throw up on the screen so people can see it. It's for sale right now, right? So you can go out and go out and grab it.

Let's start with the big news that you broke here. I'm sure our audience will recall. Shortly before Election Day, there was a whole blow up in the media around Hunter Biden's alleged at that time laptop. There was a lot of allegations, oh, maybe this is Russian disinformation. New York Post article comes out about it. It's censored by Twitter. You can't even share it because this came from sketchy sources and it might be Russian disinformation. You were able to nail down with your reporting that at least some of the emails that were exchanged on this laptop were in fact legitimate. Lay out for us what you found. Sure. So most importantly, I spoke to someone who for a time had some independent

access to Hunter Biden's emails. They say he did receive an email from a Ukrainian businessman thanking him for the chance to meet his father and that he did receive an email from a business partner laying out the proposed equity structure for a venture with some Chinese business executives that included the line 10 held by H for the big guy. Those were the lines that were at the sort of at the center of the controversy last October, the emails that were initially published by the New York Post. And I was also able to corroborate some other emails that didn't really make the news that just sort of show that there's other genuine material here. I spoke to a couple of people who corresponded with Hunter Biden in 2018 and 2019. They said,

yep, those messages are messages I did exchange with him. And then I obtained some emails from a Swedish government agency. For a while, Hunter Biden had an office in the complex on K Street that houses the Swedish embassy. So the Swedish government was essentially his landlord. They released to me, you know, a half dozen or a dozen email exchanges. And those match emails in the cash. So what I can say is that some of this material at least is genuine. You know, it's interesting. I did not expect it to blow up as much as it did. Your report on that, some of it is genuine. The political press almost seemed to be like, whoa, it's genuine. I mean, it seemed

quite obvious to me, given the fact that he didn't deny it. The Biden campaign, now administration, continues to not deny it. It almost seems unfortunate that that's the top line news. I mean, there's so much more that's packed into the book. So first, just give your reaction in terms of how exactly the media has responded to what you've put out, but just give us more of a sense of what's in there.

I mean, this is an entire thing. You really went inside of the Biden family, which is not nearly as well known as, I mean, if you think about the characters of Trump Jr. and Kushner. I mean, even Clinton and his brother, Roger, everybody knew about that. Obama, right?

Famously, Malik Obama or his sister or his mom and his grandma. They all got a lot of scrutiny. We don't know very much about the Biden. So your reaction, and then just tell us a bit about the Bidens themselves. Yeah, I sort of knew that this would get some attention, but I also knew that for anyone that had really been paying close attention,

this wouldn't come as a huge surprise. This was a massive global controversy. Nobody copied on these alleged, at the time, alleged emails, came forward and said these are not authentic. Hunter Biden has never disputed the authenticity of these emails. And one of the recipients of one of these emails, Tony Bobulinski, came forward and said, yes, this email is real. And yes, 10 held by H for the big guy did refer to plans to have Hunter hold equity on behalf of his father. Obviously, the Biden

campaign has said, Joe Biden never considered doing anything like that. So it is definitely interesting to see the amount of attention this gets, given how unsurprising it should be, I think, to people. And in terms of what else is in this book, you know, where do I start? Some of my favorite parts of the book are actually about Delaware, the Delaware way. There's this incredible saga that's not really known about a beer distributor in Delaware who'd been a big campaign bundler for the Bidens, ends up going down on some campaign finance charges. But before he does, wears a wire for the FBI, goes after some people in Biden's inner circle. That investigation did not yield real evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

But through the story of this guy, Chris Degani, you sort of go through, you know, the deep parts of Joe Biden's Delaware. And I think it's a real glimpse of that. Yeah. So just talk some about the family dynamics. Who were the main players? How is Biden, who, you know, we all do know the story about his wife and his baby daughter being killed tragically. Hunter and Bo are in the car. They're injured. He just was elected senator. He's 29 years old. He gets sworn in next to their hospital bed.

Who is there to sort of like watch the family, keep things together and make this all work as he's going to Washington to serve as a United States senator? So it really is a team effort, starting with the first Senate campaign in 1972. It's run by his family members. Val is the campaign manager. His brother, Jimmy, one of his younger brothers, heads up fundraising. And so when Nelia and Amy die, his wife and baby daughter, again, it's Val and Jimmy who really step up. They move in with the family and they essentially raise Bowen Hunter while Joe Biden is off being a senator. And that is really the story of the family from beginning to end. They do everything as a family. It really is a team. It's really interesting, you know, pointing to that. And James Biden, it does, seems to escape a lot of scrutiny. The only reason I even know anything

about him is through your early work at Politico, reading some of the pitch decks and things. He was, let's just say, not shy whatsoever at peddling his, he's like, my brother, the vice president, soon to be president. That's why we should probably make a deal on health care or whatever. How exactly did that come about? I mean, is this a facet of Biden's long career in the Senate? Obviously, these behaviors become learned in a way. They don't have, you know, they don't have a lot of advantages in this world until all of a sudden they get their brother, their son, their husband elected United States senator at the age of 29 and the biggest upset of 1972. And all of a sudden, you know, that's sort of the golden ticket.

They're on the inside of the American system. And they learn over the years, you know, what the advantages of that can be. And Jimmy, who starts, he learns the ropes of politics as a 23-year-old. He's coming up to Washington, D.C. He's talking to union bosses, other interests, trying to get them interested in his kid brother. And so he understands the intersection of money and politics better than probably any other 23-year-old in the United States at that point. And the trajectory of his business career from there basically illustrates the ways in which his connections to Washington, his influence, his ties to influential people can be helpful to a business career and can potentially land his brother in hot water or at least create some unseemly appearances in some of these dealings over the years. Yeah. My experience with your reporting is that you really, you know,

take a pretty fair and critical lens no matter what the party, whether it's someone who's in favor of the mainstream media or not in favor of the mainstream media, which is part of why, you know, we really wanted to have you on and talk about this book.

Is it your sense covering Washington that the Bidens are unique in the level of sort of trading access and favors and trading on the family name? Or do you think that they're firmly in the mainstream of basically how this town operates? You know, I haven't gone as deep on every other political family in Washington as I have on the Bidens. I would say that they're probably emblematic of, you know, the Washington establishment people who have been in power for a long time, who understand that there are advantages to proximity of power, proximity to power.

People who, you know, have not landed themselves in an incredible amount of hot water, but there are often, you know, questions of propriety raised by some of these dealings. Just look at, you know, Hunter Biden's work for Burisma. Yeah. And so I think that, you know, in a different election against a different opponent, someone else might have really successfully painted them as symbols of the Washington establishment in a negative way. Trump ultimately didn't succeed in doing that, but it's possible that this is something that rears its head again if Joe Biden runs again. You know, I'm interested,

Hunter always comes across in your work as just this extremely tragic figure. And I mean, he is, right, in terms of the way he was raised. Obviously, you know, Joe favored Beau, his brother, who was, you know, kind of groomed and meant to be this next big political figure, and he's the one that's left, survival, guilt, all of that. What exactly typifies his behavior throughout Biden's career? He just seems like this wild card. And Biden, very strangely, because he conceives of himself, I can tell, as a stand-up guy, how does he look at the Burisma, I mean, Amtrak, I mean, credit card lobbying, the art sales? How does he justify that in his head, his treatment of his

son? Is it just like a sympathy thing? Like, how does he square that with the square Scranton person that he conceives of himself of? Well, one of the themes that I see really, really early on, going back to the beginning of Joe's childhood, is that his parents impress upon him and his siblings that inside this household you can fight with each other as much as you want. Outside of this household, you are Bidens and you are sticking together, and you will never speak ill of each other outside of this household. And there's a story from Joe's childhood. He's something like a hall monitor on the school bus and Val does something she's not supposed to do. And he has this dilemma and he goes to his father. His sister, right?

Yes. Excuse me. His sister, Val. And Joe Biden goes to his father and says, I have this dilemma. You know, Val was, I forget what it was, you know, chewing gum on the bus or whatever. I was told that I have to monitor this and report it to the nuns. And his father says, well, son, I guess you're going to have to turn in that badge. And Joe Biden is no longer a hall monitor after that. Wow. And I think that that is sort of emblematic of the dilemma where Hunter Biden does something that does not look good, like take this position with Burisma, start selling paintings for up to half a million dollars a piece.

Trace is really talented. Or engages in a relationship with Beau's widow and asks his father, will you please go on the record blessing this relationship? And his father does it. And so there's just sort of no world in which Joe Biden is going to publicly say, yes, I acknowledge that there are things that are or appear to be untoward about anything that any of his relatives do. Interesting. I'm going to take a wild guess that you've probably gotten a bunch of Fox News requests for appearances and probably have not gotten a lot of MSNBC or CNN requests for appearances. Just speak to that piece of this, because again, I, you know, my experience with your reporting is

you're truly fair. You know, you follow the facts where they lead. Obviously, this guy's in the White House. Like, Val is still incredibly important as a political advisor within his circle. I know she's one of the people that he really listens to. There's a small cadre of them that, you know, always have his ear. Is it sort of, is it depressing to you or disappointing to you that there seems to be selective interest in digging into some of the, you know, less favorable aspects of Joe Biden's rise? Well, what I will say is that it's been very encouraging to me that my editors at Politico have said, you know, report without fear or fear, whether it's Donald Trump or Joe Biden or anybody

else, that's, you know, consistently been the marching orders. And that's what the work shows. That's what the output of Politico shows. We're still pitching all sorts of networks and outlets that we hope will be interested in this. And I do think it is important to pay attention to these business dealings and the financial dealings of the Bidens. We've just emerged from the Trump era. It was a wash in ethics scandals, questions about family members of the president and their business dealings and how they intersected with his official powers. It's a separate set of questions. It's, you know, it's not apples to apples, but these issues arise again and again over the course

of Joe Biden's public life. And it's important that, you know, any outlet that's job is to scrutinize the presidency be doing that. And I will say that I think with this Hunter Biden painting venture, you have seen pretty widespread coverage of it. And I think it's indicative of the fact that people understand that this is important. It's a little too on the nose, the painting, right? Yeah, it's not really. A bit much. Do you have a place particularly you want people to go find the book, you and everything? So do you have a place you would like them to buy it?

Whatever your favorite bookstore is, it's on Amazon. It's hopefully everywhere. You can get the ebook version all over the place. Awesome. Yeah. And where can they find you, your work? You can go on Twitter at Shrek Reports. Good luck spelling that. S-C-H-R-E-C-K Reports. Okay. Yeah, that's the best place. Well, we'll have links down there in the description to all of that. Ben, just want to say like you're one of the few people who really chases after it no matter the consequences. So real props to you. I hope every girl goes and buys the book.

And you're a real—what a journalist in this town really should be. So thank you. Yeah. Congrats on the book. Thanks so much. I'm so glad you guys had me on. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching.

We really appreciate it. I hope you guys enjoy the interview. And look, we've been trying to draw as much visibility to this as possible. Covering the news here apparently has consequences. Our stuff gets demonetized by YouTube all the time. The latest example was we covered that Roe versus Wade segment. Again, I mean, Supreme Court, a major news story across the country, and it was demonetized for the entire time that was basically live until like 24 hours or something later, at which point you're not eligible to like, you don't make like

back wages, right? So it's like, what's the point? You know, I mean, all we're trying to point to is that the only way, and again, it will not impact our coverage. I guarantee you one of the segments today will likely be done. Maybe the Gabby to Petito one. It wouldn't surprise me if the Hunter Biden one does as well. But here's the thing. We rely on you guys to make sure that we do not care whatsoever about YouTube revenue. If it's going to swing down as much as it has this month, so be it because we don't rely on that to pay our bills. And if we did, we wouldn't be able to. So there's a premium link down there in the description. Obviously, we offer benefits, but really, this is just about bringing you the news exactly the way that we think it's important to do so. 100%. Thanks for backing us up, guys.

It means everything. It allows us to do this and just to really cover what we think matters and is going to be important and relevant for you. A little programming note. Next week, the schedule is going to be slightly different. Normally, we're Monday, little programming note. Next week, the schedule is going to be slightly different. Normally, we're Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. Next week, it's going to be Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. There's a conflict here at the studio. No big deal, but so Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. Also, over the weekend, we're going to be putting out

the mini show of the weekend content, so look for that on podcasts. Also, those videos we'll be posting over the weekend. And one other little thing, I'll do a little tease here. Got a little new partnership that we're going to be able to announce next week that we're excited about. I think you guys will be excited about it too. So stay tuned for that as well. Love you guys.

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Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line

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