Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/26/22: Russian Threats, Polling Numbers, Favre Scandal, Trump vs DeSantis, European Revolt, Iran Protests, & More!

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Krystal and Saagar analyze growing nuclear fears, Russian dissent, sham referendums, polling data, Biden 2024, Brett Favre's welfare fraud, Jen Psaki's return, Trump vs DeSantis, European populist revolts, & Iranian protests!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Chicago Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/449151/breaking-points-live-tickets Trita Parsi: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/09/22/iranian-regimes-allergy-to-reform-breeds-violence-for-change/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big developments with regards to Russia, Ukraine, and the possibility of nuclear war. We will break all of that down for you this morning, including some new developments just this morning. A shooting at a recruitment center. Scary stuff that is unfolding around the world. We've also got some new polling, kind of contradictory, but one new poll in particular looks pretty grim for Democrats.

Another one that's somewhat better for them, but even a better picture still shows that they would fall short of retaking the House. So we'll break all of that down for you. Also, a federal court ruling that Arizona's abortion law should go into effect. This is one that predated even Arizona's statehood, and it basically bans all abortions. So once again, putting that issue front and center. New questions about whether current President Biden will run for reelection again, and further, not even questions, but a little more certainty about the fact that many Democratic voters do not actually want him to run again. We've got some new developments in that crazy story I broke down for you last week about Brett Favre stealing welfare funds intended for poor residents of Mississippi

to try to fund his daughter's volleyball stadium. It is so bananas, this story. It goes really deep. Now the former governor is trying to hide his text messages. There are new revelations about how Brett Barr was like, maybe we should use the prison industry to build the stadium. And he was told that it was illegal and was still like, now we got to move forward. So we've got those text messages and some kind of interesting comments from former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, a little more honest, honestly,

than I expected her to be. We've got Dr. Theresa Parsi on to break down exactly what is happening in Iran. Sagar is looking at the rise of right-wing populism in the wake of energy prices spiking, and I'm looking at the budding rivalry between Trump and DeSantis. That's right. Okay, so we've got two announcements. Let's do the first one, put it up there on the screen. Live show, Chicago. We're selling very well, so we want to continue doing that. October 15th, we're coming to the Vic Theater. Come and join us.

We've got tickets that are on sale right now. It's going to be an amazing show. So number two was CounterPoints. By the way, CounterPoints' second show was fantastic. Phenomenal. They're ironing out the kinks. I love what they're doing with it. They put one of Ryan's monologues in the middle.

I was like, hey, cool. You guys do whatever you want to do. I was really, really enjoying it whenever I watched it over the weekend. Yeah, I listened to it actually on my way back into D.C. last night in the podcast version. Flow was great. The topics were super interesting. Both of them are kind of like wonky, so I learned a lot from it. Good vibes.

I'm really, really pleased with it. I completely agree. Yeah, they say they're having fun doing it, too. They enjoy doing it and we've got other great content partners that all went up over the weekend, so if you guys can help us, we've got the 10% discount going on right now. Celebrate the launch of CounterPoints with the

annual subscription. It's the link down there in the description. Helps fund our expansion and all of that. So, administrative out. Let's get to the show. Let's start with Russia. Obviously, anything there's nuclear is going to trump everything else in terms of stakes. So that's what we're going to choose to start the show with. Some really troubling rhetoric going back and forth between the U.S. and Russia. Obviously, Putin offering up the, quote, I am not bluffing in his latest nuclear threat, which has led to some high stakes back channeling between the United States and the Putin government. Now, this was actually confirmed by the National

Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday, yesterday on the Sunday show. Let's take a listen to what he said that the U.S. government conveyed to the Russians. How serious was the nuclear threat that Putin made this week and how will President Biden respond if he makes good on it? We're taking it seriously. It's not the first time President Putin has made a nuclear threat in this conflict. He started way back in February when Russian tanks first rolled across the border, brandishing that nuclear card. And that has not deterred us from providing more than $15 billion in weapons to Ukraine, helping them be able to defend their country. And it will not deter us now. And we have communicated directly, privately to the Russians at very high levels that there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia

if they use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. We have been clear with them and emphatic with them that the United States will respond decisively alongside our allies and partners. And we have protected those communications, which we have done privately to the Russians, but they well understand what they would face if they went down that dark road. So that means taking the fight directly to Russia? We have communicated to the Russians what the consequences would be, but we've been careful in how we talk about this publicly, because from our perspective, we want to lay

down the principle that there would be catastrophic consequences, but not engage in a game of rhetorical tit-for-tat. So the Russians understand where we are. We understand where we are. We are planning for every contingency, and we will do what is necessary to deter Russia from taking this step. And if they do, we will respond decisively. All right. We played that full clip for a reason there, because there's a lot of very important words. Number one is catastrophic consequences. Last time I checked, that's a pretty clear

line in the sand being drawn by the U.S. And the reason why this matters is, look, Putin is the one who's putting it on the table. He's a nuclear-armed power and has basically sole decision-making. You sent us this thing this morning, Crystal. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked, he's like, hey, do the Russians have any chain-in-command blocks against Putin's authority? Any sort of checks on this dude? He's like, no, not really. As we understand it, he has sole decision-making

over one of the world's largest, actually, I think might be the largest in number, nuclear arsenal, just in terms of missiles, not necessarily in terms of destructive power. Although, who the hell knows? Once again, do we really want to find out? So this war of words is one that is incredibly troubling. And it's not just us.

You know, the other powers in the Atlantic, across the Atlantic, who also have nuclear weapons, are responding as well. Let's put this up there. This is from the Financial Times European-based paper. They say Kyiv's Western allies are boosting nuclear deterrence after Putin's threats. What they specifically point to on top of Jake Sullivan's comments are that Western capitals are making contingency plans should Putin take the steps towards acting on his threats of nuclear attacks against Ukraine, sending private messages to the Kremlin about possible consequences. So it's not just the United States that is communicating in the back channel about nukes, but several others saying that, quote, two other Western officials that a nuclear strike against Ukraine would be unlikely to spark retaliation in kind, but would instead trigger a conventional military response from the Western

states to punish Russia. Some of this is rhetorical. It's like, you nuke Ukraine. It's like, well, then you have a conventional military response. Well, it's like, if they've already used nuclear weapons and you have a conventional military response, then the chain of escalation just goes up. And you eventually end up to nuclear on both sides. World War III, yes. Exactly why you want to avoid these types of scenarios in the first place. And I do want to point out, I mean, that fits. So what they're saying there is if Russia uses like one of these so-called tactical nuclear weapons or some sort of a nuclear test,

that they may not respond in kind with some sort of also nuclear weapon detonation. Instead, they would use conventional military responses that fits with what President Biden had said. His quote was that Washington's response would be, quote, consequential depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur. So that starts to give you some more direct sense of how they're thinking about this. But let's be clear, there's no like little bit of nuclear war. And, you know, a lot of people look at Putin's comments and I think rightly feel like this dude's bluffing. He's desperate. He's, you know, he's losing. He knows that he's got to pull out all the stops because his regime and his reign

is clearly at stake at this point. So, yeah, he's saber rattling. But, you know, anytime someone is out there like, I promise you I'm not bluffing, that's a pretty good sign that they are. But when you're talking about nuclear weapons, even a tiny percentage is obviously something that you have to take extremely, extremely seriously. Well, we already know that this is a brash and not necessarily strategic minded individual. I mean, invading Ukraine was a catastrophic decision. United the West against him, basically, you know, just drawn him now into a quagmire. Even if he does win, the affairs, Russia in the eyes of the world, will never really be the same for the next decade or so,

specifically for the rest of Putin's reign. Now, maybe he doesn't care, but I think by all indications, this is not, I don't even think the biggest, like, Russia coper on the planet could claim that this is all going well for Putin. You can say it was a mixed bag. It's not going as bad as some like Western people would hope so. But that doesn't mean that on balance, it's good. And at the same time, what I remain very concerned by is what I would say is not necessarily controlled opposition, but allowed opposition.

What Putin and the Kremlin are allowing in terms of dissent to foster in Russia. We pointed specifically ahead of that mobilization to, well, all the peaceniks, they're not represented on Russian TV. All the nationalists who are like, he needs to ramp up, he needs to mobilize, they were. And then lo and behold, he acknowledges this opposition in his speech and is like, I hear you. I am now going to draft 300,000 so-called reservists. Well, lately, let's throw this next one up there. This just fits even more in the playbook. Russian state TV talking head, this is from Max Adonis, the FT bureau chief over there in Moscow, says Russia will be better off in a nuclear war because the U.S. is more densely populated. So once again, this is controlled. This is a loud discussion from

the Kremlin. And they're trying to make it clear this is not a joke. We have a nuclear deterrence for a reason. I also want to say this. There is no such thing as a, quote, tactical nuke. We had this whole argument back in the 1950s. A lot of intellectuals, you know, after the nuclear bomb was detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki said, well, look, you know, there's a difference between strategic nuclear weapons and a tactical nuclear weapon. The tactical nuke could have a battlefield purpose. And Eisenhower was like, what are you talking about? If you explode a nuke, the chain of escalation goes all the way up and you go strategic within 24 hours. This was a well-settled thing in nuclear doctrine now for a long time. So the idea that it's back is actually just shocking insanity. In order to even see it in the year 2022, we're forgetting many of these

kind of hard-fought nuclear taboo lessons that we had throughout the Cold War. And what scares the hell out of me is some return to some Cuban missile crisis type situation. Relations between us and the Kremlin are at their worst ever. Apparently right now, you know, the Chinese military command is not even answering phone calls from the Joint Chiefs of Staff here in the U.S. We have two nuclear powers like this that are talking to each other. They're meeting. We're trying to read tea leaves. That's the opposite of the situation that we learned that we should have post the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s. Yeah. I mean, on the positive side, at least what the intelligence reports that are being publicly reported in the news media say

is that we haven't seen him sort of like moving weapons into position and actually preparing for some sort of a nuclear strike. And according, again, to the reports, there's a decent level of confidence among the U.S. military that they would see some sort of preparation before this actually occurred. So take that for what it's worth. Today, what the administration is saying is that they take it very seriously. How could you not? Biden is apparently saying privately he is really working to avoid World War III. But at the same time, you have someone who, as you said, Sagar, has behaved incredibly irrationally and whose back is up against the wall at this point. I mean, there's just no denying how poorly this is going for Putin. And no one expects this mobilization, whether it's 300,000, more or less than that, to ultimately really turn

the tide because you're talking about bodies. You're not talking about people who are really skilled. They're receiving something like two weeks of training. Now, many of these individuals, though, according to the reports, again, not all, have seen some sort of prior military experience. So you would think they at least know how to, like, handle a weapon or at least they did at some point in their life. But when you look at the videos that are coming out of Russia, I mean, a lot of these men are they're on the older side. There's obviously a lot of resistance. As I mentioned before, there's actually shooting at a recruitment center this morning. I mean, there seems to be, and it's very hard to judge from the outside, but there does seem to be significant upheaval over this mobilization, which is why, I mean, Putin anticipated this. This is why he tried this initial strategy of let's have the, you know, all-volunteer fighting force.

Let's try to protect the population from any of the sort of reverberation. So he is on very, very shaky ground. And that all means that, you know, these things that might seem like they would be insane actions, when he is in a corner thinking about whether he is going to survive in a position of power, whether his regime is going to survive, whether the country is going to move forward, that's when these seemingly insane decisions start to be contemplated by people like Putin. Yeah, and there's an interesting thread here that I found late last night from a professor from my graduate program, Caitlin Talmadge at Georgetown. Here's what she writes. Putin's mobilization effort has proven immediately chaotic and unpopular.

There are a bunch of substantive reasons to think it won't just improve military performance, if ever. The prospect of Russian mobilization combined with looming winter creates a window of opportunity where Ukraine may push hard to make gains in the south, comparable to those that it has made now in the northeast. We are getting more reports of Russian forces in the south being in disarray. This sets up a non-crazy scenario where Ukraine pushes hard against the vulnerable and extended Russian forces and makes significant territorial gains. If the Russians

not only lose personnel in this scenario, but much of their best remaining equipment, it would be a second humiliating defeat for Putin and threaten political support for mobilization at home, which is what would open the door to a possible nuclear scenario. And Putin, from his rhetoric, and you know, at this point, I think we should take the guy seriously, even if he does bluff and lie. At the end of the day, he did invade Ukraine. Well, he seems to believe in his head that he could use a quote-unquote tactical nuke. They don't have necessarily, I guess, the same nuclear taboo over there, or at least in Putin's mind, to try and basically just force Kiev to capitulate overnight. And from that point, he wins the war. It's over.

NATO doesn't even get the chance in order to, quote unquote, escalate or respond. Now, I think that's fantasy and that's crazy. But in the minds of a crazy man who is already, you know, high stakes gamble, has pressure from all sides. It has some bearing in reality, right? You could see how somebody might arrive there. Well, if that's the case, and this is what she writes, she's like, look, is Russian nuclear use right now likely? No. Is it more likely than it was eight months ago and three months ago? Yes.

So I'm like, okay, well, that still bears a lot of conversation and, frankly, a lot of scrutiny of U.S. policy and Western policy to make sure that we avoid anything anywhere even close to that. Because that is not a scenario any of us want to go to. I saw some psycho in New York Times this morning making the case that we need to escalate both with Ukraine and Russia and with China. I'm like, what the hell are you thinking about? American Enterprise Institute opinion writer over at the, you know, writing an op-ed for the New York Times. But yeah, that was the argument was like, we need to be more hawkish in both of these places because

exactly what we need is World War III and World War IV all at the same time. Yeah, it's just completely ridiculous. Indeed. Let's move on then and allude to specifically what you were talking about, which is domestic strife inside of Russia. Even Putin's allies are speaking publicly against the mobilization. Let's put this up there on the screen. Russians, two most senior lawmakers, the complaints, saying that they might solve the, quote, excesses that have stoked major public anger. That is specifically because regional officials inside of Russia are coming to the Kremlin and to Putin

and to many lawmakers, apparently, and just saying, hey, like, this is actually really unpopular here at home. What they point to here is that the mounting resistance to Putin is at all levels of society. So not only do we see, Crystal, those protests. Again, look, we're not in Russia. It's hard to gauge what exactly is going on. What we can say is there are protests. To what extent, how much popular support do they have? I have no idea. I'm not there on the ground. But they exist, and they got media attention. That's number one. Number two is, at the regional level, and at many of the mobilization centers and more, there are displays of quote-unquote refuseniks and of others who are doing their best to try and get out of this. There's reports and video

that are coming out of people saying, you need to do your duty right now. Enough playtime, boys. You know, at people who are basically protesting at the so-called mobilization centers. They're threatened then with consequences. So the state is mobilizing to a place that we haven't seen from like the war machine in Russia since like I guess the days of the Soviet Union. I mean it really at a very, very small level, it's not even close to the same, but this mirrors Russian tactics in World War I and in World War II in the way they treated their population and compelled them in order to,

quote unquote, fight for them. Their tremendous advantage in warfare has always been they have a ton of bodies, and they're basically willing to mobilize their entire authoritarian state to force them and kill as many as possible to try and have defense. But their problem is this is a war of offense. And, you know, one of the things we pointed to in the beginning was this is a lot like what's going on when Russia invaded Finland in the Winter War in 1939. They lost like 100,000 people. And it was specifically because tactics like this. And they had a population that was like, hey, I don't want to do that.

Why do I want to conquer Finland? I got nothing to do with this. Yeah. I was listening to Michael Kaufman on a podcast yesterday and he laid out what was kind of, you know, he's very skeptical that this mobilization is going to really make much of a difference for Russia. But he laid out what was kind of the best case scenario for them, which is that they use these bodies, basically untrained bodies. I mean, imagining two weeks of training and then you're in war. Yeah, you're basically a meat shield. I hate to say it, but that's true. That's exactly what it is. And so he's saying, okay, use them, like stick them in the trenches

and they basically hold the defensive line. You reconstitute the forces that are on the ground, the like remaining actually trained, skilled forces that you have, and then use them for some sort of an offense. That's kind of the best case like strategy that they could employ at this point. And, you know, I don't think any of us should be overly certain about how any of this goes because obviously, you know, every analyst has gotten significant parts of this wrong at every turn. But I think there continues to be a lot of skepticism that this is going to make a huge difference militarily, while domestically it does look like there is – the population previously had been kind of ignoring the war. They kind of weren't really paying attention to it. There was some independent polling to that effect that was in this Wall Street Journal piece that we had up before. It said recent independent polls They're not exactly reservists in the way that we think of it. Even though they're saying, OK, it's going to be limited to 300,000 people, there's a lot of reasons to be skeptical of that claim. Every mother, wife, daughter in Russia is now worried about their man.

And we're going to put up here, we can put up A6, Putin's draft draws resistance in Russia's far flung regions. So far they seem to be, and again, you know, this based on the reporting, the best that we can get, um, seem to be concentrating their mobilization in the sort of like more rural, less educated, more far flung regions of Russia. Um, and the reason they do that is because they think, you know, these are people who, first of all, they don't have a lot of as much access to the internet, so they're just fed government propaganda. So they're more likely to be like staunch Kremlin supporters or at least believe the Kremlin narrative. That's number one. Number two,

they have lower levels of education. They think that they're going to put up less of a fight. And this article speaks to, you know, a number of people who are on the ground in these rural, remote villages who are saying, like, they're drafting, you know, a massive percentage of our men and we're screwed for winter. And, like, you know, our basic, like, economy and the reindeer her strongest bastions of support, they're finding a lot of resistance, a lot of anger, a lot of fear, and frankly, a lot of desperation. So, again, it's very limited what we can see into the whole of that country and how people are feeling and how they're responding to it and all of that. But there does seem to be – there was such an attempt to shield the population from what was going on in Ukraine. Putin has really ripped the mask off with this one move and made it super, super real, tangible, and frightening for people across the country. They have a quote from a woman in one of these remote villages in that piece. And she says,

on television, they say that this is about defending the fatherland. But the threat is now not so much to the fatherland, but to our own lives. So it was one thing when it was this sort of distant conflict. But now that the possibility of their sons, husbands, loved ones being sent, you know, like meat shields into this war with little to no training, now that really changes the way people feel about it. And the last thing I want to say about this is, you know, I keep bringing up this shooting at the recruitment center. And the reason I think this is significant is up to this point, the overwhelming majority of the protest and

resistance to this war that we've seen has been peaceful. Well, we know what happens in societies when peaceful avenues of dissent are shut down. Then people morph into not peaceful dissent. And we've already had, I think it was like 10 military recruitment centers that have been set on fire. Now you have this, you know, this shooting. So it's a very volatile and dangerous situation, I would say, on the ground, as best we can tell from here. Absolutely. And all it will require is more authoritarianism on Putin's part. And that's what's going to happen. And that's really what the sad part is. I mean, everybody talks about in the days of the Soviet Union, like whenever your son was drafted, you basically said goodbye.

You're like, I'm not going to see this guy again. I mean, he basically had a 70% chance of dying within, I think it was like the first month, the front line. We don't know what the casualty rate is in Russia. Is it that bad? No. Is it the 6,000 they claim are killed? Absolutely not. That's a laughable number. What we do know, a little bit of open source stuff that trickles out, let's put this up there on the screen. This is a photo from a Russian airport. Just look at the number of just young men, military age males, I guess to use a military term, that are just flooding the airport and border crossing.

Some of those men don't look so young. I see some white hair in there too. There's some dudes there who are like probably right on the cusp and they're like, I'm getting the hell out of here. And there was some really sad videos, you know, especially like you said, from the far flung people kissing their wives goodbye and getting on the bus. And they're just weeping because, I mean, they know. They're not stupid. They know what possible fate awaits them.

And let's put the next one up there on the screen. We're talking here about Google searches in Russia or search engine searches. This is for how to break your own arm. Massive spike on the day of mobilization. Same thing. I mean, you have a lot of people who want to try and get out of combat, not get drafted, get some sort of military exemption. It really is just a terrible, terrible situation. So there's domestic strife in Russia for sure. To what extent? Who knows? You can't have war without domestic strife. So is it very big? Is it a threat to the regime? I don't know yet. There's just really no way to say. The way that these things go is, of course, they're going to get a ton of press here in the West, and we can

and should cover it. Nor can't or nor should we overstate, though, the threat that this could be. It could all work out in Putin's favor, right? There is, you know, sometimes it's always darkest before the dawn. But I personally don't necessarily see that. But like I said, I've been humbled by making predictions in Ukraine. Like all we can say is it's a tragedy for the 300,000 who have been drafted here. I mean, terrible situation. Yeah. And again, we shouldn't take their numbers at this value either. Who knows whether it's true or not? Some of this could be support stuff. How many of these guys actually make it to the front line? Maybe 50? I mean, will that realistically change the reality

on the ground? That's what Kauffman has been saying as well. So everybody is in a wait and see. But it's bad for the Ukrainians. Obviously, you're going to have more people on there. It's everybody is in a wait and see, but it's bad for the Ukrainians. Obviously, you're going to have more people on there. It's bad for the actual draftees themselves and Putin himself in a very, very sticky situation of his own making. So let's make sure that we always emphasize that, too. Finally, I have to make sure that we highlight this. Politically, making some big grounds by the Russians to try and lay territorial claim to these eastern regions in Ukraine. Let's put this up there on the screen. Russian authorities literally going door to door, and in some cases with Kalashnikov rifles,

in order to, quote, collect votes for the referendum. I truly wonder what the results— I'm sure everyone felt really free to vote their conscience. I wonder what number that they're going to go with. Usually they go with like 70, something like that. So they're like, well, there was some dissent. There was some dissent. It was overwhelming.

See, we allowed them to vote how they wanted to vote. If you go 98, then everybody just knows you're a clown. Then you look like some African dictator. But if you go with 70, everybody's like, all right. Everybody already knows they're a clown on this. Listen, it's clown worthy regardless. And that's what's happening here. Police arrested also hundreds of people in Ukraine

who tried to protest. Actually, some of the people in these regions could now be mobilized for this conscription and be thrown against their own countrymen, which is insane when you consider that. And look, you've got military installed officials by Moscow that are organizing these referendums. They'll probably release the votes, you know, whenever they find it most strategic. But as people point out, first of all, these are war-torn regions. Half the people who were pro-Ukraine, they left to go back to the safe areas of Ukraine. So it's already ludicrous. Number two, the vote itself cannot be trusted whenever you literally have people going door to door,

the military and Russian installed authorities. They are trying to do this, however, to legitimize these regions in the eyes of the Russian constitution, like they did with Crimea, to then lay and start this as a war of defense and not of offense. So if these regions- Yeah, we're just defending our territory. They can go, hey, we had a vote. They said they want to be part of us. We're just defending you. And the other reason that that matters is to tie it into the first block, which is that the Russians, and Putin specifically, recently updated his own nuclear doctrine to say that they would use nuclear weapons to defend the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. And

remember, territorial integrity is in the eye of the beholder, as in what they believe to be their territory, not necessarily what we believe to be their territory. So that remains the case. And to tie it back to the original discussion about nukes, Putin made a lot of waves when he expanded these sort of Russian nuclear doctrine to include defending territorial integrity just in advance of these referendums.

So it's very clear the threat here. Basically, we are laying claim to these areas. We are saying these are now part of Russia. We are holding these sham referendums to give some fig leaf of a justification for why we're doing that. And now if you breach our territory, we have, you know, put this nuclear threat out there. So it is a very, very dangerous situation. And it is insane to think about what you were saying that, you know, the other piece of this is, okay, now that we're claiming you're part of Russia, you're also subject to the same draft that the whole rest of the country is. So people who are in that region who are, you know, pro-Ukrainian nationalists could be forced into being drafted. And probably the first ones to go.

Yeah, that's right. Basically, you face the gun at home or you face the gun on the front line. I mean, I cannot imagine having to be put in that situation. But it is one they have put their own people in many, many times. And in fact, those are people, you know, the far-flung regions of Russia we discussed, although those are always the ones who suffer the most at the hands of the leaders in Moscow. Yeah. And generally,

their lives are considered completely expendable. Yeah. You're talking about places that during the winter hit like negative 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of them are literal reindeer hunters. Right.

Like actual occupation. Where when they're like, you can't send our men to this war, they're like, we will literally freeze to death if my, one of the women they interviewed was like, my son hasn't finished the floor in our house because they got flooded over the summer. And my, you know, like my daughter-in-law is pregnant and she's got little

kids. We literally don't know how we're going to make it through the winter. That is what they're being subjected to. It's terrible. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Moving on to the domestic front and some interesting polling, somewhat conflicting, two different pictures of where we're headed in the midterms or at least where we are today. Let's go ahead and put this first one up on the screen. This is a very bad poll for Democrats right here. Washington Post ABC poll shows Republicans in the driver's seats. It says GOP leads the generic ballot by five percentage points among likely voters. Republicans continue to dominate the issues most important to voters, including the largest lead on crime since 1991.

They've got it listed there. Keep it up on the screen, guys. Economy continues to be number one in terms of importance. Republicans have a 16-point lead on that issue. Second, this was kind of surprising to me. Education and schools is second. Democrats actually have a narrow lead on that one, D plus six. Just after that is inflation. So economy and inflation, obviously still top of mind. Republicans with a plus 19 advantage on that. Then comes crime, Republicans plus 14. Then comes abortion, Democrats plus 20. A few other things when you look into this poll that are super noteworthy. First of all, and this may as well, I mean, this may be the most significant thing we look back at if the midterms go very well for Republicans. 74% say the economy's in bad shape. That's up from 58% in the spring after Biden took office and the GOP leads Democrats, as I just said, significantly on the issue of the economy.

Also worth remembering, so back when Democrats, you can take this element now down off the screen, back when Democrats did well in 2018, you know what the generic ballot was in favor of Democrats? 55-39, okay? 55% said they wanted Democrats on that generic ballot, 39% Republicans. And of course, it ends up being a good year for Democrats. Now you look at those numbers and you have Republicans with a five-point lead on the generic ballot. As we know, because of structural issues, Republicans do not need to win the generic ballot by as much as Democrats in order to win control of the House. The last thing

that I thought was really notable and kind of falls in line with some of the questions that were raised about how significant those special election results were that went for Democrats, they note that among those living in congressional districts that are rated as at least somewhat competitive by 538, registered voters favor Republican candidates by a wide 55 to 34 percent. That is nearly as large as the Republican lead in solid GOP districts. Democrats then have a huge advantage in solid Democratic districts, 35 points. They say pointing to a potential overvote where they are most prevalent. So again, what we saw in those special elections is that Republicans continue to do very well in

Republican areas. They even expanded the Trump margin in some of these rural areas. It was in the like blue, a lot of college towns that Democrats just surged the polls and were able to outperform. But that may not be replicable across a lot of these different swing districts. So that's what they're pointing to. I agree. You know, I've done like a bit of a horseshoe. I'm just coming back to the red wave theory. Honestly, I mean, at the end of the day, you bet on the fundamentals. The polling misses all look just like they were back in 2020. You have high crime and you have high inflation. It's just, it's not a, it's, it's a no brainer. These are the basic building blocks of Republican victories for

five election cycles. Should you bet against that? Is abortion a confounding factor? Yes. To what extent? I genuinely don't know. I mean, these special elections, like you said, higher population of educated voters, maybe more disproportionately, you know, ones where you might have more of an impact of high D turnout. But that doesn't necessarily apply at the House level for gerrymandered districts. likely to vote still being the Republicans, even if more Dems do come out because there's just so many more people pissed off about the economy and inflation and crime. I just think it all washes out pretty simply. Well, I also was thinking about it in the context of the monologue that you're going to do today about the surging right wing in a number of European countries. And like, you know, these trends, like we're not immune from these trends, these global trends that are happening. So yeah, when I look at it too, I just keep coming back to

the economy is bad. People feel like the economy is going bad. Gas prices are not going down anymore. I mean, this is, Democrats kind of had a hot hand there for a little bit and they did gain ground. I don't think there's any doubt about the fact that post-Dobbs, Democrats gained ground, both on the issue of abortion and you had some, you know, gas prices coming down and that helped them a little bit too. Joe Biden got a few things passed. It seemed like they had a little bit of momentum. That progress where they were, you know, every week the generic ballot would get a little bit better for them, a little bit better for them, a little bit better for them. At the best case scenario, that progress has stalled. Right.

And they needed it to continue to go, certainly for them to be able to win the House and perhaps even for them to be able to hold on to the Senate, which I still think the Senate, I'm not, I wouldn't go so far as you do, Sagar, to say there's a red wave. I still think the Senate is going to be very, very closely fought. If I had to say today, I'd say Republicans probably pick up both. Just because those underlying factors, and you look at the historical track record, the party in power typically fares poorly in the first midterm. It's hard for me to imagine that abortion changed the game that much, that it really flipped it from a red wave year to what would be, I mean, if Democrats hold the House and hold the Senate, that should be considered basically a Democratic wave year because it is so unprecedented in terms

of the history. So it's still hard for me to imagine that is the case. So when I saw this, I thought, you know, this kind of squares with my analysis of where things stand right now, where Democratic progress at best has stalled out, short of where they need to be. They may have peaked a little bit too early. And you could, you're not really seeing it yet, but you could start to see some backsliding towards the GOP here in the final days. I agree. I mean, look, it's difficult. And obviously, it's confounding polls, too. So let's pull the next one up there from CBS. CBS actually says that while Republicans remain in the position to take the majority, that their lead has actually shrunk to only an R plus 10 gain in the House of Representatives.

And they say that Dems have actually gained there on the generic. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, on the other hand, like this is definitely a much better poll for Democrats. No doubt about it. On the other hand, it still shows them losing the House. So you're like, right. You know, on the one hand, yeah, they're conflicting. On the other, both are like Republicans are going to take the House if if things stay as they are right now. Now, they had a lot more numbers in here that were positive indicators for Democrats in particular about how much abortion is mattering to their vote.

They say abortion is now the top issue for Democratic women. Seven in ten women say a candidate has to agree with them on abortion to get their vote. That's higher than other issues tested. So it's a little bit different than the picture in the last poll where they just asked people, is this important to you? Here, they'd really try to get at like, how much does this actually matter for your vote? Which is kind of a different thing because, you know, voters, they may say like, you know, that one thing is super important to them, but ultimately when it comes down to it, they have

these like litmus test issues where they're almost cultural tokens of if you're with me or you're against me. And abortion has become that for a lot of Democrats and I think some independents as well here too. So that's why they're picking up a more favorable result for Democrats ultimately. But again, even with this more favorable result and better numbers for Democrats, it still shows them losing the House. So important to keep that in mind. However, on the other hand, this is the, you know, again, it does sort of feel like in this election, the more you zoom out, the better it looks for Republicans. The more you zoom in, you start to have more questions. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. An Arizona judge ruled that Arizona can't enforce their near-total

abortion ban that was passed before Arizona was even a state, okay? Back in 1901 was when this ban, which is quite draconian, it bans all abortions in the state except when the procedure is necessary to save the mother's life. The way that has been interpreted in other places is actually extremely stringent. It's not like we can foresee a complication for the mother. It's like, no, you have to be on death's doorstep today for us to move forward with this abortion. Of course, doctors are very concerned about liability and getting like jailed for performing an abortion on a woman who they deems life to be at risk. But, you know, a judge then comes in and says, no, we don't think her life was at risk. It's a really draconian ruling. Abortion rights advocacy group Planned Parenthood said the ruling, quote, has the practical and deplorable result of sending Arizonans back

nearly 150 years, which is kind of like literally true. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs said she was, quote, outraged and devastated by the decision. The Republican attorney general said, we applaud the court for upholding the will of the legislature from 1901 and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue. You can hear in the difference in that rhetoric there, the Republican is just trying to be as neutral as possible, and the Democrats are clearly guns blazing, ready to raise hell about this decision. Yeah, I think that's, like you said, you zoom out, and I'm like, look, you got high crime, you got high inflation.

You zoom in, and you're like, well, Carrie Lake is kind of crazy. I'm like, Lake has gotten himself in some problems. I'm like, abortion, obviously. If on the off chance that they do lose, or not off chance, in the like relative toss up that they do lose, this will probably be because of why. And President Biden really trying to lean into this, make it as much about abortion as possible, and spoke about that at a recent rally. Let's take a listen. But if you give me two more Democratic senators in the United States Senate, I promise you, I promise you,

we're going to codify Roe. First time I've heard him say that so declaratively, Crystal. Yeah, I think that's really significant, actually. That is quite significant. I mean, you know, it'll be a big fundraising draw. The Dems have a hell of a lot of money. Mark Kelly's swimming in cash. He's got like over $100 million in reserve.

John Fetterman's got a ton of cash. So to the extent that they might be able to overcome this, it's probably going to be on the backs of this. At the same time, you know, Oz has been pretty good about handling a board way better than Blake Masters. So I don't know. I think Blake is probably the one who is in the biggest trouble on abortion of all of the candidates who are in the toss-up states. Yeah.

Well, and he seems like he knows that. I mean, his own making. But the fact that he, like, went in and edited his own website to be like, that's stuff I said during the primary. I don't really feel that way anymore. The play here politically is very clear. Democrats want abortion to be very clearly on the ballot in every single Senate race. And Lindsey Graham, I think, gave them a little bit of an assist with that because you could say, yeah, okay, Oz has been okay on abortion.

But you can point to that and say Republicans, if they get power, they want to ban abortion. They want to institute abortion bans that are nationwide. This whole messaging that they tried to lean into of like, oh, we just want to leave it up to the states. Lindsey Graham sort of blew a hole in that. Now you have Biden very clearly saying, making a case, because previously it wasn't clear of, all right, so you already have control of the Senate and you haven't done anything really with it in terms of abortion protection. So what would be different this time around if we give you back control of the Senate? So he's saying really clearly here, hey, if I can get the troublemakers' mansion in Sinema out of the way, then we actually could get—what this means is get rid of the filibuster, at least for

abortion rights, in order to codify Roe. That's what he's making the case for here. And so I think, you know, Democrats would be smart to really beat that drum across the country, make it really clear that there is something, you know, quite tangible at stake here, that they make a really hard and fast commitment. You saw this with material politics, which I still think are, you know, the most important thing to people's votes in those Georgia Senate elections where there was a really clear Democratic promise. Hey, you get these guys in, you're going to get checks. That worked out in Georgia. You also had Trump giving them the assist there. Could a similarly like tangible, clear promise with

regards to abortion be as powerful as those material politics were in the Georgia Senate elections remains to be seen, but I do think it's a smart play from the Democrats. Yeah, very smart. To the extent that this will have the biggest impact, I think it's in the state of Arizona because it makes it much more real. As we saw in Kansas, when it's

real, people will actually come out to vote. It's not as abstract and all the way up at the national level. So we'll see. We have to point out both sides of the story. On one hand, things are good. For Republicans, on the other, if they screw it up, this will be why. So let's all pay attention very closely to this story. I mean, overall, I tend to agree with you that the material politics of just people feeling like the economy is really shitty and being dissatisfied probably is what ends up being determinative. But hey, we'll see. All right. Next piece here. Within those polls, we had to do a

separate little pullout segment on this because this is quite significant. Democrats really not excited about Joe Biden as the next Democratic presidential nominee. Let's go and put these numbers up on the screen. So this was from that Washington Post poll, the one that was worse for Democrats in the overall numbers. It's also really bad for Biden. 56% of Democrats want to see a different Democratic nominee next time around. 35% say that they are with Biden.

Now, you might have speculated, because this approval rating has come up, kind of the vibes have been better in his direction. There was a whole dark Brandon memes and all of this stuff. He has gotten some things done, student loan debt, cancellation, all of those things. You might have thought that the Democratic base was basically feeling like, all right, well, let's just stick with Joe. Not the case. Clearly not the case. A pretty solid majority here saying they would like someone else. And you can see this reflected in the comments of some Democratic members of Congress and Democratic leadership in their reluctance to even say whether he should run again. Let's take a listen to what Nancy Pelosi had to say when she was asked that question. And I'm wondering if you think he should run again. Let's take a listen to what Nancy Pelosi had to say when she was asked that question. And I'm wondering if you think he should run in 2024 or do you think the party should put

someone else forward? President Biden is the president of the United States. He did a great service to our country. He defeated Donald Trump. Let's not forget that. If you care about the air we breathe, the water we drink, the education of our children, jobs for their families, pensions for their seniors, any subject you can name, I'm not going into politics about whether the president should run or not. Not going into politics over whether the president should run or not. That's pretty remarkable. It's such a... yes, next question. What? Like, what's happening? I support President Biden. Next question. Schumer also said, Schumer also said, he's like, if he runs, I'll support him. Like,

where is this all coming from? Biden himself, as we said, he gave that interview. He didn't say he would run. He blamed it on campaign Yeah. But clearly some note has gone on somewhere where everybody's like, if, if. And I'm like, well, what do they know that we don't know? Here's the thing. This isn't speculation. That's the Speaker of the House, number three in line to the presidency, the number two Democrat in the entire party. Chuck Schumer is number three. Known Joe Biden for like 82 years.

Yeah, literally basically since birth the two of them have known each other. Schumer, you know, same thing, the number three Democrat in the party, the leader of the United States Senate. Like, again, these are guys who meet with him all the time and talk to him on the phone. Like, what do they know that is affecting their public? Like, if the White House is pissed off at the speculation, end the speculation. Tell your surrogates and the leaders to all just go out and be like, he's running, next question. Yeah. They don't say that. I don't know what to make of it at this point. I don't know either.

Here's a couple of theories. One is we know from a long history in Washington, Joe Biden is extremely indecisive. You see this with – actually, you saw it in the run-up to 2016 when he was doing the will-he-won't-he run stuff. You saw it with the student loan debt stuff where he's been hemming and hawing about it for months and months and months and months and months. And finally, like, you know, was pressured into ultimately doing it. He is very, very—he's both a micromanager and also indecisive, which is really bad in terms of just, like, you know, managing. Because you don't empower people to make decisions, but you also, like like don't make any decisions. That could be what's going on here. And in fact, let's go ahead and put the CNN piece up where they have a big report. And this was one of these that

had like 10 different people on the byline. So they clearly tried to go like really deep on this when they say Democrats are warming to the idea of Biden running for reelection. They're still not convinced he will. Age looms as a major factor. So does the first lady. Then again, his exit music at Friday's rally was Daft Punk's One More Time. But here in this article, they kind of lay out that there was a lot of nervousness a couple months ago, like pre-dubs about Biden running again. And when the DNC meeting was here, there were apparently meetings going on across the street where like top party officials were huddling and like, oh my God, how can we like, who should we get to do, you know, run instead of Biden?

They actually say over drinks while looking around to make sure no one overheard. They winced and grimaced and whispered, what could they do to stop Biden from running for re-election again? They go on to say that since then, the mood has changed, things have turned, and now they're feeling better about Biden. But they talk about the fact that, obviously, for Biden, you know, he always does this, like, over the holidays, sit down with the family, see what they think, solicit their input before he makes an official decision.

So, I don't know. I mean, I still have to think that this guy is really planning on running again. I think they have to drag his corpse across the finish line.

Yeah. No matter what. Because he's the only one that could probably win. I think there's a lot of wish casting among Democratic elites and the donor class.

They really like Pete Buttigieg. They love Buttigieg, yes. You know, and they might have some, like, you know, Gavin Newsom fantasies or whatever as well. It's grotesque.

All of it is disgusting. But ultimately, I think they're going to suck it up and they're going to back Joe. Now, what I will say in terms of the Democratic base is I'm doing my monologue today about Trump and DeSantis. There's a lot of media fascination about, you know, could DeSantis take Trump down? Joe Biden is by the numbers, this is not my opinion, this is by the numbers, Joe Biden far more vulnerable to a primary challenge than Donald Trump. Trump is basically, you know, he still has a majority of Republicans who say, yeah, we want Trump to run again. Yeah, we want this guy. And, you know, when you look at the polling, yeah, there was one poll out of Florida that had DeSantis up in that one state. But if you look overall, Trump still

dominates the polling among Republicans and there's no one, DeSantis is in the second, but it's not a particularly close second. So I do think there's a lot of media bias here going on in the fact that they are not really open. They're talking about, is Biden going to run or is he not? They're not talking about the fact that he could run and face a really significant primary challenge. And it is much more likely that challenge could succeed than, frankly, against Donald Trump. They have a lot of wish casting about someone being able to take out Donald Trump. But the person who is far more vulnerable at this point is Joe Biden. Yeah, but you would need somebody like a Ted Kennedy who is such a, you know, person in

his own right, brand, access to money to do it. And Kennedy had the Kennedy legacy. He had the Kennedy name. He had the Kennedy money. There's nobody really who comes even close to that to be able to go after Biden. Although it's a different era where that sort of like established political, I mean, look at Trump. That sort of established political network just doesn't mean what it used to mean. And it's not as necessary. I mean, it's a media game. Campaigns, it's all just a media

theater. It's a media game. The on the ground organizing and all of that. I know a lot of canvassers are going to hate me. It's not that that doesn't matter. But the heart and soul of a campaign today is like earned media. Yeah. And that's what Ron DeSantis, that's what Trump figured out. That's what Ron DeSantis figured out. That's what Bernie Sanders, you know, really was able to galvanize sort of independent media in his camp. So I don't discount that someone who doesn't have that like longstanding established family name political network could come out of nowhere and challenge this guy because there's clearly an appetite for an alternative. You know that all these Gavin Newsom types and whatever, like they're not going

to run against Joe Biden. No, never, never. So there's going to be, there's going to be a gigantic opening for someone to fill. And I think it's, I just find it really noteworthy that the media loves to obsess over whether someone could take out Trump, but really doesn't talk about whether Biden might face a primary that could be a significant challenge to him if he does decide to run again. I agree.

All right, we got an update for you on Brett Favre and this situation down in Mississippi. Okay, guys, it's a little bit of a complicated story and I do have to recommend my own monologue on the matter to get the whole backstory and, like, all the details here. But the TLDR is basically Mississippi has long been one of the stingiest states, if not the stingiest state in the country in terms of welfare funds. You get a block grant from the federal government, and states have a lot of latitude at this point post- Bill Clinton in what they can do with this money. Poor people in the state weren't getting the money. So there was a big question.

Okay, who is getting the money? Turns out that a bunch of like wealthy, politically connected scammers were getting millions and tens of millions of dollars out of the state's welfare fund. Some for direct personal use, investments in this like sort of scammy med tech company, although it turns out that Brett Favre is the lead investor in. He was also paid to give quote unquote speeches that, and we're talking about like $1.5 million to give speeches that apparently he never gave. But the big focus with regard to Brett Favre is the fact that he was pushing for something like $5 million to build this stadium, volleyball stadium, for his daughter at her university. It's the same university that he went to and played football at. And he was—he's buddies with the former governor, Phil Bryan.

He was texting back and forth with him, texting back and forth with this lady who was at the center of some of the other fraud and her son trying to bilk the welfare fund for this money. He denies wrongdoing. He says he had no idea that this money was coming from this fund. Well, there are new court filings that do not cast Mr. Favre in a very positive light. ESPN has the right up here. Let's go ahead and put it up on the screen. They say Brett Favre pressed for facility funding despite being told that the legality was in question, according to this new court filing. By the way, and I'll get into a little bit more of this, the court filing is from the former governor, Phil Bryant, who is trying to protect his ass. So keep that in mind. He released some selected text messages to try to cast himself in the best possible light, this former governor. And so what Favre texted him in these text messages that were in the court filing, he says,

We obviously need your help big time and time is working against us, Favre wrote. And we feel that your name is the perfect choice for this facility. And we are not taking no for an answer. You are a Southern Miss alumni and folks need to know you're also a supporter of the university. Bryant responded by text, according to the filing, quote, we are going to get there. This was a great meeting, but we have to follow the law. I am too old for federal prison. And then he did like a smiley face in the sunglass emoji. But repeatedly, even after being told by the governor, like, I don't know if this is legal, Favre continues to press. So that seems to indicate he knew this was shadier than he's letting on now that he's like,

oh, I had no idea. I thought it was all above board. The whole thing that drives me insane about this is, like you said, it's not just Favre, it's like a bunch of wealthy people in the state of Michigan. This is funds for welfare. Like these are literally funds so that poor people can eat. Like single mothers. They literally stole funds from poor people to line the pockets

of rich people. I mean literally welfare for rich people. And Brett is worth $110 million. Multi-millionaire. He could build the stadium by himself if he wanted to so bad for his daughter's volleyball program. The best part too is when he's like, use of these funds is tightly controlled. Improper use could result in violation of federal law. And he's still like, yeah, let's do it though. It's like, what? Yeah. And let's keep in mind, though, that this is a

court filing from the former governor who is trying to cover his ass and say, well, I warned this was not this was shady, et cetera. There's a lot of other information to indicate that this guy was in on the whole thing, knew what was going on, was trying, was coaching Favre and this other lady on how to write the proposal to get around, to create legal loopholes and get around the issues. And there was rampant tens of millions of dollars of fraud in this welfare fund while he was governor. So let's put this next piece up on the screen. This is from Mississippi Today. They have been doing phenomenal work breaking all of this down.

I really encourage you to support them if you can. Former Governor Phil Bryant moves to keep text private while denying he helped channel welfare funds to Brett Favre's volleyball stadium. So he's objecting to turning over any of his records and the full extent of his text messages. In this filing, they just like took out the ones that they thought were the most favorable for them. They shared those, but they're saying, we don't need to give you anything else. If you didn't have anything to hide, wouldn't you want to release all of those text messages and say, see, here is the whole account of what happened with regards to this freaking stadium. I didn't have anything to do with it. I was telling them it was illegal.

I was like saying, no, we can't go down this road. So the fact that he's going to great lengths to make sure that these text messages stay hidden is very suggestive of his role in this whole thing. And as I said before and covered in my monologue, there were a lot of other text messages that looked very, very bad for him. And by the way, the current governor, and they're both Republicans and both know each other and similar donors and whatever, current governor seems to be helping him to try to, you know, not investigate his role and to keep these text messages hidden, et cetera, et cetera. So Governor Phil Bryant may look like he's okay in some of these text messages that his court, that came out in his court filing. But remember, there was other information that was released where he was directly involved, seemed to know where the funds were coming from and was coaching them on how to help this avoid legal scrutiny. Right. I think that's the key is, look, Brett, you could clear your name today.

Release every single text message that you got with the governor. I wait for the subpoena. Same with all of them. You guys say you haven't done anything good? Publish them. Show us the record. Release the transcript, as we once used to say. But I think it's a tremendous tale of corruption from what we've seen so far. And I hope that a lot of people go to jail as a result of this, or at the very least are fined to high hell. Disgusting.

Because it is repulsive to steal from a literal welfare fund for nepotism purposes. And when you're famous and leveraging political power, all in a state which, look, Mississippi, I mean, they're suffering, right? Welfare already is an issue. I think it's one of the most obese, unhealthy states in the U.S. It's either the poorest or the second poorest state It's always up there in one of the poorest places.

Yeah, I mean, look at what's happening in Jackson. Yes, yeah, exactly. I mean, that's why, it's not an accident that it happens there. So, you know, already, to steal from poor people in general is terrible, but to steal from some of the poorest people in the country is like an extra level of horrific. It's unbelievable. When you're already this filthy rich. And then the last piece of this that is quite shocking,

just to show you the level of depravity and disgustingness that was going on here. This text from Brett Favre, go ahead and put it up on the screen. When asking Bryant in 2018 for help finding funding to construct lockers at the facility, quote, it would be helpful if someone would build them on their spare time. Poncho mentioned the prison industry possibly as a builder. So Brett Favre there, I mean, he's floating prison labor, right? Isn't that what that means? That's what he's saying. Yeah, floating, using prison labor to make a volleyball stadium for his daughter.

And you're talking about a dude who's worth $100 million, is that what you look for? Yeah, over $100 million. Yeah, over $100 million. Just, I have no words. No words. It's just so, it is genuinely crazy. Like, whenever you consider everything going on with this. And look, it's on Mr. Favre and all them can clear their name. They can tell us exactly what's going on.

That's what we're calling on them to do. Release the emails, release the texts. Let's see it all. Absolutely. All right, let's move on to Jen Psaki. This was a really interesting clip that we saw. Jen Psaki, I mean, usually whenever government officials go over to cable news, they just continue to be mouthpieces of that administration.

It happened for Sarah Sanders and for Kayleigh McEnany. It happened for Simone Sanders. Psaki, though, gave a very honest, perhaps too honest answer on Meet the Press, her new home over at NBC when she was asked about what the chances for the Democrats would be come midterms. Let's take a listen. I'm not sure how this is either really effective or you're trying to get the voter to take two issues in time together. You're trying too hard. I don't know. But an interesting response. Yeah, I look, I think that Democrats, if the election is about who is the most extreme, as we saw, you know, Kevin McCarthy touch on there with Marjorie

Taylor Greene, I'll say her name, sitting over his left side, then they're going to win. If it is a referendum on the president, they will lose. And they know that. They also know that crime is a huge vulnerability for Democrats. I would say one of the biggest vulnerabilities. And if you look at Pennsylvania, for example, what's been interesting to me is it's always you follow the money. And where are people spending money? And in Pennsylvania, the Republicans have been spending millions of dollars on the air

on crime ads against Fetterman because that's where they see his vulnerability. So yes, the economy is hanging over everything. But you do have to look at state by state factors. And crime is a huge issue in Pennsylvania. I mean, the fact that she said for it to be a referendum on the president, they will lose. That is a stark admission from the former spokesperson of the government of the United States and that president. And look, nothing she said there I even disagree with at all. So it was interesting to see her admit it. And also for that to kind of just be, it's funny because I think that if you said that as any other

Democrat on the channel who hadn't worked for Biden, they'd be like, oh no, no. But you can't argue with her. Like she clearly can see the national environment. And maybe that also tells us about what the thinking is inside of the White House, that they're maybe even okay acknowledging that. I don't really know if I should read too much into it. But the fact that it was said at all, I'm like, wow, that's kind of cool. It was quite candid. I can't imagine the White House is really psyched about her saying, like, if it's a referendum on the president, then we will lose. So, I mean, I attribute it to the fact that I think she probably is, like, genuinely done being in government. You know, she could have stayed on longer. They were happy with her performance as White House press secretary. She looks great in retrospect now in comparison to the current White

House press secretary. No personal offense to anyone involved there. But, yeah, I think she feels like she's done being in government and maybe she's actually just, like, ready to be a little bit honest after being a paid – I mean, your job – and this is not, again, specific to her. Like, your job as White House secretary is just to be a propagandist. So maybe she's, like, sick of being a propagandist and actually wanted to say something honest here. I don't know. But the assessment is certainly certainly right on. And they've known this for a while. It's obviously very clear. Republicans really want to make this a referendum on Biden. Democrats really want to make it a choice. They want to put abortion on the ballot.

They want to put Donald Trump on the ballot. And, you know, to some extent it has worked. Like it certainly has made it so that Democrats have a much better shot in the midterms. And the more that Trump is in the news and the more he's out there saying like whatever crazy QAnon related things he's been saying lately, the better it is for Democrats. They do better with voters on the question of like which party is more extreme. That is another area where that ties together like the democracy stuff and abortion and like LGBTQ rights as well. So that is their, that is definitely their best bet. Yeah, I think it's their best bet too. I mean, it's, for her, honesty is not wrong. The Trump

people, I mean, the Biden people's want to elevate Trump is the correct move. It's what I would do in that scenario too. But we also know the DOJ, from what they have said over the next 60 days, they're not going to make any extraordinary moves up ahead of the election. It's like, well, then it's all going to be about economy and crime. Is Trump really going to be at the top of the news before election day in that month? Kind of a return to what it was like seven, eight months ago. If that's the case, we know exactly where the polls were at seven, eight months ago. So it's almost like a reversion back to the mean. Once again, I don't know, lots of ground being tread, but Saki telling a little

bit of the truth. Yeah. Interesting in its own right. Something to, yeah, something to take note of. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? As you almost certainly know by this point, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got a whole lot of attention recently for his big political stunt flying Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard. You probably also won't be surprised to learn that the reaction to this legally dubious maneuver has been split along pretty hard partisan lines. Democrats uniformly decried it. Republicans almost uniformly cheered it. Public polling is similarly partisan divided. But there are some noteworthy exceptions here. We've now had a few instances of Trump allies raising questions over

DeSantis' move, a very interesting development given the expectation that DeSantis and Trump might eventually go head-to-head for the GOP nomination. So first off, the presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner directly criticized DeSantis' move in comments on Fox News. I personally watch what's happening, and it's very hard to see at the southern border. I also, we have to remember these are human beings, they're people, so seeing them being used as political pawns one way or the other is very troubling to me. Just as interesting, Sean Hannity, possibly Trump's closest ally in media, prompted Ted Cruz to question the legality of DeSantis' move. Let's talk about the law. You're a lawyer, Senator. You've argued before the Supreme Court successfully. And from a legal standpoint, let's say I went down to the border and I brought a big truck with me and I picked up a bunch of illegal immigrants and I started transporting them across the country. Would I

or would I not likely be arrested for human trafficking? And would it be illegal to do that for me if I did that? For you, a citizen, you could easily be arrested, although, to be honest, Joe Biden's Justice Department wouldn't arrest you. But in an ordinary Justice Department, I'm a conservative. I disagree. They'd arrest me. But in an ordinary Justice Department, a private citizen doing that would be arrested. I disagree. They'd arrest me. That's true. If I was a liberal, I'd get away with it. True.

Yeah. But back to the law. The law is clear. It is clear. And right now, the biggest human trafficker on the face of the planet is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. The law is clear, Hannity says, with Ted Cruz's agreement there. Now, Cruz, of course, tries to cloak this in an anti-Biden argument. But the real target of this segment was very clear, was intended for an audience of two, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Fair to say, if it was Trump who had executed this whole migrant plane ride stunt,

Sean Hannity would not be wringing his hands about the legality of the move, and Jared Kushner would not be making moving pleas to the migrants' humanity. Now, you put this together with a few other pieces, it sure looks like these are opening shots in the anticipated battle between Trump and DeSantis as Trump moves towards an announcement and DeSantis increasingly irritates him by beating him at his own game. Now, DeSantis is grabbing headlines, creating news cycles. Meanwhile, Trump is out dabbling in QAnon nonsense, buffeted by his own mounting legal troubles, and forced into an unusual position of having to respond to events as they occur rather than creating his own center of gravity. Not to mention, Trump's still under

a Twitter ban that has made it more difficult for the former president to drive elite media figures to derangement that was always his most appealing skill. After all, a new poll out of the Sunshine State had some more unwelcome news for the former president. For the first time, DeSantis is besting Trump among GOP primary voters in the state of Florida. Back in January, Trump held a seven-point lead over DeSantis in that state. Now the numbers have basically flipped. DeSantis has an eight-point edge over Trump, with 48% preferring the governor and 40% selecting Trump. Now, of course, DeSantis is governor of Florida, so he's kind of got a home field advantage here. But at this point,

with Trump all but exiled from New York, he is a Floridian, too, and has dominated that state's politics. As he apparently obsessively reminds people, his endorsement is basically the whole reason that Ron DeSantis is governor of the state to start with. That's not all, though. DeSantis has also been out fundraising Trump. In the first six months of the year, DeSantis pulled in about $56 million, besting Trump by about $20 million. In fact, there are a lot of signs that DeSantis is becoming a real GOP donor favorite, raising vast sums, attracting longtime big Trump donors, and bringing some longtime GOP donors who were not Trump fans in off the sidelines. DeSantis has even previewed his attacks on Trump for that donor class. As the Washington Post writes,

Speaking to top Republican donors earlier this month at an Orlando Four Seasons, DeSantis questioned the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine, for which Trump has taken credit, and said that while Trump and his administration had put up some, quote, good fights on cultural issues, liberals had been winning for the last five or ten years. He raised concerns about the deficit growing the last three years, some of which Trump was in office. Looking at the whole picture, Ron DeSantis seems to me to be playing the role in the last three years, some of which Trump was in office. Looking at the whole picture, Ron DeSantis seems to me to be playing the role in the Republican Party that Mayor Pete plays in the Democratic Party. In both instances, elites in the party have no issue with the actual ideology

of the guy at the top, Biden in the case of Dems, of course, and Trump in the case of the GOP. They just want it served up in a more intellectual package. They want neoliberalism just without the stiff gate, stumbling delivery, and where am I right now eyes. For Republicans, they want tax cuts for the rich and corporate takeover of government, but without the mean tweets and the deep state screeds. It's not that there's no market for DeSantis or for Pete, just not nearly as much as the donor class and media elites would like there to be. And on the Republican side, you have, of course, got the added challenge that the base, they really like Donald Trump. And he basically defines the Republican Party as being whatever

Trump says that it is. DeSantis has maintained his high popularity with the MAGA faithful because he hasn't directly crossed or criticized Trump yet. And they are still inclined to believe the Trump line that any rivalry between them is purely a media creation. The illusion of DeSantis' presidential ambitions will last for exactly as long as they continue maintaining that illusion of being allies. Judging from recent events, the days of that may well be numbered. So, um, looks like things are coming to a head. Trump's clearly very irritated with DeSantis. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at?

Well, something I'm obsessed with is the law of unintended consequences. And a force is so big that they direct the course of history, both on the individual but on the macro level. It's actually humbling often to realize when you pull up at the pump or if you run a small business to know, from an individual agency point of view, you really don't have anything that you can do. Sometimes you simply have to pay the high price or accept lower revenue

and just try and make things work. That is the reality of life for most people. It becomes historical, though, when those forces manifest at a bigger level. When enough people get pissed off, they sometimes do some crazy stuff. And across the pond in Europe, we are seeing a preview, perhaps just like last time, of a harbinger of insanity on our shores. Obviously, I've spent hours on the show diving into the European energy crisis. But what I want to underscore for folks in the back, here in the East Coast of the US, it's already getting cold, which means it's been getting

colder in Europe for weeks now. Germany's natural gas demand over the weekend rose above both 2021 and 2020 levels as a result of colder-than-expected weather. That comes as Germany faces the historical natural gas shortage, with its cutoff from Russia and energy prices skyrocketing to unheard-of levels on the continent. All over Germany, there are tales of businesses or households facing historic energy bills. A recent one featured on German public radio told the story of a family in Brandenburg whose monthly bill was increased to €1,500 a month from a previous €143. The reality is sinking in across the continent, and ramifications are becoming clear. In London, financial analyst Bill Blaine is writing in a the continent, and ramifications are becoming clear.

In London, financial analyst Bill Blaine is writing in a now-viral column, quote, This winter, people are going to die of cold. As the price of energy becomes higher, the costs will fall disproportionately upon the poorest in society. Income inequalities will be dramatically exposed as the vulnerable in society face a stark choice, heat or eat. But then Blaine asks a deeper question, and that one brings us to the point of this monologue. Quote, that has all kinds of social consequences. Can you imagine how those in France will react ahead of the French elections in April? What about the prospects for riots as fuel prices hit the poorest communities and ethnic groups in the UK? Blaine continues that beyond the tragedy of the acute crisis in the winter

is the broader social implication across the entire European continent. And I'm beginning to wonder if the energy crisis precipitated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the now locked-in policy by the West of its sanctions regime, if Europe is not unintentionally spurring a mass populist uprising for the years to come. First, let's start in Sweden, which actually is about to enter NATO. You're seeing a pushback against the Euro consensus. The right-wing party there bagged a historic victory in the latest election the last couple of weeks with a similar uprising against the Euro-liberal consensus on immigration, religion, crime, and environmentalism.

The Sweden far-right party promised to loosen environmental regulations to lower the cost of energy prices and made it a centerpiece of their campaign right alongside its social crusade. The signs were also clear in Italy last night. Social discontent spurred Giorgia Meloni to the forefront of politics after her party just garnered 4% of the vote only four years ago. How does that happen? Well, she is capitalizing on growing discontent around mass immigration, the energy crisis, social liberalism, and EU interference from Brussels. I am not going to sit here and claim

that her rise has all to do with energy prices per se. Italy, after all, has always been a mess, especially since its inception as a state. But Italy is a leading indicator on these matters, has been for years. The raucous uprising of Rome could come to Berlin, London, and Paris in the not-too-distant future. In the Czech Republic, we're seeing interesting signs too. The far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy Party, for the first time, is coming in second in the latest round of political polls. That puts them ahead of the ruling coalition in charge. The party's rise is almost single-handedly because of social discontent around energy prices and around the government's policy in Ukraine. Slovakia too, seeing discontent. Recent protests in the country's capital around energy prices and a weird position. It's both a NATO and EU state, but half of its population does not

believe that Russia actually attacked Ukraine, and they mainline Kremlin propaganda. In fact, polls in the country indicate that the former USSR country, that more Slovaks actually trust Russians than Americans, and the main opposition is taking notice. They are blasting the government's EU support, lobbying against Russian sanctions. The signs are everywhere. Three days ago, thousands of people in Brussels took the streets to protest high energy prices. In France right now, the support amongst the population for, quote, unconditional sanctions against Russia now stands nationally at only 40%. It dropped 6% in a single month. In Germany, less than half of those in the former Soviet

eastern part of the country even support sanctions in the first month. In Germany, less than half of those in the former Soviet eastern part of the country even support sanctions in the first place. All signs point to an opposition increase on energy prices. We are gliding into the path of the very unknown. And given recent trends, we should bet some crazy stuff might happen. Sanctions policy at this point is not going to change. Putin's recent mobilization guarantees that. And that means we now get to watch a massive transformation on the continent. One thing is certain, it won't be the same again. And the effects of the sanctions policy, which almost no one thought, which almost no one actual thought went into, it's going to have major ramifications for years to come. I think that's all I can really take away. I don't know what's

going to happen, but politics on the continent are content... And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Parsi, great friend of the show. It's great to see you, sir. Thanks for joining us. Good to see you. So we wanted to have you on. Obviously, there's protests going on right now in Iran. Let's put this up there on the screen. So you've wrote a piece here specifically about the Iranian regime, the handling of these protests, what it tells us about both the situation and their own problems and allergy to reform and why it's bred violence. Just first of all, for the audience, can you just lay out why exactly these protests are happening and then what they reveal a little bit about the current social situation in Iran? Sure. So these protests were triggered by the so-called morality police arresting a young 22-year-old woman for not wearing her headscarf correctly. And then

she died in their custody. And clearly something must have happened. Our father says that she was beaten up in custody and eventually died from that beating. And there's a massive outrage throughout all of society, not just amongst those who are against the headscarf, but actually also a lot of conservatives who favor the headscarf, perhaps even favor the law, make it mandatory, but actually also a lot of conservatives who favor the headscarf, perhaps even favor the law, make it mandatory, but still find problem with this. And this has then triggered some of the biggest protests we have seen for several years now in Iran. And they're very different in many different aspects. I would say one thing that is quite striking here is that

previous protests tended to focus on a specific policy like the 2019 or 2017 one were economically driven and only after the regime started clamping down on them violently did they become a little bit more uh forward-leaning in their demand and starting questioning the islamic republic as. These protests, almost from the beginning, started not focusing just on a policy, but actually on the very structure of the Islamic Republic and calling for regime change. The people protesting are a bit different

because we see there's a lot of young people, people who are no more than 10 years old in 2009 when you had some of the biggest protests in Iran's history with more than two million people on the streets in Tehran. These are now 20-year-olds, 18 to 20-year-olds. And it seems very clear after 20 years of attempts at reform, which have been blocked and stymied by various factors, this new generation seems to have lost any faith that the regime is capable of being able to meet their

demands and as a result are going directly for regime change. And that's quite different from what we've seen before. How widespread are the protests and how much of an actual threat to the regime do you think that they pose? They have now taken place in more than 90 cities. So it is quite widespread. They may not be in the same numbers as what we saw in 2009, but it's very widespread. And it's going through many of the cities that traditionally have not had a lot of protests. The regime doesn't seem to act as if they viewed it as a major threat, and they may be completely miscalculating. They may calculate that they can clamp down and through repression, coil these protests. And they may be right miscalculating. They may calculate that they can clamp down and through repression, coil these protests. And they may be right in that. But even if they do so, they're

only sowing the seeds for future protests. Because as long as there is no willingness by the regime to give some space to people, in this case, they're asking for some basic dignity. As long as they're not willing to do so, you're going to see more protests and they're going to become more radicalized in their demands compared to what they have been in the past. So it's not a winning formula for the regime itself. It'd be just things that resorting to violence and repression will save the day for them. You know, at the same time, Dr. Parsi, this is what we always say. It's very difficult. You know, we're here. We're not there on the ground. We can see that the protests are happening.

Obviously, there's cheerleading on a lot of sides, like this is going to be finally it. But I've seen a lot of protests in Iran. What type of settlement do these things usually come to? You know, as much as I would hope, you know, for a different outcome, what is the likely course of action as we see in the next couple of days? Well, these protests face a lot of different challenges that makes it difficult to see them ultimately being successful, at least in this situation. And one of the things is that this is not having a clear leadership. There's some voices on the outside that are trying to claim

leadership. It's clear that they're not in charge of what's taking place. This is driven from people on the inside. But there's no clear organization behind it. There's no clear leadership that can channel the demands and channel the pressure onto the regime in a very specific way. Now, that may change. We have seen in other examples in which something can start off being leaderless, but then leaders emerge out of the movement. But if they don't, then I think it's going to be very difficult to see how this can be successful again in this iteration. But this is a longer-term process.

It's not just one round of protest that matters here. One thing I would be looking for is to see whether some of these labor strikes that already have taken place, if they actually will start intensifying in sympathy and solidarity with these protests, that would mean that the protests are now then starting to manifest themselves outside of just the street protest. And that could be a big change in the dynamics. So the Trump administration policy was effectively trying to put enough pressure and squeeze Iran as a whole enough to force a potential regime change. I mean, that was kind of seemed like the goal they were pushing towards.

They back out of the Iran nuclear deal. They level all of these intense sanctions, make things very difficult for the country and the people in that country economically. Is this, in a sense, a sort of vindication of that policy? No, it's not a vindication in my view. I mean, first of all, yes, they have very specifically targeted the idea that reform is possible and has frustrated the population who are seeing no other options but to going out and protesting and calling for regime change. But I think it's important to keep in mind what the Trump administration's objecting was not regime change, it was regime collapse.

They wanted to just see a complete collapse and potentially followed by a civil war. They were not championing any particular change in regime. I think the Trump administration didn't want to own the chaos that would come from a regime collapse. And I don't think that is what we're seeing. We're seeing that their policies have helped create some of the conditions that has made people all the more frustrated because of Trump pulling out of the Iran deal, the economic situation getting worse, strengthening the hardliners that are not engaged in even further repression. But the idea that it would be successful, or from the standpoint of actually wanting to see movement in the right direction, would mean that this actually would lead to democratization.

We're not seeing clear signs of that. We're seeing signs that people are out there protesting and calling for regime change because they're so terribly frustrated with the situation. But the lesson that was learned may have been unlearned now from 1979. It's one thing to protest against a tyrannical regime. It's a completely different thing to turn those protests into a force for democratization. In 1979, that utterly failed. A dictator was replaced with another dictator, in many ways a worse dictator. Yeah. Well, I think it's very important in order to break these things down in a very calm

manner, and that's what you've always been excellent at for our show. So we really appreciate you joining us and for describing this. And obviously, it's a bad situation. And yeah, I just hope for the best for the people there who are obviously protesting something very, very unjust. So thank you very much, sir. We appreciate that. Thank you so much for having me. Great to see you, Tr, sir. We appreciate that. Thank you so much for having me.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you all so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We've got the discount going on right now, 10% off on annual, link in the description. And live show, let's go ahead and buy those tickets, people. Chicago, we've got to sell this thing out. Just please, please help us out. In the Midwest, if you're in the area, come and join us. It's going to be an awesome time. Other than that, I think we have no more administrative announcements. We'll see everybody tomorrow. Love you guys. See you tomorrow. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.

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