Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/27/21: Legislation Week in Congress, AOC Tears, Jan 6 Feds, Assange, Trump vs GOP, Lab Leak, Tulsi Gabbard, China's Economy, and More!

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. It is a gigantic week in Washington with tons of potential ramifications, not only political, but more importantly, just substantively for you and your life. But some other stories we want to get to as well. There was a tearful display from one Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the floor of the house. We will explain as much as we can figure out what exactly was going on there. New revelations. This is the first confirmed instance of a Fed informant actually involved in the January 6th riot, insurrection, whatever you want to call it. So we'll get to that. Bombshell revelations involving

Julian Assange and the lengths that the CIA were willing to go to, up to and including kidnapping and murdering him. Also some reporting there about a friend of the show, Glenn Greenwald, and how they were trying to target and go after him as well for the crime of being a journalist. New Arizona audit-ish results show that actually Biden won by even more than what the original tally said. So that's kind of interesting. We've got Dylan Rattigan on. We've been following closely, as you guys know, what's going on in China, what's going on with Evergrande. So we're really excited to get him in the show to talk to him. He was, of course, incredibly prescient about the housing crisis and really had the bank's number and saw exactly what was going on there. So excited to talk to him. But we wanted to start with just what is going on

here in Washington this gigantic week, as we've been telling you guys, a bunch of issues coming to a head. You've got a government shutdown looming end of this week. You've got debt ceiling set to be breached middle of next month, so in just a couple of weeks here. And of course, the big things that we're focused on, you have these two pillars of the Biden agenda, the infrastructure package, this bipartisan infrastructure package, and the reconciliation bill. Now, today originally had been the deadline. Remember, there was this agreement with the corporate Democrats that, OK, we promise we're going to have a vote on this infrastructure bill on Monday, September 27th. Well, guess what? It is Monday, September 27th.

However, it looks like they were going to kick the can down the road just a little bit. Let's throw Jake Sherman's tweet up on the screen here to sort of set the stage. Pelosi makes it official she wants funding infrastructure and reconciliation all passed in this week. That reconciliation package, the $3.5 trillion or whatever it ends up being, they are nowhere close to having that thing ready for primetime this week. But that is what she is saying and what she's sticking to. We also had some sound from her talking about, all right, so progressives are saying they're not going to vote for the infrastructure package. That would mean they don't have the votes to pass it. Meanwhile, moderates are really, so-called moderates, are really trying to push this thing

forward saying, hey, we had a deal. We're supposed to vote on infrastructure this week. Pelosi says, okay, we're going to have these votes this week, but also I'm not going to bring a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. Let's take a listen to what she said. The problem is you need 98 or 99% to pass the bills. And I know you said the infrastructure bill is going to pass, but the leader of the progressive caucus in the House, Jamala Priyapal, is balking. She said on Friday that voting on this bill tomorrow is an arbitrary date, adding that more than 50 members will vote no if you first don't have agreement on the broader social investment bill. So are you confident these progressive members are going to vote yes, even though she says no?

Let me just say we're going to pass the bill this week. I promised that we would bring the bill to the floor. That was according to the language that those who wanted this brought to the floor tomorrow wrote into the rule. We will bring the bill to the floor tomorrow for consideration. But you know, I'm never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. And I think any time you put an arbitrary date, well, remember when the Republicans said they were going to overturn the Affordable Care Act on the anniversary of the Affordable

Care Act? I knew right then and then they were doomed. You cannot choose the date you have to go when you have the votes in a reasonable time. And we will. And I do believe that we will do. First of all, let me just say, it's an eventful week. First of all, we have to make sure, just chronologically, we have to make sure we keep government open, and we will. Second of all, we have to honor the vision of President Biden, and we thank him for his leadership and his courage putting forth such a bold package. In order to move forward, we have to build consensus.

It's not winners, losers. It's bring people together. And that's what we always do in the Democratic Party. Got it. Yeah. All right. Awesome. So we're going to consider it this week, but also we're not going to bring it to the floor

without the votes. And they do not have the votes as of now. Couple more elements to throw in here then I'll get your reactions out. So we have the latest from Jake Sherman is that she is planning a Thursday vote on the infrastructure package. Let's put that tweet up on the screen. That was announced yesterday evening, relatively late. Before that happened, actually, the corporatists were already sort of getting a little bit loose on, okay, well, we'll get to it sometime this week. So they were backing off of that Monday date. We've got a Ryan Grimm tweet. Yeah, so that's Gottheimer bailing on the Monday vote. Go ahead and put the next one up there, Eric, Ryan's tweet. 22 progressives right now are saying no on infrastructure without reconciliation.

That is sufficient to kill that bill. That means Pelosi, even though she may want to bring it to the floor, she does not have the votes unless reconciliation comes up as well. Ann Sager, this morning I was reading that Pramila Jayapal says, actually, that number is growing. She says she's got 60 votes to say no to the infrastructure package without reconciliation. I think the fact that you had the backup from 11 senators and this is becoming a mainstream position. So, actually, I know this is going to be really weird to hear. But so far, progressives are, at least in this little skirmish, they are winning the battle. Pelosi having to push the vote back, Gottheimer and the corporatists getting squishy on all of this.

They actually have the upper hand right now. You know, but it's still, I'm just not sure that it'll all come to pass. Because what did you notice? She goes, well, the Republicans said we're going to vote by this. And then immediately after, then she goes out and says, okay, we're going to vote on Thursday, even though, I mean, look, there are not enough public votes. Maybe she knows something that we don't. I was just reading though in Politico this morning that a lot of people are very pissed at the president because the president apparently has not even gotten in touch with a lot of the whip count. He hasn't been calling. He hasn't really kind of hasn't been anywhere. Nobody knows where the hell he is. So you put all of that together.

This is literally his whole agenda. I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that if all of the votes go the wrong way, his entire presidency, I mean, I wouldn't say it's over, but in terms of passing any more large legislation, this is it. Bipartisan infrastructure bill plus the reconciliation bill was supposed to be his long-lasting legacy. That's how he sees himself 100%. Not being able to have that and all of this mess in the House is a big problem for him. And right now, as of right now, there are not the votes, especially because we know that Kyrsten Sinema had gone out and she's apparently been privately telling people that she will not raise, that she does not want to agree to any of the taxes that are being proposed. She won't accept any corporate or income tax rate increases.

Let's go and put that Jonathan Tweet up there on the screen. So she says, this is according to New York Times, Ms. Sinema has privately told colleagues she will not accept any corporate or income tax rate increases. So that is an extraordinary piece of news because what does it mean? The entire Biden piece says that the reconciliation bill itself will all be paid for with tax increases. But now Ms. Sinema says she will not accept any tax increase whatsoever. So if that's the truth, then basically the ballgame is over. Now, she hasn't publicly communicated any of that. But remember, she had already laid her little deadline saying if there's not a vote by the end

of September, then I'm not voting for the reconciliation bill. That, you know, probably is still a little bit squishy. But if that's what privately her and Manchin are being communicated, then there's going to be a problem. And actually, you know, Crystal, there's been some reports too, Sinema and Manchin are actually now whipping, or not Sinema and Manchin, but like that whole world. They are trying to get House Republicans to vote for that by-parts and infrastructure bill to try and overcome any sort of progressive vote. Because if they can just get it passed, then they'll just go, Manchin has already said, I don't want reconciliation until 2022. Sinema is 100% behind that. Manny Gottheimer and all these other people, they don't want to vote for that other bill. So if they could get it passed without progressive support, which does seem extraordinarily

unlikely, I don't want to give anybody the wrong idea. More what we're saying is the political incentives here on both sides are not good for Joe Biden. And he's nowhere to be seen. Nobody knows where the hell he is. It is astonishing. Yeah. And again, not consistent with the way that he operated when he was vice president. No, not at all.

He was the hands-on guy. He was the glad handle. He was the backroom deals guy that Obama, you know, he didn't want to get his hands dirty with all that. And frankly, I mean, he was a junior senator. He didn't have much of a relationship with most members of the Senate, let alone the House. So Biden was always the go-to guy to sort of strong arm people and glad handle him. And hey, you're my buddy, you're my friend. That's part of why Bernie had trouble attacking him is because he had this good relationship with him and like had all these warm fuzzies towards him that he didn't have towards Hillary Clinton. He hasn't been doing a lot of that. Yes, there were meetings at the Bernie's legacy because he really put this bill together. He put a lot of his sort of progressive cred on the line to advocate forcefully

for it, to do the backroom wheeling and dealing that he's not really that's not really his thing. He's not super comfortable in that role. One of his chief aides, Warren Gunnels, says he tweeted this out. Sixty two percent support the $3.5 trillion American Families Bill to tax the 1%, lower drug prices, and combat climate change. 48 Democratic senators support it, while two corporate-sponsored Democrats don't. This is what a corrupt political system looks like. So pretty harsh words coming there from the Sanders camp. And it's hard to see exactly how this ultimately resolves. You know, it's very telling that Sinema, Manchin, Gottheimer, that whole crew,

they never come out and actually oppose the provisions of the bill. They never say, you know what? I don't think we should have universal pre-K. You know what? I don't think that we should be doing anything about climate change. I don't think we should have free community college because frankly, all of those individual pieces, very, very popular. The overall package and the White House was distributing all these anyway, it's really popular. Even something like a quarter of Republicans support this thing. So you'll notice they never actually come out and say,

you know what, guys, I don't think that we should invest in our people. I don't think that this provision or that provision, the child tax credit, whatever it is, I don't think that's a, you know, I think that's a bad idea. They never actually come out and say that. Instead, they play all of these games. They leak to the Times like, oh, I've got this issue or I've got that issue. Or, you know, let's just press pause. I want to get to, I'm really committed to it, but let's just do it down the road. Or they talk about the overall spending number rather than the specifics because the specifics here are really, really popular. Kyrsten Sinema is not playing to her base in Arizona or the general population in Arizona. As I laid out in detail, tax hikes on the wealthy, taxing the rich, and taxing corporations,

really, really, really popular, okay? This is not about her playing to her state. It's not about Manchin playing to his state. For Sinema, you have to say, she must be looking at what comes after the Senate. She must be looking at what her job prospects may be down the road. And fundraising. I mean, you know, in terms of running again. Absolutely. Those are the incentives that she's responding to. Sirota had a great piece of reporting over the Daily Poster showing that, you know, right around the time that she announced she's not comfortable with the Medicare prescription drug reforms, she's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in ads backing her up in her state from pharma. So it's just complete corruption. That's the big obstacle that they're facing now to getting anything passed. And just

to sum up here, where they stand right now, it's very uncertain. Pelosi says they're going to vote for infrastructure on Thursday. She's also indicating. Pelosi says they're going to vote for infrastructure on Thursday. She's also indicating, hey, we're going to do reconciliation this week. That seems impossible. And I do not think there is no way that Nancy Pelosi brings an infrastructure bill to the floor that does not have the votes to pass it. And last thing I'll say is, remember, the reason that we had this whole arbitrary deadline this week and all of that was because of these, Gottheimer and these obnoxious moderates. Well, in the agreement that she crafted, and we talked about this at the time, she gave herself all sorts of outs. So, number one, as we're finding out right now, it didn't say you have to vote on Monday. It says you have to consider the bill on Monday.

Now, that can lead to all sorts of stalling tactics and all of that. So that's number one. And number two, there's just a provision in there that's just straight up like, and if the speaker wants to pull it, she can. So she doesn't have any sort of firm. She has to do it Thursday. And again, I think it is extraordinarily unlikely, if not completely impossible, that Nancy Pelosi, knowing what we know about her, would bring this bill to the floor if it does not have the votes to pass. And today, the progressives are not only holding strong, they're growing in numbers. Right. So you put all that together, it's a bad week for the Biden presidency. Pelosi's in a real

pickle. I mean, so is Chuck Schumer. I don't, I still, I just don't see how they can resolve it. I think it's too irreconcilable. The entire thing is going to go down in flames. And in two weeks, we're probably going to have the, you know, the finality of it. The only thing that will probably pass is a continuing resolution, maybe the debt ceiling. When I say continuing resolution, I mean there won't be a shutdown per se because of the funding. But then also, you know, if you hit the debt limit, then the government also has to shut down. So we'll, it's going to be a fun couple of weeks here in Washington. We're bringing you guys inside all of the machinations because this stuff really matters.

This is how they work the system. If you delay, delay, delay, delay. We both knew the moment that Biden didn't move aggressively forward after that, the CARES Act, it was over. I was like, or no, sorry, the American Rescue Plan, I think. The moment that that happened, it was done because you let it get into the gridlock machine and the months of negotiations and back and forth. And then at the same time, you as the president of the White House, you don't take an active hand in shaping that bill, you're dead. I don't know how many presidents have to learn this lesson. Obama, he literally was the vice president the last time that this

all played out. So I guess he doesn't remember. I'm not sure what the deal is. He got so caught up in this idea of having some bipartisan win. And I do think that this comes back to my theory of the Biden presidency is he has this sort of chip on his shoulder, wants to outdo Obama, wants to do the things Obama didn't do. So with the relief bill- I thought he would, honestly. That worked out pretty well because he saw, okay, Obama stimulus too small. I'm going to go bigger. So he does that. But the other thing that, you know, he wants to outdo Obama on is Obama was never able to get Republicans to vote with him on a single thing. So he's he wants to show like, oh, I can do the

bipartisanship thing. I don't know if you recall when people were pressing him on like, how are you going to get these Republicans to go along with you? He said, just watch me, just watch me. So he was really committed for, I mean, no good reason to this idea of like, Lindsey Graham's going to vote with me on something. Taking the time to negotiate with them and come up with some package that they could possibly vote for, splitting the infrastructure piece from the rest of it, all of that has completely hamstrung its agenda. And so it's not an accident that they ended up in this place of complete, you know, gridlock. Look, maybe they find their way out of it. I've certainly seen instances before where I'm looking at the chessboard and say, I don't know how they come. I don't know

how this gets resolved, whether it was a debt ceiling or shutdown or whatever, and somehow they find a way. So you never know. that could ultimately happen. But Joe Biden's specific tactical decisions got us to this place where his own agenda is in danger of complete and utter collapse. So they've sort of made their bed, and we'll see what happens this week. We'll be watching it really closely, because as you said, I don't want you guys to get lost in the process here. The bottom line is there is a lot at stake in terms of just the day-to-day reality for working families, working people, and that's why we have our eyes so closely on it. There we go. Okay.

So the other piece, one of the other pieces coming to a head this week is the continuing resolution. So, little back story here for you. Originally, progressives balked at having funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system in this continuing resolution. A billion extra dollars. A billion extra dollars. Okay. Whatever you think about Israel and Palestine. Israel's a wealthy nation. If they want to fund their missile defense system, it is their right to do that.

I don't know why the American taxpayer should be involved in that whatsoever. So progressives, I thought righteously, were able to strip that out of this funding bill because they threatened to tank the whole thing if this funding was included in it. So AOC and others vote along with, hey, we don't want this in the funding bill. Then leaderships, Denny Hoyer in particular is the one who apparently pressed this, decided to take just that funding out alone and bring it to the floor for a vote. Putting progressives, really squeezing them and, you know, putting it in front of the whole world and getting the Republicans on board. You have to get the vote talent. That's the thing.

Yes, exactly. So nine, actually eight progressives plus Thomas Massey, a Republican. They voted against, even, you know, on the floor in the full vote. They voted against funding Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system. AOC originally voted against it and then at the last minute changed her vote to vote present. And this is the scene that unfolded on the House floor. For those of you who are listening, what's going to happen here, she walks out, she's clearly upset, she's wiping her eyes, and she later on confirms that she was, in fact, tearful and weeping on the floor of the House.

Let's take a look at that. Designated by Mr. Lawson of Florida, pursuant to House Resolution 8, I'm calling the House that Ms. Lawson will vote nay on House Resolution 483 amendments. He votes nay. For what purpose? Yeah, so you... So she's wiping her eyes.

I think that's Barbara Lee who's consoling her. She's clearly very visibly upset. And we're all going like, what the hell is going on here? After we, you know, this is making the rounds on Twitter. Okay, what the hell is going on here? Especially, keep in mind, AOC has called Israel an apartheid state. If you believe Israel is an apartheid state, this vote is a no-brainer, okay? It's a no-brainer. So she changes her vote from no to present at the last minute.

She's crying on the House floor. And then the first thing that she says, Michael Tracy had a little commentary on this. We can throw this up on the screen, his tweet. She claimed that she broke out in tears because her safety was at risk. She says, what we saw is a disappointment of just a willingness to rip our communities apart and put member safety at risk. Tracy's commentary is, what the hell does that even mean? Yes, I also have that question. Then we got, this is the last piece, then we got this long four-page statement from AOC. It's all up on the screen. I mean, it's really lengthy. It's a whole, you know, monologue on, well, it's supposed to be about why she voted present, but it doesn't actually ever truly explain that. I'll give

you some quotes. It was pretty hard to make heads or tails of this. I'm just going to say, she said, there are a lot of words there, but it didn't say a whole lot. She says, to those who I've disappointed, I'm deeply sorry. To those who believe this reasoning is insufficient or cowardice, I understand. She says, yes, I wept. So she confirmed she was tearful on the house floor. I wept at the complete lack of care for the human beings that are impacted by these decisions. I wept at an institution choosing a path of maximum volatility and minimum consideration for its own political convenience. And just so you know, I'm not putting spin on the ball here. Washington Post, in their write-up of this lengthy, nonsensical statement, says,

She was not explicit about the reasons for the change of heart, but hinted at a lack of time for substantive community consultation as well as quote hateful targeting and the creation of an atmospheric quote tinderbox a vitriol uh whatever that means welcome to washington i'm just gonna say it i think she's got some problems i'm not sure what's going on i honestly i feel bad for her it's clearly you know it's hard to be under the media spotlight, et cetera. I also signed up for it. Look, she's been targeted. Yeah. No doubt about it.

There's no question. But, you know, grow up. You work in D.C. You're a famous person and you work in Congress. You wanted the job. Yeah, exactly. Bottom line, you wanted the job. This is what it looks like.

You know, we don't have enough consideration. You need more time to consider it? Like you said, she has made her position on Israel very clear. So if you believe that, then vote accordingly. Why do you need more time to consider? Like you said, if you're going to on Israel very clear. So if you believe that, then vote accordingly. Why do you need more time to consider? Like you said, if you're going to use language like that, then act like it. Or just be honest that you're afraid of being redistricted and that you're worried that they're going to try and put more Jewish people in your district. Right.

Or that they're going to try and squeeze you. And here's the thing. I would have respected her more if she just voted for it and had come out and been like, look, I'm afraid they're going to redistrict me. I got to play ball. It's like, you can't have it both ways. Why are you crying? Just from a tactical perspective, if that's your concern, you already called Israel an apartheid state. Yeah, right. Like, that ship has sailed, okay? The ship has sailed. And so, if you actually believe that, again, this is a very easy vote. And even if you don't think Israel is an apartheid state, why should our taxpayer dollars be going to this wealthy nation? I mean, it just, it doesn't make any sense. Now, we know that, you know, this is a very powerful interest group in

Washington, and it's been very, very effective at keeping both Democrats and Republicans in line. This is the first time these last attacks on Gaza and the fighting back and forth, the first time you really saw major cracks in this coalition that has the Israelis extraordinarily freaked out, which is why they put so much pressure on Steny Hoyer to bring this to the floor, to get everybody on the record, to have this vote count ultimately. But again, listen, if you're worried about, you know, people who care a lot about Israel being upset with you, like, honey, that ship has sailed. That is long over. So just actually take the right vote here and do the job that you're supposed to do. People didn't send you to Washington to be one of these who, you know, is worried about the redistricting and Pelosi put pressure on me and whatever.

They sent you there to be a moral voice even when it's tough. And that's the job you said that you ultimately wanted. So there's really no defense here. And like you said, look, I do kind of feel bad for her because she just, it seems like she's struggling. I mean, just on a personal level. She's not holding it together. And I know that she has been subjected to insane derangement and attacks and for ridiculous things and all of that. But ultimately, that is the role that you've signed up for. That is the role that you've

stepped into. And so my care and concern for your feelings is a lot less than my care and concern for what is actually right and moral in this instance. And this ain't it. Look, and that's, well, you don't want to be harsh. And that's what she was, oh, member safety, all of that. But look, you are beclowning yourself on the world stage. There is just no other way to describe it. I mean, caught these tears and just making it, once again, all about her. And then putting out this, like, diversity and inclusion babble speak, which nobody understands. Just be honest about what's happening here.

And, as you said, you already supported BDS. It's over. Like, you know, you called Israel a part of the state. It's over. Right. You called Israel a part of the state. It's done. Lean into it. Yeah, either lean into it or, you know, I don't know, or recant. But you can't have it both ways. Yeah.

And whenever you try to, you just look so phony. And in the vote, changing it to present, actually Glenn pointed out, I know you're talking about Tulsi and your radar, but, you know, Glenn pointed out that whenever Tulsi voted present on that impeachment vote, that she savaged her and called it an act of cowardice or whatever. Well, you know, as you said, to those who think it was an act of cowardice, I understand. Yeah, well. I understand too. Here you go.

Here you go. him back to as I was watching all of this unfold is that remember when she was at like a local forum on Israel and she was asked just the most basic question about Israel, Palestine. And she didn't know anything. And the answer, it was like four minutes of nothing. It was like, well, the real question is the why and the process. And sometimes we forget just complete word salad for like four minutes long. And reading the statement, I also had some real questions about what is your staff doing letting you send this out? Because it wasn't just unfulfilling in terms of giving an actual rationale and explaining your thinking. It was also just extraordinarily poorly written and not grammatically sound. So I'm like,

who on your staff said that this was okay to go out and sanction this? Because when she first came to Congress, I remember a number of instances where her thing was kind of like she'd come into these hearings super prepared. Yeah, that's true. Really done effective research, had some extraordinarily important and tough questions for whoever it was that they were questioning. So I was kind of impressed with her staffing at this point. Reading this write-up, it was like, this is like what a senior in high school might put out and get a C on. Like I said, I think there's something going on behind the scenes.

I don't think all is right there. Hey, so remember how we told you how awesome premium membership was? Well, here we are again to remind you that becoming a premium member means you don't have to listen to our constant pleas for you to subscribe. So what are you waiting for? Become a premium member today by going to BreakingPoints.com, which you can click on in the show notes. Speaking of the Capitol, we've been sticking to the Capitol, a lot of stuff. We have to go and remember January 6th. Very interesting and important New York Times story out over the weekend. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that among those who marched into the Capitol on January 6th

was an FBI informant. So the Times actually lays it out almost like a narrative. As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting towards the Capitol, one member of the group was busy texting a real-time account of the march. Now, the recipient was his FBI handler. So get this. In the middle of all of that, what they can see, this is according to confidential records obtained by the New York Times. I'm still interested in that one.

In the informants' version of events, the Proud Boys were largely following the mob, which were consumed by the herd mentality, rather than carrying out any type of preplanned attack. So what's interesting here is that the informants themselves, you can see, is that they were inside of the Capitol and real-time texting to their actual FBI handlers about what was happening. And now the documents themselves actually show that at least according to the FBI informants, they were telling them like, oh, we're just going, like it wasn't planned. Look, it all could be planted by the defense team or some sympathetic person inside of the FBI. But the one thing that's not in dispute here, and the FBI has not denied any of this, is that there were people who were inside of the Capitol who themselves had connections with the FBI. Now, this is very important because it fits a pattern which we have observed now time and time again in many of these domestic far-right extremism cases,

quote unquote, and in many Islamic extremism cases during the war on terror, which is that you have the FBI intimately involved with many of the plotters of, you know, on the domestic extremism side, on the Islamic extremism side. And when you begin, the full facts of the case come out, you're getting pretty close to the line of entrapment, if not full, full line across it. As in, this person will like tweet something, they will, you know, contact you, encourage you to carry out a plot. Then the moment you do so, they arrest you. Right. Send you to the dude who's also a Fed who's going to give you the guns

or whatever. I mean, that Gretchen Whitmer plot, I mean, what was it? There were more Feds involved in the plot than actual defendants in the case. And then one of the Feds

apparently is a wife beater and just had to resign. So that's kind of an interesting little side. Among other issues. The question, again, is how many FBI informants, handlers, were actually inside of January 6th? Here's the other issues. The question, again, is how many FBI informants, handlers were actually inside of January 6th? Here's the other thing.

We still don't have a definitive answer. Were there any actual undercover cops inside of the Capitol? Yeah. We know there were some. We already know that there were some at the demonstration themselves. And I think that a lot of that information is being kept very, very, very under wraps because they don't want people to understand just how intimately they were involved in a lot of this. And then also this all begs the question of, if you had all these feds there and inside

of these groups, then why was there nobody at the Capitol itself? Right, then what the hell happened? Why didn't you stop this? How did this happen? So not only did you pretty much brush right up against the civil liberties line, if not full blown past it, you also completely failed at your job. Right. Which seems to be a very common theme. And that piece, like, I feel like liberals should have a lot of interest in. Yes. You know, I feel like liberals should have a lot of interest in this question of like, okay, so if you were there and you'd infiltrated these groups, then what the hell?

Like, why were we so unprepared? Why was this allowed to ultimately happen? That seems like a really important line of inquiry that I haven't seen a lot of curiosity from liberals about. But the other thing I keep thinking here is, like, what the hell is going on with the Proud Boys? Because we know that their leader, that Enrique Tarrio dude, he was described by Reuters as a prolific informer for law enforcement, both federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding. So anyway, a lot of feds infiltrating Proud Boys apparently.

Two confirmed anyway. Well, yeah, and then there was another thing. It says the FBI also had an additional informant with ties to another Proud Boys chapter, so an independent Proud Boys chapter, that took part in the sacking of the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter. And the Times is pointing to this being like raising questions about theacking of the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter. And the Times is pointing to this being like raising questions about the quality of the informants and what sorts of questions were being asked by the handlers, given the fact that the miserable

failure of the security situation on the day of the Capitol itself. There's a lot going on here. Yes. As you said, Mr. Tarrio himself, he was not actually at the Capitol on January 6th because he was ordered by a local judge to stay away. Something about a gun charge or something like that. But look, you put all this together, it is very clear that the FBI had all sorts of connections and more with the actual groups that were involved in some cases, both either in storming the Capitol or, you know, organizing some of what was going on around that that eventually evolved into a melee. And you actually sent us this story this morning, so we didn't have time to create an element. But you guys might remember,

we covered a story on Rising about that Postal Service unit, which was monitoring, quote, you know, extremism. And the reason why that was really important is the Postal Service and mail fraud is a time-honored charge of the federal government, as in they can almost hit you with mail fraud for anything. If you do, you know, it's very easy to violate that. Same with wire fraud in terms of, like, if you pay somebody.

It's a really easy way to make a charge stick. Well, now we are learning that the covert postal service unit actually probed January 6th social media. So nobody really knows anything about the USPS Internet Covert Operations Program. That is literally their name. You could not come up with a better one. They sent bulletins to law enforcement agencies across the country on how to view social media posts, which had been deleted. It describes its scrutiny on the fringe social media networks where some people who were involved with January 6th. So you are again seeing the expansion of the national security state justified by what happened on January 6th.

We are learning the national security state itself was involved, at least in some form, on what happened that day. There remain many unnamed co-conspirators in a lot of these indictments. Months and months and months later, I mean, it's September. Like, it's been nine months. Yeah. And this whole thing has happened. And I believe, and I think we both hold this, the more that comes out in open court, if they try to prosecute these folks, we're going to learn even more about how many more FBI people were involved in this. I just want to, like, send me a list of the federal agencies that aren't spying on us.

Can we just get that at this point? Oh, yeah, the Capitol Police. Don't ever forget that one. Because that scares me because they're not subject to FOIA. Right. Which means they literally cannot. They can do whatever they want. They can do whatever they want.

I mean, this is wild. Betsy Woodruff did the reporting here. Betsy Woodruff-Swan for Politico. She says, quite understatedly, ICOP, that's their acronym, ICOP's involvement raises questions about how broad the mandate of Postal Service's policing arm has

grown from its stated mission of keeping mail deliverers safe. Indeed it does raise a lot of questions about exactly that. Yes, and they also point to tweets from like Czech intelligence or whatever. It's almost comical the level of surveillance that is justified here by January 6th, the freakout that was spawned by it, and then the intelligence and the entire federal government approach. I mean, I did that whole thing, General Miley thinking he apparently is, you know, the king of the country and can call China and say, hey, don't worry, we're not going to attack you.

And like, you know, try and mess with the nuclear code reporting system. They basically took it as a license to do what they always wanted to do. And they have the establishment support. That's the problem. And here's the other thing that I would say that we've said before, but I think it's really important to underscore, is if you're going to have a real January 6th commission, explore questions like this one. Yes, 100%.

Like, hey, what agencies were involved? Who had heads-up notice? Like, what were those failures? Like the 9-11 commission, which, you know, didn't exactly come to me. Didn't come to me. Yeah, that was another one that was, you know, put up and designed fail. Anyway, and hold no one accountable. No one. But if you were going to have a real look into, like, number one, how do we end up as a country in this place, which implicates both Republicans, Democrats, and Wall Street and lots of other

people. And number two, tell me more about these agencies and the way that they were surveilling us and the knowledge that they had in advance and, you know, what their roles were in these various organizations. I would be 100% behind an actual objective look into those incredibly important, really essential questions. But of course, instead, you're going to get the polar opposite. What you're already seeing is that the January 6th Commission is being used to justify an expansion of these infringements on civil liberties, to justify a use and application of war on terror tactics which were abhorrent to an even broader swath of the population. And that's why we both are extraordinarily uncomfortable, I'll just say, with the direction that that all is going in.

Absolutely. And let's stay on that theme. Let's stay on the deep state topic because this is astonishing. Let's go ahead and throw this tear sheet up on the screen. This is from Yahoo News. So the CIA under Trump and led by Mike Pompeo apparently were floating plans to kidnap or even assassinate Julian Assange. Let me just read you the leading paragraphs here. They say in 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holdup in Ecuador's embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation. Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed

killing Assange, going so far as to request sketches or options for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred, quote, at the highest levels of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. There seem to be no boundaries. I want you just to think for a moment about how completely insane this is. Number one, why are they so angry at Assange? Because he exposed their secrets, and they wanted revenge. I mean, this was personal. If you read this, a lengthy piece, if you read through it, you come to realize, I mean, this wasn't about any concern about, oh, our people might be put at risk or any of that total, total bullshit, the spin that they

try to tell you about how American service members or whatever are put at risk. No, they were furious. It was personal, and they wanted revenge. So think about what they're contemplating here. They were actively floating and considering scenarios that involved, like, gunfights on London streets to take this guy out, either to kidnap him through rendition or to actually murder him. The level of insanity, psychopathic behavior, the level of arrogance to think you could just craft something like this and execute it is mind-blowing.

And it shows you the way that these people operate. There is nothing, nothing that is out of bounds here. Well, what's even more troubling, too, is about all of what it ended up justifying. It's a lot like January 6th, what we just talked about. Yeah. Which is that among the journalists that U.S. officials wanted to designate as, quote, information brokers were Glenn Greenwald, columnist at The Guardian, Laura Porchie, a documentary filmmaker. Now, the reason why, and this is a former official who talked to Yahoo said, is WikiLeaks, a journalistic organization, are Laura Porchie and Glenn Greenwald truly journalists. We tried to change the definition and I preached this to the White House and got rejected. Now,

this is very important because this is actually something Glenn points to all the time, which is that if the National Security Division of the Justice Department can go after Assange for what he did, which was essentially help leak classified information, many journalists could then be subject to the same rules. Now, remember, what he did there in terms of Chelsea Manning was he spoke to her and he's like, hey, here's how you, you know, whatever, get the documents to me. That's something though that journalists put on their page. They'll be like, here's my, you know, PGP key or like, here's how to contact me via signal, whatever. That then could be construed under the same law, technically, technically, as a conviction of Assange that could come. And they exactly point to the fact that the intelligence community were trying to designate Glenn and other journalists

not as journalists specifically so they could go after them and subject them to the different types of spying protocols that we would use against an enemy. This is the problem that we have, which is that once you start to go down this road, you can begin to see how it all becomes very slippery. And then you can have a situation where the Trump administration, who once again, who benefited more from WikiLeaks? I mean, in some ways, they owe part of their victory at least to some of these email leaks, which is fine by me, actually. I think the information should come out and I think that's important. But he put all of that together, and it was very clear that this was a slow-moving truck within the CIA, that the Trump administration basically gave the CIA a total carte blanche. They're like, hey, do whatever you want.

And Pompeo was very much on board with that agenda, and they greenlit some very, very— I mean, this is almost like assassinate Castro level of craziness. I mean, you look at this. I mean, this is London. Like what, the Brits are going to be totally chill with us assassinating somebody or kidnapping somebody on their soil and doing a rendition to a friendly country?

We've put all this behind us in the Bush administration for good reason, in my opinion. And, you know, you go and you look at the conduct here that at least was being contemplated. Trump put out a statement last night. He goes, it never happened. I actually think Assange was treated very badly. Then why did you pardon him?

And not just did you not pardon him, but it was you all are the ones who went after him. They track the—it's interesting because they track the view of Assange throughout the Obama presidency and the way it changed, and then throughout the Trump presidency. And Obama originally, they were, look, they had their own press freedom issues, aggressively prosecuting leakers and all of that, and whistleblowers. But they were worried about this distinction that you're talking about. Like, well, what makes WikiLeaks different from any other journalistic outlet? Exactly. How can we possibly draw this line? So initially, they were actually pretty cautious. They were worried. They certainly,

they didn't indict him for the entirety of the Obama administration because they were worried about this distinction. Then, once you have the Edward Snowden revelations, well, then they start to take the gloves off. Then they start to say, listen, any sort of basically covert activity, spying, all of that, we're pretty much okay with. So they ramp up the aggressive tactics in terms of the surveillance of Assange. Then when Trump comes into office, it's really gloves off. First, they consider all of this insanity, kidnapping him. They were obsessed with the idea that he was going to flee to Russia. And so they were even planning like, should we engage in gunfire on the streets with Russian operatives if that's what,

on the streets of London, again, like this is what they're considering. And apparently putting forward sketches and plans as to how you could actually murder him considering things like well what if we ran his car off the road would that work what if we poisoned him was another thing that they considered okay total insanity there's also a very revealing line here where they were like some of the people who were you know the wise hands and the the level heads in the room were like, well, this isn't like Pakistan or Egypt. We can't just do whatever we want because it's London, which also is very revealing about the way they treat, you know, people and governments in other parts of the world. But that was apparently part of the reticence. So the compromise position

was to take this aggressive legal approach towards Assange, which led to his indictment over what you're talking about, which is the, you know, they allege that he helped Chelsea Manning hack to get these documents, something that Assange and his family and his legal team certainly denies. But then they layer on top of that what's even more dangerous, this espionage charge. Yeah, that's right. That's what they're trying to get him extradited from the UK right now, to face those charges. So that was the compromise position. But obviously, not only did Trump not pardon him, but extraordinarily aggressive in going

after him. The level of surveillance also, we find this quote from this piece that he was subjected to. They said there wasn't anyone within a three-block radius. Who was it? Intelligence. It got to the point where every human being in a three-block radius was working for one of the intelligence services, whether they were street sweepers or police officers or security guards. They also infiltrated the security company that was working at the Ecuador embassy. So they had eyes on him every moment of the day.

And again, for what? For the crime of journalism, for the crime of exposing war crimes, for the crime of exposing the rigging that the DNC was doing. I mean, these ultimately, the thing that they were really pissed about was the release of documents related to what they call Vault 7, which is these sort of like CIA tactics and tools. That was what pissed the intelligence community off apparently more than anything else. But ultimately, this was all about revenge. And the last thing I'll say here is it is insane. It is outrageous. It is unconscionable that the Biden administration has continued this Trump prosecution of Julian Assange. The Obama administration had it right when they decided we cannot indict this guy. We cannot charge this guy because we will be criminalizing journalism. and Tony Blinken and Joe Biden all feel free to go out there and pretend like they care about freedom of the press when you are trying to send Julian Assange to prison for the crime of exposing secrets and doing journalism is shocking.

It is unacceptable, and it is something that people need to be reminded of every single day. Yeah, it really is hilarious. What they really mean by freedom of the press is freedom for Jim Acosta and the White House press corps. Like real journalists like Glenn and even Assange under this definition, nothing. No, absolutely. No, they'll get so upset about, oh, a mean tweet and, oh, this person was unfairly targeted or whatever. And, like, look, it's not nice when people are mean to journalists, but that is nothing compared to what Glenn has been through

and certainly what, I mean, they have destroyed this man. They have aggressively sought to utterly destroy this man, up to and including literally trying to murder him. Insane. There we go. All right, let's get to the final piece here for our daily news topics. Time to piss some of the MAGA people off. All right. So Donald Trump held a rally in Georgia over the weekend. And as just proving once again, that if there is anybody who can actually sink

the GOP's chances in 2022, it's actually Trump himself. Trump was responsible for those two Republican senators losing in the state of Georgia in that runoff election because he would encourage people not to vote. This time doing the exact same thing, saying that he would prefer Stacey Abrams as governor of Georgia than Brian Kemp because Kemp would not stand by him during Stop the Steal. Let's take a listen to what he said. When Stacey Abrams says, I'm not going to concede, that's okay. No problem. Oh, she's not going to concede.

She's not going to concede. Of course, having her, I think, might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know the truth. Might very well be better. But when she says that, no problem. When crooked Hillary Clinton says, don't ever concede. But she conceded. Of course, I got her at three o'clock in the morning. There was something going on. But she conceded. She probably regrets it. But I never conceded because I saw what was happening and I can't do it. I can't do it. You know, Stacey Abrams not conceding doesn't make it cool whenever you do so.

And it's just amazing because you put it all together, and it's all just a race to the bottom. I mean, remember when Eric Adams put out some statement alleging potential election or whatever? Oh, yeah. This has all been normalized now. And this is all, you know, look, I know that, you know, making fun of the norms and all that stuff is something the cable news made a big deal of. And in a way, they cheapened it. But this is actually a real problem. And you put it together with that rally came on the heels of this Arizona audit, which was, you know, I mean, they built this thing up, even though it was privately funded by these extremely sketchy contractors and outright stop the steal believers. Here's the other thing, stop the steal people. If you want a real

investigation, like, would you not want it to be backed by somebody who has some credibility or whatever? Well, even their own investigation, let's put this up there on the screen, has gone ahead and found that not only did Biden win, there are actually slightly more votes for him in Maricopa County than there were in the original tally, yielding 99 additional votes for Biden, 261 fewer for Trump. The numbers were close within a few hundred. So after all of that, again, this is the Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, the Republican who paved the way for this audit, had said that the overall tally matched the initial results in November. And as usual, this is never good enough for these people. They're pointing to some like sketchy subcontractor or

whatever who was involved in this, who put out like an addendum and they point to some IT person. Look, for all of those who were asking me over the weekend, I went and I read it all. And you know what? It is total and complete BS and it is laughable. I just want you people to admit it. You only believe the election was stolen because Trump said so. Just say it. There's no evidence. You believe in Trump. Okay, good. You know, he speaks to whatever this or that. That's fine. You can continue to do so. But do not cling to any sort of whatever is within the realm of fact. Trump does not care about what the, and then of course the establishment Republicans, who I cannot leave behind here, they channel this stuff into, whoa, we got to go after mail-in ballots.

They're like, oh, well, the election. And even on the election integrity thing, they're like, oh, well, we've got to make it so that mail-in ballots, which our boomer voters actually really like, and oh, one of the reasons that we lost the 2020 election was because if enough of our boomers had voted by mail, then we actually would have won. It's just an amazing experience watching them beclown themselves,

like in California and here, they are shooting themselves completely, you know, in the feet. And Trump himself is the worst actor. And it's hilarious because on the one hand, he is the only one of them who is in any way remotely popular enough in order to get people to come out and vote. But he's also galvanizing on the other side and then comes up with these BS conspiracy theories in order to justify his loss and make it so that it didn't happen. And sadly, look, he probably easily could win again. I absolutely believe that if he ran in the 2024 election. But this stuff is dangerous. There's no other way around it.

It doesn't matter what the audit actually will find. They don't actually care. Let's go and put this up from the AP. It's the same thing. An Arizona election audit ends. New ones are beginning all across the states. I did that whole monologue on rising. I think it's up next.

That's right. Pointing to the fact that the audit in Arizona Arizona where they actually made the election machines less secure, made it so that in future elections they're going to have to actually actually have to worry about election security. All of this makes me sick because these people are fools. They are their own worst enemies. And they've convinced many well-meaning millions of people that the election was stolen when it actually was an eminently winnable election. Maybe focus on that one. They never will. It will never be good enough for them and it'll never be good enough for Trump. Yeah. I mean, even to call it an audit is giving it way more credit than it deserves. Yeah, that's a good point actually.

It was a clown show. It was a complete clown show run by unserious people who are, you know, absolutely biased and they wanted a certain outcome. This wasn't like, we're just going to neutrally go in and see what we find. And here's the thing is, as you alluded to, part of what really pisses me off is that you do have millions of people who have been fed this and believed it because they actually trusted Trump or they trusted these other figures who have been scammed out of their money in many instances. Millions, tens of millions. Yes, and we've covered the way, I mean, Trump has been in some ways the worst abuser of that, raising all this money after the election that was supposed to go to stop this deal. And he's not even using it for that. Not one dime. Not that I would think that that was really legitimate to do anyway.

I mean, even asking people to send you money for something you know, you know is fake. That was another piece of reporting that came out recently is like his team had explored some of these wild conspiracy theories and they knew that it was a lie. They knew it was a scam and they didn't care because it was good for them politically. It was convenient for them. It was convenient for his ego to hold on to this fig leaf of maybe I didn't really lose. And so they're perfectly willing to defraud you of your money, take your money from you, scam you out of it, and to, you know, destroy any semblance of like credibility in our democracy. Not that we had a great standing there to start with, but to just continue to unravel that, continue to pull at these threads. Yes.

It's really disgusting. It truly is to see. Trump obviously is very determined to make Georgia a blue state. That seems to be his number one goal. I just don't understand it unless you see that even whenever it's about him, even if you will have that downside of maybe losing Georgia the next time if you do try and run for president again, it's still not enough. I mean you can never look objectively at what happened. Trump did not come that far away from losing the election – I mean from winning the election in Georgia. It was a couple – what, 10,000 something number of votes? Easily could have done. And actually, as I've pointed out many times,

if just the number of seniors who voted in the fake Republican primary of 2020 had voted by mail in the way that in the numbers that they did in that primary, Trump would have won the election. It would have won. It also shows, and I think you did a monologue laying this out, it also shows that like their thinking is stuck in another era too, because

there is another clear path that Republicans have to win by actually winning voters over. You know, I mean, you can see the signs of how this could work out. You can see the way that, you know, the gain with Latinos was a smaller gain, but, you know, a little bit of a gain with Black voters, especially Black men. You can see the way that they could actually, if they cared to deliver for people and try to win people over, could regain a majority of coalition instead of just continuing to retrench into this, like, well, let's just, like, control who can actually vote. Let's focus on making sure we disenfranchise as many people as possible.

You don't have to do that. Like, you could actually believe that your message finds a majority of support and go after those voters. But that's clearly not the direction they're going in here. I pointed to this study, the Knight Foundation, 100 Million Americans Project, focused on the 100 million Americans who didn't vote.

They literally found that amongst people who don't vote, if all of them did, it would split almost 50-50. And that's amongst conventional Republican and conventional Democrat. If it was a Trump-style Republican, they would actually win more votes. Amongst people who are non-voters. You ever going to hear Republicans say that? Right? I mean, they're the most backwards, idiotic people. They did the same thing during the Mitt Romney thing.

Oh, Romney loses their autopsy, actually made it so that Paul Ryan apparently was the answer. Now, you know, it's so simple. The path to GOP victory is not difficult in 2022 or 2024. You go on lockdowns and you run against cultural leftism. It easily worked under Trump. And yet Trump is going to make it so that his only popular part of his message is going to be obscured by, oh, actually the election was stolen. And then all these suburban people aren't going to come out and vote for you. It's the same script every single time, but I will enjoy watching them become like a backwards party that eventually just retreats to like most of the American South and holds like no real power whatsoever. It's hilarious. Everyone deserves

to lose. Bottom line. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. Well, I know this is annoying. Instead of making you listen to a Viagra commercial, when you're done, check out the other podcasts I do with Marshall Kosloff called The Realignment. We talk a lot about the deeper issues that are changing, realigning in American society. You always need more Crystal and Sagar in your daily lives. Take care, guys. That is absolutely true. Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, at this point, you might be wondering what exactly is left to show on the lab leak hypothesis. We know the National Institute of Health provided funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We know that the lab there was conducting gain-of-function research. We know that the Wuhan lab began conducting itself in a very sketchy manner

in September of 2019, and that many people began falling sick in the area right around them and in the months after. We know at the highest levels of government in the early days of the pandemic, it was acknowledged in Dr. Fauci's emails that the coronavirus is, quote, not consistent with evolutionary theory. We know that Dr. Fauci, he played a pivotal role in funding this dangerous research, and worse, used his influence over the last several months to cover up any ties between himself and the lab in order to protect an entire infrastructure of scientists who profit from gain-of-function research. He's gone so far to protect an entire infrastructure of scientists who profit from gain-of-function research. He's gone so far to protect himself and others. He's even perjured himself before

Congress. So what exactly am I going to talk about today? Well, there's another data point, another revelation into just how risky our so-called best and brightest scientists were before this pandemic. New documents show that in 2018, the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance submitted a $14 million grant proposal to DARPA, otherwise known as Defense Advanced Research and Production Agency, where some of the most top-secret projects of the United States government are housed. The proposal specifically outlines a plan to generate full-length infectious bat coronaviruses in a lab and then insert their genetic features, which would make them more able to infect human cells into bats. This feature is called a furin

cleavage site. Now, I know that's a complicated term, but consider this. The furrin cleavage site is what makes COVID-19 particularly infectious to humans. Furthermore, of all that we know about SARS-like coronaviruses, the coronavirus that causes pandemic is the only known SARS-2 virus strain which possesses a furrin cleavage site. Natural explanations for the furin cleavage site do not hold up to scrutiny, as science journalist Nicholas Wade told us all months ago. So what do we have here? We have the EcoHealth Alliance, the group already known to be tied to funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, proposing to DARPA the insertion of the exact infectious mechanism inside the virus that we know today

as COVID-19, one year before that coronavirus likely escaped from the Wuhan lab. Furthermore, consider the players. Those who are listed on the grant proposal include not only Dr. Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance, but also Dr. Shi Zhengli, otherwise known as, quote, the Batwoman, conducting research at the Wuhan lab. The apparent idea behind the grant was that the scientists would create a deadly coronavirus in a lab and then inoculate the bat population against the virus, making it less likely to transmit to humans. Color me skeptical on that entire plan. Luckily, it seems that DARPA thought so too. They rejected the grant proposal. But the documents themselves prove a variety of assertions. Number one, the exact nature of the type of gain-of-function

research which could have produced the coronavirus menacing our world was outlined by players intimately involved in the potential outbreak as recently as one year before the beginning of the pandemic. Number two, part of the lab leak theory that many did not want to explore is the complicity and seeming coziness that EcoHealth Alliance has with the United States government. Remember, this is DARPA we're talking about. They work on some of the wildest defense programs in the world. Why is EcoHealth Alliance applying for a grant with DARPA that goes after bat populations with a Chinese government-linked lab to our most secret defense agency? Furthermore,

what does inoculating bat populations have to do with national defense? That sounds like a public health project. These are all great questions. One, that if we had a functioning Congress, we could actually get to the bottom of. But if you look deeper, you see an even more sinister story. Despite the horrific conduct of Dr. Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance, despite their seeming role at the very center of the outbreak of this horrible disease. New documents show that in July of 2021, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency granted $250,000 to EcoHealth Alliance to conduct research that thwarts the use of viruses as weapons of mass destruction. That is only the latest of their grants. In fact, federal spending data reveals that $41 million have been granted to EcoHealth Alliance by the U.S. government

since 2008. Dig deeper, and it seems that 37 of that $41 million comes from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, whose main job is to prevent WMD attacks here in the United States. So let's piece it all together. In 2018, EcoHealth Alliance, which has deep ties to the Pentagon, offers an ambitious new grant proposal to one of the most advanced defense agencies in the United States to create infectious bat coronaviruses and then somehow inoculate bat populations against the strains that are dangerous to humans that they've already created in a lab. The way they propose to do that happens to have the distinct feature of the coronavirus that we know today outlined within those documents. At the same time, they are then the recipients of tens of millions of dollars in Pentagon money,

specifically for the purpose of guarding against the creation of weapons of mass destruction. You follow all that? At the same time, they're proposing creating more infectious diseases, they're supposed to be guarding the United States against more infectious diseases here at home. There's almost a poetic irony in the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology itself, which was so deeply tied to EcoHealth Alliance, very likely looks to be the origin itself of this entire outbreak. All of what I've outlined here today has been the result of Freedom of Information Act

requests, leaks from investigative anonymous groups, and analysis from outside experts. We have done what we can from the outside, but it's not enough. Only Congress has the ability to show us what really happened at the Wuhan lab, or at the very least, unravel and reveal the dark web of intersecting alliances, funding, grant proposals, and more. The problem is, I suspect, we're looking at just the tip of the iceberg here. That if we look further, we may uncover all sorts of even more dangerous proposals, which actually were funded and which would disrupt the flow of millions of dollars to groups of scientists who say they are protecting us in our name and they should be able to do whatever they want and get away with it. That's the thing, Crystal. You look at that thing, the furin cleavage site. I mean, what else do you need?

One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Crystal, what do you take a look at? Well, do you remember this? As president, I will end this insanity because it doesn't have to be this way. I will end these wasteful regime change wars, work to end this new Cold War through the use of diplomacy to de-escalate these tensions and take the trillions of dollars that we've been wasting on these wars and on these weapons and redirect those resources into serving the needs of our people right here at home, things like health care for all, making sure everyone in this country has clean water to drink and clean air to breathe, investing in education, investing in our infrastructure.

The needs are great. As your president, I will put your interests above all else. So that, of course, was Tulsi Gabbard during her presidential campaign. There she is clear. She is morally outraged about how president after president, Republicans and Democrats alike, had continued the regime change wars that had brought our servicemen and women, so many others around the world, so much pain. Ending our imperial adventures in the Middle East, that wasn't Tulsi's only campaign issue, but it was certainly the focal point. So it was pretty notable when she was silent as Joe Biden withdrew our troops from Afghanistan. But you know, she is still serving the Army Reserve, so maybe she was busy. So it was even more notable when she did belatedly weigh in

and decided to echo the talking points of every neocon and military industrial complex hack. Well, I wanted us to get out of Afghanistan, but not like this. Then it got even weirder. Tucker Carlson invited Tulsi on his program to attack Biden from the left for his drone strike that murdered an entire Afghan family. Well, don't ever say Tulsi never stands up to Tucker because here she is refusing to criticize that strike and instead defending our use of drone strikes, which we know have murdered countless civilians in the name of defeating what she deems is the greatest threat to the United States, the Islamic ideology. 2002, once they're talking points back. So as long as these Islamist jihadists are waging war against us, we have to work to defeat them militarily and ideologically.

And militarily we have two choices in how we do that. Number one, we can continue to invade and occupy a nation building countries around the world just as we did in Afghanistan at great cost. Number two, we can take a targeted approach using airstrikes, using our special forces to go in and go after these terrorist cells. Now, I want to be fair here. Tulsi has long supported what she described as, quote, very limited use of drone strikes when, quote, the military is not able to get in without creating an unacceptable level of risk. But in what world

does very limited use of drone strikes include murdering a family with U.S. ties in the courtyard of their home in a busy residential neighborhood? There is zero doubt that these types of attacks have only fueled extremism and driven ordinary Afghans into the arms of the Taliban or worse. But there's much more. In a string of Fox News appearances over the last week or so, Tulsi has taken positions that are lacking any nuance or, frankly, factual basis whatsoever. Perhaps her most outrageous comments have come on the Haitian migrant crisis. Now, before I play you some of her most recent commentary, I want you to recall what her tone was during the presidential primary. Because while Tulsi,

look, she's never been super lefty on borders, but her tone, during the presidential primary? Because while Tulsi, look, she's never been super lefty on borders, but her tone, her emphasis, and her actual positions do not sound remotely like what she is saying now. Here was Tulsi back in the Dem primary. Our hearts break when we see those children at these detention facilities who've been separated from their parents, when we see human beings crowded into cages in abhorrent, inhumane conditions. This is about leadership and understanding that we can and should have both secure borders as well as humane immigration policies. We will have to stop separating children from their parents. Make it so that it's easier for people to seek asylum in this country. Make sure that we are securing our borders and making it so that people are able to use our legal immigration system by reforming those laws.

If Tulsi's heart continues to break for these human beings subjected to what she described as abhorrent and inhumane conditions, definitely not her top concern today. And she's certainly not looking to make it easier for those human beings to seek asylum, as she said right there during the Dem primary. Her recent commentary started off with this tweet that you can see here. She says, The Biden-Harris open-door policy has been a disaster. It needs to end now.

The main beneficiaries of open borders are the gangs, cartels, and human traffickers. The Trump policy of having people wait on the other side of the border worked and needs to be reinstated. The Trump policy worked? The one you described as inhumane? That worked? It worked in that migrants were out of sight, I guess.

They were still being preyed upon by gangs and criminals and human traffickers, but they were comfortably out of view. Did drug trafficking go down in the Trump administration? Did the massive million-plus case backlog in our drug trafficking go down in the Trump administration? Did the massive million-plus case backlog in our immigration courts go down? Nope and nope, of course. Well, as that tweet was seemingly designed to do, it sparked a thousand Fox News segments where Tulsi went on to say things like this. Your thoughts about what's happening in Del Rio

and how the administration is handling it? It is an utter disaster and failure, and it's directly attributed to the Biden-Harris administration's open border policy. This is not only a humanitarian crisis, it is a national security crisis. And it's something I've said all along, which is that if we do not secure our borders, then we can't have a secure nation. Now, listen, Biden's border and immigration policy is a lot of things, many of them bad, but it is absurd to call it open borders. Here are the facts. Biden, to my great chagrin, has continued many of the Trump era policies. He is right now engaged in a mass deportation of Haitian migrants under an emergency pandemic provision that Kamala Harris herself once said

was unconstitutional and which a court has already ruled he has to stop using. In fact, Biden has deported far more migrants using this potentially illegal executive order called Title 42 than Trump ever did. Trump used it to deport 444,000 migrants, while Biden has used it to deport about 690,000. Those are the facts. Mass deportations of potentially legitimate asylum seekers with zero due process? That is literally the opposite of open borders. Tulsi then went on Jesse Waters' show in order to express her deep sympathy, not for the desperate migrants who are being sent back to a country in full-scale humanitarian crisis, but for the Border Patrol agents who were caught on camera menacing and insulting those desperate migrants.

Here she is responding to Waters' question about Joe Biden's criticism of Border Patrol agents. But what he essentially did was act as judge, jury, and executioner for these Customs and Border Patrol agents on horseback. How can they expect to have any kind of fair outcome to an investigation when the president of the United States has already declared their guilt and that they will be punished. And the bigger issue here that this points to, which is one that we all need to be concerned about, is that if we are no longer a country of laws, if we are no longer a country where we know we will be presumed innocent unless proven guilty, then we don't have a democracy. And that's the increasing feeling that a lot of us have, is that we are losing our democracy and moving closer and closer to what essentially is an

autocracy. An autocracy. If you want to concern yourself with enforcing laws, if you're in the law and order thing now, the lawlessness here doesn't stem from Biden's criticism of CBP agents. It's from Biden using an order already deemed illegal to mass deport refugees with zero due process. How about that? Going back to Tulsi's earlier comments on drone strikes, one might also wonder about the lawlessness of randomly murdering Afghan babies to try to look tough for a warmongering news media. But no, no, somehow the law breaking here has to do with Biden saying that the actions of border patrol agents were outrageous. Let's take a look at this.

So all of this has caused some to wonder whether Tulsi has now gone full Dave Rubin, fully abandoning a prior ideological position for a new outlook and audience. Now, certainly, if Tulsi still holds any left wing views, she doesn't say a whole lot about them. Instead, she nearly exclusively leans into her most right-leaning views. And at least in some areas, she's just outright changed her views to ones that are in favor with a right-wing audience, as I just demonstrated. Now, as a result, she's lost the support of even some of her most steadfast previous supporters, people like Jimmy Dorr. Now, I would certainly count myself among those who often defended Tulsi from the vicious attacks she received from the Democratic establishment,

which, quite frankly, is the reason why I felt like I needed to say all this. Now, some of you will undoubtedly say I told you so, and you'll have some justification for that. It's certainly possible that in my outrage at how Tulsi was unfairly smeared, I overlooked the extent of my ideological disagreements with her. But I also think it's clear from her prior statements and what she's saying now that she has shifted. She has leaned into one ideology and she has leaned away from another. Now look, I would still defend Tulsi

from those smears of being a Russian agent or being an Assad toady, all that stuff. Also not gonna casually throw around the grifter label because I have no idea what her thinking or motivations are. She is allowed to be right-wing and I am allowed to be right-wing, and I am allowed to say I've got no interest in whatever project she is engaged in today.

Sagar, I'm curious your view here. She seems to definitely be leaning into a particular audience with her recent commentary. All right, guys, we have a guest I'm really excited to talk to. Dylan Radigan, been a long time, someone I have admired for a very long time. To me, one of the smartest and most astute observers of our economy, of the global economy, financial markets. One and only Dylan Radigan to talk to us about what is going on in China. Dylan, we wanted to have you on to talk about what do you see happening in China right now? I tried my best and Sagar tried our best to sort of break down what's going on with Evergrande. For people who don't know, it's this giant real estate development company in China. Of course, the housing market extraordinarily important in China, something like 30 percent of the GDP. That's on the verge of collapse right now.

It's been called potentially China's Lehman Brothers moment. Questions of whether or not the Chinese Communist Party is going to ultimately bail them out. Break down what you see as happening there and, you know, any insights into what sort of impact this may have both in China and around the world. Yeah. I mean, I think that you have to start anytime you're going to have a conversation worth having around anything like this. You think you have to understand the motivations and the underlying dynamic at the tippy top, which is obviously the Chinese economy is the primary economic rival to the United States economy. Obviously, China is the primary geopolitical rival for influence in the world outside of its own boundaries. And, you know, China has done a remarkable job of prosecuting as the primary political or geopolitical, you know, opponent to the United States, particularly the last 15 or 20 years. And not the least of which has been at the core of that has been building, right, whether it's bridges, infrastructure, trains, at the apex of which is their Belt and Road Initiative, which is fundamentally their economic plan to take over the earth, right?

It's a mechanism of wiring all the ports and trade points and all these things as a way to have economic control of the earth. You know, Dylan, yeah, go ahead. I'll be quick and I'll yell all ears. That same principles that work internally in China. We're going to move people from rural China to urban China. And in anticipation of that, we're going to do a few things. One, we're going to build huge cities.

That's what this company does. We're going to pre-sell. All those of you who say, oh, there are cities in China where they have 15 million people that no one's ever heard of. Yes, there are. And this is the, one of the main companies that was doing that building and was running the financial flows wherever you invest or lend money to this real estate company. And that's why they talk, well, is this Lehman? What is this? Because it's wired, it was so successful. And because of poor infrastructure development, whether it's a foreign policy, Belt and Road, or domestic policy, Evergrande, right, or as a proxy for internal construction. And what's come up now is the same thing that comes up always is when you have a central banking system, whether it's the U.S. central bank funding credit default swaps for the mortgage

market in the United States in 2005, 4, 5, 6, 7, or whether it's the Chinese central bank putting liquidity in the markets to support lending and the debt creation around a story that everybody believes, whether it's the story of the U.S. housing market, or in this case, the story of the urban housing development in China. All you're seeing is the natural consequence of that level of basically de-risking. When people perceive that there's just easy money, right? If you lend money into the real estate infrastructure, the development, imagine if I came to you guys, I said, listen, give me some money.

I'll get you your own Chinese government-backed real estate. It pays 100%. It pays, right? And so now what's come up with Evergrande is, it pays 100 percent. It pays. Right. And so now what's come up with Evergrande is maybe it doesn't pay. Maybe there's a miscalculation on how much money is going to come in relative to how much money is going to come out because there's their occupancy rates are the same, the pricing, all the things that always happen whenever real estate gets upside down or starts to break down. And it brings up then the question, which is,

you know, what will China, you know, and it brings up a bunch of questions. I'll stop and listen to them. Sure. I mean, Dylan, this is really what I'm trying to point. I mean, you were very prescient in predicting the housing crisis. What are the follow on effects that we could expect to see here in the United States as a result of all of this Chinese maneuvering? Really good for the United States. I mean, honestly, there's a perception of China as this incredibly potent and powerful and dominating economic entity, if only because of its size and because of its dictatorship, which allows directed budgeting towards,

we're going to make high-speed trains. There's no debate with some Democrat or whatever. Like, it's ridiculous. They're like, no, we're making trains. And so there's a value proposition that is in that. But with that top-down, centralized, highly controlled environment, also comes a raft of fragility that is not as well perceived. And the number one asset we have in the United States is our flexibility. So we have the impairment of a central government that is really not capable of organizing a large directed undertaking of any kind,

as we can all see. That's also to our advantage in that we have by far the best developed private capital markets on the planet Earth. The United States is the center of gravity for private capital and the more china behaves like this there's no threat right and so in other words one china's behavior makes you confirms the united states position is the center of liquidity and capital for the world in the trillions and two it empowers u.s In other words, as long as we're asleep taking

whatever China's dealing us out, whether it's pharmaceutical components, whether it's medical device components, whether it's all the supply chain issues that people like Matt Stoller talk about, when China shows its fragility or its instability politically or otherwise or economically, it's a catalyst for more flexible, dynamic investment in the United States to adapt to that, which is something that's great for the United States. It also confirms our capital market and it exposes that, you know, we like to talk about all of our political issues of which we have an abundance thereof. So does China. And that the question is not, you know, we're not. And so I think that this is evidence of that. Interesting. So some, as I reference, have called this potentially China's Lehman moment.

How big of a deal is it actually for them? And do you see those parallels to the U.S. housing crisis? For sure, the parallel is identical, right? In terms of understanding the imperial, imagine you're in a business school class, you know, like what happens when the central bank provides trillions of dollars in lending ability to a banking apparatus that lends money to build things right whether it's houses in california or a powerpoint towers in in an unnamed city in china and both situations identical you had cheap money from the federal reserve funding into the mortgage lending market funding into the ninja loans blah blah u.s housing prices same here you have the central bank of china funding into the lending markets to support infinite pools of capital that goes into the financing of this housing and for sure it's

possible there's so much risk in this as there was with lehman brothers because they've got whatever 200 other institute every other pension fund everybody's invested with these guys right every that's what happened the lehman was lehman not because of lehman because but because every other pension fund, everybody's invested with these guys, right? That's what happened. The Lehman was Lehman, not because of Lehman, but because every other pension, every other bank, every other life insurance policy was all invested in the same economics of the mortgage market in terms of those yields. And that's what's going on over there.

The Chinese central bank will have to make a determination when they have enough information as to how they're going to resolve it. they'll resolve it in a way that ensures stability i i don't know it'll be interesting maybe china will be more likely to identify executives and prosecute them and maybe even you know incarcerate or whatever do what china does to people that they don't like to them which the united states did not do so that sense, it's exactly the same thing, just a different manifestation. I think that it's delusional to think that if there's a really, really, really, really big problem with it, that the central banks are not going to do something

about it anymore, then Germany was not going to bail out Greece or the US was not going to bail out AIG. It's just a matter of, I don't know how big it'll ultimately be. It's sensational for the headlines. And it's evidence of bad math in China, which every country has bad math. It's just a matter of how extreme it gets and when it gets revealed. And in this case, they went off to an extreme, obviously. Yeah. I mean, that's really the question that me, everybody has, which is that with the Chinese even allow it to spiral as out of control. Or do you think that those internal kind of Chinese politics make it so that it's difficult for them to try? I mean, to try and do what needs to be done if they were trying to quash it all right now? I think it's unfair to say to China that they have some unique. No one did it.

I mean, everybody was where was Hank everybody was, where was President Bush? Where was Hank Paulson? Where was Barack Obama? Where was Angela Merkel? So we're going to look at the Chinese like, oh, are you going to be a communist and bail out all the banks? I mean, the irony of a bunch of Europeans and Americans laughing at China because they bail out their banks on a real estate crisis would be too rich. So I would say for sure they'll do it if they need to as much as Germany or the United States would do it. But I think what we're missing is the American operation. China has appeared to be invincible and their momentum has been profound for at least the past 20 years. there's a fatalistic set of research when you

look at the race that you're going they're like when 20 by 2050 china you know just it's inevitable there's an inevitability to china's dominance just a matter of time just on numbers and i whether it's the political behavior of the Chinese government relative to the tech companies, specifically Jack Ma, taking them all down, you're out. You're not the big guy in China. I'm the big guy in China, and I don't care. Imagine if the president did that to Bezos here, or Zuckerberg. That's a signal to the world. So you're telling me that the same guy who's going to demote Jack Ma is not going to stabilize his real estate market domestically? It's preposterous. The point is American opportunity abounds right now in the opportunity to return levels of advanced manufacturing and components

of supply chain, especially critical supply chain onshore using a technology in a way that would never, the window would never exist if China was humming because it's like a narcotic. It works so well, it's priced so well, da, da, da, da, da. But because the ports are messed up, because the containers are expensive, because all the intermodal global movement of objects

is a mess and will remain a mess for a long time now. And because the technology allows adaptive reality, whether it's resource efficiency, labor efficiency, all the things. And so I actually believe that this is a massive opportunity for the United States, both on the industrial and manufacturing side, but more importantly, in solidifying our primacy as the most powerful capital market in the world. Because the risk was, oh, the capital is going to start to move to China. IPOs are going to move to Shanghai. Well, guess what? London, they did Brexit, so they're out. Hong Kong is over. China was your only threat. Tokyo is your friend. And if you don't speak Japanese, you can't do deals in Tokyo anyway, because they like to do Japanese language all the time.

Now China's upside down. I think the United States needs to seize the momentum and go, honestly. And so helpful, Dylan. The last question I have for you is what are the costs to them ultimately bailing out Evergrande? And I don't mean the financial costs. I mean, they're trying to impose some sort of, they're trying to deleverage their real estate markets. They don't like the idea, just like, you know, our concept here of communicating, hey guys, take on whatever risk you want because ultimately we're going to backstop you and you're too big to fail. So talk about those sort of pressures that operate in the other direction, even though I think that you're correct, that ultimately, if it needs to be done, they're going to do it. That has to be, that's a political meeting, right? That's a

political, that's the meeting with Hank Paulson and Geithner and all. And your question is, as they run down the list of payables, we'll call it, right? Let's say they have 100 entities, retirees, old teachers, billionaire hedge funds, and everybody in between have some take on whatever that yield of that whole daisy chain of all those pensions and bonds and real estate in the gajillions, trillions, right, at Evergrande. And the meeting is, who are we not going to pay? Or who's going to get a bill? Right? And now one option is, well, no one gets a bill. We pay everything.

And then the question is, if we pay everything, what is the social consequence of that? Because there's a bunch of people that paid themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in personal income over the past five years on the promise that this was going to perform. And now it's not performing, but they've already paid themselves, which is why this thing gets, that's what happened on Wall Street. They pay themselves on the promise of a future outcome, and then the future outcome never happens, but they keep the money that they paid themselves. That's moral hazard, right? And so to answer your question, Crystal, I believe that they will solve it in the way that they believe is the most politically favorable for the government in Beijing. And I think they'll try to really puncture some wealthy individuals.

Like there's somebody at Evergrande who already the Chinese government doesn't like or the situation wouldn't exist. You see what I'm saying? Yes. Like, I guarantee you there's a personal relationship somewhere behind all of this, which was before this went public, before it was being talked about on Breaking Points, and it was in the Wall Street Journal and everywhere, where they're saying, you know what, I don't like what you've been doing, and I'm going to put you, I'm going to feed you to the dogs.

That makes sense. And that, and then, so that was already to the dogs. That makes sense. So we're already into something here, the fact that we're even talking about it. And so the resolution will be to continue to inflict pain on whoever that counterparty is. Obviously, there's somebody that they want to suffer or some group, and then they'll mitigate politically

wherever they have to. I mean, they're much better. I mean, the United States is sending money directly. You know, I mean, the government can, the Chinese are not afraid to send checks as much as anybody. And so the answer to your question, Crystal, is what is in the political interest of Beijing?

That's the only question. And obviously, one thing that's in his interest is the elimination of whoever this character or these characters at Evergrande are because he's taking them off the board. Same way he took Jack Ma off the board. He has a reason. And this is not some out-of-control situation. No way.

Yeah. We just don't know. Right. Your foolish should be running around with your hair on fire like, oh, we're going to have a credit crisis. What if they don't pay? As if there's some out- control securities market situation. And you're like, I don't know what the yields are going to do. You're like, he's doing what he wants to do. And he's showing us how he functions. First Jack Ma, now he's tabling Evergrande. He'll take more, I'm sure. You know, Putin puts people in jail. Kordakovsky is like, you're out. The Chinese, they humiliate and eliminate. Right. And if they have to ever, you know.

And so every country has its own its own mechanism. My point is this is hugely positive for the United States and it should be taken as a positive and collaborative and positive way. Interesting. Dylan, thank you, my friend. Great to see you. Great to have your insights. Great analysis, man. Thanks. Greetings from heaven. All right, guys, thanks so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We've been trying to drive this home, but it continues to keep coming after us. We see YouTube demonetization across the board on anything that we deem subject. I am thinking, what do you predict today, Crystal? I think the Fed segment, FBI informants. Possibly Assange.

Assange is also definitely up there. We rely on you and premium subscriptions in order to make sure that we can keep the lights on here. It's the only possible way now that we've seen how exactly the YouTube regime is handling this show and really handling the news, honestly. I mean, we just see these crazy tactics of demonetization, then 24 hours later, by that time, it really doesn't matter. We rely on your guys' support 100%.

So link is there in the description. We've got all sorts of premium benefits and all of that, but really we just rely on you and your guys' support in order to keep doing this show. Couple notes. Yes, programming though. We know Chris Cuomo got MeToo'd and we are going to talk about that. rely on you and your guys' support in order to keep doing the show. Couple notes. Yes. Number one. Programming, though.

We know Chris Cuomo got Me Too'd, and we are going to talk about that. It was a busy show day, but we've got a video for that that we'll post tomorrow, so look for that. As a corollary, show schedule is a little bit different this week.

There was a bit of a studio conflict, so normally we do Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. This week we're doing Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. So tomorrow you'll get your Chris Cuomo Me Too content that you crave, but not a full conflict. So normally we do Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. This week we're doing Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. So tomorrow you'll get your Chris Cuomo Me Too content that you crave, but not a full show.

We'll be back with a full show on Wednesday, on Thursday, and onward. So there you go. Love you guys. Have a great day. We will see you back here

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