Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/29/21: Pelosi Betrayal, Generals Under Fire, Federal Reserve Corruption, Harvard Mania, R Kelly, Mint the Coin, Ken Griffin, Rhode Island Politics, and More!

Episode Date: September 29, 2021

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We have an amazing show for everybody today. I haven't said that in a while. I know. It feels weird to be here. Yeah, I know. It's strange. It's okay. Throwing the whole week off. Anyway, we have a great show for you. Lots going on.

Some interesting revelations from some of our top military brass yesterday that we will get into. Also, this story has flown under the radar, but it's a gigantic deal. Two presidents within the Federal Reserve Board system have resigned early because of reporting that came out about their essentially financial impropriety. I mean, benefiting from some of the very policy that they themselves influence. So we'll get into the details there. New interesting moves at Harvard and new interesting data about the students, the incoming class of Harvard. Of course, look, this is the elite university in the country.

So what's going on there obviously matters a lot for all of us. R. Kelly found guilty on all charges. We'll bring you all of the details there of what was alleged, what was proven, and what's going to happen next. But we wanted to start with everything that is going on here in Washington and where we stand. As of today, of course, we've been telling you guys that all of these different issues are coming to a head. You've got potential government shutdown. That piece seems actually like it's set to be resolved. They're going to pass a continuing resolution and kick that one down the road. So that one seems to be off the table.

Debt ceiling coming to a head. Government's going to run out of room under the debt ceiling on October 18th, according to Janet Yellen. I'm going to talk about that in my monologue and a potential solution there. But, of course, the other two pieces that we want to focus on first are the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package. So the deal has always been, we're going to link these two things together. The corporatists want the infrastructure package. The progressives want the reconciliation bill. If everybody sort of joins hands and votes for each other's things, delinking the infrastructure package and that reconciliation bill. She is pushing forward with a vote on the infrastructure package

on Thursday, again, effectively delinking those two things. So that's the state of play. You can throw this first tweet up on the screen that just lays out that element of what is going on. This is from Heather Cagle. She says, so to recap, Pelosi is delinking the two major bills here, infrastructure and the reconciliation package, that effectively reverses months-long vow to only pass them in tandem. Progressives, a lot of them outraged. You had Rashida Tlaib tweeting that this was a betrayal before she deleted that tweet. I guess she got some pressure there. Got a call from the office, huh? Right, yeah, a little call from somebody who wasn't happy about that one.

But this is a huge deal that effectively Pelosi has broken with the promise she made to progressives. Reportedly, even Schumer is pissed off and wasn't consulted about this move. Now, I will say Pelosi's language around this when she was asked about, like, well, these progressives are still saying they're going to vote down the infrastructure package since the reconciliation bill hasn't been voted on in the Senate. And she effectively said, well, people will do what they have to do. So it doesn't sound like she's kind of pulling out the knives and threatening people that you must vote for the infrastructure package and really

whipping hard within the progressive caucus to get them to fall in line, but still a very significant break in what she has been saying all along. No, this is one of the biggest failures in Washington in modern memory. It's a bigger failure than Obamacare. Look, we don't know the final results, but I have spoken to many people who are in the know and not a single person actually expects this thing to pass, both the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package. Effectively, both appear dead. Kyrsten Sinema was at the White House like three times yesterday. All the reporting comes out that her and Manchin's still not budging. So I would put the group of bad actors into three categories who basically killed this. Number one is Pelosi, both by de-linking it and effectively giving in

to her, you know, Josh Gottheimer people. She set a hard date. Two, obviously, Sinema and Manchin, who increasingly it's becoming clear they straight up just never wanted to pass this thing. And they are also willing to lose the bipartisan bill if it means not voting for it. Let me pause you there. One of the weird things here is that reportedly at meetings with the White House and everybody, they're like, okay. And Kyrsten Sinema apparently is the worst actor. Yeah. The two of them. If you had to pick the worst actor in all of this.

They're like, okay, well, you know, give us a number. What's the top line? What programs do you want to strip out? Like, what are you actually for here? And she just won't say. Like, you can't work with someone who won't even tell you what they might support. They'll tell you, okay, I don't want corporate tax increase. I don't want these taxes increases.

This bill is too high, et cetera, et cetera. But the next phase is to say, OK, well, what could you get behind? What could you support? And she's just playing games. I mean, as you said, it just becomes clear that she is way more interested, and we're going to get to this in a moment, in whatever her post-Senate career is going to be and how she's going to cash in in the private sector than she is in getting anything passed through this process. That's right. And so the other person, though, is Biden. And I will never forgive him. I mean, really, in terms of whether I like the bill or not, it doesn't even matter. I'm saying in terms of being a president, this is your job.

His whole pitch to the American people, I've been there 40 years. I know the Senate in and out. He critiqued Obama. Well, Obama did a better job on Obamacare than he's currently doing right now. And that's saying something. So this isn't just me saying this. Put this up there on the screen. Several senior Democrats are hoping Biden will more forcefully weigh in on the infrastructure vote Thursday, publicly declaring that the bill needs to be passed. Now, they want him to just come out in terms of the bipartisan infrastructure package. But look, at the very beginning of the process, he kicked it to Congress. Who does that? Did we learn nothing once again from Obamacare? Allowing all of this nonsense to the committees and, you know, they're trying to get the different coalitions to try and gather. He actually trusted that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer knew how to do their jobs.

Bro, I don't know what exactly you were thinking whenever it came to that. He did not marshal the resources of the White House behind it. He let them try and figure out their strategy. And now they're screwed on multiple fronts. Default on the debt ceiling looks like a very, very real possibility. Chuck Schumer says there's no way we can do this thing through reconciliation, if there even is a reconciliation. October 18th ain't that far away. They say procedurally it's not going to work. McConnell says, screw you, I'm not going to vote for it.

So we've got that full faith and credit of the U.S. debt whenever it comes to extending the debt ceiling. But more importantly, these were his biggest, like, these were of the U.S. debt whenever it comes to extending the debt ceiling. But more importantly, these were his biggest, like, these were the legacy items. These were, whatever you think of Obamacare or not, Obama ran on Obamacare in 2012. And by that time, a lot of the anger against it had kind of dissipated. And people said, no, you know what, this preconditions thing, at least that part, that's pretty nice. And he was rewarded at least somewhat for it in the presidential election. What has Biden got behind his belt? The country is at a 55% disapproval whenever it comes to COVID, which, you know, the only thing that

actually matters right now. The country does not trust him on the economy. People kind of remember the American Rescue Plan. They're not happy with the way Delta is being handled. I mean, you put it all together, it's a total disaster, his entire presidency. The American Rescue Plan, is that what that thing was called? I think it was, whatever the checks were. The relief bill at the beginning of this administration. Essentially, all of those provisions have expired

or are set to expire. So yeah, people are like, what have you done for me lately? I mean, that's not a legacy, a short-term cash stimulus inf mean, that's not a legacy, a short-term, like, cash stimulus infusion. That's not a legacy. That doesn't change people's lives over the long term. It was a really important Band-Aid at the time.

But now, I mean, we're still in not great situation here with the pandemic. And all of those provisions are either gone or set to expire in the very near term. These are the legacy pieces. This is the part that, and more important, I don't really care about whether Joe Biden has a great presidency or not. I care about delivering for people. These are the areas where you actually can have an impact on people's lives. This week is the whole ballgame, and Biden is nowhere to be found. The strategy and the tactics here from the beginning were idiotic, did not take a genius to see that, listen, you get a honeymoon period at the beginning of your presidency. He proved himself to be more popular than any other

Democrat in the country, really, and had this kind of halo at the beginning, especially vaccines were starting to roll out. And you do get that cash stimulus infusion into the economy. And when you didn't seize that momentum and do anything with it, the whole thing fell apart. Not to mention that he wanted this frickin bipartisan deal. And they wasted all kinds of time wrangling with people to get a few Republicans on board. And they did have a good margin in the Senate. Of course, now all the Republicans have basically run away from this thing. If you're thinking that Republicans are going to help the corporatists in the House rescue

the infrastructure package, you're wrong about that. They're whipping against it. Very few of them are going to join with the Democrats in voting for that. So you wasted all this time. You backed this incredibly confusing process that makes no sense and has created this situation that we find ourselves in now. And you're nowhere to be found in terms of pressing the case of the American people or at least publicly putting pressure on the players that you need to fall in line. Now, I will say he was supposed to go to Chicago. He canceled his trip in a sign that he recognizes that there's a lot at stake this week. But, you know, so far he's been having meetings, having meetings, having meetings. Literally nothing. No progress seems to be made. Now, I mean, I want to throw in the caveat.

We've seen this many times before in Washington where it seems like there's no way these two sides come together. And how could it ever happen to keep the government going or avoid the debt ceiling or actually get something through? And at the last minute, when you think it's all over, somehow they managed to work it out. That's a possibility here. But it's pretty unclear how this is all ultimately going to work out. And I think the problem with Sinema is, on the one hand, she's vulnerable to a primary challenge in Arizona. I mean, the Democrats in Arizona are furious with her. They keep passing. If she even decides to run again. That's the problem, is it looks like she doesn't even really care to run again. And one of the signs that we have of that is, this is reporting from the New York Times. While all of this is going on,

she's just shamelessly, brazenly raising money from the very business groups that oppose the reconciliation bill. So she's raking in cash. A 45-minute speech to a fundraiser. From the very worst actors in all of this who have an interest in killing it. This is really shameless stuff.

Normally, politicians at least try to appear like they're acting in the interest of their constituents or whatever. Like, she's not even pretending that she cares about the impact that this would have on her constituents. A lot of these provisions in this bill, at least like the prescription drug thing that she's now said she's against, like she ran on that thing. She told her constituents that she backed this. But now she's more interested in whatever the corporate players have to say about it, which is why, look, I don't know that she cares about staying in the Senate. I don't know that she cares about a primary challenge. I think she seems to be much more clearly focused on how much money she can make in the private sector afterward. So we've got a little summary tweet of where things stand as of now to kind of recap. So Rachel Bade says,

look, Manchin is still refusing to commit even after he meets with Biden and he gave him no top line number. And apparently Biden didn't force him to give a top line number. Bernie is issuing a battle cry, which we're going to play for you in just a moment, to progressives to kill the bipartisan infrastructure deal. And it seems like the progressives are serious about doing that. They've been very clear and very vocal and haven't backed down at all. Schumer has turned on Pelosi, showing he does not agree with her strategy of delinking these bills and having the Thursday vote. And President of the United States is MIA and not whipping in either direction. And her final comment is, Dems are in. Yeah, Dems are in.

That's all right. Progressives, again, they seem like they're serious about not voting for the infrastructure deal on Thursday. That means 100% it will fail if Pelosi does, in fact, bring it to the floor. Let's take a listen to a very frustrated Bernie Sanders and what he has to say about all of this. Are you making progress there? Well, I'm not, you know, the answer is that is what is very troubling to me. The answer, I think, I'm not in the middle of all those negotiations, but Senators Sinema and Manchin, as I understand it, were in the White House today.

From what I can hear from the reports, it's no. It goes on and on and on. We're talking and we're talking and nothing is happening. And I think that's why it's important that we defeat the infrastructure bill in the House and that if these guys want to see the infrastructure bill passed, they're going to have to deal with us. And is that part of your worry? If the talks are really not progressing with the infrastructure bill still in limbo, once the infrastructure bill is passed, then there'll be no motivation for them to talk. That's my guess. A couple of things you hear there. Number one, he's not in these negotiations. He's been sidelined.

And number two, very clear there that he believes progressives should kill the infrastructure package. He issued a tweet that was also very clear saying you've got to vote this thing down. From what Ro Khanna and others have told me, Bernie really is sort of driving the ship in terms of setting the tone and the pace and the strategy for progressives. So I think they are actually, if it comes to the floor, I think they will actually vote it down. I think, yeah, look, this is why I'm convinced that it's irreconcilable. And I keep looking at it because as you point to, there is no evidence that Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema want anything. Sinema has already said what? I'm against all tax increases. Like, okay, well then what does that mean? Biden said he won't deficit finance the bill. So if you're against tax

increase, then it's not going to happen. Manchin, he's like, parts of the bill are troubling to me, but I'm just not there yet. Well, what does that mean? Right. He wants to mean test the child tax credit. He wants to mean test several other areas. That actually is basically a nonstarter with the rest of the coalition. The more you start to think about it, there is no top line figure which they could agree with because all of them would take months of extra negotiation. And then all of it's supposed to get done before Thursday, tomorrow. Give me a break. It's just not going to happen.

Tremendous failure of leadership by Biden. Pelosi also. I mean, Pelosi really is, by delinking the bill, effectively absolutely gutting it. They're probably going to win way in order to push it. But Schumer also dramatically miscalculating whenever it comes to the debt ceiling, putting the Dems in this situation, creating the crunch. And here's the thing. Most people at home, even maybe most people listening to this segment, most people don't even know what reconciliation is. They have no idea. They don't even know what's in the damn bill. The Dems have done a terrible job of actually

telling people what they're trying to do. And we can debate the merits of that plus or minus. You, Ryan Grimm, I don't know anybody else. The only people even talking about what's actually in the damn thing. So most people are tuned out. I've actually noticed this. Do you see any real civilian anger or, you know, even being excited about what's happening? I think it's sad because people just assume that nothing's possible. Because in a way, look at the incompetence of these fools. These are the people who run the country. I relate to it because I feel like, I mean, we've followed this process really closely from the beginning. We've followed the ins and the outs.

You know, we've done interviews about it. We've really tried to highlight for people what is actually in this so we don't just get lost in the process. Like, why does this matter? What are the important provisions? And if ultimately it all just comes to naught, I mean, it's hard not to feel pretty nihilistic about all of that, especially the one that really gets me is the prescription drug thing. Because it's so popular. It's so obvious. It's just a no-brainer.

I mean, we're talking about in these districts of these freaking corporate Democrats, 90% of their constituents support it. It's an absolute no-brainer to negotiate prescription drug prices. And Democrats have been running on this for more than a decade, and it might not happen. I mean, if you can't get that done, what are you doing? Why bother with any of this? So that's the macro, as I think a lot of people are tuned out, because they just have so little faith that any of it will come to anything. Now, I do want to say, look, this is far from over, before I totally take the black pill here. Because even if the, let's say that Pelosi does bring the infrastructure package to the floor,

I think it will get voted down. Well, then you kind of have a reset of do these moderates actually care about getting this thing through? Then they've got to negotiate. Then you don't have this like September 27th, which, of course, we've passed out this hard deadline as to that having to get done. So then do you get some negotiations? And from what they're saying in Washington, you know, Manchin is – I don't want to underestimate what a stumbling block he is, especially on climate change provisions. But he also has a pattern of, like, kicking up a fuss and doing a theatrical display of being really at odds with the Democrats. And then ultimately – I mean, he'll negotiate and he'll take his pound of flesh, but ultimately he sort of falls in line and votes along with them. What people on the inside are saying is that Sinema's the real problem. And she seems like she's the real problem because there was a tactical calculation that Sinema and others actually really cared about getting this bipartisan infrastructure thing done.

And I'm just not sure that it's the leverage, that threatening that thing is the leverage that they really thought it was. I completely agree. And so if she's just concerned about, like, how much money can I make when I'm done here, then what are you going to do? She also likes the optics. She loves being seen as the opposition. She likes, she's actually got a very high Republican approval rating

in the state of Arizona. So if she does run, maybe that's what she's banking on. She would have to win a primary first. Now, speaking of disarray, lies, betrayals, and more in Congress, the generals got in the hot seat yesterday in front of Congress on the Afghanistan hearings. The media focusing in on a couple of things. Now, I want to play spot the lie and spot the malfeasance here. General McKenzie, he was a U.S. Central Command commander, speaking before Congress about his

recommendations to the president. Let's take a listen to that. But I will give you my honest opinion, and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation. I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. And I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time. Those are my personal views. I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government. Yes, I understand that. And, General Milley, I assume you agree with that in terms of the recommendation of $2,500? What I said in my opening statement and the memoranda that I wrote back in the fall of 2020 remained consistent, and I do agree with that.

This committee is unsure as to whether or not General Miller's recommendation ever got to the president. You know, obviously, there are conversations with the president. But I would like to ask, even though General McKenzie, I think you've all made this statement. Did you talk to the president about General Miller's recommendation? Sir, I was present when that discussion occurred. And I'm confident that the president heard all the recommendations and listened to him very thoughtfully. There's a lot going on there, Crystal. Number one is this. Whenever the general says we knew that the withdrawal of any forces would lead to the inevitable collapse of the Afghan forces, they are acknowledging that they have been lying to us for 20 years.

Because the entire plan was, oh, well, we're just going to keep them there so they can become self-sufficient. We're going to train them up. And by the way, how many people made millions of dollars training these people? Billions, actually. A hundred billion for the record in terms of how much we spent trying to train these folks. So, number one, the general is acknowledging that he and all of his colleagues there are complete liars. Number two, I have covered this town for a long time. Generals, almost in every single case, whenever they say, what conversations have you had with the president?

They say, I reserve the right, the president and I, chain of command, executive privilege. But when they want to screw the president over, then they'll talk all they want about what's going on before Congress. Now look, maybe you're one of those people who's pissed off about the Afghan withdrawal. OK, you and I will disagree a little bit. That's fine. You should still be outraged that the generals are coming out here undermining the current commander in chief, because guess what? This is how they roll every president all the way back to Barack Obama.

I was reading Obama's book recently, and especially that part about the Afghan withdrawal. And he talks specifically about how during a period in which he ordered an Afghan review, as in what are we going to do in Afghanistan, that his top central command commander gave a speech in London in which he said that the only option was to send more troops to Afghanistan. And then his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Admiral Mike Mullen, in a very similar testimony, testified that there, again, was only one option in going forward. And he called him into the Oval Office and he was basically like, hey, who works for who here, right? What's going on? Why are you speaking out of turn when I'm talking? And they're like, hey, who works for who here, right? What's going on? Why are you speaking out of turn when

I'm talking? And they're like, oh, yeah, Mr. President. Sure, Mr. President. The moment he leaves, what happens? The leaks continue from the Defense Department. They act as if they're completely autonomous. And not one member of Congress is willing to sit there and say, whoa, hold on a second, General. You knew that the Afghan forces would collapse if we withdrew our troops. Why did you not tell us that five years ago, five months ago, six months ago? Lie. I mean, these are the biggest, most conniving liars I have ever seen. And the worst part is, is the media is taking them at face value. Now look, did Biden do himself any favors?

No, because it appears that he lied whenever it comes in a recent interview. So let's put that up there. This was very quickly spotted, which is the reason General McKenzie hit Congress with that 2,500 recommendation is because the Pentagon knows that the president had previously said that he had never been told to keep 2,500 troops specifically in Afghanistan. This was a planted hit job. Now, like I said, Biden himself gotten him into trouble. But me personally, I mean, having a general like this sandbag the president and also basically admitting lies in the process, I am just one of those like a pox on both your houses. Yeah. Well, and look at the setup here, because why does Stephanopoulos ask that question? Because he knows.

Because it's been leaked. They leak that to the press. Yes. They create the story. Stephanopoulos asks Biden about it, gets this response, and then he gets to go under oath and finish the job here. I mean, it's a total setup. And they may not have been very good at training the Afghan army, playing these sort of games. This, they're excellent at.

Yeah, this is their real job, not fighting wars. That's right. This, they are absolutely world-class at. And here's the other thing. On the substance of the question of whether this is even the case, that keeping a force of 2,500 people there would have led to, you know, an endless stability in Afghanistan. That is pure freaking fantasy. Why? Because a deadline had been put in place. The reason that things had been kind of quiet

as far as we were concerned in Afghanistan here for a little while is because we had agreed with the Taliban that we were going to leave. If we didn't leave, then it's open season again. Then you're in the middle of a civil war. Then you're taking on more casualties. Then you're having liars like this dude coming out and saying, oh, well, now we need a new search. Now we can't take these losses and just, you know, this isn't sufficient. We got to go all the way back in. And then what? So this idea that there was a costless way to continue, first of all, is oblivious to the cost to those 2,500 people who are putting their lives at risk, putting their lives on hold to be there in Afghanistan so that you don't have a bad news cycle and so that people can profit off of this war, which is the only thing that this war accomplished.

Those were the winners, not the Afghan people, certainly not our servicemen and women, certainly not the United States of America. The winners of this war were the military industrial complex millionaires who cashed in on this thing. And yes, I have no doubt that they made the case to the president as aggressively as they possibly could that we needed to stay in Afghanistan forever. They did the same thing to Obama. They did it to Trump. What happened? I remember Trump in 17, whenever he calls in these enlisted guys, because he told the generals, he said, I don't want to hear from you.

I want to hear from the guys who actually fought the war. So he bought in these sergeants. And what do you think they told him to a T, every single one of them? They're like, sir, there is no way in hell that we can win this war. I've been on the ground there. These people are hopeless. They're useless. They're taking our money.

This is not working for anybody. So Trump goes and he tells that to the generals like, oh, well, they don't understand the strategy and the big war and all this. They're too stupid to really get it. They're too stupid. And in fact, they're the smartest ones. They knew. The guys who actually served in country, especially at the like captain and below level who are actually implemented, having to implement this nonsense, every single one of them knew this thing was doomed since like 2003. They didn't have the luxury of the fantasy.

Exactly. They did not have the luxury of any distance from this thing where they could pretend that some sort of illusory progress was being made when the fact of the matter was the exact opposite. No, and this is the problem that we have, which is that we are allowing ourselves, all of us, to be played by these fools. The Republicans now are like, oh, well, the generals said it. Oh, so we're supposed to believe the generals? Now they love the generals. Now we love the generals? No, we hate the generals. All of them. All the time. Not all of them,

okay? I'm sure there's some good people. Hyperbole, okay. Yeah. Some, I assume, are good people. But speaking of lying generals, and one who the Republicans, this is the best part. Republicans are willing to take at face value what General Milley says about his recommendation to Afghanistan. But then whenever it comes to his call with China, we know he's a bold faced liar because here's what he has to say. My loyalty is absolute and I will not turn my back on the fallen. With respect to the Chinese calls, I routinely communicated with my counterpart, General Lee, with the knowledge and coordination of civilian oversight. I am specifically directed to communicate with the Chinese by Department of Defense guidance, the policy dialogue system. These military to military communications at the highest level

are critical to the security of the United States in order to de-conflict military actions, manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the world's most deadliest weapons. The calls on 30 October and 8 January were coordinated before and after with Secretary Esper and Acting Secretary Miller's staffs and the interagency. The specific purpose of the October and January calls were to generate, or were generated by concerning intelligence, which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an attack on them by the United States. Yeah, this is complete lies. You think he's portraying it as a standard deconfliction call. Let me explain to people what deconfliction is. Deconfliction is whenever like one general calls a Russian general and is like, hey, we got some planes over Syria. You just should know that so we don't collide.

That's normal deconfliction. Saying we are not going to attack you, going outside of the chain of command, and basically practicing foreign policy, which is the job of the Secretary of State, that's not standard deconfliction. And guess what? Press just eats it up. Nobody's pressing him. Nobody is actually doing any investigation. Imagine if there is outrage about the Afghan thing, as they were, what is basically amounting to, and actually, even he acknowledged, according to Bob Woodward's reporting, which he has not denied, that he said he was going, quote, full Schlesinger, meaning that he was going outside the chain of command, emanating the Nixon administration in the waning days of the presidency. It's just amazing that

these people, you know, and you and I both know he's going to leave here. He's going to get the job just like John Allen over at the Brookings Institution or whatever, and serve as a consultant to every defense company on earth. And he will continue to be quoted five years from now, I guarantee, as some sort of expert person in the Washington Post about what we should have done in Afghanistan. Oh, next time they want to get us into a new war, he'll be right there ready for them. He'll be on the TV. He'll be like, as the former joint chairman, I support this decision. I have watched this iteration play out so many times, and they continue to believe them. It just, I don't even know how to describe it.

And maybe people are like, why do you care so much? It's because I've met people who have lost limbs in Afghanistan or Iraq. And they will be the first people to tell you that it's their lies that are the ones that got them into this. So I don't know. That's all there is to say about it. There really is something to the fact, too, that he admitted in this testimony that he was talking to three different authors. Yeah. That's how he's spending his time is talking to three different authors. I mean, if you he's spending his time, is talking to three different authors.

I mean, if you have something to say, come out and say it. Don't do the leaks. Don't do the deep, on deep background, all of that. Reportedly, even some of his close friends

were pretty shocked by how much he is a central character in each of these narratives, the Woodward and Costa book being primary among them. But, you know, I mean, that again shows you this is a political player, right? The reason you talk to these guys is because you want to have the portrait of history that is friendly to you. And sometimes it's also because you want to settle different scores. You want to paint someone else

in a negative light. This is why the like Halpert and Heilman, that's why they were able to get, that's their whole thing is to get all this dirt because you have the people who have an interest in setting the narrative about what the administration was like or what the campaign was like so that they can look like the good guy. I was the one who was telling them the right thing to do and they were the bad guys over there. So he's shamelessly engaging in the same tactics as like, you know, a sleazy, low level political operative. That's really what's going on here. Yeah, he is. And congratulations, chairman, because look, here's the deal for all of this you're going to hear here, all the media giving these people a total free pass. 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 free pass, actually, this is a stunning thing. This is pretty wild. Neither of us can really believe that this flew so under the radar. So let's put this up there on the screen. No matter how you feel about the Federal Reserve, the sanctity of the Federal Reserve is probably pretty important to the world's most important economy, capital markets, investors all across the world. Well, recently, two Federal Reserve leaders, quote, retired early. And that is because Wall Street Journal investigations found that one of them in particular, Robert Kaplan, was an active buyer and seller of stocks last year.

And the other one also violated basically the strictures through which you're supposed to conduct yourself. Here's the deal. Let's go ahead and put the next one up there, the actual Wall Street Journal investigation, because this is totally nuts. Robert Kaplan made, quote, multiple million-dollar-plus stock trades in 2020, according to his financial disclosure provided by his bank,

in contrast with the other regional Fed leaders who, you know, not really supposed to do that. Now, when you look at the actual number of trades, that his combination of sales or purchases of over $1 million in 22 individual companies, and those transactions included Apple, Alibaba, aka this massive Chinese conglomerate, Amazon, General Electric, and Chevron. He used to work in the financial sector. He literally used to go work for Goldman Sachs. But here's part of the problem, which is that in the forms, most of the others didn't even report trades or whatever of even close to like $50,000 or less. So why is this person who helps set interest rates, guide monetary policy, and all this,

making multiple, not just one, multi-million dollar stock trades in companies, specifically gas companies and more, which are directly impacted by the policy that he sets as one of the 12 most powerful people in the United States economy. It's stunning. And here's the thing, he thought he was going to get away with it because he put it in his financial transaction form. And if one reporter had not at least had the gall to go through and dig what's happening here, we wouldn't have even known about it. Isn't that wild? How much of this is just outright, straight up corruption? You can tell me all you want about how, oh, you know, he's already a multimillionaire. Look, the guy's

helping set the federal funds rate, you know, interest rates, advisor to Jerome Powell. He's Federal Reserve Chairman, Federal Bank Chairman, remember Tim Geithner? They're intimate players in the U.S. economy. They are way more powerful than the politicians in this town. These are like kings. They truly are. I mean, if CEOs and Wall Street bankers are being honest with you, they pay more attention to the Fed because they have so much impact on the stock market and ultimately what their compensation is than anything else, including customer service or their product lines or whatever it is that they're purported to be actually doing.

This is the thing that they focus on the absolute most. Kaplan was one of the most hawkish voices. I love this. Warning that high levels of monetary stimulus are boosting risk levels in the financial sector. And, of course, again, he has a direct financial interest in all of this and is an incredibly powerful player in setting the direction of the economy and how everything is going to play out. Now, his statement actually directly acknowledged this controversy per The New York Times as the reason for his departure. The other guy, his name is Eric Rosengren. He's the president of the Boston Fed. What he did, and this again,

I'm reading from the New York Times, he came under criticism because he held stakes in real estate investment trusts, which invest in sometimes managed properties and listed purchases and sales of those in 2020. And he happened to spend last year warning publicly about risks in the commercial real estate market and was helping to set Fed policy on mortgage-backed security purchases, which can help the housing market by improving financing conditions. So again, he's playing in the sandbox of housing, and he's also setting the policy of direct financial interest. Now, he says he is retiring for health reasons. Oh, yeah.

Has nothing to do with this. Okay. But this is pretty wild and has gotten next to no attention. No, actually, in terms of impact on all of our lives, I mean, this one is up there. And these were two of, also important to note, these were two of the more hawkish members of the Fed. So also in terms of the direction of the policy the Fed is setting, this is significant. Yeah. And look, by the way, WSJ, you guys are killing it

because there's another investigation. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is also just as important. 131 federal judges broke the law by hearing cases where they had a financial interest. The judges failed to recuse themselves from 685 lawsuits from 2010 to 2018 involving firms in which they or their family held shares. Now, here's the thing. You go and you look at this, which is that 56 of the judges have directed court clerks now to notify parties that they should have recused themselves after the fact of the investigation. But this taints all sort of civil litigation and criminal cases and more. The important part is that they held stocks in these companies, knew they were supposed to recuse themselves, didn't do so, and then issued summary judgments in some cases, ruling one way or the other. They've actually

first given the greatest gift of all time to the actual companies themselves because now they can come and sue and change the judgments or more. But this, again, just shows the rife level of at least the appearance of corruption within our judicial system whenever these companies come to the bench. And what if the company knows, like, oh yeah, this guy, he's holding a million dollars worth of stock on our company. Let's just nudge him a little bit in this direction. We'll talk about how the stock is going to go down. Can you prove definitively, yes or no, that the judge wasn't impacted? No, you can't. And that is the problem because our judicial system is supposed to be above reproach, especially whenever it comes to these corporations that already have the biggest leg up in the judicial system. So this is just another thing

that I'm on the scale that you can see right here. Well, and we can't know whether they were directly impacted in the judgments that they ultimately issued. But we do know when judges participated in these cases where they had a direct financial interest, about two-thirds of their rulings on motions that were contested happened to come down in favor of their family's financial interests. Again, according to the Wall Street Journal's fantastic reporting here. It's incredible. And the standard that judges are supposed to hold themselves to is supposed to be extraordinarily high. For a reason. They are supposed to avoid even the possibility of a perception of a conflict of interest. And here you are, you've got an instance here where, you know, the judge is holding stock in ExxonMobil and literally ruling on a case where one of the participants is ExxonMobil.

There you go. This is as blatant as it comes. Now, they, of course, all tonight, oh, we have no idea. And, oh, it's just a mistake. And I'm sorry. And I'm going to go back and see what I can do or whatever. But when this is happening so routinely and not in a partisan way either, they say nearly these judges were appointed by nearly every president from Lyndon Johnson to Donald Trump. So this isn't, you know, it was just the Trump judge or Obama judge or whatever.

There's a complete breakdown of this sort of accountability. And you can see why, because this has been going on for years and no one noticed till now. Yeah, it's amazing. And all of the, here's my favorite quote from a judge, quote, I dropped the ball. Thank you for helping me stay on my toes the way I'm supposed to. This is the same judge who ruled against a couple who said that they were being bullied by Comcast and whose family, his family at the the time of that ruling, held between $15,000 to $50,000 in stock within that company and then ruled exactly the way that Comcast wanted them to. That's just a little example. And he's like, oh, thanks for keeping me on my toes.

Yeah, now that it's too late. Another judge goes, well, I didn't know I had to recuse myself if my husband held the son. Oh, yeah. It's not like your husband's stock has any impact on your financial situation whatsoever. Quote, I regret my misunderstanding, but I assure you it was an honest one. Let me ask you, judge, you're going to take that as gospel in your courtroom? Some defendant comes before you and goes, I assure you, judge, it was an honest misunderstanding. Let's back up here.

Prosecution, why are you even coming after this fine young man or fine young woman for saying something like that? Again, they want the benefit of the doubt when their whole job is to investigate and rule out the benefit of the doubt. So you put this all together. It just shows you rank corruption in the Federal Reserve System, again, at the judiciary level. It's like, what can you trust? I mean, and if you're dealing with these people, you better do your damn due diligence. I don't know how exactly you can get into somebody's stock portfolio or more, but maybe press for it or not.

Because if you're starting to bring cases before these judges, I really recommend this for anybody out there. Do as much due diligence as you can. Do not assume that the deck is stacked in your favor because it is not. We're going to have Steven Donziger on tomorrow who is facing his sentencing. And of course, he has been railroaded by biased judges. I mean, that's really where it started and by a biased prosecution in favor of an oil giant. And you look at that, you're like, how can this happen in America? And then you see the reporting here and you realize like, oh, this isn't an outlier. This type of conflict of interest, this type of corruption, it's rife without the system.

And I was just looking back at the topics that we've covered so far today, like in the with reconciliation, you look at Sinema, you look at the corruption with her. Joe Manchin is a literal coal baron, and he's the one writing the rules on climate change. So you have that process completely corrupted with the Afghanistan hearings. We know that these guys have massive financial interest after they finish their quote unquote service, impacting the decisions and what they're telling the press right now. And then you look here at the Fed and you look at the judiciary and you just see the way that this corruption are elites thinking that they can do anything that they want, that they can profit directly,

that no one's even going to notice or call them to account. And that is such standard operating procedure that they just go like Ted Lieu told us about Hunter Biden. Oh, well, people serve on boards. I forgot about that. What's the big deal? It's the Washington way. And that's what's so disgusting is the fact that it is so commonplace, that it does go unnoticed so often because it's just the way that this town operates. That is a disgraceful state of affairs. And it is a big reason why people are so mistrustful, why they're so frustrated, why they're so angry with everything that is happening here in this country. Absolutely. Okay. We have to stick to the theme of elites being crazy. I'm really on my transition game today. So Harvard. Now, before we even begin, why are we even covering this? The reason why is, look, obviously Harvard,

you know, the most famous of the Ivy League institutions, the churning out of the American elite. But in my opinion, and I'm curious what you think, I think it's the tastemaker for a lot of the way that a lot of the other elite class is going to conceive of itself. So when the way they conduct themselves and who they're comprised of kind of tells me like, oh, this is where things are headed. And that's why I was very afraid whenever I saw this news. Thank you. By the way, Michael Tracy's been fantastic on this subject. Let's put this up there on the screen. Harvard Business School has now shuttered in-person classes due to a, quote, distressing surge in coronavirus cases amongst its overwhelming vaccinated student population. Now, consider this. Harvard Business

School has just switched back to online classes after they have already been subjected to testing three times a week. They have a 95 to 100% vaccination rate within their student body. They are, like I said, overwhelmingly, I think they even have a vaccine requirement for attending in-person cases. Now, look, people get COVID. I'm a living example of that. Even after you get vaccinated, it's not like you have to shutter in person for all time. You just have to take some precaution. They have gone completely and just gone to online classes. Now, this is the question. Is that going to happen if there is some sort of spike within the fall or spring?

Are we going to see colleges who are looking at the liability and looking at this example set now by Harvard and saying, okay, we're going to send these students home because there's almost no guarantee that this isn't going to continue to spread all across the country. At the same time, look, Delta does seem to be on the wane. I think we're at a 33% drop the last 14 days. That's good. But look, it's getting cold. And I remember what happened last time. So, I mean, I look at this and I just see a flashing red light as to what exactly could be down the road for the rest of the country. You know, I used to really completely write off these like college campus freak out stories. Right.

But I think the reason that they're relevant is because, look, if you go to Harvard, and by the way, I know people who went to Harvard who are good people. This is not to like bash every individual person who's at Harvard. But if you go to Harvard, you are set. You can walk into any job interview. You can walk into any elite circle and you're accepted in the club. You know, it gives you a huge leg up to fully inhabit that elite circle of society and be that cultural tastemaker. So the ways of being and the sort of cultural affectations that you adopt while you're at Harvard or that you bring into that space, they do ultimately end up mattering for the rest of society because these are the people who are going to go on to work at you know high levels in wall street high levels in corporate america

high levels in politics high levels of media organizations high levels in hollywood any sort of elite sphere that you can think of these are the people who are going to be well positioned to take their places their rightful places in our grand meritocracy. So that is why it matters. Now, on the specific issue of like they're shutting down and is that going to – I don't know. I genuinely don't know how much influence what Harvard does right now has on where the rest of the country heads because I generally think the influence comes from after these students leave and they occupy their places in society and the sort of approach that they bring to wherever, you know, their leadership takes them. So in terms of setting the trend of how we're going to deal with Delta, I'm not sure. Look, I feel bad for these students.

Oh, terrible. By the way, why would you pay for business school if you can't do in-person class? The whole point is meeting everybody. Yeah, and I feel bad for people who are in high school who have missed some of the most important sort of formative years in terms of developing social experiences and figuring out who they are as human beings. We already had way too much sort of social media and technical connection versus in real life connections. That's been just fueled and exacerbated by the pandemic. A lot of research shows the way that that makes us miserable, depressed and anxious. So I have a lot of sympathy and compassion for the kids who are going through all of this at really critical junctures in their lives. No, 100 percent. And let's we'll actually get to that because we have some of the polling data. But

speaking of, I want to underscore a point you made. Back in 2013, 2014, I remember people going like, why do you care? Why are you losers talking about what's happening on college campuses? Well, what happened? Those people grew up. Now they work at the New York Times. Now they work at Fox. Now they work in the Biden administration. Now they work, some of them are in Congress, and cry whenever they make a strange vote, whenever it comes to voting present. Part of the problem is that this ideology wins upward and begins to go through all of our institutions.

Now, let's assume that that remains the case. I'm very willing to bet that nothing is going to change that much about the way that elite networks work in this country. So let's look at this survey about the political leanings exactly of what happened in the incoming Harvard freshman class of 2025. Let's put this up there on the screen. 87% of the class voted for Joe Biden. 6.7 percent voted for Howie Hawkins. 6.3 percent for Donald Trump. Now, as you point out, more people in the Harvard freshman class voted green than they voted for Trump. I support that. Here's the thing. Are elite networks supposed to be 50-50? No, obviously not. I bet you that almost all ways Harvard has had probably, what, like an

80-20 split, maybe even a 90-10. But we're starting to get 95-5, 94-6. And you can tell me all you want that that's fine or, oh, that just shows that they're smarter than everybody else. But all I see is when you continue to see actually even more groupthink in a place where there should be at least some intellectual diversity, and I'm not calling, by the way, for any affirmative action for Republicans or whatever. Is that a thing? Are people calling? Oh, trust me. There's an equally cringe people on the right who are like, we need to hire more Republicans. It's like, yeah, well, you're just also probably a loser and you just can't get a job. So more what I'm saying is I think Harvard, many of these other places need to think very carefully about what exactly they're inculcating for the rest of the country, at least the elite institutions in the country. And this is probably more of a symptom

than it is like a top-down thing as to who exactly are the people who even want to go in the first place. All I'm saying is I look at this and I'm like, this is not going to be good. Five years from now, it's not good. Yeah. So Matt Iglesias, who wrote up some of this data, he made some really interesting points here. First of all, now there's just this assumption, and you can see it in that data, that elite institutions, their student body, and their staff are going to be overwhelmingly Democratic voters, overwhelmingly liberal, progressive, etc. I love to see that Howie Hawkins support. Yeah, Howie Hawkins. Howie is a lovely guy. He's a nice guy.

He's a really nice guy. Very, you know, and obviously I support a lot of what he believes in. But that is a pretty recent phenomenon. Very. It used to be that it was the exact opposite, that these institutions were overwhelmingly conservative, were overwhelmingly Republican. And that has shifted over time as this sort of education polarization and alignment around education status has changed. Now, what Iglesias says is, and I think these are really interesting points. So for Republicans, this gives them an advantage just because of the way our political system is set up, especially in the points. So for Republicans, this gives them an advantage just

because of the way our political system is set up, especially in the Senate. So you have still a population that is largely not college educated. You know, if you go to rural areas, you have a lower proportion of people who are attending four-year institutions and elite institutions. And so it gives you a huge leg up in the Senate, gives you a leg up in the electoral college as well. And you can see the way that this plays out. Republicans have a big advantage just because of the way that the system is set up at all of these levels at the federal government. On the other hand, you obviously see a lot of angst within Republican elites, but also within the conservative base that they have zero influence in terms of culture. Yeah.

That they're shut out of these elite positions of power in Hollywood or, you know, increasingly even in the financial sector. Almost everywhere. Even in the corporate sector. There's still plenty of, you know. All they have left is oil. That's pretty much it. Yeah, they've got oil, right? I mean, look, there's still a lot of rich people who've ever been Republicans. But increasingly, you have the cultural tastemakers are uniformly

Democratic. And that is, even though it's not an elected source of power, it also is an incredibly significant source of power. So it creates this really strange dynamic where official political power is increasingly vested in the hands of conservatives and Republicans and sort of cultural societal power is vested in the hands of liberals and progressives. And it's part of what fuels this sense of sectarian culture war that we see playing out. Because both sides feel aggrieved. Both sides feel shut out.

Like it's not fair to them and like their view is not seen and their view is not represented. Well, and both sides are right, right? You know, in a certain sense. And that's exactly the great battle of our time. Education polarization is 100% the future. I've done so many things on that.

And it's like I said, I have nothing against people who are going to college. More what I'm saying is that if you become a party, which is increasingly ensconced in the cities, in the city class, and then, you know, your base is just elderly black people, then, and you have a large, what, 55% of our country doesn't go to college, even touch a four-year college degree. Of that, the people who actually finish college, I think, is much lower, you know, in the 20s and the 30s. And then of that, of the people who actually attend these elite institutions, that's like, what, 10%, maybe even 5%. Those people, they run everything. And you have all of the cultural

tastemaking happening specifically within that. That's why we have to focus on Harvard. And actually to get to some of the social stunting that we've seen here. So let's put this up there in terms of a review of what's actually going on. Harvard freshman class, he 7% voted Biden, 62% are virgins, 40% have had alcohol, and 24% are religious. us on the middle two there and you can see actually a cost of a largely sexless and funless generation of people who have had to sit in their house for the last two years. And I was thinking about that. I'm like, wow, for these 18 year olds, their lives ended effectively when they were almost 16. I mean, they've had to sit in their house and lose the entire experience of like being a teenager. I have no idea what that

does to people. Yeah. I literally have no idea. Actually, you can tell us too. For young kids, I don't know what it does to a young child to tell them that put a mask on for two years. I have no clue. I'm going to bet that it's probably not good. You know, I kind of like things the way that they were before. So I just look at that and I'm like, oh, five to ten years from now, it's going to be a fun time working in the New York Times or one of these places. I thought you were a social conservative. Now you're cheering for underage drinking and sex. What I am cheering for are a well-adjusted population that can relate to each other

so that we don't all go completely insane. All right, so you're bragging about your game here. My transition here. Transitioning. What do you got for our transitioning to R. Kelly? Speaking of underage sex. Yes. R. Kelly, R&B superstar, found guilty on all charges.

Let's put this tear sheet up on the screen. This has been a long time coming. R. Kelly convicted on all counts after decades of accusations of abuse. Jury in New York deliberated for about nine hours, which is really short given the length and breadth of this trial, before convicting the singer of all nine counts against him, including racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act. You had nine women and two men who testified to being abused by Kelly in various ways. The prosecution called 45 witnesses during the trial. The criminal charges against the singer hinged on accusations related specifically to six women,

five of whom testified, and the sixth being the singer Aaliyah, who of course died in a plane crash back in 2001. And you all know, I mean, this is significant on so many levels. First and foremost, what this man got away with for so many years because of his status as a wealthy celebrity is insane. How long have we known that he married Aaliyah when she was 15

years old? And part of what we learned through this case is that the reason that he did that and one of his groupies and enablers bribed a government official to forge the documents to allow this illegal marriage to happen when she's 15 and he's 27 is because he thought she was pregnant. And if he was married to her, then he could consent because at that time you needed, don't consent for her to be able to get an abortion. So he thought if they're married, then she can get the abortion and then he wouldn't go to prison. How long have we known about him marrying Aaliyah, who he met when she was even younger than that? And society just, just look the other way. I mean, these rumors and this knowledge of what this man was doing and the way he was abusing his power have been known for years. And it took until now for there to be any justice whatsoever. And when this really started to unravel for him, because remember, he also had been brought up on charges before of child pornography.

That's right. Yeah. And then it looks like what may have happened is they pressured, bullied, intimidated, paid off something to keep the girl who was in this sex tape from testifying. So that prosecution ultimately falls apart. And when this really starts to unravel is a documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, that came out that just put it in everyone's faces, the years of routine abuse. And Sagar, if you watch that documentary, and this is some of what's testified to you in this trial as well, it paints a portrait of a man who would use the fact that he was famous. He would actively go to malls where young girls were hanging out, use the fact that he was a celebrity, tell these

girls who were aspiring singers, like, I'm going to make you huge. I'm going to make you famous. And then trap them in this world of abuse where he would control their every action. And again, some of these girls under age, some of them of age, but control their every action, force them to call him daddy, withhold food, withhold water, lock them in rooms, allegations that he drugged them as well. If they didn't do what he said, this is one of the horrible details that came out in this trial. One of the punishments was to smear feces on a girl's face and require her to eat. I mean, the most horrific things you can possibly imagine. And again, not once, not twice, routinely, systematically over decades. Yeah, and this is again what we're talking about in terms of corruption within our elite systems.

This is the perfect example. Put that BBC tear sheet up there on the screen. Since 19—I was two years old whenever he married Aaliyah when she was 15 years old. 1994, we already knew it all the way there. He was sued in 1996. In 2001, he was sued by an intern. April 2002, two more court cases. June 2002, charged over child abuse videos. 2002 to 2004, arrests prompt further charges. 2017, allegations of a cult after the BuzzFeed story comes out. Even more people come forward in the press. Then we have a documentary. Then the documentary

finally leads to charges. That famous moment, whenever he's in the CBS interview and he's like, I'm fighting for my life out here. Then the breakdown. And finally, now 2021, he gets convicted in court. You pointed me towards this clip. I had no idea this even existed. Oh, my God. But this is the craziest thing. You want to know whether the dude is a pedophile or not? Alleged pedophile for his lawyers.

Well, I guess he's been convicted in a court of law. You want to know his predilections? Well, he was asked whether he likes teenage girls several years ago. Here's what he had to say. Do you like teenage girls? When you say teenage, how are we talking?

So that's my... How are we talking? That's my longtime friend, Toray, who I, of course, worked with at MSNBC on the cycle and who I'm still close with. And I talked to him about that interview. By the way, his face after he says that, Torrey's like, what do you mean define teenage? Like, we've got a pretty, you know, clear understanding of what we're all talking about here.

13 to 18. I mean, he gave him this question because he, you know, he felt obviously an obligation and wanted to ask the question. But he thought this is a softball. Like, Obviously, he's going to say, of course not. And then when he gives this response, defying teenage, what are we talking about? What age is? His jaw hit the ground. And this was years ago that this interview happened. So we have known so much of this for so long, and that's part of why this trial is significant. I mean, number one, obviously it's horrific. It's salacious. It's outrageous. It's disgusting what he did to these women and also to these men over years and years and years, routinely enabled by his handlers, all the people around him

knowing what's going on and continuing to not just permit it, but to continue to help him and facilitate his absolutely outrageous, abusive behavior here. But also it's about who actually gets heard by our judicial system and who actually is able to find justice here. And in this instance, you have women who are majority black. You have women who not all of them come from wealthy backgrounds. These are aspiring singers, people who really are desperate to try to be able to make it. And he's using that desperation to pull them into these abusive situations. So that's the other reason why it's significant.

But it's insane. It is so insane that it took this long. And then you think about the number of women and girls who continue to be subjected to abuse because everybody decided that his fame was more important than the lives of these women. One other detail from this trial that's also in the documentary is that he knew he had genital herpes and would intentionally, knowingly give it to these women.

And had a doctor testify to that fact as well. So just on every level, I think the youngest, his youngest survivor, 13. I just, there's no words for what he has done to so many women. And by the way, this isn't the end in terms of his legal trouble. He also faces federal trial in Chicago on child pornography and obstruction charges, additional state sex crime charges in Illinois and Minneapolis. So finally, long overdue modicum of justice here.

Just in my opinion for the lawyers, he deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail. So there we go. Wow. You guys must really like listening to our voices. While 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 Saga in your daily lives. Take care, guys. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, yesterday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen clarified exactly when our nation is likely to default without lifting or suspending the debt ceiling. In a letter to Speaker Pelosi, Yellen wrote that the government will run out of money and what she describes as extraordinary measures on October 18th without action from Congress.

If you're keeping track at home, October 18th is just mere weeks away. Now, of all these stupid, theatrical, and pointless crises in Washington, the debt ceiling is by far the dumbest. It sounds like the debt ceiling is meant to promote fiscal responsibility and contain runaway spending if those are things that you happen to be into, but it really has nothing to do with that. The spending and the attendant debt, that's already been authorized through the budgeting and appropriations process. So the relevant action now on that front is all with the budget reconciliation package. The debt limit is literally just this arbitrary thing. It's a historical relic that must periodically be dealt with and which Republicans, of course,

enjoy using as a cudgel and using as a weapon of chaos as they pretend to not know that the whole thing is entirely a farce. And trust me, they definitely know it's a farce. They just completely suspended the debt ceiling altogether during the Trump years. At least it's a farce in as much as it has nothing to do with controlling spending. The consequences of actually defaulting and breaching the debt ceiling, those are real. Those are dead serious. An analysis by Moody's Analytics suggested that a default would cause long-term consequences. We're talking about 6 million jobs that would be lost. We're talking about an unemployment rate that could jump up to 9%. Stock market in free fall potentially losing 30% of its value. Social security payments not going out. Everyone who's employed by the government,

servicemen and women, civil servants, all of them going without pay. Food stamps, other cash assistance also would cease. Now, Republicans have steadfastly refused to join with Democrats to raise or suspend the debt ceiling. With the filibuster in place, the only mechanism to lift the debt ceiling without Republican help is through reconciliation. Doesn't look like that's going to work out either, though. Chuck Schumer has ruled it out as way too onerous, way too time consuming, way too tricky. There is simply not time. John Yarma, chair of the House Budget Committee, has also said there is not time to restart the budgeting process and get the debt ceiling dealt with through reconciliation before the October 18th default.

But, ladies and gentlemen, there is another way. A way that sounds just as stupid as the debt ceiling is, but is an actual, legitimate way out of this crisis and potentially to end the recurring cycle of debt ceiling crises altogether. That is to mint the coin. Now, bear with me here for a moment. Treasury could, on their own, with no vote in Congress, mint a trillion dollar platinum coin. That coin would then be used to buy debt from the Fed. That debt would be retired. And then, voila, the debt ceiling crisis would be over. Now, I'd have to expect that once the seal has been broken on using a platinum coin to deal with the debt ceiling, this would likely become a routine way of handling the issue, effectively rendering the debt ceiling as

toothless and irrelevant as it should have been to start with. By the way, this isn't just some weird lefty fantasy either. At least one influential member of Congress, Jerry Nadler, has brought it up with Pelosi. You can see that here in this tweet that Pramila Jayapal and other progressives are behind the idea as well. And smart and serious people are writing about how it would work and what the consequences ultimately would be. Joe Weisenthal has a great write-up in his markets newsletter running down all the most commonly asked questions about minting the coin. You can see that here. First of all, the law does require that the coin be platinum for some unknown reason. That's just what the law says. Second of all, the coin would not have to actually contain a trillion dollars

worth of platinum, so it does not have to be a giant coin. Finally, and most seriously, there's no reason to think that the coin would fuel inflation. Weisenthal describes it as essentially an accounting gimmick. You're swapping assets between two different parts of the federal government. So it would not actually be putting additional money into circulation that could potentially drive inflation. Mintha coin is also not without precedent. Back in 1953, there was a bit of a debt ceiling crisis and a standoff. Eisenhower dealt with it at that time by using gold to retire the debt. So basically another accounting gimmick,

swapping one asset for another with the effect of decreasing the debt and avoiding the debt ceiling. Now, it's not exactly the same. We're talking actual gold bullion in 1953 versus a platinum coin now, but it's basically the same mechanism. So are Democrats actually going to go for it and save us all the stress and tumult of this particular game of Beltway Chicken? Well, I should warn you that some federal government staffer has said that minting the coin is illegal and Democrats being the wimpiest creatures on the planet, never wanting to bend the precious norms to do something actually good, they might take that guidance seriously. And frankly, if they let the country default when such an obvious solution is available to them, they are every bit as

culpable as the Republicans who have dug in their heels on this dumbest of all crises. And if you think that a single voter is going to change their mind based on all of this Beltway Insider drama, you are the dumbest person of all. Now, obviously, the best thing about minting the coin is that it gets us out of one more unnecessary but legitimately perilous crisis. I personally also like the fact that it very clearly demonstrates how the federal government's finances are, in fact, nothing at all like your household finances. Your household cannot issue bonds, you can't set interest rates, and you definitely cannot print a trillion-dollar platinum coin. There is also something rather poetic about using a sort of silly and absurd solution to solve an utterly absurd and fake problem. It speaks to the overall fakeness and ruse of our entire economy.

As one guy put it on Twitter, quote, a problem that can be solved in theory via magic coin is fictitious nonsense in the first place. Just a bunch of adults off in the woods building stick forts and playing Harry Potter games and insisting it's all very serious stuff. Well said. Use your magic wands, deal with this issue, and let's get back to despairing about every other part of our broken system. And Sagar, I actually don't know how they resolved the debt ceiling issue at this point without minting the coin. One more thing, I promise. Just wanted to make sure you knew about my podcast with Kyle Kalinsky. It's called Crystal Kyle and Friends, where we do long form interviews with

people like Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Glenn Greenwald. You can listen on any podcast platform or you can subscribe over on Substack to get the video a day early. We're going to stop bugging you now. Enjoy. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, some of you might remember back in late January 2021, one of the craziest things that's ever occurred in the market took place. The Wall Street Bets Reddit short squeeze of GameStop. It only lasted a few days, but for a brief shining moment, it seemed the internet had triumphed, that the billionaire investors who got greedy and bet big would suffer, and that just for once, the little guy would actually make some money. All of that, of course, was until Robinhood halted trading on GameStop stock,

along with many other brokerages, effectively killing the short squeeze and saving untold billions for hedge funds and for others. Recall, too, it wasn't just Robinhood. Discord actually took down the server that many WallStreetBets Redditors were using. The typical censorship regime that we see in politics was activated. Since that time, the powers involved in GameStop have gone out of their way to paint a narrative of a confluence of extraordinary events. It goes like this. Robinhood says they halted trading on GameStop stock because they had an extraordinary capital requirements given the insane volume of trading, and they simply would not be able to keep up, so they had to make that decision. Some preliminary review of that seems to be true, but all of the eyes also focused on

Citadel Securities, which is headed by billionaire Ken Griffin. Now, Griffin's firm both processed many of Robinhood's trades on the actual stock market and had a sizable stake in Melvin Capital. Melvin Capital, you guys need to remember, was the firm which went belly up as a result of the GameStop short squeeze when its sizable position in GameStop was screwed by Redditors and it cost them billions of dollars. As part of Griffin's investment in Melvin Capital, he was entitled to revenue from their gains. Hence, he had a direct financial interest on both sides of the trade. Griffin and Citadel have maintained since the beginning that they learned of Robinhood's decision to halt trading on GameStop on January 27th,

only after the fact of the decision. Griffin has even testified to this effect before Congress. Let's review exactly what he said. I have to ask this. You said that you didn't talk to anybody, Citadel, Citadel Securities. Did anyone in your organization since January 1st contact Robinhood? Are you asking if we've had contact with Robin Hood? With respect to GameStop and what we're obviously talking about. So, Congressman, we offer to have my colleague who manages that relationship be here today. Instead, he has firsthand knowledge. We, of course, are talking to Robin Hood routinely in the ordinary course of business. We manage a substantial portion of their order

flow. Well, I understand that. But did you talk to them about restricting or doing anything to prevent people from buying, not selling, but buying game stock. Let me be- Anybody in your organization. Let me be perfectly clear. Absolutely not. Forgive the jumpy audio. That was on the congressman's end. But you guys get the idea. Ken Griffin, in February of 2021, says, absolutely not did anyone in his organization speak to anyone at Robinhood

about the decision to halt trading on GameStop. So that is Griffin on the record. Well, newly leaked court documents from the U.S. District Court of Southern District of Florida titled January 2021 Short Squeeze Trading Litigation may spell some problems for Griffin. The documents include a transcript of Vlad Tenev, he's the CEO of Robinhood's chats, on the day before trading was halted on GameStop. Vlad specifically says, quote, maybe this would be a good time for me to chat with Ken Griffin. That same day, Robinhood president and COO Jim Swarout is quoted as saying, quote, you wouldn't believe the convo we had with Citadel. Total mess. Furthermore, within the transcript of the documents, an engineer whose name remains redacted

is found saying, quote, anecdotal evidence, several, quote, very large firms are having really bad nights too. Now it's unclear who he's referring to, but it's possible he's referring to the, you know, massive hedge funds taking billion-dollar losses. So none of this proves anything, but it certainly bears investigation. Griffin has said under oath to Congress nobody in his organization had any communication with Robinhood about halting the stock. And yet, the day before, the president of Robinhood specifically says he spoke with Citadel and that it was a, quote, total mess. Again, this is not a smoking gun. Let's just say it looks mighty suspicious, shall we?

Well, the internet is going to do what it did. And given the fact that pretty much everybody was on the side of the screwed over Redditors here, people began tweeting hashtag Ken Griffin lied. It actually became one of the top trending Twitter topics on the entire website. Here's the proof. Well, that was until Ken Griffin lied was changed to just Ken Griffin. That's it. Twitter didn't even do that thing where they try and add weird fake context in the trending subject. It was just changed. And as my friend Unusual Wales was quick to point out, it probably doesn't hurt. Griffin holds about a $300 million share, $300 million worth of shares in Twitter.

Now I'm putting this all together because it's important to note that it's just always seems to break in the favor of the big guys. As I said at the time, if you're trying to make your retirement plan on GameStop, you got much bigger problems. But for many people, it was a shining moment of hope and just a matter of pure fun that

was taken away from them. Some people actually did lose thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. But the principal people at the top involved halting the stock like Robinhood. Well, look, they IPO'd. A lot of those guys are billionaires. Griffin himself is already a billionaire many times over. And he has an army of lawyers that I'm sure will protect him at all costs. But the broader point to me is this.

The appearance of corruption itself is often enough and just as poisonous as actual corruption. Robinhood purports to be free, but we all know that's a farce. Robinhood IPO'd to the tune of billions, specifically because they have huge numbers of customers. They're called the banks and other hedge funds. Those institutions, they buy your aggregated trading data, then they use it to either front run your trades or to place bigger bets based upon consumer sentiment. As you see with GameStop, when you lose, you actually lose. When they lose, they just keep making more money. The system is entirely stacked in their favor. While people won once when it came to GameStop, it's time to address some of the actual structural inequities within our markets here. People like Ken Griffin, who have

made billions on the stock market, to think of it as the ultimate testing ground. A true free market where the best man wins. That's what they think. But we're learning time and time again that in reality, the markets work just like a lot of the rest of the U.S. economy. If you're already lucky enough to be on top, you're pretty much set. For everybody else, you're screwed, even when a grave injustice has been done to you. Hopefully something will come from this. To be honest, I'm not optimistic, but I'm always going to be looking out for the little guy here. And that's the thing, Crystal. You look at those documents, it's mighty suspicious. Joining us now, we have Matt Brown and Cynthia Mendez. They are running for governor and lieutenant governor of Rhode Island, along with a slate of 50 progressives who are looking to have a full-scale revolution in that blue state. It's great to talk to both of you guys. Welcome. Thank you for having us.

So, Cynthia, you recently ran and were elected as state senator. Now you're running as lieutenant governor. Can you just lay out for people the sort of unique political model that you all have crafted in the state of Rhode Island? Also, just lay out for people a little bit of the political dynamics there for people who haven't been following this story. Absolutely. Yeah, in Rhode Island, for a really long time, you didn't run for office unless you've been tapped on the shoulder by the political establishment and given essentially a permission slip to run. And if you did run, you absolutely did not win. And so the Rhode Island political cooperative model is an incredible model that allows everyday working class people, people that have been left out of the system and systems of decision making, a way to get the resources they need. And more importantly, the support and community that they need.

So I didn't run alone. I ran with a slate of, last time I ran with an amazing slate of 23 candidates for House and Senate. We won 10 seats and we were able to see a very conservative legislature move on legislation they had previously not been interested in before. And so, for example, the General Assembly was not interested in talking or touching the $15 minimum wage. And within the first month of us being in session, they moved on that. Previously, they were just not interested in that. And we saw gains like that through our work. So we not only had the resources we needed to run, a community to run, but we also had a deep sense of accountability once we were in there to move things that we had promised our constituents that we would fight for.

Matt, tell us a little bit about exactly what it was like to both see yourselves prevail actually once against the machine, because that's what I'm most fascinated by. In a lot of these semi one-party states, it's just so difficult in order to actually break through the establishment and the log jam. What did you guys do previously? And then what do you plan on doing this time? Well, what it felt like really was, um, giving people hope for the first time, uh, in our state, I've spent my whole life seeing the same corrupt, uncaring political machine that's been running things. And, you know, they've looked out for themselves and they've looked out for corporations and the wealthy and they've ignored everybody else. And for the first time in decades, and I think in memory, people had hoped that things could change because Cynthia won her race. But also, you know, there were 10 races in total that the Rhode Island Political Cooperative won.

Candidates who care about their community, who are fighting for their community, aren't taking any corporate PAC or corporate lobbyist or fossil fuel money. And now we're building on that. And we're going to have 50 candidates, five zero from all across the state. And they're extraordinary people. I mean, it's people like Michael Niemeyer, who's running for Senate, who's running because of his own life experience. His baby girl was born with a terrible brain disease. She won't learn to walk. She won't learn to walk, she won't learn to talk. And they had health

insurance, the family had health insurance. And immediately the health insurance company blocked them from getting a genetic test. They blocked their little girl from medicine that would help with potential bleeds. They blocked a chair that would help her swallow. In the most extreme situation, the manufacturer of a medicine said they would provide it to the family and the health insurance company blocked that. So Michael is running and he's not going to cave on Medicare for all health insurance. He's going to fight for it. And those are the kinds of candidates we have running and it's giving people hope. Cynthia, can you just talk to us in practical terms about how the co-op works so that folks in other state who are activists, who are interested, can sort of build on this model? Or do you think it's

possible for the co-op model to work in other states? Or is it a function of the fact that Rhode Island is such a small place? It can absolutely work in other states. And the way that it works is that the candidates actually pay dues. And so we're able to work and coordinate with the co-op and we have full kind of coordination there. And we get campaign manager, oppo research, messaging, policy. There's all sorts of literature, all the things that you would need to run a campaign and essentially all the things that you would expect and need from the Democratic Party that has left us out of the system. And so we are able to be supplied with those things

and then be able to, again, run together on this shared platform with our running mates. And we have also provide volunteers and well-trained campaign managers. And as we know, progressives have been losing for a really long time due to the lack of infrastructure of support. There aren't campaign managers and the support that we need. And so it provides really strong infrastructural support as well as the community.

And it absolutely can be replicated and needs to be because there is a deep you know, a deep power grab that that happens right now in a lot of states. And there are amazing people who want to represent their community that know what it means that there's a housing crisis, that we are in a climate crisis, the people that have been fighting for it for decades and yet left out of the seats of decision making in order to actually fight for their community in the Senate or the House. Yeah, I mean, Matt, talk a little bit about more on the, you know, mechanics and stuff, because how exactly can this small co-op model compete on the establishment level? You guys have shown that it can be done. How could

other people actually, you know, the actual concrete nature where you put it together? I think there are two parts to it that are really powerful. One is that we build, we have an actual community among the candidates, meaning we spend a lot of time together. We form a policy platform together. It's a bold platform. And these are a group of candidates who fight for each other, who stand by each other throughout the campaign.

And then, as Cynthia said, importantly, after the campaign in governing, they govern together. And so that actual political community is something I've never seen in the country. And it's really powerful, powerful in really practical ways for winning. They really show up for each other during the campaign. And then in terms of the mechanics, it's a really innovative organizing model because the candidates pay dues to cover the costs of all the services that they receive from the co-op, which is a small staff, small organization that does all the things that's important from A to Z. So candidate training, writing campaign plans and budgets, helping with communications, helping with fundraising, policy papers, everything,

really running a coordinated statewide campaign and providing that support that our candidates need and our side needs to win governing power. So that's the model. And it's really powerful. It's really effective. And now we're going to finish the job here in Rhode Island and win a full out progressive governing majority. And we do think it's a model that can work and is going to work in other states as well. And Matt, what's exciting is you've already demonstrated that you've been able to bring in people who don't traditionally even have a shot in the process. I mean, Cynthia, my understanding is you were a first time candidate, weren't really seeing yourself as someone who would run for office. And Matt came to you and said, listen, you can do this and we're going to do this. And here's what it looks like. Matt, if you're able to prevail here and you're able to get the legislature that you want, what are your top priorities for Rhode Island? All right. I'm sorry to cut out there for

a second. Maybe I'm lying, but I got the question at the end. I just said, what are your top priorities for the state if you do win and get the legislature that you want? Yeah, when we win, we'll win a governing majority in the House and Senate and obviously also in the executive branch. And we want to make sure people have a living wage, $19 an hour living wage, which is just what it takes to raise a family. We're gonna pass a Green New Deal and make Rhode Island the first state in the country that's 100% run on clean energy and the first state in the country that's net zero emissions. And we're gonna shut down the polluting fossil fuel industry that has been dumped in a black and brown and low-income neighborhood in our state, polluting the air

and the water for decades. We're going to build 10,000 green affordable housing units to tackle the affordable housing crisis and also the climate crisis. We're going to get a Medicare for all style health care system so everybody has the health care that they need for themselves and their families. So we're going to do the things that we know we should have done a long time ago that we can do. The only thing that's in our way is this corrupt political machine that takes the corporate pack and corporate lobbyist money and works for them and not for the people of the state. And so, you know, this is a very, very hopeful thing for our state. The most hopeful thing that I've been a part of.

And we're ready to roll here. Cynthia, you seen any dirty tricks from the establishment yet? It's all they know. They have a playbook that they continue to play. You know, The party is known for just really being manipulative and obstructive. And they have given us access to Vann or withheld access to Vann and manipulated that contract over and over again. Vann is a voter access tool. They have really been really concerned actually now due to the gains that the co-op made in 2020 and hired a high-powered consultant to come in to help retain seats so that incumbents don't lose. We also are going through a redistricting process now, and they hired Kimball Bryce,

whose license plate says gerrymander on his license plate. And that's the person that they hired to help with the redistricting process. So there's really nothing that they won't, you know, do in order to white knuckle grip hold the power that they have. But they can feel it slipping and they would be right to be worried. Well, as you guys know, I've been following this and what you're up to for a while. I think it's a fascinating model. I'm excited to see what happens. Senator Mendez and former Secretary of State Brown, great to talk with you guys this morning. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Thanks for having us. Our pleasure. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We had multiple more demonetized YouTube segments here. It's just, you know, that's the way of life that we live now here at Breaking Points, despite the show actually doing better than ever. So there you go. That's what it's like for us, which is that even in those times when we want to cover the news the way that we want, it just somehow runs afoul of what is suitable or not. So the only way that the show

continues is through your guys' support. Premium link is down there in the subscription if you can support us. If you can, it means the world and it means the ability for us to cover whatever we want, whenever we want, and whatever we have to. Yeah, we so appreciate you guys. You make this all possible. And we will be back here tomorrow. So we'll be back on track tomorrow. Regular schedule next week and all of that good stuff going forward. Love you guys. Have a good one. See you tomorrow. thanks for listening to the show guys we really appreciate it to help other people find the show go ahead and leave us a five-star rating on apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast really helps other people find the show. As always, special thank you to Supercast for powering our premium membership. If you want to find out more,

go to crystalandsauger.com. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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You need people being like, no, you're not what you tell us what to do. This huge meme is coming down on us. And I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive. Fighting Words is where courage meets conversation. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.