Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/29/22: Stock Ban, Hurricane Ian, Russian Border, Student Debt, Generation Covid, American Men, & More!

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the proposed congressional trading ban, Hurricane Ian, Puerto Rico, Russian border chaos, student debt lawsuit, Biden's latest gaffe, generation covid, Nordstream attack, & the crisis of American men!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Chicago Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/449151/breaking-points-live-tickets Richard Reeves: https://www.brookings.edu/book/of-boys-and-men/ https://ofboysandmen.substack.com/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Truly a lot that is breaking this morning. First of all, it is do or die for the congressional stock trading ban, at least if something is going to get passed before the midterm elections. That is looking increasingly unlikely, but we do have details of the Democratic proposal, so we will get into all of that. In addition, as you guys certainly know, Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida yesterday, made landfall as a Category 4 storm, massive power outages, millions without electricity this morning. It has now been

downgraded to a tropical storm, still very dangerous. Huge amounts of flooding, just a lot of devastation and destruction down there. So we will take a look at that. Latest from Russia. We now have numbers about how many Russians, mostly military-age men, are trying to flee the country. This comes as Putin is set to announce the official, in his view, annexation of those territories that had the sham referendums. We also have the official results of those referendums. Very credible, very credible numbers coming out of there. Seems like it was really free, fair, and above board.

We also have the first attempt, legal attempt, to take down Biden's student loan debt relief. Questions over whether or not the individual who is suing the administration over this actually has standing to do so. So we'll get into the nitty gritty of that. And boy, do we have a Biden moment for you. Classic, classic Biden moment where he seemingly asked for a congresswoman who has just recently been killed in a car accident. And then the cleanup from Karine Jean-Pierre, if you could call it that, was perhaps even worse than the original. Yeah, they refused to admit that he didn't know she was dead.

It's wild. We'll go into it. There's no option but to take the L on this one. Yeah. I mean, just take the L, admit, like, listen, it's a shock. He's still processing it. Whatever. But anyway, we'll get into all of that.

Also very excited about our guest today, Richard Reeves. We heard him on a podcast with Derek Thompson. Yeah. very excited about our guest today, Richard Reeves. We heard him on a podcast with Derek Thompson talking about the crisis for men and boys and in a really, really thoughtful way and with a sort of like positive, affirmative critique of the manosphere and all those sorts of things. So really excited to talk to him as well. Before we do any of that though, live show. Administrative. Two things. Number one, live show. Put it up there on the screen, guys. Vic Theater, Chicago, October 15th. You guys know Two things. Number one, live show. Put it up there on the screen, guys. Vic Theatre, Chicago October 15th. You guys know the deal.

The link is going to be in the description. We are actively planning it now. It's going to be very fun and it's going to be very engaging. Number two, tomorrow is Friday, which means it's going to be the third show of Counterpoints. They've got some interesting stuff slated for tomorrow. I'm not going to give it away, but it's going to be fun.

They're going to be breaking some news that I think, we think they're going to be breaking some news that you guys are going to be interested in. We won't give it all away. I just think some people

will enjoy it. We have the discount going on right now, 10% off on our annual discount to celebrate counterpoints to fund our continued expansion. By the way, nearing the end

of the hiring process, so thank you all very much for helping us with those annual subscriptions because you are funding the ability to expand hiring, the partnership manager, all of that. I'm really, really excited in order to debut and honestly just see what some of these new folks can do for us. Yeah, absolutely. Because, I mean, you know, we're very stretched thin at this point. I think the show has expanded faster than we ever anticipated.

I mean, building out CounterPoints wasn't really something that we had in plans for this year. It just kind of came together. And that has obviously created a huge burden on everybody here, especially on James. So it's going to be exciting to get another person in here and fresh ideas and all of that sort of stuff. So thank you guys for making all of that possible. All right, let's get to the news. So I wanted to start with the potential passage of a congressional stock trading ban. This is obviously something we have been covering here extensively. It is insane that members of Congress who are taking votes that have direct impact, that can move markets directly and have direct impact on industry,

are also allowed to buy and sell stocks. Huge potential conflicts of interest here. Of course, we've highlighted issues in a bipartisan basis, you know, whether it's Dan Crenshaw or Nancy Pelosi or anyone else, where this is a major, major problem. So Pelosi, after initially resisting passing any sort of congressional stock trading ban, famously saying like, oh, well, people should be allowed to participate in the free market. She backpedaled and she said, all right, we are going to try to get this done. We're going to try

to get it done before the midterm elections. And Zoe Lofgren on the Democratic side, I think Zoe and not Zoe. Zoe, I think. I don't know. Anyway, Congresswoman Lofgren was tasked with coming up with the text of this bill. And now we are really getting down to the wire. Why? Because this is the last week where they're doing anything before the midterm elections. And they also had this like government shutdown situation they had to deal with as well. So there's a lot going on. So it really is, they have to pass it this week or it ain't happening, at least not before the midterm elections. Punchbowl has been doing the reporting on this. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from a couple of days ago. They say that House Democrats' new bill to ban stock trading will be expansive,

applying to members of Congress, their spouses' independent children, senior aides, federal judges, including the Supreme Court, and senior executive branch officials, according to sources involved in the discussion. So the number of people who would be involved in this, which in my opinion is great, is very wide. So we're talking about both the legislative branch and the executive branch and the judicial branch. So all three branches of government would be involved in this. They say lawmakers, judges, and all other government officials covered by the ban will have to choose between divesting their investment portfolios or putting their assets in a qualified blind trust. Put a pin in that for a minute. We're going to come back to that qualified blind trust in just a moment. I wanted to take the time to actually get into the details

of this because I know this has been important to you guys. They also say members of the judicial branch will have to file more detailed financial disclosures. Current and incoming public officials, they'd have to divest or put their investments into that qualified blind trust. The financial disclosure reports, you know, the Stocks Act that we already have in place, they would include more information, especially on spousal assets. They'd be filed electronically across all three branches of government. And the penalties for failing to file disclosure reports would be strengthened. So right now, it's really a slap on the wrist. It's like 200 bucks if you violate the Stocks Act. They would up that penalty to $1,000. Still not that much, but I guess it's

an improvement over where things stand today. However, there are a lot of buts and ifs and question marks right now about what is in this bill and also whether it will ultimately pass. Punchbowl, again, in this report says, House leadership does not currently have the votes to pass the bill. Republicans are unanimously opposed. They probably will not get a single Republican vote on this. And they're saying, oh, we weren't involved in the process, whatever. I think you can judge the seriousness with which they take this issue by the fact that I think they want to hold it for themselves. Every single one of them wants to vote against this. And they're saying, oh, we weren't involved in the process, whatever. I think you can judge the seriousness with which they take this issue by the fact that- I think they want to hold it for themselves. Every single one of them wants to vote against it. Okay. So there's that. But you also have a number of rank and file Democrats who are actively opposed. And it looks like Steny

Hoyer, who is not just rank and file, but high up in Democratic leadership, also appears to be opposed to this. So lo and behold, when it comes down to it, brass tacks, you've got quite a few, all the Republicans, quite a few Democrats like, eh, we're not so sure about that. So there's that question of whether they even have the votes in order to get this thing across. We do have the text of the bill. So we do have all the specifics. Now go ahead and put this up on the screen. That's what it looks like. I want to give people a little preview of what the bill actually looks like. I mean, I did actually read through a little bit of it and I got bogged down about page four. So I'm relying on others analysis who are better at interpreting or legislative speak. Okay. So here are some of the critiques of what is actually in this bill.

Let's start with Walter Schaub. He is an ethics expert, and he is very serious about actually having a real congressional stock trading ban with teeth, and he hates this thing. In particular, the part of it he hates has to do with those blind trusts. But I remember I mentioned before, basically their choices are either to divest everything, that seems like a good option, or to put it in these, quote, qualified blind trusts. However, within the text of the bill, they provide a gigantic loophole where basically Congress gets to say what qualifies as a blind trust. Typically, qualified blind trusts are sort of legislated. The definition of it is set by an Ethics in Government Act of 1978. The text of this bill specifically says that actually that doesn't apply. Congress didn't decide for themselves what is a qualified blind trust. Obviously, that is a gigantic loophole. And that

seems to be the biggest, there are other concerns as well, but that seems to be the sort of biggest concern with regards to this bill and whether it's actually going to have teeth and actually do what it's supposed to do. Yeah. I mean, as usual, they're the ones who police themselves. And that's why you have to really dig. And I'm really glad that you laid it out exactly this way. On paper, sounds great. You're like, hey, you have to divest or put into a blind trust. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, that could work. Well, here's the issue. Some of our most corrupt presidents have actually had blind trusts, which we also know to have been influences of corruption. One of them was actually Lyndon B. Johnson, who fake had a blind trust when he was in there. And

history now tells us he was actively managing the trust by calling the guy who was in charge literally while he was president in order to manage his estate. Now, Trump, basically the exact same thing. You can claim all you want that he had no control over his business. As I've said, to me, the most objectionable part of the perfect phone call with Zelensky at the time is when Zelensky was like, and by the way, Mr. President, we were staying in Trump Tower whenever we visited New York. And it was the greatest hotel the world has ever seen. On top of the Kuwaitis and all the Saudis and all those other people who would hold all these magical events at the Trump Hotel, which by the way, just happened to

flow into the blind trust and maybe have made their way back to Trump. They claim that they took the foreign money and took it separately out. Again, never been verified by actual accounting. The point is, is that if you even know, and it can intimate about what you have that's in the blind trust, how are you not going to then legislate? Like, sure, it's better you're not actively day trading,

I guess, but you could still make policy that if you have an asset that you know is in said trust, then you can make policy in order to benefit that. So I think Walt Shaw put it perfectly, which is that if we all accept, which I think most good people would, that the Trump blind trust was fake and toothless, even if you like Trump, you should admit that all presidents should not be able to do that. Well, then you have to accept that if Congress is going to, quote unquote, verify these trusts themselves, look at the ethics committee too. Bob Menendez is still a senator. Okay, the guy is guilty as sin.

I don't care, you know, what this, how exactly he got off. At the very basics, there was like a Charlie Rangel. I mean, there's so many of these guys who all survived, quote unquote, ethics inquiries. I mean, the idea that they can effectively police themselves is ludicrous, and that's why we need a law with some actual teeth. So anyway, I think that that just shows you why this particular one, if it does even get the votes, which is already objectionable, this is why. Because they put in such lack of enforcement and a ability, especially for the people who are the richest members of Congress, this is the best thing that's ever happened to them. They just punt it all over to their investment advisors,

but they know at the end of the day what type of assets that they're going to have in there. And it would be one thing if they were going to abide by what is laid out in the requirements in that 1978 law of what qualifies as a qualified blind trust because at least that has some like stringent checks on it etc you could look at that and go okay well that's not everything i want but at least it's something the fact that they can then just totally circumvent that and set the rules for themselves of what a qualified blind trust is that should make you i I mean, more than skeptical. You should just say, basically, this is garbage. So on the one hand, you have not enough,

the Republicans are all out, not enough Democrats probably to pass this thing. And you can also ask yourself how serious Nancy Pelosi really was about getting this done when we know that she was reticent from the beginning that she didn't actually want to do this. And lo and behold, it's been engineered. So it's ultimately probably not going to happen this week. I mean, there's still a possibility, but it looks pretty much like a long shot at this point. And then you have, let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. So you've got Steny Hoyer and this other Congressman Murphy, Stephanie Murphy, quietly trying to kill the bill. And they don't really, you know, they're so skeezy. Like, they don't actually even say what they're opposed to.

They just say, we need to spend a little more time working on the specifics of the bill, socializing the specifics and then taking another swing at it when we have a bit more time. This week's plate is already full legislatively with the need to fund the government. And also, this Stephanie Murphy, this is just grotesque. She says, as always, vulnerable members are grateful to Mr. Hoyer for standing up and reflecting their concerns and taking a public stance for positions that they share with him privately. Acting like passing a congressional stock trading ban would be bad for candidates in swing districts when we all know that this is like one of the most popular as bipartisan totally bipartisan like popular support that issue that you could possibly get and she's out here pretending like oh we got to protect our frontline members i mean it's just completely absurd and again they don't even give

specifics i would respect it more if they would give some specific of like you know i think it's It's just completely absurd. And again, they don't even give specifics. I would respect it more if they would give some specific of like, you know, I think it's too far to apply to the dependent children. Or I think it's too much to. I mean, is it? No, it's not. But like I would at least respect it if they made some arguments. It's just like, oh, is this going to so fast? We have to take our time here. So that's absurd. Let me just put this last piece up on the screen from Unusual Whales with their breakdown of what they consider to be the valid criticisms against the bill.

They say, number one, current wording suggests it allows creation of unverified blind trust. That's what we've been talking about. Number two, the ethics committee can waive penalties. Another good issue there. And number three, it can cover so many, anyone related to politicians that is too broad to be realistic. I don't really agree with that one. One thing that I saw, I'm fine with it being, you know, broadened coverage to me. That was one of the good things about this bill.

One thing I saw is that because it applies to the Supreme Court, this was sort of like a poison pill for Senate Republicans. I don't know. I mean, personally, I feel like it should apply to them as well. Well, it should apply to the entire federal judiciary. And we covered that story. We looked at the trades of federal judges who have in many cases ruled that where they had direct financial interests. And they were like, oh, I had no idea. I'm like, yeah, you didn't have any idea.

You totally had no idea. There is a clear, like, demonstrated need for this to apply to the judicial branch as well. So in my mind, the idea that that's a poison pill, well, that says more about like the Republicans who would be opposed to that than it does about the provision itself. So to put it all together, there is a bill, there is some small chance it would pass this week, but it looks like the bill has some major problems in terms of what we would actually want it to do. And then it looks like even with those problems, it doesn't even have enough support to get it across the finish line. So that's kind of where things stand.

Yeah, I mean, look, would it be better? Yeah, probably. Is it actually what they're saying and promising? No, absolutely not. Can it be real? I'm not even sure. I'm not sure it would be better. I guess it depends on the implementation only because it would really be terrible if you had this, like, fig leaf of pretend anti-corruption. But the problem still really remained.

Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know. I mean, you're right. It could be that all 435 members just create blind trusts, you know, within, like, five years. Then we're just right back to where we started. Yeah. Maybe, actually, that might be worse because then they wouldn't have to comply with the Stock Act. Right.

And then what does that do? What does that do? Well, that's true, too. And what does that do for public trust if they pass some, like, fake bullshit thing and then it becomes

completely apparent that this was some fake bullshit thing? So, anyway, it's, in my view, a mixed bag, but I guess it's a moot point anyway because it probably

doesn't look like it's going to happen, but we will certainly keep you posted. Okay. We also just wanted to give you a little update here on the need for legislation with some teeth. The very latest about how our members of Congress are doing complying with the Stock Act is not heartening. Business Insider taking a look here, and they found that 72 members of Congress have violated that law,

which is designed to prevent insider trading and stop conflicts of interest. You go down the list, you've got, you know, you got lots of bipartisan issues here. This is definitely not a one-sided issue. Both parties violating this act routinely. And the issue here, as I sort of alluded to before, is that, you know, they're violating this law that they passed back in 2012. And all they do is they face a small fine, $200. And even that can be waived by the House or Senate ethics officials. So you can see why, like, not complying is so rampant. And until basically this year, no one even paid attention or noticed when they didn't comply and list, you know, the trades and what they were doing.

The new bill would up that fine to $1,000. Still not that much teeth, but at least a little bit better than how it is today. But, yeah, I mean, it's pathetic. And you can see how seriously these people take anti-corruption in spite of all the rhetoric about, like, democracy and all of these sorts of things. I mean, when you look at the size of some of these trades, you're talking about trades in between half a million to 1.3 million. So if you have to pay a $1,000 fine as opposed to $250, it's like, who cares?

You know, it's like, especially if you make a million-dollar trade and you get 20%, who cares about a $1,000 fine? That's the cost of doing business. Well, sorry, they have to be able to better themselves. Yes, they have to be able to better themselves. Oh, my God. It's grotesque. I encourage people to go look at this list.

It's like Dianne Feinstein, Tommy Tuberville, Roger Marshall, John Hickenlooper, Rand Paul, Sheldon Whitehouse, Rick Scott, Tom Carper, Bill Hagerty, Cynthia Loomis, Gary Peters, Mark Kelly. It's like Tom Milanosco, Democrat from New Jersey. It's like New Jersey, Republican, all over the place. This is as bipartisan as it possibly could get, not just about Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn. Like all the way up and down, the leadership to the so-called like centrists to the bomb throwers on the left, the right. Ro Khanna's in there.

You know, it's like all these people, they are clearly benefiting from this system. And at the very least, we should have some teeth in a bill to make sure that

this doesn't happen. I had a friend of mine recently tell me, he's like, unless you got proof that you actually didn't know, you're just guilty. And I think that

in the eyes of the public, that's how it should be. I think so too. Like, unless you can literally prove to us that you actually had no idea, you're guilty as sin in my eyes. The appearance of corruption is a problem in and of itself. Yeah. Because then people feel, because they're seeing it with their own eyes, like, oh, you're not doing this because you think it's the right thing to do. Like, you have direct financial interest here. And so, of course, and let's also keep in mind,

like, these are human beings who are capable of deceiving themselves, too, into, you know, convincing themselves that it's the right thing to do on a certain bill. And, oh, it just so happens that I also benefit. Isn't that nice? So, anyway, the reason we continue to cover it is because the only reason that this became an issue and came

to the forefront anyway is because of public pressure. That's the only reason they even have a bill drafted. That's the only reason either party feels any sort of pressure to get anything done on this. So if we don't continue to talk about it, continue to expose their corruption and where they fall far short of their rhetoric, then they're going to be happy to let this drop the moment that we stop focusing on it. So that's why we thought it was important to continue to dig in the details here and give you the update about what's going on here in D.C. this week. Absolutely right. Okay. At the same time, as you guys know, Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida's southwestern coast yesterday. It was

a Category 4 hurricane when it made landfall. Let's go ahead and put this first piece from the AP up on the screen. They say Ian makes landfall in southwest Florida as a category store form. This is one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the U.S. Swamped southwest Florida on Wednesday, turning streets into rivers, knocking out power. The number they have here is 1.8 million. This morning, it is over 2 million Floridians without power and threatening catastrophic damage for their inland. You know, the thing with Ian, which is strength at landfall, tied it for the fifth strongest hurricane when measured by wind speed to strike the U.S. I mean, this is an incredibly strong storm. And the thing that made this so difficult to deal with is it was strong. It was huge size

wise. You're talking about an eye. And actually, I think we have an image we can show here. An eye that was 40 miles across. It's crazy. I heard yesterday on the Weather Channel, they said for 360 miles, you were talking about tropical storm force winds. That's how gigantic this thing was. And then you were also talking about a huge amount of rain, partly because it was also very slow moving. So places in Florida getting a foot of rain dumped on them. You can imagine the issues in terms of flooding that you're ultimately going to have. We do have some images here that we can show you from yesterday as this was making landfall. I believe this is from Fort Myers. You can see, I mean, you can see the wind, you can see the trees just whipping there,

and then massive flood waters just surging all around. So that was the scene in Fort Myers. You also had, you know, Weather Channel's Jim Cantore. Let's go ahead and put this one up. He's out there trying to report and getting blown back by this wind. He actually gets hit by a tree branch that, you know, hits him down in the legs. He appears to be fine. He's sort of stumbling around, trying to grab onto a sign to keep his footing. I mean, this is what this man is famous for. This is what he does for a living. But I got to tell you, it was not, would not be a position that I would want to be in. You can see there just how strong those, those winds were ultimately. And then the other piece of this that Sagar was pointing out yesterday is, you know, everybody knew the storm was coming.

There were a lot of areas that were told to evacuate. You still have Floridians this morning that are now subject to—it's been downgraded to a tropical storm that are trying to flee. But, Sagar, you heard this on CBS News that many are riding out the storm. They can't afford it because of how high gas prices are, which is horrible. And actually, so what the newscaster said— by the way, I wasn't intentionally watching CBS. For some reason, my TV, when if I turn it on, CBS automatically turns on. Blame Samsung, not me.

Listen, in these like storm coverage events, these are the things that they actually do well. Right, but people were like, why are you, I'm like, I'm not. I just happened to turn on my television. It defaults to CBS. Here's what he was saying, which is that the price of gas being so high and also the price of travel, most people who wanted to flee or sorry, a lot of the people who stayed, a lot of them just could not afford to actually go.

And the reason why, you know, this really is so grim. Motel prices were very high. A lot of them couldn't afford shelter. You need to afford food. I mean, ask yourself, can you afford two straight weeks of eating out like elsewhere? Not a lot of people have relatives who are necessarily within the area. This is why most personal financial advisors are like, you should always have like two weeks or whatever of expenses. But the truth is we know that, you know, the most, I think the average American cannot even afford a financial crisis of $500, like, aka, a quote-unquote blown tire away from bankruptcy.

So this is exactly, I mean, many more than that, considering the scale, considering how much people charge, like, gas shortages as well. So he was specifically referring to the price of gas. And it just really struck me as, like, what a tragedy. Because I remember that that happened in Katrina in New Orleans that everyone was going after them. Like, why didn't they flee? It's like, well, where are they supposed to go? And it's like, well, you really want to go to the Thunderdome? And we saw here, too, some of the shelters were filling up and all of that.

I also talked to a local reporter who was down there. Actually, he said something even sadder, which is that some people just didn't believe that it was going to be that bad. And this always happens. I don't know where it comes from. It's like, wouldn't you rather, if you have the money, would you not rather say, err on the side of caution? They were like, yeah, it'll just be like Irma. It'll be like Charlie.

It'll be fine. I mean, you saw that picture. Fort Myers is like, they had what, like 12 feet storm surge? Oh, the storm surge was insane. I saw a, there was a, I don't know if it's real. I hope it was real, of a shark literally swimming. I don't know if I buy it. I never want to say if it's real or not because I've been duped by the shark photos. Yeah, there was a, I don't know if it's real. I hope it was real, of a shark literally swimming. I don't know if I buy it. I never want to say if it's real or not because I've been duped by the shark photos.

Yeah, this was in dispute. A.K.A. Sharknado is real. It's a joke. But anyway. It was in dispute. Regardless, there clearly was 12 feet of water in the streets of Fort Myers. And I was telling you, you know, one of my good friends actually just bought a house in the Tampa area. They had 40 inches of rain in 24 hours. He has no idea

how his house is. I mean, that is insane. Absolutely insane. And, you know, it's still, it's now downgraded to a tropical storm. This is still very dangerous though. I mean, that means really high winds and the water, I think, is the part that continues to be a real concern

for now. It's going to move out to hit Georgia and the Carolinas before the track they have it on now has it sort of moving inland towards Appalachia as the last storm track that I saw, at least. So, yeah, just thinking about everybody in Florida, I think just this morning we'll be getting more images and more of a sense of what the damage and the devastation looks like. This could very possibly be one of the most expensive storm cleanups, and we just

hope everybody escape with their lives because the water and the flooding was truly catastrophic and across such a wide swath of this state. I mean, there's hardly a part of the state that ultimately wasn't impacted just because of the massive size of the storm. And we're all going to get a washout here in the D.C. air up the entire eastern seaboard. Not nearly as bad. I'm just saying, like, it's going to rain now for the next, like, four days. Right.

I mean, that's just, again, a sense of how large this storm ultimately was. So it really packed a punch in terms of its strength, like how fast and hard the winds were, how large it was, the amount of rain, and then on top of everything, super slow moving. So people were just getting hit and hit and hit for hours and hours. At the same time, Sagar, why don't you give us this update on Puerto Rico? Yeah, it's actually very interesting. So President Biden last night, let's put this up there on the screen, actually went ahead and issued a waiver to Puerto Rico on the Jones Act.

This is something that I've talked about previously on the show. One of the, I think, rarer instances where I would find myself against organized labor, which is basically the Jones Act requires, as I've explained previously, that goods between U.S. ports have to originate in a U.S. port. Part of the problem with oil and with diesel is that many times tankers, depending on where they originate, it can make it much more expensive in order to have to touch a U.S. port before carrying on to another U.S. port. The perfect example and the true haters of the Jones Act are Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, makes sense, U.S. territories and or states, which are much farther away from the mainland. So it becomes more expensive. You could conceivably have tankers that are from elsewhere carrying necessary supplies that need to dock and have something that they literally need, but according to the law, literally could not do it.

And the idea behind it is this protects American jobs. Yeah, there's a good impetus behind this. From the 1930s, it's a protectionist piece of legislation. You can understand exactly why it was made at that time in terms of the contest of global shipping. Even today, I think some sort of law that keeps the spirit of it and is updated for global shipping. Seems like it needs to be updated. I completely agree, which is, I'm not saying we should get rid of it and that any port anywhere should always be allowed into the U.S. Absolutely not. We should do everything possible

to protect U.S. shipping. There is, however, very credible evidence to show that it does drive up prices, especially of gas and diesel in terms of regional variability. It's part of the reason why Californians at your gas prices are so high. And it's one of those things that could have knocked maybe 20, 30 cents off the gallon if the president was willing to do it. So he has not been willing to do it for the mainstream U.S. or mainland U.S. But in this case, it was a good action that he went ahead and waived it for right now because there was this tanker full of diesel crystal on an island, the island of Puerto Rico, which literally had no power for millions of people and then was lacking necessary supplies in order to power their grid. They have this tanker with diesel sitting off the coast, and according to US law, it was not allowed to dock. So over the next couple of months, they will be allowed to get diesel and or oil from, or really anything from wherever, which is nearby. It depends on whether it expires. But I did think it was an important

thing to bring to the audience to just show you that there are these little things like quotas in law, which the president has immense control over, which in the middle of a disaster, like we shouldn't even have to wait four days. Like, I don't know why it waited a week for this to even happen. It should be automatic. It was unconscionable how long this took to ultimately get this waiver through. And remember when there was that hacking and there was a pipeline that was shut down previously. So when that happened, there was a Jones Act waiver like that. And now when it's Puerto Rico and, you know, the way they're always ignored and treated like second class citizens, then it takes days and days and days. And it takes the governor having to beg them. It takes Larry Summers and Jason Furman actually were like chirping up with like, what the hell is going on here? You have to ultimately get this done. And they did. I'm glad they did. I don't know why it took so long. Jeff Stein was doing, he did a phenomenal job reporting on this, raising the issue to start with. I think that helped to create the pressure on the administration that ultimately forces this through. His latest report where he says that they will approve that legal waiver, the way he sets

it up is he says, listen, images of this ship idling off the coast of the island circulated on social media this week as Puerto Rico's governor demanded action, expressed alarm about the impact of the delay on critical facilities damaged by Hurricane Fiona, including wastewater treatment plants, public hospitals, and emergency centers. Many of these facilities, lacking electricity in the storm's aftermath, need fuel for generators that provide an alternate power source. Island advocates have emphasized the administration granted a waiver to the Jones Act after a colonial pipeline ransomware attack, that was what I was just referring to, led to outages in May, saying there is no reason a similar waiver could not be granted in this case, urging officials to move more quickly. The administration was like, oh, we've got to go through a process, we've got to make sure there's not another ship that can do it,

and there's all these boxes we can check. Yeah, if you wanted to get that done, you could get it done like that, which ultimately is what happened. I have no idea why it took so long. It's sitting across the thing for days. Like, just let the damn ship dock. The president has unilateral authority to do this. People have been through, I mean, from the electrical grid. And then there's issues with, you know, now sanitation, wastewater treatment plants, just clean drinking water, hospitals, just basic, basic things.

If this could provide a little bit of comfort and support, I don't know why it wasn't done immediately. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it's bad that it took so long, but I did at least want to give a very limited praise. They did at least make the right action in the end. Thank you, President Biden, for doing this. Now, consider doing it for everybody, and let's lower gas prices in the state of California. Let's go to Russia, so obviously we can't take our eyes off of what is happening there. There is just a heartbreaking, catastrophic scene happening across the borders, crossing areas of Russia.

Let's put this up there on the screen. U.S. News and World Report actually did a pretty good job of talking about this. Just the hundreds of thousands of draft eligible men who are trying their best to just get the hell out of Dodge because they do not want to fight in this war in Ukraine. We talked previously about the hundreds and hundreds of cars at the Kazakh-Russo border, at the Russo-Georgian border, at the Russo-Finnish border. We are talking about lines that can stretch for 24 hours. And what's worse is that after the initial rush, as the backup continues, we're now getting pretty credible and good reports, Crystal, that Russian authorities are not only, I mean, everybody's grouped up, right?

And they have everybody's identification. Well, they're going through and actually, in some cases, issuing draft orders to the people who are in line. They're like, oh, you thought you were going to leave? You're draft eligible, my friend. Go on and sign up. Yeah. It's just. Well, you've got this massive consolidation of military-age men there for the picking. So, I mean, it's grotesque.

This would be like the equivalent of, you know, in the 1970s, when we had guys who were going to Canada, like literally sitting at the Canadian border and be like, hey, mister, what's your name? Okay, well, congratulations. Guess what? You're not going to Canada. You're going to Vietnam.

I can't. I mean, imagine the turmoil that that caused in our society and then ramp it up to this one. And let's put the next one up there. We actually have a little bit of numbers from the European Union. This is just the EU, to be clear. This does not include the former Soviet republics, which also share borders with Russia. 30% increase right now in the number of Russian citizens. Some 30,000 Russians have arrived in Finland alone. And the overall number seems to be between 300 to 500,000 people who have fled Russia in the last week. That is an astounding figure. Now, especially when you consider the vast

majority of those are going to be draft eligible men. So you really shouldn't compare it to the overall population. You should compare it to the number of people, the percentage of the draft eligible population. That's a hell of a lot of people to leave a country. And you got to consider what that means. I mean, if you leave, just like in the days of the Soviet Union, your family could face repercussions. Your property may be gone. If you ever do come back, you could face social recriminations. I mean, there's all kinds of things that the government can and probably will do over there. Just to give you an idea, put this up there on the screen. It's just so sad. This is a photo from the Russo-Finnish border, which shows a mobile draft board office right there waiting to conscript people who are trying to flee the country. So it just underscores like how much of a complete nightmare that this

is. We also had showed you before how at first Putin actually acknowledged, he was like, hey, there have been some mistakes in the draft. We have some people who were disabled, some people who were too old. They shouldn't have been drafted in the first place. Well, the tune is starting to change in a very Orwellian 1984 fashion. Put this up there. The head of the draft office, this is from Max Zidane, he was the Financial Times correspondent in Moscow, translating it for us. The head of Russia's draft office in one of their regions says if anyone was drafted by mistake, it's their fault. And the reason why? Because the state cannot, especially at the lower levels, admit that Putin himself has made any mistake. So some of the

stuff that's just coming out of here is horrific. We're talking about some intercepted messages that have been translated. It shows, they told them they're going on a training exercise. A week later, they're standing in Ukraine. And they're like, oh my God, I'm in the middle of a war zone. And they're at a front line with like a couple of days later, already apparently. This one you don't know. The Ukrainians claim, I don't know if it's true, that they have found corpses who already have their mobilization orders on them, indicating that it took less than a week for them to get to the front line and are now dead. That's very Soviet-esque.

I don't know if that is actually true. The photographic evidence hasn't been there. But it just, I mean, that's the bleeding edge of what reality could be in terms of what we're trying to parse. What we do know is hundreds of thousands of people have fled. And it's chaos and that the Russian state is really cracking down on the people who are trying to leave. Yeah, absolutely. And yes, there may be people who are saying, all right, I'm going to do my patriotic duty and join the military and get out there. I'm sure those people exist. I'm sure those people exist, but there is just no doubt at this point that there is a mass exodus of military age Russian

men who, listen, that also doesn't mean they didn't, quote unquote, support this war. Because I think that's important to understand, too. There's a very, very different thing to say, like, yeah, I support it, to I'm willing to actually risk my life or risk the life of my son for this purpose. Those are two very, very different questions. And I think that the distance between those two things is what you're seeing right now. You've had some updates in terms of countries that are saying they will take in Russian men who are trying to flee this draft because a lot of the close by European countries that actually close their borders to Russia. And so some of them are reconsidering at this point. But we also had Karine Jean-Pierre yesterday saying the U.S. would welcome Russian men seeking asylum after fleeing Putin's military mobilization.

She indicated that they would offer political asylum to men who are fleeing the draft. However, they didn't announce a specific program, so there's a lot of details that are lacking here in terms of how serious an effort this is to actually, you know, help these dudes who are trying to flee and try to keep themselves alive and out of prison at this point. So we'll keep an eye on that. But it is a pretty extraordinary thing you're witnessing here. And I also wanted to add, there are actually fairly credible reports in the Russian press that they're considering that full mobilization in a couple months. So, I mean, that's part two of why you have such a mass reaction because, number one, they're seeing like already the draft notices are not only going to the people they said they would go to. So, we don't trust you that I'm not going to end up with

one of these things because we see how sloppily this is going to be handled. Number two, the mobilization order did not actually have the limitations that they're claiming, you know, that they're saying they're going to stick to. And then you also have these rumors and some more credible reports that there's a consideration for a larger scale mobilization, a full mobilization in later this year or early next year, which is, you know, I mean, it's a shocking thing to contemplate ultimately. I feel for these guys. I really can't imagine having to be put in that. I can't. Can you imagine being Russian from Siberia and they're like, yeah, you need to go

fight and dine for the Eastern Donbass. I'm getting the hell out of Dodge, just like all of them. Let's move to the next one on these referendums. We have a little bit of update on the results. So you may have remembered when I talked about the referendums last time, I said, I wonder if they're going to go with the clownish figure or if they're going to go with something a little bit more reasonable, like a 60 or a 70 percent. So you could say, oh, we overwhelmingly won the election. But look, there was. We allowed dissent. We allowed dissent.

Dissent was prevented. Well, now we have the results. The results are in. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. This is an official graphic from the Russians, by the way. Here is the so-called vote totals. So, in the Kherson region, 87%, 87.05 to be exact. I'm not going to try and pronounce the one with the Z.

93.1%. They don't actually give the dissenting figure. In the Donetsk People's Republic, the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, 99.23%. That's incredible. In the Luhansk People's Republic, 98.42%. Look at that, democracy at work. Amazing, democracy at work. Now, I love this because there are, am I going to sit here and claim that in normal times, people in the Donbass region would not vote to join Russia? No, I'm not going to claim that. In fact, it may in fact be true. I have no idea because we never actually got a real result. Am I going to sit here and believe that 99.2 people in an occupied territory just so happened to vote this way in a very, very convenient direction for the occupation of a military force

that has taken them with no actual choice of their own? No. And that's why I think a lot of people are beclowning themselves by, look, it's complicated. The Donbass been contested now for 10 years or eight years at this point. Like I said, many of these people are ethnic Russians, but that does not mean that you get to come in and just occupy the territory by force, force your so-called referendum process in which we know, and I know that some people had some consternation about this, in which we know that some people were forced to vote by gunpoint or at the very least intimidated that we can accept this as a credible result. This would literally be, and actually, you see this all the time. Let's compare it to Israel. So Israel annex or takes some territory, moves in a bunch of settlers, or at least so-called historical area there, drives out Palestinians, and then pulls X amount of people and say, hey, do you want to be a part of Israel?

I'm like, yeah, we want to be. Would we accept that in the international community? Well, I mean, some people. Some people would, but we wouldn't. I'll tell you, I wouldn't do that. Like, would we accept that for any conquering power? And again, you could accept like, okay, maybe some of these people, maybe even a majority of them left over definitely did want to be a part of it. But that's not how actual fair election works.

You don't conquer something by force. I think at this point, the people in that region probably just want peace above anything else. And I don't blame them. But I thought Yegor made a good point online because he was tweeting about this. He was saying, listen, even if you don't buy that it was soldiers going door to door with guns, which I do buy, But even if you don't believe that that was the case, you can't have a free and fair election in a time of war over land that is actively being occupied and contested. Exactly. Like you. That's just it's nonsensical. That's not possible. So these are definitionally sham referendums. And then if you had any doubt about it, I think the result of

what was it? 99.2%. Like this is, come on, this is like Kim Jong-un bullshit numbers that anyone who's serious looks at and has to be like, obviously, this is not a real result. You can hold two things in your own same hand, which is no, 99% is a ludicrous. What would the real result be? I don't know. Honestly, it probably would be a majority, but let's be real about what that means. And to the extent that there are any dissenting people who will live in those regions, yeah, guess what? They're driven out by literal military force. That's not okay. I just think it's crazy that, you know, a bunch of so-called anti-imperialist people think that it is okay for Russia to invade a sovereign nation, hold up a sham referendum, and then claim democratic legitimacy over this occupied military territory. You don't have to

defend that in order to say that the U.S. should not escalate a nuclear conflict with Russia. You know, you can say like sometimes Russia's bad, actually very bad whenever they do these things. Right. Well, they're siding with the like hardest right-wing ultra-nationalists in Russia. Yes. And, you know, can you say what you said to me previously? Like, you know, real leftists in Russia are scared out of their minds. They are on the verge of death and imprisonment. They are not in support of this war. Yes, right. It's like... Exactly. And they're fearing for, you know, either being imprisoned or being drafted or,

you know, I mean, yes, it is not a good situation for people who are dissenting from the war propaganda and, yes, imperialist narrative that is coming out of Russian state TV. So anyway, those are the numbers. Don't seem too credible to me. And even if, again, even if you imagine in your mind that they were trying to do their vote, you can vote however you want, and here's the ballot, it's anonymous, whatever, here's the ballot box, everybody go and register. You cannot have a free and fair election in a time of war, on contested land, where the people who might have supported going in another direction have

been forced, who've been killed or forced out militarily. Here's the easy way to return it. Did Russia accept the terms of the Iraqi elections under U.S. occupation in 2003? The answer is no, by the way. And should they? Yes, exactly. For that time. And those were a hell of a lot. I'm not saying they were good, but I'm just saying those were a hell of a lot more, at least had the veneer of respectability than this one.

And I still think that that was mostly fake. Okay. Now, why that matters though, is that Putin is going to sign those quote unquote referendum agreements on Friday. That's just came out from the Kremlin. On Friday, he is going to officially annex these Ukrainian territories into the Russian Federation. Why does that matter? That is going to be done in a speech at the Kremlin to the Russian people to legitimize the operation and now cast this as a war of defense. Now, why does that matter? Well, because similarly, Putin is veiling this nuclear threat of which he recently escalated and pinning it to these referendums. So in the specific announcement that he actually gave, that the Kremlin gave, here's what they say, quote, It is time now for people to think very carefully about what they are doing and where the path goes.

As in, now, this is a war, again, not saying it's legitimate, in the eye of the beholder, a war of defense. In the eye of the regime, or in the eye of Putin, more importantly, this is now a war of defense in the eye of the regime, or in the eye of Putin, more importantly. This is now a war of defense, which, per their nuclear doctrine, of which Putin has now updated, territorial integrity is an authorization to Putin in his mind for a first-strike use of a nuclear weapon. Am I saying that that is very likely to happen? No. Am I saying that it is more likely than it has been ever? Yes. And I think that should be scary. I've been talking about this with a lot of people and everyone's like, oh, well, the Russians are bluffing. It's like, listen, you could bluff a thousand times. If you don't, on the last hand, on a thousand and one, the consequences are so catastrophic. As in,

the tail risk is literally so high that you have no choice but to take seriously the median chance that this might not be a bluff or not. If you have even 5%, that's just too damn high in the world of nuclear weapons. That's absolutely right. And, you know, I can't stop going back to that moment when there were actual diplomatic conversations going on, when there was the potential outlines of a deal to at least get to a ceasefire, if not to a peace. And Boris Johnson, very likely at our behest, flies to Kiev to say, we don't want you to deal. I mean, we're at a very, very frightening place because those risks, I mean, in our lifetime, has there ever been a higher risk, a more heightened risk of nuclear war than what we're at right now? And I just I feel like that's not being taken seriously.

I mean, it's certainly not being taken seriously in the mainstream press. It, you know, for all Biden's rhetoric about, oh, we want to avoid World War Three. They keep, I mean, let's go and put this next piece up on the screen. They keep shipping more military aid, a billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine. So, you know, continuing shipping more and more and more and more. Like, I know he loves to pretend like, oh, it's all just up to the Ukrainians. Well, I'm sorry. I really, I mean, I genuinely sympathize with their cause.

I also wish that was true. Desire for independence. But that's just, yeah, that's right. It's literally not true. And also, like, we have to consider our interests and we have to consider the interests of, like, global humanity. And the Ukrainians' interests are not exactly the same as ours. And they're not exactly the same as the interests of global humanity. So we are in a tremendous position of power here because I don't want to downplay their bravery, their courage, their savvy, their tactical,

all that stuff. But the bottom line is none of it's possible without our arms and our intelligence and our training. So if we want them to try to reach a ceasefire, if we want diplomacy to be restarted here, we are in tremendous position of power to push them to do that, something that they don't want to do and which is uncomfortable for them. We require things that, you know, I know they consider to be out of bounds and abhorrent, but ultimately in the interests of keeping the world together, it would be the right thing to do. So the fact that we just continue to ship, continue to ship, continue to ship, yeah, it makes it much more likely that number one, this war is going to go on and on and on. And number two, Putin is going to be increasingly cornered and doing more

and more insanely desperate things because that sequence of events that we just had with the, you know, stupid referendums and the mass mobilization and potentially more coming down the pike. That is a desperate, my back is against the wall, these were the last things I wanted to do kind of a play. So that gives you a sense of how volatile the situation is. He's placing his regime at risk. Let's be very clear about what this is. If this goes bad, it literally could be over for him. And we are shipping these weapons there with no thought and with no real consideration of what everybody else is doing. You know, I know I'm a broken record, but this 1.2 billion, which is a casual one, that's why we're covering it, just casual, 1.2 billion standard distribution. And to be again, clear, not financial,

not humanitarian aid, purely military aid is more than all but three countries have given in the entire war in Ukraine. Those three countries include the United Kingdom, Poland, and EU, I guess it doesn't really count as a country, the European Union institutions as a whole. So more than all but two nations and one multilateral institution. That 1.2 billion, more than all but all those other countries. Imagine that. Germany has contributed 1.1 billion. Canada, 0.93 billion. Germany is the fourth largest economy on earth. France, which is the second largest economy on the continent, 0.23 billion. That is the paltry level of military aid that these people are shipping there. You know, France is a good military power in its own right. They have great jets, many of these other things. Where are all of these things? Nowhere. We are the ones who are fitting the bill. And if that is going to be the case, then we should have a tremendous say in how the conflict should go. I think that's only fair. I think that's only fair. And instead, the Biden administration flip-flops on some crazy policy of every once in a while, he'll be like, yeah, you know, let's not push things

all the way to the nuclear brink. But in general, the just standard passage of Pentagon 1 billion distributions that seem to happen every single week, there is no debate whatsoever in considering

the international environment. I mean, the game they're playing is kind of Weasley because he always says nothing, what does it say? Nothing for Ukraine without the Ukrainians, something like that.

And it's like. Like Ukraine first, basically. Yeah. He wants to pretend like, oh, they're just, it's all them, right? Because that absolves us of having to do any hard thinking about like, well, what do we want the end game for this conflict to be? And do we want this to continue? And are there other directions? And hey, should we be engaging in diplomacy? Because ultimately, you know, the American people are on the side of let's engage in diplomacy and try to bring about at

least a ceasefire at this point. Trita Parsi's group, Quincy Institute, they did polling. They found half of respondents nearly said they want only support the continuation of U.S. military aid to Ukraine if the U.S. is involved in ongoing diplomacy to end the war. So they don't want just continued blank check military aid going out. But it's never framed this way because, you know, they continue to foster this illusion that like, oh, it's an arm's length thing and it's really just their war and we're just helping to, you know, we don't really have control over it when obviously, like, obviously we have tons of say and sway and influence. They are really, really dependent on what we're doing right now.

So if we want things to go in another direction, there should at the very least be a massive public debate about what that should look like and what our involvement in that process should be. I completely agree. All right. So we have an update on the Biden student loan debt relief. We have the first lawsuit, legal challenge, which is something that Republicans have been telegraphing. They wanted to move forward with. I think it's like a libertarian aligned law firm that has filed this first suit. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Robbie Suave, I think, was among the journalists who broke this news. He did. Over at Reason, the headline here is flagrantly illegal law firm files lawsuit to stop Biden's student loan forgiveness. So let me break down

some of the details here and I'll try to keep it out of the weeds. But, you know, ultimately, there is a real question of over the legality of this program, in part because of what, in my opinion, was a foolish way that this was drafted and the legal justification that the administration has done. I'm also not so foolish as to believe that the courts are anything other than basically partisan at this point. The Supreme Court, if this ends up in front of the Supreme Court, would be very likely to look askance at anything the Biden administration was doing here and look favorably on the conservative argument. So I think in terms of like the ultimate case against this, that's sort of the least of their issues. The problem has always been finding someone who quote has standing to sue because you have to show that you have been

injured by the law in order for a court to assess that you have standing and that, you know, you can be the plaintiff that ultimately files. So this conservative group, libertarian group, thought they found someone because of the peculiar, like, details of Indiana tax law. You have this guy, his name is Frank Garrison, and he actually was receiving debt relief already under a different loan forgiveness program, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. And under his, in the state where he lives, under the tax law there, that loan forgiveness is not taxable. So it's not like he's getting money. They just say, okay, it's wiped clean. You don't have to pay taxes on it.

You're all good. However, the Biden loan forgiveness, which he would now be eligible for, would be taxable. So he would take a tax hit because of the Biden student loan program, again, because of the intricacies of this state law. So that's why they're saying this individual was injured because he wasn't going to have to pay these taxes, and now he is going to have to pay these taxes. However, there is a new filing from the government this morning, or I think yesterday actually this came in, that basically points to a provision which says, no problem, if you want to opt out of the Biden loan forgiveness, then you can. And they go on to say that actually, upon receiving the lawsuit and receiving plaintiff's filings, the department

has already taken steps to effectuate plaintiff's clearly stated desire to opt out of the program and not receive $20,000 in automatic cancellation of his federal student loan debt. And so notified plaintiff's counsel today. So they're basically saying, like, you don't, you are not automatically in this thing. You can easily opt out of it. And we are already, because you stated that you want to opt out, we're already opting you out. So guess what? No injury anymore. So just to wrap it all up, because I know that was a little bit complex, this guy was saying basically, like, I'm going to have to pay taxes that I didn't have to pay because I'm being put in this program. I don't even want to be put in this program. And the government came back

and pointed to a specific provision that says, actually, you can opt out and we have opted you out so you're no longer injured. Yeah. So he may not have standing. But I think what the reason why we're covering it is just shows you is that this is just the first of many. I mean, you have to remember Obamacare and some of the other policies in that time. They hunted around for the best possible plaintiff in order to bring the case. So I think this is probably, Crystal, the first of many in order to bring cases against student debt. But this is the challenge for this is finding someone who can actually claim injury. You probably need the processor, right? At the end of the day, it has to be one of the processing companies themselves to say that they were bilked out of X amount of revenue from not being able to

process the debt. Maybe. Yeah. From what I have what I've said, from what I have read, the issue is a lot of those people don't want to piss off the government. Right. They don't want to. Right. You'd have to find one that was like very ideological. Yes. That was willing to basically risk their business in order to be the plaintiff here. So, you know, again, like obviously I support the student loan debt relief. I from what I've read, I don't think that the legal justifications they put forward were the best ones or that they're going about this in a particularly intelligent way. I think it is vulnerable to a court challenge because of the conservative makeup of the Supreme Court and how partisan they are at this point, but yeah, the challenge is going to be finding that person who's willing to be the plaintiff who actually can claim that they were injured by the student loan debt relief. And, you know, from looking at these filings, it seems to me like this person is probably not going to pass muster.

Yeah, I think you're right. And this we're going to keep a very close eye on this. And this is also always the problem by legislative, by executive order. If you're going to claim like the pandemic or whatever as your justification. There were several other things that they could have used to try and do it. That's exactly. I don't know why. The Heroes Act of 2003.

There's a couple of other things. It's what they used ultimately. But there were many other ones. Legal justifications probably would have put them on better ground. On stronger footing. What I've heard is this goes down probably 7-2 with the Supreme Court. If the right plaintiff brings it. And that means even one liberal justice is likely to cross over.

Yeah, well, and that'll be, I mean, when that, if that happens, ultimately, if they're able to find someone withstanding and, you know, I would believe that it would get struck down by the Supreme Court because, again, I mean, I'm not even going to particularly care about the legal details because I just think the court is so partisan at this point. But that would – I think there could be a massive public reaction when you have people who have already benefited from this policy and had their debts erased or nearly erased. You're talking about 43 million people benefiting from it. And then if it gets pulled back, that would – I think there would be quite a reaction to that. Certainly. Well, we should also remember – Because you really materially harm people. They had a chance to put it in reconciliation and they didn't do it. You know, specific Democratic senators are also the ones who killed it.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. There you go. Won't let that him off the hook for sure. All right. Let's move on to Biden. This is one of the most insane things that I've seen with Biden yet. So Biden, at a recent event at the White House, began calling out for a former Republican congresswoman who recently died

last month in August. So it appears very clear from this video, he believed that she was alive and in the audience. I want to set it up clear that way so that you have the context as we listen to it and then the subsequent White House defense. Let's take a listen. And so many of you know so much about this as well, and you're committed. And I want to thank all of you here, including bipartisan elected officials like Representative Governer, Senator Braun, Senator Booker, Representative— Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? I didn't think she was going to be here.

Oh, God. I would melt into the floor. Yeah, that's genuinely, like, just so cringeworthy. And again, to be 100% clear, he was referring to that deceased Democratic congressman. Now, frankly, you know, look, it could be an old man moment. Probably likely. Could also just be Biden saying insane stuff. You know, the listen fat, like, I think

you pointed out, like, telling a guy in a wheelchair to stand up. Yeah. Like, he has a long history of saying insane stuff. Calling out. She was actually a Republican member. Yeah, I know. Trying to say, like, all bipartisan. Right. Yeah. So he's trying to reference bipartisanship by pointing to a congresswoman who was literally dead and died a month ago in a car accident. Now, it should just have ended there. But the press, for some reason, I don't know really why, decided to actually follow up on this at the press conference. And like, hey, like, what was going on here? Like, was he referring to a deceased congresswoman as alive? Like, did he know that she was alive? And the White House refuses to admit that that is what happened. They're

trying to literally rewrite reality that you saw just then, right before your eyes. Let's take a listen. I'm sorry to have to do this, but I'm compelled to ask you to go one more time back to the question about Congresswoman Walorski. I'm not sure why. Why? Why one more time? Frankly, honestly, I think the memory of the Congresswoman in history requires some clarity here. Can you explain where the mistake was made? Was the President confused? Was something written in the teleprompter that he didn't recognize? Can you just help us understand what happened?

I mean, you're jumping to a lot of conclusions. No, but you're... Find out what happened here. No, I hear you, Stephen. I'm answering the question that you're jumping to a lot of conclusions. I just answered the question. If that had been the case, I would have stated that, right? I would clearly have stated what you just laid out.

What I have said is that she was on top of mind and that he is going to see her family in just two days' time. So she was on... Top of mind. So if she was on top of mind. So if she was on top of mind and then you're using that association to say that he thought she was alive, that's not the defense that you think it is. To me, it's just, why can't they just, like you said in the beginning of the show, take the L. Yeah.

She's top of mind. He made a mistake. The president apologized to the family and the bereaved members, and he'll be seeing them in two days. Yeah. Next question. I mean, I don't envy her in this position because she's clearly been put in a horrendous position here. You know, she's not the one that comes up with the talking points. I think Biden told her, he's like, I didn't say anything wrong.

And he's like, and you better not admit to that at the podium. I bet you that's what he said. I don't know what he told her, but this is not it. This is not the way to handle this. There's just, you know, it would is not, this is not it. This is not the way to handle this. There's just, you know, it would be so much less of a story. Ultimately, it would die so much more quickly if they just said he's still processing it. I don't know. It's not complicated. And they keep digging themselves into these holes over and over again. The president didn't mean what he said.

The president misspoke. The White House says the policy has not changed. Just admit it. And I don't know. I mean, in my experience, as I said before, in general, when they are acting like complete buffoons up there, it is that direction of the president. I think Biden. Kyle and I were debating, do you think that you could say this is because of old age? Because in some ways, yes. But in other ways, I'm like, I also could imagine him doing this. How about a mixture of both? Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah.

An ornery comment combined. Yeah, an ornery refusal to admit that you're way too old to be doing what you're doing. Yeah. On top of a disregard for social norms is like, isn't that what they say about old age? It just like turns you even to more of who you are but crankier. Like it kind of removes like the veneers of sociability. In my experience with old people, that seems to be what it is. You just don't have the patience anymore. That kind of removes like the veneers of sociability in my experience with old people. You just don't have the patience anymore. You don't have zero Fs anymore. That's

kind of, yeah, kind of the deal. That's what I think it is. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well. And where are you going to school? Oh, I'm not actually. What do you mean? You already graduated? No. Oh, so where are you going? I'm just, I'm not. Oh, you're taking a gap year. Nope. I'm just, I'm not going. I don't think I understand. So you are taking a gap year. Nope. Just not. I'm not going to college. Just not doing it. Oh, trade school. I am not going to school. Oh, so you already got your degree. I'm just not going. So we have taken a look here at all sorts of pandemic work and life trends. Quiet quitting, unionizing, the great resignation, remote work, etc., etc. Now we've got new data on another trend that is on the rise among Gen Z, and that is opting out of college.

A new Newsweek article does a deep dive into the trend, which, like all of these other trends we've discussed here, really came to the forefront during the pandemic. And it's not just a TikTok hashtag either. Here are some numbers behind it. The percent of Zoomers even considering four-year college has dropped to just 51%. That is a 20-point decline since May of 2020. About a quarter of the class of 2022 says they've, quote, changed their post-secondary school plans since the start of the pandemic. Overall, college enrollment is down about 10 points, with the trend even more pronounced among poorer students. Now, in some ways, this decision is entirely logical. College costs are insane, as we've, of course, been

covering here. Per Newsweek, the typical graduate of a four-year university is going to walk into their first job with $26,000 in debt. And all too often, that college degree, which was supposed to promise a stable middle-class life, is falling far short of expectations. According to a Georgetown University study that was cited by Newsweek, about a third of the nation's colleges leave students high and dry, earning less after obtaining their degree than the typical high school graduate 10 years after graduation. Somewhere around 40% of college grads are underemployed. That means they're working in jobs that do not actually require a four-year degree. And while Newsweek cites a study showing that the college wage

premium the extra income degree holders can expect to earn above their high school educated peers, they show that that has been growing. Other research indicates that college is not garnering the promised return, if any at all. The St. Louis Fed actually made waves with a 2020 report that in terms of wealth, a more meaningful indicator than income since it takes into account the massive debt students have to take on in order to obtain that degree, that in that area, college was failing. They write, among families whose head is white and born in the 1980s, the college wealth premium of a terminal four-year bachelor's degree is at a historic low. Among families whose

head is any other race and ethnicity born in that decade, the premium is statistically indistinguishable from zero. So basically, if you're white, which America is a rough proxy for affluence, college probably gets you a small bump in wealth. If you're non-white, you are likely no better off going to college than skipping it altogether. This represents an astonishing betrayal of young people, and especially young black people, who were uniformly sold on college as a surefire path to success by neoliberal politicians from Clinton to Bush to Obama. Now listen, I am not suggesting that these Zoomers are all out here reading economic analyses from the St. Louis Fed and performing complex calculations about their expected lifetime wealth generation.

But they had a whole lot of time during the pandemic to look around and think about their lives, the world, their place in the world. They could see their brothers, sisters, and friends who were graduating college into a COVID recession or who had gotten that college degree just to find themselves making someone's coffee at Starbucks or fetching someone's package at Amazon, jobs that they could have jumped right into on high school and not taken on that massive load of debt. The pandemic also took a lot of the shine off the college experience. What did college really amount to once it was just Zoom classes with a bunch of strangers on subject matter that seemed disconnected from their daily lives? And like everyone else, young people were jolted out of their normal routines of classes and homecoming and SAT prep and had a lot more space to think about what their actual priorities in life might be. Days that were more empty and more anxious prompted a reassessment

of whether they were really down for that lifetime 24-7 grind set that we've all been sold on since birth. Maybe checking the societal achievement boxes wasn't everything after all. But I don't want to sell this trend like it's just a straightforward positive. The picture is complex, even though in general I do think it will be better off for society if we reconnect with values and priorities outside of whatever it is we do to pay the bills. First of all, that college has become so expensive as to be not worth it in some instances. That is clearly a bad thing. Public college, community college, and trade schools should be free to anyone who wants to attend so that students graduating high school have the full range of possibilities and choices ahead of them.

Second of all, it's not just college Zoomers are increasingly opting out of college. There's been an increase in young people who are neither in college nor working in a traditional job. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of young people who are not in school or working increased by one million. Young men seem to be opting out of both work and school in the largest numbers. In 2019, 12.4% of young men were not in school or working. That percentage has increased now to 16.7%. Our guest today might have something to say about this trend as he is raising the alarm about a crisis among young men when it comes to schooling and societal

disconnection. Now, these trends also coincide with a massive spike in mental health issues among young people as well. A third of high schoolers self-reported, quote, poor mental health during the pandemic. And those reporting persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness have spiked nearly 20% in a decade. So how many of the Zoomers who are opting out are not doing so out of a self-aware, affirming life decision and reprioritization of values, but just because they're really depressed, adrift in a society that no longer offers them a certain path to either financial success or to basic fulfillment? Because that's the real problem, right? The issue isn't that Zoomers are making different choices. It's that there are no good choices to make. Graduate high school into listlessness and economic insecurity or graduate college with

a mountain of debt and possibly still face the same bleak landscape. Either way, the basics of the American dream, the good life, the house, the family, the career, those all are seeming like impossible mountains to climb. Put aside the complete absence of a coherent cultural story about what constitutes a well-lived life with purpose and meaning outside of the marketplace to start with. If our young people are adrift, it's because our society is adrift. But fortunately, what I see, more than despair and drift, is actually determination, creativity, and courage. After all, this is the same generation which is increasingly banding together in solidarity, organizing, forging their own way,

forcing corporate bosses, elites, and all of society to adapt to their values rather than accept things as they are. It's the trend that gives me the most hope of anything, that we will find our way through this landscape of bleak choices to one of abundance, purpose, and meaning. And I wonder what you make of it, Sagar, because it is a complex picture. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, Abundance, purpose, and meaning. And I wonder what you make of it, Sagar, because it is a complex picture. I mean, my... And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, something extremely weird is going on right now in the Baltic Sea. It's got ramifications that could have the entire situation on the European continent and change it forever. Early on Tuesday, we got the flash from news organizations across the world. A catastrophic drop in pressure was detected in the Nord Stream pipeline, which run from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea.

Immediately, speculation was rampant. Whether this was simply another deliberate step by Putin to squeeze the European economies in retaliation for sanctions and support for Ukraine, Russia has dramatically reduced, after all, the amount of natural gas flowing to Germany since the invasion of Ukraine in a deliberate effort to hike energy prices across the continent and weaken European resolve. Each of those steps was shrouded in some official explanation, like a maintenance problem that Russia blames on sanctions or supply issues. It's a wink and a nod game. Everybody knows what's going on, but it is rooted still in diplomatic theater. It's important to understand that context to look at the specifics of the Nord Stream crisis. Swedish seismologists have revealed, or they say, that before the

pressure drop was detected in the Nord Stream pipelines, that two separate explosions were detected, which indicate an underwater demolition causing a rupture in the pipeline. Hours later, though, the situation was even more shocking. The Danish military dispatched fighter jets to the area of the explosion off the coast of their country, only a few miles into international waters. So what you see, for those who are just watching, is a gargantuan bubbling mass in the middle of the ocean, spewing natural gas. Officials now say that could last a week. So obviously this is a very grave situation. Pipeline appears to be gravely damaged in two places. Its future operability is in question, leaving only a

single line available to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany and putting a major choke point on the future of gas flows. So of course, the trillion dollar question, which could decide the fate of Europe, what the hell happened here? Europe already has its answer. They say with the seismology evidence, sabotage is the clear explanation for the pipeline. While they do not blame Russia directly, the EU commissioner said that if the disruption was deliberate by Russia, it would, quote, result in the strongest possible response. Ukraine went further. They said it was a disruption. They called it a, quote, terrorist act by the Russian state. Well, it doesn't take a genius to say we are looking here at a powder keg situation.

We're not talking about something that happened inside Ukraine. We are talking about a possible explosion just 12 nautical miles away from the territorial waters of a NATO country which has Article 5 protection. If this was Russia, it would mark the first expansion of, kinetically, of the Ukraine war from outside that theater directly to the European allies which have backed Ukraine. It would serve as a reminder of just how vulnerable they are, both in reliance on Russia and to attack on its most critical infrastructure supplies in the middle of their winter struggle with energy prices. The thing is, we just don't know yet. That's why it's important to wait to formulate a response. Officials say it will take at least a week for the remaining gas in the pipeline to fizzle out

before an investigation of what happened can begin. What compounds the obvious explanation that this was done by Russia was a very bizarre reaction by Radek Sikorsky. He's the former minister of foreign affairs of European Union, current Polish politician who wrote, quote, thank you, USA, with a photo of the bubbling mass. What's stranger is Sikorsky's wife is an apple bomb, perhaps the preeminent Russia hawk of the DC press corps and a consistent drum beater for escalation in Ukraine and war with Russia. Sikorsky appeared to imply it was the United States who blew up the pipeline and further said, quote, by the way, there's no shortage of pipeline capacity for taking gas from Russia

to Western Europe, including Germany. Nord Stream's only logic was for Putin to be able to blackmail or wage war on Eastern Europe with impunity. He continues, quote, now $20 billion of scrap metal lie at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine. Someone, quote, did a special maintenance operation. That's what he claims. Now, I guess I should say the obvious and say that nobody has admitted that the US or the West had anything to do with the attack, but it remains a very bizarre reaction with no explanation, no walk by by the Polish government, the European Union, himself or his wife at the time of this monologue. Sikorsky's bravado also appeared to be bolstered by the

same announcement on the very same day of the explosion that a new Baltic pipeline connecting Norway, Poland, and Denmark would be officially opening, weeding Europe off of gas dependency on Russia and opening up an allied supply of energy to the continent. The Polish prime minister declared at the opening ceremony, quote, the era of Russian domination in the field of gas is coming to an end, the era that was marked by blackmail threats and extortion. So that's the full picture of where things stand. I have no idea what happened to the Nord Stream pipeline. Unlike many so-called experts, I will not presume to tell you. I'm just going to end with this. Somebody did it right, so qui bono. Who benefits? The honest answer is, well, really anyone, which makes it weird. Emma Ashford of the Stimson Center actually

put out a variety of theories. I think they are worth sharing all of them with you as we try and process this. One possible answer, Russia did it. Why? Perhaps a signal to Ukraine they can hit their critical energy infrastructure and Europe if they want to, now and in the future. Perhaps to lock Russia into a policy where they can't turn back from the war in Ukraine and return to business as usual by intertwining their economies with Europe. Perhaps to create a legal basis for Russia to not be sued for eventually cutting off all gas supplies to Ukraine in European courts. Perhaps it was an extrajudicial action taken by a branch of the Russian government without Putin's approval. All of those would be very colossally dumb reasons.

But of course, Putin has done colossally dumb things before. The other option, though, is someone in the Western Allied cause did this. Either America, as Sikorsky suggested, or Ukraine, because there's always hated the Nord Stream pipeline and European reliance on gas, as well as European reluctance to go all in on the conflict. Perhaps it was Poland or the Baltic states, both to protect their own pipeline, to cut Germany off entirely from Russia, to get them to commit to the war forever, and to ratchet up the conflict as they are committed to. These also, though, would be colossally dumb things to do. Again, watch carefully. Wars have been started before on high-profile incidents which did not get the scrutiny that they deserved at the time. The USS Maine for the Spanish-American War,

the Lusitania in World War I, the Gulf of Tonkin, the list is endless. Pay very close attention, because this is a critical time for the world and for Europe. So I think that's the key. I don't know. I have no idea. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, Richard Reeves. He's a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute and is the author of a very interesting new book, Of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About It. Richard, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on. He's also the author of a great book, Dream Hoarders,

we were just talking about that. Yeah, phenomenal. Phenomenal book. I highly recommend. We'll have links down in the description for you guys to go ahead and buy it. So Richard, first of all, why did you decide to write this book? And what were the social kind of impetus and why you thought it was important to society to have this conversation? Well, the first thing to say is I've raised three boys myself to adulthood, and I think all scholarship is a little bit autobiographical. It's a question of whether we admit it or not. My last book, Dream Hoarders, is partly about the experience of being in the American upper middle class. This is the experience of raising boys. But actually in my day job, so I'm worried

about boys at night because I've got three, actually in my day job, so I'm worried about boys at night because I've got three. But in my day job, as I was working on issues of inequality in education, in employment, in the family, I just kept running across this gender gap and not the way you'd expect to see it. I kept seeing ways in which it was boys and men who are really struggling. To be clear, it's mostly working class boys and men, black boys and men. It's typically not the dream orders. It's not the upper middle class. But I don't think we can understand inequality in the US without understanding what's happening to boys and men. I also felt, frankly, there was a bit of a gap because both sides politically are so dug in,

in the culture wars around issues of sex and gender, that it's even hard to have a book with that title without getting a reaction from people. And so I almost felt like as a Brookings scholar, given the work I've done, that trying to create a better conversation, we need a better conversation about re-scripting masculinity than we're currently getting. And this book is my attempt to do that. Fascinating. So part of why you get that pushback is because when we look around at society, you say, all right, look at the US Congress, still overwhelmingly male. We've still only had men as presidents. You look at the CEOs, they're like, there's some stat, there's like more CEOs

named Bob than there are female CEOs or something like that. I think you've talked about, you know, venture capital and how, what a small proportion of that goes to female founders. So when you look at those things, and then you're like, yeah, but the real problem is with men, I can imagine why people are like, well, wait a second. It seems like the issue is on the other side. So how do you sort of square that circle? Yeah, it depends where you're looking. If you're looking around the apex of society, and you're looking at those sorts of institutions, then clearly there's much further to go. And I've written about the need to get more women into Congress. The U.S. is a real laggard on that front. And as for not having a female president yet, as you can probably tell, I come from the U.K. and we're in our third female

president. This one doesn't seem to be working out so well. We'll just leave it for that aside. I'll be back another day. But the point was, it was just no big deal. And you're right, in Fortune 500 companies, only 44 of them are led by women right now. Now, go back 20 years and it was zero. So that's 44 more than it used to be, but it's very, very far from parity. But if you look down, if we look down at what's happening in the rest of society, most American men today earn less than most American men did in 1979. Yes. There's a huge gender gap in education. Men are three times more likely to die from a death of despair from alcohol, suicide, drug overdose. And so the trouble is that

people who are just living in these elite circles look around and go, well, I don't see it. Well, partly it might be there and you're not seeing it, but also just look down, look at the rest of society. We've seen such a big increase in economic inequality that we have to think about both those things at once. And partly this book is a challenge to say, can we think two things at once? Can we think there's much more to do for women in certain sectors of society, but now we also need to look at boys and men. And right now it's proving very difficult to have that conversation. Even breaking into that paradigm is just so tremendously hard, as you said, without getting coded right wing. I've almost frankly given up, so I admire you for being able to try to fight the good fight. Point to some of the important data that you're saying there about the lifespan,

about overall earnings, about deaths of despair. And why should women care about it? Why should women care about how men are doing in society? Yeah. So in education, I think just to put a few data points on it, we've long worried about gender inequality in education, but it's typically been worrying about getting girls and women to catch up with boys and men. And so in 1972, the US passed the famous Title IX legislation to try and get more girls and women into college in particular. At that point, men were about 13 percentage points more likely to get a college degree than women. Today, it's 15 percentage points more likely that a woman will get it than a man. So the gender gap is actually bigger in college education today than when Title IX was passed. It's just the

other way around. It's flipped. If we look at high school, high school GPA, you've got a high schooler and I've had some recently. High school GPA is a really good measure because A, it's increasingly important in college admissions and B, it's quite a good proxy for overall success. Let's look at high school GPA. The top performers in terms of high school GPA, those in the top 10% destined for good colleges, two-thirds girls. The bottom 10%, two-thirds boys. And that is actually found in pretty much every country in the world, pretty much every level of the education system. So a massive reversal in the gender gap in education. What that means is that struggling to hit the labor market. You've talked a lot about this. Yes. Automation, free trade, like what's happened

to working class men. Working class men can't get the jobs their dad got with the same level of education. And so this has been a really difficult adjustment for men in the labor market. And one of the consequences of that is for family formation. So we see a number of men now who effectively get benched because they're not fulfilling a traditional male role. We haven't re-scripted a role for them. And so they end up out of touch with their kids' lives, which is particularly bad for their sons, actually. That's one of the things I think is most important is, you know, especially I think in American society,

we have this concept of masculinity that is centered around being the breadwinner. Correct. And then when you make it more and more difficult to fulfill that role, it's like, okay, well, what am I then? You know, what is the role that I'm supposed to in? Or am I just a failure? Like, am I terrible? And that opens up a window for people who maybe don't have the best messaging to come and say, well, here's it's these it's these.

I won't. I was going to say these B words. But yes, it's these ladies over here who are really. It's a feminist. It's a feminist. There you go. And that's exactly the debate we're having right now. And I think what we see on the left is an unwillingness to acknowledge some of these issues at all for fear that that means betraying your commitment to women, which we've already talked about. But on the right, there's this sort of magical thinking, which is, yeah, let's go back to the way things used to be.

Let's go back to the way men and women knew their place and to marriages based on economic dependency. We live in a world now where 40% of women earn more than the average man. That was 13% in 1979. And so 41% of households have a female breadwinner. This has been a huge change and a wonderful change, arguably the biggest economic liberation in human history. What it means, though, is that that old model of masculinity, of masculine success, is not coming back. And politicians on the right, who somehow think they can wave a magic wand and bring it back, are selling everyone a lie. So the left are effectively turning their backs on boys and men, but the right are trying to turn back the clock on women and girls. And everybody I know is just trying to figure this out. And we need a model of mature masculinity that is compatible with gender equality. One of the things I think is important about your book is you actually offer some potential solutions. So let's talk about it. What are some of the

things that you offer, societal-wide changes that could be piloted or at the very least thought about experimenting in America? Well, first of all, thank you for asking that question. Because I do think books suffer sometimes. They become like the book of lamentations. Yes. Everything that's wrong with the world and then maybe one idea at the end. So I felt I did want to offer some solutions.

So in education, for example, I have three ideas. One is that we should start boys in school a year later than girls because their brains mature later. A 16-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl, I think you have a 14-year-old. And I've raised them. They're not the same. We know that boys' brains develop more slowly, which is one of the reasons for those GPA gaps we've talked about. So start them, redshirt them is sometimes how it's described. We need a massive recruitment drive of male teachers. I think the fact that the teaching profession is becoming progressively more female is a problem. 24% of K-12 teachers now are men, only 1 in 10 elementary school teachers,

and getting fewer by the year. Interesting. And that does seem to have an effect on boys, especially in subjects like English. And then we need more vocational education, a big investment in apprenticeships and voc tech and so on, which do seem to help boys and men a little bit more. So there's always focus on college. There's a unitary path and loan forgiveness, which again, I know you've talked about. But meanwhile, what we see for boys is that hands-on learning seems to work better for them. And so just in education, those are the sorts of ideas that I'm offering. Sure. One thing that I thought is, so I don't necessarily, in fact, I don't agree with this, but what would you say to people who are basically like, okay, you opened up the education, you made it so that women could compete, women are competing, and actually they're better at

this than boys. What's the problem? This is supposed to be a grand meritocracy, and now you want to do affirmative action for boys to tilt the system in their favor? That doesn't seem fair. Well, it's actually, I half agree with you, even if you don't completely agree with me, because that's exactly what's happened. What's happened in education is that we've created a playing field which is much more even. And what that's demonstrated is that actually women and girls are a structural advantage in the education system. So we've created a level playing field, and it turns out that the women and girls are better players. But they're better players largely because of the developmental differences, because their brains develop earlier, and especially the prefrontal cortex.

The prefrontal cortex is a bit of your brain that says, do your chemistry homework rather than going out to party. Maybe you should care about your GPA because that will help you get into college. It's about future orientation. It's about the ability to control yourself. And it just develops a year or two later in boys than girls. And so I actually think that we're seeing one of the great ironies is that by taking the brakes off girls and women in education just develops a year or two later in boys than girls. And so I actually think that we're seeing one of the great ironies is that by taking the brakes off girls and women in the education system, we've revealed the structural advantages they had all along. We couldn't see it because they weren't going to college. Under conditions of sexism, we couldn't see the advantages that

girls and women had in education. And nobody expected this overtaking, by the way. If you go back to the 70s when everyone was pushing hard correctly for girls and women to do better, nobody said, well, wait, what if the lines keep going? And does it matter? Well, to the extent that education matters increasingly in the modern economy, I think we should be worried about any inequalities by group, whether that's race, gender, etc.

So I don't think on its face there's any reason to be more relaxed about the gender gap now than in the 1970s, just because it's the other way around. Well, something you alluded to also is at the individual level, parenting. What do you think, if any, changes need to come to the way that people parent, especially in either like a mixed gender household or in your case, if you have three boys, at the individual level, at the end of the day, we could talk about solutions. We have a lot of people listening to this show. Maybe they have kids. What should the, at the individual level, you know, at the message that society is then sending, which I think parents can absorb and inadvertently pass on, is there's something wrong with you. And so if you're behaving in a particular way, which on average is more associated with being

male, then I think that to pathologize that, say physicality or more potential for aggression and so on, is not the way to help boys learn to manage that. So recognize there are some differences between them. It's a myth. There are no differences. Absolutely, you want equality of opportunity for both. Interestingly, now there's some evidence that people are starting to think it's more important for their girls to go get a good education than their boys. And that's not true. And I'm very worried that in some households, and this seems to be particularly true in more working class households, that educational success itself is being seen as more feminine. And it's incredibly important to send a message to the boys that actually you succeeding at school, you having

chances at college or apprenticeships is just as important as your sister. It feels weird to be saying this because it's so recent. But the educational overtaking is so fast and so recent that honestly, our heads are spinning. It's like the poles on a compass reversing, like north became south overnight. And so I understand why we're all struggling. I've struggled with it, frankly, as I've been writing the book. But the evidence is pretty clear now that if we're worried about education, we need to worry about boys. So if the old story we've told about what it means to be a man is not functioning well in society, what does a new story sound like? Yeah, we definitely need a new script for masculinity. I think that what's happened for women, I'd be interested to know if you agree with this. Okay. There was an old script which was get married, get kids, have a stable family, et cetera. I'm simplifying. Yeah. The new script is get educated, get kids, have a stable family, etc. I'm simplifying. Yeah.

The new script is get educated, get yourself independent, make sure you can take care of yourself. You go, girl. Make sure you can stand on your own feet. Very strong script. So we've replaced an old script with a new script for women. The old script for men, become a breadwinner, look after your family. The new script for men, not sure yet. And that's the problem. And so a re-scripted, positive vision of masculinity has to be founded on, I think, some things that sound quite old, which is you do provide for your kids, but not just money, time and care, etc. So I think we need to start with fatherhood. The danger is that as the old model of masculinity has collapsed in the face of the changes that we've just mentioned, is that fathers get benched of masculinity has collapsed in the face of the changes that we've

just mentioned, is that fathers get benched. The message that they get from themselves very often and from women and from society is, you failed as a breadwinner, ergo, you don't matter as a father. That's absolutely the opposite of the truth. And so we need equal paid leave for fathers. Fathers who are not married to mothers need much stronger rights than they currently get. We have to send a message through policy and through rhetoric that fathers matter, period. Go back to the speech Barack Obama gave in 2008 about the importance of fathers. That's right. He was on the money, absolutely on the money, and didn't really touch it again since.

And so I don't think we're going to reconstitute marriage in the way that conservatives think we can, but we need to put fatherhood back on a pedestal, just a new kind of pedestal. That's what I love about your work. You're trying to reform and recognize the realities, the social progresses that we made, and not diminish them in any way, but just say, no, we need to find a new equilibrium. And that isn't always rooted in being a 1960s individual. You don't have to go back to go forward. And I did want to ask you one other social trend that I actually did a monologue on, which is that far fewer young people, either Democrat or Republican, are identifying as feminist now. Correct. That's right.

Yes, I saw your thing on that. Oh, you did? It's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Why did you think that? What did you make of that trend? What's happened, I think, is that there's a few things. One is a lot of boys are hearing the message that we live in a patriarchy, we need feminism, etc. And they're looking around and going, wait, what? This is not the world that they're experiencing.

And so they're struggling to fit the rhetoric about patriarchy and gender equality with their own lived experience. I think that's one thing. I think the other thing is that feminism has morphed into more of a cultural movement. Yeah. For some good reason. It's not just boys. It's women, too. Younger women, much less likely than their older counterparts to identify as feminists. Yeah. And there is some polling.

I can't remember if you mentioned this in your monologue, but they're dug into why don't you say you're a feminist. And there were feminists have gone too far. Today's feminism doesn't represent true feminism and feminism has become anti-men. And so there's, I think that feminism at its best is an equality movement. It's an equality movement and a liberation movement. And to the extent that if you ask people,

do you think that women and girls should have equal opportunities to men and boys? Everyone says yes. Of course. Everyone says yes. And if there are remaining barriers to women and girls succeeding, should we take those barriers down, everyone says yes. Everyone says yes. And if there are remaining barriers to women and girls succeeding, should we take those barriers down? Everyone says yes. So they're clearly not thinking that's what feminism is. And instead, they're seeing feminism

more of this cultural movement, which has taken on some of these, the aura of anti-men, toxic masculinity, etc. And I think has been a bit blind to some of the problems that boys and men are now facing. That creates, as you alluded to earlier, a massive opening for other people to come in. Well, I encourage everybody to go buy the book. It's right here. We're going to have a link down in the description. Go ahead and purchase it.

And I think supporting people like you who do this work in a very measured way, data, thoughtful, no culture war, or any of that is just the most important thing. So go ahead and support Richard. If you can, link is in the description. Otherwise, thoughtful, no culture war or any of that. It's just the most important thing. So go ahead and support Richard if you can. Link is in the description. Otherwise, we will see you all next week. We've got the counterpoints.

Tomorrow, go ahead and take advantage of the discount if you can. Live show, yada, yada. You guys know all of that. We'll see you guys later. Love y'all. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success.

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I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process.

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