Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/4/25: Epstein Victims Threaten List Release, Xi Military Parade, McDonald's CEO Dire Warning

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Krystal And Saagar discuss Epstein victims threaten client list release, Xi military parade, McDonald's CEO dire warning.   Juan Rojas: https://substack.com/@rojasrjuand    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have Crystal? Indeed, we do. We're going to take a look at that big Epstein press conference yesterday with Thomas Massey, Rokana and Marjorie Taylor Green. I want to hear from The Survivors, and Rokana is going to join us. Is he coming in studio? I believe so. I don't know. I think he'll be here. Producers can tell us. here or remotely, in any case, we'll have Rocana to break all of that down. We're also taking a look

at this giant Chinese military parade, what it says about the state of the world and our own military, where it stands in the pecking order at this point. We've got some new signs of economic turmoil, including some very revealing comments from the CEO of McDonald's. New York Times reporting that the Trump administration, Trump himself, is trying to intervene directly in the New York City mayoral race to try to clear the field for Andrew Cuomo. Very interesting what's happening there. Wanavid Rojas is going to join us to break down whether or not we are prepping to invade Venezuela. So you definitely want to stick around for that. And I'm taking a look at Tim Dillon's defense of his appearance at a Saudi comedy festival. I don't know if you guys have been

following this. It's not just Tim Dillon, by the way. Basically every comedian you've ever heard of is going to the Saudi Comedy Festival, part of their whole whitewashing of their image through cultural and sporting events. So there's a lot to dig into there. Yes, that's right. I'm excited to listen, because Tim was honest about it. And that's, I think your monologue is what culturally, what it tells us, which is important. Yes, that's right. Before we get to that, thank you to everybody who has been signing up, Breaking Points.com, to become a premium subscriber. Obviously, we did get the AMA off without a hitch, I might say. We actually got it on. And of course, we have our Friday show. It only took it's like a month to figure it out. It only took a couple

weeks, but we did certainly do it. Now, here's the thing. You know, we have the Friday show. We have all the benefits and more, but you are supporting our work, our ability to get the congressman, you know, here in studio and so much more behind the scenes with the team. So thank you to everybody who is able to do that, breakingpoints.com. Again, if you can't afford it, no worries. Just please go ahead and hit subscribe on this YouTube video to our channel. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, just please rate us five stars and send the show to a friend. It's the most helpful thing that you could possibly do for us. So with that, let's go ahead and jump into the Epstein press conference, Congressman Rokana and Thomas Massey, introducing a dish.

discharged petition in the House of Representatives to force the government to release all of the Epstein files. They were joined by 10 Epstein survivors who were there at the press conference who spoke quite poignantly about the current cover-up by the government. Let's take a listen. And let me announce now, several of us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list of names. we know the names many of us many of us were abused by them now together as survivors

we will confidentially compile the names we all know we're regularly in the Epstein world and it will be done by survivors and four survivors Jeffrey and Elyn were always very boastful about their friends They're famous or powerful friends. And his biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump.

He had an eight by Tim framed picture of him on his desk with the two of them. Like they were very close. So that was some of the, they're going to release their own list. Obviously, some of the MAGA people are upset that Trump was named there. Trump's defense and many of the others. He's just one of many. Very true, which is why you should just release all of it, isn't it? That's really why it all comes down to.

Yeah, but it's just, it's like, oh, yeah, it didn't have to all be a story by you, but you're the person who created it. You whipped people up and got people interested in the story. Promise transparency, took it away. And now it looks like, you know, at least the appearance of by your own behavior is that it is largely because that you yourself were present. Easy way to get around it is just to release everything. Here actually was an interesting moment on MSNBC where they were asked specifically about Trump and in particular what they knew about. that. Let's take a listen. So can I get a show of hands? Who here is satisfied with the level of contact they've had from Congress? Nobody. Let me ask this. How about the Justice Department? I want to ask a couple of things about what you knew about things that were happening with this case that you're obviously involved with. Show of hands. Did any of you hear from the Justice Department before they released that memo, that two-page memo earlier this summer? No hands. Were any of you told that Todd Blanche would be speaking with Gilaine Maxwell prior to that interview over the course of two days? No.

No. Were any of you told about the prison transfer that Gillian Maxwell? No. Were any of you, do any of you feel that the DOJ has communicated with you enough this year? No. No. Have any of you had any communication with the DOJ? No.

Nobody in this room has heard at all from the Department of Justice? No. No. Is that surprising to you? No. No. Now, the reason I think that's important is this traces back to the original sin, you know, within all of this, the non-prosecution agreement that was agreed to with Epstein 2007, which violated all of their rights because they were not informed of the sweetheart deal that he got, which enabled him, not only to continue a lot of his behavior, again, by the admission of the DOJ and others, a lot of the testimony, including people who have spoken out previously, but it does go to show you how they have been sidelined, really, in all of this. And I do think it's important, you know, not to only forget all of them, but then particularly what all of the stacks upon each other for. You know, we have a system, again, where legally they were required to be informed of all of that.

And then they were like, oh, that's the reason that it got voided back in 2018. And a lot of these stuff was even allowed to come to light. And since that period, again, they've just been kind of shuttled about as pawns within this bigger story. And this part of what is so, you know, I think horrible about it. It's not about Trump or about maybe it is. It's not about one particular person. It's about them. It's about the treatment that they suffered. And then it's about a system of extremely powerful people, both sides, business, etc. They came together and it seemingly used their power, influence, et cetera, in order to cover up a lot of what was going on there

in a way that no reasonable person would have ever expected to be treated if they did not have all of these sorts of connections. Those connections themselves remain, I believe, the central part of the entire story. Yeah, you're so right to talk about the original sin there because we were just talking before the show about, you know, the Palm Beach PD originally. Once they get the first tip about this, they're pursuing this like they would any criminal case. And obviously, they're well aware that Jeffrey Epstein is an incredibly wealthy, well-connected individual, but they're tracking down the leads. They're going, they're talking to these girls, they're talking to their families, they're compiling a case file. And then the whole thing basically

gets quashed swept up in the sweetheart deal. So let's say that you are a, you know, you think that there's nothing more to see here than basically one evil guy and Galane Maxwell facilitating doing these horrific things. And there's no larger conspiracy. There's no larger cover-up. We also deserve to know if rich and powerful people can just get away with things just because they have that kind of money. Like, that would also be an important piece of information to have. The reason, I mean, there's obviously a lot of reasons why we're suspicious that there are other things going on due to the power and connections that he had. I mean, we just had emails released between him and, you know, former Israeli Prime Minister Ahud Barak, who's very enmeshed in the, like, Israeli security

defense industrial complex. So there are many other questions there as well. But even just to know, oh, this is how it goes for you. If you're rich and powerful, okay, thank you. It's good to understand that about what is going on in America. You know, in terms, I'm curious, Sagar, for your view on how this has played out politically and whether or not this has ended up being a significant story for Trump, because certainly it seems like with the MAGA base, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green and Thomas Massey being there for Thomas Massey is now like persona non grotto with MAGA, certainly with Trump. He's working hard to try to primary Thomas Massey and get him removed from office, et cetera. But it sure seems like most of the MAGA base has moved on,

that they have more or less bought his idea that this is a Democrat hoax that there's nothing to see here. And, you know, all of these, all these people only care about. it because it has to do with Donald Trump, and, you know, they have sort of moved on from it. I still continue to think, though, that it's an important story not only because of the substance of it, but from the political perspective, Trump really positioned himself as this warrior against the deep state, right, who was going to fight on your behalf, who was going to reveal the truth, expose the secrets, et cetera. And that image, the Epstein story, was a dagger in the heart of that particular image. And that was a big part of his appeal with, you know,

I'm going to talk about Tim Dillon and my monologue today with, like, that thing. circle of people who felt like this was like a renegade who was going to come in and blow up the system. Trump's greatest strength is that he was a blank slate for which you could project anything that you wanted. You could be anti-war and you could project it. If you could be pro-war, you could pro-Israel and anti-Israel, right? These were disparate forces. Epstein, I could go on for Maha, you know, like all of that was a project which he could subsume, he could wink, he could nod. He was pro-IVF and he was pro-life. Now, if you're following the policy and all that, you know, some of that would start to fall apart.

But in reality, that's not how most people vote. Like, they look at it. Unfortunately, one of the things about Americans is that they actually take a lot of the words of politicians say, seriously, if you look at it. And so for the Epstein thing, it's like you just said. Maga base is about 25 to 30 percent of the American public, maybe actually less at this point. That's 70 percent. Now, Trump won the popular vote, which means, you know, at least some 51 percent of the

people who voted in the election, maybe half of the people who voted for Trump. Trump then are not so-called MAGA. So those people matter a lot. That's why I've talked about Israel in the context of Michigan. Are all the people voted for Trump in Michigan because Israel absolutely not? Was it enough of a margin to get him over there? Absolutely yes. Now, the Epstein one, I don't think anybody really voted on Epstein per se, but we live in an anti-institutional, anti-elite moment. The Epstein story resonates deeply. And by the way, you know, if I'm in public or anything, what's the number one thing I got asked about? Epstein, number one. Number one. Now, I mean, a lot of that is because of the work that I do, and maybe it's a little bit self-selecting.

But that's also usually my gauge. I'm like, this stuff still hits. Like, it really does to a lot of people. And I think the reason, again, is that if you're not willing to engage and or tell the truth about what's happening with this, then what else are you covering up? It's like a side issue. It's kind of like one of those symbolological, like, areas for politics where if you can't tell me, here, then this whole apparatus just seems very shaked, yeah, bingo. And that's why I've always thought that the story is very deeply important. It became kind of magocoded because it was anti-establishment,

but now you're the government, you are the establishment. And so, you know, it kind of flips that on its head. Trump, by the way, not helping himself all that much in the way that he talks about all of this in terms of making it look like a cover-up. He continues to call it the, quote, Democratic Epstein hoax. Let's take a listen. He was asked about this in the Oval Office. Permit protecting any friends or donors? So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it's really a Democrat hoax because they're trying to get people to talk about something that's totally irrelevant.

Today, he called it a hoax while these women were speaking out and they were saying, we're not a hoax. We're human beings. It's not a hoax because Jeffrey. Epstein is a convicted pedophile. That takes away the whole hoax things. It's not a hoax. It's not a lie. And on that note, Eric, every Republican should be able to sign on to this. And that's the real hoax that they're afraid to sign on to it because somebody who, you know, who is a real coward from one of the Trump admin officials came out and called this a hostile act against the Trump administration. The hostile act was Jeffrey Epstein.

raping 14-year-old girls. That was the hostile act, and it's not a hoax. Oh, good for her. Props to Marjorie for being able to speak out about this. We have Congressman Rokana standing by. He's going to break down some of the latest on his discharge petition. Let's get to it. Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this.

Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, and so this. Pull that. Turn this. It's just, I can do my icecloth. I'm Manny.

I'm Noah. This is Devon. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. tease. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases. But everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's crime lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors, and you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston

lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call her right then, and I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick, I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just want to call on and let her know. there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling, and there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg

and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of The Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Joining us now is Congressman Roe Kana. He's been a leader on the release of the Epstein files, including a press conference. We've just showed everybody yesterday.

Thank you very much for joining us, sir. we appreciate it. Thank you for having me back. So you had that press conference yesterday. We were saying a little bit before. It was very emotional. There were some calls for many of these Epstein victims, not only for a release of the files, but also for potentially compiling their own quote-unquote list. At the same time, you've been working with Congressman Thomas Massey for a discharge petition. Guys, we can put A5 up here on the screen? So, Congressman, can you give us any update on the amount of signatures, and particularly Republican signatures you will need in order to get to the floor and potentially for a vote and for a release of the Epstein

files. Well, first of all, I just hope everyone takes the time to watch the survivors. I felt just overwhelmed with disgust hearing them. They were in tears. They were talking about being in junior high or in ninth grade and being raped. And they were being talking about having to recruit other junior high and high school friends to come to Epstein's house to be raped. It was horrifying, and I'm so admire their courage. I don't understand how every person is not supporting what they want, which is the release of these files. And this is something that has gone on well before Donald Trump. They've been asking for this for years.

They're finally being heard. We have a situation where we're going to get all 212 House Democrats. There's one of our members who lost his mother, unfortunately, so he's going to come in in the next few days. he will sign and one other members signing today. We'll have 212. We have four Republicans. And so we need two more signatures. Thomas Massey and I are in conversation with about 10 potential people who are open to signing. I'm very confident by the end of this month, we are going to get to the 218 number. And then we have seven days. And then we will have a vote on the bill. The president has reportedly been pushing very hard to keep Republicans from signing.

your discharge petition. What is your awareness of those efforts and, you know, how hard are they whipping against this? It's as hard as I've seen them whip against anything. I mean, the president, from my understanding, is reaching out to individual members. We had 12, remember, co-sponsors on our bill. And Thomas Massey and I say we probably shouldn't have gotten the co-sponsors. It was giving a roadmap to the White House on who to target. And that's why we're being a little bit more vague about how we're going to get to 218, but we're very confident we will get there. But look, Thomas Massey has millions of dollars being spent against him from the White House, from the billionaire, some who may be implicated in the Epstein files from APEC. I mean,

he's a profile in courage. And other members that see that, and they say, well, we don't want millions of dollars spent against us. So it really takes some guts to sign. But now with Marjorie Taylor Green with Nancy Mays and with Lauren Bobert signing. And after hearing those survivors, I really do think some other Republicans are going to do the right thing. I mean, it was just so emotional yesterday. Has APEC, sorry, just to pick up on what you just said, I know Thomas Massey, APEC is unhappy with him for other reasons. Have they taken an interest in the Epstein file release as well, to your knowledge? No, I should make that clear. They're going after him because he talks about human rights in Palestine.

I mean, you know, with me, they just tweet against me, but with him, they actually are pouring in millions of dollars to try to defeat him. Congressman, one of the things that happened earlier this week is that the House Oversight Committee released a bunch of, quote, Epstein files. I spent hours, unfortunately, going through a lot of it. It turned out that almost 90s, 9% of it, I believe, from your commentary was already public, so wasted several hours of my life. But that seemed to be a cover for some Republicans to not vote for your petition, despite the fact that, again, the vast majority that's been so-called release

was already publicly available. Is that how you saw that stunt by the Oversight Committee? Yes, look, if you're not following this closely, and someone says, well, 33,000 documents were released. The average person says, well, what more would they want? Well, that's less than 1% and a whole of files. The parts that were released were already public. And they're not releasing the key things, which are the witness interviews with other men who tried to cover up for Epstein, with other men who are part of this farm system and abused young girls. They're not releasing the financial records. They're not releasing the CIA or FBI investigations. They're not releasing what the survivors are telling us should be released. And people often say, well, how do we know that

they're going to release something accurately. Well, the survivors' lawyers have seen these files. They know that there's explosive information in these files. So they will be able to corroborate when there is a release that the information has been released. And this is what the survivors want for closure and for justice. That's a, I think that's a really important point. What did you make, the other thing they did is they released the audio and the transcript of that Todd Blanche interview with Galane Maxwell. What did you make of that? Well, it was embarrassing that Maxwell is lavishing praise on Donald Trump to try to get a parted. And I'd actually really upset and angered some of the survivors.

In fact, the purpose of the press conference for many of the survivors was to get, talk about the Epstein files and the release of that. But some of them were so outraged by Maxwell's abuse and how Maxwell is being treated that they wanted to speak about it. about that and did speak about that. I mean, they were raped because of Maxwell as girls. And now they're hearing Maxwell be treated as some kind of victim or trying to get some kind of pardoned. You know, I don't think we fully understand when we call, when the president calls this a hoax when they're talking about pardoning Maxwell, the impact that has on hundreds of

survivors across the country. Congressman, another thing I wanted to make sure that I specified with you is I saw that there was potential for the CIA and others to actually redact or not include, even with your legislation, some of the potential ties and or scrutiny on intelligence. So what, you know, safeguards have you built in and pressure can you ensure that even if such a release does happen, that it is not covered up, let's say for 60 years, a la what's happening with the JFK files? Well, it's going to be a fight for disclosure.

And I'm not saying that our bill is a panacea, and it's going to solve everything, but it's going to get us a lot of the information, particularly where the financial support for Epstein was coming from, who the other powerful rich men were who engaged in the cover-up or engaged in the sex trafficking. Are we going to be able to fully understand if there were foreign ties in who they were? That's going to be a fight. I mean, obviously, they will claim national security privilege. we will push for as much as can be released. But the first step is to get the law passed to call for the release of the file. Congressman, I've heard a lot of Democrats, you know, they're signing on to the discharge petition. So we want to give them credit for that.

But I've heard them describe this issue as a quote-unquote distraction. How do you see it? No one is saying that after yesterday. I mean, you can't say that it's a distraction. I mean, there are human beings who were raped as girls. And if a nation is going to allow rich and powerful men to assault and traffic young girls without any consequence, then it's a nation that has lost its moral bearings. I mean, I think this is the most fundamental issue. And you know what?

It's an issue that possibly could bring us together. Are we still capable of coming together as a country on anything? Like, can't we come together as a nation and say, underage girls should be protected, our kids should be protected? that we should stand with survivors who are crying in front of the country telling us that they were raped as girls. You know, Marjorie Telling Green was so emotional afterwards, she gave me a hug. I mean, this was not politics. It really was not. It was anyone who was there would realize that this was the most basic human issue.

And I really think that's how people should look at it. We've gotten too inured being in Congress thinking, oh, what's going to have a polling advantage or a political advantage? This is something just basic justice. Yeah, Congressman, we really appreciate the work that you are doing, and please keep us updated on this petition, and we're really hoping that it can go through. Thank you for taking time on your day to join us. Thank you. Thank you for covering it. Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane.

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men, think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, until this. Pull that. Turn this. It's just, I can do my eyes close. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these.

Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out, for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, sis. What if I could promise you

you never had to listen to a condescending finance, bro, tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem. a year from now. When you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates, I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union,

shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt when it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand. Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I had this, like, overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then.

And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation. And I just want to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The F podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own life to suicide.

One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place, and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. Don't want to have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Turning now to Beijing, where we brought everybody the news of the Shanghai Cooperation, the SCO meeting where Modi and Putin and Xi were together. It was a major moment for the rise of multipolarity. But now we have to focus in specifically on China, which had a stunning display of military might in the capital and with Xi Jinping and millions of Chinese soldiers, service members all gathered immaculate uniforms, a production for the ages, which a single message to Washington, do not mess with us. We are one of you now. You have to deal with it. So we have some video that we can show all of you. I mean, one of the most stunning things, actually, was Kim Jong-un. I believe this is one of the first, like, ever international meetings ever even taken part of. Vladimir Putin was right there next to him. And basically, as I talked about, the rejoining of those two countries in the post-Ukraine environment, but you can just see, like, the pomp, the circumstance, the pageantry, the actually being able to march in formation, all of their uniforms that were put together. I mean, there's only one audience in

the world for all of this. It's Washington. And they're actually, this is the scary, part because what do we see here? We have ICBMs and other missiles capable of hitting anywhere on the globe 30 to 60 minutes. They had a stunning display, really, of a lot of their new military technology. By the way, they don't have supply chain problems. They don't have Lockheed Martin stocks and other things that they have to deal with. They have got one singular goal, which is America, you will not mess with us. If we want to take over Taiwan, we'll damn well do it. If we want to continue to fund Russia, we will. And by the way, that's why we're starting a new pipeline. It's not an accident that Russia and North Korea were standing there side by side.

And if anything, I think that that picture with Modi, with Putin at the SCO, and now with North Korea and Kim Jong-un standing by that side, is a perfect symbol of the failure of U.S. diplomacy. Because at every single instance, this was avoidable. We had the Putin summit. the war in Ukraine. If you really wanted to, you could, absolutely. We could restore decent relations with Russia and find some sort of agreement rapprochma or whatever with Ukraine. With North Korea, Trump met with North Korea. He met with Kim Jong-un. He shook his hand, all sort of this devil. But the one thing is, in both times, he refused to drop the neocon line. With North Korea, he's like, but you got to give up your nukes. And they're like, no, it will never happen.

It will quite literally never happen. So drop it. Nor should they. Nor should they. By the way, they would be. Look at our foreign policy. idiots to do so. So they're like, no, it's not happening. With Putin, they're like, oh, you have to, yeah, I don't even know what the demand here is of Putin, right? It's like, oh, we're going to meet with you, but we're still going to fund Ukraine. He's like, okay, well, I've got millions of troops and China's got here, you know, they have my back. India's going to keep buying my oil. So I'm just going to keep rolling, all right? And in the meantime, you guys can figure out whatever it is that you want, and I'm just going to continue inch by inch.

I don't care how many soldiers in mine die in Ukraine. In the end, I'm probably going to win. And so that's their strategy. And then same with China. It's not just tariffs. I support tariffs on China. Again, though, the level of capriciousness has made it so that Xi has, in the last decade, been able to fully go in on the Made in China 2025 plan. I mean, by the way, a lot of that weaponry was distinctively part of it. If you went and read all of the primary source documents that they released 10 years ago, you see there the ability to compel Modi, Putin, North Korea. You can make fun of these states if you want to. A lot of them are not like economic powerhouses, but what we have learned in the

post-Ukraine environment is that production, the native capacity to produce, is the single most important thing for a nation in a time of crisis. China has been able to marry economic production, economic growth. They have state-managed capitalism at the highest, most efficient order, and they have now the ability to bring all of these former U.S. allies and or U.S. like states which were able to engage with the United States, go in with China and say, hey, they're going to be a better partner to me. So combined with their deterrence, their weaponry, their econ, I mean, just the sheer might of their economy, of their defense sector, anybody in Washington who's dealing with the bullshit that we are today should be deeply afraid. And this is scary because as someone who's

been covering this for literally a decade, I remember reading those 2025 plans, I was like, ah, it's never going to happen. Or, you know, Washington's going to wake up. The pivoting. Asia is finally happening. We're here now. We are here now. And we lost. We have to admit it. Can we even catch up? Maybe. That's a big question mark. So it's stunning. It really is. Yeah. That parade. I think that military parade is an intentional global wake-up call or wake-up call, at least here at home, that we already live in a different world than most Americans imagine that we live in. And I was taking a look at this foreign policy magazine article. The headline is, China's military is now leading. Wednesday's parade proved the regional military balance has irrevocably changed.

And I just want to read you a little bit of this, just to underscore what I'm saying here. It's now widely accepted that the story Western countries once told themselves about China's technological development. It's a mere imitator of Western tech. It steals IP. Its success's result from wasteful public subsidies is inadequate. I would say that's putting it kindly. This story still has some elements of truth, but is much less true than it used to be. China is today an innovator and a technological leader in robotics, electric, vehicles, nuclear reactors, solar energy, drones, where they make 70 to 90 percent of drones made in China. By the way, guys, high-speed rail and AI. If confirmation were needed,

the September 3rd military parade through Beijing confirms that we must add military tech to this list. It's no longer enough to say that China's military is catching up or there's copying foreign military equipment designs. China is now innovating and it is leading. In the process, the regional military balance that has for decades favored the U.S. and its partners is being irrevocably changed. Now, one thing that they, of course, don't have that we do is we have these military bases spread all over the world. They do not have that. So that is a very different kind of an orientation towards the globe. But in terms of military tech, you know, I've been listening to Seth Harpoo we had on this show to talk about the Fort Bragg Cartel, the book that he just wrote. He, you know,

studies and follows and researches and does, you know, all kinds of incredible journalism around the state of the U.S. military. And he says, we're fooling ourselves if we think that we just reign supreme in a sun question. You know, when's the last time we won a war? Like, look at how we did it go with us in the Houthis? Yes. Right. How did it go with us in Afghanistan? How is it going with all of our weapons and know-how and yes, you know, special operations, special operators on the ground in Ukraine? How is that going, right? Even in Gaza, where it's our tax funding this horrific genocide. It's our weaponry.

How is that? Hamas is still able to operate and able to, you know, to take out IDF soldiers at times. So we're sort of living in a delusion about our unquestioned military superiority. And I think, you know, for anyone who's paying attention,

this parade is one symbol that should help to pop that bubble. Absolutely. I think I said this last, the analogy I was having dinner with somebody who was very knowledgeable about U.S. defense. the analogy was, is that the United States, in the lead up to World War II, our technological advantage was simple. Production, more than anything. So the B-17, the B-29, they were not the world's

greatest aircraft, but we could just make a shitload of them. You know, the Nazis invented the V2 rocket. They invented the first jet engine, the first jet, or not the first jet aircraft that the United States actually had to engage with above the skies of Germany. Guess what? We still won, even with a technically less superior aircraft. Why? Because you could produce a ton. There's great stories. You know, the Japanese Zero was one of the most sophisticated airplanes of its time. But, you know, the production, after it was eventually bombed away,

the Japanese would have to, like, use a horse-drawn cart to bring a newly finished piece of air material to another. Now, we are the Japanese and the Germans. We have this stunning B-2. It costs $2 billion, but we don't have the oil. to put in it. We don't have the production facility or others to create the ammunition that goes into the basic gun. Now, what China has been able to do is not only match U.S. stunning technology, they have the entire supply chain to deal with it if they need to. They have the economic might

and all the ability to sustain all of that. Meanwhile, we're living in a service-based, financialized, ridiculous system where I was just telling you today, a fan duel is now going to fund public transportation so that fans can get to an Eagles game in Philadelphia. The government can't fund it because a fan duel is stepping in. That's the reality. Our military parade was funded by what, Palantir and Coinbase. I mean, it's sick. We have some of that.

Let's put that B2, please, up on the screen. This is a symbol of, you know, we can't march. Compare and contrast. It's all, yeah, look at this. Just compare and contrast. Look, I do not want to be in a position where I'm putting down our service members, You know, and they probably didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this because it was shabbily and hastily put together. The individual people in there, I have nothing but deep love and respect for it.

What I have concerned about is what? Is the system that places them in potentially harm's way and has failed them and at the same time is raping the American taxpayer who has to spend a trillion dollars a year for this nonsense? Take a look at their GDP spending per capita on military and then compare it to ours. That's the most important thing. The other thing that we all need to grapple with is that Xi and Putin, they are megalomaniac crazy but smart. And that, we have megalomaniac crazy, but not smart. And just to show you all, this particular clip is Xi and Putin chatting about how everyone,

Anyone could live to 150 with organ trans. I mean, these guys are obsessed with transhumanism and with living forever in the exact same way, but they may actually be able to do it. Let's take a listen. In the past, people rarely lived longer than 70 years. But today, they say that at 70, you are still a child. Human organs can be continuously transplanted.

The longer you live, the younger you become, and can even achieve immortality. So, yeah, you can even achieve immortality. The longer you live, the younger, you become. I mean, you know, and I've talked about this with Putin. He's a czar. She, I mean, he's the new Song Emperor. Like, these guys are not communist or, you know, they're like, oh, he's the new Soviet Union.

Guys, read a book. Like, you have to go way, way deeper. And if you look at the way that they talk about, the Chinese elites in particular, they look at themselves as the inheritors of a 2,500-year-old culture. You know, they're not looking at themselves as history began with Mao Zedong. That's part of it, but it is part of a much, much broader picture. And so, you know, in a way, it's like the old world is punching back. And here in the U.S., like, we're just, I don't know.

This is what Yeager says to me. He's like, you know, maybe the aberration was like, you know, U.S. Western dominance in the world that the historical tradition is actually China being the leader of the world. Yeah, Lexington asked me that. We did a podcast. He's like, will the American Empire fall? And I was like, well, statistically, yeah.

It's like, you know, it's like asking, are we going to one day die? Yeah, I said there's a fight club quote. You know, on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everything drops to zero. So, yeah, the, if you look at the China, yeah, exactly, the aberration in China was that during the 1900s, it was weak and it was divided. A lot of, it kind of was, it depends, it's complicated. But the point just broadly is that where they see their, you know, historical, where they see themselves today is on a long timeline that we cannot, we can barely conceive. of in their culture and in their history. And so this will be the single most important battle for the 21st century. It might be a hot battle. It might be economic. Who knows? But it is the

story of our time. It really, you cannot, you really cannot grapple with it unless you are, actually, yeah, all the people alive who really had to deal with psychologically the rise of either Nazi Germany or the Kaiser imperial Germany. That's what it was like to live through. You know, when you were the British Empire and the sun never set upon you. And then all of a sudden you have this, you know, state Germany, this new state, and they're ramping up industrial production and science, and it caused all kinds of destabilization, and nobody really knew what to deal with. And it ended in the First World War.

It was a catastrophe, an absolute catastrophe. And I don't have any faith that our statesmen today are smarter and able to deal with this crisis. And the people back then were a hell of, I've read all their, a lot of their primary documents, correspondence, they were a hell of a lot smarter. And thinking deeply, and they still weren't able to avoid, you know, some sort of horrific, you know. I mean, Trump is just in it for himself. Like, he only cares about what he can squeeze out in the state. Because this is the, it's not Trump. It's Biden. It's the system. Sure. But also in this moment, like Trump has accelerated this. Yeah, I agree. This is the Trump effect. Like, he is accelerated the coming together of these world leaders.

And you even had some, you know, attempted rapprochement between South Korea and North Korea in the context of this. And I think it's also important to remind, because we talked about this earlier in the week, the purpose of this parade in part is to recast the narrative of World War II and the post-World War II order and to put China at the center of that. And China as a leader and the true sort of heir to the post-World War II order. So it's, you know, narratively, and propaganda, from a propaganda perspective, it's interesting as well. Oh, absolutely. It is fascinating to see them try to reclaim the World War II.

I mean, look, I mean, I do get it in a certain way. I think what 20 million Chinese died in the Second World War fighting the Japanese. It wasn't all the Chinese communists. You know, a lot of the Chinese nationalists are the ones who died in that as well. So, you know, it was a little complicated. Sometimes they were pretty happy to let the nationalists get killed by the Japanese if it meant it was good for them. It's an interesting story. A lot of people should actually spend more time thinking and reading about it. But the point more broadly is that they love to flip the terms on the United States and be like, oh, a U.S. led war order? What does that lead to? Chaos, Iraq, you know. And they love to talk about

zero-sum competition or mutual respect. Mutual respect in their minds means Taiwan is ours and you can fuck off. Or, you know, how Russia decides to elect its country is its own business. If Kim Jong-un has to create a famine to create ICBMs, so be it. And, you know, in the 90s, it would be very easy to say, well, that's not who we are. Well, you can't say that in the year 2025, not in the midst of Gaza, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Iraq. How are we going to stand on some like territorial integrity principles when we're funding a genocide in Gaza? It would be insane to go to war China over Taiwan at this point. Our Secretary of State is on his way over to Israel, apparently, or I guess I should say, whatever, what they claim to be Israel. Apparently he's going to participate in a settler event, you know.

Oh, great. Yeah, exactly. The Secretary of State of the United States of America. So really, we're going to fund Ukraine to protect their territorial integrity. Okay. I mean, you know, it's like, oh, and we have a problem with monarch? We have a problem with dictators. Really? That's not who we buy our oil from, is it? Oh, wait. It all falls apart on a very basic scrutiny. Let's go ahead and get then to Trump, which we've been building up here, who is, you know, he kind of admitted the quiet part out loud. He was like, they were doing it because they wanted me to watch. And I was watching. Let's take a list. I put out a truth last night. You saw that. And I was the one that brought it up. I said, they're all. doing this they're really there looking to when they when they did what they did i thought it was a beautiful ceremony i thought it was very very impressive but i understood the reason they were doing it and they were hoping i was watching and i was watching uh my relationship with all of them is very good we're going to find out how good it is over the next week or two they were hoping i was watching he told them in a truth uh that he was like they all conspire against the united states well what are you

going to do about it, you know? And not just wave, you know, like wave around until Putin, big things are coming like what, like what exactly? What do you have left? What cards do you have left to play? You want to know who China's cards? Let's go and show everybody. Let's put this up there on the screen. All the military parade, all the military equipment that they were debuted, you know, it's stunning. Hypersonic missiles, combat vehicles, unmanned aircraft, undersea drones, nuclear missiles, capable of hitting anywhere on the globe. I mean, this was a massive shot at the Pentagon. This all has production lines, capacity that does not rely on us.

Does anyone want to know who we rely on for some of our military equipment? Right, it's called China. Seems smart. It really works out. And the more that you look into all of their capacity and their show, it's like you said, they not only have the ability to spend less because they don't have some great geopolitical projection. By the way, Trump yesterday was like, yeah, send more troops to Poland. I was like, oh, really? Why? You know, for what reason? Why? Why do we

need troops in Poland and all over the Baltics and Germany and Korea and Japan? I mean, I could go on forever. Some of those make sense. Japan, Korea, etc. Germany? Why? I mean, again, it's one of those where nobody asks basic questions. Keep cutting these checks to the Pentagon. And that's what it looks like when you're actually intelligent and you think deeply about what this is all going to look like, and potentially should look like in the future should anything happen. The last thing we wanted to mention was about Korea, because this was actually very interesting. Let's going to put this last part up on the screen. Obviously, Korea, one of the top 10 trading partners of the United States, one of the most important U.S. allies in all of Southeast Asia, actually sent their

speaker in parliament to shake hands with Kim Jong-un at the Beijing military parade. Now, why is that important? Well, it used to be in the first Trump administration that the United States was the one who was trying to broker some sort of peace and or, you know, rapprochement between the south and the north. But now the Koreans who, you know, look, not exactly in love with China, are sending delegations to the Beijing military parade. And basically a method, a word to Washington is, you treat us like shit. They don't treat us so bad over here, even though we have all of our differences. And they're willing to shake hands with Kim Jong-un and potentially broker some sort of peace via China without the United States. It would be a disaster. So everybody keep their eye on

this, I know it can seem tedious and more, but, I mean, it really is like, it's like the 1930s or the early 1900s all over again. Like the entire world order is being rewritten before our eyes. It's not that hard actually to figure out. What's hard to figure out is how to avoid what usually happens when something like this does seem like it's on the horizon. The last thing I wanted to mention was this story, which again, Charles challenges dollar supremacy. Can we go ahead and put a b7 please which is developing countries have been swapping out of dollar debt to cut their borrowing costs they say that sovereign borrowers are now turning to lower interest rate currencies such as the chinese remi and or the swiss franc to get around the fluctuations and

the interest rates of the dollar set by the federal reserve so just another little thing that we can look at uh just broadly about all of the signs of where things are going i'm not a bricks person I'm not saying it's all happening, you know, tomorrow in the end of the U.S. Empire. That's not how it works. The point is that sometimes it takes decades. And the initial signs, though, if you're smart enough, you can see that they start to rhyme with a lot of problems, which is probably a good segue to our economy block, which is about how we have troubling signs in our economy, and a lot is fake, so let's get to it.

Imagine that you're on an airplane, and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this, until this. Do this. Pull that. Turn this. It's just... I can do my eyes close. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devon. And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to no such thing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Siss, what if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance bro. Tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you

pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. When you do feel like you are bleeding from these high interest rates, I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union, shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here. to judge. It is so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt when it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand. Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just

because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Jenna Lopez. And in the new season of the Overcomfit podcast, I'm taking you on an exciting journey of self-reflection. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time? I wanted to be successful on my own, not just because of who my mom is.

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as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Turning now to the economy, as we said, into where we can actually look to some truth. Unfortunately, it comes from the CEO of McDonald's, who shockingly actually dropped some truth bombs on CNBC about how divided the country is on whether you make over $100,000 or not. Let's take a listen. Part of what we also saw was that, particularly with middle and lower income, consumers, they're feeling under a lot of pressure right now. I think there's a lot of commentary about what's the state of the economy, how's it doing,

and what we see is it's really kind of a two-tier economy. If you're upper income earning over $100,000, things are good. Stock markets are near all-time highs. You're feeling quite confident about things. You're seeing international travel. All those barometers of upper income consumers are doing quite well. What we see with middle and lower income consumers is actually a different story. It's that consumers under a lot of pressure in our industry.

Traffic for lower income consumers is down double digits. And it's because people are either choosing to skip a meal. So we're seeing breakfast. People are actually skipping breakfast. Interesting. Or they're choosing to just eat at home. And so for our business, which has a significant group of consumers, which are in that middle and lower income, we needed to step in with something like what we're doing here. Listen to the CEO of McDonald's, people are skipping breakfast.

Now, I will say on McDonald's, it's still outrageously expensive compared to where it used to be. I don't eat McDonald's, maybe more than two or three times a year. My wife gets hungry for it. She's nursing. Whatever, she gets what she wants. So I go to McDonald's. The McGrittle, it costs me $9. And I tweeted about that.

People made fun of me because apparently I don't use the app. No, I'm not degenerate enough to have the McDonald's app or to be knowledgeable enough about set deals. But in my head, as a child of the 90s, you're on a road trip and you roll up to McDonald's. How much do you think that should cost? A couple bucks? You know, it buck 99? And yet it's not just the price, what he really said there, which is important, is if you look, he said below 100,000, you're seeing a massive reduction in lower income consumers being able to go out to eat, and people are skipping breakfast. Now, I think that's hopefully they're getting enough to eat, you know, elsewhere and or trying to eat at home.

But the totality of it is that, yeah, it might be marginally cheaper on a percent basis to eat at home, but it's still really expensive to eat at home. If you're talking about a cup of coffee, we've talked here about coffee futures, folders, and more is actually exploded in price. Even if you look at the basic necessities of goods, meat in particular, protein, the price is just astounding. You can still eat cheap if you want to, but it takes a lot more effort than it used to in the past. So if you put that together, I think here is where you should listen to the CEO of McDonald's or the CEO of Walmart or these other people who have to cater to all these customers. and now McDonald's is scrambling to try and bring back, you know, below $5 meals and more because they can see the consumer cannot afford it. That's the real tragedy. Yeah, I mean, down double digits, he says, traffic from lower income consumers. I mean, that is a very significant sign.

And it's not just that the prices are high. It's also that the wages are not keeping up. We covered previously. I mean, I think the two-tier economy comment is the perfect way to think about it. You've got the stock market that just keeps going up and up and up, seemingly totally divorce, and we'll talk more about what's going on there from the actual real economy, what people deal with trying to make ends meet on a day-to-day basis. And meanwhile, especially lower quintile wages are not keeping pace with inflation. So people are struggling. They're going into deeper and deeper debt. They are very pessimistic about the future. They are holding back on any purchases that they can. They're apparently skipping breakfast so that they can make it

all work in their budget. So these are dire indications of where the economy is headed right now. Absolutely. And there's absolutely, there is some really troubling stuff behind the scenes. And I've talked about this in particular with the stocks is I was like, man, I just don't get how with inflation, with reduction in consumer spending tariffs, how can the market continue to go up? Well, now we have a little bit more of the story. Let's put this up here on the screen. Fantastic piece by the Wall Street Journal. Behind this season's bumper earnings, job cuts, price hikes, glum workers, quote, consumer spending is not driving company profits as much as reducing expenses, improving efficiency, that could be a problem. They say American

companies are once again beating profit expectations, but they're not doing it by banking on blockbuster consumer spending. Instead, the latest batch of quarterly earnings gets a lift for managers who are squeezing out costs, boosting productivity, turning to new technologies, all of whom who say they're holding down hiring, often while finding new. ways to get employees to work more efficiently, aka work more, and are raising prices when they can. The processes are, quote, human light now, that is from one chief financial officer last month, telling investors about the initiative that includes automation upgrades, global logistics, say, higher profit margins, despite a nearly 8% drop in revenue, even though there is a

prolonged freight recession. How do you do that? You raise your prices. And so, yeah, the companies are doing fine. The investors in the stocks are doing great because that's what they demand. The number has to go up. It literally must. It's an American contract. It's like baked into our blood at this point. But what does it mean for all of you? You're paying more. You are working more hours for less pay. You are potentially not going to get a raise. You may even get a price cut and then you'll be lucky to actually work and continue in your job. Put that together and it just makes a lot more sense about how exactly the McDonald's CEO or the straight face can talk about, you know, oh, well, we're, you know, we have all of this traffic down, et cetera, and all of that.

But then if you look at the way that they continue to juice their profit, it will be, you know, the $5 stuff and maintaining sales there, while also, I guess, taking advantage of idiots like me who apparently roll up to the window and pay $9. Pay full price. Yeah, pay for me, McGrath. Don't download the app. Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot that's going on in this article. I mean, first of all, AI has got to be a part of.

this as companies are increasingly trying to, instead of, you know, hiring when we're talking about white-collar workforce is hiring those new college grads, by the way, unemployment rate has really skyrocketed and is quite high at this point. Rather than hiring those new college grads, they'll, you know, use AI and force their existing workforce to work more to avoid building out their workforce and to save costs that way. You have them, you know, what's called taking price. So using the excuse of tariffs and inflation and also genuinely, you know, facing higher costs in certain regards. They're using that to hike prices even beyond what is required. And then the other thing they talk about in here is the financial engineering that's

going on too. So share buybacks, they say, have helped put a shine on profits, reducing the number of shares outstanding increases companies' earnings per share numbers mechanically, regardless of operating results. Overall, LSEG data indicates that repurchases added about 1.3 percentage points to the S&P 500's gains in the second quarter. So some of this is just, you know, financial engineering basically like smoke and mirrors sort of accounting tricks to get things to look better than they actually are. So that's a piece of it as well. But if you look through this article, they have a chart in there that's pretty stunning where they look at consumer spending, consumer purchases, and then they take out inflation. They take out the price increases.

And the line, if you don't take them out, then the line of consumer spending, oh, it's going up and up and people must be doing okay. If you take that out, it's flat since 2021. So, I mean, that tells you a lot right there about how, you know, how fake a lot of the, you know, the profits that are being generated here by these companies and how little bearing they have on what is actually going on with your average consumer out there. Yeah. And again, this is why, this is the Biden story. We can't we, everyone understood that under Biden. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the S&P was up by like 60% over the entire course. Were you 60% better off? If you were invested, yeah. If you were buying stuff, no. If you're

buying steak at Costco? Yeah, good luck. To go ahead and what a lot of people have done, if you really want to feel truly crazy, go in your Amazon cart and scroll all the way back to 2020 and go look at what you were paying for basics and then compare it to today. You can do that if you use Walmart or any of these other places. You can even look at your credit card bill broadly and look at, I use tracking. I know exactly how much I pay for like every, at the grocery store, for example. You can compare based on five years ago to, today and just general keep in mind, it is astounding, sometimes it's like 40 or 50% higher depending on the number of goods. You're also showing, you know, stuff is showing up in all kinds

of the wrong places. So both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal just wrote stories about how black Americans in particular seem to be struggling right now. Let's put this up here on the screen. Both of them, what they say on the New York Times side is that if you look at this, it's largely a cuts to federal agencies. And that's also an important part of the story because the federal government is the largest employer in the United States, and they said that this is one of the most staggering losses of employment that black women have ever seen in our current economy. On the Wall Street Journal side, they say unemployment may remain historically low, but unemployment from black Americans is some 7.2 percent, probably again, attributable,

it seems to like federal agencies. But the point just broadly is for Trump, one of the things that he could hang his hat on when he got elected was what? Was, oh, I got historic margins with black people. I got historic margins with Hispanic people. And you know, if you talk to a lot of those guys or gals, guys and in some cases gals, what did they say that they voted for Trump on the economy? They were fed up with Biden and they didn't feel like Kamala was going to do anything about it. So look, pocketbook and all that, sometimes it's number one, not always, but I do think it can be very disillusioning broadly when you look at all that. And the general experience of being an American consumer today, in my opinion, is hellish. Like, it's just deeply expensive. Everything is

pay for play, no matter what. Yeah, you feel exploited at every time. You really are. I mean, it's like, you go out to a restaurant. I don't drink alcohol. You go out to a restaurant, and it's not even particularly good. And it's like, $60.70. And you're like, what am I paying for? Like, again, in my head, it should be 35. Should have just stayed at home, you know? Same with the drive-thru. Just everything. Apparently, you know, Disney World, I talked about this. You know, they charge you at every step. All the assumptions, like the now, if you're a big NBA fan and you want to watch all the games. Good luck.

Yeah, you're going to have to buy like fucking seven different streaming packages in order to pull it off. So like this deal we thought we were getting with the cord cutting and cable going away, now we're just getting screwed. Now every company out there can nickel and dime you are much more than that, frankly, to death. So yeah, it just feels the level of sort of pillaging and exploitation has been through the roof.

It's been absolutely insane. And, you know, just to go back to what we're saying about, about black workers. Black workers are frequently, the reason it's important statistic, obviously, is because of we want people to have jobs. They also tend to be canary in the coal mine for the economy because historically, you know, unfortunately, you have black people higher represented in low wage, lower skill employment. And so you have that dynamic.

And then you also have the American government, the federal government, has been, you know, helped to build out the American black middle class. And that is nowhere is more evident than in and around D.C. see. And so when you have Doge coming in and just wantonly slashing random government positions, not saving any money, by the way, just making everything worse than kicking people out of a job, you can see the effects of that showing up in the black unemployment rate. I'm sure that is especially pronounced right here in this region. Absolutely. You know, to your point, I don't know, do you know what NFL Red Zone is? I know that a lot of my friends are not taking this well.

Anyway, I'm sure a lot of our bro audience does. Now, I think you pay for it. It's like to be able to watch all the games or something, whatever. But the point, now they're going to have commercials. So you pay for it and you have to watch commercials. That's how everything works now. Or, you know, it's like Hulu. It's like, oh, you could pay $7.99 to watch with ads. We can pay $14.99 to watch with no.

Like $14.99 for like a show that you might watch once a year. And then, oh, you got to have Netflix too. And then, oh, you have to have Disney Plus. So just had a kid. Apparently got to have Disney Plus. Well, if you're going to have Disney Plus, you might as well have a Disney Plus version with no ads because then the kids will get angry.

It's just, it never ends. It's everything. Everything is subscription. Everything is pay for play. And even what you're paying for is not even particularly good. It's like, it's like, I know, I've heard that. It's like, you know, you may pay on the front end or you may not pay on the front end, you know, to download this game. But then if you want to do this thing in the game or you want to rise to this level in the game, then oh, you got to buy, you got to buy the Robox.

You got to do this. It's like crazy. You can play for it or you could pay to like get around. I think it's out for, again, I don't know. I mean, it very. per game. But if you are willing to shell out the dollars, then you're going to advance more in the game and participate in the full experience or whatever. It's, you know, I mean, it's just at every turn. And, you know, not to be all like back of my day, but back of my day, you bought the game and that was it. That was the end of the story. Well, they could never have envisioned. They would have done it if they could have. They just didn't have the ability to do so and to milk people for as much money as possible. So I don't know. I really, sometimes when I look at the average prices, and then I look at the average income, I do not understand how people make it at all. Like, period.

Just the monthly nut, the absolute basics. I'm like, do you have any money left at all? And then no. You know, you look at the credit card numbers and all that. I'm like, yeah, that's the only way that any of it makes sense. By the way, some breaking news just came across the wire. U.S. companies have announced just 1,400 new jobs in August. That's the lowest for the month since 2000 in line.

Layoffs surging to 39% for 85. Which jobs report is that? These is ADP payroll numbers. This is your first walk that just literally just came out as of this. $1,400? That's what they said, yeah. So, I mean, I'm making sure, yeah, that's the, that's the number from ADP. When do we get the, do we get the government jobs report tomorrow?

I think they're separate. I'm not sure. They are separate, but it comes on on Friday, so we'll probably get that one. I think it's the first Friday of the month, so we'll probably get that tomorrow. Yeah, ADP numbers. Yeah. While you're looking at that, put the next element up. Guys, at least the tariffs are going well or restoring our manufacturing glory here.

Oh, wait, actually manufacturing contracts drop for six months in a row. So, and that's a big part of the story too here is, you know, Trump was talking ironically about how the court decisions with regard to tariffs were creating uncertainty. It's like your whole thing is complete insanity and chaos. What are we talking about here? There's no ability for anyone to plan. No company would want to hire into the circuit. No company would want to invest, build out big manufacturing plants in this environment,

because you don't know if the tariffs are on, if they're off. They obviously used, you know, very likely it's going to be struck down the authority that they use to levy these tariffs. They're very likely to be ultimately struck down, at least some broad swath of them. And so that has also raised prices for consumers, made business, you know, owners much more uncertain about what the future holds and created another massive chill on the economy that is filtering through as we speak. Yeah, by the way, it was a misprint. It's 54,000 jobs. Sorry about that. Holy cow. All right. Still not good. Fifty-four thousand, according to ADP, but below the consensus forecast of 75,000. See, this is why now I should believe everything you read on the internet.

You've got to go and you read itself. 54,000, though. What's CNBC doing there? 54,000 is still not good. Anyway, so 54,000, jobless claims increased to 237,000, up from 8,000 from the prior week and previous estimates. Job openings said it was one of the worst levels for job openings in July since 2020. Wow. So there you go. Well, and let's put this last chart up on the screen because that underscores the point.

We're now at a place for the first time in a long time where you have more job seekers than you have job openings. So you can see that red line. Those are the unemployed looking for jobs. And there are now officially two few job openings to go. around, and this was, according to BLS, data, so government data, and this was compiled by Steve Ratner and posted online. So, you know, that is a, that's also a very significant data point in terms of the trajectory of the economy. Yep, absolutely. So you can see all this stuff

together. I don't know. It's not good. I always think it's got to end, but it actually doesn't. That's the one thing where these people are somehow smarter than me. They can always figure out how to massage it, buyback stock, whatever. They never, like the bubble, everyone always is like, there's a bubble that's going to happen. And it just never stops. It's like they endlessly are able to figure it out. The really crazy part, too, is people just take it. They just keep paying and paying and paying.

That's why I keep meaning about your monthly bills. I'm like, at what point do you're just like, no, we're not dealing with this anymore. But I don't know. People are conditioned. Again, I really don't know what it is. People are conditioned to think of it as a personal failing if they're not able to make it, rather than, I really think that that's part of the, like, sort of perniciousness of the, of some of the American dream ideologies.

Like, if you work hard and you play by the rules, you can make it. And there have been studies about that because you have that so deeply, culturally, in mesh, people are much more likely to blame themselves if they're struggling versus looking at the system saying, okay, I need to protest against this. I need to vote this person out of office versus other countries. The comparison I saw specifically was the American working class, like in Youngstown, versus the British working class in, like, the London suburbs. Interesting.

And, yeah, and so, I mean, it's a real phenomenon. People turn inward, and they blame themselves. They think that it's a moral failing if they're struggling in the economy. It can be both. Like, some of it can be your fault. But a lot of it can, I mean, you don't. When you look across the country and you see these trends. Housing part.

I mean, this is why we were talking about the fact. Yeah, the housing thing. You don't create, you know, you don't set interest rates, period. Like, you're literally at the mercy of the gods in Washington as to whether you're mortgage was at 3% or at 7. Like you have no say on that whatsoever. So like, yeah, that's not your fault. You don't set the price of meat. Like, you don't set the price of any of this. I guess all you can really control is your job. But, you know, within this and you look at the overall outpacing in terms of inflation for necessities and particularly educate, especially anything that's

going to better yourself, like education or any of the other things compared to the amount of wage inflation is just, it's just devastating. So I don't know. Talk about. Kerr said people said that people should stop paying their credit card bills. Maybe we should. Maybe we should. It's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone and there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, season two, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. One Tribe, save my life twice. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the I

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Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about all that's viral and trending, with a little bit of cheesement and a whole lot of laughs. And of course, the great Bivas you've come to expect. Listen to the new season of Dresses Come Again on the A Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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