Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/5/25: Trump TERRIBLE Jobs Report, Hidden Cam Epstein List Honeypot Exposes DOJ

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Krystal, Ryan, Emily and Griffin take a look at the new bleak jobs reports for Trump, James O'Keefe catching with the DOJ chief on a hidden cam about the Epstein client list, and the grilling of RFK Jr. over his new moves at the CDC. 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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack, available now.

Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate.

Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. It's a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System

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Morning, everybody. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. Huge Eagles dove for Ryan last night, so congrats on that. Are you in Philadelphia now? I'm in Philly. I'm here at the Residence Inn. You live from the residents in.

I'm assuming you haven't slept and you were just parting on Broad Street all night. Yeah, I was climbing street polls, everything. Amazing. Rioting, they're going to send in the National Guard now for you. Yeah, it's coming. Gotcha. Sounds justified. Sounds entirely justified.

Yeah, actually a reasonable use of the National Guard. Sundays and filled up. It's also a big jobs report Friday. So we've got some numbers off the top. We've got James O'Keefe breaking some Epstein news, which we're was interesting, surprising. Yeah. I mean, I guess maybe not surprising

because he has been interested in this the past, right? Yeah. Oh, yes. He's the one who got Pam Bondi on the tape saying that they were going through all of the videos and it was all child content. And that was just a couple of months ago. Isn't he also the one that did the Amy Roboc?

Yes. Yeah, Hot Mike talking about, like, I had it all about Prince Andrew. I had the whole story and they wouldn't let me do it. And that was him, too. So interesting there. We've also got clips in the RFK Jr. hearing, which I haven't actually watched those yet. Have you guys, did you guys pay close attention to it yesterday?

It was wild. I casually watched it, you know, and I couldn't avoid it, too. Just, you know. You're going to love it, Crystal. You can get my reaction live. Griffin, were you closely plugged in with that one? I know you're big RFK fan. It was hard.

It was kind of hard to avoid. It was filtering through the day. but you know it did the tenor of these is kind of always the same everyone screams at him he screams back it's it's beautiful yeah and then we've got um in the premium portion we're going to take a look at um barry weiss's incredibly justified valuation of hundreds of millions of dollars for the free press so that'll be great congrats to her um job well done Ryan I don't know what you guys are doing at drop site but you know just clearly clearly not providing the value of Ms. Weiss yeah I guess there's ABC and NBC are left, so it's jockeying for who they're going to try to buy.

Right. Yeah, I'm sure you're high on that list, you know, because they really value journalism. Right up there on that whiteboard, yeah. Definitely. And then also we'll probably take a look at Zoran is challenging Trump to a debate, which I think is kind of, I like the energy of that. I think it's very smart play since Trump has decided to meddle directly in the race. And we would love that. Who wouldn't love that?

Trump would love it. Everybody would love that. We'll moderate. We'll moderate. Absolutely. Before we jump in, there was also, so there is a story put out that claims to have found a mirror or a booed is what they're saying his actual nickname is. The boy that the GHF whistleblower, Anthony Aguilauer, who we just had on, you guys had on this week, the boy that he claimed to have seen shot dead.

They're claiming that they found him. So in an attempt to sort through all of this and find out where, you know, if he is in fact safe and sound, which would. of course, be incredible or whether they are once again lying because they did in the past put out another picture that they claimed to be a mirror, which turned out to be false. We've invited the GHF spokesperson on Monday that you reached out to us. We said, we'll have you on the show. We've also have Tony, Anthony Aguilar, book to come back on and also respond to their claims from his perspective. So we have a potentially very newsworthy and, you know, very significant show

planned for for monday but in case you guys are wondering why we're not digging into that story today it's because we're working on planning all of that and locking all of that in yeah um all right with that being said should we jump into the jobs reports Griffin you want to pull up some elements for us let's see how it's going guys payrolls rose 22,000 in August less than expected and further sign of hiring slowdown yeah um I mean This is one of these weird ones, Ryan, where it's like, the numbers are really bad. 22,000 is a very bad jobs number in terms of overall creation. They say they increased just 22,000.

Unemployment rate rose to 4.3%. If you scroll down, you can also see revision showed a net loss now of 13,000 in June after a previous estimate was lowered once again. That was what led to the controversy last time when Trump decided to fire the BLS head because he didn't like the numbers that came out. He didn't like the revisions of the previous reports that made, you know, his tenure look pretty bad. And then the other part of this that's weird, though, is the markets are actually reacting positively because they think that this will spur the Federal Reserve to cut rates. So they're, in a sense, happy that the jobs numbers are really bad. Yeah, the irony for Trump has been that he has desperately been demanding a rate cut, you know, since, since his election. But the economy was a little bit too strong to justify our.

rate cut. And so Trump has methodically gone about dramatically weakening the economy across the board. And so he's bringing about the conditions necessary to create the thing that he wanted, which is this eventual rate cut. So I guess congratulations to him. If he, you know, if he drives the economy even further into the ground, then he can get even more significant rate cuts down down the line. So, yeah, I guess impressive. New York, New York Times had a couple interesting pieces yesterday that are finally picking up on the damage that the tariffs and his kind of global trade war are doing John Deere. Well, I don't know if you saw this. Levi's was warning. Oh, really? No, I didn't see that. Yeah, that their, that their global sales are at

significant risk because of the perception of the United States. Wow. Like the thing that that really drove a lot of American soft powers that even when they hated our foreign policy, and even in countries that hated our foreign policy, they loved our artists, hip-hop artists, they loved our movies, loved our brands, like, in particular, Levi's. Yeah, it's like the sort of quintessential American brand. Like Levi's, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, right, now you would say Starbucks. That's right. Right.

Right. And now. That's why Ryan hates Levi's. Yes. So Levi's in its, in its, in its, you know, quarterly call saying, you know, big problem for us is that people really don't like the United States anymore. Meanwhile, China, by this time, usually will have locked in many, many billions of dollars in purchases of soybeans. They have currently locked in zero. Wow.

Now, China isn't buying that they need the soybeans basically either from. us or Brazil or assortment of other places, but they're not buying them yet. And that has resulted in American farmers seeing like crop prices plummet and not having any money to buy John Deere tractors. And so John Deere is warning that, you know, their layoffs are going to continue, that their profits are massively down. And they're also saying that they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on tariffs for aluminum and steel to manufacture their tractors that nobody has the money to buy. So everything is collapsing, which is wonderful for Trump because he wants the Fed to cut interest rates. So the mastermind at work is getting what he wants.

Well, and of course, the question, though, is part of the reason why the Fed hadn't cut rates is because the economy didn't look too bad yet. The other reason is that they're also worried that tariffs will be inflationary. So they're worried if they cut rates, then that will further fuel inflation. And that concern remains because you still have this, you know, tariff regime, which has not been, you know, the maximal one that he had threatened to put on, but is still quite significant and starting to bite. And the other thing we covered yesterday was, well, a couple of interesting things. First of all, McDonald's CEO going on CNBC and saying, it's a two-tier economy. People making over 100 grand, they're fine. They're, you know,

invested in the stock market. Stock markets going up. They're doing fine. But our middle and lower income consumers, they're skipping meals. They're skipping, we're seeing, you know, double, they said double digit decline in those type of consumers, which of course for McDonald's is a significant part of their revenue base. And he said specifically, they're skipping breakfast. Now, you know, I guess there are better options out there for your breakfast consumption than McDonald's.

Watch it. But listen, no hate with the McGrittle. Personally, huge, huge fan. They just added, they just added spicy biscuits. Okay. Ooh, that's a little much for me in the morning, though, to be honest. To be honest. The griddle changed everything.

Yeah. It changed the way we thought of food. Yeah. And Saugger's a McGritle hater, of course, figures, buzzkill about everything. But in any case, it was very significant comments. The other thing that we covered yesterday that ties into this, too, is Canary and the coal mine, typically, for the American economy, is black workers. And they're seeing unemployment rates spike.

And it's exacerbated additionally by all the. cuts to the federal government because the federal government has been such an important part of the backbone of the black middle class. So you have a lot of, you know, pretty dire warnings. And the stock market might be happy about the, Trump might be happy about the bad jobs numbers because he's probably going to get his rate cut. But let's be clear, 22,000 jobs added in a month is a really bad number. And the downward revisions previously, too, that made it so that June, you actually had negative net negative job creation. And in the sectors where he claims to care the most, so manufacturing job creation has

been down routinely for several months at this point. Right. And before we get to Ryan, I just want to try and to have a little statement here. He says, don't worry if some of the math isn't mathing, the real numbers are coming out a year from now. And he's flanked here by Bill Gates and Zuckerberg. Jobs report coming out, the first since the BLS commissioner who you fired won't be there. A lot of people will be turning to you to see if you believe the data that's released.

Can you commit to saying the data will be credible? I don't know. They come out tomorrow, but the real numbers that I'm talking about are going to be whatever it is, but we'll be in a year from now. With these monstrous, huge, beautiful places, the palaces of genius, and when they start opening up, you're seeing, I think you'll see job numbers that are going to be absolutely incredible. Right now it's a lot of construction numbers.

but you're going to see job numbers like our country has never seen before. So this is, oh, Ryan, you were about to make a point. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead, because I'm going to look up whether construction is down. Construction has actually been down lately, but I don't know if it was this month. I'll look at the. Well, no, so that's actually a very interesting comment for Trump, because rarely do you see a politician basically concede that you're in charitably,

like an adjustment period, meaning you're going to see less than rosy numbers. And I actually think just hearing that from Trump indicates we should probably expect to see pretty bad numbers. If he is already planting the seeds of that. And I mean, this is where I mentioned this a couple of times, but right before House Republicans left for August recess, I was asking a few of them, why were Trump, why was Trump underwater and polling on the economy. And over and over, they said the plan was to pass one big beautiful bill in July

so that behind the midterms a year from then, the economy will have adjusted and people will be feeling the big beautiful bill and feeling the Trump surge and all of that. So it looks like, again, charitably from their perspective, that's what they're going to have to stick to, which is the economy may not be great now, but it's literally being built. So politically, as you go into a midterm cycle, that's a hell of an uphill climb. Yeah.

Well, time is running. I mean, the midterms will be upon us before we know it. And, you know, those cakes are baked before election day. And there's always a lag too on. So let's presume, which I don't think is a safe assumption at all, but that a year from now, things do look up and they're getting better. And we've been through the desert and now things are turning. Like, it takes a while for people to feel,

that and for that to be reflected in their in their voting choices as well. So, but on the other hand, I mean, he's just also trying to rig the election so he doesn't have to really care what voters think about the economy or any other issue, by the way. And this is also reliant on his deportations then like black jobs is really interesting because that's what they think will benefit. Like they actually think those are jobs or those are potential job holders that will benefit from deportations. That's part of their economic plan. for, you know, filling those positions after people are deported. So, I mean, that's a pretty grim sign for them.

So here's the numbers. And so Trump's argument there was, okay, job numbers aren't going to be great. But like a year from now, when all of these companies have re-shored their manufacturing, you know, they're going to be filled with American workers. And so what you're going to see in the data now, he's saying, is some increase in construction because obviously you've got to build all of these gigantic factories that, in his mind, are getting built. But that's not what's happening. So I just looked this up.

So 22,000 jobs overall went up this month. Construction lost 7,000. So it pulled away from it. That's even more stunning. And manufacturing loss 12,000. The construction job loss is even more stunning when you consider how much money is being thrown at these giant data centers,

which do require construction and, you know, are going up in places across the country. So it means, what am I hearing? What am I hearing? And there's the big beautiful bill was full of incentives for construction. So like 100% write-offs dated interactive to January. And that passed in July.

So going down in August is also not ideal. So all goods producing jobs across the board are down 25,000, mining and logging down 6,000, construction 7, manufacturing down 12,000, doorable goods down 19,000, motor vehicles and parts down 7,000, wholesale trade, down 11,000. So the idea that you can see in here the beginnings. of a manufacturing renaissance that a year from now is going to blossom is just not borne out by the data. So I think he's going to have to get this Cato guy out of here or whoever he brought in here and find somebody who's going to give him some better numbers. You can just take these negatives, actually, and just turn him into positives.

Like, it's not a lot of work to fix this data. Well, people always are more fans of the late Renaissance and the early Renaissance, Ryan. So I think you have to hold out a little bit. But let's hear from Fox Business about their view on this renaissance. They hear private payrolls coming in the expectation with $75,000. We got $38,000. And there was a loss of 16,000 jobs in government, which I think Lauren mentioned. But again, you know, that's 22,000 number, Charles.

It's a weaker than expected number. And these revisions are pretty brutal. Yeah, extraordinarily. You know, gone through, I mentioned health care, $31,000. The 12-month average is $42,000. That have been obviously a massive driver. the demographic situation there just a little disappointed manufacturing was hoping to maybe see something there but it's just i think for the most part if there was a whisper number and i'm

sure there was this might be right where the whisper number is and this is a sweet spot i think from the wall from the market's perspective you can see the major averages are moving higher it's not so bad that we think in recession but it's bad enough that we think maybe the fed could be much more accommodative beyond september yeah and i'll add to that they have modeled their plan, or they have tried to soothe themselves about the short-term ramifications of their economic agenda by looking at the recession that occurred early in the Reagan administration, the first Reagan term. And so this idea that there may be a recession sounds, you know, politically very horrifying if you're the Republican Party going into a midterm cycle. And of course,

that's true. But there's been this like balm. They've applied since day. one, looking back at 1981 and where the economy went and saying, it's okay, we can get through it. Ronald Reagan got through it with this dramatic reorganization of the economy. So that's been in the back of their minds the whole time, actually really in the front of their minds the whole time. So they actually believe, like they believe that hype? I think they absolutely believe. I mean, if you look at people like Steve Moore, he's been around since those days. Larry Cudlow. Absolutely.

Well, I mean, we'll see. But I mean, the other piece that is a problem for them is just that the American people don't buy into their economic agenda at all. So, you know, that's if you're going to do a short-term pain for long-term gain thing, first of all, it means to actually deliver that long-term gain, which there are zero signs, is going to happen, as Ryan is pointing out, manufacturing town, construction down, black unemployment. up like these are all the indicators that you they should be able to point to of like oh but things are going to move in the right direction we can already see the impact and so you don't even have the potential you know the likelihood of a long term gain but you have to have a public bought in on that project if you're going to politically sell some short term pain and there's no sign that um you know I mean tariffs are one of the most unpopular things that that Trump has done this term and that's saying

a lot because there have been a lot of unpopular things that have been done. Right. And these are numbers that were put in there by the guy whose job it was to put in good numbers. So we need to remember that. And also, they almost didn't get them out in time. There was all this drama. Yeah, there was drama this morning. The BLS site wasn't working and 30 minutes before the number drops and whatever.

I think Lutnik this morning said something like, if we hadn't fired the person, this would be a fireable offense. Did he really? Yes. That's incredible. Wow. Incredible country. Incredible country that we live in. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, Emily, go for it. Well, no, I was just to say, I think the tariff uncertainty lingering into now August is pretty, my read on all of this is that's just been devastating. It's not that this has to necessarily look like this for a protectionist or an economy that is looking to reorganize and be more protectionist. But I think the way that we're now into fall and there's enormous uncertainty about what these deals actually look like, even after they're done deals and what they'll look like in the future, I think, you know, you can pass one big, beautiful bill all you want, but that lingering uncertainty is going to actually undermine it in a lot of ways and sort of drag it down, even if you have a kind of charitable forecast about what it could do. Well, the courts may save them from themselves if they strike down. all the tariffs and this all goes away.

And Lutnik is always fun. Do we want to do one Lutnik? Let's do it. Then we can get to James O'Keefe. Well, that, I mean, think of the employment. You look at next year's employment. It is going to explode. Next year.

These we're building, all the plants that are coming into America. You know, you look at the unemployment rate numbers today. Wait till a year from today. Wow, it will be amazing number. Well, let's talk about that. We do have a jobs report that's coming out in, oh, over 30 minutes time. 8.30, we're going to get the jobs report. There have been some questions about some weakness kind of popping up in the labor market at this point. What do you see?

Well, the fact is the Trump economy is just beginning, right? I mean, he's convinced all these companies to come in using his tariff policy to just come on in and build here. Way over $10 trillion of investment. So look a year from today. The end of of this year starting and look a year from today, you're going to see employment numbers that you and never imagine because what it's going to do is it's going to take the 6.9 million Americans who are capable of working, who are sitting on the sidelines. All right. So any day. Yeah, that's right. Yes. That is actually amazing that they are acknowledging effectively, like, well, things are going to be bad. But a year from now, just wait. A year from now,

a year from now. The last thing I'll say before I can move on to James Hokeef and Epstein, which Actually, there's a kind of a tie in here, is the clip we played of Trump with Bill Gates and Zuckerberg sitting alongside him. Emily, what would the Wright say if that was Kamala Harris sitting in that chair with Gates and Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai and all those people right there in this very chummy circumstances? Well, the right would reapply the socialist drag from 2021 and talk about how evil corporate America is. And they'd be correct. Donald Trump in that dinner said to the Google CEO, you know, congratulations on, you know, getting off so easy. Oh my God.

With the Department of Justice case. And he reminded him, that was Biden that came after you, not me. Are you serious? It's like Trump is on a, a humiliation tour. But that was, that was Trump 1.0 filed that case. Yes. That was his DOJ. So it's not even true.

It's not even true. Is the humiliation toward a humiliate himself to humiliate anyone who ever supported him, all of the above? I think he's angry that his supporters wanted him to do things. And so he's just thumbing it in their nose that like, you wanted me to go after this guy? It's a billionaire. Yeah.

Who are you? Yeah. Wild. Especially after the gifts. Like once Tim Cook gave the, what was it? He gave him a golden iPad. Yes. What gold?

Yeah. His MAGA fans don't give him gold. Step it up, MAGA fans. They buy fake gold from him, and it's embarrassing. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. Hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself.

My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian

with a story that no one expected to hear. On 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack,

where stand-up comedy and murder Take Center Stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed.

There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. that's harder to predict and even harder to stop.

Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Oh, wait a minute, Sam, maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her.

Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Now hold up, isn't that against school policy? That sounds totally inappropriate. Well, according to this person, this is her boyfriend's former professor and they're the same age. And it's even more likely that they're cheating.

He insists there's nothing between them. I mean, do you believe him? Well, he's certainly trying to get this person to believe him because he now wants them both to meet. So do we find out if this person's boyfriend really cheated with his professor or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. That's right.

Well, Crystal mentioned earlier, you know, belief in the project, belief that in the Trump project. So I think this leads us nicely into trusting the plan a little bit more. We have some breaking news from investigative. What do we call James O'Keefe? Would you call him a hidden cam reporter? That's probably fair. Undercover Undercover

Undercover journalist He uses the dating apps To get his scoops apparently Yeah Which we should actually do more often We got to get on We got to get on field So DOJ deputy chief admits

Government will redact Every Republican While leaving all the liberal Democratic people On the Epstein client list Let's just hear a second of this And then we'll get out of it Exactly

Yeah thousands and thousands to page four five. They'll re-back every Republican or conservative person in those files. We involved the liberal democratic people in those vows. I think they visited that Maxwell person. Yeah.

And also involved. She got transferred to a minimum security person too recently, which is against BOP policy because she's a convicted sex minute. All right. So he says that, James O'Keefe, welcome to the resistance. And then the

DOG chief had to issue a formal response, which I'll pull up here before I get y'all's reactions. This was a U.S. Department of Justice tweet on the notes app for acting director poll. It's an email draft. It's an email draft. It's an email draft. And that airplane, airplane and 30 percent, like, that's all in the original DOJ screenshot. That's great. That's, we're on low battery and low confidence.

So, read the first line. The acting director of Pollock. It's not the phone. It's that the DOJ is at 30% battery. Yes, that's right. So acting director Pollock says, in his words, I met a woman named Skyler on the hinge, a dating app in July 2025. Her profile is no longer findable.

We had two dates, August 4th and August 16th. She claimed to be an uphear in Georgetown, many such cases. Skylar. She gave no clues that she was a reporter. Come on. Skyler the Georgetown O'Pair She gave no clues That she was a reporter

Or recording our dates Had I a clue The first date would have ended immediately And there would never be a second one My profile indicated I did government Work but did not specify for which agency The comments I made were my own personal comments Of what I've learned in the media

And not from anything I've done Or learned via work I have no knowledge of the circumstances Surrounding Miss Maxwell Other than what is reported in the news I also never divulged anything About what I do at work I recall that she asked if I had any knowledge about Maxwell

and I specifically said I only know what's being reported in the media So yeah I mean Outside of all this I just don't think talking about Epstein is first date material I don't think that's a first date topic You don't think it's a good litmus test Also I have Googled this and Google confirms

Skyler is an American name developed in the 1980s Oh wow Isn't that the name of the wife in Breaking Bad? That's right. Her name, Skyler. She was kind of unjustly maligned. People hated her. Yeah.

Yes. But I think retro-history looks back on her more kindly, I think. I actually, at MSNBC, I interviewed her about like the way that, yeah, the hate she got for this character she was playing anyway. That's neither here nor there. That's awesome, actually. Yeah. But, I mean, listen, let's say about James O'Keefe.

Like, he uses very dishonest tactics, not only in the, like, hidden camera and trick you into a date on hinge or whatever, but he's been caught in the past, taking whatever audio it gets, clipping it together in a way that makes it look, you know, actively deceptive or, you know, very misleading in terms of it. So is it possible that this guy was saying what he had heard generally in the news and what his conclusions were? Yeah, I think that it, I actually think that is possible that that was what he was talking about. I also think it's a very bad sign. If you're, you know, someone that high up in the DOJ thinks that's what's going on, that's a pretty bad indication of, you know, people that are at that high level of government who are watching this unfold and are like, yeah, of course, you're going to just get rid of all the Republican names and leave in the Democratic ones.

And obviously, Galane got transferred because they wanted her to shut the hell up. You know, if that's a conclusion they're coming to, then it does tell you something, even if he's right and he has no special knowledge of this case or these files or whatever. Which isn't true. Like, there's no way he has no special knowledge. I agree with you, Crystal. It's entirely possible. Like, O'Keefe has found some legitimately interesting stuff.

We mentioned earlier the Amy Robot comment from when the cameras were rolling, but they weren't live on ABC talking about how the network killed her Epstein story. I think she said something, like, quote, I had it all. She was really frustrated. That's an O'Keefe. But other times there's like really obvious or not obvious. I mean, really problematic editing that's not obvious because you haven't seen what you don't know what you haven't seen, basically. So is it possible that he caught out this guy saying, hey, I heard this from everything I'm saying here is just from public media.

I don't have any insight, not sure. But it's unlikely that a man this high up in the Department of Justice, actually even the like the people in the lower rungs at the Department of Justice right now are all absorbing the gossip. You could be the janitor at the Department of Justice, and you would be absorbing. I mean, you would probably know a lot, actually, be absorbing the vibes in the mood. But if you're in this guy's position, it's just not true. Even if he's parroting what he's hearing in the media, then that's just validating the truth of what's being reported in the media because it rings true to somebody who's that high up. You also got to leave, you got to leave a few Republicans in there if you're going to do it at cover up, right? Like, you know, to quote, like, Bain, they got to find someone in the wreckage, right?

You got to leave, like, someone's got to be the sacrificial lamb here. No, they don't think that way. They have no shame. You could leave like Chris Christie in there. Yeah, come on. There's got to be a never-trumper on there. Why is Christi catching strays this morning, Ryan? Oh, because I saw Trump's AI video of Christy and J.B. Pritzker sumo wrestling.

Oh, my God. That's a real sentence. That left a different. I have both those men. The sentence that just came out of Ryan's mouth reflects reality. Yes, the President of the United States did post an AI video

of Chris Christie and J.B. Pritzker Sumo wrestling. That actually did happen. Yeah. Yeah. That did happen. But no, I don't think that they do think, like, oh, we need to leave someone in there

to make it seem like this is legit. And they don't think that way. I mean, Trump went from saying on the trail, like, we're going to release it and playing it up and, you know, Bonino and all cash fatalities, people hyping it up and, like, making lots of money and careers off of it to be in, like,

two-page memo, nothing to see here. By the way, he killed himself. Case closed. And it's a Democrat hoax, by the way, ginned up by like Hillary Clinton and James Comey. So there's no need for them to feel like they need to be consistent. In fact, like we can already see the MAGA base has moved. Like, they bought it. They've moved on.

So for them, it's over for the general public. And for, you know, certainly for Democrats at this point, they're very interested in it. But in terms of him losing support among his hardcore fans, Not happening. Democrats are semi-interested in it. I don't know how interested the Democrats are.

Yeah, that's true. That is true. Well, I was going to say it is true, and I think it's probably always been true, that Trump's polling public support is not, the needle won't be moved significantly by Epstein stuff. But it is interesting to see, for example, like Marjor Taylor Green going on newsmax and talking about, Thomas Massey going on newsmax and talking about a cover-up and seeing James O'Keefe, somebody who's very MAGA, continuing to chase the story like a dog with a bone,

those are the sorts of things, I think we talked about it here, that are not going away because so many people staked, you know, years of their own credibility saying, or their own quote credibility in some cases saying, this is the story of the century that reveals and exposes everything wrong with the corrupt class. Like it was the Rosetta Stone, you know, like this will unlock the understanding of everything that's been going on. Emily, is there anything else going on with James O'Keefe? Like, I don't remember the details

of how his organization fell apart. I remember there were, like, lawsuits. There were allegations of misbehavior and like just generally sort of like degenerate behavior. I think there was like misuse of funds. He was using funds for like his musical interests or something. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The dance numbers. I forgot about that. But I was just curious if that

if that rupture had created any, you know, friction between him. and anyone in Maga World or what your sense of any of that is? No, that's a good point. I mean, it was basically a power struggle internally at Project Veritas, which had a pretty like heavyweight board of directors and conservative movement circles. So some of those ties definitely did fracture. It was just like ugly.

Some of those things it was ugly on both sides. People were weaponizing information and just was like nasty, nasty stuff. So that might contribute to it. There's no love loss between him. but, and some of those types. I'm trying to think of a specific person that he would have a big grudge against. But he's, I mean, he has been fairly, like, MAGA pro-Trump. I think he's one of those people that because he followed the Epstein story

before there was a Trump cover-up is in the position where he has to keep chasing it. Otherwise, you know, if you're, if you have any, I mean, if you, if you want to have any credibility, you just will, you would look insane to drop it if you're him because he's poured so much into it. Yeah, I guess. Although, I mean, like, you know, it takes a lot to arrange these different undercover kind of like sting operations. He could have pursued any number of other

topics, paths, et cetera. And it would not have been obvious of like, oh, well, you're just, you're not even focused on Epstein anymore. You know what I mean? Like, if he had revealed some other liberal, democratic thing, it's not like people would have seen that as a failure to cover Epstein. They just would have seen that for whatever that thing would be. So,

I don't know. I find it interesting. I mean, there's also, um, there is a lane open now on the right. That's like the Groyper lane. Um, you saw the, you know, the Tucker lane. Yeah, the Tucker lane. The Gryper lane. The, um, what's his name? Owen Schreier. Is that his name over on info. Schroyer, yeah, who just like quit info wars and Alex Jones is crashing out over it. And he says that Alex had told him he was too pessimistic about Trump. And the implication was he was being kind of censored in his Trump critique and also in his Israel critique. So there is, I mean, there is some media fracturing that is happening on that side that is different. And I think it's part the Trump project is going to in some way come to an end at some point. It's part things are

not going the way they wanted to. I do think Epstein is a big part of that too, because if you have any sort of integrity around this, you have to acknowledge that it's a total and complete betrayal of the way this man portrayed himself as some deep state warrior. that now he's like, well, my name's in the file, so we're not going to be, we're not going to be exposing those anytime soon. Or it's a hoax, too. Yeah, it feels like a safe attack because I think these guys know at the end of the day, well, you know, Trump will find someone else to blame.

So we can blame Pam Bondi or we can blame someone at the DOJ and then fire them. So it doesn't feel like a direct attack on Trump. That's true. So I feel like there's some safety in it. And it is like their, it's their bread and butter issue. So, you know, they can't really drop it. Emily mentioned Thomas Massey, still kind of holding a flame for this stuff. And Thomas Massey is beginning to name names. Let's hear a clip right here from Thomas Massey, who is naming one of the billionaires.

Oh, let me give you the name of one of the billionaires who's running $2 million of ads in my district since I started this effort. His name is John Paulson. He's a hedge fund manager and a major donor to the Republican Party, a major donor to the Republican Party, a major donor to the Speaker of the House, a major donor to the president's campaign, and he's in Epstein's Black Book. Now, that's public, but that's indicative of the types of people who may be implicated or just embarrassed by a release of, a completely release of these files. Very interesting. Ryan, isn't Paulson the guy who shorted the housing market?

Mm-hmm. That's right. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, became a multi, multi-billionaire back when being that rich wasn't, uh, as common as it is now by betting on everybody, by betting on the financial. Maybe Epstein gave him that advice. And that's why he was so valuable to these guys. Did you ever think of that, Ryan?

I have, in fact. How did he know? When Crystal, you were saying some people saw this as the Rosetta Stone, it's like, well, I mean, that's why we care about it. Because maybe in some ways it is a Rosetta Stone. I mean, it certainly could unlock a lot of, a lot of. lot of it would even if it did turn out he's not he wasn't massad he wasn't cia like he really just just was this horrific you know monster pedophile who separate and apart from that also had an interest in like cultivating powerful people just for the hell of it even if that turns out

to be the case that is still so revealing about the american criminal justice system that this man was able to get away with all of that just because of his wealth and his proximity to power like That also is, I mean, I don't, it wouldn't be that surprising, but I will say when you go back and look at what was going on in Palm Beach and the investigation with the local PD, like, they weren't going to let him off the hook because of they knew he was wealthy. They knew he was connected to all these people. And they weren't going to let him off the hook. It's when it gets elevated to, you know, above their heads that he ends up with this sweetheart deal. And that to me is the center of why it's always been so suspicious. The analysis of, well, he's just a rich guy. And that's what happens. happens to rich guys in America, they get away with a lot. True. Do they get away with, you know, trafficking allegedly hundreds of girls over years and years? And, you know, having this vast network over all of this time and still being able to get into every elite circle imaginable, including the highest levels of, you know, academia and business and government here and in Israel, by the way. You know, I think that is that is the part that is very, we'll just say,

eyebrow raising at best. But yeah, even if it's the, you know, the thinnest level of the conspiracy, that there was no other large, it wasn't a blackmail scheme. It was just him being a monster. And now it was contained effectively to him. There were no other powerful people who were implicated in this kind of gross behavior. Even if it's that, it still is very revealing and important information for us all to understand about the way the system works. My name is Ed. Everyone say hello, Ed. From a very rural background myself, my dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin, so like it's not like...

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. The 22nd of July 2015. A 23-year-old man. had killed his family.

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of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Well, wait a minute, Sam. Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her.

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Well, on that note, let's get to some other ways this system is working. working or not working. We have our friend, our breaking points, extended universe character RFK Jr., here, who is a hearing. He's a big fan of mine, I think, in particular. He is. Listen, family, family fights, you know, but we love, we show up on the holidays for each other. So lots of clips here from this RFK Jr. hearing where, can anyone give a brief primer on this hearing and what RFK Jr.'s kind of new initiative around vaccines is? is? So this is the Senate Finance Committee, and he got a pretty tough grilling from both

Republicans and Democrats, Bernie Sanders, Ronald Wyden, Maggie Hassan, these guys just really went in on him. And so we have some of the highlights of those interactions. And this is Tina Smith of Minnesota. Let's start with this one, yeah. Even if it's untrue. So last time you were before Congress, Secretary Kennedy, you claimed, and I quote, I have never been anti-vax. I have never told the public to avoid a vaccination, but in a podcast, you said the opposite. You said there's no vaccine that is safe and effective. So that sure sounds anti-vaxed to me, Secretary Kennedy. So let me ask you, when were you lying, sir? When you told this committee that you were not anti-vax, when you told Americans that there's no safe

and effective vaccine? Both things are true. Oh, so more denial, more back and forth. I mean, here's what I know. Here's what I know. Let me explain why, Senator. you know actually i want you to listen to me okay go ahead so so we've got that one here um and then yeah let's roll through these scripts so people get a flavor yeah let me get a favor so this next one very interesting we'll have a lot to talk about um is about operation warp speed and if president trump deserves the nobel uh prize for this uh operation let's uh let's take a look Republican Bill Cassidy. This is a doctor, not as a senator.

I am concerned about children's health, senior's health, all of our health. I applaud you to join the president in a call for radical transparency. Thank you for that. I said yesterday, I believe it, that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed.

If he had been President Obama, he would have gotten it. But because of Operation Warp Speed, forcing the federal government to come to a vaccine development within 10 months when others said it couldn't be done. We saved millions of lives globally, trillions of dollars. We reopened economies, an incredible accomplishment. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with me that the president, that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?

Absolutely, Senator. Let me ask you. But you just told Senator Bennett that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID. Wait, that was a statement. I did not say that. Let me ask, because you also... Senator, I just want to make clear. I cannot say that. We'll check the record. That's a question of fact. You also said that you are also, as lead attorney for the children's health defense,

you engage in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when as an attorney, you attempted to restrict access. All right. So Operation Warf Speed. I have to say. Warfleet is good but also bad. Yeah, let's talk a little bit about that one because it makes sense that a Republican

would be the one with the most devastating question in a way because they would understand sort of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities from a Republican perspective. And this has always been such a central contradiction of, you know, Operation Warp Speed genuinely was. We covered it. This was back at rising. We covered it very positively at the time. You know, it was one of the, you know, only examples I can think of in modern history

post-new deal where you really did have. have the federal government sort of like all oars rowing this direction, doing what it took to get this vaccine together, get it rolled down. It was a genuinely impressive thing. And Trump himself was for a long time, very proud of it. Now he's starting to back away himself from whether or not he put on some truth about, you know, I don't know if I got the right information at the time or something to that effect. And so Kennedy is trapped between, you know, slavish devotion to the dear leader and his anti-vax crankery in this question, which is what makes it so impossible.

It puts him in a logic chokehold, we'll say the framing of this question. And I have no doubt that he did because he said similar things earlier in the hearing say that the COVID vaccine has killed millions for than it ultimately saved. So you can't both think that Operation Warp Speed was glorious and the dear leader deserves a Nobel Prize for it

and that this thing was like a devastating scourge to humanity that killed millions of people. I thought that Kennedy got the better of Ron Wyden and Bernie Sanders in these hearings, but to your point, Crystal, Bill Cassidy is the reason that Robert of Kennedy Jr. is HHS Secretary because he basically traded his vote for an agreement that RFK Jr. would submit to being babysat by Bill Cassidy, essentially, who's a doctor and sort of sees himself as a responsible repulsively. steward of public health. And for Cassidy to be, I mean, to actually like really deliver that devastating blow is pretty

fascinating this early because, again, Cassidy wants, for his own sake, RFK Jr. to work out. He is the one who delivered him to HHS without his vote. He wouldn't be there. Yeah, and what a fool. Because, I mean, if you really were convinced that RFK Jr. was going to, you know, reform on the issue of vaccines or really care once he's in there what you think, Senator Cassidy, about what the right course of action is. Like, I just, I think, I don't think that he really believed that. I think he hoped it was true. But ultimately, he felt pressure to go

along with who Trump wanted as his picks. And so he put his own political positioning, because he knows how devastating it can be to go against Trump, against his judgment as a doctor. And so he put up a performative display of reluctance. But at the the end of the day, just like everybody else, he went along in spite of his, you know, significant and genuine reservations. The vaccine stuff, yeah, I mean, that was obvious because the point he's making there, I mean, he could have, he could have made that point, Cassie could have made that point during the confirmation hearings.

That's right. And he was between a rock and a hard place, obviously, which is that, I mean, first all, he's from Louisiana, not a healthy state. And this is what RFK Jr. was telling, Ron White. Biden yesterday they had an exchange where, again, I think Kennedy kind of owned him from the political strategist perspective, where he was like, dude, you've been sitting in Congress since the mid-1990s and all of these rates have continued to go up. Well, Bill Cassidy has been in Congress for a long time and is a representative of a very unhealthy state. So when we're not

talking about vaccines, RFK Jr., I think has a more, a stronger argument when you start talking about vaccines, this guy is on the record over and over again. And I'm talking about the politics of this, talking about how COVID killed, the COVID vaccine killed people in mass. That's impossible to swear with Trump's position on operational warp speed. Impossible. And it looks like the exchange that Cassidy is referring to, he did not say outright that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID. It sounds like Bennett said to him, are you aware, are you aware that one of the new members? And so the context for this entire thing is that Kennedy kicked a whole bunch of scientists off of the key committee that makes recommendations around vaccines as replacing them with what people think are, you know, cranks and quacks.

And so one of these people is this guy, Dr. Retzeth-Levy, who is outspoken, unapologetic opponent of MRNA vaccines. And so he said, are you aware that one of these new members, Dr. Levy, wrote that, quote, evidence is mounting it indisputable that MRNA vaccines caused serious harm, including death, especially among young people. And Kennedy said, I wasn't aware of that. I agree with it. And so Cassidy took that.

Now, there certainly have been killed people who have been killed by the MRNA vaccine and badly hurt by it like that you can google that like that's that's true the idea that's more than a number of people killed by covid i don't i don't even think levy um says that but and there's a battle going on here between who what scientists you like or not we've got a clip here on that uh all over the country scientists doctors saying otherwise they're all wrong too let's take i politicized i depliticized it congress has been investigating all over the countries Secretary, scientists and doctors are saying otherwise. They're all wrong too. They're all lying, according to you. A scientist and doctors are supporting me all of the country. Oh, there is

division on opinion. I don't get letters from thousands of people who are not political saying that this set of changes is going to damage American health care and particularly these health care agencies for decades to come. I don't get any letters to people saying. make a big difference forever and maybe you're listening to a selective group of people you get you get me yeah and i will i i will tell you what senator i got i will put my mailbag against your mailbag i got any day of the way i don't really even know what that means but that mailbag you know i'm going to start using it Emily i'll put my mailbag against your mouth back any day the kids call it going bag for bag um so you know

But yeah, they're saying, oh, well, he's got doctors and scientists. They say they're supporting him, but there is division of opinion. Yeah, well, and he actually, he says to Wyden, like, oh, you're being selective. When in reality, RFK will find the like one person, the entire fucking country who has any kind of credential who agrees with him. And then be like, there's a division of opinion. And I just have him to side with this one guy who says this one, like, insane thing. And but, you know, both sides have a point. Let's debate it out.

So he, you know, his projection, like he accuses Wyden of the precise thing that he does. And I just, I have zero patience for any of this. Maha people, you were betrayed. You were fooled. It's the truth. And whatever you think about vaccines, like put that aside. I mean, first of all, you're insane to put it aside because it's been one of the greatest, most important inventions of modern medicine.

And the defunding of the, the RNA vaccine trials that they were, you know, the research they were doing means they were developing a potential MRI vaccine. for cancer and that's now off the table. Okay. So congratulations for that. Florida's now said there's no vaccine requirements for kids. So fucking congratulations for that. Put all of that aside. Okay. This is the administration that cut health care that is going to deny millions of people health care. Is that maha? This is the administration that is rolling back all of the regulations on food and health safety. Is that fucking maha? Okay. We're talking about Louisiana. A big part of there are many reasons why Louisiana has chronic poor health. One of them is

the fact that you've got a bunch of toxic chemical plants that are constantly polluting and so you have cancer alley something that rfk in another life might have cared about guess what this administration is rolling back the regulations on those types of companies so instead they run around and saga has done been the loudest voice on this like oh now we've got cane sugar in coke oh now your fruit loops aren't going to have the same dyes oh now you can eat your french fries with beef tallow so it's To me, I have zero use for any of this. I think it's all nonsense. And by the way, like, yes, you're pointing to an important problem,

which is America is dramatically unhealthy. The fact that you aren't even talking about, the fact that we have so, like such a disgusting healthcare system, for profit health care system tells me you're a fraud to begin with. And then second of all, he gets in there and is just making the problem worse, laying off anyone who was doing anything good and had potential for improvement in the future. So I'm just, I am so disgusted with this man in particular and with all the lies and the circus that's built up around him, I just have no use for it whatsoever. There's also a huge opening here for anybody who wanted to take it because a lot of the Maha world, like, actually completely agrees with you at this moment.

And they're losing their mind. They're like, there's a segment that kind of from the 80s or 90s that really, that. bought into that like woo-woo autism and vaccine stuff but it's a vast vast minority of what makes up maha like the maha people care about what you're talking about the toxins the chemicals the plastics the additives the the corruption of the food industry and and the corruption of pharma uh vaccine fight is that's not what they're here for but that some of them like are skeptical definitely of like that's true going overboard and being like oh we're giving the

mRNA vaccine to five-year-olds like no we don't need to do that like you guys are being too too crazy about that stuff COVID overreach yeah okay fine but there but the Maha movement is not about

getting rid of the MMR vaccine or or otherwise just going to war the vaccine so I think if Democrats had their finger on the pulse of this they could get in and be like who's the one who's in the tank for pharma here

like that's the other funny thing It's like this big fight about the hepatitis vaccine. If you end up with hepatitis, that's great for the healthcare industry. You're now sick your entire life. And you'll see morons out there being like, oh, because you know, because you're promoting this vaccine and women who are giving birth, you're in the tank for the pharmaceutical industry. It's like a $50 vaccine.

Mm-hmm. It's not pharmaceutical industry is not trying, it's not like desperately trying to like sell that vaccine. In fact, if you get sick, because you didn't take that vaccine, they benefit. That's right. So, so Democrats have all sorts of lanes where they could drive this. So Ryan, where do you make then of this polling then? If you say mahas against this, we have new polling here from Harry Ent and it says RFK Jr. is actually the most popular member of Trump's admin. Let's take a listen. It's still minus seven. Long, I've been saying Kennedy could be the most embattled member of the cabinet.

it. Fact check me here. No, I think that's a false. That's a false. That's a Daniel Dale fact check for you. False on that. What are we talking about here? Net favorable ratings of key Trump officials. Look at this. A strong name. R.K. Jr. ain't exactly popular, but he's the most popular of all the key officials that we have recently. Unpopular. Yeah. I mean, we can pause this. I mean, these guys like those other guys, I also would support honestly putting RFK Jr. in like that pecking order because the other ones are all like starting wars and invading American cities and, you know, threatening to invade Venezuela right now. So, okay, fair.

I'm doing genocides. So, okay, fair enough. RFK Jr. is not currently committing a genocide. So I'll give him his minus seven. Yeah. I mean, I don't know where, like, I have seen some of the Maha upset for sure in feeling like they got sold a bill of goods. And I do think that that sentiment exists.

And I also think it, to your point, Ryan, like, it is important for Democrats to pick up on uh yes this sense in the population of both the betray you know with with big pharma and the you know the toxins and and just the sense of you can see how many americans are are unhealthy you know and dramatically so i mean the truth of matter is though like uh probably the the biggest innovation is like ozempic which apparently has all sorts of benefits for people and is a you know solution for obesity is a very like non-maha solution but um you know an ozempic for all as part of Medicare for all, I think would go a long way, honestly, to making America a lot healthier as a sad truth of the matter. And then there should be, you know, in my opinion,

we need a like a genuine renewal of public facilities where people can, you know, have community and play sports and a major investment in that and making that a big part of our sort of like public pride and public presence. And, you know, that's another thing that Democrats could potentially pursue. I will say I have some sympathy for. them because remember the way Michelle Obama was treated when she tried to like make the school lunches more healthy they acted like I was pissed about that because I was in high school and they took away the vending machines yeah they acted like this was like you know a like Pearl Harbor or something you know it was like totally insane so I kind of understand why they're a little

reticent on that front but it's time to get back in the game guys well yeah so I just I actually think that's a really really really important point because Bernie has Bernie is so very viscerally, I think with you, Crystal, on the Maha, like, fraud line that he cannot stand the site of RFK Jr. basically. And I relate to that. And that's probably true of, yeah, probably true of many people. But I also think that, I mean, Bernie and RFK Jr. have been on the same page until RFK Jr.'s Trump turn for years, like to your point about Cancer Alley, Louisiana, RFK Jr. suing to clean up the Hudson River. Like, this was his thing.

And I think it's really dangerous for Dems to look like they're on the side. I think Ron Wyden came across, like, he was on the side of the public health status quo, or at least ceded that, the anti-establishment ground to RFK Jr. Because I just don't think Dems have fully developed their response to Maha yet, which has brought actual, like, you see it if you go to like Maha events. I've covered a couple of them. it's the hippie to maha pipeline. Like, it really is a lot of people from the left who won't vote Republican in the future.

Like, this is to some extent the grassroots, there are some, like, grassroots, like, hippie, Bernie types who are running in these circles because they think, they look around and they're like, well, RFK Jr. might be bananas, but Dems are defending the status quo. And that looks bad, but RFK Jr. another thing is he's getting criticized by the hardcore Maha people. who are flaming him right now for not banning the COVID vaccine because it's committing like mass MRI genocide. Like he, I mean, it's just a, Maha is a mess. Yeah. And some of it seems to be sticking. I mean, we've got another poll here.

Emily, you shared this one. Support for vaccinating kids is dropping. Let's take a listen that we have seen. Okay, fax kids against infectious diseases, the government should require it. You go back to 1991. It was 81%. Okay. Then we go to 2019.

at 62%. Look at where that number fell to by 2024. It was just 51. That is 30 point drop from 34 years ago. My goodness gracious. So what do we make of that? Do you think people are when they are responding to this question? Do you think they're thinking of just specifically the COVID vaccine or are they thinking about polio? Are they thinking about these other ones that these classic back to school of vaccines? I think they're thinking about all of them. And I think it personally, I think it's a sign of like societal and moral collapse. We're such a we have been fed such a line of individualism over so many years that people think their individual right to be an anti-vax crank trumps the right of a community to keep itself safe and protect children or those who are immunocompromised or the elderly

or pregnant women or others who are unable to get certain vaccines at certain times. And so I genuinely like I don't want to overblow, but I really do feel this way. I think it is a of societal collapse that we give so little of a shit about our fellow human beings that we are willing to put, you know, some bullshit we read on the internet over our ability to keep people who are vulnerable safe. Like we, we are losing the ability to even see our fellow community members as human beings who deserve the slightest bit of courtesy and attention. And to me, it truly is this like dead end of a intensely indebted. individualistic capitalist project where it's just all about you and your rights and your individual freedoms while you're of course being crushed from above. And that's like that's what you're being sold in lieu of being able to have a good job, a good life, buy a house, etc. But is it individual or is it a systemic issue where, you know, how many of these people are seeing a primary care physician often? How many of these people feel like they have access to a doctor they like or trust or feel like isn't ripping them off? It feels. Yeah, I mean, you're not saying anything different from me, though, really, because what you're talking about is the fact that we have, I mean, the fact that we don't have a universal health care system is exactly part of the overall systemic push towards the individual of like, it's your responsibility to make sure you can pay thousands of fucking dollars a month to get your health insurance that's still going to be crappy and still going to fail you when you need it the most. So that's that exactly what you're describing is part of the system that, yes, leads people. to frankly insane conclusions about um if you do it's like do your own research stuff like it's well

if you do get sick and you're a poor person that you didn't do your research that's kind of your individual responsibility to figure it out on your own and you know us rich people will be fine but like yeah if if polio spreads you didn't you didn't read the blog or whatever i think this gets to the crystal's point about societal collapse i don't disagree with that at all because the trust institutions is just rock bottom i mean it is so incredibly low that people aren't going to trust I don't think people trust RFK Jr. To your point about having the highest rating, but still being down minus seven,

there's just a niche of the country who trusts him. There's a niche of the country who's trusting, you know, New York Times and niche of the country who doesn't trust any of it or like a fractured segment of the country. And so everyone's floating in different pieces now. Nobody trusts anyone. So collective action becomes almost impossible, even though the paradoxes,

it's also necessary to be part of a country. country. Yeah. No, that's it. You said it much more gently than I did, but I agree with all of that, Emily. Yeah. I mean, I'm just, I don't know, I'm, I'm very, this will be a good true. We can transition to the premium show. We can talk about Zoron, which is to me like the glimmer of hope of people like once again putting their faith in some sort of a collective project. And the fact that it's possible in New York City, where, you know, famous for a lot of jaded people and with a lot of groups that have either checked out of the political system or, you know, we're voting for Trump or, you know, exploring other ideologies to me,

even though I know it's just quote unquote New York City, but it does show that there is a possibility of a restoration of a collective project, in my opinion. And so, yeah, we'll be doing that and more. A better world is possible in the premium paywall half of the show today. Revolutionary hope lies Pay your way to a better world That's right And folks

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It's my, it's my favorite. I love, I love the tech questions. It's the best part of this job. All right, uh, folks, we'll see you there. I just normally do straight stand up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what?

Show they've come to see. It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam.

Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, luckily, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend's been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know each other, but I just want her gone. Hold up. Isn't that against school policy? That seems inappropriate. Maybe find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new Christmas toys. everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.