Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/8/22: Trump Docs, Ukraine Counteroffensive, Fetterman vs Oz, California Grid, Quiet Quitting, Life Expectancy, & More!

Episode Date: September 8, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the Trump documents, Ukraine war developments, PA Senate campaign, Las Vegas journalist killed, Steve Bannon indictment, California grid, quiet quitting, life expectancy, & more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Opening: [e-mail] Derek Thompson: https://www.theatlantic.com/category/work-progress/ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plain-english-with-derek-thompson/id1594471023  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Lots of interesting stuff this morning. New revelations about just what sort of documents Trump was keeping at Mar-a-Lago. They continue to. There was a big leak to prove just how extraordinary these circumstances are. So we'll give you all of those details. Also, Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, who was, you know, by his side through the Russia gate stuff and defended him in a lot of instances when he was attorney general. He is now making some pretty extraordinary comments about just how much evidence there is against Trump, about how he thinks that the DOJ could be close to having enough for an indictment,

about also responding to people calling him a rhino, which is kind of preposterous. So we'll play those comments for you as well. Also new developments out of Ukraine. Putin actually going and giving a big speech. Some interesting things there. They're buying weapons and sort of refueling and restocking from North Korea. So what does all of that mean? New developments in that Pennsylvania Senate race between Fetterman and Oz.

Oz, as we've been reporting, has been more aggressively going after Fetterman on his health, pushing him to debate. Fetterman says he will debate. So I think all eyes will be on that. Only in October. Yeah, all eyes will be on that moment when that comes down in October. Crazy, crazy story out of the state of Nevada, Las Vegas specifically. This dogged investigative reporter, really phenomenal reporter there in Las Vegas who had looked into mob ties and the Las Vegas shooter and all kinds of corruption, all kinds of stories, was murdered at his house. Now they have arrested a politician who had been the subject of this reporter's investigations, and he had just foiled

some new documents on this politician. This guy is now arrested in connection with this murder. Absolutely insane story. Finally, we've got some developments for Steve Bannon, who has been indicted in the state of New York. The reporting suggests it's related to this, what is it called? Rebuild the Wall. Rebuild the Wall. Rebuild the Wall fundraising grift where they raised all kinds of money from Trump backers and supporters with the idea we're going to go out and build the border wall. And then they never did and said they like bought themselves yachts and things like that. Derek Thompson will be back on the show talking about how America is a rich death trap.

It's not just on COVID. It's on basically every metric. Americans die at quicker and at higher rates than other developed nation peers. Gun deaths, overdoses, car accidents, all of the above. What is going on there and what critically can we do about it? But before we get to that, we've got a little discount for you. That's right. Don't forget, CounterPoints is launching next Friday with Ryan Grimm and Emily Jashinsky to celebrate that. And in order to really just not fund this show, but even further operations, as a reminder, we're hiring somebody as well. We're giving a 10%

discount on the annual membership. Now, as we've said before, that money, annual membership specifically, help realize the cash immediately and help us be able to plan all the way out into the future. It's tremendously helpful to us. I don't know if that doesn't take a genius to figure out that things are up and down in the advertising markets, YouTube ad revenue, podcast ad revenue, all that stuff comes and goes. You cannot bank on it whatsoever. The only people that you can bank on are you. And we always appreciate the way that you guys show up for us. So there is a link down in the description. And again, it will run until October 6th. We deeply, deeply appreciate all of you who have stepped up. And if you can, there's a link right there. So thank you all again. Let's

get to the show. Yeah. Thank you guys guys to those of you who have already done it. The response has been really, really appreciated. So thank you for that. And make sure if you're able to go ahead and jump on that discount. Okay, let's get to the very latest in the Trump-Mar-a-Lago document FBI situation. So last time we spoke, the judge had ruled against the government and had ruled in favor of Trump and said, hey, we're going to go forward with appointing a special master to sort through all of these documents. And kind of, you know, punting on the question of whether a former president can assert executive privilege,

but leaving open the door to such a claim. So the government, having taken that law, sort of said, OK, that's fine. How about we leak another little juicy nugget to the press here? And this is pretty eye-opening. Let's go ahead and put this Washington Post report up on the screen. Here they say, material on foreign nations' nuclear capabilities was seized at Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of this bombshell report. They say, a document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump's residence and private club last month,

underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified materials stashed at that property. Some of those seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his cabinet, or a near-cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special access programs. According to people familiar with the search, documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis. So you can't, it's not just you have top-secret clearance. You have to have top-secret clearance and then get, like, special authorization on top of that to be able to view and even know about these documents.

They are kept not just in the skiff, but under lock and key inside the skiff. So it's like a skiff inside a skiff, but under lock and key inside the skiff. So it's like a skiff inside a skiff. That's how sensitive these documents allegedly are, according to this report. And of course, we had previously, we had previously, I think Washington Post also had the leak earlier that there was some nuclear related documents here. So now we're getting a little more specificity about exactly what that means. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. Just underscoring how sensitive these are. This was part of what made this such an eye-opening revelation that some seized docs were so closely held.

Only the president, a cabinet or near cabinet level official, could authorize others to know. And Sagar, previously they had also reported that some of the FBI agents involved had to get special clearances in order to be able to deal with some of the documents that were seized. They don't say where these documents were taken from. We know that most of the documents were either in the storage room or in President Trump's office. We don't know where these particular documents were. It's also important to remember that, you know, Trump has been hosting all kinds of characters in his office. There's photos of him with like Nigel Farage in his office, with Bolsonaro's son in his office, with Ray J for some reason in his office. So if these sensitive

documents were kept there, there have been all kinds of both, you know, domestic national and foreign nationals coming in and out of that office. So that's part of why I guess the FBI and the government felt they needed to take this extraordinary action. Yes. Well, don't forget esteemed characters like Kodak Black as well. I mean, whenever we're talking about nuclear weapons now that we know it's about a foreign country, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's only nine countries with nukes. Russia, China, the United States, France, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, if you believe some reports. Okay, so it involves one of them. My bet, and I continue to believe this, based on everything that you and I had learned and also talked with some people in the know previously, is it still has to involve Russiagate.

Now, think why. There's also a story that came out last night in Rolling Stone that Trump had told White House team he needed to, quote, protect Russiagate documents, which he called his, quote, evidence of a deep state plot against him. You combine that, you combine the fact that Tom Fitton is involved over at Judicial Watch of Russiagate, absolute obsessive. Many of these others who said that Trump wanted and had a deep connection to these, combined also with all of this, not only foreign nuclear capability, but they said programs that are so special that nobody else knew about. I recall that based on the initial ODNI investigation, when they were like, we determined that Putin himself ordered this, there were leaks out at the time that this was a result of human intelligence from a source all the way up in

the most highest circle of Putin's advisors. And so you put these things together, of course, a human intelligence classified source in Putin's inner circle, that would be one of the most sensitive areas. If you think back to some of the other famous Soviet spies that we had, it was actually very similar in terms of how we used to handle that type of information. And it would also make sense that that person would be giving the U.S. information, as we always have had spies in Russia. And what we care most about is what their nuclear capabilities, their cruise missiles, and all that are. I'm just speaking from pure speculation. Could be North Korea, could be Iran too. Wouldn't surprise me if it was North Korea. Trump had a deep obsession with North Korea as well. Yeah, I really don't know.

I really don't know. And it's also possible because there's a lot of documents overseas. I mean, we're talking about, you know, what was it? Hundreds of classified documents, but then thousands of just government documents overall. So it could be some of this is Russiagate related. Some of it we know was like Kim Jong-un's love letters and things that he found like special for whatever reason and wanted to keep as just like mementos as his time as president. And so it could be a mix of a lot of different things. I have no idea. Could be

related to Saudi. It could be Israel. We also know that there was information there reportedly about, like, Macron's love life, like dirt on Macron. Could be France. I mean, like, I genuinely— See, that I would support declassification. I genuinely don't know. But, you know, this is another—what I took from this report, first of all, is like, okay, this is— it was possible that the nuclear documents that had been reported before were actually no big deal. Because you can imagine

things that are really, really, really sensitive. And then you can imagine things that are like kind of common knowledge and publicly reported already and not actually that big of a deal. This seems like the government's attempt to once again, to the public, make the case that like, no, no, no, these documents were a big deal. This was on the side of super, super, super sensitive, closely held secrets that could only be viewed by the highest level of government officials on a need to know only basis. And so the fact that the government is clearly trying to make this case in the public sphere, I mean, that's, you know, you have to understand the sort of like cat and mouse game that's going on here. Their response to, okay, you're getting your special master, here's our next move. To leak this sort of information tells me that they probably are

building towards an indictment. Because once you put so much out into the public sphere, where, I mean, you know, it's become increasingly totally clear that if it was anyone else, the indictments would already have come down. It wouldn't be any sort of a question. So once you have all of that information out there, how do you not indict him? It creates a big political problem for you on the other side if you do not then go forward with an indictment given everything that the public knows at this point. Yeah. And, you know, we also got some news last night that the FBI wanted to interview Trump's body man and personnel management officer at Mar-a-Lago who followed him on the way out of the White House. Just to give even more color to what you're discussing, there's a specific nuclear classification that refers to, it's like SFRD.

So the abbreviation for, quote, formally restricted data, which does not mean, by the way, that it was no longer classified. That is reserved specifically for the military use of nuclear weapons. And also in the subpoena were 100 plus classified documents in August that were marked HSC, which is a category for highly classified government that refers specifically to human control systems, human being human intelligence. So, you know, moles, spies, information gleamed from those sources. You put those two together, those, of course, are the most classified secrets in the U.S. government, specifically in the intel community, and it makes sense they would be paired together. Often, our spy, you know, some of the most highly valued spies in U.S. history, the so-called billion dollar spy and others in the Soviet Union are ones who gave us deep clarity and information into the Soviet nuclear arsenal at the height of the Cold War.

Yeah, and Klippenstein describes this. It's almost like a religion among these guys, protecting those sources and methods. It should be. I mean, you know, the billion-dollar spy was killed. Lives are literally on the line, you know, keeping those sorts of things secret. So anyway, that's the very latest in terms of what we know about what he was holding on to. We still don't know why he was holding on to it. We still don't know why even after the government came calling, he continued to sort of obfuscate and hold on to these documents.

You know, his lawyers attested, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we gave you everything. We did an exhaustive search. And in just a matter of hours, the FBI was able to turn up far more documents than had been originally turned over willingly by the Trump team. So a lot of questions still there. At the same time, a new character has emerged in this drama, and that would be Trump's former Attorney General Bill Barr. Now, Barr, of course, during the Trump administration was one of Trump's most steadfast allies, certainly on Russiagate stuff. The way he got the job was actually he sort of wrote like an audition letter of how he would view and handle the Russiagate stuff. Trump says, okay, let's bring you in. He does the job that Trump wants him to do there, really backed up some of his even flirtations

with election fraud talk before the election. But then he has a big break from him on Stop the Steal and says very clearly, and this is actually something I do appreciate about Barr. This is a very straightforward, direct person. If he believes something, he'll just say it. Yeah, he's not, he doesn't like beat around the bush. And you'll see that in some of the clips we're about to play. So he tells Trump straight up, there is no evidence for your election fraud claims. Came out in the January 6th hearings. Ivanka was apparently pretty swayed by that. Trump was apparently extremely, extremely irate that Barr said this both privately and publicly. And so now he is also making a very clear break with Trump on the question of holding these documents and even on the legal question of the special master decision.

Now, the more that I've read the legal analysis of the special master decision, the more I am sort of persuaded that this was quite out of the ordinary, the way this was decided, that it doesn't really hold up to legal scrutiny. And Attorney General Bill Barr is making that case on Fox News. Let's take a listen to that. Opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it. It's deeply flawed in a number of ways. I don't think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up. But even if it does, I don't see it fundamentally changing the trajectory. In other words, I don't think it changes the ballgame so much as maybe we'll have a rain delay for a couple of innings. But I think that the fundamental dynamics of the case are set, which is the government has very strong evidence of what it really needs to determine whether charge is appropriate.

So very clear there, special master decision was wrong, government should appeal it, very strong evidence of what it really needs to determine whether charge is appropriate. So very clear there. Special master decision was wrong. Government should appeal it. But also, as we sort of surmised last time on the show, probably not a real game changer in terms of this case. On the legal analysis, again, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I have no idea how it all shakes out. As I've said, it seems extraordinary. At the same time, indicting a former president is extraordinary. So why not check all indicting a former president is extraordinary. So why not check all the boxes before this thing goes to the Supreme Court on executive privilege and all that? So I think put that aside. The rest of Bill Barr's comments, though, in these interviews and more is what actually fascinates me the most, which is that Barr, remember this. He put out that statement in direct contravention of Trump in the middle of the election.

He's like, the FBI has found no allegation of widespread voter fraud, period. And Trump is irate. He said, you need to redact that. He's like, no, I'm not going to. And Barr famously in the January 6th committee called all of Trump's accusations about Stop the Steal, quote, bullshit. And he also laughed at, he literally chuckled at Dinesh D'Souza's 2,000 mules. Like, even more so than I'm giggling right now. So again, I respect a man who is truly his own man and is just saying exactly what he thinks. I should be clear, though, also, from what I asked around, the reason Barr would take this decision on the special master

is the reason he got the job in the first place. Barr is a very strong proponent of the unitary executive and specifically of the unitary executive and of specifically of the Department of Justice being able to, let's just say, do mostly whatever it wants. Hence, he would not agree with the special master as a former two-time attorney general. His precedent he wants is, no, if the government's coming after you, we get to come after you. Yes, that's correct. This was something that liberals always misunderstood about Barr. Yeah.

They thought he was like just a Trump lackey. Right. That's not correct. He's an ideologue. He is, you know, extraordinarily ideological. And the core of those beliefs is, as you're saying, the unitary executive, that the president has extraordinary powers. He believes basically the executive can do what they want to do. And so.

For that reason. Yeah, right. Yes. So, yes, backing the, or I guess opposing the special master decision would fit in with that ideology. And also basically sort of backing the current president over the former president also sort of fits with that ideology. So, but wait, there's more. He also was asked, you know, specifically about the case, about if there are instances where the former president might rightfully hold on to some of these documents. Let's take a listen to returned to the president. It wasn't necessarily bad to pick them up because you don't go into someone's house and look document by document. You take what you think is going to be responsive and then you sort it out through a tank team. No one disputes that that goes back, okay? The classified stuff are government documents and they go to the government. There is no scenario legally under

which the president gets to keep the government documents, whether it's classified or unclassified. If it deals with government stuff and it's government, it goes back to the government. There you go. I mean, no scenario under which a former president should be able to hang on to these documents. Again, though, it fits within that executive framework. When you're the president, you have all seeing, all having power. When you're no longer the president, you lose that power. And the current president, Biden, can do whatever he wants as, there, but also to just come in, take all the documents, and indict you for just even having mere possession of them,

regardless of classification. Again, it will actually have some really interesting ramifications on executive privilege, even on clearance. You know, I didn't know this. I was reading it. Which is that presidents apparently retain security clearance for life after they leave office. And actually, before George W. Bush, former presidents had the right

to receive the presidential daily briefing, which I don't know how I personally feel about that. I'm not sure I want W and Obama, any of these people, Clinton. Why should they remain privy to the nation's secrets? On the one hand, sometimes they act like Nixon and they're like statesmen when they're out of office. On the other, like, you lost, man. You know, or like, your time is over. Go make Netflix documentaries like Obama. So what's the point? Like, why should you be privy to whatever North Korea's nuclear arsenal is doing? As you pointed out before, too, it is an extraordinary circumstance to have someone who was president- And then wants to run.

Run again. I mean, that does make it a different kind of a deal, doesn't it? That we really, we have not experienced in our lifetimes. So that creates unusual circumstances too. The thing that Barr was saying about Trump's passports was interesting as well, because they were sort of asking him about, well, what about some of these personal documents, whatever? He's like, government gets to decide

whether they think that these bear. And he gave a specific example with the passports of basically like, if his personal passports are mixed in with these sensitive documents, well, that could be evidence that, you know, he was personally aware of where they are, that he was personally dealing with them. Like that could be considered by the government to be evidence. And ultimately, they get to decide whether or not it's relevant. So again, he believes that, you know, the government is specifically the executive branch has a lot of power and a lot of authority here. And, you know, in applying it to this instance, now that Trump is no longer in that office, it doesn't turn out too well for Trump.

The last clip we have here for you is pretty funny because, of course, now that Barr is going against Trump on Stop the Steal and now on the Mar-a-Lago raid. Of course, he's being called a rhino and Trump is raging at him over on True Social and all of these things. So he got asked directly about Trump attacking him as a rhino or, quote, Republican in name only. Let's listen to his response. A rhino for him is anyone who disagrees with him that the election was stolen. Right. That's a rhino. Now, you know, as someone who handed out Barry Goldwater literature when I was 14 years old on the Upper West Side, it's a little silly. You don't think you're Republican? Imagine that, handing out Barry Goldwater info on the Upper West Side when you're 14 years old.

I find that a bit cringe. That being said, this one I'm going to side with Trump because I actually think Trump is correct. And Barr is also correct in his definition of a rhino, which is that just because you are a, quote, conservative, like small C conservative, doesn't make you a Republican today. Being a Republican today does mean that you buy in to stop this deal. Now, look, I mean, that doesn't mean Bill Barr is a liberal, right? I mean, it doesn't mean he's a Democrat. In fact, I mean, he's pretty partisan Republican. As far as I can tell, very much part of the Republican establishment. But for what it means to be a Republican today, as evidenced by Republican primaries, Trump is correct because

Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. I don't say this as a good thing. I don't think this is a good thing, but it is what it is. That's true. He set the definition. The definition of being a Republican has nothing to do with policy, everything to do with, do you back up whatever Donald Trump says? And so the minute you break from him, that's it, you're dead. And I mean, this does, we've had this conversation about the primaries before, but this is why I'm so skeptical that anyone could go up against him in the primary and ultimately prevail. Because the minute that you're directly oppositional with him, you're like, you're dead to them. That's it. You're done.

You're a rhino. It doesn't matter if you've been handing out Barry Goldwater lit since you were 14 years old or you're Liz Cheney or whatever. It doesn't matter. Yeah. So I think that is a point well taken. The last thing, he's been giving a lot of interviews. Did you write a book or something? He did write a book, but I don't think that's really why he's out on that.

I think this is his forte. You think he wants to. I think he enjoys it. I think he's 70, what, he's like 72 years old. He's been a two-time attorney general, a multimillionaire. What does he have to, he doesn't care. Yeah, he definitely does not care. That comes through in these interviews.

Very direct. And he did say in one of them, now he continues to maintain like he hopes Trump doesn't get indicted. But he's also said, it looks like the government is close to having enough evidence to indict him. And, you know, I'm not so persuaded from his commentary that he really doesn't want Trump to get indicted. I think just, you know, maybe out of concern for the country, but he seems fairly persuaded that the government has a pretty compelling case here. And also, I did think it was noteworthy that he sort of backed up my uninformed instinct that the special master decision was not really a turning point in this case, that it would just kind of slow things down a little bit, but not make a huge difference. And going back to that original Washington Post article about the nuclear

documents, one thing they point out there is that, listen, they can't use the documents that were seized in their ongoing criminal investigation against Trump. The Justice Department can't while the special master is sorting through and deciding what they're going to do with all these documents. But that doesn't mean that their case can't continue to go forward. They can still interview witnesses. They can still use other evidence. They can still present information to a grand jury while the special master examines the seized material. And the reality of the situation was they weren't going to make any big moves in terms of publicly announcing an indictment until after the midterms anyway. So that is where things stand. There we go.

Let's move on to Ukraine. Lots of very interesting stuff going on in Ukraine. And we're going to start with that southern offensive. So to preview, it's actually interesting. Now, we have been describing this as the offensive. We've been using the Ukrainian language. The US government declined to actually acknowledge it is an offensive up until yesterday when Colin Kahl, the deputy chief over at the Pentagon, affirmatively called the Ukrainian military move an offensive. One of the reasons why they had been reluctant to do so

is because then we have to judge, is the offensive successful or not? Rather than, is it a campaign? Is it a pre-operation? Is it a whatever? Anyway, so now we are using the Ukrainian and the US government definition that Ukraine is in the midst of an offensive. So how's it going? Well, it's a mixed bag so far. As we discussed, this town of Kursin has called off that poll where they originally were going to vote on whether they wanted to join Russia or not. Not saying it's going to be a free poll or a free vote or anything like that. leather reporting, which shows you the toll that this is taking. Let's put this up there on the screen. Washington Post's John Hudson, a guy that I know, he's actually a pretty good reporter, reporting out from the hospitals of southern Ukraine.

Here's what he says. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal the steep toll of the Kursan offensive. Soldiers said they lacked artillery needed to dislodge Russia's entrenched forces, described a yawning technology gap with their better equipped adversaries. Interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to retake captured territory. Here's what one wounded Ukrainian soldier said, quote, they used everything on us. Who can survive an attack for five hours like that? Describing a lengthy barrage of cluster bombs,

phosphorus munitions, mortars. He and others talked about, from seven different units, offered a view of basically a technologically outmatched military on the front line. And in many of these cases, we're talking about guys who have lost limbs, who have been badly, badly wounded, littered with shrapnel and with others. And I think, Crystal, it's a grim view into what's happening because, look, we have shipped some 40-something billion dollars worth of arms to Ukraine. President Biden announced, actually, no, Secretary Blinken announced just this morning, he's in Kiev, that we're sending $2 billion more. President Biden is now asking for $13 billion. We have sent untold numbers of weapons, rocket systems, all kinds of defense things to Ukraine.

And the preview that I'm getting from this is that basically no matter what you give these people, the Russians are still a formidable force. And in a way, I mean, look, this has always been the case. Russia is a great power military. Does that mean that it's as good as the U.S. military? No. Is it even as good as the Chinese military? Probably not. Does that mean, though, that Ukraine, which is, you know, its second-rate power at best,

even in the continent of Europe, that it's going to be able to overnight, even with extraordinary amounts of U.S. weapons, affirmatively and offensively take on this military? That's always what I've been skeptical of. Militaries, especially in the modern age, always have the advantage whenever they're doing defense, especially on their home territory. Here, when we have the static front line and then you have the Ukrainians want to try and make this offensive, they were always going to incur major casualties.

And we'd read previously, before the fall of the Donbass region, the Ukrainian soldiers were like, we're losing 200 guys a day. Many of these people were six weeks earlier in boot camp. Now they're here on the front line. A lot of them are draftees. Some of them don't necessarily want to be there or are forced to be there. And of course, the Russian conscripts are the same way, but they just have a hell of a lot more of them. So this is a really, really grim view as to what the potential. Look, could be the beginning. Maybe they have a lot more that we don't know about.

Maybe we're going to ship something to them, which would be a game changer. But to be honest, I don't really see that because even in that supplemental appropriation, there's no new weapon system that we're sending over there. Right, it's just replenishing their stocks. When you read this, I mean, again, war is horrific. It's heartbreaking to read this account. Go look at people losing their limbs. This is what the reality of war looks like. This guy also, he's 30 years old. He had no military experience before this war.

He made a living selling animal feed to pig and cow farms. His replacement as platoon commander also had no previous military experience. So you're talking about people who, you know, in some instances never held a weapon before now. In other instances had just, you know, the bare minimum of training before being put in leadership positions in this war. And he said that we lost five people for every one that they did. And the part of it that I found in some ways the most gut wrenching is they're really, they're trying really hard to keep their spirits up and trying to tell themselves like that it's worth it, that the cost and the lives and the pain and the injuries that

all of this is ultimately worth it because yeah, it is a different deal when you are now trying to go on the offense to retake territory. They talk about how the Russians, you know, have their tanks like behind these concrete walls. They can like pull the tanks out, go crazy, kill a bunch of Ukrainians and then go back behind the walls and basically escape any sort of retaliation. Ukrainians are claiming that they have reclaimed a couple of sort of smaller towns. That's very much in dispute. The account that I read, I don't remember if it's this reporter or a different one, reporters were denied access to those towns, so they were unable to independently confirm what's going on there. The people they talked

to said that the battle for those little towns continued. So very uncertain what, if any, progress has been made at this point. And, you know, it's a critical time for a lot of reasons that we've been underscoring. First of all, at some point, the U.S. public is going to go, another $13 billion? Another $10 billion? Another $20 billion? Really? What's going on here? That's number one. Number two, as you've been covering, and we've both been covering, in Europe, the energy prices are so high as they move into winter, there is going to be a turning of public opinion in Europe in terms of how we are approaching this war and what it means in terms of the domestic populations across Europe. That's number two. Number three,

reality's on the ground as, you know, fall turns to winter and, you know, things sort of settle in for the long haul and these soldiers are exposed to extreme temperatures, that makes things very difficult and is a real morale killer. And so that's why Zelensky is launching this counteroffensive now because it really is, no pun intended, kind of a do or die moment for them. He knows that there is going to be a change in public sentiment. He knows that the European and American populations are not going to indefinitely support them with the blank checks that they have been forever. As, you know, things get stuck and mired and there is seemingly little progress and continued, you know, weapons flows there and continued energy price increases around the world and food price increases around the world. So he knows he's really got to make a stand here. And that's why this counter offensive is ultimately so critical

and so important to them right now. Yeah, look, it's September. They've basically got about a month, you know, in terms of accounts and all that. What from what we know of the region, which is that in Napoleon's army and Hitler's army, around October 15th, first snowfall usually comes, and that's a harbinger of a very, very slow decline, both in terms of mud, but also in terms of snow and the temperature. So that's only a month and a half away. It's not that long away. Usually in this region, you fight all the way through the summer, hoping that you can do something within three and a half, four months. So it's going to be a difficult slog up. And they have actually a pretty limited time window

into which major operations can continue. And then things don't really restart until February, which is when the Russians launched their invasion in the first place. That's when the ground is cold enough in order to actually move on it. So anyway, I think it was important to give people an update as to what the reality of this stuff really looks like. It's a terrible account. We'll have a link in the description. People can go and read it for themselves. On the geopolitical front, some other interesting things happening. Let's go and put this next one up on the screen. So this is, I hate the way this was even handled by Biden, but effectively when he was on his way back from vacation, here's what happened. He was walking back from Marine One

on the South Lawn and reporters screamed out at him, President Biden, will you designate Russia as a state sponsor of terror? President Biden just said,. Now, this actually sets up, as this article lays out, a pretty high stakes fight with Congress, Crystal, because Congress has been clamoring to label Russia as a state sponsor of terror. Now, look, I mean, are what the Russians doing in Ukraine horrific, you know, war crimes, all that? Yeah, probably. Now, the issue is that if you state sponsor somebody terrorism, it kicks in even more levels of sanctions at a diplomatic level and also kind of freezes the hands of the executive. Because if Congress designates, well, okay, if the State Department designates somebody state sponsor of terror, there are all kinds of ramifications and things that the

U.S. must actually ensure are not happening to eventually be taken off the list. But it kind of hamstrings the ability of the executive to both pursue any diplomatic negotiation in the future and also implements all kinds of rules that the U.S. government must then approach said state with. We've watched this with Iran. We've watched this with other, quote unquote, state sponsors of terror. And it's one of the reasons why the U.S. executive has with other quote unquote state sponsors of terror. And it's one of the reasons why the U.S. executive has always been actually, frankly, very reluctant with other major powers to not designate them state sponsors of terror, even if they are clearly, you know, within the bounds of rhetoric or, you know, within the bounds of morality is because

doing it, it's kind of like in the 1990s, whenever they didn't want to say the word genocide with Rwanda, because if they did, they were like, oh, well, now we have to go do something about it. Right. This is exactly the same. It sounds archaic and stupid, and it may sound like I'm, you know, whatever, like defending, I'm not defending Russia. I think what they're doing is horrific. But, you know, by doing this, it would hamstring diplomatically any ability for us in the future to really try to come to our new settlement. And it would also make it much more difficult if we ever wanted to, to roll back sanctions in the

future if we wanted. Again, though, it doesn't seem like Congress really cares. You know, the hawkish element within that from a bipartisan point of view is very strong. The dividing lines here are very interesting. I mean, Pelosi and other Democrats, along with Republican colleagues, they are pushing this. And Biden and Blinken are on the other side of it. Biden and Blinken are correct. They, remember early on in the war when Biden was casually throwing out like, Putin's a war criminal. And we were like, yeah, but maybe like that's not helpful in terms of negotiations. Exactly.

It's a very similar dynamic, except I would say it's even more of an important distinction here, because as you're saying, there are sort of like direct legal ramifications of saying that it's not just an impression that's created. So it would make it a lot more difficult for any potential diplomatic negotiations to move forward, which is exactly the case that Blinken and Biden have been making, which is basically like, listen, y'all, we're already sanctioning the hell out of Russia. We are doing like everything you can do to them from an economic warfare point of view. We are backing up the Ukrainians with billions and billions of dollars in weapons. So we are all in. But to officially make this designation would be very unhelpful in terms of ever creating an off-ramp for Putin, ever hoping that you can wind this war down. And so it did make me wonder if there was some rethinking in the Biden administration of the approach that they've taken so far. I mean, this is a very

small step ultimately, and we still see, you know, the blank checks and the tens of billions of dollars going out the door asking for further weapons shipments. But, you know, it's also true that the sort of top-level analysts have been wrong at every turn. Originally, the thought was Russia's so strong, they're just going to sweep in. They're going to take Kiev in three days. It's going to be all over before there's, you know, even before you even know exactly what's going on. Well, that turned out to be incorrect. Then the thought was, okay, well, these economic sanctions that we're going to allow, they're just going to destroy Russia. It's going to just absolutely decimate them. Now, it has taken a toll. But even, and we're about to get to this in a couple minutes here,

even the internal Russia, like more dire assessments of what's going on there still doesn't live up to the expectations of the economic toll that these sanctions would ultimately take. And so it wouldn't surprise me if the Biden administration is somewhat reassessing and asking themselves, okay, what does this look like indefinitely? Because now it is clear, like their dreams of we're going to defeat Putin and it's going to be the end and we're going to have a maximalist victory. That's not happening. So maybe this is a sign that they're sort of coming to their senses about the realities of the situation on the ground. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, at the basic, it does show they're not totally crazy because here's what the Russians

say. This is from the Russian foreign ministry on if such a detonation would happen. If the legislative initiatives pass, it will mean Washington would cross the point of no return. The most serious collateral damage to bilateral diplomatic relations up to their lowering of even Now look, what the other side says shouldn't be the sole determinant, but listen, Saudi Arabia, that sounds like a state sponsor of terror to me. I don't see any designation on them. I mean, there's a reason for that, which is we need oil. So it's like real world consequences become a consideration, regardless of whether the facts bear out or not. There's a reason that there's only four, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria. None have any real great power say in the affairs of the world. And they're smaller economies with no real bearing on major diplomatic consequences for the U.S., save for Iran. And even that Iranian designation is a longtime thing that people have been thinking about taking away as part of the Iran deal

for a while. So the point that I'm making is that there are bigger considerations than technical definitions and what it would mean. Also, we should consider that a total break of U.S. diplomatic relations with Russia would be a catastrophe. I mean, there's no other way to describe it. And so if that, again, the Russians could be bluffing. I don't know. I mean, are they bad faith actors? Yes. Do they, are they bellicose often? Of course. Now, are they lying or not? There's only one way to find out. And the only question is, is it worth it? So an interesting move there. We should still watch it though, because Congress can still spur things in a direction. And by passing some more resolutions. Okay, finally, let's put this up there, which is that there have been some fascinating developments

with Russia and Asia. So Putin and Xi Jinping will be meeting again in Uzbekistan later this week for talks about signaling, quote, warming relations between the two powers as they face off against the West. That's at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Council between China and Russia and many of the Central Asian states. Basically, what's happening here is Putin is in a bit of a bind. The Chinese are buying his oil, and they are enriching him to a historic degree. Now, of course, that's something that he appreciates. However, they are enriching him to a historic degree. Now, of course, that's something that he appreciates. However, they are not selling him the weapons and resupply that he needs, which is causing some consternation in the Russian military supply chain. And actually, if you pair it with a very new and recent report,

this talks makes a lot of sense. Let's put this up there, which is that Russia is currently buying a lot of ammunition and resupplying much of its military actually from North Korea. North Korea, of course, happy to sell to whomever will buy their stuff. They desperately need the money in order to feed maybe one-tenth of their population. Yeah, obviously it's horrific. But the point is, is that North Korea right now, quote, may represent the biggest single source of compatible legacy artillery ammunitions outside of Russia, including domestic production to further their supplies. One of the only other ones that could have that capability is China. The fact that China has not affirmatively made that decision to sell weapons directly to the

Russian military and is only really economically backstopping them, I don't think that's gone unnoticed in Moscow. So this is an area where we should watch very closely. We also should remember this. Putin, by, look, there's no way to know, but it does appear, I don't know if anybody remembers this, that he had a meeting with Xi Jinping back in February. I think it was around the Winter Olympics when it seems that he gave some sort of heads up to Xi Jinping. He's like, hey, I'm going to move in on Ukraine. And Xi was like, yeah, okay.

So this could also indicate bidirectionally, we don't know what's happening, which is that Xi should be talking about Putin with his plans on Taiwan domestically. Putin could be talking about maybe some new offensive, some new development. He could be asking him for weapons or more. Anytime these two meet, it is worth paying a lot of attention to. I don't think we should put this under the rug either. China's not doing so well right now

either, Crystal. COVID zero is wreaking havoc across the economy. Their domestic production is way down. Their real estate bubble is cracking. I mean, things in China are at a worst point economically basically since 2008. So it's not like there isn't turmoil on their side either that they may be discussing with Putin. Yeah, that's a great point. And Putin also just gave a big speech at this sort of like regional confab. Very bellicose. I mean, typical stuff you would expect saying we will not supply gas, oil, coal, heating oil. We will not supply anything. This was at the Eastern Economic Forum. He added

Moscow will let, quote, the wolf's tail freeze in reference to a famous Russian fairy tale. And he also was like really beating his chest about how little the sanctions have affected them. Now, I think a lot of this is bluster. They are taking a hit economically. There's no doubt about it, even though the fact that oil prices have gone up has helped to bolster them and help to protect them from some of the greatest damage. And some of the measures that they had taken before this war to protect themselves domestically have also helped to insulate them. But they are taking a hit. But what he's saying is, I'm sure we have not lost anything and will not lose anything. The

main thing is strengthening our sovereignty. And this is the inevitable result of what is happening now. We are getting more of a look at what is exactly the reality economically for Russia. Let's go ahead and put this next part up on the screen. This is from Bloomberg. They got a hold of an internal Russian economist memo. They say Russia privately warns of deep and prolonged economic damage. The confidential document contrasts with upbeat public statements. And the report says key sectors face a sharp drop in output and a large brain drain. Russia did not really deny this report. They've got sort of several scenarios, like a target scenario, an inertial scenario, they call it, and a worst case scenario.

Two of the three scenarios show the contraction in the Russian economy accelerating next year with the economy returning to the pre-war level only at the end of a decade or later. The inertial one, sort of the middle ground one, sees the economy bottoming out next year, 8.3% below the 2021 level. The stress scenario, that's the worst case scenario, puts a low in 2024 at 11.9% under last year's level. And they estimate, one number that jumped out here, that as many as 200,000 IT specialists might leave the country by 2025, the first official forecast of the widening brain drain. So it shows you, I don't think the economic hit was anything like what Western powers expected,

especially with these sort of extraordinary lengths. They have gone to sanction and cut off the Russian economy, but they are sustaining damage. You know, Putin's claims to the contrary notwithstanding, there is real economic damage and pain here that will be difficult for them over the longer term. Yes, and I think it's always important to underscore that. So anytime we talk about how the Russian economy is doing better than expected, that doesn't mean it's doing well. This is a good view into that exactly. Let's talk about Pennsylvania.

Yes. So a few developments both on the Oz side and on the Fetterman side. So you'll recall Trump was just in Pennsylvania stumping both for Oz and for the gubernatorial nominee Mastriano. And it's increasingly become clear that Republicans feel they have a problem on a couple of fronts. Number one is on abortion and number two is on Donald Trump. So Dr. Oz was asked about certifying the election and he does his best to try to sort of separate himself a little bit from Trump and his wildest claims. Let's take a listen to that. If you had been in the U.S. Senate on January 6th of 2021, would you have objected to the certification of the 2020 election and Joe Biden's win? I would not have objected to it. By the time the delegates and those reports were sent

to the U.S. Senate, our job was to approve it, which is what I would have done. That's a huge, I mean, that's very interesting. And I think we should give the backstory, which is that the entire reason that Josh Hawley decided to object to the certification of point to the way that Pennsylvania election law and the Supreme Court and the way that voting by mail, all of that ended up working, which exact ballots were counting. I personally think it's all bullshit what their actual objection is. But the point was that we also made at the time was, OK, dude, you're from Missouri. Like if Pennsylvania senators have a problem with this, then Pennsylvania's senators should object. And Pat Toomey not only voted to impeach Trump, but he's somebody who did not object to the certification. To then have Dr. Oz, the Republican nominee endorsed by Trump, say he would not have objected to the certification, just, I think, shows you how unpopular that is in the state of Pennsylvania.

Yes. And, frankly, I mean, does show that, you know, Oz is not as brain dead as Doug Mastriano. He has at least a few brain cells kicking around in there. Right. I mean, it is a tough spot for him, though, because, like, putting aside the morality and, you know, being honest versus being dishonest,

you know, he's got a problem with the Republican base because, and this was very clear at the Trump rally for Oz and Mastriano. I mean, Mastriano was like a rock star. Oz was like, okay, I guess, you know, and he was having trouble still totally consolidating the Republican base behind him. So at the same time, going in on these claims means that independents are going to be like, no, I don't think so. We're going to go with the other dude.

So he's betting that Republicans are going to come home. That's probably the right bet to make, you know, in opposition to Biden and in opposition to Fetterman. You got Mastriano up there being like Mr. Crazy Pants at the top of the ticket. So I guess that'll sort of satisfy the hardcore MAGA election deniers. And so this is his strategic calculation that he needs to take a step back from the election fraud claims and also take a step back directly from sort of Trump and the movement. That comes out in the next soundbite we want to show you where he refuses to say whether or not he is a MAGA Republican. Let's take a listen to that. Are you a MAGA Republican? I support what President Trump has argued while he was in the White House, that we can actually

make America a great company if we put our country first, if we're tough on trade, if we do the kinds of things that were done during that administration. I think a lot of Americans, if they look objectively at how the country was doing while President Trump was in office, would have to argue and could convincingly argue that it was in better shape than we are now. Kind of a practiced answer there. Like, clearly, he was sort of expecting to get this question at some point, and this is what he had ready to go. But what did you make of how he's surrounded there? This is why I always thought Oz would actually be a decent candidate, which is that whenever he has to navigate tricky issues, he's pretty good at it.

I mean, and now let's put aside him attacking Betterman and going after him and actually, you know, really running a good campaign. But in all of these cases with the election results, in terms of Trump taking his endorsement, but not going full MAGA, that's why the MAGA people hated him in the first place. But that's frankly what probably makes him more electable than a lot of these other folks.

The other interesting thing, we didn't have this clip, but also on the pro-life answer, he did the same thing. Here's what he said. They asked him specifically about all these exceptions. He said, look, I think that these decisions should be local. Me, I'm pro-life, except in three cases. Rape, incest, and the life of the mother. So he puts aside the most controversial cases. Yeah. I mean, listen, we all know he's actually pro-choice, or at the very least was pro-choice in a few.

So he triangulates very closely to, he's like, look, I'm pro-life. Personally, that's my decision. But he's also talked about this previously. He's like, I take very much in case of what my patients want and I'm all about being a doctor. And, you know, then it puts things into the category of you take out the most heinous examples that, you know, many of these pro-lifers will defend and it murkies it up. Now, I'm not saying it's popular, but it just doesn't make him seem as radical as many of these other politicians.

Those all three things all happened in the same day, all of those interviews. And I found it interesting in terms of his ability to triangulate to, at the very least, the least unpopular parts of Republican positioning, if that makes sense. Well, you also see, I mean, you see Republicans across the country trying to walk this line. Blake Masters is the most clear example. He had to do an actual flip phone. Yeah, taking stuff down from his website. Used to say, like, federal from his website. Used to say like

federal personhood ban. Now he's like, how about after 15 weeks? How about we land there? Because I did the polling and that seems like it might be an acceptable position. So it's very clear from these moves, like Republicans know they have an issue in these two areas. And it is funny, though, because with Oz, he managed to get through the primary without taking on some of the most unpopular, most extreme Republican positions on abortion and with regards to Trump. And yet you've got, you know, this other dude, Mastriano, is running for governor, who's all in on the wildest of the wild shit that they're into and was like there on January 6th and was an integral part of the Stop the Steal campaign in Pennsylvania. And he's actually outperforming Oz in the polls. So, I mean, I think it tells you something about the effectiveness thus far of the Fetterman campaign, actually. And I think it tells you the strength of Fetterman's sort of image and his

appeal to voters in the state of Pennsylvania and the general sense that they have about him and how he's one of them and all of that. And I think it also says something about how savvy and strategic the Fetterman campaign has been up to this point. I mean, they have been relentless and very effective in painting Oz as this rich celebrity out of touch from New Jersey asshole. And Oz has played right into that, both with his, you know, his hilarious like crudité answers and not knowing how many houses he has and this sort of stuff. But I think also, and we're about to talk more about the Fetterman health issues.

I think also, as we discussed before, in going so hard in such a sort of vicious and cruel way at Fetterman on his stroke recovery, I don't think that has helped Oz. I think it has just played into this narrative that like, dude, at bottom, you're just kind of like an elitist asshole. See that, I don't know, Crystal. And maybe we should talk about this. You can set it up. Yeah. So, I mean, it is becoming more of a central campaign issue, Fetterman's recovery from his stroke that he suffered just before the Democratic primary. And, you know, it is very clear in his speeches that he is not all the way recovered.

His campaign is being is saying, you know, not only does he have some speech issues, he also has some auditory, some hearing issues. So I know some of the interviews that he's been conducting recently, he's got the closed captioning so he can make sure that he doesn't miss any of the language, any of the words that are being spoken. Just to give you a sense of that, here's a little bit of John Fetterman on the stump. Please understand the stakes in this race. Send me to Washington, D.C. to send so I can work with Senator Casey and I can champion the union way of life in Jersey, excuse me, in DC. Thank you. Thank you very much. And it's an honor.

I live eight minutes away from here. And when I leave tonight, I got three miles away. Dr. Oz in his mansion in New Jersey. You've got a friend and you have an ally. Send me to Washington, D.C. Thank you very much. Thank you, steelworkers. So you can see they're struggling to get through, you know, the talk there at the end. And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette just put out an editorial saying, you know, basically, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.

It's hometown paper. They say basically like, you know, Oz has been very like nasty about the way that he's gone about this. But the truth is they say that that said Mr. Oz has raised legitimate concerns. If Mr. Fetterman's communication skills have not yet recovered sufficiently

to effectively debate his opponent, many voters will have concerns about his ability to represent them effectively in Washington. While he has gamely undertaken more campaign events and media interviews in recent weeks, Mr. Fetterman still speaks haltingly and relies on closed captioning to fully understand his conversation partners. This was all sort of sparked by this conversation about would he or would he not debate. There was a debate that was upcoming that he backed down of. Now the very latest is, and let's put Politico up on the screen here, he says he will debate. Dr. Oz, he will do that in October, not specifying which debate or providing an exact date. But the expectation is he is going to be on the debate stage. And, you know,

I'm someone who thinks that that's important. I think it should be required of all candidates that they answer questions and then voters can decide for themselves whether they feel, you know, that his health concerns are enough for them to change their mind and change their vote and go in the other direction or not. They deserve to have that information. I think there's no doubt about it. But I also, and this is where I come back to the point I was making about Dr. Oz that I think you might disagree with. But because they have been so aggressive and so mean-spirited in the way that they've prosecuted this case, they've also set the bar very low for Fetterman. So if he's able to perform in like a reasonable way on the debate stage, he doesn't have a very high bar to clear here. It's kind of reminds me of, you know, Biden during the Democratic primary when there was a lot of talk about like, oh, I don't know

if this guy's up to it at all. Then if he just got on the stage and didn't like make a total fool of himself, we were like, oh, he's okay. He's good enough. No, you're not wrong. That being said, is there a realistic expectation that in a month that you're going to be all that much better? I mean, I don't think there's a doctor on planet Earth that would say as a stroke victim that you should be out there doing what John Fetterman is doing. And he's, you know, look, I hate to say it, but if you can't understand speech properly, you shouldn't be a senator. If you can't speak like that, if that's as good as it gets, at least for the next year or so, I don't think you should be a senator. I mean, I really don't. How can you possibly live up to the demands of the job? But no one's saying he has problems understanding or like a problem. It doesn't matter. Look at the difference. He can't speak. But again, this is something the voters can decide.

Oh, listen, I mean, sure, I wouldn't vote for him. I can tell you that. But I think we have a lot of examples where people look at Biden as one example and they're like, yeah, he's you that. But I think we have a lot of examples where people look at, you know, Biden as one example and they're like, yeah, he's slowing down. But ultimately, I freaking hate Donald Trump. So I would vote for Biden's corpse over that guy. I mean, I feel that way about like Bernie Sanders post heart attack. I would take Bernie because he represents an ideology and is going to be there on the policies that I care about over anybody else, even if his health is flagging and if he's, you know, slowing down physically. So I really think a lot of voters feel the same way where it's much more about like, okay, does this person, do they represent my

values? Number one. Number two, like what are the sort of, what's the sort of national mood? I don't see that these health concerns have been all that persuasive to voters in recent elections because ultimately they care. Okay, how are you going to vote? Are you able to vote? Are you able to cast votes in the direction that I want? That's what I ultimately care about. And do I feel like you are going to represent me and my interests? I don't disagree with you. So we'll see. Correct. The Bernie example is a good one. He came back and bounced back big time by Joe Biden. Same thing.

I do think this one is a bit more stark. And I do think also that if the man is literally unable to speak even two weeks up to election day, that will have some sort of negative effect. Does it mean that he'll lose? No, not at all. I do think Oz made a mistake in making the vegetable comment. If he'd ever eaten a vegetable in his life, he wouldn't have had a stroke. He didn't make that comment, to be clear. One of his campaign—I think that made a mistake in making the vegetable comment? If he'd ever eaten a vegetable in his life, he wouldn't have had a stroke. He didn't make that comment, to be clear. One of his campaign, I think that was a mistake.

I don't think that's what he should have said. Again, given that Pennsylvania is not a particularly healthy state, especially the old people who live in Pennsylvania. So, I mean, Fetterman has a sympathy factor, but it only goes so far. And listen, Biden, yeah, he may misspeak, but for some reason with Biden, when it actually counts, he seems to be fine. It's a mystifying thing where if he's off the cuff and he's meandering, you know, even in Afghanistan, like he'll give like a forceful statement and he did that weird thing where he leaned on the podium. He's a strange cat. I don't really get it. But Bernie, I got the drug cocktail figured out. Bernie never did look, uh, even post heart attack.

Honestly, it looked fine. I mean, for an old man, he always spoke particularly well. He actually looked better after that. He really did. Like, he lost, even Trump. I mean, look, Trump is obese as hell. I mean, listen, after he left the presidency, Frank probably looks better than he did when he was in office. The thing with Betterman is how stark it is.

Like, when you're skipping words and not being able to speak. And then also, he made a mistake. He shouldn't have said that he couldn't debate because of health reasons. He should have just said, I'm not going to debate somebody who I disrespect, who disrespects me so much like us. I just— Never should have cited it. I disagree with that because I think part of what has been—

I think it has been relatable, the way that they've approached this, because they've been—after the initial stretch, they've been relatively because they've been, after the initial stretch, they've been relatively upfront about his recovery, that he still has these speech and auditory processing issues. One of the things they talked about for this debate is can he get closed captioning to make sure that he's hearing everything. So I think actually that that is a smart way to play it because everyone would, no one would be fooled if you were like, no, it's just because I don't like Dr. Oz. People would be like, dude, we know it's because

you're recovering from your stroke. Yeah, that's fair. So I think it's better for them to be candid. I think that the way that the Oz team has played it has been foolish because there is a way to raise these concerns. Like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did it in a much more effective way, frankly,

where they're like, Oz is being an asshole, but there are legitimate questions here. The way that the Oz campaign should have done it is to try to get these, you know, stories planted with sort of, you know, allied media figures where it seems like it's being raised organically, where it's a press conversation, where they can weigh in just with like, gosh, we really hope he recovers. But, you know, he needs to be able to answer questions to the public. And we're pushing forward with debates because we think it's important to have that accountability. That should have been more their tone versus this like, he's fat and he doesn't eat vegetables. And we, you know, like basically cheering for him to be ill and making fun of him for his recovery.

So anyway, we'll see. I mean, it's going to be a big question mark how he's able to perform in that debate. I think there will be a lot of eyes on it. I do think the way that the Oz team has approached this, they've set the bar very low for him so that if he's able to sort of like, you know, muster a decent performance, that's going to be good enough for voters to say, all right, he's good enough. It's much better than what was portrayed. Yeah, that's right. All right, let's go ahead and move on to Las Vegas. This is very, very interesting stuff here. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, which is that reporter Jeff Gurman, he is a storied figure at the Las Vegas Review

Journal. He was killed at his house last week in a stabbing incident that really shocked the Las Vegas Review Journal and a lot of people in the area. Gurman had done a lot of different series. He did one called Mobbed Up, which is a podcast series about the history of Las Vegas. I actually knew a lot about him because I read a lot of his stuff that concerned the Las Vegas shooting. I was fascinated by that shooting. There's a hell of a lot of questions around what exactly happened on that day. And a lot like the FBI has ever given us any good story. So long after the national press stopped reporting on this, he was one of those dogged people really

digging into the details. He also was digging into Las Vegas politicians. And that is where it seems that this all leads back to. So just this morning, Robert Tellis, who is the Clark County Public Administrator, was arrested on suspicion of murder in the stabbing of Jeff Gurman at his house. The details of this are genuinely shocking. So Robert Tellis, like I said, he's the Clark County Public Administrator, had been the subject of repeated investigations by Jeff Gurman. Gurman had actually published several reports about Tellus' abusive environment. It caused Tellus' own staffers to record him in the car that corroborated, you know, kind of his abusive behavior. He was having an affair. That was what they recorded in the car, yeah. Yeah, I didn't want to go too far. But hey, I'm scared of this guy now. He's

a murderer, allegedly. Got him in custody, so we're safe. Listen, people like this are crazy. So what happened is that he was having an affair. He had an abusive environment. His staff was turning on him. All of this was being leaked to Jeff Gurman. Gurman publishes all of this ahead of the election,

actually loses the election in large part due to all of this. Now, in this interim period, what's been happening is that Gurman has been FOIA-ing and requesting even more documents and text messages between Tellus and others. Tellus on Twitter and in public had been trashing Jeff Gurman, saying they had it out for him. Yeah. Well, now what happens is that Gurman is killed. Police then search, let's put this on the screen, yesterday, went ahead and searched Robert Tellis' residence. And at that residence, they towed away a red GMC Yukon, which matches the exact description that police had put out for the actual murderer. Saying that the suspect drives a GMC Yukon between 2007, 2014 with chrome handles. That's exactly the car that they towed away from this guy.

Tellus was interrogated by investigators at the scene at his house. Tellus refused to answer any questions and appeared very perturbed whenever he was going back into his garage. And then this morning, we get the news, he was formally arrested on charge with murder for murdering, allegedly, Jeff Gar— I mean, this, I don't even know how to describe. I mean, to have a reporter who did his job and exposed the wrongdoing of a public official, and to then have that public official straight up murder—not just kill, like, he stabbed him to death. That is a—you know, that is— Deeply personal.

Deeply personal, upfront violence that this person seems to have displayed against this man. I just think we should remember him for some of the great work that he did, not only on this, but his podcast series, the work on Steven Paddock and that Las Vegas shooting. He was, you know, 60 something years old. Just a fantastic career.

I don't know. Beyond the circumstance of being absolutely insane, it's very terrifying to have people. I mean, look, we're in this business. A lot of people, we talk a lot about politicians and more. I don't think anybody ever imagined somebody's going to come up and straight up kill you at your house. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And when he was originally murdered, I mean, there was a lot of speculation about who could have done this.

Because, yeah, he had gone after the mob in Vegas. I mean, that's kind of what he was most famous for. He'd also done a lot of digging into that. I'll be honest. That's what I was. I was like, oh, man, this guy poked the bear. The Las Vegas shooter. You're right. There still remain a lot of unanswered questions about who this guy was and what exactly happened there and why it took so long for police to stop the

shooting and all of those things. He's taken, you know, this is not the only politician that he's gone after, of course, as well, exposing corruption and a lot of corruption in Las Vegas. And he was part of exposing that corruption, also exposing like extremist activity in Southern Nevada. So there were a lot of potential, there were a lot of people out there who were not happy about having their ugly deeds and secrets exposed by an incredibly effective and dogged reporter. But when you started to look into this Telus dude, who apparently what this office that he does, what they handle is like people who die, like there are states, they're involved in like executing those states. And this is a publicly elected position in Las Vegas and in the state of Nevada. And you get the sense, yeah, there's a lot of these like toxic workplace allegations that are out there now, but you get the sense this one was super legit.

That these employees were like. Seems even more legit now. Yes, that these employees were legit afraid of this guy. Makes sense now. Um, and, you know, that they felt like the only recourse was to sort of like, you know, leak to this, to the press. And then ultimately one of the former employees ends up running against him to the press. And then ultimately, one of the former employees ends up running against him in the primary. That's who defeats him. He ends up, these revelations in the press were so damning that he didn't just lose to this person.

He got third in the Democratic primary behind even someone who didn't even campaign. So clearly, this was the deciding factor in terms of his election. And then afterwards, as these stories are coming out, and then after he loses reelection and all of these things, his response to Gurman becomes increasingly unhinged in tweets. And then he posts this totally unhinged public letter on his website, just railing against this reporting. And then as you said, I think apparently, allegedly, the final straw here was that Gurman wasn't done, that there was more information he wanted to uncover. He filed these FOIA requests. He was still pursuing the story. And so, you know, the information we got is first the police released

these two photos, one of a purport reported suspect who had a straw hat on, so he couldn't see their face and was like carrying a bag. Right. It definitely had like a body shape that could have been Telus. And then this picture of this vehicle that then reporters are like, that looks like Telus' car. Interesting. Somebody actually, some local reporter was able to ask him a few questions

as he was walking into his house after they had seized the vehicle and searched his house. And, of course, he refused to answer anything. Bizarrely, he was wearing like a white hazmat suit. That was really odd. Really weird. I was wondering the same thing. Like, what the hell? He literally looked like he was in, like, forensic investigators. It was really odd. Really weird. I was wondering the same thing. Like, what the hell? He literally looked like he was in, like, forensic investigators.

It was weird. Anyway, so I guess now we know that this is the direction that the cops have gone in and that they think that this man stabbed this reporter to death because he destroyed his political career by exposing, you know, the misdeeds of Tellus. It is scary. It is, you know, it's just really, of course, your heart breaks for that community and for his loved ones. And it underscores what sort of dangerous and fraught times we live in right now, I guess I would say. Yeah, you're right. Okay, let's move on to Steve Bannon here. So some crazy developments in the state of New York. Let's put this up there on the screen. Steve Bannon is facing a New York state indictment and is going to turn himself in to the state where it is clear he will be prosecuted. Now, the actual details of this

were not yet released by the state. However, all current indications, let's put this up there on the screen, from Bannon himself and from others, is that this is involving the quote-unquote, we build the wall scheme that Bannon was originally indicted by the Justice Department and the federal government for. So here's what the details are. First, I'll read you what Steve Bannon says, quote, days after being swatted three different times by deranged thug from the New York City, inspired by the Biden administration to assassinate me by police, the Soros-backed DA, blah, blah, blah, the SDNY did the exact same thing to try and take me out of the election. It didn't work then. It certainly won't work now. There is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.

I'm proud to be a leading voice on protecting our borders and building a wall to keep our country safe. The war room show will be more vital, more intense, more urgent, and bigger this time. Now, the details of this, which we described also at the time, were, and actually, interestingly enough, I knew a lot about this when I was working over at the Daily Caller, because they did some of the initial work exposing what a fraud this entire thing was. It essentially involved a GoFundMe in which Trump supporters were giving real money, like millions of dollars, to an organization that said, if the government's not going to build the wall, we'll build the wall. We'll buy private land and we'll build an actual border wall on top of that. And there was a lot

of schemes as to contractors that were going to get involved and all of this. And essentially, what came out from the Southern District of New York who indicted Bannon on fraud charges were that Bannon himself and the founder of this organization essentially pocketed like a million dollars. And that none of it actually went to the scheme. They never built the wall. Yeah, well, look, go down there. Was it built or not?

Plot twist. It wasn't. This was promoted on Fox by a lot of conservative media organizations. Like I said, to their credit, the Daily Caller, Andrew Kerr specifically, who used to work there, was a guy who exposed all of this going on down at the time. It was a clear, you know, bilking and grift of the public, but it turned criminal when it turned into outright fraud,

of which Bannon himself attached to the project. I mean, I said this at the time, but what really is outrageous is, it's clear that there were, again, good-meaning folks. They were old. Some of them were believers. They gave their hard-earned cash to this GoFundMe, and they stole it. And Bannon, this is what always pisses me off.

He was already a multimillionaire before he even walked into the White House. Why do you need this money? Like, why take a million dollars from these old people? Now he's printing money off War Room. And it's like, why? Why did you do this? But remember also, Trump pardoned Steve Bannon for this. So it didn't look like Bannon was ever going to get prosecuted by the feds. But then Andrew Cuomo actually signed a law in 2019. Let's put this up there. He signed a law saying that New York is still allowed to prosecute anyone who has been pardoned by a president. That's why New York State indicted Bannon on this and shut. So this does look like Bannon very much could face some legal consequences outside of the contempt charges by Congress and the other stuff that we had seen, Crystal. Yeah. Well, the other folks, so Trump pardoned Bannon. He did not pardon the other folks who were involved in the scheme.

So two other men, including disabled veteran Brian Colfage, is that how you say his name? He's the guy who was the master. He was like the ringleader of this whole thing. They both pleaded guilty in federal court in connection with the fundraising scheme. Another trial involving third alleged participant, Timothy Shea, ended in a mistrial in June when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. So you've already got two dudes who were like guilty. We'll take the deal. So yeah, doesn't look good for Mr. Bannon here. Of course, he came out, you know, swinging with a like, they'll have to kill me first, et cetera, et cetera. But he was full of a lot of bluster before his contempt trial here in D.C. And that also was like laughed him and his defense team out of the courtroom because they were trying

to use these political arguments that he would use in the war room in a court of law and they were like this is ridiculous and this doesn't this is not a real defense.

So there you go. I mean look Brian Colfage again I remember he would go after the Daily Caller for reporting any of the truth

behind his whole scam and actually in some cases would use his veteran status and disabilities in order to he's like how dare you come after me he is the lowest politics weaponization he is the lowest of the low uh for going after again old people and others who genuinely believed in this isn't he the one that bought the that bought like a yacht with this money or something like that? That's my record. I don't remember the exact details. But, I mean, taking money from the people and not actually doing what you say is just like, especially whenever it comes to cynically using it for political purposes, it's just truly one of the worst things that you can do.

And that's exactly what he did. He did buy a yacht, by the way. That's correct. I'm remembering that detail. Yeah. Here's the yacht that a knighted build-the-wall founder used stolen money to. It is disgusting. I mean, whatever you think of, like, border security and the wall. Yeah, put that aside.

These are people who believed in something who were completely defrauded. And they deserve justice. I mean, it is disgraceful. And it's disgraceful the number of people who have coalesced around this, like, movement that just see these, especially elderly folks in the movement as like an easy mark for cash. And it's, it is absolutely disgusting. You're right. They're the lowest of the low. Yeah. So there you go. All right. So what are you looking at? Well, it's time to talk about California. It's a place that I genuinely adore. Best weather in the country, unparalleled natural beauty, absolutely massive.

A place that symbolizes Manifest Destiny and the American Project. At least, that's the way people used to think about it. Somehow, in the last few decades, one of our most wondrous states in the country has completely lost its way. It's been captured by a woke oligarchy and an ideology to ruin some of the most beautiful and incredible cities in the country. Don't listen to me. Listen to the people of California. For years, it has added or it has lost residents coming to take advantage of the weather and economic opportunity. Over the last two years, it's lost nearly 1% of its entire population due to dissatisfied residents from across the strait. The fleeing sees no signs of abating, and the

number one complaint is always the same. It's just unlivable for many normal people. Put crime, cost of living, and everything else aside. The reason I'm focusing so much on power on this show is because to say something very trite, power is life. Without it, much of the American dream is impossible. Literally many sections of our country are unlivable. And the technological future that I want to live in is impossible. That is why California's machinations with power and its ideological commitment to green ideology distresses me so much and is stressing the lives of its citizens in the middle of a major heat wave.

The California electric grid yesterday came literally within minutes of needing to institute rolling blackouts amid a heat wave across the state. Power generators and the state had to ask Californians to set their AC at 78 degrees, avoid charging their electric vehicles during the day, and to reduce power in any way they possibly could. Now, put aside the easy dunk of how exactly they're going to have an entire state with electric cars if it can't charge them in the day in 2022. Let's dig into why. Because it actually tells us everything about green ideology, and it shows us how we really got into this mess. Eight years ago, California passed a law requiring it to have 60% of its grid powered by renewable energy by 2030, and to achieve a 100% quote, renewable grid

by 2050. The types of renewables, of course, though, that they focus on, hydropower, solar power, and wind power, and a plan to decommission the only two nuclear power plants in the state. Now, as part of this renewable investment, they channeled all their money into these technologies and potential storage solutions. This created two problems. First, California still relies heavily on natural gas to power its grid. Two, nuclear power, the cleanest, most reliable form of low-carbon power, was left off of the table. Thus, in the interim several years, California has thrown by some estimates some $50 billion to solar, hydro, and wind. And the promise of those investments was that in the middle of a crisis, California would not have to turn to natural gas and other fossil

fuels, which traditionally have been the most reliable. So it's been a decade. How did that work out? Well, in the middle of the heat wave, California's grid nearly failed. Consumers had to live in houses at nearly 80 degrees because renewables were not reliable. Hydro was unavailable because of severe drought across the state. Solar generation was failing because there isn't enough storage to power the grid through the nighttime, meaning they had only three options, fire up natural gas, run nuclear that they have been trying to desperately and to recently close, and three, buy power from other states generated by natural gas. Here's the main problem. They haven't spent any money even updating their natural gas

fired plants. Instead, they spent all the money on renewables so that when they need the natural gas, they can't even get as much power from it. In fact, when I checked to see how the grid was doing, the results actually are stunning. When the grid is failing, here, the exact source of power for California was renewables at 9.7%, natural gas, 50, hydro, 6, imports, 27, batteries, 0, nuclear, 7. So consider it this way. For the literally tens of billions of dollars that California has spent, they can only achieve a whopping 10% renewable energy load in the middle of crisis. And as I observed here, for all the billions they spent, the Diablo nuclear power plant, which came online in 1985, is generating about as much power for the grid. That's a colossal failure. The future is clear. The California legislature

needs to extend its recent decision to save the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant beyond 2024. They need to take all the hundreds of billions of dollars they have set aside for renewable power and pour at least half and preferably even more into nuclear construction. The California dream of electric cars really is achievable. Nuclear power has a 92% capacity factor, double natural gas, which relies right now for most of its power. I still don't understand how California and Germany, two states which claim to care about the environment and carbon, just ignore nuclear altogether. The only thing that explains it is green brainwashing. We don't have time for that. Nuclear power doesn't care if it's too hot, runs great as long as you maintain it, like any grid

system. That's the obvious lesson from this near failure, and from the energy crisis sparked by Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas. We can literally have our cake and eat it too. It just requires planning, dropping ideology, and requires spending money that we have already appropriated, but this time in a smart way. Again, I'm saying this as someone who loves California. If I could pick anywhere else to live, it would probably be there. Every time I visit, it's dazzling. But the incompetence of its leadership over decades is making the place unlivable. California deserves to be saved, and the people who live there deserve a life that isn't just livable, but thriving. And it wasn't too long ago that California embodied that honored tradition of a great future out West. And if we don't save it, it promised to destroy even America itself. So that's the thing, Crystal.

You look at this 9%... And if you want to hear my reaction to Saabra's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? Well, guys, we've got new evidence that the pandemic changed everything when it comes to how workers think about their jobs. Now, that evidence comes in a series of trends. First, we've already closely tracked the great resignation here. Post-pandemic, a massive wave of workers fled their jobs for greener pastures. Some shifted within the same industry, taking advantage of a tight labor market to look for more pay or more flexibility.

Some had their eyes opened by the pandemic and shifted their entire life approach. Moving, downsizing, working less, spending more time with families and with hobbies. We've also tracked the grassroots labor unrest that has burned like wildfire across some of the least likely industries. In the U.S., there's literally never been a significant unionization surge in fast food. But Starbucks workers have turned that logic on its head. Their union push not only led to hundreds of Starbucks stores unionizing, but has lit a fire under workers at other fast food and retail stores as well. Chipotle workers are unionizing, REI workers are unionizing, Verizon store workers are unionizing, and so many more. The huge Amazon warehouse win has similarly lit a fire under logistics workers. Just in the past month, another Amazon warehouse filed for a union election.

Already unionized workers have been going on strikes to demand a better deal in their workplaces, and all of this activity is buttressed by public sentiment that is shockingly pro-union. According to Gallup, 71% of Americans are pro-union now. That's an insane turnaround in support in just a decade. Back when Obama was in office, Americans were basically 50-50 on union support, and there was a hard partisan dividing line. Now, even as trust in nearly every other institution plummets, Americans are saying at historic levels they believe in the union movement. The remote work revolution is also transforming

workers' relationships to the office. Cities like San Francisco have been the epicenter of that shift. Many workers were forced out of the office by the pandemic and then embraced remote or hybrid work for good. In doing so, they're attempting to reclaim autonomy over their days. They're attempting to eliminate commute time and gain choice in where they live since they are no longer tethered to an office that they have to get to five days per week.

Housing markets across the country are being transformed by these trends as workers decide to search for more affordable areas with a higher quality of life. But there are some brand new numbers out about one more labor trend that we really haven't talked about much here, and that is called quiet quitting. Now, quiet quitting is when workers stay in their jobs, but kind of do the minimum of what is required. Here's how it was explained in one viral TikTok. I recently learned about this term called quiet quitting, where you're not outright quitting your job, but you're quitting the idea of going above and beyond. You're still performing your duties, but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is it's not, and your worth as a

person is not defined by your labor. You are not your job. That is the core ethos here. Quiet quitting is an emphatic rejection of the grind set or hustle mentality and it's an emphatic rejection of the long-standing Puritan work ethic culture that has been a core part of American capitalist indoctrination since basically the industrial revolution. Now the old story went like this. You work hard, you play by the rules, and you'll be able to achieve the American dream of middle class prosperity. That story, of course, was reliant on a social contract between workers, government, and corporations that said your productivity would be rewarded with stability and basic prosperity. Healthcare, education, a modest home, a yearly family vacation.

Your loyalty to the company would be reciprocated so that you could depend on a predictable income if you just put in the time and the work. Now, the pandemic put into sharp relief just how corporate bosses actually feel about their workers these days. They were happy to fire them or to risk their lives while calling them essential, all in the name of profit. Many workers were forced out of their normal routines through layoffs or remote work, and in the process of having their lives turned upside down, they found a silver lining in the realization

that they were in fact so much more than their jobs, and that life in fact was so much more than just work. So in addition to unionizing or quitting or embracing permanent remote work, some workers just decided they were going to change their orientation to their job by quiet quitting. So how real is this phenomenon exactly? According to a new Gallup poll, it is real and it's actually quite widespread. At least half of American workers are quiet quitting. In fact, only 32% of workers said that they are

engaged in their jobs. That number has been declining for two years now. At the same time, the percent who say they are actively disengaged has been ticking up and now stands at 18%. That leaves a broad swath in the middle who are sort of engaged in their jobs, many of whom, again, according to Gallup, are quiet quitting. Even more revealing, quiet quitting is an extremely age-dependent phenomenon. So Gen Z is very pro-quiet quitting. Boomers and silent generations still, by and large, fully embrace the Protestant work ethic grind set. According to a new YouGov poll, 45% of Americans say they agree with the idea that a worker should only do the work they're paid for. No more, no less, as opposed to 44% who say they disagree with that sentiment.

But when you dig into the crosstabs, it really gets interesting. So 65% of workers under the age of 30 think that those workers should just do what they're paid for, as opposed to just 24% who disagree with that sentiment. Now, among the oldest respondents, those who are 65 plus, the numbers are almost exactly reversed. Only 28% of boomers and older support the quiet quitting ethos versus 65% who disagree with the quiet quitting ethos. No other demographic divides on income or race or gender were nearly as significant here. If you are young, you are probably in support of quiet quitting. And if you are older, you are probably not in support.

This all makes a lot of sense. Listen, Gen Z, they have never lived in a world where there was anything approximating corporate loyalty to workers or that stable social contract. The old American dream story has been a pack of lies, honestly, for a long time. Public corporations are loyal to their shareholders and duty-bound by the new market ethos to screw their workers as much as they possibly can. The rise of private equity and offshoring has made the corporate landscape even more indifferent and even more cruel. The government has worked overtime to speed offshoring and to dismantle the stability previously available through pensions, affordable health care, and quality education,

to allow companies to shirk the responsibilities of employment by classifying basically everyone as a contractor. The gig economy, of course, encapsulates all of these trends, forcing on workers an uncertain, precarious job that has none of the benefits of being an employee or being an owner, but has nonetheless been sold as some kind of path to freedom. All of this has been bubbling for a long time. The pandemic just accelerated it and made it mainstream. So when you put it all together,

these massive widespread changes in how Americans approach work are transformative. A sort of unofficial piecemeal general strike that will over time shape working conditions, housing markets, the education system, family lives, and the very mythology and values that we pass from generation to generation. As bosses attempt to force workers back to the office, bust unions, and embrace dystopian

surveillance tech to track their remote workforce, the battle on the other side has already clearly been joined. You see the generational pushback, too, in commentary from people like Bill Maher, as one example, who loves to trash millennials and Gen Z over their purported lack of work ethic. Did it ever occur to you, maybe they're not lazy. Maybe they're actually just thinking clearly about their life priorities and reacting to society as it currently exists. But Bill Maher and the boss classes freak out aside. These trends are too big to put back in the bottle. You are not your job. And if you're not your job, then maybe you're not also not the things that you buy. And if you're not the things that you buy, well, that is a whole ass revolution.

Personally, I am here for it. I guess I wasn't surprised at the generational divide. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now is staff writer for The Atlantic and host of Plain English podcast, the one and only Derek Thompson. Great to see you, sir. Great to see you, too. So you wrote another great, really thought-provoking piece. I was telling you, actually, my mom sent it to me.

So, you know, it really broke through into the mainstream. Let's go ahead and put it up on the screen. I think this is maybe the most important topic that you could possibly dig into. You say, America is a rich death trap. It's not just the pandemic for citizens of a wealthy country. Americans of every age at every income level are unusually likely to die from guns, drugs, cars and disease. Where did this data come from, Derek? And what did you find?

Yeah, this data came from new government research on life expectancy in the U.S. And what life expectancy basically does is it's statistic. It synthesizes practically everything you would care about for a country, our scientific advances, our drug overdoses, our habits, our culture, our policies, and basically says, if you imagine that someone lives in the year 2021 over and over and over again, exactly how long do you expect them to survive? And what this research found is that the number of years that we're expected to survive is going down. That's not supposed to happen in the richest country in the world. It's not supposed to happen in the richest country in the history of countries.

Something really, really bad is happening here. And what's so interesting is that it's not just the pandemic. It's the fact that is that it's not just the pandemic. It's the fact that compared to other rich countries, the U.S. does a much worse job of keeping people alive. We drive more and are more likely to die in our cars. We're more likely to die of drug overdoses. We have more guns and are more likely to die at the other end of a gun. There are so many reasons why in this country, it seems like we are more likely to die at any particular age and at any particular income level than residents of similarly rich countries. Yeah, I mean, that's what really is such the horrific part of it, which is that when you compare it to other OECD nations, one of the things that we often talk about and discuss here

is healthcare. But is it like how much of it has to do with the basic healthcare system? How much of it has to do with intrinsic things that are just to the nature of America? And then what are the areas which realistically we could do something about? Well, unfortunately, the answer to your question is just yes. Across the board, the answer is yes. Americans have much higher rates of obesity, about twice the average rate of obesity as the average European country. That's clearly bad for preventable diseases for things like hypertension. At the same time, we have less universal health care and less access to primary care. The US has fewer primary care doctors per capita than just about every country in Europe. And there's some interesting and complicated

reasons why that's the case. So I think it's best to say not just, oh, the US has these outcomes because of healthcare, or the US has these outcomes because we're less healthy. I think it's both. Both our habits are less healthy, and our healthcare is worse and less accessible. Let me play devil's advocate here. So I can imagine someone saying, yeah, but on the other side of this, you get freedom. And look, Americans like to be able to drive places. We have a car culture that's like part of our history. That's part of our sort of whole thing as Americans. We've got, you know, a healthcare system that fails in certain ways. It's hard for me to put a spin on this one, play devil's advocate, but in certain areas is extraordinary, is world-class, is the best in the world. You know, we have, we pay a price in a certain way for our freedom,

but these are values that are important to us. And just how long you live is not the only metric of living the good life. What would you say back to that? Yeah, freedom isn't free. Sometimes it costs you five years of life. That's a, It's a it's honestly it's a worthwhile argument. If you were going to give Americans a contract that said here, based on our built environment, you're going to drive twice as much as basically any other rich country. You're going to be more likely to die on a per mile driven basis. The amount of time that you spend sitting in your car and the amount of time that you don't spend walking, because the average American walks about half the amount of the

typical Japanese or Swiss person, the amount of time you spend sitting on your butt is going to add to an obesity epidemic or your likelihood of becoming obese. So you put all of this together, you get more open space, you get more lawns, you get more time in your car, you get less time walking. All of this cashes out in the likelihood that you're going to die three to four to five years earlier than the typical European. Do you accept that deal? I believe in a certain amount of freedom. If Americans got that contract and they said, yes, I'm going to sign on the dotted line, then I'd say, look, that might be their right to live in that way. What I want to do in this piece, what I want to do in a lot of my work is make the contract explicit. This is the world

that we are choosing to live in, a world with a built environment that is less safe than similarly rich countries. And it cashes out in Americans dying earlier and basically every single age, or having a higher likelihood of dying within the next year, and basically every single age of their life. That I think is an important thing for people to know as long as they're going to live in that world. Yeah, I agree. I mean, frankly, I would defend the car consensus, but I think we should be honest about what it is. And so Derek, what I'm interested in is some of your core of your work for your newsletter, we'll have a link in the description, because I really encourage people to read it is is about a quote-unquote American abundance agenda. How does this fit into your broader project of wanting to bring back some of the most innovative periods in American history? Is this unparalleled in our history as to how we've

gotten out of different scrapes? And what are some of the things we can draw on from our past in order to fix it? I think the way that I would frame the abundance agenda is that right now in the news media, there's a lot of talk about culture wars. There's a lot of talk about words, a lot of talk about symbolism. And I'm really interested in substance and material well-being. I want people to live in houses they feel comfortable in. I want them to have an abundance of energy. I want them to have an abundance of income. I want them to feel like they have an abundance of time to do that, which really is important to them. And I, of course, want them to have an abundance of life. I think that America is the richest country in the world, should have citizens that live longer than countries in other parts of the world,

because what is more important than an abundance of life? Yet what I see in the economy is one crisis of scarcity after another. We were told, for example, during the pandemic that we shouldn't wear masks because there weren't enough to go around. In the early part of the vaccines, we were told not to get boosters early because there weren't enough to go around. In the early part of the vaccines, we were told not to get boosters early because there weren't enough to go around. There was a baby shortage formula. There wasn't enough baby formula to go around. There aren't enough houses to house people. There aren't enough doctors to treat people. We live in a crisis of a scarcity mindset, and we need policies of abundance to create more of that which is really important to us. More healthcare, more housing, more shelter, more life.

That's a really, really important message. And it's really important, I think, for me to not just make that a kind of bumper sticker, but to make it a real set of policies. And that's what I'm doing in my newsletter. Where do you think that that scarcity mindset originates from? Who does that scarcity mindset benefit? It benefits sometimes those who have and are greedy and don't want to share it. People who have big houses and don't want apartments built near them, that is greed. They don't want the value of their house to go down in the short run. And so they restrict building near their house.

They are NIMBY, as you can call it. The American Medical Association purposefully advocates for limiting the number of residency slots for doctors. What does that do? It shrinks the number of total doctors in America. What happens when you have an artificial scarcity of doctors in America? It means fewer overall doctors and also encourages doctors in our extremely debt-burdened medical system to become specialists rather than general practitioners, which means there aren't as many primary care doctors in America. And we see this in the OECD data. So I think that greed is a huge part of this. I think scarcity comes from this sense that the pie can't grow because if it grows, somehow we'll lose out, right? We speaking now as those with means. I think it's really important for us to see beyond the horizon of that scarcity

mindset and see how abundance can really help all of us. Yeah. Well, like I said, everybody go subscribe. Derek's also got a great podcast. We'll put a link down there in the description. Highly recommend it to somebody that genuinely a must read. So thank you for joining us, sir. Appreciate it. Great to see you, Derek. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. As a reminder, we've got that discount going on. Counterpoints discount Friday. It launches also same day as our live show, which is crazy. We'll be in Atlanta exactly a week from tomorrow. So that'll be fun.

September 16th. It's going to be a great time for those who are going to join us. As we said, we've literally been in discussion. We're going to have some of the new dates that are being announced piecemeal. And we'll sell out those dates. It's going to be exciting looking at the calendar and figuring out which cities. Nice to get back on the road. Yeah, I miss it. I mean, it was one of the great moments, really. Right before the pandemic, we got to meet some of our fans. I still found it

incredibly valuable because there are things about the show that you don't even think about, which mean a lot to other people. And every once in a while, you meet somebody and you're like, wow, I didn't know that. I said something offhand and they're like, that meant so much to me. I'm like, wow. Yeah. Well, and the really revelatory ones are when people say the same thing over and over again. Yes. That didn't even occur to you. Yes. And you're like, oh.

I don't think about that. Yeah. Absolutely. I remember even something small, like when we were back at Rising, we'd say like, so what's on your radar? I didn't even really think of that as like a catchphrase. And then people were so into it. People want Indeed We Do t-shirts.

I'm like, really? Like you do? Listen, I mean, I'll look into it. People want Indeed We Do t-shirts. I'm like, really? Listen, I mean, I'll look into it. I'd be happy to. The t-shirts business, when you want to do it right, is kind of rough. Yeah, it is rough in terms of the margins. That being said, we will have t-shirts for sale, but please don't kill me. Just to be clear, to make something made in America and union-made in this country is astronomically hard and astronomically expensive. So don't get mad about the price. It's not us that are setting it in terms of the – but we're happy to do it, obviously, because we believe in making it there and not making it in China and then selling it to you for $25 and paying only $6. Because, frankly, that is the way people make actual money in this business. But again, the most efficient and best way in order to support us really is to just become a premium subscriber. So the link is down there in the description. Thank you all so much.

We got the promo going on. Don't forget, 10% off until October 6th. October 6th. So you got a little bit of time. The 28th day. I'm not good at math. Yeah. And we had a lot of people already take advantage of the promo. Yes, we did. So thank you to those of you who did. It means a lot to us to get those annual memberships in, just helps us be able to plan, expand, build. You know, we're still in the hiring process. We've got a lot of great, incredible, very qualified people to evaluate and try to figure out who's going to

be the best fit for the show. So anyway, we love you guys. Have a great weekend. We'll see you back here next week. see you next week you say you'd never give in to a meltdown never let kids toys take over the house, and never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule, never lick your thumb to clean their face, and you'd never let them leave the house looking like, uh, less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it.

Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens.

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