Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Best of Week 5/1: Roe vs Wade, SCOTUS Leak, Roe Politics, Economic Downturn, Ukraine War, Primary Results, & More!

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about Roe being overturned, SCOTUS leak, Roe politics, Ohio primary results, Ukraine escalation, economic downturn, & 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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. worthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do, guys. It's a big one today. I'm sure that you from all angles, tell you what exactly was leaked, what it says about the leak itself, and also our own analysis based on polling and based on history of what we think this means for the political landscape. Of course, it's really anyone's guess, but there's no doubt that this is really, you know, a huge earth-shattering type of moment in politics. But that's not all. We also had the second Amazon labor union election yesterday on Staten Island.

They went down to defeat. We'll tell you about that and maybe some reasons why potentially this time was different than last time and what it pretends for the future. And, oh, by the way, it's also a big primary day. We have some big races in Ohio with implications for the future of the Republican Party and also the future of the Democratic Party. We're going to have a report from Jordan Cheriton, our great partner who is on the ground in Ohio right now with Status Quo. He's got sound both from the Nina Turner-Chantel Brown race. He's also got sound from Republicans

talking about how they're evaluating their options. There. Some really interesting stuff. So we'll talk to Jordan about what the mood is there. But we want to start with what is obviously truly bombshell news, the leak of this draft decision that would overturn longstanding precedent of Roe versus Wade. Politico, with what is, you know, scoop of the ages here, go ahead and put this up on the screen. I'm going to take my time and go through a good bit of this. So you just have the facts of what happened and what the decision, the draft decision here ultimately says. They say the Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe versus Wade decision,

according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, circulated inside the court, and obtained by Politico. The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 92 decision, that's Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that largely maintained the right. Alito writes Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. So not mincing words here whatsoever. Part of what he writes in the document, he says, we hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. It is time to heed the

Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives. Now they go on to say the liberations on controversial cases can be fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court's holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months. I would say, though, it is very unlikely that the contours of what is happening here are ultimately going to change. They say the immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February, that's the date that is on this draft that was leaked,

would be to end a half-century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It is unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft. Let me read you a little bit of the sort of, you know, the TLDR of this lengthy draft. Alito writes, Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak and the decision has had damaging consequences and far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have inflamed debate and deepened division. Of course, I don't think that this decision is going to lessen debate or lessen divisions, but we'll

put that aside. In terms of who is siding with the majority here, we know Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Alito, who drafted this decision. It's a little bit unsure what Chief Justice John Roberts is ultimately going to do. However, there is reporting that indicates he was going to dissent from the majority opinion and take kind of a middle ground, Sagar, which was, you know, this was all came about because of this Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks. So he was trying to find a way, and you could hear this in the oral arguments too, where he could uphold the Mississippi law and yet not strike down Roe entirely. And so even though,

you know, it was very clear, the court is very conservative at this point, it's very clear that there has been decades worth of activism to get justices on the court for exactly this moment. There was a thought maybe they would pursue that middle ground of continuing to erode abortion rights, which has been the direction of the court for years and years now, but not actually go the full distance and overturn Roe. It looks like the only justice who will ultimately pursue that course here is likely Chief Justice John Roberts. So it really is an extraordinary moment. A couple more things within the legal reasoning here that are going to be major points of contention. Liberals are looking at this not just in terms of what it means for Roe, which obviously has

extraordinary consequences. We'll get to some of that in just a moment, but also what it could mean for some other decisions which have been, you know, which have been taken by the court, which depend on some of the same legal rationale that Roe ultimately did. So they write in this political piece, liberal justices seem likely to take issue with Alito's assertion in the draft opinion that overturning Roe would not jeopardize other rights the courts have grounded in privacy, such as the right to contraception, to engage in private consensual sexual activity, and to marry someone of the same sex. So in particular, liberals are concerned about the Obergefell ruling. That's the one that granted the right to same-sex marriages. There are others as well that sort of depended on some of the same legal rationale. So it truly is an extraordinary moment in how it happened, in when it happened, in what it means.

And there is a lot to take in and a lot to process here today. Yeah, there's no way around it. So I think we can at least say within that, so within the vote itself, we know then that that means that Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Barrett joined the decision. Now, obviously, and obviously Alito since he's the person who, and of course Justice Gorsuch as well. There were some questions on Justice Gorsuch given his ruling in the Bostock case, but that was more on a libertarian-minded view whenever it came to trans issues. So this one at least pushes that in that vein. In terms of Justice Roberts, like you said, we do have reporting. It's difficult, you know, in terms of people familiar with thinking and all of this.

We'll get to this in the leak section of our show. But, you know, relying on all of these reports when we don't actually know the vote actually makes it even harder. And another thing I would emphasize is this is a draft report. As you said, it is possible that things have moved around. So from a lot of the legal analyses that I have looked at and from my friends who are certain is that the vote is almost certainly not likely to change. However, it could be that the opinion and the scope of the opinion could change somewhat whenever it's eventually issued. So this was not expected until July. Now, there's also a lot of questions here about what exactly the court is going to do. They could come out today and just be like, okay, here's a majority opinion. The dissents and all that are still being

written, but given the extraordinary leak of what's happened here, we're just going to go ahead and make this, which would make a settled law. They have not responded or commented at all to this point. Right. And that's another point where both pro-life people and people who are pro-choice are saying is like, hey, this is a draft opinion. The law of the land is still what it is. So this does not affect current laws that are on the books. That being said, when it is issued, it will have a significant impact and definitely just change the scope of our politics. Put this up there on the screen. There are 21 states currently that have auto-trigger laws that either ban or restrict abortion if Roe versus Wade is

overturned. So there are a lot of laws on the books, and I'll just go ahead and read these. Most would ban abortion with limited exceptions like medical emergencies or in the cases of rape or incest. Those are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. So those were all laws which were actually enacted mostly during

the Trump administration as the ability so that way the state legislatures would not have to meet in order to ban abortion if they wanted to. It was like an auto-trigger law in the event of what happened with Roe v. Wade. Now, there are other states which have some – which will clear certain types of restrictions. So those states, trigger law states, would choose to immediately begin enforcement. Other states would have a so-called phase-in period with the heartbeat

laws that we've seen. So it's very, very different in terms of state by state. And then I believe others also have Oregon, Vermont, and the District of Columbia have it specifically enshrined all the way up until the point of birth. So that is just the clear kind of, now it's going to become a state issue, you know, if and when this does actually become the law of the land. And I think that people need to adjust how they're going to look at these types of politics because it's just going to change, you know, the state legislatures themselves are going to become major flashpoints. And I think my question and your question as well is like, how does this change the landscape in a state like a Pennsylvania,

in a state like a Florida, in a state like a Florida, in a state like what are some other purple states that are at Georgia actually is one that could possibly go more red as a result of this. We'll get to the politics. Georgia actually has already, they have a very extreme ban already on the books starting at six weeks. So six weeks after that, you're done. I mean, for any of you who have been pregnant before, you often don't even know till around six weeks. So, you know, Georgia now being a purple state, I think, yeah, that could probably push the state more in the direction of, you know, a hardening sort of suburban Democratic majority. But we'll get to a little bit more of that because we're going to delve into the politics here in a few minutes. You know, the reason why it's a little bit complex and you'll see slightly

different numbers in different places about which states will effectively automatically ban or severely restrict abortion when this ruling does go into effect is because the laws are complex. So you have some states that it's just straight out. They passed a law that says if Roe gets overturned, we are automatically, these are called trigger bans, so we are automatically effectively ending the right to abortion in our state, period. You have some states, there's a new one added to the list since actually that article was even written, that's Florida, where they passed a law that was very similar and DeSantis signed it into law to the Mississippi law that was in front of the court. It is a 15-week ban with exceptions only for life of the mother but not for rape or incest. some states that had prior to Roe an abortion ban that was already pre-existing and on the books, and then Roe went into effect and effectively nullified those laws, but the laws are still

on the books. So for some of those, those are likely to come back into effect. As you pointed out, some places it will happen immediately. Some places there will be a phase in over time. And I also think it's worth pointing out that because of the way that abortion rights have been sort of the ground has already eroded under abortion rights over the past decades, you already have a number of red states where the right is already effectively gone. Texas is a good example. Texas is a good example. Kentucky, where I used to live, is a effectively gone. I mean, yeah, Texas is a good example. Texas is a good example. Kentucky, where I used to live, is a good example. You know, when I was there, I think there was one clinic that remained in the state.

That clinic was constantly under assault from Republicans who tried to pass these laws that were, like, putting out all of these superfluous medical restrictions that weren't really necessary for the clinics but made it impossible for them to continue to operate. So there are already a number of states where the right is already effectively gone. I read a New York Times analysis this morning that was pretty interesting in terms of estimating what the overall impact

of overturning Roe is likely to be. And what they found is in Texas, after their new law went into effect, abortions dropped by about 10 percent because you had women who, you know, who had the means, at least who were able to travel across state lines. You had others who were able to get abortion pills in the mail. They estimate that it would this overturning of Roe would probably reduce abortions by about 14 percent because it's more sweeping in scope. They also point out, which I think is always important to remember, who is the most typical patient seeking an abortion. It's usually low income women. So there is no doubt just factually that this ruling will overwhelmingly impact poor and working class women,

wealthy women in this country, pre-Roe, post-Roe, and after this new overturning of Roe happens, have always been able to get whatever care, whatever doctors, whatever access, whatever procedures they want to get. That will undoubtedly still be the case. It's poor and working class women who will be affected by this. They are the typical abortion patients. And it's also worth pointing out here that the typical person, woman seeking an abortion is a mother who already has children. So listen, you know, my personal feelings on this, I am a mother. I know that there are people who watch this show who have any range of views on the issue. I do think it's, you know, disingenuous to say that the moral issues involved are not complex or that there are not competing moral claims here.

Personally, I have always felt that because it is a complex moral issue, the best thing, the best course for governments to take is to trust the women who are evaluating a very difficult landscape and making very difficult choices. So that's why I've always been pro-choice and why I do think that this decision ultimately will be really damaging for a lot of women out there. And the last thing I'll say on this on my own personal opinion is that if you do care, and I do, and I know probably all of you listening do as well, about reducing the number of abortions because no one is like, yay, go abortion. Abortion is a wonderful thing. You can look at the statistics and see that the vast majority of women who seek abortions are low income and see that if you deal with material conditions and you allow women to be able to support their children and their families and create an atmosphere of thriving, then you are going to have a very large effect in terms of

reducing abortion. So that's what I'll say about that. It's funny, Chris. I've said previously I'd rather gouge my eyes out than talk about abortion, but I guess it's here. So cards on the table. Here it is. I grew up in evangelical Texas, left a bit of a scar on me. I can just tell you personally, I consider myself a barstool conservative. I'm culturally center right whenever it comes to modern culture war issues. But I've always been safe, legal and rare guy, basically a Democrat from the 1990s. I mean, what you just espoused is literally what Bill Clinton said on the 1992 Democratic nomination. I know that's going to piss off a lot of my Republican and Catholic friends here in Washington. But look, I mean, I think I owe it to the audience to tell people where I'm coming from. So if you are a person who is super pro-life and you're Catholic or evangelical or somebody else, Orthodox, Jewish, et cetera, I am not going to be your representative

on this issue. And I just think it's important for people to understand where I'm coming from. I do think some of the histrionics on this are wrong. I mean, for example, what you were talking about, I know several states, New York, California, and elsewhere are going to set up travel funds so that people who are in these places can travel to those states. I think that's very likely to be, you know, the next frontier of like a lot of abortion politics. But yeah, I mean, look, I mostly share your view on the entire thing. I'm pretty socially libertarian and have become so, especially over the last two years during the COVID pandemic. And, you know, whenever I look at this issue, I mostly trust

people to do what they want for themselves. I do have a real moral aversion to like partial birth abortion and anything, you know, I was telling you there's a case here in Washington where there were some released photos of babies who were aborted when they were like seven months old. And I was like, I'm sorry, you know, that's crazy. That's straight up murder. Now, obviously, the Catholics and the Christians are going to be like, well, life begins at conception. Listen, I'm not religious. I don't share your view. I'm never going to. You're not going to convince me of it. I do want to respect, though, the people who feel that way. It's a free country. You're allowed to believe what you would like. And I know this is the number one issue for a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump.

I do think, and we'll get to this in the Roe politics segment. Listen, I mean, this is going to have a significant impact on our public discourse. I would just ask you, try and engage it in the way that we're here. Crystal, you just gave an extraordinarily compelling case, in my opinion, on the pro-choice point of view. You could also see clearly why people might be able to dissent from it. Guys, if you are out there, please just spend some time engaging both with the people on both sides

and try to understand that they are not demonic and they don't want to destroy you, both on either side. Now, are there fringe elements? Like you said, are there people like Lena Dunham who literally support and celebrate abortion? Yeah, you can find that, frankly, amongst all people. Well, you can also find people who bomb abortion clinics and will say, I'm a murderer for what I just said. That's right. People will call me a murderer too. I already know that you can hear the screeching. I don't particularly care. But listen, those fringe elements exist on all sides

of our debate. I would just say that, you know, let's all try to remember who we are. We've lived through much more contentious times in this country. And I know it's a difficult time for people. I personally felt, and I know this sounds crazy, I felt a sense of dread when I saw the news because I was like, oh man, this is just, this is the last thing we need in terms of ripping us all apart. But I also know that there are a lot of Catholic moms and, you know and March for Life people out there. This is their number one issue. They have been trying for this for 40 years.

And people have constituencies in this country, and it is what it is. You can argue that this issue is maybe the most central issue to why Trump ultimately was elected. Yeah. Because, I mean, it was him putting Mike Pence on the ticket to shore up, to signal to evangelicals, like, I'm with you. You know, you may not love my choices in life. And I know in the past he supported Planned Parenthood. I mean, he clearly, like, doesn't really care about the issue, but it doesn't matter what he personally feels because ultimately he puts Pence on the ticket. He releases his list of Supreme Court justices.

And in the wake of the fallout from the grabber by the pussy scandal, that really helped to shore up and bring home that Christian, you know, evangelical base for whom this has been an extremely animating issue for decades. So, and now that base is his hardest support. And to be quite honest, you know, a lot of times we talk about like, oh, it doesn't make sense. You hear this analysis a lot. Like, why do they love Donald Trump? This is why right here, because ultimately this was the issue, the number one issue that they were backing him for. And now it's actually happening. The last thing I want to say, and then we can move on to how this came out, which is also worth discussing and is also pretty extraordinary, is they write, a leader writes in this draft decision, we do not pretend to know how our political system or society respond to today's decision

overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, I think that's how you say that, and decide this case accordingly. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a

right to abortion, wrote in Casey, must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. So Alito basically acknowledging here that this is going to be a shit show, that this is going to be trigger an incredibly tumultuous time in American politics because, you know, for the majority of the country, we're going to get to the polls. Roe is has been sort of settled law. It's accepted. It's, you know, very significant majority support. Now, Americans views on abortion are kind of all over the place. It's complex. You know,' views on abortion are kind of all over the place. It's complex. You know, Americans by and large are sort of moderate on how they feel about abortion

rights. Most people don't think you should have the right all the way up till, you know, the date of birth, but they also don't support, you know, even in very red states, the heartbeat bills that would say the moment that there's a heartbeat, abortion is 100 percent banned. So, you know, this definitely puts the court on the side of a relatively extremist position here. And, you know, it's it's going to be it's the first time where instead of just this sort of casual erosion of this right or other things that have been broadly viewed by a large number of people as social progress, where you have an actual clear, oh, the bending of the moral universe doesn't actually always arc towards justice. Well, it depends how you look at it. Of course. But I'm saying in terms of the majority of the country, based on the polling,

right, this is a decision that by the majority of the country has been viewed as progress, for it to be then overturned, I do think that it is a real wake-up call for a lot of people that none of these things can ultimately be taken for granted. None of it is completely settled ground. And that's just my encouragement to you, wherever you fall on this issue or any other on the political spectrum, to not take for granted any privilege, benefit, right that you enjoy in this country. Any and all of it can be rolled back if you are disengaged, if you are apathetic, if you think that, you know, you don't want to get your hands dirty in politics, or if you think

that you're, you know, too disgusted with the system, which I certainly understand and relate to, to ultimately get involved. So that's sort of the ruling. As I said at the beginning, you know, there is some outside chance that it could change between now and the month or two months from now when it ultimately is released and becomes law of the land. But I think that is very, very unlikely. And it seems incredibly, you know, almost certain that this is the direction the country's headed in. Let's go ahead and move on then to SCOTUS politics, because this how this all came out is a crazy story in and of itself.

As you said, basically a scoop of the century there from Politico and the overall analysis of how this is going to affect the court for decades to come really is not yet being grappled with. Put this up there on the screen. From Skoda's blog, the document leaked to Politico is almost certainly authentic draft opinion by Justice Alito that reflects what he believes at least five members of the court have voted to support overruling Roe. But as Alito's draft, it does not reflect the comments or the reactions of other justices. So that is definitely something to keep in mind whenever you're looking at that. We don't yet know if you're going to have concurrences from Justice Thomas,

concurrences from Justice Barrett and others that, you know, people should remember they're not entirely familiar with the way that these things go, but there can usually be, you know, up to like 10 documents that are issued

with different concurrences. People can dissent from specific pieces. It can be hundreds of pages. It is noteworthy. The draft is from February. So it's... It could have pieces. It can be hundreds of pages. It is noteworthy the draft is from February. Right. So it's. It could have changed.

It could have already changed. That's an important thing to note in this. Right. Okay. And so then in terms of the leak itself, there's a lot of questions about this leak. Let's put this up there on the screen again from Skoda's blog. It is impossible to overstate that the earthquake this will cause inside of the court. In terms of the destruction of trust amongst justices and staff,

this leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin. And what he means is that within the court itself, it is a longstanding precedent. You do not leak draft opinions because they get issued by the court itself whenever everything is ready. As of, because it is literally the law of the land, it can change markets, it can change the country.

Obviously, this one is gonna impact our politics dramatically. And so, as I understand it, having spoken now to some people who were on SCOTUS or familiar with the process for clerking, this is the cardinal sin. You are never allowed to leak not only to reporters, but a draft opinion itself being circulated is like that is a whole other realm. Now, we don't know the circumstances under which this was leaked, and I do think it is worth kind of understanding who the people who brought this to light are. So the two reporters who published this at Politico, Josh Gernstein and Alex Ward. So what's interesting about the two of them, because I actually knew Alex back in my Pentagon days, he's a national security reporter who used to work at Vox. Josh Gernstein is a legal expert. You and I are probably most familiar with him for his reporting on the FBI. So it's not that

he's more familiar, again, with national security law. There are a lot of questions right now as to why exactly the person who broke probably, or the people who broke probably the biggest scoop of the last 20 years are not Adam Liptak, who is the New York Times correspondent, Nina Totenberg, the NPR Supreme Court. She may have been placed back off of leave for some ethical decisions. But anyway, Nina Totenberg, she's the previous person who ever actually reported inside the Supreme Court. Jane Mayer over at The New Yorker. There are many reporters in this town who have been covering the court, frankly, know the justices, have dined with them, been to their parties, weddings, all kinds of stuff. The fact that they did not report this and get this is pretty extraordinary. It leads to a question also on the leak strategy. And this is another thing I

want to spend a little bit of time on, which is that there is an overwhelming assumption right now that this leak came from a liberal member of the court, either a justice herself or himself, or a member of their staff. But there also is a prevailing opinion on the right, in right legal world, that this was actually leaked because this is the majority opinion that should have been and has now been kind of hammered away by Roberts or by Justice Kavanaugh because we don't know what the internal one is. So, I mean, I don't really know what to think. One theory floating out there is that the reason Gernstein and Ward got it is because it's possible that the email system for the Supreme Court was hacked and by like within the national security realm. Oh, that's interesting. I haven't seen that theory.

Yeah, so like there's one theory that this was actually a hack of their email servers and then it was leaked, you know, to people who would be familiar with those types of sources, possibly like the NSA. Once again, by the way, this is not pure speculation. That's interesting, though. Number two this is not that. Pure speculation. That's interesting though. Number two is that this was a liberal justice. I would say the overwhelming kind of opinion is on that one. Number three is that. Although it seems like, to your point about

who got the scoop, it does seem like if it was a liberal justice, it would go to Nina Totenberg. Or Nina Totenberg. Yeah, or even like a Jeffrey Toobin or. Exactly, yeah, Jeffrey Toobin is another one. He's written entire books on the court. I mean, you know, the CNN.

He was the first person who was on CNN. What's his name at NBC who's very well respected? Pete. Pete Williams. Yeah, Pete Williams. You know, these are people who have direct personal relationships, tons of sources within the courts. Right.

Yeah, you, I, listen, this is all pure conjecture, but I would think that if it was actually one of the liberal justices that it would have come to one of those. I would think so too. Maybe they're trying to cover their tracks.

Also, it's possible the justices had no idea. A member of the staff did it. Maybe they went to college with Alex or with Josh Gertz. You know, I mean,

who knows how these all things play out. Also, I did see some criticism of Politico for publishing this story. Oh, come on. Please. If I had my hands on this, I hit publish the moment I know it's real. No matter what you think. I can't believe anyone's even arguing that. Greatest story of all time. I mean, in terms of national impact, it's crazy. And especially, I'm sure it probably came from the same people who would be outraged that, you know, Twitter censored the Hunter Biden story and things like that.

It's like, all right, guys, we got to be consistent here. I do think that, you know, it was wrong to censor the Hunter Biden story. Obviously, if you're Politico or any news organization, you're going to run it. There's no question. I do think that, you know, there was a lot of conservative outrage about the fact of the leak itself. I just want to say, like, to me, the substance is way more important than the leak. I am not outraged about the leak. I view this per—listen, I have no respect for, like, the norms and guardrails of the Supreme Court. I think it's an undemocratic, unaccountable institution. I think it already kind of sucks. I think it's,

you know, I think its norms suck, too, by by the way, like they have this instinct towards a total lack of transparency and also towards a total lack, which we covered on this show, of any sort of ethical guardrails for their own justices, unlike other places within the judiciary, within the federal judiciary. So, you know, and again, it's the same type of people who during the Trump era would have been like, ah, the norms and guardrails. You guys stop with your pearl clutching are now like, oh, how could you violate the sacred norms of the Supreme Court? I get where they're coming from. I do think it's – I think really whoever did this, you did us all a disservice because really, Crystal – and I agree with you. The substance is obviously the most important part.

There's a reason we led the show with that. That's not going to be my first take. My real thing is, guys, as people who we want to know the full picture, all we have is some draft opinion. We don't know the concurrence. We don't know what the law is. We don't know who voted against. We don't know what the full effect is. Okay, let's say that you're, whoever leaked this is pro-choice. Well, listen, whoever you did this, you just put a lot of women in who are, maybe there's a lady who doesn't go get an abortion right now. I mean, listen, it's still the law. You can, if you want to. Or on the other hand,

there could be someone who says, I better get this shit done right now. Right, exactly. I mean, listen, it's extraordinarily likely that that's going to happen, right? I mean, we could go, I'm sure there's going to be planned lines down the block on Planned Parenthood here in Washington or many of the other liberal cities. So I just think that whoever did this really did us all a disservice. I don't agree with that because I ultimately think the more information and the sooner the American people have that information, the better. I mean, we're also going to be talking about voting happening right now in critical political primary races that, you know, could very much be impacted by what looks extremely likely to occur in this case. So, so I, I totally disagree with that. I do actually think it was a

service to have this information, to have the transparency around it, to have insight into their thinking. And, you know, I have no issue with, I have no issue with whoever decided to leak this for whatever reason it was. And I think you're right to point out like there was there is sort of a working assumption that this was someone who was pro-choice, who was upset about the direction of the decision, who wanted who wanted to try to put pressure somehow and like a Hail Mary pass to get somebody to bend under public pressure and go a different direction. I don't think that there is any chance that strategy is ultimately going to work. So basically, I think this just gives us insight earlier to where the court has ultimately landed on one of the central fault lines in American politics of the last 50 years. I would just like to say on this, which is that it will destroy trust on the Supreme Court, and it will change the way

that this works for all time. Because like I said, there is a pretty cordial relationship right now between, you know, like Justice Kagan is friends with, or Justice Ginsburg was really good friends with like Justice Scalia, and the U.S. to go to conferences together, and Kagan is apparently close with Roberts, all this other stuff. That stuff is over in terms of sharing opinion. I know. I know you don't care. I don't really care about their decorum. It could have a big impact, though, on all of us.

I don't really know what that would look like. I would personally be happy to see the trust and credibility of the Supreme Court go down. Well, this is going to change. I mean, this is certainly going to polarize it. This is going to polarize it, no question, on the minds. The other thing, I just wanted to point out some of the history here because you actually sent this this morning, which is that there's no doubt that a leak, a premature leak of a decision is extraordinarily rare, but it's not

completely unprecedented. And actually, interestingly, when Roe was actually decided, there was a clerk for one of the justices who gave, I think it was Time magazine, the jump on the story. And then so the whole idea was, okay, I'm going to give you insight into what the decision is, but it's embargoed until the decision actually comes out. And because there was a delay in releasing the decision, Time actually, their magazine went to print and was on newsstands several hours before the decision actually came down and really sort of like screwed over this clerk who tendered his, he was like, I'll resign if you want. And I mean, the reporter, you know, and Time magazine really kind of screwed him over because when you have an embargo, you have an embargo and that's that.

So that is an instance when it was leaked ahead of time and there was a jump on the story is obviously a little bit different than this situation where, you know, it's clearly an attempt by someone to inform the public early and potentially try to affect ultimately the outcome is whatever the outcome is here. Although, again, I think that is extremely almost, you know, impossibly unlikely to happen. But it is it is very rare for this ultimately to happen and does represent in its way also a sort of watershed breakdown in terms of, you know, how the court operates. Again, I have no problem with that, but that's just like the factual. It's a factual matter. It's going to change course of business there on the court. And you know, that, that is something which is going to be interesting. Also, let's go put this next one up there on the screen. Just people who are

asking about the authenticity. Here's what Politico said in response. And it should also be notable. It's kind of like the Hunter Biden story where, look, you think the Supreme Court's not aware that it's out there. If it was fake, they would tell us. They would tell us, yeah. They'd be like, they would have immediately shot it down. They would have been like, this is a fake report. Actually, there's a good example of this recently. Remember there was that story where people claimed that Sotomayor had to work from home

because Justice Gorsuch wouldn't wear a mask? And they all put out statements being like, this is bullshit, that none of that happened. So we literally know that that happened. I think it happened like three or four months ago. So here's an example where it's been out there now. We're filming this. It's 8.47 a.m. here on the East Coast. Guarantee you all the justice has been up all night. If it was fake, they would have told us so. But in regards to that, the Politico says extensive review process. We're confident of the authenticity

of the draft. And again, pretty much everybody who is familiar with the court says that this is absolutely an authentic draft. So look, take that for what you will. All right, guys. I don't know if you've been paying attention, but I happened to catch my eye last week that the stock market has been – did not have a great month in April. And we will tell you why that matters potentially to your life. Go ahead and put the numbers up on the screen there from CNBC. Dow tumbles more than 900 points. The Nasdaq drops 4% on Friday to close out a brutal month.

So let me read you some of the details here. They say U.S. stocks on Friday, Nasdaq composite notching its worst month since 2008 as Amazon became the latest victim in April's technology-led sell-off. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell nearly 4.2%, weighed down by that Amazon post-earnings plunge. The S&P retreated by 3.6%. The Dow shed 939 points, or close to 2.8%. Nasdaq finished at a new low for 2022, and the S&P did as well with the main stock benchmark taking out its previous low in March.

They point to here a couple of things. First of all, they mentioned Amazon with a bad earnings report. They lost about 14%, biggest drop since 2006 after reporting a surprise loss and issuing weak revenue guidance for the second quarter. And Amazon, of course, being a global retailer subject to the same supply chain issues and global forces as everyone else. So when they saw Amazon taking this surprise loss, that seemed to trigger broader losses across the board. And of course, Amazon, you know, being such a giant, just like that loss in and of itself is a significant blow.

By the way, Jeff Bezos, his fortune plunge, this shows you how insane his net worth is. His fortune plunged by more than $20 billion just Friday, just during that one stock route on Friday. The big picture here is nothing that you all will be shocked about. Of course, you've got the ongoing supply chain issues. Of course, you have lockdowns in China contributing to concerns. Of course, you have the war in Ukraine, which is causing all kinds of problems and again, fueling those supply chain crises, not to mention increasing issues,

both with gas, but also with food prices. Then you also have the Fed. Let's go ahead and put this Wall Street Journal tear sheet up on the screen. So they say here, Fed prepares double-barreled tightening with bond runoff. What does that mean? So obviously with inflation continuing to be high, the Fed has already hiked interest rates, but only by 0.25 percent.

So relatively mild. But the ideas they're meeting this week, they're likely to do a 0.5 interest rate hike. And they are also beginning the process of unloading all of those assets that they have piled up on their balance sheet. Now, you don't need to get into the complicated mechanics of this. However, you should just see this as another way that they are tightening financial fiscal policy. So in addition to the interest rates increases, which are, you know, they're going at a faster clip now and they're trying to pull back consumer demand, you also have selling, they may not sell off the assets,

they just let them run off, but unloading these assets that also contributes to fiscal tightening. So that's probably the big thing that is causing the markets to be spooked right now. And Sagar, as we've covered here before, it is significantly dangerous because we are in uncharted waters with regard to the massive amounts of assets that the Fed has piled up on their balance sheet. And even the experts don't really know what the impact is going to be of allowing these assets to run off. They are also indicating they may even be so aggressive as some of the assets to actually sell, which they have never done before. They didn't do that even in the brief period when they let some of the assets run off before. So they don't know precisely what this is going to do for the economy. So that means that there is a big risk that instead of the soft landing, quote unquote, that they want to be able to engineer,

that they're going to trigger a massive crash. Why? Because these assets are massively overinflated. I mean, there's huge asset bubbles. Appears that the stock market continues, even after these declines, to be hugely overvalued. So you have a very, very risky situation ultimately. And the last thing I'll say about this, which I thought David Dayen said quite well, is basically like, you have a supply chain crisis

that is fueling inflation. What does the Fed increasing interest rates and curbing demand have to do with that whatsoever? Like, that doesn't ultimately solve the problem. It's a very blunt tool. It's effectively the only tools that the Fed has. And since everything else in this town is dysfunctional, that's basically what we have to rely on. And that's a very risky gambit. Yeah. There's only one organization in America that could fix this supply chain crisis. It's called Congress. And they would have to have a massive industrial project over the next five years to both set investor expectations and also fix the structural problems in our economy. Absent

that, not much you can do. And in this article, they say that Jerome Powell was quoted in March saying that this is equivalent to an additional quarter point bump in the interest rate, which again, you should all be very concerned about. I think the part here which does concern me, and I don't want to get too much into the weeds, but basically, instead of both a passive runoff, there is a consideration of actively selling mortgage bonds on the open market. Now, what that would be is it would actually raise the mortgage rates and borrowers would be less likely to refinance into a new loan. Thus, they would be slower to mature. So,

it would be, in effect, an ability in order to push the mortgage rates even higher than they currently are. Now, my concern on that would be, look, I think that the mortgage rate already has risen more than any time in modern American history. That's kind of nuts. I mean, we went from 2% to 5% in the span of a single year. Now, that's obviously going to slow down the market. Let's say mortgage rates get up to like 7%. Now you're in a situation where you're actually going to be increasing a rent crunch because people who were going to buy are not going to borrow at a 7% interest rate. Well, guess what, guys? We already have a 21% inflation when it comes to rent in a single year. I was talking with some people who were in Idaho and in Arizona. Both of those places are seeing double digit, like 40% rent increase in some areas

because of the runoff from California, Austin. I got friends moving to Austin very soon. The rent increase and mortgage increase and price there is in a world that you cannot even conceive of in terms of houses there were already selling 300,000 over asking price. Now, I'm not saying that that's a good thing, but we could be obviously in a situation of overcorrecting. And with all of these blunt tools, and especially with our financialized economy, you have no idea how this is going to play out. And what do we always warn people? You may not make money on the way up, but you're going to lose money on the way down. Because if there is a crunch, that means that, you know, it's harder to make payroll. It's harder for businesses to take out loans. It means more firings, means, you know, more macroeconomic conditions that make unemployment more desirable,

which literally, you know, the quiet part out loud when they say they want the economy to tighten or to slow down is they want higher unemployment because unemployment right now is like 3.9%. So that's a real disaster for a lot of people who are out there. That's it. Like what the Fed can do is basically make it so you have access to less money. There you go. That's when we use all this fiscal tightening and all this. That's what it actually means.

It's a euphemism. That's what it actually means. And so it's effectively the, of course, you know, inflation is a massive problem. Inflation at the level we have right now means that workers are taking a pay cut every single month. Like their wages are going down every single month. And obviously that cannot persist. But when we just rely on the Fed, that's how we got into this problem to start with, is that we have over-reliance on the Fed. And so we leaned on them to basically backstop the entire economy. And by the entire economy, I mean the entire Wall Street economy, because that's all they can really do without some novel and creative approaches, which we can debate with an expert on another day what might actually be at their disposal. But in terms of the tools that they think are available to them,

that's all they can do. And so when you over-rely on the Fed, they can shoot trillions of dollars at Wall Street. They can make sure that the stock market is completely buoyed. They can make sure the bond market this time is also completely supported and risk-free, can they actually fix the real economy and iron out these issues with the supply chain? No. And so you have a terrible potential scenario where they are acting to slow the economy and make sure you have less money in your pocket and available and access to in order to spend. But the inflation, the things that are causing inflation don't actually abate. So you continue to have

these high levels of inflation even as you're triggering a recession. I mean, that's a very real possibility that's on the table. And again, because we've never quite faced this exact scenario with a combination of interest rates, hikes, plus runoff of the assets on the balance sheet, plus potentially even selling off some of the

assets on the balance sheet, we really, there is no one who knows exactly what that is going to mean ultimately for the economy. So yeah, they may say it's probably equivalent to another quarter point increase. That might be true. It might be less than that. It might be more than that. These are all like educated guesses as to what it's actually going to mean for the economy. There was one other piece here that I wanted to share with you. So there's an analyst, another analyst,

who's predicting a massive stock market crash. Let's go ahead and put this insider tear sheet up on the screen. They say a notorious market bearer who called the dot-com bubble warns there's a strong possibility of a 50 to 70% crash ahead and breaks down why stocks are primed for a decade of dismal returns. Now, let me say, this guy, his name is John Hussman. He's the president of Hussman Investment Trust. And he is a little bit of a perma bear. And he has been predicting a crash for a while now and obviously hasn't come to fruition. However, on certain, his track record outside of that is actually very good. He predicted in March of 2000 that tech stocks would plunge 83%. And lo and behold, the Nasdaq index lost exactly 83%

during a period from 2000 to 2002. So, he kind of nailed that one. He predicted in 2000 that the S&P would likely see negative total returns over the following decade, and then it did. He also predicted in April 2007 that the S&P 500 could lose 40%, and then it proceeded to lose 55% in the subsequent collapse. So, he does have some record of correctly calling crashes in the past. He looks at, you know, whether markets based on his calculations are overvalued. And he effectively looks at the markets even after these declines and says they are still massively overvalued. And the real key here, I'll just read what he says. He says, the main thing that determines whether an overvalued

market continues to advance or drops like a rock instead is whether investor psychology is inclined towards speculation or risk aversion. When investors are inclined to speculate, they tend to be indiscriminate about it. When investors become risk averse, they tend to be skittish and selective. Such sentiment is already here. According to one weekly survey of investors, sentiment is at its lowest point since 2009. It's kind of a funny thing to measure, sentiment. But that's why he thinks he's issuing this dire warning about what could be coming next. Yeah, I think that in general, everyone should be very on the watch. The S&P 500 is down, I think, 14% year over year, which is not obviously the norm.

We've had a decade of mega growth. And actually, in Silicon Valley, I think I referenced this previously. I spoke with David Sachs. He's a venture capitalist. He was saying in some of the private markets, you have VC valuations dropping down by 70-something percent, which is that has a major ripple effect on capital, in the private markets, which then obviously is going to bleed into the public. So if the publics are down this much, imagine what private valuations. And remember, people take huge loans and margins based upon the valuations of their business.

This also impacts the type of technology and other stuff that gets invested in, in the middle of a bear market. So it's very possible after a decade of growth that we could in in the middle of a bear market. So it's very possible after a decade of growth that we could be entering a decade of decline. And my biggest fear is a true return to the 1970s, which is if they tighten and we still have high inflation by the supply chain crisis and we have high unemployment, you have straight up stagflation all over again, not to mention a gas crisis. It's like you can't make it up in terms of how it just, that situation was so traumatic for an entire generation of people. It impacted

fiscal policy for two decades. We could be back in that situation again. Yeah, it was so dire because now Paul Volcker, who was the chairman of the Fed then and who, you know, just decided like, I'm just going to lift interest rates until inflation stops. And he did that. And it was extremely painful. And I feel like some of that pain gets lost in the telling of the Paul Volcker narrative. Yeah, we don't really remember that. But it was so bad. You had, you know, farmers who were going bankrupt who literally, like, you know, drove their tractors up to the Federal Reserve

building. It was an intense period of financial and economic pain that was far from just confined to Wall Street. So that's why we're kind of trying to stay on top of, you know, what the Fed is doing, what it means, how investors are reacting, because I think it's undeniable that, you know, the markets have been dramatically overvalued. They've been pumped up undeniable that, you know, the markets have been dramatically overvalued. They've been pumped up by the Fed and, you know, they're backstopping of the entire thing. And so the question is just, you know, is the music going to stop and the whole thing collapse or will they be able to actually engineer this soft landing that they are trying to pull off in very difficult circumstances? Yeah.

Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big stories to get to. First of all, Pelosi and a congressional delegation making an unannounced visit to Kiev. We'll give you those details as well as some big spending the Biden administration is proposing to continue funneling weapons into that country. Noam Chomsky giving credit to a very, very unexpected person. So we will play that for you and we will also react. White House Correspondents Dinner, aka Nerd Prom over the weekend. We have all the cringe for you to save you the trouble of having to watch it all for yourself. Also, the stock market, I don't know if you've been paying attention, has been kind of falling all over the place lately. So we'll talk

to you about what's going on there, what the Fed moves are likely to be this week. They are meeting once again. So that's very significant for all of us, not just people who happen to have money in the stock market. Elon Musk giving some medical advice, very much upsetting a large group of people. Break that down for you. And we also have to share with you CNN attempting a little bit of self-reflection. Right. Doesn't get too far, but a little bit of self-reflection.

Still enjoyable. Also, welcoming back to the show, Professor Richard Wolff. He's also going to talk about the economy. We had that surprise drop in GDP last week, so we're excited to talk to him about that. But we wanted to start with Pelosi and that trip to Kiev.

Yeah, the Pelosi trip is basically the highest-ranking U.S. official, number three in line to the presidency who is visiting Kiev. Let's put this up there on the screen. So Speaker Pelosi met with President Zelensky and his team, bringing along an additional delegation, including Adam Schiff, of all people, on the ground, which makes sense given that he's the chief Russiagator in all of Congress. But the top level U.S. congressional delegation there, Pelosi praised the, quote, ferocity and the resolve of the Ukrainians in their face-to-face meeting. And more importantly, here's what she says in terms of a commitment of U.S. policy from the branch of Congress, quote, our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done, quote, we are on a frontier of

freedom. Your fight is a fight for everyone. Thank you for your fight for freedom. You all are welcome, Zelensky apparently told the delegation. So yeah, I'm not sure what else he would say. But I think that it is a important declaration because we've pointed as much as we can to the president. Obviously, he has mostly unilateral action, but he still has to submit these funding requests and more to Congress. And it just goes to show you the immense bipartisan support, both in the speaker and Leader McConnell and others, that they have not only for the Biden administration policy in Ukraine, but if anything, they want a more hawkish policy crystal. Correct. Yeah. So this delegation happened to be all Democrats. But as you accurately point out, most of the sentiment around Ukraine has been wholly bipartisan with very, very, very few dissenting voices or even voices just saying like, hey, let's slow down and think about what we're

doing here for a minute. Ilhan Omar famously said, why don't we slow down and think about some of these sanctions and everything that we're doing?'s so indiscriminate and was completely, completely smeared for having the audacity to do such a thing. To your point about how, you know, a lot of members of Congress want even more than what the Biden administration has done. You had Democrat Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, a veteran and a member of the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committee saying that he went to Ukraine with three areas of focus, weapons, weapons, and weapons. There you go. I think it also bears pointing out that even though, yes, the fight has largely moved to eastern Ukraine, making Kyiv more safe, this is still not without risk. So the UN Secretary General recently met with Zelensky in Kyiv just last Thursday, and a missile strike rained down

on the capital barely an hour after their joint press conference. So probably Russia trying to send a, you know, kind of a middle finger there. But again, just to point out that these trips into an active war zone, still not without risk, and in my opinion, you know, rather ill-advised, continuing to be rather ill-advised, given the fact that, you know, if you had a member of Congress who was injured in an attack, if something, God forbid, were to happen, what that would mean in terms of an escalation is very clear. I mean, it would be a complete disaster. You'd be facing a hot war directly with Russia and likely, you know, nuclear attacks and

all of that entails. So I continue to think that these missions to demonstrate our solidarity and that we're really with their cause are rather ill-advised. Yeah. And I think that there's, you know, it really bears, people will say, well, oh, well, Churchill visited, you know, the French in the middle of the Battle of France. Yeah. The UK was at war with Nazi Germany. Right. We're not at war with Russia. So by going into an active and a hot war zone, you're putting the United States and its policy at risk as much as a nice show of support might mean. I don't know why I can't meet in a more neutral country like right across the border, in a NATO country, actually. It would be probably far more advisable.

But all of this is on the heels of, and let's put this up there on the screen, Joe Biden now asking Congress for $33 billion more in additional aid to Ukraine, as they even describe it here in the Western press, a, quote, dramatic escalation of U.S. funding for the war with Russia, and the Ukrainian president is pleading with lawmakers to give it a swift approval. So here's what it says. $20 billion for weapons, ammunition, and other military assistance.

$8.5 billion in direct economic assistance to the other Ukrainian government, and then $3 billion in humanitarian aid. And it always makes me sad whenever I read these appropriations, and I just look at $20 billion in weapons and ammo. I'm not saying the Ukrainians don't need weapons and ammo, but we have some, what, 5 million or so displaced people? We need to be actually probably spending a hell of a lot more on the humanitarian response in order to make sure that these people are taken care of. NATO obviously

stepped up and so has the European Union. But always, everybody says, show me what your priorities are by pointing to what you actually fund. And right now, the funds are all towards the war with Russia and specifically on the behalf of the Ukrainian military to wage war on that military. I'm not saying that isn't obviously a priority, but it just shows you that we have no real hope for anything else within the conflict and no strategy to try and bring this thing to an end and find peace. Well, that's it. We know what the macro strategy is because they've said what the macro strategy is. It isn't to negotiate a peace. It isn't to try to provide Russia with an off-ramp and bring them to the table. Not at all. I mean, they've now explicitly stated what people at the beginning would have

been accused of being like, you know, pro-Russia and conspiracy theorists, etc. If they came out and said, no, we think the U.S. policy is actually to weaken and ultimately try to push Putin out of power. Well, now that's effectively the stated policy of the United States. And so this massive increase in weapons funding for Ukraine should be seen as part of that strategy. You know, they want to keep Russia tied up in Ukraine forever. That's not good for the world. It's not good ultimately for Ukraine. And so that's how you should view this policy. And, you know, we throw these big numbers around here. It can sort of like be hard to wrap your head around how much money exactly this is. But this full package, just this piece of it, represents 20 percent of Ukraine's entire GDP. There you go. Okay, so that's the size and

the scope of what we're ultimately contemplating here. Again, with, you know, I would expect that this will likely sail through. The only potential legislative hiccup is Democrats are considering tying it to COVID aid, in which case. Yeah, that's not an objection to the policy. Exactly. Then the Republicans will be like, I don't know if I want to do COVID aid, too. But in terms of this specific package, I think it has overwhelming bipartisan support, you're likely to see, I mean, you may not see a single voice speak up against it or even offer a word of caution about what exactly our policy is and what exactly we're doing here. Yeah, I think that's, you know, really, really well said. And if you want to know the other insanity in Congress, this is the poll of power, which gets no scrutiny by the press. Put this up there on the screen. Representative Adam Kissinger saying, words matter, but so do our

actions. I'm introducing an authorization of use of military force as a clear red line so that POTUS can take appropriate action if Russia uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. We must stand for humanity and we must stand with our allies. So what he's saying is that Representative Kissinger wants to create an authorization for the use of military force for the U.S. to be explicitly allowed by Congress in order to declare war on Russia if it uses biological chemical weapons in Ukraine. Now, that seems completely nuts. I'm not saying that that wouldn't be a horrific act, but should that trigger a potential nuclear war with Russia? That's what Representative Kissinger is saying. I mean, this is somebody

who has pushed the no-fly zone and more. Look, the no-fly zone is off the table for now, but don't sleep on these efforts because the media is not looking at this and reporting it with the level of scrutiny that it really deserves. Same with the Pelosi trip. I mean, it's like it's just a foregone conclusion that the number three in line to the presidency is going to just waltz into an active war zone. And to put it in perspective for everybody, I really think that we need to look at the level of aid that we've been given to Ukraine in the context of history. Put this up there on the screen, please, which is that we are now providing Ukraine more money than the

U.S. has sent all but four countries in total since 1946. So look at this. Israel, 132 billion. Afghanistan, 111 billion. Egypt, 79.9 billion. Iraq, 67 billion. Keep in mind, Iraq and Afghanistan, we basically ruined. So that level of aid is not really commiserate with our foreign aid. That is where Ukraine now ranks on the map. More than Pakistan, more than Vietnam, more than Jordan, more than Turkey, which is a NATO ally, more than Russia, ironically enough, and more than India, also an Indo-Pacific ally to the United States. Just consider it within that level of context. And we're not saying that Ukrainians don't deserve help.

Of course they do. God bless them. Their cause is righteous but when runaway military aid like this happens we have seen this story before with libya with syria and more when you have just free like floating weapons all over a war zone stuff changes hands i mean it's conceivable that some of this aid will find its way even you know let's say it gets captured by the russians and then they start giving it to Chechens and then they start using it elsewhere, either at home or even, you know, against the Ukrainians or, God forbid, against somebody else. It's just always

a consideration when you're providing massive amounts of military and ammunition into a hot war zone. War is messy. And sometimes those weapons go missing, as the Pentagon likes to say. Well, I mean, we know that there are fringe extremist elements within the Ukrainian fighting force. I mean, we know that, right? And so we have been to this play before. We've been there in Afghanistan arming the Mujahideen. We've been over this a million times. I think the most important thing is to consider the macro policy and the foolishness and ultimately destructiveness of that macro policy of saying, we don't actually want peace. What we want is to keep Russia in a stalemate, to weaken and bleed them and, you know, kill as many Russians in Ukraine as we possibly can in hopes that Putin

is put under enough pressure and frankly, that the population of Russia suffers enough that they put that pressure onto Putin to remove him from power. That's the clear policy of the United States. You know, when we talk about regime change, it's not necessarily like we're going into Russia to invade. No, I don't think that is on the table whatsoever. But the idea is the U.S. finds it politically useful to have Russia tied up in a long war in Ukraine. Is that good for the Ukrainians? Ask yourself that ultimately. Let's go ahead and move on then to the next part of this, which is how Washington specifically is reacting. So President Biden was actually asked if he was going to ask for the end

of the filibuster in order for the Senate to vote to try and codify Roe versus Wade. Here's what he had to say. I'm not prepared to make those judgments now. But, you know, I think the codification of Roe makes a lot of sense. Look. So part of the problem that they have there, Crystal, is that, well, you know, look, obviously, you know, filibuster politics and all that aside, in terms of the actual vote count, which we will get to, he did not call for it. And he's actually being pushed more so by the Democrats who are in the Senate. And Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is actually vowing that they are going to have a vote in response to what happened here in order to get every single senator on the record. Let's take a listen to what Schumer had to say. It is our intention for the Senate to hold a vote on legislation to codify the right to an abortion in law. Second, a vote on this legislation

is no longer an abstract exercise. This is as urgent and as real as it gets. We will vote to protect a woman's right to choose and every American is going to see which side every senator stands on. Third, to the American people, I say this. The elections this November will have consequences because the rights of 100 million women are now on the ballot to help fight this court's awful decision. I urge every American to make their voices heard this week and this year. So it's interesting there that he's pledging the vote itself. Now, people need to remember this, and I brought it up the last time that we were talking about it. In terms of the actual vote, it's very much up in the air. And you rightfully pointed this out, which is that last time around, there was a vote a couple of months ago in order to codify Roe versus Wade. It did not pass. It did not even come close to a majority. However,

now that the Republican senators, Murkowski and Collins, who have come out and said that they were misled by Kavanaugh, like, okay, everybody, that's a complete joke. You were either, you're lying to yourself. You're either an idiot, if you believe that. Right, they may have lied to you, but you also were lying to yourself, no doubt. You are either dumb or you're a liar. I'm not sure exactly which is worse. Possibly both.

Let's put this up there on the screen in terms of what the two of them have had to say. Susan Collins' statement. If this is leaked draft opinion with final decision, it would be completely inconsistent with Justice Gorsuch. And Kavanaugh said in their hearings, in our meetings, in our office, from Murkowski, she says, quote, my confidence in the court has been rocked. Now, to be fair, Murkowski did not vote for Kavanaugh, but I believe she did vote for Justice Gorsuch. Collins, of course, famously said that she had said that Kavanaugh told her it was settled law. By the way, I asked around. There is a legal rationale for being able to say that while also overturning the decision. But rhetorically, it's very clear that she either didn't want to familiarize herself with it, or,

you know, I guess she really deluded herself into thinking it wasn't possible. The whole reason these guys were put on the court was for this exact thing. I mean, this is the whole reason that Trump released his list of names. He literally said, when I put these people on the court, it will be overturned automatically. He actually, I think he used the term anti-abortion judges, which had never been done before.

Usually they'd be like, we're originalists. You know, it's like wink and nod. No, he did not wink and nod. He outright said, when my people are on the court, it will be overturned automatically. So I mean Listen, there's been a multi-decade Well-funded extremely well organized extremely disciplined effort to effectuate exactly this outcome So that you're all shocked and surprised that it happened. Come on I mean we showed the poll the American people were not shocked and surprised that it happened. Come on. I mean, we showed the poll. The American people were not shocked and surprised that this happened.

They were fully expecting it. So they're ridiculous is the bottom line. And I do want to say also, I mean, I think this whole episode shows how not serious about governing Democrats are. I mean, even with the filibuster politics, like if you actually think that these issues are existential and apocalyptic and we are heading to handmaid's tale and all the, you know, all of the rhetoric that they use, then is it really that big of a deal to change the rules of the Senate, which you can do with

a majority vote? And oh, by the way, this is the reason that people elected and voted for you in the first place. So they should be held to account for their failures on this. And not just under the Biden administration. I'm going to talk more about this in my monologue. But Obama had a super majority. He said this was the first thing he would do on a day one of his presidency is codify Roe versus Wade. And he didn't do jack. So, you know, you can't be surprised that the people who were put here to overturn abortion ultimately overturned abortion. Well, you should you know, you can feel all kinds of ways about that. But you should also be very upset with the people who said you were going to, they were going to protect you from that outcome. And then they sat around and did

nothing and made excuses just like they are now. And even the vote in the Senate, this is a show, they know it's not ultimately going to, I want us to put people on the record. Okay, fine. What is that ultimately going to do? Nothing. And to that end, let's put this up there on the screen specifically about this, which is that they really do not seem to have the votes. The last time the Senate voted on this, it was 46 to 48. But Susan Collins and Murkowski voted against the cloture motion. This time around, I guess it's certainly possible that they might be able to, but that obviously also doesn't give you the 60 votes that would be needed to advance to an actual vote. So in terms of what the vote would be on cloture, Senator Joe

Manchin has already come out and he said that, you know, he first of all, he's pro-life. It's one of the reasons that he supported these justices. So he would not be a vote. You could possibly swap that out with Senators Murkowski and Collins. But, you know, I went ahead and checked, Crystal, Senator Casey, Bob Casey, Pennsylvania, I believe is the last pro-life Democrat. Well, I guess, you know, however you couch your mansion. Last mainstream pro-life Democrat who's actually in the Senate. And apparently his father is the person who was involved in the Casey decision of 1992. I didn't know that. I didn't realize that either.

I was reading yesterday. I was like, oh, that's the Casey. Fascinating. So there you go in terms of what that means. So the votes itself, you could swap out those two, but you would still probably come to a 50. I guess if they did scrap the filibuster, though they don't have the votes to scrap the filibuster, that that could then theoretically be broken by Kamala Harris. And of course, the House, I believe, passed this with 218 votes. I know there's a smattering of Democrats who are in the House who I believe are pro-life. So there there's a smattering of Democrats who are in the House,

who I believe are pro-life. So there you go. In terms of the votes, they don't have the votes. Procedurally, they also don't. Also, I think it should be mentioned that Senators John Thune and others in the Republican leadership were asked if they would overturn the filibuster in order to try and outright ban abortion nationwide, and they ruled that out. Yeah, well, they, you know, we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. Also, it's actually, you know, just telling you from an internal GOP politics perspective,

that's going to be the next real knock against McConnell, which is they're going to be like, you guys need to nuke the filibuster from the social conservatives. Right. You know, the social cons, yes, they've just won this. However, they, you know, their goal is an outright ban, even though that's like 13% or whatever that actually supports something like that.

Anyway, that very much likely to be a major point of contention if Trump does win the election again and there is a majority of Republicans. Yeah, they'll be under a lot of pressure. David Shore actually has projected out that it's very within the realm of possibility that Trump, if he gets reelected, would have a super majority in the Senate. So then a lot of those guys are really going to be put under the spotlight.

They're like, OK, you guys have said for decades you support this. Are you going to vote for it or not? So that'll be a popcorn time. There's a little bit of dog that caught the car for the GOP right now. Oh, I definitely think so. No doubt about it. It was better for them politically, which again, is why they're like, let's talk about the leak and not this other thing when this was hanging out there as a way to motivate their, this time it's going to have, this time it's going to, you got to vote for us. So this time it's going to happen. So now they're going to have to,

they're going to have to deal with that. The last thing I want to say about the abortion politics, just on a macro level, and again, to give you insight into my own philosophy and why, even though I, you know, am broadly pro-choice and have always been, it's not at the core of my politics. You know, the overwhelming majority of women, and there are new numbers about this, who end up seeking an abortion are low income. And, you know, it's very clear that the overwhelming reason why women go down this path is because they can't, because having a family is basically like a luxury

good in this society. And so if you really care about women's autonomy or family autonomy in this country, you know, you should focus a lot on making sure people have higher wages, good jobs, unions, those sorts of things on whichever side of the debate you're on. That would automatically lessen abortions by a significant degree. And so it was very interesting to me. And I put out this tweet that was pointing out the class dynamics of this, basically saying, look, if you're a wealthy woman, you've always been able to get whatever care, whatever doctors, whatever you ultimately want. This is really about the autonomy of poor and working class women. It was interesting to me the number of women who rushed in to assure me that this was not a class issue, that class had nothing to do with it, that it would equally hurt all women. Because that's a way of sort of shifting the debate away from these other material conditions that create this situation that, you know,

women feel like they have no other choice ultimately. So anyway, just something I've been thinking about in terms of the surrounding material conditions and how much that matters in terms of it's kind of this like market-based, personal responsibility, neoliberal type solution of like, we're not going to make it so you can actually have a family and afford to support a family, but I guess we'll give you this out. So we're going to really commit ourselves to that. That is fascinating. I can't believe that anybody would even object to that. That's just like objectively obvious. I know, I was a little bit shocked by it too.

Just take a look at the people. Just look at the numbers. It's public record. You can go and see exactly who it is. You know, this also does put Republicans majorly on the spot because a lot of them have said some version of, and this is more of an online phenomenon of the most pro-life folks. They're like, listen, you know, if it means that we would abolish abortion, then we would support a much more robust welfare state in order to support all these. Like I said, look, I'm skeptical too. I've, you know, I've, I've seen, I've been hoodwinked enough times in order to remain very, very skeptical on this. But if it becomes the case, it's like, okay, well now you're on the spot. Are you going to fund adoption clinics? Are you

going to fund and make it possible for low income or single moms or whatever? Probably what? They're the most disproportionately, I believe, poor single moms most likely in order to pursue abortion. Yeah. Their typical abortion patient is actually already a mother. So they're very much concerned with the family they already have and being able to take care of themselves and their, you know, children that they already have. So, yeah. So come on, guys, show us. Like, yeah, we'll get on board with the child tax credit. Let's see it. Ross actually, Ross Douthat had, I think he had a column like years ago, maybe like a decade ago. Somebody can go and fact check me on this, where he wrote,

he's like, look, I'm pro-life. I'm absolutely for the overturning of Roe versus Wade. He said, but I don't believe the Republican Party is ready yet for the robust welfare state that it would require and actually get rid of abortion in this country. So as usual, I think people, if they want an honest, you know, conservative perspective, they should go and listen to Ross specifically on this issue, because I think he, and probably growing number, but still very nascent and small people, are going to be pushing that if that were to become the case. And it's a very good chance of saying, OK, show us where your money is. Like, show us. Do you really believe this? Because if you do, you're going to have to support all of these sorts of policies. I remain incredibly

skeptical. Yeah, because the reward in the GOP and perhaps this is a good segue to our next segment, the reward in the GOP is not for being unorthodox on economics and supporting a robust support system for families and allowing people to have kids not as just a luxury good or get married not just as a luxury good. The rewards all come from being the most obnoxious person possible on the culture wars. Yeah, 100%. So J.D. Vance winning the Ohio GOP Senate primary. Let's put this up there on the screen. He won with 33% of the vote. Coming in second was, interestingly enough, the polling did bear out, Crystal, that Dolan figure, the kind of not never Trump necessarily, but Trump skeptical, skeptical and critical of January 6th.

He pushed back on the rigged election crap. That was what he really did. I mean, he was a multimillionaire. He spent many, many millions of dollars on the air. Josh Mandel, the most cringe character in the history of American politics, suffered a third place defeat. I think all of America can unite on itself and saying that this clown who spent $30 million and put on a fake Southern accent. Losing is an unambiguously good thing. However, there's an interesting really test case here as to what this means. Now, Vance obviously is the favorite in order to win this election. Tim Ryan, I hope he can meditate his way to the top. Very unlikely, especially in the state of Ohio. He's got a downward dog his way to election. Right, he's got a downward dog his way to election.

Good luck, bro. Whenever it comes to J.D., as always, personal disclaimer, I've known him for years, and he is a friend of mine. So you can always look at my analysis through that. And I think it is always important that people who are in the news say that outright. However, I think it's very interesting here. Now, J.D., I think, unambiguously ran a very Trump-ist style campaign. And I'm not talking about that economically. Now, I know J.D. I've interviewed him several times on economics. He is about as close to me as any member of the sitting Senate would possibly be. That being said, his campaign was not really about

economics. His campaign was about immigration and it was about the culture war. Immigration was his number one issue on this. And on the culture war specifically, he positioned himself as probably one of the most Trumpist-style candidates who was there. And I do want to say, I do think that is authentically kind of where he is right now, because there's some skepticism

around whether he's playing or acting. I can tell you through my personal interaction with him, I do believe that this is authentic. Now, that being said, it translates to how is J.D. going to be whenever it comes to Congress? And for that, it's interesting to look at the people who spent all this money against him, Crystal. We talked about how the Club for Growth

came and attacked J.D. Vance, spending millions of dollars in order to try and destroy him. Now, it's fascinating that they were willing to do so, because if you look at J.D. and Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons and the others, none of them really differ on the cultural front. So clearly this was about economics, or at the very least, it was about fiscal policy. They saw J.D. very much as a character who kind of is against the economic orthodoxy of the Republican Party, and they were willing to spend many, many, many millions of dollars to try and hit him. That could be an indication of how J.D.

is going to govern. I can tell you, I have no idea. The incentives in Congress are not to where I would like to see J.D. govern as a senator. I was telling you before we went on the air, Senator Hawley, like a week ago, said, well, maybe we'll raise corporate taxes. Not we will, like maybe. The freakout here in Washington and amongst his GOP colleagues and the behind-the-scenes level was in a way that you can barely comprehend. So the stars are not aligned in order to vote in the economically populist direction, right? The incentives in the GOP, and you can see this,

MTG and Matt Gaetz flew down to Ohio in order to campaign for J.D. for a reason, and a lot of MAGA people because they believe he's there with them on culture. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't give a goddamn about industrial policy. Okay, let's all be honest about what's going on here. So the incentives in the party and the reason Trump frankly even endorsed him in the first place, I don't think has anything to do with economics. I think it has to do with the fact that Trump likes that he's famous and he likes that he's smarter than Josh Mandel. And, you know, J.D.'s willing to basically supplicate himself to Trump and say, I'm sorry that I didn't vote or I said I wouldn't vote for you in 2016. He's like, he made a mistake, but he's owned up to it. So the real question to me is, how does this all work in

practice? And honestly, I don't know. He's going to have a tough time. I don't think there's any question about it. Like the amount of institutional money which is allied against this perspective here makes it so that it's very, very convenient. I mean, you can look no further than Holly. It's, it's much easier to be the January 6th warrior than it is to be the guy pushing the antitrust bills. Now, can you use one in order to give yourself cover on the other? I don't know. I honestly have no idea how that's going to play out. We'll do our best. I'm gonna do my best to try and stay objective here. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's correct to be highly skeptical that there will be much break from GOP orthodoxy on economic issues because, look, Hawley is the perfect example here.

You know, shortly before January 6th and the fist pumping and going all in on that nonsense, he was working with Bernie on a new round of stimulus checks. What did he didn't get a lot of credit for that, by the way. What did the base reward him for? Yeah, January 6th. What did the base reward him for? It was for the fist pump on January 6th. He raised more money on that than anything he's ever done in his career. So, I mean, that tells you everything about the political landscape and the incentives.

And, you know, I'm especially highly skeptical that someone who didn't run on anything that was economically heterodox, really, from the base and who focused exclusively on culture war is suddenly going to turn around once they're in office and be different because the reality is there's always an excuse. There's always an excuse of you don't understand because now I've got to run for reelection and I've got to be able to raise money and they're going to come after me. And there's always an excuse for why you can't do the right thing. And, oh, you outsiders just don't ultimately understand. Now, the interesting thing to me also was the way that the media portrayed Vance Mandel and Dolan. And actually, I was just looking at the results on election night. Dolan was ahead of Mandel. Now it looks like Mandel may have just eked out ahead of him for second place. I do want to give him his due. Very close. But anyway, Dolan was considered the moderate candidate. And Mandel was considered to the right of him and very far right. And Vance was considered the most

far right. I mean, the only thing you could really say about them that is different from a policy perspective at this point in terms of how they ran is just what they said about Trump and how they oriented themselves vis-a-vis Trump. So not only is the Republican base sort of judging candidates based on their how loyal they are to Trump. But the media also judges them in that way. The only one of these three that you have any shot, even if it's a one percent chance of doing something different on economics, like maybe supporting antitrust or supporting some sort of like modest corporate tax hike or supporting some sort of, you know, relatively small child tax credit or something like that. The only one of the three that you have any chance of

that with is J.D., which is why the Club for Growth spent millions of dollars ultimately against him. They see that there is a somewhat of a possibility that he could buck them on some economic things that are core to their terrible, like elite libertarian type policy, pro-corporate policy. So when you look at it from that perspective, where you lined these guys, where the media lined these guys up on the spectrum really doesn't make any sense, but it tells you everything about the only divide that like matters in Beltway media. Um, it, and it about- Yeah, they don't know how to tell this story that we're trying to tell. Not at all.

And it's not just on the Republican side, like, you know, anyone who became an opponent of Trump, no matter what they thought, no matter what wars they supported, no matter how many corporate tax cuts they're on board, no matter what they think about anything, then, you know, they're on the correct side and they're put on this side of the political spectrum.

And then it's the same thing with the Republican candidates here. It's just all about, you know, they're on the correct side and they're put on this side of the political spectrum. And then it's the same thing with the Republican candidates here. It's just all about, you know, how you orient yourself to Trump and that's how they put you on how far right on the spectrum you are. So it was very revealing in that way. You know, I thought the sound we got from Jordan Cheriton when he was on the ground there from some of the voters who were coming out of a J.D. Vance event and explaining why they liked him. I thought it was very instructive that every single one of them basically said, like, listen, he owned up to his, quote unquote, mistake in criticizing Trump. And I do think that with this particular race, probably what happened is there was a natural affinity towards J.D. He is from, you know, he has a deep understanding of especially rural Ohio,

actually the area that I used to live in Ohio that's been decimated, that is basically Appalachia. So there was kind of a natural affinity towards him, but there were questions about whether this guy's really on our side. And so Trump created a permission structure for people who wanted to vote for J.D. to go in that direction. Of course, he had Peter Thiel backing him and providing that support for him to get through the stretch when he was not doing well in this campaign ultimately. And so Trump, no doubt, was the kingmaker in this race.

I don't think there's any question about it. But you found this saga, which is very interesting. It's not working out quite the same way down in Georgia. And so the Trump effect is a little more complex than the storyline might be coming out of this race in Ohio, where he definitely decided, like, J.D.'s the guy, and then it ultimately happened. Go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. Right now, Kemp is running away with the nomination in the GOP primary. He's at nearly 60 percent.

Perdue is down at 21 percent. So, I mean, he's getting curb stomped right now. And remember, Kemp was, you know, not just like has offered some rhetorical pushback to Trump and stop this deal and all this. I mean, he was very strong in saying we're not going down this path. And, you know, very clear Trump was over the top and condemning him. And Georgia voters are like, that's nice, but we still prefer this dude over your, you know, David Perdue. See, I think this is interesting because everybody's like, oh, my God, this shows that the Republicans will just do what Trump wants. Well, Ohio is Trump country. It's a Trumpy state. So they're obviously going to be the most loyal to him. But then in Georgia, a state that he lost, well, they're not so Trumpy.

So it just shows you that there's like a real polarization happening in the Republican Party. And actually, they even had an exit poll of Vance voters or people who voted in Ohio. Only 60% of Ohio GOP primary voters said that they wanted Trump to run again. Now, obviously, that's a majority, but it also shows you 40% were like, no, I don't think so. Now, those 40% will probably all vote for Trump if he did win the nomination. But it just shows you, you're like, okay, so the enthusiasm isn't that strong even in the state of Ohio. So what I would point to is this. Trump's endorsement matters a ton if you live in Trump country. If you live in Georgia or if you live in Arizona or if you live in, I don't know, any of these other states where Trump himself is not the dynamic, like animating figure for Republican politicians, then his endorsement either doesn't matter or it actually could backfire on you. At the very least, it's not enough in order to carry you across the finish

line as evidenced by Perdue. So it's a way that you need to adjust your thinking when thinking like, oh my God, these Republicans will just vote for whoever Trump says. It's like, well, not necessarily. It's a mixed story. I think it's also, I think there are some other factors at play too. So like Josh Mandel was an annoying, terrible candidate who almost got in a fistfight on a debate. So in Georgia, you have Kemp, who is an incumbent governor. I mean, also don't downplay the power of incumbency. And people have some experience with him and who he is and what it's like to live in Georgia with him as governor, separate and apart from whatever Trump's opinion is. Whereas with the GOP primary field in Ohio, it's kind of more unformed. People probably had fewer opinions about the candidates who were in play. So in that kind of a wide open arena where you have no incumbent and where people maybe don't have like fully

formed, you know, really strongly held views about the different candidates and it's Trump country, then you throw Trump into the mix. And yeah, it's going to be an extraordinarily powerful endorsement. Um, especially when you backed up with, you know, Tucker was also very influential in keeping JD on the air and really sort of pumping him up in terms of the GOP base, uh, in Georgia, you know, you've got an incumbent who apparently is still popular among the Republican base. They like, I don't, you know, you've got an incumbent who apparently is still popular among the Republican base. They like I don't you know, I couldn't tell you the specifics of what he's done that people like. But apparently people like more or less what he's done as governor, at least on the Republican side. And so they were able to make an independent judgment separate and apart from whatever it was that Trump wanted them to do.

And, you know, in fact, as this race has gone on, Kemp has opened up more of a lead. So now it looks like it won't even go to a runoff very likely. So, you know, it's it's fascinating. And I think the bottom line is that the Trump effect is a little more complex than probably the media would ultimately have you believe coming out of the J.D. Vance story. Absolutely. All right. So the other Ohio primary that we were watching was Nina Turner's rematch against Chantel Brown in a redrawn district. Ultimately, Nina not only came up short, but by a significant margin. Let's go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. Chantel Brown wins 11th District Democratic rematch with former Ohio Senator Nina Turner. The margin was about like 66 percent to 33 percent. So again, this did not end up being close in the end.

Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen, which helps explain a little bit of why it ended up being so lopsided this time, when last time Nina only came up short by maybe five points. This is from The Intercept, and their headline says, Progressives Massively Outgunned Ditched Nina Turner. Effectively pointing to the fact that, you know, Nina was really abandoned by almost every corner of the progressive sort of elite institutional money and power base. I didn't even realize Justice Democrats did not play in this race.

They did not endorse Nina Turner. And their, you know, excuse was like, oh, we just didn't have enough money. They said Nina's a giant in the progressive movement. We're proud to have gone all in for her campaign last year. But the reality is our organization has to be strategic about our priorities. So we're getting massively outgunned by Republican donors funneling millions to super PACs like AIPAC and DMFI against our existing candidates. So they stayed out entirely. Of course, you guys know the Congressional Progressive Caucus endorsed Chantel Brown. So they endorsed against Nina. There was a report from Pocan, who's one of the co-chairs of the caucus, that not a single progressive dissented from that vote. There was a report after the fact that maybe that wasn't true

and perhaps Cori Bush did dissent. But in any way, it was overwhelming vote within the Congressional Progressive Caucus for Chantel Brown, the corporate backed candidate. The only one of the squad that ended up endorsing Nina this time was AOC, who came in literally 12 hours before voting started. Bernie did come in and endorse her. Of course, I mean, Nina had been his campaign co-chair. It would be completely outrageous if he didn't ultimately. But so you had this dynamic where not only did these sort of progressive money and elite elected infrastructure completely abandon her, but frankly, the progressive base did as well. She didn't raise nearly as much money as the first time around. And I think it's because there's this just like deep anti-electoral nihilism that has set in among a lot of the left, which is the greatest gift you could possibly give to people like Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn. Then on the other side, the establishment forces,

oh, they were all in for Chantel Brown. So you had PAC money by the millions flooding in. She Nina was outgunned like 10 to one in terms of the airwaves. You had Jim Clyburn and Hakeem Jeffries and all of these establishment figures. Hillary Clinton endorsed Joe Biden endorsed and many figures actually coming into the district to campaign for her. And so, you know, they wanted to make damn sure that not only did Nina lose, but frankly, that she would get embarrassed in this race. And I think that's ultimately, you know, how things shook on. It's very instructive. I wouldn't be surprised if in the final weeks of this campaign, the polls really moved towards Chantel Brown just because of how much Nina was ultimately outspent on the airwaves from this this massive flood of institutional support. And Jordan Cheriton was there, you know, covering the race for us and for Status Quo. And he had an interview with Nina after the fact that was rather noteworthy.

Nina kind of taking some of the gloves off about how she felt about all of this. Let's take a listen to that. Who are the Pinos? And did the squad and the broader progressive movement let you down? I don't want to get into the squad, okay? Some of those women are my friends. Some people were threatened. Threatened? Were threatened. By who?

And, you know, I don't want to get into the threats, but they were threatened. So, you know, I want to leave them to the side. I will say that the Congressional Progressive Caucus was wrong. They were wrong. And I was really glad to see Congresswoman Jayapal in the Punchbowl article kind of allude to they need to change their, the way that they do this. That came from the pressure of the movement itself. Let me ask you, would you consider running as an independent rather than in the Democratic primary if you ran? I would consider that. Absolutely, I would.

All options are on the table. So she alluded in her concession speech to maybe she's looking at 2024. So we'll see what ultimately comes of that. And listen, same caveat you gave her, J.D. I love Nina dearly. She's a personal friend, longtime personal friend. So just put that all out there. But, you know, she doesn't want to speak to ill of the squad. But I'll just say, I mean, these are people, some of whom are supposed to be her personal friend. And I don't care if they threaten you, honestly, you know, like they need to understand these people are not their friends. They are not their allies. They hate you. They will always hate you. They will do everything they can to, like, stab you in the back and screw you over.

But there's something that sets in when they get here in Washington, where it's like every day they're in this town. They just sort of get cozier and cozier and conform more and more to the way things are done here. So it's very sad to see ultimately that Nina, who, you know, wherever your politics are, whatever you think about Bernie and whatever you think about Nina, this is someone who was a loyal foot soldier for this movement, was one of the most charismatic and inspiring figures who was out there supporting Bernie before it was cool, who could have gone the path of cozying up to Hillary Clinton and probably be in the administration right now or have a show on MSNBC or whatever. And when she stepped out and said, hey, guys, I'm doing this and I need your support, they completely abandoned her and let her down.

Yeah, I think that is an important part of the story. Yeah, it's pretty shocking how badly she lost on this one. But I guess if you put it within that context, it makes sense. Pretty wild that they, especially if you consider someone your personal friend, and you just leave them out to dry like that, that's pretty disgraceful. Listen, I wasn't in their shoes. I don't know what kind of pressure they were put under. I don't know what kind of threats were made.

But I would like to think that if it was my personal friends and those were the choices, that I would stand with my person instead of these disgusting, bought-out, manipulative ghouls in this town. But that's just me. This is an iHeart Podcast.