Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Best of Week 5/8: Inflation Numbers, Ukraine Aid, Economic Outlook, Free Speech, Baby Formula, & More!

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss the public Ukraine war escalation, economic outlook, baby formula shortage, rand paul's free speech defense, inflation statistics, Ukraine military aid, and 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.

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for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big stories breaking this Monday morning. Some very troubling new reporting and developments out of Ukraine that we have to update you on. You know, this is starting to fall off of the media's radar a little bit, just at the moment when it almost is

at its most dangerous. So we will bring you all of those updates. We also have some new indications of how the politics might play out in terms of the imminent overturning of Roe versus Wade, Republicans doing themselves no favors. Also some polling indicating that, you know, the picture might be a little bit complicated in terms of the midterms. We'll tell you about favors. Also some polling indicating that, you know, the picture might be a little bit complicated in terms of the midterms. We'll tell you about that. Also, a pitch deck revealed from Elon Musk giving us some insights into what his plans

for Twitter might be. Also some revelations about some less than savory sources of funding. Yes, not great. That he has relied on, including the country of Qatar. Yes. Not known for their free speech commitment. But we'll tell you about that. We also have news about a new press secretary coming into the White

House and Jen Psaki pressed on, you know, her negotiations behind the scenes while she's still doing the current job and taking a new job with a media organization. Also, a pretty stunning moment from Senator Rand Paul that we wanted to share with you, talking about this new, like, Ministry of Truth situation. Pretty good comments from him. It was great. I thought he did a great job. I like seeing it. We also have Muhammad Yunus in. He is the head of polling at Gallup. He's going to talk to us more about abortion polling and what that looks like going forward. But we wanted to start with some very troubling developments this morning in terms of reporting of the U.S. involvement in Ukraine's prosecution of the war with Russia. Let's go ahead and throw

these dueling tear sheets up on the screen here from The New York Times. They were the ones who were sort of at the forefront of this reporting. So two pieces here. Number one, U.S. intelligence is helping Ukraine kill Russian generals, officials say. And also, U.S. intelligence helped Ukraine strike Russian flagship, officials say. So much more hands-on involvement in this war than had previously been reported. And Sagar, there had been some indications before we'd gotten these little indications that maybe we were helping them with targeting, helping provide intelligence. You and I had talked about it. It honestly sort of flew under the radar of most of the media. Well, now we have specific details about just

how instrumental the U.S.'s backing of Ukraine has been in some of these major, significant events in terms of this war. Let me read you a little bit from the reporting on our assistance in helping to target and ultimately kill these Russian generals. They say the U.S. has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war. Ukrainian officials say they have killed approximately 12 generals on the front lines, a number that has astonished military analysts. The targeting help is part of a classified effort by the Biden administration to provide real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine. That intelligence also includes anticipated Russian troop movements gleaned from recent American assessments of Moscow's secret battle plans.

And in addition, the U.S. provided intelligence that helped. This is from that second terror sheet. Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet last month. Another sign that the administration is easing its self-imposed limitations on how far it will go in helping Ukraine fight Russia. We covered when that flagship went down. Yeah, it's a big deal. And this was a huge deal. It has been covered extensively in Russian media.

They engaged in an elaborate cover-up to try to deny that it was actually, you know, Ukrainian forces that struck and ultimately brought down this ship. They also tried to cover up the deaths that were involved. They tried to claim, oh, there was a fire on board and everybody's fine and we towed it to safety, no big deal. But this was a huge blow to Russia. And so again, without the U.S. public's involvement in any sort of debate,

we are getting ourselves more and more and deeper and deeper into this conflict and providing direct assistance in some of the most significant Ukrainian hits on Russia that we have seen so far. This is extraordinarily significant when you consider how the Russians are going to view this involvement. I mean, are they really going to distinguish between us, you know, not being directly boots on the ground considering how far in we are at this point? you know, not being directly boots on the ground, considering how far in we are at this point? You know, actually, what troubles me the most about this is it's very clear, you and I know how this town works. This was a strategic leak

by the U.S. intelligence community because they're bragging about it. They're like, yeah, we're helping kill these generals. And I'm like, hey, why don't you shut up? Because, look, I don't think that Russia assumed that this wasn't going on. They probably already knew based upon this, but it's within the realm of the proxy war. I'm not condoning it. You know, I still think that we should try our best in order to not get involved in these types of things, but there was probably a sense of realism. I just want people to remember this. Do you remember the Russian bounty story that ended up being completely fake, where there was reporting that Russia had put bounties on American soldiers and was helping the Taliban kill them. At that time, several members of the U.S. Senate called for immediately retaliating against Russians. And Ben Sasse specifically said that we should personally

assassinate, we should assassinate GRU agents on the ground in Afghanistan. Well, this opens up the exact same response from Russia, assuming that they think in the same way in Moscow that they do in Washington, D.C. Is there any real reason to distinguish the two? I mean, look, when you're openly bragging about killing your enemy's generals, these are very significant events, okay? Generals don't just die in combat all that much. I actually went back and I was looking back. You know, U.S. generals, it's incredibly rare in order to die in warfare in the post-World War II era. The Russian army is organized a little bit differently, but still, you know, you're losing up to 10 generals. I mean, these are long, experienced, revered members within both Russian society and the Russian military.

Killing those people is going to engender a significant response. And then on top of that, you know, you kill the warship. Now, obviously, Ukraine is at war with that nation. So that's within the bounds of conflict. But us opening and saying, oh, well, we're helping a lot of this facilitate. I also, if you look at the headlines of these, U.S. intelligence is helping Ukraine kill Russian generals and warships. It's clear the intel community wants to get the credit for this in the press and boast with the population, but they are just overreading the fact that there could still be yet a response from Moscow. I mean, look, within the realm of the Gray War, if we are helping facilitate this,

we still have soldiers who are in Syria. If those guys start getting blown up by sophisticated IEDs, well, that's a possible response. Iran did that to our troops when we were in Iraq, and there's not a lot that we could do about that. We have troops all over the globe where Russia is also forward deployed. So we just have to consider that this could have a significant blowback, and are we ready in order to suffer that consequence? That is exactly right. And there's a few things going on here. I mean, to me, the most important part of this story is the macro trend of how we just keep going further and further and further and further and with no public debate whatsoever. And if there's one thing the American public has been clear about, it's the fact that they do not want to be in a war with

Russia. You know, they definitely, definitely have tons of compassion, sympathy for the Ukrainian cause. They want to help Ukraine. They want to stand with Ukraine. But every single poll, no matter how you ask it, people are very clear. They do not want to be at war with Russia. And yet, while, you know, while we weren't really paying attention, while the media was focused on other things, you now have a member of Congress, Seth Moulton, a Democrat, outright admitting that, yeah, at this point, we basically are at war with Russia. Let's take a listen to that.

I only have 10 seconds left for each of you, if you could. But if they wrap this in the Senate with a Ukraine funding and a COVID funding. You guys OK with that, Congressman Molden? Look, I'm going to support it because it's the right thing to do for Ukraine. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of politics involved and there will be domestic debates here at home about other policies and whatnot. But at the end of the day, we've got to realize we're at war and we're not just at war to support the Ukrainians. We're fundamentally at war, although somewhat through a proxy, with Russia. And it's important that we win. Fundamentally at war with Russia. Yeah. Did you vote on that? Did we have a public debate on that? Is that what you want? Because that's what we're being dragged into. And I know we've said it a million times. I'm not trying to be

alarmist, but just remember what the stakes are. You're talking about a conflict between two nuclear armed superpowers. This is extraordinarily dangerous. It's not anything that the American people want. And yet, bit by bit by bit, this is where we've ended up. Trita Parsi had a great thread and a great article about all of this. Of course, we have a lot of respect for his foreign policy analysis here. And he said, Biden's dance with the media, publicly declaring a more ambitious U.S. objective in Ukraine, only to have it clarified by the White House hours later, has imperceptibly expanded America's goals in Ukraine with potentially disastrous consequences. The riskiest step has been to put the weakening of Russia ahead of the defense of Ukraine. This type of mission creep led to the U.S. staying in Afghanistan for two decades and turned

an achievable counterterrorism operation into a doomed nation-building project. And he lays out the parallels here of how, listen, when we went into Afghanistan, it was, we're going to get the bad guys, we're going to get Osama bin Laden, and we're going to get out. And when we failed to do that, then suddenly you had all the people here who had a lot of money at stake in being engaged in Afghanistan and occupying in Afghanistan for literally forever is what they wanted. Then they started to get their hooks into it. They started to lay the groundwork for, oh no, it's not just Osama bin Laden. We want to do nation building. What about the women and the girls? What about spreading democracy and freedom around the globe? Next thing you know, it's 20 years later and we're still in Afghanistan. So

Dr. Parsi is pointing here to a very similar mission creep, which is happening with no debate, where bit by bit by bit, we're getting even further in. And the other piece of this, there was a report coming from, it's actually Ukrainian Pravda, so a Ukrainian outlet here, that when Boris Johnson visited Kyiv, the key message that he was carrying was, we don't want you to negotiate a peace. We want to continue to have war with, we want this war against Russia to continue because ultimately the goal is to weaken Russia, not to secure peace. That is not anything that the American people or, you know, people throughout the West ultimately wanted. And yet that appears to be exactly what our leaders are pushing. I couldn't agree with you more,

Crystal. And, you know, just to put a cap on this, this was leaked to Ukrainian Pravda. Put this up there on the screen. So a Ukrainian-aligned media outlet says that sources close to Zelensky said that Boris Johnson, when he appeared guarantees with Putin, the West is not. And this is exactly what I feared from the beginning, that for all of the talk in Washington of we support Ukraine, we support Ukraine, we support Ukraine, if we don't support them when they want to sign a separate peace with Russia, then you're full of it. Then you're actually fulfilling Congressman Moulton's declaration that you are at war with Russia. If our job is to support Ukraine, then we should try to save as many Ukrainian lives as possible within the dignity of what they want to undergo as a nation. If they want to fight on, so be it. If they don't want to fight on and they want to go towards peace, I think that we should personally support such an action if that's what they want to do. But for us to rule out a peace on our terms is insane. And you're actually just validating the Russian declaration

that Ukraine is part of some great power proxy conflict instead of between these two nations. So I found that incredibly troubling. And I think the fact that it was leaked to a Ukrainian media outlet shows that inside Ukraine, there's complicated feelings. Zelensky, he's meeting with George W. Bush, which I don't know who his PR people are, but probably shouldn't do that. But, you know, he's meeting with Bush. He's, you know, on this media tour in Israel and here and everywhere. He's begging for weapons. He's gotten more weapons than, you know, any country.

Fourth most amount of military aid of all time since 1946 from the United States. Cumulative, yes. Cumulatively. In the last, what, three months that have been shipped over to that country. So he's been enormously successful. But, you know, if he wants an off-ramp, he also needs the West on board. And so the fact that they're leaking this, I think, is very, very significant, saying that they believe that the West does not believe in a path towards peace

and that they may even have their own separate negotiations. I don't think we should have a goddamn thing to say about what happens here other than, what do you guys want? You want to fight? Okay, we'll help you out. But if you don't, let's go. Let's do everything humanly possible. And for us to have our own red lines in this thing only validates the worst of the Russian concerns and actually makes it so that this thing will not come to an end. And remember, there were, what, dozens of people killed in an airstrike just yesterday. That's right. War's not a joke, people.

A lot of people die. A lot. We've already had thousands of people on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Millions of displaced citizens. This is not something for us to just play around with. This is a serious thing. That's exactly right. And according to this reporting, they say Johnson's position was that the collective West, which back in February had suggested Zelensky should surrender and flee, now felt that Putin was not really as powerful as they'd previously imagined that there was a chance to, quote, press him.

And sure enough, three days after Boris Johnson left for Britain, Putin went public and said talks with Ukraine had turned into a dead end. So there were some developments, publicly reported developments, that followed closely on the heels of Boris Johnson coming in and reportedly delivering this message that would indicate perhaps this is exactly what went down, that he showed up in Kiev basically to say, listen, we want this to keep going. We don't want a negotiated peace with Russia at this point because we think Putin is weaker than we expected. And we want the opportunity to continue to weaken Russia. Very, very dangerous game because this gets back to that whole idea, gambling for resurrection. Yes, this has not gone well for Russia.

There is no doubt about it. Even with their new, like, limited aims are not particularly going well in terms of this war right now. That doesn't mean that this isn't still a dangerous man with a lot of incredibly dangerous and potentially world-destroying weapons at his fingertips. So what happens when he's backed into a corner and when the West is out there, you know, Ron Klain outright saying, we don't want Putin to have an off-ramp, Seth Moulton, congressman, outright saying, we are at want Putin to have an off ramp. Seth Moulton, congressman, outright saying, we are at war with Russia. What happens next? Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Lots of big stories breaking this morning that we want to talk to you about. First of all,

market taking a bit of a nosedive yesterday and some interesting details there about what's going on with crypto, which stocks are sort of leading the decline and what that is ultimately all about. So we're going to lead the show with that. But we've also got in the show today, Biden planning a major speech today. They clearly realize that just like not talking about inflation is not going to work out for them in the midterms, even with the impending decision regarding Roe versus Wade. Democrats are realizing that inflation will be the number one concern on voters' minds going to the polls. So Biden trying to do some messaging around that. We will break that down for you.

Elon Musk making some new not great comments. He needs to clarify his position. At best, not well thought out comments about his plans for Twitter. So we'll talk about that. This story has escaped notice actually for months now, but there is a massive baby formula shortage. A lot of new moms are really struggling. Oh, this is, I mean, this is really scary stuff. If your baby is wholly dependent on formula and you can't find it at the store at any price, this is a really major problem

that is starting to bubble up to the political level. So we'll talk about that and also some new details about the new press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, who is coming in here, what, at the end of this week, she says? I think, I believe it's May 17th. Yeah, something like that. So coming up soon. We're also going to check in with those Starbucks workers who have been organizing across the country. New developments there from the NLRB is filing suit against Starbucks, alleging that they have been engaged in a pattern of unfair labor practices. So we will talk to them about that. But we do want to start with this market crash from yesterday. Let's go ahead and put the Wall Street Journal tear sheet up on the screen. They say stocks slide to lowest in 2022 as route

continues. Technology energy shares lead declines as NASDAQ falls more than 4%. Here's a little bit of the details from the story. They say the most punishing market sell-off in years showed no signs of abating. Monday, U.S. stock indexes slid to new lows for 2022. Other assets like oil and Bitcoin tumbled as well. S&P 500 fell 132.1 points or 3.2 percent, adding to losses after closing out its longest streak of weekly decline since 2011. Monday marked the first time the index closed below the 4,000 level since March 2021. NASDAQ tumbled for more than 521 points or 4.3 percent. Dow Jones shed more than 653 points or 2 percent. And part of what they point to in this article, Sagar, is, of course, you guys know what the landscape is.

You continue to have these supply chain issues. You have lockdowns in China, which are getting even more draconian, if anything. You obviously have the war in Ukraine causing all kinds of issues from food prices to gas prices. And you also have the Fed engaged in significant tightening. Now, last week when we talked to you about the Fed moves, so they had already lifted interest rates a quarter of a point. Last week they lifted it half a point, okay? OK. And markets were a little bit reassured by Fed chair Jerome Powell coming out and saying, listen, we're not contemplating going any further, any faster than what we're doing right now. Also giving a look into how they are going to unload the assets that they have accumulated off of their balance sheet, which also has a tightening effect. So the day after that, we actually did the show said actually markets responded fine. Yeah, they actually went up a little bit. Yeah. People were reassured by the fact that, OK, Jerome Powell says they're not

going too far too fast. However, now you have a new inflation report set to come out this week. And there are I think there's a lot of nervousness that if that inflation report continues to be high, that even though the Fed says they're not going to go too far too fast, they might reassess that if inflation is not ultimately getting under control. So that's what they point to in this article. They say later this week, investors will get another read on inflation when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its consumer price index. They're expecting data to show that inflation fell a bit from March's level. But if that comes out higher than expected, that is going to be a major issue. And they say that the feeling of reassurance that came from the Fed's comments last week

soon gave way to anxiety as investors grappled with the reality that the Fed might be forced to rethink its plans if inflation fails to ease up in the coming months. Yeah. And let's just really stick with the Fed because I think that's, look, if there is a recession, if there is a dive, it is almost entirely a Fed-triggered event. Now, let's put this up there on the screen. So the journal actually does a great job of describing this. Fed rate hikes are good for banks unless they end in a recession. So they're like, yeah, higher rates are usually good news for banks, but not this year because people are worried that the Fed will push until something breaks. And what they point to is that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley have all dropped this year despite two years of big pandemic gains and despite the fact that in almost every case in previous history,

bank stocks go up whenever higher rates are there because they're set to make more on the interest. But investors worry that rate increases that are too big, too fast, will tip the economy into recession. And I think an expectations game is very important here. Look, the idea that all of this is tucked by fundamentals and everything is right under there, and so you can go underneath and be like, this is all backed by some real stuff, almost entirely expectations is half, if not more so, of the way that investors are feeling about the current price of the market. Well, if investors worry that race increases are too big or too fast could tip the economy into recession, the sell-off itself could trigger a recession, which would then trigger more Fed activity. So there's a self-fulfilling prophecy,

which is ideological and which could very much come to pass in this case. But really what they say is that the current expectation is that the Fed is going to push so far, so fast on high interest rates that the banks will not be able to recoup any of the profits. And if anything, all across the entire economy, we're going to see a downturn. And the reason that this really worries me is, look, we've told you guys this before. You may not make money on the way up, but you will lose money on the way down. And the reason why is that the tightening of capital, I'm already seeing it. I have friends who've already been laid off as a result of the fact that their companies could not raise the amount of money that they were promised. And listen, that's in the private markets in

venture capital. They're probably like the tip of the spear who are going to get affected, but they're just the first. How many more layoffs are coming? And the reason why I say that is, remember the great recession of 2008? Part of the reason we had to bail the banks out was because many companies, corporations, were taking short-term loans in order to make payroll. So if we didn't bail out the banks, these people were not going to make payroll. And they're like, we had to fire everybody on Monday. So these are the types of decisions which very much could come to pass. A lot of people were maybe planning expansions on their investor calls that they won't be able to finance at much higher interest rates. I mean, look at the mortgage interest rate and then consider the commercial ones. I mean, commercial interest rates are not necessarily at the same rates,

but I was actually just talking to a guy yesterday about this. The commercial real estate interest rate game is even more murky because they don't have set standards, Crystal. A lot of it is that the loans are so big and the interest that they make is so much that there's a lot of jockeying. And as we've talked here before,

a lot of these big firms, Fortune 500s, have been able to just say, just trust us. And the banks don't really do their due diligence. So in a high interest rate environment, if you continue to kick that up, a lot of these corporations, don't underestimate this, will not be able to make basic cash expectations that are just going to have to fire people on a dime in these crazy ups and downs. Uncertainty is what causes real effects for you. And that's why I think a lot of people should pay attention to this. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, the whole goal of the Fed is to be able to engineer a, quote unquote, soft landing. This is no easy feat, especially when the only tools the Fed has at its disposal is basically

to lessen demand from consumers. So to cool off the hot housing market in particular, and already you've had residential mortgage rates skyrocket, you know, going up at some of the highest rates in history. And you now have the median mortgage price, the cost of mortgage, monthly cost of mortgage has hit a new historical high because of how much interest rates matter in terms of what that month to month payment ultimately is. So you have the Fed trying to sort of tamp down demand and put the brakes on what consumers are able to spend. And at the same time, you all have all these global forces that really have nothing to do with that. So it's a very treacherous landscape. At the same time, I mean, we just got a jobs report that was actually quite

good, you know. But not in pace with inflation. That's the thing. So you have this very mixed picture where, yes, the economy continues to create jobs at a rapid clip. Yes, unemployment continues to be quite low. but people are feeling the pain in terms of what they are paying at the grocery store, what they are paying for housing, what they are paying for at the gas pump, which I know is something that you're covering today, Sagar. And so it is, listen, it's not an easy thing that the Fed is trying to pull off here. And clearly there is a lot of nervousness in the market about what this is all going to look like. And listen, the bottom line is this. I mean,

the Fed's policy during the COVID recession was to inflate asset points. Oh, and the decade prior, Crystal. Well, that's exactly right. I mean, this started with the Great Recession. That was the initial foray into zero interest rates and quantitative easing. They went even further during the COVID market crash. There was a minute where the market was just like in free fall, even treasury bonds, which should be the sort of most stable and most liquid of markets. That was even seizing up. And they looked at that landscape and not incorrectly said, we have to take extraordinary action here. And they did, shooting trillions of dollars to high level in terms of stock and bond prices.

And now what you were talking about, about how much the sentiment matters, like those asset prices were not really based on reality. As we all know, the stock market valuations are kind of fake. So the minute that there's this reckoning of like, oh my God, this constant bull market is not going to last, then you can have panic, then you can have selling off. And that's when the bubble can ultimately collapse. And that's why we're in dangerous terrain here. That's why you continue to see, you know, the markets going down and down in town. You'll have one day where they sort of tick back up and then you go back into this pattern that we've been seeing for weeks and weeks now. Let's move on because this is actually an even

very important part of the story as well. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Wall Street is being dragged down primarily by tech stocks. Now, I don't want to overstate this because all sectors of the economy are down. But the reason why tech stocks and the decline in them matter the most is because they make up such a large portion of the index funds, like the S&P 500. And so tech companies, despite the fact that they saw sales go way up during the pandemic, and if you think about indices like QQQ and others that aggregate just tech, they were doing phenomenally well for years and years and years. You basically couldn't lose money if you weren't investing in the big five tech companies. Well, the broader S&P 500 is now down by 3.2% for the new low of 2020,

and it is primarily dragged down by technology. And so the decline in technology and the sector there, which again, I was talking about, there's a bleed in effect here from the private market. So you are seeing major technology companies like Facebook or Meta, excuse me, Meta, Amazon, and others who are declining in both their hiring, in terms of their price. Let's put this up there on the screen about Amazon in particular, which had its worst day since 2006 earlier, Crystal, where they dropped by 11% after posting a $3.8 billion loss in the first quarter. Now, look, Amazon is going to be fine. Their stock is completely OK. But I don't think that people have really appreciated how much of Amazon and Facebook and technology was dragging the S&P 500 up during the pandemic in particular. And so, I mean, if you think about the set and forget typical middle-class investor 401k person, they're not picking individual stocks. They're almost entirely invested in ETFs or Vanguard or whatever, Vanguard 100, the total market,

et cetera. A lot of that, because just the sheer amount of wealth that's tied up in technology means that when tech goes up, tech goes down, it's going to drop the whole market. And it will have a massive impact on middle class portfolios. And I think that's the main story that I think we should focus on, which is technology was propping up all of these indices. It was propping up a lot of people's retirement portfolios, whether they knew it or not. And so when you look at it, it's down by 15%. This is a major part of the reason why. These stocks were some of the best performers during the pandemic, which makes perfect sense. People are stuck at home.

You know, things like Peloton, things like Zoom, things like Netflix, things like Amazon performed extraordinarily well because you couldn't go out and do all the normal things that you do. And restaurants were closed and gyms were closed and all of that. But you could be at home. You could watch Netflix. You could do, you know, if you're a PM restaurants were closed, and gyms were closed, and all of that. But you could be at home. You could watch Netflix. You could do, you know, if you're a PMC, you could order your little Peloton bike and jump on board there. You could certainly order whatever you wanted off of Amazon.

So those stocks performed extraordinarily well during the pandemic. And now we've seen Amazon, I think, is a really important one. I'm going to talk a little bit more about them in just a second. But you see them with, you know, losing money, definitely not living up to their earnings expectations. You see them announcing a hiring slowdown, which is extraordinary and also very different from the dynamic in the pandemic. For years now, actually, the biggest problem for Amazon has been that they could not hire enough bodies because Amazon is, you guys know, if you watch this show, I mean, they basically treat their workers as disposable. They sort of intentionally burn through them on, I mean, they even have a timeframe. They expect to burn through them in three years timeframe.

They never elevate them to management. And so their biggest issue was they're starting to say, we're kind of running out of like a workers that we can even employ in our warehouse fulfillment centers. And so now for them to say, we actually have – they actually came out and said – the CFO said that they have such a churn and burn model. If they just let workers, if they just organically burn out workers the way they normally do, then they'll get down to the levels that they ultimately want. But that is a significant difference. Netflix also- Oh, got hammered. Yeah, got hammered in there. What was it? For the first time, they were losing net subscribers and they're starting to play with, oh, maybe we got to go to an advertising

driven model. So these are all indications that those stocks and those companies that performed so well during the pandemic are facing a bit of a reckoning now. Part of why Amazon is so important, and you guys know we talk about Amazon a lot on this show, is because they really have their tentacles in almost every part of not only the national economy, but also the global economy. So they are very much impacted by consumer spending trends. They're very much impacted by supply chain issues. They're very much impacted, you know, this is also a tech stock and they're very much dependent on their cloud computing services, which by the way, thank you, Joe Biden, for awarding them another government contract in spite of their union busting. But that's why when you look at what's going on with Amazon,

it's kind of a leading indicator of where all of these sectors ultimately might go. Because, yes, it's a tech stock, but they really have their hands in so many aspects of both our national and global economy. So I think that's why this is so extraordinarily significant that they are nowhere near where they were during the pandemic. Yeah, the tech stock phenomena is going to basically make it so that a lot of the investments, I actually just read a story this morning about the diamond hands generation.

Shout out to my investors, people who are like my age started trading. Guess what? Well, the diamond hands generation has now likely lost more than 100% of their gains during the meme stock era. This is a Bloomberg article that just came out. Look, you guys knew the risk. And let's all be honest about what exactly was happening there. Now, that being said, that just shows you about how dangerous this really can be in the boom times, and then

you also have the downtimes. If you actually did abide by diamond hands, then you probably lost a lot of money. The reason why that this matters is that when amateur investors and stuff like this get burned, and you also have people, I was talking earlier, a much more traditional 401 investor significantly down, we saw the biggest crisis of confidence of our economy in our lifetime was 2008. I mean, I remember my dad and other people who wake up and you look at portfolios down by 50%. You're like, this is my life saving. This is it. College, house, future, people made whole plans and it just evaporates overnight.

And a lot of people never came back from that. And people need to realize that we are probably, and this is kind of how I end my monologue, this is not gonna end anytime soon. This is not, you know, if anything, the COVID recession was a blip in terms of what we're headed for because the fundamentals of our economy are not good.

And everything is really expensive. So a decline in consumer cash, that means all across the board, plus technology. When you have a dry up of high interest rates, you're not going to have cheap capital, which can at least finance some of the riskiest investments that are happening. So you have a decline in the public markets. The Journal had a piece on its front page yesterday, how to make money when stocks are down and bonds are not returning. So it's like, yeah, actually, how do you make money? And the basic advice is like put it in a savings account. You know what I mean?

You know, hope for a 0.05 interest rate. Actually, it probably isn't even that high. But hope for a mediocre interest rate in order to keep pace with 9% inflation. So no matter what, you're hosed. Think about this. You're either down 8.5% if you put your money in savings relative to inflation, or you're down by like 20% if your stocks are down, and you have to keep up with inflation. So no matter what, almost every sector of this economy except for what the top 0.01% is basically hosed right now relative to the last five years, which is a really depressing story. It is a depressing story, especially if you think about what happened out of the Great Recession because the big institutional players, yeah, they took a hit during the Great Recession.

But they had the capital reserves to be able to buy distressed assets at the time. And then the Fed was pumping in all that cheap cash. That's right. And then they made more money than ever off of those distressed assets, in particular, housing stock. So if you have the money and the capital to play the long game,

yeah, there might be some bargain basement deals coming up in the market. But if you are a regular person and you've invested your life savings, your retirement, whatever it is, into the markets and you don't have the bandwidth to hold on for a decade until things turn around, it's going to be very, very difficult and very ugly. This is a huge story that has not gotten nearly the attention that it should and which we are just picking up on because neither of us has. I don't have any little babies anymore, so I was not aware that this was all going on. There's a huge nationwide

shortage of baby formula that, frankly, has been going on for months now. It's only getting worse. Government has not been responsive at all. Obviously, for many babies, formula is their sole source of nutrition. So it's not like you can just substitute something else. This is what babies need to eat and to be able to survive. So this is a major problem. Let's go ahead and put the numbers up on the screen here. This is from NBC. They say effectively that you've got the share of baby formula out of stock across the U.S. hit 40 percent on April 24th. That's according to a number crunching group called Data Assembly. That's up from 29 percent, which already seems pretty high to me back in March. They have an expert here who, you know, is indicating what I was just saying, that unlike

other food recalls, shortages in the infant formula supply affects a major or even exclusive source of nutrition for babies, and inadequate nutrition could have long-term health implications for those babies. The states that are seeing the worst shortages include Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, and South Dakota, all with out-of-stock rates of about 50%, a total of 26 states. So more than half the states have out-of-stock rates that are between 40% and 50%. Now, why is this happening now? We have the New York Times with a little bit of reporting. Part of what happened here is there was a significant—go ahead and put the stair sheet up on the screen—there was a significant recall of baby formula that was produced by one of the major producers, Abbott Nutrition.

What they say in the New York Times here is parents across the country are struggling to keep up with the nationwide shortage. It's a problem worsened by a recent recall by Abbott Nutrition, a manufacturer of baby food. That recall came after at least four babies were hospitalized with bacterial infections and two died after consuming their products. That's according to the U.S. FDA. Horrifying, horrible, horrible situation. Just to give you a sense of how central Abbott Nutrition, the company that ultimately had the recall and is contributing to this shortage, although they're not the entire story, they're actually the exclusive supplier for more than half of the WIC agencies nationwide. So they say this is not some isolated issue and that the shortage is particularly acute for infants who require specialty formulas to address allergies,

gastrointestinal issues, or metabolic disorders. So listen, for some babies who don't have those allergies and they're not sensitive, they can basically have whatever formula happens to be on the shelf. But if you have an infant who has a specialized need and you need to get a specific type of formula, this is in particular a major issue for you. And then the last part of the story here is that you have effectively every major retail that is putting limits on how much parents can buy. Walgreens, Target, but it's also Walmart. Costco. Costco.

It's also CVS are now placing limits on baby formula due to supply shortages. And the last thing I'll say about this, Sagar, is that formula is also already a really significant expense for new parents. On average, parents spend between $1,200 and $1,500 on infant formula in the first year alone. So when you're talking about those costs going up, which they have, that also is a major financial strain for families and for new parents. Yeah, I mean, I was telling you, I have a friend who's a new mom. I mean, this is a really stressful situation because they don't know what the supply is coming from.

And especially, you know, some people like to stick to a single brand. You don't even have that luxury in the current market. And then Amazon has a two-month backlog for generic baby formula. And, you know, I mean, the stuff that really scares the hell out of me is every major retailer in America is rationing baby formula right now. If you are a new parent, I mean, that's already a very stressful situation. It's one of those things where you really want to plan for the future and you're just simply unable to do so. You know, imagine just hoping that you're going to be able to get some here. My friend who's a

new mom eventually had to reserve some online at a store, which is several miles away, and then hope that it's there whenever you drive to go there. I mean, you have a little infant child, which is relying on this for, this isn't like a shortage of meat. Now look, we all, most people like meat. You definitely need meat, or some of the things that meat gives you, you can get it elsewhere if you are careful about it. But this is the exclusive source of nutrition. This is the only thing that some of these kids are able to eat. And like you said, the WIC part of this is also really important because the WIC program is for a lot of moms who are in the lower end of the income spectrum. And also, I think single, more disproportionately more likely to be single.

So you've got single moms who are now, depending on the WIC program, to get their formula. And then you've got over half of WIC states where their exclusive supplier is this one particular brand who now issued a recall, and they straight up are not able to get the formula that they were reliant on. So look, I mean, this is a catastrophe. There's a lot of problems, obviously, that this exposes. It shows you also part of the problems with some of the ways that we do this, actually. I was reading from a policy level, which is that by exclusively contracting with Abbott Nutrition, we guarantee a price. But part of the problem with that is actually is that Abbott then doesn't have the flexibility

in production because they only plan to produce a certain amount in order to meet that price by WIC. So the basic thing is that the actual infrastructure to spin up baby formula quickly does not exist, period. And now we have a massive shortage. And guess what? There is no, at least from what I can tell, current response from policymakers. I know Jen Psaki was asked about it yesterday, Crystal. Yeah. But they got nothing to say, I mean, at a very basic level. Yeah, I mean, she said, ensuring the availability of these products is a priority for the FDA, and they're working around the clock to address any possible shortage. But she did not outline any steps the Biden administration is taking in addition to what the FDA is doing, whatever they're doing.

Unlike with oil, the president can't tap a strategic and familial reserve to offset low natural supplies. She said, I don't believe there's a national stockpile of baby formula. And actually, there is one lawmaker who has proposed something, Abby Finkenauer, who is a Democrat from Iowa. She called on the White House to invoke the Defense Production Act to force manufacturers to produce additional baby formula. And I think it has come to that. I mean, you can't leave these moms and new parents high and dry like this. I mean, this is absolutely essential, critical supply. It's way more important than any other food source that you can ultimately think of because this is it. If you have a formula-fed baby, this is what they eat. So it really is a kind of a brewing disaster here.

And they recount in the New York Times one mom who was searching online and found like 10 cans of whatever brand of formula for $40 each. I don't actually know. It's a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, formula is expensive, but I think it's more like $25 a can. Okay, got it.

But yeah, $40 a can is a lot. And she reached out and was like, please, I have to have it. I can pay in all cash. And that's for someone who had the means to do that. Now, imagine that your budget is already stretched. Formula and diapers are already one of the top items that ultimately is stolen, both because of desperate parents and because of criminals who know that they can ultimately resell it. So it's a bad situation that needs to get more attention.

This reminds me, too, of the inflexibility of the FDA. You know, at a time when Europeans had rapid tests that we didn't have unavailability. Listen, I'm a protectionist at heart, but there's a shit ton of baby formula sitting in Europe right now. We have a ban on European imports. Apparently a ton of US parents already illegally import European baby formula. Yeah. It's like goat milk based and they like it. But listen, I don't know anything about it. I was reading a little bit. More what I'm saying is just waive the damn whatever tariff protection against this thing. Send a C-47 over there and let's get some baby formula here and let's give it away to anybody who needs it.

I mean, these are the basic functions of government. You can't be leaving these new moms in the lurch. It's probably stressful and it's hell enough in order to have a new baby in the middle of an economic crisis, especially if you're single and especially if you're poor. So I would love to see something like that from the Biden administration. But as I learned during COVID, it's not like these bureaucratic rigidity will force them to be like, we're reviewing the situation while everybody is just sitting, suffering and stressing out at home. I mean, there's literally an entire market over there. It's not that hard to go and get some.

And like I said, I didn't even know this, Crystal, there are Facebook groups where parents are illegally importing European baby formula already. So if the Facebook moms can get their hand on this stuff, it doesn't seem that hard for the government. The U.S. government should be able to figure this shit out. This is a very important confrontation that happened on Capitol Hill.

Senator Rand Paul pressing DHS Secretary Mayorkas about the disinformation governance board. And I think that Rand Paul said something that we've been trying to emphasize here, which is that the U.S. government cannot and should not be able to sort out what is disinformation because it has been one of the greatest purveyors of disinformation in the history of the world. Let's watch that confrontation. Do we have policies?

Do we have guardrails? Do we have standards to ensure? But here's the problem. We can't even agree. We can't even agree what disinformation is. You can't even agree that it was disinformation that the Russians fed information to the Steele dossier. If you can't agree to that, how are we ever going to come to an agreement on what is disinformation so you can police it on social media? I think you've got no idea what disinformation is, and I don't think the government's capable of it. Do you know who the greatest propagator what disinformation is, and I don't think the government's capable of it.

Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government. Are you familiar with McNamara, the Pentagon Papers? Are you familiar with George W. Bush and the weapons of mass destruction? Are you familiar with Iran-Contra? I mean, think of all the debates and disputes we've had over the last 50 years in our country. We work them out by debating them. We don't work them out by the government being the arbiter. I don't want you to guard rails. I want you to have nothing to do with speech. You think we can't determine, you know, speech by traffickers is disinformation. You think the

American people are so stupid they need you to tell them what the truth is? You can't even admit what the truth is with a Steele dossier. I don't trust government to figure out what the truth is. Government is largely disseminating disinformation. He's right. Look, no matter who you are, Mayorkas, Trump, Obama, Bill Clinton, all the way back, FDR, even the best presidents, they have sowed disinformation. It is the job of the press and of a free society in order to expose that disinformation and for all of us in order to consider the ups and the downs and the plus and the minus. So we should not have any entity out there, which is government affiliated, issuing guidance on this. I mean, even, I'll even

go so far as to say on the Russians, I don't think it is up to America to say that the Russians are sowing, they can say, look, we disagree, you know, with this. I think it should be up to us. They can issue, you know, guidance or whatever, but they should not be out there declaring and classifying things and then feeding that to the tech companies, Crystal. And that is what this new board, by all accounts, appears to be doing. They say we're going to stick only to foreign disinformation. But as Rand Paul, you think we need the DHS to tell us that people, the drug smugglers are feeding Hondurans? Oh, no. Oh, wow. What a novel concept. There were a couple of things I really appreciated about that whole that whole speech.

And, you know, I have a healthy bit of skepticism about Rand Paul. So when I saw this going viral, I was not it was not a sure thing for me that I was going to like what he had to say. But there were two things I really appreciated. Number one was that he used examples that were from Republican administrations. I mean, for a Republican to directly call out the George W. Bush administration, I mean, that's a very, that is a very new phenomenon. And it is not, it is not certainly across the board. I mean, we saw in the Katonji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings, how they were still using this, like, you know, trying to defend torture and trying to use against her the fact that she had been on the side of standing up for the Constitution against indefinite detention and those things against her.

So those politics are not dead. There are still a lot of people in the Republican Party and in the Democratic Party, by the way, who still are totally in, like, neocon brain land. So I appreciated that. Pointed to Iran-Contra, of course, that's under the Reagan administration. So that made the point really honest and salient because he wasn't just cherry picking like the democratic abuses of which there are many, right?

Yes. So I appreciated that. The other part I really appreciated was something that we've talked about on this show here before is he made this comment, do you really think that the American people are so stupid was something that we've talked about on this show here before, is he made this comment like, do you really think that the American people are so stupid that they can't figure out like that smugglers are lying and trafficking and disinformation? And that's to me really the crux of this whole issue is that you have a large and growing sentiment of elected officials and also just, you know, frankly, regular Americans who don't believe that their fellow citizens are really up to participating as citizens in a democracy, that they can't handle it.

That concern has been present since the founding of the republic. Literally. And that when you have that sentiment of like, I can't trust these people on here to be, you know, in the messy give and take of a democracy and figure things out for themselves with the help of a free press and with all of the wealth of information that exists out there in our ecosystem. Now, when you get to that point, then what does that justify? That justifies the you can't handle it. First of all, we're going to censor you. We're not going to allow you to see certain things. We're not going to allow you to say certain things. It leads to police state authoritarianism atmosphere. And it also leads to the flip side of that is so we have to hand total control to the experts. It's just this group of educated credentialed elites. They're the only

ones we can really trust with this governance and democracy stuff like democracy is not for the people and so i really appreciate that his point gets at that piece because i really think that's the central that's why this debate is so incredibly important and uh let's just be reminded of who the new head of this board is uh the so-called most cringe person in the entire country. No, literally, yeah. Like I said, look, theater kid who, unlike me, was not mugged by reality. The worst of all worlds.

Here's where she gave a recent interview. Let's take a listen. There's already this idea, this allegation that there is anti-conservative bias on the platforms, even though there has been study after study proving, in fact, that often it's liberal voices that are being silenced, particularly minority voices on social media. So I think we're going to see more allegations of that. Where do these fake studies come from? Do I doubt that there are actually

liberals? Not the right word. Are there left accounts which are censored? Yeah. All of the time. And we have pointed to many of those instances, specifically who are anti-imperialist or anti-war activists are the most likely. Some of them may be people of color. Are liberal voices, BLM activists getting salience on Twitter? Get out of here, okay? That is the most ludicrous accusation. And they always come up with this fake data

and these experts in order to just justify a censorious, elite liberal point of view. I wish they would just say that. They're like, listen, we think some voices are abhorrent. We think others aren't, and not rely on all of this fakery. But look, this deserves serious scrutiny. This lady is now the head of a US government agency with possible power over social media companies, over very least guidance, whatever that means, from the Department of Homeland Security, which is the largest law enforcement agency in the entire United States. A lot of people forget that. They have immense

power over our lives. Yeah, I thought about her comment there a lot, actually. First of all, I think it's a little revealing that she just conflates liberals and people of color as if there's no ideological diversity. I'm sure that there are a lot of people of color who are being censored who have dissident views. Like there's no doubt about that. The reason why you don't see liberal voices being censored like you do, you know, voices who are outside of the mainstream that conforms with what the liberal media wants to put out there. So, yeah, if you're basically in line with the cultural views of the powers that be, then you're not going to be censored. You're not ultimately going to have an issue. To me, it doesn't really matter which part

of the spectrum is being censored more or less, because this is a value. It's about the values. It's about the principles. It's about being committed to living in a democracy and what that ultimately entails. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Many big stories breaking this morning to bring to you. So new inflation numbers out. The picture continues to be dire. We have all of the details there for you. President Biden also addressing this in a major speech, clearly trying to reframe the debate on inflation, which has been obviously very damaging for you all, but politically dire for Democrats. So we'll bring you all of those details. But there's a lot else that is going on as well. A massive package of aid mostly going to defense contractors, ultimately passing

with regards to the war in Ukraine. Very little dissent, but where the dissent came from is actually kind of interesting. So we'll give you the details of that. Also, a Palestinian American journalist was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank. We will tell you everything we know about what unfolded there. Really a horrific, horrific tragedy. We also have new numbers with regards to overdose deaths. The numbers continue to go up. There was some hope that that might not be the case as the pandemic started to ease in 2021 and lockdowns came to an

end. But in fact, the numbers just continue to get worse and worse. So the details there are also important to get into. And finally, we have some new numbers with regards to the ratings of Simone Sanders debut on MSNBC. Just how did her first show featuring the first lady, how did that go? We'll tell you about that. Ryan Grim is going to join us as well. He actually reported out an extraordinary story about the sort of derailing of a DSA progressive campaign, political campaign close to DC that is interesting and instructive. It tells you a lot. A lot of ways. So we're going to have him lay that out since he did the reporting on this. But we do want to start with those brand new numbers on inflation, Sagar.

Yeah, that's right. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. These are really important numbers. So this is the overall year over year increase by price in terms of specific product categories. So I'm just going to read some of those for just who are listening. Gas, 44% up year over year. Airfare, up 33% year over year. Eggs, up 23% year over year. Utility gas, 23. Used cars, 23. Hotels, 23. Bacon, 18. Chicken, 15. Milk, 15. Furniture, 15. Coffee, 14. Beef, 14. Flour, 14. New cars, 14. Fish, 13. Electricity, 11. Health insurance, 10. Rent, 5. So basically everything you need in your entire life is at a minimum up 5 and at a maximum is up around 20. So not a good situation. Now, the way that the media is trying to spin this, and I'm doing an entire monologue just on the media and inflation, is just so hilarious to me.

Let's put this up there on the screen. The AP says, US inflation dips from the four-decade high, but still causing pain. It's like, yeah, it dipped to 8.3 from 8.5. So not necessarily a huge win. And actually, in terms of the overall increase in price, which you see in the most critical categories

like gas and food and gas, food, rent, housing, et cetera. I mean, you just have a situation where it's devastating for most Americans. The Biden administration, we'll get to his speech, is trying to spin it, talking about wage increase. Well, wages are up two to three percent. It's like that's not even going to cover your rent inflation. I mean, it's not going to cover your rent inflation. That's not even close. I mean, it's not even going to cover your rent inflation, let alone food inflation, let alone gas. I mean, the lack of focus here on the most basic bread, butter, like household expenses by the administration is going to kill them. And I think that the really depressing part about this,

and kind of was the end of my diesel monologue on Tuesday, is there ain't no way out of this thing right now. I mean, gas right now is still $4.30 a gallon, Crystal. Airfare is very high, specifically, not only because of high demand, because everybody wants to travel this summer, but jet fuel is like $7 a gallon in New York Harbor. Eggs, same thing.

I didn't know this, but 10% of all the chickens in America apparently died of some weird bird flu this year. So we have some crazy, yeah, I know. It's like this year can't get any better. Like cannot possibly catch a break on a single freaking thing. Literally 10% of all the chickens died from a crazy bird flu this year. And then utility gas, obviously that comes from natural gas. Hotels, demand is sky high. Bacon, I've talked before about the pig shortage and meat, and there's all kinds of crazy things going on in the meat supply chain. Same problem with milk. I mean, you know,

just on, I can go on forever. Every single one of these categories, the price here is probably only going to increase over the next year, maybe even two years as the supply chain problems shake out. And there's not a lot the Biden administration, I mean, they could have done something, you know, maybe a year ago, six months ago. At this point, they're just showing us that they're not really gonna do anything. This is here to stay for a long time to come. And that has major ramifications.

Yeah, no, that's right. And the way that they're trying to spin it and say, well, there are some good news buried within this report, even though actually the inflation increased more than they were expecting. So it was a worse report than they were expecting. And the stock market once again dipped because of that, because they're looking not just at inflation, but they're also reading the tea leaves of, OK, if inflation remains high, that's going to force the Federal Reserve's hand in terms of having to tighten the economy more and potentially end up with what they did in the 70s and 80s, which is forcing the country into recession to try to get inflation under control. But so what they're pointing to is they say, oh, well, core prices, so-called core prices

jumped twice as much from March to April as they did the previous month. But there are signs that supply chains are improving for some goods, prices for appliances and clothing both fell, cost of used cars dropped. You remember the used cars sort of like led the charge in terms, they were one of the first- It was a leading indicator. Yeah, it was. It ended up being a leading indicator. But those prices for things that are essential to you for food and for rent and for gasoline continuing to spike at such a rapid pace. I mean, those are the things that really hit household budgets and that there's just obviously no avoiding paying to get to work, paying to feed yourself and your family, for example. So it's an extraordinarily difficult situation. And I was reading one analysis, I thought this was interesting too, about how this impacts people psychologically as well. Because even in a downturn, when you lose your job, we have this whole mythology about the bootstraps. If you just

work harder and you just put yourself out there, then you can overcome these circumstances. With inflation, there's no mythology about like, well, this is really somehow your fault. Everybody, it feels completely out of your control. There's nothing you can do other than just like cut corners and cut back and cut to the bone what you're ultimately spending for yourself and your family budget. And that sense of powerless is also, I mean, that's just a really horrible feeling where you know that there's nothing you can do to keep up with these rising prices, where you know that every time you go to the grocery store, you're going to be able to get a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less with your dollars. So I think that part of it too, you know, it's the

reality of the cuts people are having to make. And also that sense of powerless that there's just nothing in your control that you can do about this whatsoever. I think that's an excellent point. I was just talking about this with some friends yesterday about how I finally understand some of my parents' quirks about paying down their mortgage and the way that they're relentless. And it's like, well, they had mortgages that were like 9% whenever they came to this country. A lot of people had mortgages which were like 12%. I mean, I can't even conceive of what that looks like. And a lot of people, even probably older than my parents, really remember the 1970s and the chaos of having to stand in a gas line for eight

hours or going to the grocery. I mean, at that time, runaway inflation was a really real thing. And then you have crazy economy and it just feels like the whole world is falling apart. I'm starting to understand how some of this stuff can imprint on you as a generation. Honestly, I think it will probably imprint on us. I mean, 20 years from now, you're going to be like, hey, man, you don't know what it was like. I mean, I can't be the only guy. You go to the grocery store, you see the same pack of something you bought two months ago. And you're like, what? This is $10 more expensive. You're like, this is crazy town. And you ring up, and even though you think you're being economical, you're like, it's $250. It's like,

what is happening here? This is one of those things where that is just going to stay with you for a long time. I mean, I try to think try to think back on the great recession and how it kind of imprinted us and like changed our whole politics, maybe as much as, as much as the Iraq war. And for me, it was, I lost faith in the entire financial system. I was like, oh, this thing is fake. I was like, I don't know exactly why, you know, we can talk about mortgage-backed securities and like exactor, but I just looked at it and then the fact that they got bailed out and then the fact that they all got rich, but so many people lost their homes. I just posted a photo yesterday, which really just bummed the hell out

of me. And it was a side-by-side photo of Detroit in 2009, the same house versus the same house in 2019. And in 2009, there was a kiddie pool in the front and there was a guy outside mowing his lawn. This is like Google Maps or something. In 2019, the whole thing is overgrown. The garage is trashed, and the whole street is empty. And you're like, oh, my God. I mean, that really is the legacy of that. That imprinted really heavily on me.

I think inflation is going to imprint heavily on all of us, Gen Z, everybody. Well, the thing is, too, that these crises are no longer coming once a generation. It's like it's speeding up. I mean, you know, you live through the Iraq war and the crash and the and covid and the covid crash. And now this, you know, this chaotic economic circumstances that we see right now. So it just feels like it's all coming so quickly. I definitely saw my my dad is older. And so he was born during the Great Depression in West Virginia, grew up in complete poverty, lived in a one-room shanty that his dad built. And you definitely see the way that that frugality stayed with him his entire life, continues with him today, where he can tell you he's the classic guy who had the same coat that he bought in the 70s that he's wrapped in duct tape and can tell you exactly

what it cost when he bought it in 1973. That's my dad. There's no doubt that these things have massive generational impacts. You also see right now, we talked some about the crypto crash and that stablecoin that we talked about before. TerraUSD. Yeah, I mean, it's a complete disaster. It was down to like 50 cents. This thing is supposed to be pegged at a dollar. And now you have people who sort of put their faith in crypto and put their faith in the stablecoin in particular. They're posting on Reddit like suicide hotlines.

They've lost everything. And so, yeah, is that going to stay with people for their entire life? Is that going to, not just psychologically, but just from a literal, like, what do your life chances and choices and what does it look like for you from here on out? Yeah, that's going to be with people and set their trajectory for their entire lives. So those are, you know, it's a very dire time. And this is a good way to transition to the politics piece of this. When you look at the numbers among young people and how they feel about Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, and how in just a year's time frame, it has fallen off a cliff. This is pretty extraordinary. And I think it has a lot to do with the sense of broken promises, number one, the sense that, you know,

he came in, promised I'm going to be FDR and I'm going to do all these things. And then one by one, all of these things which were popular and important and would help people get through these difficult times, get sort of like ceremonially shot in the head week after week. And so now you have a situation where coming in, young demographics were the strongest supporter of Joe Biden. And now it's completely reversed. Actually, the older you are, the more likely you are to have a, to say, have a favorable opinion of Joe Biden at this point. Young people are despairing of how this administration has ultimately gone for them. Now, that doesn't mean they like the Republicans are going to vote for them. But are they completely disenchanted with what the Democratic Party led by Joe Biden has done for them? Absolutely.

So the Democrats have apparently finally realized that inflation is a major issue and that this is hitting people, giving them a pay cut every single week. Biden gave what was billed as a sort of major address on Tuesday to try to reset the narrative around inflation and lay out what he thinks is going on and what his plans are versus what the Republican plans are. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that. I know the families all across America are hurting because of inflation. I understand what it feels like. I come from a family where, when the price of gas and food went up, we felt it. It was a discussion at the kitchen table. I want every American to know that I'm taking inflation very seriously, and it's my top domestic priority. Let me start.

Let me start with the Putin price hike, high gas prices and energy prices. My plan is already in motion. I led the world and other countries to join with us to coordinate the largest release of oil from our stockpiles of all the countries in history, 240 million barrels. My plan is to lower every day costs for hard work in Americans and lower the deficit by asking large corporations. The other path is the Ultra-MAGA plan put forward by congressional Republicans to raise taxes on working families,

lower the income of American workers, threaten sacred programs Americans count on like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and give break after break to big corporations and billionaires, just like they did the last time they were in power. Well, if there's one thing the Democrats are good at, Sagar, it's coming up with a cringe tagline. Yeah, Putin price hike is genuinely one of the most cringe things I've ever heard in my entire life. Ultra MAGA, also pretty bad. Yeah, what does ultra MAGA mean? That's the thing is like, if you're going-

What are you saying? It doesn't mean, that's the thing, is if you're going to have a slogan or tagline like this that you're going to lean into—and by the way, some of the reporting suggests that this came from Bill Clinton's at-old mind because they met last week and it sort of is along the lines of the type of political strategies that he engages, I guess. That's the speculation about this. But, yeah, for your average person, it doesn't land. It doesn't mean anything, really. They're just like, OK. And I mean, he's right. The Republican plan laid out by Rick Scott totally sucks.

It would be wildly unpopular. It does entail a tax hike for millions of Americans. It also has this bizarre provision of like, we're going to sunset every single social welfare, every program, every five years so that we have to go and re-up Medicare, re-up Medicaid, re-up Social Security. And of course, they're going to like extract their pound of flesh. He's right about all of this. But this is hardly a confidence-inspiring speech. He only barely called out the corporate price gouging that's going on. We'll get to a little bit more of that. And, you know, he's laid out stuff that they already did, tapping the strategic petroleum reserve. OK, well, how much did that do for us? Not a whole heck of a lot. And what he lays out

going forward is also really sort of milquetoast. And most of it doesn't have any chance of succeeding in the Senate as it's currently constituted. Yeah, exactly. He has no plan, zero. And at this point, I don't think we should have any trust in the president's ability in order to do anything about it. And the other point is, I don't really understand what universe these people live in, but you and I both caught this article yesterday, let's put this up there on the screen, about how Representative Katie Porter, who I actually like, has some great times sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. Some of these CEOs in Congress. You know, she says only after Representative Katie Porter put bacon in her cart at the local grocery store did she notice that its price had spiked to $9.99 a pound.

Reluctantly, she put the package back. It was a dose of reality that Porter and a single mom of three has long understood. But she's not all sure her Democratic colleagues share her interests. And so she said only after she gave an emotional speech like last week to the House Democratic caucus did maybe Congress begin to understand. And here's the thing. As many people pointed out, do you know how to read a poll? This has been the top issue for a year. It's basic. I mean, how much of a bubble are these people living in that they could not understand that stuff is way too expensive all across the board, causing chaos in people's lives from gas to food to housing, electricity, all everything that you have to buy these days is too expensive.

This has been self-evident for 18 months and really especially in the last year. What planet are you living on? That's what it feels like to me. The theme of Biden's speech in the Southern New York Times wrote it up was Biden urges Americans to have patience. No, dude. You run the country. You people literally run it. What are you going to do for me? Why should I have any trust? And especially what it took one lady buying some bacon in May 2022 for you guys to wake up. What's happening here? The story that was I mean, that was crazy, right? Like, I mean, we've been talking about inflation for a long time now.

I don't, I just, I genuinely don't understand how you could have missed this dynamic. And then one of, purportedly, according to Katie Porter, one of her colleagues said to her, well, it's not showing up in the polls. I'm like, but that's not even, what? Like, people have been saying for how long that inflation is their number one issue. So the whole thing is bizarre. I mean, Katie Porter, obviously she earns a congressional salary, $174,000, which is a lot of money, way more than what your average American earns. But in fairness to her, she has to maintain residence in two very expensive locations and she's a single mom with three kids. So it rings true to me that she has to pay a lot more attention to her budget than most members of Congress. And she doesn't have family wealth.

Right. Who are, you know, multimillionaires. Most of her colleagues, this is completely, they can afford to be completely oblivious to whatever the price is of whatever they're buying at the grocery store and whatever the cost of the pump ultimately is. So it does strike me as true that she would be one of the ones who would actually have to pay attention to like, oh my God, this pack of bacon is now $10. This is not going to work out for me. But the fact that I just, I can't even believe that it's taken till now for them to really register what a massive problem and total crisis this is for Americans. But we've seen it in the rhetoric. I mean, for how long have we seen them trying to spin the economy and basically say, like,

you don't really understand how good the economy actually is. Right now, the negative numbers are almost as high on how people feel about the economy as they were during the Great Recession. I mean, that's how dire things are for the American people right now and how much they're feeling the squeeze of every single month their paycheck goes down and down and down in real terms as a result of inflation.

So they were trying to paint it as like, the media's not covering properly how good the economy actually is and look at how low the unemployment is. But if you have a job, but you can't pay your bills, that's still a really bad economy. That's still a dire situation for you. Thank you. This is the stuff that drives me. They're like, did you not know that your paycheck went up? It's like, dude, I can't afford the stuff I used to buy. It's simple. That's it. I mean, that is how people think about the economy. And honestly,

that's how they should think about the economy. Nobody cares about nominal GDP and GDP per capita when the stuff that you experience in your daily life is more expensive and there's no plan in order to bring it down. And you know, Americans are really unanimous right now in terms of inflation causing a problem, but they don't really agree on what's causing it, which I think is really interesting if you look at how the breakdown is. So here, this is from the New York Times in terms of their polling. Now, a lot of people, about 45%, blame the COVID-19 pandemic, and I think that's very fair. So a lot and a little, 45 plus 38, so about 86% of people. Now, supply chain disruption is, again, almost universally agreed upon as a lot or a little in terms of blaming inflation.

But things begin to break down a little bit. So people, 40% of people blame corporations a lot, 38% a little. So, again, generally unanimous. But then things start to get real split whenever it comes to policy, Crystal. The American Rescue Plan is 30%. A lot of people blame probably mostly Republicans. 37% say a little. 30% say not at all. And then the war in Ukraine is also very, very split. The Putin price hike. And so I was just going to say, which one is the administration going

with, Crystal? Which of those are they blaming inflation on the most? The one that the least amount of people agree with. And by the way, this is what I love about America. They, our people are not stupid. Like they look at that and they're like, I don't believe you. And you shouldn't. They're like, stuff has been way more expensive before Russia invaded Ukraine. Don't gaslight me. Most people are like, yeah, I think it's COVID and I think it's supply. Now look, we can all disagree on why exactly that is. But, you know, some 80 to 90 percent of Americans are not dumb. They're like, yeah, there's a supply problem. There's all this crazy stuff going on with China.

And also the pandemic is kind of crazy. You know, and of course, the administration goes with the war in Ukraine. Yeah. To blame and stuff. It's not because that puts it totally off them. And even that, though, is disingenuous because obviously we are very involved and we're going to talk in the next block about this more. But we are very involved in what's going on in Ukraine. And this administration has set a policy of we don't actually want the war to end. you know, dire consequences for Ukraine and Ukrainian lives and also dire consequences for Americans and what they are ultimately paying at the pump and paying, you know,

in terms of food prices. But to your point, the reason people are not going with that explanation, I mean, I think they buy like, OK, that has something to do with what's going on right now. But obviously, inflation was going up before the war started. So like we didn't forget. Gas is still $3.50 a gallon. Right. The Putin price hike. But that's, I mean, that's their way of being like, not on us. It's Russia's fault.

It's Putin's fault, as is apparently everything that happens in this country bad ever to Democrats. And, you know, Stoller has really been laser focused on how much of this has to do also with corporations who have monopoly power looking at this landscape and saying, aha, we can use this as an excuse to further raise prices. And here's some more numbers to back that up. He says this is a very weird inflationary period with an unusually large share going to profits and an unusually small share going to wages. So this is yet another indication. They have 54% of normal and recent contributions to growth in unit prices in the non-financial corporate sector. 54% of that is going to corporate profits, and only 8% is going to labor. So overwhelmingly, the increase in prices and costs is not coming from,

you know, a lot of times you hear this from Ray, like, oh, wages are going up and that means that everything's going to be more expensive. No, that is not what's going on here whatsoever. Wages have gone up a little bit, not even close to enough to keep up with inflation. Meanwhile, corporate profits are skyrocketing. And no surprise, given that we've heard CEOs saying basically like, this is a great time for us because we can lift prices and consumers just have to take it. And they will take it because they understand that inflation is happening right now. So, again, it was frustrating to me because that is, of everything that's going on in the world and contributing to inflation, that corporate price gouging part is actually the part that the White House could do the most about. And so the fact that they, you know, he had like one line about it. He said that the two major causes are COVID supply chain and Putin's price hike buried in the speech is like, oh, and by the way, corporations are lifting their prices too much.

But that's the piece you should actually be really focusing on because number one, it's clearly a significant contributor here. Because number one, it's clearly a significant contributor here. And number two, it's something that the administration could do a lot more about than say, you know, whether or not Shanghai is locked down right now. You know, I feel like I'm just repeating myself over and over again. But, you know, I was talking with some friends yesterday, like the Biden administration should declare a national emergency over the baby formula shortage right now. Invoke the Defense Production Act. Talk to the FDA and say, hey, what's the problem?

OK, Abbott Foods isn't producing enough. What can we do? Oh, Europe has a ton of baby formula. Let's go buy some. I mean, this is one of those most basic functions of government. These are little, little kids. And then expand that across all of the entire economy. The meatpacking thing. I was talking about this with some friends yesterday. What happened to that investigation? They ordered some investigation

in the meatpacking supply chain. That was six, seven months ago. So what's happening? I mean, meat is still really expensive. And these are the tip of the spear types of things that you could do to affect the economy. But they're focused on other things right now. By the way, we learned on the baby formula shortage. I might do my Monday blog on this because this is just so enraging, but also so perfect. Part of what happened and why there is such a disastrous shortage right now and why moms and babies are. I mean, this is it's, it's horrible. I can't imagine being in that situation where you don't know where you're going to get your babies next meal. Horrible, horrible. Abbott had to recall all of their formula or a significant amount of

their formula because you had four babies who had a bacterial infection, two of whom died. And now we're learning that apparently they had refused to repair dilapidated drying machines. And that, you know, made their plants into potential petri dishes for these bacterial infections. At the same time, Sagar, though, they didn't want to take the money to use to invest in actually making sure that babies are safe. Instead, they did invest $5.73 billion in stock buybacks. I was going to say, she's about to say stock buybacks. Stock buybacks. Every time.

Too perfect. You know, this is a good example, though. This is about monopolization, which is that Abbott has a direct contract with WIC, the WIC program, which we talked about earlier. We need more competition in this sector. And I now know much more about baby formula than I ever did in my life.

But, you know, I was telling you, there's a wealthy black market for European baby formula. A lot of Instagram moms are obsessed with European baby formula because it doesn't have plant-based additives like ours and has more, whatever. We don't have to get into all of the science on it. But the point is, is that there's already an existing market here for European baby formula. Now, look, I'm a protectionist at heart, but if we don't have it and we have a crisis, let's go get some. I mean, these are not hard things to do. I was also reading that there are certain facilities and others that we could easily convert if Biden invoked the Defense Production Act in order to spin up baby formula production. Instead, you know,

thumb up the you-know-what over at the administration doing absolutely nothing and I got two friends actually right now of newborn infants and both of them texting me about how much, one of them is a prepper actually so he foresaw this crisis and he's got like three months but he's like listen man I don't know what I'm going to do after three months because I really hope that there's not still, sure his

wife is freaking out talking to him about it I don't want to be in this, I can't imagine being in this situation I was reading about moms who have babies who have allergies or particularly like, it's one thing, I mean, this is bad for everybody. And there are states where there's as much as 50% out of stock. I mean, if you go on Amazon, for example, you can't possibly buy it. But if you need a specific kind of formula for your baby in particular, it is a really, really bad situation. Of course, it's even worse if you are low income and it's hard for you to afford to start with,

and then prices are skyrocketing. So, I mean, I can't imagine a more clear-cut instance of, we have, this is a complete crisis. We have to do something about it now. Like, if that isn't a clear-cut case for whatever it takes, like, go and buy the baby formula and you're bringing it here, give it out for free, Defense Production Act, whatever you ultimately have to do. And the last thing I'll say about all of this is, you know, the whole promise of this particular system of sort of like radical free market capitalism that we have is that, listen, yes, corporations are going to get rich.

Yes, your jobs are going to get shipped overseas. That's all true. But your prices are going to be low and you're never going to have to worry about like the, you know, food crises that they have in communist countries. That's not going to happen here. Well, guess what? You got the jobs shipped overseas and you still had prices increase. You're still paying too much. So none of the promises of this system, the way that it was architected, have ultimately come true. And, you know, I think that's a big learning to take from all of this as we move forward. Huge learning. And, you know, I was reading yesterday about these moms on Facebook groups who are having to, like, swap breast milk.

And I'm like, that is some failed state. Like, 1915. Completely. Completely. I can't even imagine it. Let's move on because it somewhat pertains to the baby formula crisis. This is about Ukraine. So let's put this up there on the screen. So this is the only article I could find where it talked about the US House passes $40 billion, which actually listed, Crystal, what that actual aid does.

Everybody just says $40 billion. Okay, that's a lot of money. What kind of weapons? What is earmarked? Exactly which billion is going where? So here's what they wrote. And I guess VOA is American propaganda, so it kind of makes sense. The package includes $6 billion for security assistance, including training equipment, weapons, and support. $8.7 billion to replenish stocks of existing U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine. Think Javelin missiles, those type of things. Then $3.9 billion for European command operations. I don't know what that means.

In addition, the legislation authorizes a further $11 billion in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the president to authorize the transfer of articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency. Biden had only asked for $5 billion. So let that sink in. The president said, I only need $5 billion in discretionary authority to send whatever the hell I want from U.S. military stocks to Ukraine. Congress was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what if we doubled that and then added an extra billion? So why don't we give you $11 billion for you to send,

again, without congressional approval, whatever you want. Why does this matter? Because the administration and the president in particular now has the capacity and the congressional authority, if this bill is ratified by the Senate, in order to send offensive-style weapons to Ukraine. Now, look, he already has a limited ability in order to do that, but Congress has now given him $11 billion worth of military equipment, think everything that we have, if he so chooses to do so. And now he is the sole discretionary authority over what exactly gets sent over there and not in regards to this particular pool of funds. You cool with that? You want to put all that power in the hands of a single man? It's not like the president doesn't have enough power. Now I'll continue, $4 billion in foreign military financing to provide support for Ukraine affected by the crisis. So in effect, we're backstopping some of the loans and other

things that they've taken out. And then in addition, the US has rushed $3.5 billion worth of armaments to Ukraine since Ukraine invaded, including howitzers, anti-aircraft stinger systems, anti-tank javelin systems, ammunition, and recently disclosed ghost drones. Again, not a lot of clarity on what exactly those ghost drones are doing. Now, how exactly did the vote on this break down? Let's put this up there on the screen. Well, it went 368 to 57. Now, every single no vote on that bill, Crystal, were Republicans. And I think it really bears noting that not only did not a single Democrat dissent from this, but there was no explanation given to the American people as to why the administration asked for $33 billion to Ukraine and Congress is like, yeah, but we'll give

you 40. Why? Who is this money going to? Who exactly is the beneficiary of this extra $7 trillion? Oh, we know who the beneficiary is. We'll get to that. They're all here in the Beltways. All the defense contractors that got massively wealthy during the Afghanistan war and during every other conflict. We need to ask these questions. And look, I'm not going to say all these 57 Republicans were noble. We have a list.

We can put it up there on the screen. I think a lot of them did so for deficit reasons. But hey, whatever. I will say, I actually thought, and it pains me to say this, that one of the better responses on this was actually Marjorie Taylor Greene. So let's put this up there. Here's what she had to say. Let's go to the next one there, guys, which is that she says, in America last, and forgive her rhetoric, $40 billion Ukraine first bill we are voting on tonight. There is an authorization for funds to be given to the CIA for who knows what and for who knows how much,

but there is no baby formula for American mothers. Now, look, before the inevitable trolls come out, of course it is not a one-to-one situation. But to me, it's about what gets default, bipartisan, overwhelming support and billions of dollars of funds with no questions asked, no public debate, et cetera. And what gets talked about on podcasts and online and on Facebook groups amongst millions of new moms and gets no support in Congress, no attention, no statements,

nothing. So let me speak to the Democrats first. It is so pathetic that not only was there not a single no vote, there was not a word of dissent as far as I could see. And early on, you had at least Ilhan Omar, I think she might have been basically the only one, but raising questions about, hey guys, maybe we need to slow down. Maybe we need to actually debate these things because we are going really far and really fast. And I think we should press the pause button and actually dig into what we're doing here, what the goals are, what the end game is. Not a word of any of that from anyone. And given that we now know the administration's goal is not to achieve peace in Ukraine. It's to, quote unquote, weaken Russia, which means to keep this war going indefinitely. Now that we know there are reports that Boris Johnson, when he went to Ukraine,

met with Zelensky specifically to say we do not want a negotiated peace right now. Given all of that, where are the elected voices on the left saying, hey, guys, $40 billion for defense contracts and we're just throwing around extra billions and giving $11 billion to Biden to do whatever the hell he wants with it and potentially offensive weapons, which was supposed to be more or less off the table? Like, what are we doing here? Not to mention that originally the idea was this was going to be tied together with COVID money, which was going to go to things which should be uncontroversial, in particular, making sure that people who are poor can still get tested and can still get vaccines, which seems kind of important for a domestic population as well. Well, there was Republican dissent over that. So they put that off the table. So think about what that says. Funding a proxy war against Russia to the tune of multi billions of tens of billions of dollars is actually less controversial in Congress than making sure that poor people can get a covid vaccine. Like that is mind boggling.

And there was someone on Twitter who said basically basically, Congress is just an arms dealer now. And that's effectively the case. Now, I do want to say on the Republican side, listen, these people are full of shit because ultimately, number one, they didn't want to vote for the covid like the stuff that would go to the pop. I don't know what was in the covid. Number two, like, listen, if we actually had a bill that was like we're going to give out free baby formula to the popular. Do you think that these people would actually vote for that? Madison Cawthorn was out there saying like imagine if we spent $40 billion on veterans instead of doing this.

This dude just voted against $20 billion for burn victims like last month. Right. So let's be clear that on all of this, they're all full of shit. It'd be good. It'd still be good to put it. I would love to see it put on the floor. I'd love to see them vote against it. What, the baby formula? Yeah. I mean'd be good. It'd still be good to put it. I would love to see it put on the floor. I'd love to see them vote against it. What, the baby formula?

Yeah, I mean, put it. Yeah, let's do it. Go for it. I would love to see that get put on the floor. I think when it comes down, look, I support sending weapons to Ukraine, some type of weapons. I support supporting Ukraine.

I think that Ukraine's cause is righteous. Now, all of that being said, the reason I'm framing it this way is we need to have debates about grand strategic aims. Now, if the Ukrainians want to continue fighting on, that's great. Now, what exactly are we also doing in terms of ensuring that Congress exercises its constitutional authority to say, well, okay, we support you on this, but we don't want offensive weapons going over there. So why is it not written into the bill that Biden isn't allowed to do that? I mean, why are we not making it so that Congress has an overwhelming and advisory authority

on exactly projecting the people's will, which is what Congress is supposed to be, is if most Americans agree we should help out Ukraine. To what end? And this is the problem with what I see, which is this is just runaway, which is that they come to us, they're like, we want $33 billion. And we're like, okay, we'll give you $40 billion. Well, where's that extra money going? And it's like, this is what Glenn wrote about. Let's put this up there on the screen, which is that Biden wanted 33 billion

for Ukraine. Congress quickly raised it to 40 billion. Who benefits? And look, I think we all know who benefits, which is that there is a defense industrial complex here in DC. And also, you know, this is taking away from a lot of others. You know, some people who talk about Ukraine say that they care about Taiwan. Guess what? Taiwan's been trying to buy weapons for us now for a while, and they're not able to get the weapons that they want because we sent them all to Ukraine. Here's the other problem.

We have a semiconductor crisis in this country. Every Javelin anti-attack weapon system requires a ton of semiconductors, so much so that the administration is now trying to sell Congress on passing this new semiconductor bill by saying, we need these semiconductors to put into our weapon systems so that we can send it over to Ukraine. Now, you don't have to agree with that. I think that's kind of crazy. But my point being that we are, you know, we may need these weapons sometime too. What are we going to do? Do we have enough javelins?

By the way, the answer to that is no, because we've sent all of them over to Ukraine. There's all kinds of downstream effects here. And then also when the president sends over existing U.S. military stock, well, then the military has to go buy new ones. So who benefits from that, Crystal? Like, this is what I'm saying. There are all kinds of downstream, very big and nuanced discussions that need to happen whenever it comes to what do we want to do in Ukraine. This is what? It's been two months now that this has been going on. Ukrainians have fought a righteous war. They've battled them in the East. They're keeping them

basically, it's a rough stalemate. I'm not saying that hundreds of people aren't dying, that it isn't a tragedy. Where do we go from here? Is flooding the whole country full of weapons? Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don't know. I mean, we should all have independent assessments. And the fact that they just not only rubber stamped it, but gave even more is what troubles me the most. And what I know with war is there's always 40th order consequences. Of course. Of course.

I mean, how many times do we have to learn that lesson over and over and over again when it comes back to bite the entire world, but also us specifically? I mean, Glenn points out, isn't it convenient that just as their grift in Afghanistan ends, they get a new, even more lucrative funding project for the defense contract. You know, for those of you who are suffering in the market right now, you certainly couldn't go wrong with buying in on Raytheon or Lockheed Martin or one of these defense industrial complex machines, because ultimately Congress is very reliable in making sure that they have even more funding than ultimately what's requested.

Think about the disparity in how this conversation unfolds, because if the administration was found to be putting pressure on the Ukrainians to make concessions and negotiate a peace, there would be outrage about that. How could you? How could you do that? But we know that they're putting pressure effectively on Ukraine to continue the war, to continue fighting. And somehow that's fine. That part, for us to put pressure on them in that direction, because I know people say, oh, well, you know, the Ukrainians, they want to keep fighting. They want to keep going. Do you really know that?

Because it was someone close to Zelensky who leaked that news to Ukrainian Pravda, by the way, that Boris Johnson was putting pressure on them to continue the war and to continue fighting. So yes, listen, Russia is the aggressor in this situation. All of the conversation about NATO and all of that, very clear, like the way that this was ultimately predictable, but they're the ones who are responsible. They're the ones who invaded. None of that is justified whatsoever. And they could end it tomorrow. And they could end it tomorrow. And that is certainly the case. But, you know, there is there is no I even saw an article where Biden was saying, like, oh, I'm worried that there's no off ramp for Putin. It's like, what do you think your whole policy of your administration has been? I mean, you all are admitting this out right now. So that's a bigger question is right now the U.S. policy and this 40 billion dollars is part of this

is to keep war going with Russia. Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton admitting we are basically at war with Russia now. Did you vote for that? Is that what you really wanted our representatives to be doing? Do you want this all to unfold and us keep going further and further and further and further with no public debate about what any of it means, with no accountability whatsoever about who or what this money is ultimately funding. Is that really what you wanted to hear? Yeah. And I think, look, that is the ultimate question that all of us should ask. And this is Congress and specifically the House, the people's house, is supposed to be where the

most raucous debates and all that stuff happens. So when they come in and they are supposed to control the purse, that's what the founders intended. So to have the most direct democracy, democratic body in the world, not do that, it's a serious issue. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad.

That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of and human services and the ad council this is an iheart podcast