Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - BREAKING: Full Coverage Of Leaked SCOTUS Opinion To Overturn Roe v. Wade & Ohio Primary Election Day!

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss Roe v Wade being overturned, SCOTUS opinion leak, abortion battle's political implications, Ohio Dem/GOP primaries, Amazon workers, college educated union leaders, White House correspondents, and on the ground primary coverage from Jordan Chariton!!!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/Jordan Chariton: https://statuscoup.com/https://www.youtube.com/c/StatusCoup   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Indeed we do, guys. It's a big one today. I'm sure that you all probably already know that a draft opinion was leaked, which indicates that the Supreme Court is, in fact, planning to overturn Roe versus Wade. This is obviously a tremendous, earth-shaking moment in terms of American politics. We will cover that from all angles, tell you what exactly was leaked, what it says about the leak itself, and also our own analysis based on polling and based on history of what we think this means for the political landscape. Of course, it's really anyone's guess, but there's no doubt that this is really a huge, earth-shattering type of moment in politics. But that's not all. We also had the second Amazon labor union election yesterday

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

So we'll talk to Jordan about what the mood is there. But we want to start with what is obviously truly bombshell news, the leak of this draft decision that would overturn longstanding precedent of Roe versus Wade. Politico, with what is, you know, scoop of the ages here, go ahead and put this up on the screen. I'm going to take my time and go through a good bit of this so you just have the facts of what happened and what the decision, the draft decision here ultimately says. They say, the Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe versus Wade decision according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, circulated inside the court, and obtained by Politico. The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 92 decision, that's Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that largely

maintained the right. Alito writes, Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. So not mincing words here whatsoever. Part of what he writes in the document, he says, we hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives. Now they go on to say, deliberations on controversial cases can be fluid. Justices can and sometimes do change their votes as draft opinions circulate, and major decisions can be subject to multiple drafts and vote trading, sometimes until just days before a decision is unveiled. The court's holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months.

I would say, though, it is very unlikely that the contours of what is happening here are ultimately going to change. They say the immediate impact of the ruling as drafted in February, that's the date that is on this draft that was leaked, would be to end a half century guarantee of federal constitutional protection of abortion rights and allow each state to decide whether to restrict or ban abortion. It is unclear if there have been subsequent changes to the draft. Let me read you a little bit of the sort of, you know, the TLDR of this lengthy draft. Alito writes, Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,

and far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have inflamed debate and deepened division. Of course, I don't think that this decision is going to lessen debate or lessen divisions, but we'll put that aside. In terms of who is siding with the majority here, we know Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Alito, who drafted this decision. It's a little bit unsure what Chief Justice John Roberts is ultimately going to do. However, there is reporting that indicates he was going to dissent from the majority opinion and take kind of a middle ground saga, which was, you know, this was all came about because of this Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks. So he was trying to find a way, and you could hear this in the oral arguments too, where he could uphold the Mississippi law and yet not strike down Roe entirely. And so even though, you know, it was very clear, the court is very conservative at this point, it's very clear that there has been decades worth of activism to get justices on the court for exactly this moment,

there was a thought maybe they would pursue that middle ground of continuing to erode abortion rights, which has been the direction of the court for years and years now, but not actually go the full distance and overturn Roe. It looks like the only justice who will ultimately pursue that course here is likely Chief Justice John Roberts. So it really is an extraordinary moment. A couple more things within the legal reasoning here that are going to be major points

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

granted the right to same-sex marriages. There are others as well that sort of depended on some of the same legal rationale. So it truly is an extraordinary moment in how it happened, in when it happened, in what it means. And there is a lot to take in and a lot to process here today. Yeah, there's no way around it. So I think we can at least say within that, so within the vote itself, we know then that that means that Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Barrett joined the decision. Now, obviously, and obviously Alito, since he's the person who, and of course, Justice Gorsuch as well. There were some questions on Justice Gorsuch given his ruling in the Bostock case, but that was more on a libertarian-minded view whenever it

came to trans issues. So this one at least pushes that in that vein. In terms of Justice Roberts, like you said, we do have reporting. It's difficult, you know, in terms of people familiar with thinking and all of this. We'll get to this in the leak section of our show. But, you know, relying on all of these reports when we don't actually know the vote actually makes it even harder. from a lot of the legal analyses that I have looked at and from my friends who are certain is that the vote is almost certainly not likely to change. However, it could be that the opinion and the scope of the opinion could change somewhat whenever it's eventually issued. So this was not expected until July. Now, there's also a lot of questions here about what exactly the court is going to do. They could come out today and just be like, okay, here's a majority opinion. The dissents and all that are still being written, but given the extraordinary leak of what's happened here, we're just going to go ahead

and make this, which would make a settled law. They have not responded or commented at all to this point. Right. And that's another point where both pro-life people and people who are pro-choice are saying is like, hey, this is a draft opinion. You know, the law of the land is still what it is. So this does not affect current laws that are on the books. That being said, when it is issued, it will have a significant impact and definitely just change the scope of our politics. Put this up there on the screen. There are 21 states currently that have auto-trigger laws that either ban or restrict abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. So there are a lot of laws on the books, and I'll just go ahead and read these. Most would ban abortion with limited exceptions like medical emergencies or in the

cases of rape or incepts. Those are Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. So those were all laws which were actually enacted mostly during the Trump administration as the ability. So that way the state legislatures would not have to meet in order to ban abortion if they wanted to. It was like an auto-trigger law in the event of what happened with Roe v. Wade. Now, there are other states which have some – which will clear certain types of restrictions. So those states, trigger law states, would choose to immediately begin enforcement. Other states would have a so-called phase-in period with the heartbeat laws that we've seen. So it's very, very different in terms of state by state. Sure.

And then I believe others also have, Oregon, Vermont, and the District of Columbia have it specifically enshrined all the way up until the point of birth. So that is just the clear kind of, now it's gonna become a state issue, if and when this does actually become the law of the land. And I think that people need to adjust

how they're gonna look at these types of politics because it's just going to change. The state legislatures themselves are going to become major flashpoints. And I think my question and your question as well is how does this change the landscape in a state like Pennsylvania, in a state like Florida, in a state like what are some other purple states that are at Georgia actually is one that could possibly go more red as a result of this.

We'll get to the politics. Georgia actually has already – they have a very extreme ban already on the books starting at six weeks. Right. So six weeks after that, you're done. I mean for any of you who have been pregnant before, you often don't even know till around six weeks. So, you know, Georgia now being a purple state, I think, yeah, that could probably push the state more in the direction of, you know, a hardening sort of suburban Democratic majority. But we'll get to a little bit more of that because we're going to delve into the politics

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

So, you know, for some of those, those are likely to come back into effect. As you pointed out, some places it will happen immediately. Some places there will be a phase in over time. And I also think it's worth pointing out that because of the way that abortion rights have been, sort of the ground has already eroded under abortion rights over the past decades, you already have a number of red states where the

right is already effectively gone. Texas is a good example. Kentucky, where I used to live, is a good example. You know, when I was there, I think there was one clinic that remained in the state. That clinic was constantly under assault from Republicans who tried to pass these laws that were like putting out all of these superfluous medical restrictions that weren't really necessary for the clinics, but made it impossible for them to continue to operate. So there are already a number of states where the right is already effectively gone. I read a New York Times analysis this morning that was pretty interesting in terms of estimating what the overall impact of overturning Roe is likely to be. And what they found is in Texas, after their new law went into effect,

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

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

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

create an atmosphere of thriving, then you are going to have a very large effect in terms of reducing abortions. So that's what I'll say about that. It's funny, Chris. I've said previously, I'd rather gouge my eyes out than talk about abortion, but I guess it's here, so cards on the table. Here it is. I grew up in evangelical Texas, left a bit of a scar on me. I can just tell you personally I consider myself a barstool conservative. I'm culturally center-right whenever it comes to modern culture war issues, but I've always been safe, legal, and rare guy, basically a Democrat from the 1990s. I mean, what you just espoused is literally what Bill Clinton said on the 1992 Democratic nomination. I know that's going to piss off a lot of my Republican and Catholic friends here in Washington.

But look, I mean, I think I owe it to the audience to tell people where I'm coming from. So if you are a person who is super pro-life and you're Catholic or evangelical or somebody else, Orthodox, Jewish, et cetera, I am not going to be your representative on this issue. And I just think it's important for people to understand where I'm coming from. I do think some of the histrionics on this are wrong. I mean, for example, what you were talking about, I know several states, New York, California, and elsewhere are going to set up travel funds so that people who are in these places can travel to those states. I think that's very likely to be, you know, the next frontier of like a lot of abortion politics. But yeah, I mean, look, I mostly share your view on the entire thing. I'm pretty socially libertarian and have become so, especially over the last two

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

what you would like. And I know this is the number one issue for a lot of people who voted for Donald Trump. I do think, and we'll get to this in the Roe politics segment. Listen, I mean, this is going to have a significant impact on our public discourse. I would just ask you, try and engage it in the way that we're here. Crystal, you just gave an extraordinarily compelling case, in my opinion, on the pro-choice point of view. You could also see clearly why people might be able to dissent from it. Guys, if you are out there, please just spend some time engaging both with the people on both sides and try to understand that they are not like demonic and they don't want to destroy you, both on either side. Now, are there fringe elements? Like you said, are there people like Lena Dunham who

literally support and celebrate abortion? Yeah, you can find that, frankly, amongst all people. Well, you can also find people who are on abortion clinics and will say, I'm a murderer for what I just said. That's right. People will call me a murderer, too. I already know that you can hear the screeching. I don't particularly care. But listen, those fringe elements exist on all sides of our debate.

I would just say that let's all try to remember who we are. We've lived through much more contentious times in this country, and I know it's a difficult time for people. I personally felt, and I know this sounds crazy, I felt a sense of dread when I saw the news because I was like, oh man, this is the last thing we need

in terms of ripping us all apart. But I also know that there are a lot of Catholic moms and March for Life people out there. This is their number one issue. They have been trying for this for 40 years. And, you know, people have constituencies in this country, and it is what it is. You can argue that this issue is maybe the most central issue to why Trump ultimately was elected. Yeah, that's right.

Because, I mean, it was him putting Mike Pence on the ticket to shore up, to signal to evangelicals, like, I'm with you. You know, you may not love my choices in life. And I know in the past, he supported Planned Parenthood. I mean, he clearly, like, doesn't really care about the issue, but it doesn't matter what he personally feels because ultimately he puts Pence on the ticket. He releases his list of Supreme Court justices. And in the wake of the fallout from the grabber by the pussy scandal, that really helped to shore up and bring home

that Christian evangelical base for whom this has been an extremely animating issue for decades. So, and now that base is his hardest support. And to be quite honest, you know, a lot of times we talk about like, oh, it doesn't make sense. You hear this analysis a lot. Like, why do they love Donald Trump? This is why right here, because ultimately this was the issue, the number one issue that they were backing him for. And now it's, it's actually happening. The last thing I want to say,

and then we can move on to how this came out, which is also worth discussing and is also pretty extraordinary, is they write, Alita writes in this draft decision, we do not pretend to know how our political system or society respond to today's decision overruling Roe and Casey. And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision. We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis. I think that's how you say that. And decide this case accordingly. We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.

Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives. So Alito basically acknowledging here that this is going to be a shit show, that this is going to trigger an incredibly tumultuous time in American politics because, you know, for the majority of the country, we're going to get to the polls. Roe has been sort of settled law. It's accepted. It's, you know, very significant majority support. Now, Americans' views on abortion are kind of all over the place. It's complex. You know, Americans, by and large, are sort of moderate on how they feel about abortion rights. Most people don't think you should have the right all the way up till,

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

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

which I certainly understand and relate to, to ultimately get involved. So that's sort of the ruling. As I said at the beginning, you know, there is some outside chance that it could change between now and the month or two months from now when it ultimately is released and becomes law of the land. But I think that is very, very unlikely, and it seems incredibly almost certain that this is the direction the country is headed in. Yeah. Okay. Let's go ahead and move on then to SCOTUS politics, because how this all came out is a crazy story in and of itself. As you said, basically a scoop of the century there from Politico. And the overall analysis of how this is going to affect the court for decades to come really is not yet being grappled with. Put this up there on the screen. From SCOTUS blog, the document leaked to Politico is almost certainly authentic draft opinion by Justice Alito that reflects what he believes at least five members of the court have voted to support overruling Roe. But as Alito's draft, it does not reflect the comments or the reactions of other justices. So that is definitely

something to keep in mind whenever you're looking at that. We don't yet know if you're going to have concurrences from Justice Thomas, concurrences from Justice Barrett and others that, you know, people should remember they don't, they're not entirely Barrett and others that people should remember they're not entirely familiar with the way that these things go, but there can usually be up to like 10 documents that are issued with different concurrences. People can dissent from specific pieces. It can be hundreds of pages. It is noteworthy the draft is from February.

It could have changed. It could have already changed. That's an important thing to note in this. Right. Okay. And so then in terms of the leak itself, there's a lot of questions about this leak. Let's put this up there on the screen again from SCOTUS blog. It is impossible to overstate that the earthquake this will cause inside of the court in terms of the destruction of trust amongst justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin. And what he means is that within the court itself, it is a longstanding precedent. You do not leak draft opinions because they get issued by the court itself whenever everything is ready. Because it is literally the law of the land, it can change markets, it can change the country. Obviously, this one is going to impact our politics dramatically. And so as I understand it, having spoken now to some people who were on SCOTUS or familiar with the process for clerking. This is the cardinal sin. You are never allowed to leak not only to reporters, but a draft opinion itself being circulated is like that is a whole other realm. Now, we don't know the circumstances

under which this was leaked. And I do think it is worth kind of understanding who the people who brought this to light are. So the two reporters who published this at Politico, Josh Gernstein and Alex Ward. So what's interesting about the two of them, because I actually knew Alex back in my Pentagon days, he's a national security reporter who used to work at Vox. Josh Gernstein is a legal expert. You and I are probably most familiar with him for his reporting on the FBI. So it's not that he's more familiar, again, with national security law. There are a lot of questions right now as to why exactly the person who broke probably, or the people who broke probably the

biggest scoop of the last 20 years are not Adam Liptak, who is the New York Times correspondent, Nina Totenberg, the NPR Supreme Court. She may have been placed back off of leave for some ethical decisions. But anyway, Nina Totenberg, she's the previous person who ever actually reported inside the Supreme Court. Jane Mayer over at The New Yorker. There are many reporters in this town who have been covering the court, frankly, know the justices, have dined with them, been to their parties, weddings, all kinds of stuff. The fact that they did not report this and get this is pretty extraordinary. It leads to a question also on the leak strategy. And this is another thing I want to spend a little bit of time on, which is that there is an overwhelming

assumption right now that this leak came from a liberal member of the court, either a justice herself or himself, or a member of their staff. But there also is a prevailing opinion on the right in right legal world that this was actually leaked because this is the majority opinion that should have been and has now been kind of hammered away by Roberts or by Justice Kavanaugh because we don't know what the internal one is. So, I mean, I don't really know what to think. One theory floating out there is that the reason Gernstein and Ward got it is because it's possible that the email system for the Supreme Court was hacked and by like within the national security realm. Oh, that's interesting. realm i'm seeing that theory yeah so like there's one theory that this was actually uh a hack of their email servers and then it was leaked you know to people who would be familiar with those types of sources possibly like the nsa

once again by the way dude this is not pure pure speculation that's interesting though uh number two is that this was a liberal justice i would say the overwhelming kind of opinion is on that one. Number three is that— Although it seems like, to your point about who got the scoop, it does seem like if it was a liberal justice, it would go to— Right, it would go to an Adam Liptack. Nina Totenberg. Or Nina Totenberg.

Yeah, or even like a Jeffrey Toobin or— Exactly, yeah, Jeffrey Toobin is another one. He's written entire books on the court. I mean, you know, the CNN—he was the first person who was on CNN. What's his name at NBC who's very well respected? Pete. Pete Williams. Yeah, Pete Williams.

These are people who have direct personal relationships, tons of sources within the courts. Right. Yeah. Listen,

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

Also, it's possible the justices had no idea. A member of the staff did it. Maybe they went to college with Alex or with Josh Garza. You know, I mean, who knows how these all things play out. Also, I did see some criticism of Politico for publishing this story. Oh, come on. Please.

If I had my hands on this, I hit publish the moment I know it's real. No matter what you think. I can't believe anyone's even arguing that. Greatest story of all time. I mean, in terms of national impact, it's crazy. And especially, I'm sure it probably came from the same people who would be outraged that, you know, Twitter censored the Hunter Biden story and things like that. It's like, all right, guys, we got to be consistent here. I do think that, you know, it was wrong to censor the Hunter Biden story. Obviously, if you're Politico or any news organization, you're going to run it. There's no question. I did think that, you know, there was a lot of conservative outrage about the

fact of the leak itself. I just want to say, like, to me, the substance is way more important than the leak. I am not outraged about the leak. I view this per—listen, I have no respect for, like, the norms and guardrails of the Supreme Court. I think it's an undemocratic, unaccountable institution. I think it already kind of sucks. I think it's, you know, I think its norms suck, too, by the way. Like, they have this instinct towards a total lack of transparency and also towards a total lack, which we covered on this show, of any sort of ethical guardrails for their own justices, unlike other places within the judiciary, within the federal judiciary. So, you know, and again, it's the same type of people who during the Trump era would have been like, ah, the norms and guardrails. You guys stop with your pearl clutching are now like, oh, how could you violate the sacred norms of the Supreme Court?

I get where they're coming from. I do think it's extraordinary. I think really whoever did this, you did us all a disservice because really, Crystal, and I agree with you, the substance is obviously most important, but there's a reason we led the show with that. That's not going to be my first take. My real thing is, guys, as people, we want to know the full picture.

All we have is some draft opinion. We don't know the concurrence. We don't know what the law is. We don't know who voted against. We don't know what the full effect is. Okay. Let's say that you're, whoever leaked this is pro-choice. Well, listen, whoever you did this, you just put a lot of women who are, maybe there's a lady who doesn't go get an abortion right now. I mean, listen, it's still the law. You can, if you want to. Or on the other hand, there could be someone who says, I better get this shit done right now. Right. Exactly. I mean, listen, it's still the law. You can if you want to. Or on the other hand, there could be someone who says, I better get this shit done right now. Right, exactly.

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

I do actually think it was a service to have this information, to have the transparency around it, to have insight into their thinking. And I have no issue with whoever decided to leak this for whatever reason it was. And I think you're right to point out there is sort of a working assumption

that this was someone who was pro-choice, who was upset about the direction of the decision, who wanted to try to put pressure somehow and like a Hail Mary pass to get somebody to bend under public pressure and go a different direction. I don't think that there is any chance that strategy is ultimately going to work. Basically, I think this just gives us insight earlier to where the court has ultimately landed on, you know, one of the central fault lines in American politics of the last 50 years. I would just like to say on this, which is that it will destroy trust on the Supreme Court and it will change the way that this works for all time. Because like I said, there is a pretty cordial relationship right now between, you know, like Justice Kagan, his friends with, or Justice Ginsburg was really good friends with Justice Scalia and the units that go to conferences together and Kagan is apparently close with Roberts,

all this other stuff. That stuff is over in terms of sharing opinions. I know, I know you don't care. I don't really care about their decorum. It could have a big impact though on all of us. I don't really know what that would look like. I would personally be happy to see the trust and credibility of the Supreme Court go down. Well, this is going to change.

I mean, this is certainly going to polarize it. This is going to polarize it, no question, on the minds. The other thing, I just wanted to point out some of the history here because you actually sent this this morning, which is that there's no doubt that a leak, a premature leak of a decision is extraordinarily rare, but it's not completely unprecedented. And actually, interestingly, when Roe was actually decided, there was a clerk for one of the justices who gave, I think it was Time Magazine, the jump on the story.

And then so the whole idea was, okay, I'm going to give you insight into what the decision is, but it's embargoed until the decision actually comes out. And because there was a delay in releasing the decision, Time actually, their magazine went to print and was on newsstands several hours before the decision actually came down and really sort of like screwed over this clerk who tendered his, he was like, I'll resign if you want. And I mean, the reporter, you know, and Time magazine really kind of screwed him over because when you have an embargo, you have an embargo and that's that. So that is an instance when it was leaked ahead of time and there was a jump on the story is obviously a little bit different than this situation where, you know, it's clearly an attempt by someone to inform the public early and

potentially try to affect ultimately the outcome is whatever the outcome is here. Although, again, I think that is extremely almost, you know, impossibly unlikely to happen. But it is it is very rare for this ultimately to happen and does represent in its way also a sort of watershed breakdown in terms of, you know, how the court operates. Again, I have no problem with that, but that's just like the factual. It's a factual matter. It's going to change court's business there on the court. And, you know, that is something which is going to be interesting. Also, let's go put this next one up there on the screen, just people who are asking about the authenticity. Here's what Politico said in response.

And it should also be notable. It's kind of like the Hunter Biden story where, look, you think the Supreme Court's not aware that it's out there? If it was fake, they would tell us. They would tell us. Yeah, they'd be like, they would have immediately shot it down. They would have been like, this is a fake report. Actually, there's a good example of this. Recently, remember there was that story where people claimed that Sotomayor had to work from home because Justice Gorsuch wouldn't wear a mask?

Yes, that's right. And they all put out statements being like, this is bullshit, that none of that happened. So we literally know that that happened. I think it happened like three or four months ago. So here's an example where it's been out there now. We're filming this. It's 847 a.m. here on the East Coast. Guarantee you all where it's been out there now. We're filming this. It's 8.47 a.m. here on the East Coast. Guarantee you all the justice has been up all night. If it was fake,

they would have told us so. But in regards to that, the Politico says extensive review process. We're confident of the authenticity of the draft. And again, pretty much everybody who is familiar with the court says that this is absolutely an authentic draft. So look, take that for what you will. Let's move on to the politics of this, the most fun one. So how do Americans feel about abortion? This is one which is going to disappoint a lot of my friends who are on the right. Let's put this up there on the screen. Public opinion on abortion has basically remained static since 1995, like I was talking about there back in the safe, legal, and rare case. So right here in 1995, when this was taken, 60% of Americans said that they thought abortion should be legal in all or most cases. And in 2021, the last time that Pew did its extensive data, 59% said that abortion

should be legal in all or most cases. Actually, the low point for abortion in this country was 2009 when Americans said 47% that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. I'm not exactly sure what was going on in 2009 or why exactly that would have changed, but it's not 2009. So there you go. Obama is the party. I don't know. Yeah, I guess it could have been that.

I truly have absolutely no idea. Now, in terms of views on abortion, how do most people feel whenever it comes to the trimester period? Because that really is where public opinion bifurcates completely. So people who think that abortion should be legal in all cases, 25%. People who think that abortion should be legal in most cases, 34%. People who think that abortion should be illegal in most cases, 26%. People who think that abortion should be illegal in all cases, and of course that is the rape, incest, life of the mother situation, 13%.

Don't know, don't have an opinion, 2%. Wow, abortion really is one of those. People know where they stand, apparently. Everybody knows exactly where they feel. I do want to just pause you on that because I do think it's worth noting that of all of those positions across the spectrum that you just laid out, the least popular stance is illegal in all cases, only 13%. That's like lower than defund the police level of support. And that is in fact going to be the law in quite a number of states as we just went over. So that's why, you know, and especially when you ask people how they feel about Roe specifically being overturned, the latest poll that I saw, again, it was very lopsided.

70% wanted Roe to remain in place and only 30% wanted it overturned. In general, my sort of like grand view of cultural issues like abortion is that whichever party seems to be in the most extreme position is the party that's losing. And that's why I think you see the, you know, the little bit of ebbs and flows that you see in terms of where people stand on abortion, I think depends on those same swings in terms of what party is advocating for what. So now you have, you know, Republicans who are very responsive to the furthest right voices on this issue because those are the people who are most activated on the issue. They're single issue voters. They're single issue voters.

This is their thing. They're very organized. They're very activated on it. And so you have Republican elected officials who are very responsive to the furthest, hardest right views on this particular issue, that has led them to be out of step with populations, even in conservative states. I think it was Mississippi that tried by ballot initiative to pass a fetal heartbeat law that got rejected even in a state as red as Mississippi. Of course, we had Todd Akin and his comments about legitimate rape in Missouri,

causing him to go down to a very unpopular Claire McCaskill at the time. So now you're going to have actually more pressure on Republicans to, you know, from this activist base to, okay, time to pass the law, time to make this the law in the state, if not the entire country. And that, again, is going to put them in a very extreme place, siding with 13% of the country that believe it should be illegal in all cases versus the overwhelming majority opinion that says at least there should be some exceptions here. So I actually have the polling here on Roe versus Wade. And actually, this is one of the only cases where support has gone up for do not overturn. So in August of 1992,

60% said that do not overturn Roe. 34% said yes. 62% in January of 2003. January 13th remained static, but you saw a big jump in December of 2016. 69%, yes. 28% say overturn. Now, it is 70% as of August of 2019, so roughly approximate to where we are right now. Do not overturn Roe v. Wade at 70%. Yes, overturn Roe v. Wade at 28%. And the divide amongst Republicans is very real. And I want to spend some time here. So total, people say that 61%—this is the divide amongst Republicans in views of legal abortion.

Illegal in all or most cases, 38%. Legal in all or most cases, 61%. Now, amongst people who are Republican, 62% of Republicans say that it should be illegal in all or most cases, but 36% think it should be legal in all or most cases. Now, of people who identify as conservative, it's 77% illegal, 22% legal amongst moderate or liberal Republican. I don't know who calls liberal Republican, but whatever. 44% illegal, 57% legal in all or most cases. Now, amongst Democrats, it's not nearly a split. 17% of Democrats say that it should be illegal in all or most cases and legal in most cases. Amongst conservative or moderate identified Democrats, it's 25% illegal, 75% legal. And amongst liberal Democrats, it's 991. So there's actually much bigger of a split within the Republican Party.

And this is what I alluded to previously when I was describing my own views. I consider myself a Barstool conservative type. I'm very against political correctness. I'm very against some of these new culture war things that are happening with critical race theory and trans ideology. Those are frankly just as unpopular as banning abortion in all or most cases. Now you are going to see a big split amongst those people, Crystal. So what I was describing to you is that one third of Republicans, especially one third of people who voted for Donald Trump, consider themselves pro-choice. Now they didn't care because Trump was ultimately against political correctness. And if you see also, we actually had a segment today we

were going to do before all of this happened about how Republicans are leading amongst Latinos and amongst, I think it was parents under the age of parents with young kids, like 60%, something like that. Again, I would describe to the CRT and the trans debates. But when it comes to abortion, it's literally the opposite in terms of how that polling. And by putting this front and center as that, I do think this is going to be the one thing that could possibly change the outcome of the midterm elections. Now, there is evidence, possibly against my hypothesis. We saw that the Texas law did not ultimately change that much. Governor Abbott is sailing to reelection. Now, Governor Youngkin here in, not in Virginia, but in Virginia, well, they ran a lot of ads against him

saying he's going to overturn abortion if Roe versus Wade. That didn't ultimately happen. But Governor Newsom did run on it and he ultimately beat the odds on the recall election. Not beat the odds. He beat, I think, his relatively the same margin.

His polls skyrocketed. Right, his polls skyrocketed. After the Texas law passed. After the Texas law. And it ended up not being close whatsoever. Right. So what do you make of that? I literally have no idea. It was all been hypothetical. There are two sides of it. Personally, I think now that it's real and people have to really decide, and if it legitimately is on the ballot, I think this is going to hurt the Republican Party. I think red states will get a lot redder. A lot of the evangelicals are going to get a lot more excited. But places like Pennsylvania, places like Georgia, places like Florida, well, Florida is probably a little bit different. But let's say the industrial Midwest and elsewhere where the barstool contingent

is actually a lot higher. A lot of the people supporting the Republican Party are doing more so for cultural reasons outside of guns and abortion. That is going to have, I believe, a significant impact on their electoral chances come November. Yes. I could be completely wrong. Well, I think, you know, you have said for a while that the one thing that could upend the current, you know, destruction of the Democratic Party that we were headed towards for the midterms would be that decision. Now, that doesn't that doesn't mean it's going to play out that way. But it is that much of a sort of monumental pivot point in terms of the American political landscape that you could have it see it having massive impacts, especially because you have a Democratic base that has been completely apathetic.

I mean, disappointed in Biden on almost every level. His economic agenda completely bogged down. You know, you pointed to trans issues and CRT with parents. I would point to the fact that you gave people a child tax credit and then you took it away after a year, which we saw there was a huge drop in terms of support from parents who were receiving the CTC once that ultimately went away. You have inflation. I mean, there's manifest many issues in which Democrats feel very disappointed in the failure of this administration to live up to their basic promises. Now, I think you are going to continue to see a lot of frustration among the Democratic base, especially the part of the

Democratic base that cares most about the issue of abortion rights that says, where have you all been? You know, we knew that this was a possibility. And I do want to make the point that, you know, Obama had a super majority the Biden administration has control of the presidency the senate and the house they got rid of the filibuster they could enshrine abortion rights in law right now um it did not have to be left to this group of justices and so as someone who uh is very upset with this decision and really abhors it. I'm equally, I almost, like, I expect it from, this is what I expect Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh and co. to ultimately do. The Democrats who claim to support these rights have had years and years and years to codify it

into law and protect against the whims of an unelected, unaccountable Supreme Court, and they haven't done it. So I think that's very, very important to note. And I also want to say, because I mentioned earlier that this is maybe the most central issue and a determining issue of why Trump got elected in 2016 when he puts out the list of Supreme Court justices, and that shores up the evangelical base. That was a huge turning point. You know, Hillary Clinton was at the Met Gala last night, at the Gilded Age-themed Met Gala last night, wearing her red ball gown with the names of, like,

suffragettes and other women who inspire her. I don't know how she escapes any scrutiny and criticism from people who would be upset about this decision when she is the most proximate cause of the reason why we have these justices on the court. I mean, she ran a terrible campaign, not to mention her DNC allies who rigged the primary to put this terrible candidate as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party. So I think you also have to look at the Democratic leaders who have had every opportunity to shore up this right, which is important to not just

their base, but a lot of people across the political spectrum. And they have made every excuse in the book ultimately not to act. So make sure you direct some of your ire today, if you are on the side of this issue that I am at those failures across many years. Well, there's also one Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who deserves a lot of scrutiny here, which I've always enjoyed. And this town is RBG Central, literally where I used to live. There were RBG posters everywhere. Every liberal girl's got the RBG sweatshirt, bobblehead, mug. Some name their dogs and cats off-route. Listen, if you want to blame a single individual who had agency over that, it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I mean, she is the person who

refused to retire under Obama, and everybody was yes-queening her at the time because she wanted to retire under Hillary Clinton. And then she ultimately died under Donald Trump. And it's her seat, which ultimately was the deciding vote in order to overturn abortion. This looks to be a 5-4 decision. Yeah, exactly. One vote, the other way. You're welcome, RBG.

I mean, seriously. Anybody who is real about this needs to reconcile themselves with the fact that RBG's narcissism is the reason that this is happening if you are on that side of the issue which is a little bit of a narrative violation which I kind of enjoy yeah well and I mean listen we don't love to speak ill of the dead but those are just the facts that she's a public figure yeah that one well and I obviously yeah or was spoken ill of the dead yeah you have to be honest about people whether they're alive or dead and the honest fact of the matter is that if she makes a different choice, which many activists were encouraging her to do, this decision goes in a different way. And you likely have the continued sort of steady erosion. I do want to say, I feel like some of the conservative outrage at the fact

of the leak versus the focus, you know, there's more of a focus on that from the right than on the substance of the decision, I think, in certain ways in terms of their outrage. I think that's a little bit telling because if they felt like this was ultimately just an unambiguous great thing for them, then they'd be kind of cool with the leak. Like, for example, if Obergefell, which, you know, guaranteed the right to same-sex marriage, if that had been leaked ahead of time, I don't think liberals would have been like, you know, apoplectic about the leak. They would have just been excited about the decision. So I do think it is a little bit of a tell that they also see this as probably very politically difficult for them. And the other piece that I'm frankly just not sure how it plays out is

the organized effort among the evangelical right base to get justices on the Supreme Court to effectuate this particular outcome has been a central organizing principle of Republican politics for decades now. As I said, very significant contributor, if not the most significant contributor to Donald Trump ultimately getting elected. And so when you lose that animating factor, you know, maybe it doesn't really change anything because now you still have the, well, we got to keep our people on there because we don't want it to, you know, go back the other way, or we got to make sure to elect Republicans in the legislature so they can enshrine this in law. But it's also possible that this is, which has been so animating, effectively being taken off the table for now, could also have a deflating impact

on some of the animating politics of the Republican base ultimately. I don't know which way that goes, but it's going to be interesting to see how that ultimately all shakes out, Sagar. There's no way to know. Like I said, I grew up around a lot of these people, a lot of these evangelicals. This is all they care about. This is all they've ever cared about. Here in the Northeast, we've got like the Catholic mom contingent. A lot of those people will crawl over broken glass in order to make sure that abortion gets overturned. So I don't know whether they're going to continue to come out and vote. If I had to guess, they're probably going to come out in big droves in order to support Trump because he can run on, I'm the guy who got it done. Pretty big incentive. But in the long run, for organizing, for the

church's support, and the infrastructure that they've always given the socially conservative branch of the Republican Party, honestly, I really don't know. It's going to be interesting to me. It's possible that a human rights campaign phenomenon will happen. Like, you know, the human rights campaign here in DC, they had all this money ahead of Obergefell. And then when it fell, they're like, well, now what do we do? So now they're all in on trans and all this other stuff and they become dramatically more unpopular. But at the time, they had a real animating principle, and they were a central force in our American politics. I mean, you'll remember. In 2009 and 2010, I mean, they were huge in terms of their condition. Don't ask, don't tell.

Right. Gay marriage. Oh, my God. Yes. I mean, and now, you know, the Family Research Council, some of these evangelical concerned women of America, these are titanic forces on the right in terms of their endorsement power and more. It's possible that they lose. They'll probably all pivot to CRT or gender ideology, possibly, but that's just, it doesn't have the same juice for a lot of people. No, and those are very ephemeral issues. I mean, they've got-

It's also not their lane. It's not religious. I mean, they got sort of spun up overnight and they could be replaced by some other moral panic or outrage in three days. But yeah, I think there's a couple things here. I mean, another story we were going to cover before this happened was the fact that Biden and the Democrats are like, I guess we're going to run on Trump again in the midterms. And we'll just like try to make it about Trump again, even though we had the Glenn Youngkin race and we know this isn't really working for us anymore. I guess that's what we're going to do. And they were actually kind of like secretly glad

that Elon Musk might let Trump back on Twitter because they view it the way we do of like, oh, good, we get this obnoxious asshole back that we get to point to every single day. Well, I think that thinking is all now completely off the table. This is going to be the midterm strategy for Democrats. And it's a potent one. I mean, in terms of motivating Democrats to come out and vote, in terms of where independents stand on the issue, this is an issue where independents are very much more aligned with keeping Roe in place than with overturning Roe and tend to be sort of in the center. And again, Republicans have placed themselves now in the camp of the most extreme view on the issue. So this is going to be potent. And it also does give, there is, I think, a genuine case that you can make that this does endanger things like

Obergefell, because it does undercut some of the legal rationale and reasoning there. You do have Republicans, you know, sort of, yeah, they want to talk about trans issues, but there's also this whole effort to paint, effort to paint any gay teachers and whatever as groomers and the whole groomer discourse. So I don't think it's insane for Democrats to look and liberals to look at this decision and say, you know, some of these things that we thought were settled may not be so settled when we have a court that is clearly very activist, doesn't really care about precedent, even longstanding precedent, and is willing to cater to a conservative base, even when that means completely upending American politics. The other thing I'll say in terms of political impact is I think you're

going to have a new group of voters who were not necessarily Bernie Sanders people who are completely disgusted with the failures of the Democratic Party. I think you'll have a lot of, you know, liberal women who were maybe like Elizabeth Warren type people. I mean, if you ever wanted to point clearly on a cultural issue to the utter failure of the Democratic Party across years and years. Like, here it is. Because again, like I said, Obama had a super majority, okay? Biden, who has talked about enshrining, you know, Roe in law effectively at the federal level, which you could do, has done nothing on it, has not been interested in getting rid of the filibuster or even,

you know, changing or amending the filibuster. And so I think this is going to be a very compelling case for a group of voters who has been just sort of like vote blue no matter who, that the Democratic Party has failed in some really clear and really manifest ways. And that ultimately, even though, again, in the midterms, I think this will probably serve the Democratic Party and galvanize a base that has been extraordinarily apathetic, give them an issue to run on that where they are in the clear majority. I do think overall for the Democratic establishment, this lays very bare how just absurdly pathetic they have been in terms of standing for and protecting the things that they claim to care

about and that they run on every election cycle. Yeah, I think that's fair. I just want to say one thing, which is that in the decision, Alito actually does say Obergefell is protected law. So I think it's good. You can say he's lying if you want to. I'm just, you know, I don't think there is any current political constituency to overturn Obergefell. 55% of Republicans support the decision. There is not even close to the same level of evangelical outrage. Yeah, but we just pointed out that this even goes against a significant portion of the Republican base. I don't put it completely off the table. Do I think it's going to happen tomorrow? No.

But do I put it completely off the table? No. Because I think you do have a court that is quite activist and quite unconcerned with past progress. I could be wrong. I don't think that that's the next battle of the culture. However, the other issue which you mentioned, which is important, is on the Democratic row. So I actually went ahead and polled. So for the first time this year, actually, the Senate voted on Roe versus Wade. And there was an argument I saw advanced by Senator Sanders that they should break the filibuster. But by my count, the Democrats do not have the vote. So this was February 28, 2022. There were 46 yeas in order to protect Roe, 48 nays and six not voting. Now the people who were not voting, notably Raphael Warnock. So he's come out on the record as pro-choice. Obviously,

it would be a tough vote for him in Georgia. Another one is Senator Paul in Kentucky. I believe he is pro-life. Another one was Senator Lujan, New Mexico. He was, I believe he was ill at the time. But here is one which was interesting. Senator Kennedy of Louisiana. But most importantly was Senator Casey actually out of Pennsylvania. So apparently, yeah, and then Joe Manchin as well in terms of voting nay on that decision.

So those different senators and how they fall. Right, go ahead. You have, do you have, where are Collins and Murkowski on that count? Right, so okay, let's go ahead. Because you do have, it's easy to forget, you do have a couple of- Collins was a nay on that vote.

And then let me see here. Murkowski was also a nay. So you do have a couple. Collins was a nay on that vote. And then let me see here. Murkowski was also a nay. So you do have a couple of Republicans who, you know, let's say. That's a good point, though. Because Manchin says he's pro-life. Right. He would probably, you know, vote against Roe being codified in federal law. But Collins and Murkowski at least claim to be pro-choice.

And by the way, you know, Collins famously said that she didn't think Brett Kavanaugh would overturn Roe versus Wade. Okay, how did that work out for you? Like that was clearly- I think that was a pre-election move. Clearly not the case. It was definitely a pre-election move. But so I think, you know, if you lost a couple Democrats, there might be a couple Republicans you could ultimately pick up. And then the other side of this is if Republicans do take control of Congress, and I think we have C3 that we can put up here, this Forbes tear sheet, there is an organized effort to to plant a national strategy that would kick in if the Supreme Court rolls back abortion rights this summer, including a push for a strict nationwide ban on the procedure if Republicans retake power in Washington. Now, I don't know whether you have, first of all, I would say, as I said before,

the Republican Party, very responsive to this group of activists because they're very organized, because they're single issue voters, because they're very much like, you know, they're very much a part, a core part of the Republican activist base. And so even in states where something like this would be pretty unpopular, you're going to see senators who back it and members of Congress who back it because of their responsiveness to that, you know, more extreme views of the Republican base on this issue. Now, do I think it ultimately would have enough votes? I don't know. But in terms of the politics for the midterms, it really doesn't

matter because there's a very— You can run on it. You can—there's everything you need here to make a very credible case that they would want to head in this direction. So, you know, Democrats can say to voters in California, New York, other states, blue states, where, you know, these laws aren't going to be impacted by Roe versus Wade being overturned, like, you know, you shouldn't feel so safe here, ultimately, because Republicans are not content with just half of the states having abortion effectively banned or extremely severely restricted. They're actually coming for the whole thing. And I also think these senators and members of Congress will be under tremendous pressure from the activist evangelical right to pass a

measure such as this, because now it's like, okay, Supreme Court has done their part. Where are you on this issue that you've been telling us is core to your belief system for years? So they will be under pressure to pass and codify something like a nationwide ban. Don't underestimate the Catholic Church either. They're going to go full bore on this one. They have a lot of power here in Washington and over a lot of the northeastern Republican types as well. So, yeah, look, I think the TLDR from this whole segment is going to change politics forever. This is the one thing that could possibly rescue the Democrats. It will scramble a lot of the way that we talk and we

debate for a long time. Like you said, it could activate the PMC kind of liberal contingent against the Democratic Party, which definitely could be interesting. It could also change the way that Biden and the Democrats and Chuck Schumer run the Senate. It's going to change possibly the way that they'll try and get something through the House. So buckle up, get ready. It's a whole new era. Okay. At the same time, though, it is primary day. There are still elections happening here in Washington. That's right. Or sorry, here in America. So the biggest one everybody's eyes are on, let's put this up there, on the screen is the Ohio Senate race, where the Republican Senate primary to replace retiring Senator

Rob Portman. So obviously, that is between J.D. Vance, who's been endorsed by Donald Trump, Mike Gibbons, Matt Dolan, Jane Timken, and Josh Mandel. I always say at these types of segments, full disclosure, I've been friends with J.D. Vance for like seven years. So take anything that I say with a grain of salt. I think it's important that people know that whenever you're giving an analysis about a certain type of campaign. Now, in terms of how the polls are going for him, let's put this up there on the screen from Real Clear Politics. So Vance was not doing so well. He was roughly tied there with Josh Mandel until Trump came into the race and endorsed him

a couple of weeks out. He's the green line for those who are just watching there. He currently clocks in on the day of the election at 26%. Now keep in mind, these are averages of just two polls from the Trafalgar Group and from Emerson. We don't have a lot of high-quality polling out of this race. It truly, anything could happen. Now, number two, Josh Mandel at 22.5%. Then Dolan at 21.5%. Dolan is an interesting character. So Dolan is a multimillionaire owner, I guess, Cleveland, what is it called now? The Guardians. Okay, the Cleveland Guardians. And this is relevant, by the way, to the race. So one of the owners of this team. So he has burned about $10 million of his own money in ads in order to try and buy the nomination. Now, to be fair, he's actually a very anti-Trump guy. He's criticized

Trump whenever it came to January 6th. So a lot of never-Trump folks are looking at this and, kind of, hoping that it'll play out. I honestly have no idea. If I had to bet, I don't think he's going to win. My understanding is that he's not exactly anti-Trump in that he said he voted for him twice, that he would vote for him again if he's the nominee. But he takes the approach of, like, time to move on from the the nominee. But he takes the approach of like, time to move on from the election stuff. And he's very clear about it too. So he's sort of carved out this, his theory of the case is that you have Mandel and Vance and whoever the other one is that Mandel almost got in a fight with. They're kind of fighting over the

same pool of like, you know, super staunchly pro-Trump voters. And they're all angling to be like the most pro-Trump and, you know, get in his best graces, which it is sort of sad to watch the way that this just becomes a single issue race around like who is most, who's the real Trump candidate. And so he basically says, okay, you all can fight over that group of voters, which is almost undeniably the majority of the Republican Party. But because you have a divide here, I'm going to go after this group that isn't so excited about talking about January 6th and a rigged election for the rest of their entire lives. And here in the final days, there have been multiple polls that show him definitely surging here at the end. I think that part seems pretty undeniable.

That is undeniable. Will he be able to make up ground and actually best J.D. Vance, who seems to be in the poll position right now? Hard to say. I think it's probably still, it's definitely still J.D.''s race to lose at this point. But it is interesting that surge and that strategy.

And he also has been, until very recently, effectively immune. People weren't really focusing on him. No, not at all. So they're beating each other, you know, their club for growth beating up JD Vance. And the two other ones almost getting in a fist fight. And like lots of mudslinging between the three of them. And he's sort of come through unscathed until very recently when they saw him rising in the polls. And now the central attack on him is like, how could you change the name of the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians?

We're horrified by this. Which is funny. I mean, probably a pretty good attack there in the primary. And Trump said something about it too. Trump said something about it too whenever he put out a statement. So, you know, what you referenced there is a very interesting civil war. They'll try and break down as best as I can. Josh Mandel's race is being run by Ted Cruz's former campaign manager. And Ted Cruz world, kind of what I call the true con world, is all in on Josh Mandel. They hate J.D. Vance, mostly because of his position

on economics. And they don't view him as trustworthy. They've been trying to hit him with never Trump. So then the Club for Growth, which is extraordinarily libertarian in its economic outlook, has been going after J.D. J.D. has been countering them, saying – calling them the Club for Chinese Growth, which I think is funny. This culminated in a major fight between Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and the Club for Growth because after Trump endorsed J.D., basically David McIntosh, the head of the Club for Growth, made it known he will be putting out, continuing more like tens of millions of dollars behind Josh. So Trump had his advisor text David McIntosh and say, go fuck yourself. So clearly, you know, a big war.

And the Club for Growth is a major spender of cash on the Republican side. It's, you know, up there with the Chamber of Commerce. Huge heavy hitter, long time heavy hitter. Right. I mean, massive, you know, going back to the Tea Party days, Koch funded, very libertarian, pro-business kind of big business in their outlook. That is a proxy fight really of almost Ted Cruz 2016 because he's allied with the Club for Growth versus like Trump, MAGA world. It has some substance to it, but it's also very odd because the club has also endorsed Blake Masters in Arizona, who is frankly even just as much of a populist type Republican senator. It's weird. I don't exactly know what's going on. If I could really characterize

it for people, it's Ted Cruz versus Donald Trump all over again. Interesting. And again, Cruz is probably going to lose. Cruz is touring the state right now, actually, with Josh Mandel. And Hawley, I think, is there on behalf of J.D. Vance. Hawley's on there on behalf of J.D. Vance. We're going to talk to Jordan Cheriton, who is on the ground in Ohio. And he got some exclusive interviews with voters, Republican voters, who are coming out of a J.D. Vance event. So, you know,

these are people who are likely to be inclined toward J.D. Vance. The thing that I found more most interesting about what they had to say is, of course, Jordan asked every one of them, like, what do you think about the stuff that he said about Trump before? And all of them, again, this is coming out of a J.D. Vance event. So keep that in mind. But even the ones who were undecided said, I don't really care. I knew some of them were like, I wasn't sure about Trump. Some of them were like, I knew plenty of people who weren't sure about Trump at the beginning. And there was very much like, he owned up to his mistakes and it's okay.

So I do think that Trump giving him the nod sort of made it okay for voters to be like, okay, he made a mistake in their view, a mistake. And now he's come to see the light and he's one of us. There was even one woman who was like, oh, the people who changed their mind about Trump, those are the best people. That's forgiving of you. So anyway, I guess Trump coming in, endorsing him, there's no doubt that has definitely had a significant impact on the race.

And even if Vance ultimately gets edged out by what's-his-face Dolan, I think that you still have to look at this race and see that Trump really did play a kind of kingmaker here. Yeah, he played a big role. And significantly upended the thing. Peter Thiel, also billionaire, very significant in this race because at the beginning, J.D. Vance was not doing well. No, he was like fourth. They were running ads

with all of his old Trump comments. It was not landing well with people. And so he was doing extremely poorly. And the two forces that really kind of propped him up were Peter Thiel from the money perspective and Tucker Carlson from the media perspective. And the reporting is that

Tucker and Don Jr. were very influential in getting Trump to ultimately give him the nod. There was a little bit of an indication that maybe Trump's whole heart wasn't into this thing, or he just like endorsed whoever he was told to endorse here ultimately because he didn't quite get the name right. Let's take a listen to that sound. That's what they're waiting for. They're waiting for one race. You know, we've endorsed Dr. Oz. We've endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel. And he's doing great. They're all doing good. J.P. J.P. Mandel. J.D. Mandel. J.D. Wow. Okay. True Trumpian moment. Why don't we get to Nina Turner, Crystal? Yeah. Okay. So big race for the left in the future of the Democratic Party also happening in Ohio right now. As you guys may remember, Nina Turner, who was Senator Sanders' campaign co-chair and, of course, has been with Bernie from the start, ran in a special election two years ago for Congress against Chantel Brown.

Ultimately, pretty close race. They ran a lot of ads replaying her comments that said voting for Biden was like eating half a bowl of shit. And that really landed and they had an overwhelming amount of money from Trump-aligned Republicans, from corporate-backed places, and every sort of Democratic establishment person flooding in, Jim Clyburn really coming in, and ultimately Chantel Brown, is able to beat Nina Turner by about five points ultimately in the end after Nina had been way ahead originally in the polls in this Cleveland, Ohio district. So now you have Nina taking another crack at it, and there are a couple of things that are different here. First of all, you do have, as we just covered, a very heated primary on the Republican side.

And so last time around, Chantel Brown benefited from they're going to be engaged in the J.P. Mandel race and unlikely to have those crossover votes for Chantel Brown. So that's one piece. The other piece is that and let's go and put this Cleveland Plain Dealer tear sheet up on the screen here that says Democrats Chantel Brown and Nina Turner face off again in redrawn 11th Congressional District. And that's the key piece is, so now the district incorporates, my understanding is effectively all of Cleveland, which Nina Turner won last time around, and also incorporates another piece of territory where Bernie Sanders won previously. So the thought is this is more progressive terrain, about 30% of the district is new. And so the thinking within the Turner camp is that, you know, this is a more favorable landscape, just literal landscape in terms of the lines of the district, and also that you are less likely to have those Republican crossover votes. So there has been very little, and I should put my caveats on the table, as you did with

J.D. Vance. Nina is a longtime, dear, close, personal friend, and I love her very much, and I think she's a wonderful person and would be a wonderful member of Congress. So those are my biases on the table. Okay. So I didn't know whether this was a realistic path, whether there was actually really a chance that she could actually win. She explained it to me, and it made sense to me, but there's very little polling ultimately in this race. So I just

didn't know. But there've been some signs that the establishment is very worried about how this is ultimately going because they are once again flooding the zone and really pressuring members of Congress to come in for Chantel Brown. All the way up to, let's put this next piece up on the screen, Joe Biden himself has waded into this race to endorse Chantel Brown over Nina Turner. Meanwhile, and this is something we have talked about, I think, on this show before, you have the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which Chantel Brown is a member, but she is also a member of the conservative, pro-getting-rid-of-salt-tax-cap, basically new blue-dog caucus. They're called the Democrat—what are they? The new leaders—what the heck are their names?

The New Democrat—that's what they are, the New Democrat caucus. But it's like the conservative Democratic caucus. So she's not really progressive, but she wanted to get that label. So the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and my understanding is from inside sources, under great pressure, decides to endorse Chantel Brown, which is outrageous considering what a backbone of the progressive movement Nina Turner has been and what an icon she is ultimately in that community. It's not only that, members of the squad, totally silent. Bernie Sanders endorsed her a couple weeks back, and that was significant, and that mattered and probably helped her with fundraising, with excitement, and all of those things.

But up until literally last night, not one member of the squad had endorsed. So there's a couple things to say about this. Number one, the just utter betrayal and pathetic nature of the so-called progressive caucus and the squad and all of that. That's one piece. The other piece is the fact that the establishment has thrown the Biden endorsement, Hillary Clinton endorsement. Clyburn came to the district. Akeem Jeffries came to the district. You had other significant heavy hitters and Democratic establishment politics actually come into the district for

Chantel Brown. That did kind of tell me that, all right, at the very least, they're seeing some polling that says they're in the danger zone here, that they've got to act. And a lot of money coming in and a new PAC that was formed, a mainstream Democrat PAC that's explicitly, like, against the Bernie Sanders left. Lots of money flooding in on behalf of Chantel Brown. And the pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus in particular on their members, people like Cori Bush, to stay out of the race or to endorse on behalf of Chantel Brown, again, indicated to me like they're seeing something that says that Nina has a chance in this race. And then back to the squad, last night, let's put AOC up on the screen here.

With 12 hours before election day voting starts and keeping in mind that early voting has been going on for quite some time now, AOC decides to check the box and wade into this race, sending out a fundraising pitch. Now, I'm not trying to be an asshole here. You check the box and that's better than I can say for any of your fellow squad members.

Coming in with 12 hours before election is not going to do a goddamn thing. Not one thing. You can't organize around it. People won't even find out. Or donate. I mean, this is, and if you did, let's say, you know, this fundraising pitch, let's say it does raise any money. What does it matter? You can't book TV ads at this point. It may personally help Nina if she has debt on the campaign. Okay, that's good. But in terms of affecting the outcome of the race, this matters not at all.

So, again, and Marianne Williamson pointed this out on Twitter, the only really reason to endorse at the very last minute, 12 hours before an election day, I've never seen that before, is because you look at the landscape and you think, oh, this person might win and I want to hedge my bets. So I don't know what's going to happen here. We're going to talk to Jordan Cheriton. He's got a better sense of what's happening on the ground. But I can tell you there are some tea leaves that indicate at least that Nina has put Chantel Brown in a difficult position and has a fighter's chance at this thing. So that's interesting. Yeah.

I mean, the AOC point is obviously pretty telling. I mean, it could be a good thing if you want Nina Turner to win. Maybe she's privy to private polling. Well, that's right. She's going to try and take credit for it. So that's possible in terms of the way that it all goes down. But yeah, I mean, it's pretty interesting in terms of – I just don't get – and, look, we could spend hours on this. The Tea Party people, they never cared when Boehner would be like, you need to endorse somebody.

They actually got points whenever they would say, screw you, Boehner. I'm going to go endorse whoever I want against – what was his name? The House Majority Leader who lost his seat. Oh, Eric Cantor. Eric Cantor, right. I mean, Dave Brat, like that guy was a hero. And the people who all supported him were heroes too. So I don't get how the most radical members of the squad are so still willing to bow to the Democratic leadership.

I truly don't understand the dynamic there. Yeah, I mean, we could spend a long time. The psychology of that and the Republican base. The Democratic base, there's no doubt the Republican base has a lot more sway with the Republican caucus than the Democratic base ultimately has with the Democratic caucus. See the whole conversation we just had about Roe versus Wade for more examples of that. Listen, on AOC, I guess I would rather she check the box than the people who didn't. But I just want you all to know, if Nina Turner does prevail, it didn't have anything to do with AOC coming in at last minute. Because as someone who at least ran one campaign myself and has been involved in a lot of campaigns, an endorsement the night before voting starts, when early voting has been going on for weeks and weeks, when the TV ads are already booked, this cake is already baked.

AOC coming in at the last minute will not affect the outcome for good or for ill either way. So again, okay, you check the box. That's better than I can say for your colleagues, but you get no credit if Nina Dern ultimately prevails in this race. Yeah. All right. We have, in my opinion, some very unfortunate but not entirely unforeseen news to report on the latest Amazon union election,

which is that the second election, this one also on Staten Island at a sorting facility across the street from the original victorious union election, has gone down to defeat. Let's go ahead and put the vote tally. Ultimately, not all that close. You had 380 voting in favor of the union. You had 618 voting against. This was a smaller facility. And, you know, and let's go ahead and put Chris Smalls, of course, interim president of Amazon Labor Union statement up on the screen. He says, despite today's outcome, I'm proud of the worker organizers of LDJ5. They had a tougher challenge after our victory at JFK8. Our leads should be

extremely proud to have given their co-workers a right to join a union. Amazon Labor will continue to organize, and so should all of you. He goes on to say, nothing changes. We organize. Don't be discouraged or sad. So I think I'd love to talk to Christian about what he thinks happened here and why the outcome was ultimately different. But some of the indications we had early was, first of all, Chris and Derek Palmer, they were in the other warehouse. So their deeper relationships were likely in that warehouse. So that just makes sense in and of itself. The second piece is that this is a facility with a lot of part-time workers, and that's just a very different and much more difficult challenge, frankly, in terms of organizing. And then the third factor, I think, is that, you know, Amazon did, I think they probably underestimated Chris, like many people did going into the first union

election. They did not, would not make that mistake again. They stepped up their union busting efforts. Something we shared with you yesterday, which is just indicative of the kind of games that they play. Go ahead and put this tweet up on the screen, is that the day after the union election, oh, this says the lawyer for Amazon Labor is planning on challenging. I wouldn't expect it to change the result of the election. But then again, you had Bessemer's overturned in a redo, so you just never know. So we'll put that in there. Put the next one up on the screen, though, which is that Amazon waited until the day after the election to announce that they're not going to give pay workers who are out sick with COVID or even inform workers when someone at their warehouse tests positive for COVID. This comes out after the voting already happened.

So just indicative of the type of games that they ultimately play here. What I would say is just a reminder, if you are a union supporter as I am, that with Starbucks early on, first of all, the votes were much closer. They suffered a couple of early defeats before going on to a nationwide wave. The deck is still stacked and, you know, the game is still rigged in a lot of ways when it comes to union elections. There will be setbacks, but this in no way, like, changes the direction and the energy and the historic nature of what Chris Smalls and his co-workers and allies there have already accomplished on Staten Island. Yeah, no, it's very extraordinary, obviously. But, you know, this was frankly a pretty expected outcome. That's basically what we said. It's, of course, the COVID news there from Amazon is absolutely hilarious. Luckily, we do have some footage

from Jordan Sheridan when he was there at the time ahead of the organizing. Just want to give you guys an exclusive look always at some of the footage that we have. Let's take a listen. By the whole world seeing what we're doing, they will be inspired by the efforts that we're putting in that will make them want to unionize across the globe. Anywhere, any Amazon facility from different states or any working place around the world knowing that this is the time, this is the generation where you could have your voice could be heard. Back in the days, it wasn't like that, as years of other people fighting for the struggle,

fighting to unionize, make a working class world for employees a better place. So this is the time they could see this moment is very important, is very significant. We just got the news that the boat came in. Just tell me how you're feeling right now. Yeah, I feel, you know, I feel the weight of the loss for the organizers who have risked their jobs, who have risked their livelihoods, right, for their families and so much,

sometimes arrest even to work so hard to organize this warehouse. And I also am not entirely surprised because, you know, if you remember Starbucks' unionization efforts, they lost their second vote too. I think that that happens a lot of times because after that first victory, they really clamped down, right? And the union busting escalated. It's a smaller warehouse, so they were able to more effectively target the workers and promote misinformation and negative narratives about the organizers themselves.

And I think that that's what's the saddest, is that they've tried to weaponize just the normal humanity of the other organizers to say, oh, these people aren't perfect and therefore you shouldn't support them. So I think everyone's feeling it. But what I know about these workers is that they've taken L's before and they just keep fighting. So that was from Jordan's cameraman who was there on the ground as the decision was ultimately coming down. And listen, I think the big question is what happens now? So do see, is this like kind of, you know, one and done, it's an ally, or that's what the Amazon corporate folks are definitely hoping? Or is it like Starbucks,

where this got the ball rolling, and now Christian has already told us that hundreds of workers from over 100 different facilities across the country have reached out to him about organizing. Now do you have that Starbucks-esque wildfire-like spread? And ultimately, only time will tell. We'll see. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? In the face of disappointing news about Amazon workers rejecting unionization at a Staten Island sorting facility, The Washington Post has some potentially significant news, which shows that setbacks or not,

the new emboldened labor movement is taking America by storm. Take a look at this. So, according to our friend Jeff Stein and also Greg Jaffe, Biden is considering inviting Starbucks and Amazon workers at the forefront of these new union efforts to the White House for a visit. Now, this would represent a significant, albeit symbolic, step forward for an administration that has gone out of their way to signal neutrality on union fights. You might recall just recently Biden seemed to side with Amazon workers during a speech before Jen Psaki, like, immediately walked it back from the podium. As a side note, Psaki is a former employee of the heavy-hitting Democratic Party consulting firm that was caught helping Amazon with their union-busting efforts. But I digress. A White House visit would also put a new face on the labor movement,

helping to elevate the young leaders we've been talking about and interviewing here on our show. People like, of course, Christian Smalls, Angelica Moldonado, and Derek Palmer from Amazon. And people like the Rhodes Scholar-turned-Starbucks-revolutionary Jazz Brysak. Now, Jazz was at the forefront of the Starbucks union effort, helping to organize

the very first unionized Starbucks. That's the Elmwood location in Buffalo. And she doesn't exactly look like the stereotypical burly hardhat wearing emblem of the union movement. Jazz was actually homeschooled in Tennessee and inspired by the words of storied socialist Eugene Debs, who proclaimed that, while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. This led Jazz to extensive study of the labor movement, a full scholarship to University of Mississippi, and ultimately a Rhodes Scholarship, the first woman from the University of Mississippi to ever receive one. So when she landed at the Elmhurst Starbucks in Buffalo, she was ready. But what she could not have known was that so many others would be willing. Jazz's union organizing, along with her co-workers, lit a fuse, uniquely

meeting the moment and speaking to the shared frustrations of millions of workers across the country. In fact, that first Elmhurst victory sparked a nationwide landslide. As we speak, the nascent Starbucks Workers United movement has defeated the multi-billion dollar multinational Starbucks and their illegal union busting tactics in 44 out of 47 elections. I think that's the final count, but they keep racking up wins. Many of those victories were unanimous or they were nearly unanimous. 13 new stores voted yes in just the last week alone. And by the way, they're just getting started here. Well over 200 Starbucks around the nation have union votes scheduled. They are notching victories everywhere

from Starbucks' hometown of Seattle to red right-to-work states, places like New Winds in Augusta, Georgia, and Boone, North Carolina. Now, it might seem surprising that a highly educated scholar would help lead a working-class revolution, but the truth is, it's really only too appropriate. Today, 57% of Gen Z will go to college, but despite the hollow promises of college as a glide path to middle-class stability, many young college grads are forced into entry-level service sector or blue-collar jobs at places like Amazon and places like Starbucks. Somewhere around 40% of college grads are underemployed. That means working in jobs that do not require that four-year degree. And that's, of course, to say nothing of those

who went to community college or who started college but didn't finish a four-year degree. In fact, Starbucks stands out in the food service industry for having a workforce that is comparatively more highly educated than other large food service chains. And Starbucks workers are also, on average, younger than other food service chains. I don't think it's an accident that these younger, more educated workers would be at the vanguard of the new labor movement.

The younger you are, the more likely you are to support Bernie Sanders and also to support labor unions as a whole. And the more educated you are, the more likely you are to feel like even if you get fired for union organizing, you're probably going to be able to land on your feet with another gig. In other words, looking at the reality of today's working class, Jazz is not an outlier. Even her socialist politics are not fringe for her generation. Get comfortable with liberal arts grads who put their pronouns in their bios as the new face of the American working class. It makes sense, doesn't it? I can certainly imagine how checking all the boxes of taking on the debt, going to the four-year college, getting your degree like they told you to, only to find yourself taking orders from your friend's parents at Starbucks has got to be a bit of a radicalizing experience.

And when we spoke to Professor Richard Wolff yesterday, he explained exactly what that radicalization looks like. What you're seeing is a whole generation that has absorbed these hits, there's not a word to say it, hits to the working class, the middle class of this country. They're seeing it in their parents. They're seeing it in their strained school finances. They're seeing it in the quality of the jobs their seniors, graduating seniors for the last two or three years have been able to get. The number of them that are looking forward to being a barista in a coffee shop or driving an Uber car or whatever it is they end up doing, that they're living out the constriction of the American dream. It's being pulled away from them, and it's very painful

for them to see the implicit promises made to them by the school, by their parents, by the society as a whole, shrinking out of view, out of their grasp. They are upset and they're beginning to think through that maybe mobilization in a labor movement is some kind of way forward when there look to be no other ways. And for those of us that have studied the unionization drive of the 1930s, that's what happened then. The Great Depression had to be in place from 1929 to 1932 before people began to realize, oh goodness, we better join the union. That may make this bad time a little less bad than it would otherwise have been. Something like that is underway now.

Now, that's not to take anything away from the non-college workers who are courageously pushing for this new union movement. Their leadership has been extraordinary and entails a much greater risk, frankly, since they don't have the benefit of that credentialed stamp of approval to fall back on. But college grads have seen firsthand that the path to the American dream laid out by the politicians and by their Wall Street allies, it was a lie. Now they know, without a doubt, they've got no choice but to take matters into their own hands. The college grad Rhodes Scholar barista is as good an emblem as any of the failures of the dominant economic movement of the last 40 years. And the political consciousness raising doesn't stop with these young workers either. Part of why these labor

movement sparks do feel different is because they're hitting iconic brands patronized by the upper middle class. You can certainly imagine how middle class parents might change their minds about unions when it's their favorite coffee shop brand being organized and their kid with a college degree who has the barista job. for Biden to keep his campaign promise and actually deny federal government contracts to union busters like Amazon, it would be significant and meaningful to elevate these new revolutionary labor leaders, putting on a pedestal a growing labor movement that crosses every divide from race to gender to geography to education status, allowing them to make the case directly to him about how he should and could use the powers of the government to help them unionize and to secure contracts. And if nothing else, you know you want to see the drip that Christian Smalls brings to the White House. Sagar, I really have been thinking about this Starbucks thing for a long time. And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today

at BreakingPoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, as a former White House correspondent, I've never really understood why the public glamorized it so much. The truth is, it's really not a great place to do journalism. You mostly follow the president around like a trained monkey. You transcribe what he says, and then you try to get officials on the inside of the building to leak to you if possible. The best thing you can really hope for is an interview with the president, which itself is an annoying negotiated process. I think the reason why, although it's synonymous with journalism, is just because of television and simply the White House press briefing. It's where I would, of course, often challenge Sarah Sanders or Donald Trump when

given the opportunity. It's also where a lot of these people make their careers. How they ask the questions quite literally determines policy because the White House is only going to pay attention to the stuff that it gets scrutiny for. It's a bad systemic problem. The White House is accountable only to journalists that it picks. Thus, those journalists and what they pick becomes even more important. And that is why I read a recent Roe profile on White House correspondents with a lot of interest in the wake of the White House correspondents' dinner. That really gives the game away. Politico magazine wrote, as if it was a bad thing, that there was a rise and a fall of a star White House correspondent.

The star example that they gave, and no, I'm not kidding, was Jim Acosta, who used his carnival barking fame to score a weekend CNN show that currently has less ratings than a day when we don't even post clips here on Breaking Points. But the point was made that if you want to be a somebody in media, a great way to do it was to appear as if you were adversarial to Trump and his administration on television. But now, with Biden, all of that has been taken away. One journalist, who is a coward and was speaking anonymously, told Politico, quote, Jen Psaki is very good at her job, which is unfortunate. They add, the work is a lot less rewarding because you're no longer saving democracy from Sean Spicer and his men's warehouse suit. Jawing with Jen just makes you look like an asshole. There it is. It was rewarding when the person was on TV. Now it's not rewarding because

the liberal media boss thinks it looks bad to challenge the administration to its face. That, in a nutshell, is the whole ballgame. By the way, I actually support the raucous days of the Trump admin for everybody, because it really was free and open. Now, the journalists have no actual incentive in order to challenge the administration, which means, in effect, they are accountable to absolutely nobody in broader media. I've already explained here. The seating chart is rigged by the establishment press. The entire thing is fake. Where they privately admit the game is rigged, and ironically enough, they actually admit the path to success within that story, noting that the only actual

star of the White House press briefing room these days is Peter Doocy of Fox News. Now look, obviously, Fox has an incentive in order to challenge President Biden on the Hunter Biden laptop story, migrants, or any of the other myriad subjects. But the point stands. His journalism stands out because he is willing to ask about the stuff that nobody else is asking about, which then leads to coverage here on our show or the wider Internet and contributing to many viral moments. It is easy to be a star reporter today for the internet. The problem is that the incentives within the system that make it so being a star and challenging Biden or his paid propagandists would be exactly the way to get fired or marginalized in your job in the establishment media structure. One element that especially rankled me in the story about the

White House correspondents was a supposition that the Biden era is boring. Now, that is superficially true. He doesn't tweet about Mika Brzezinski having a bad facelift or Stormy Daniels calling her a horse face. But we're literally living through some of the craziest political times in modern memory. We have crazy inflation, massive gas crisis. We're possibly on the precipice of a major economic downturn. We have a major political realignment. Roe versus Wade was revealed as possibly overturned today. How the different parties are sorting out, of course. We have the Great Resignation. We have the end of the global pandemic.

There is the first European war since the end of World War II. All of the stories I just listed require nuance. And more importantly, except for abortion, they don't really track onto the culture war or the everyday drama that Washington runs on. Now, Crystal and I built our business on that from the very beginning. We do segments far ahead of their time just to make sure we have the research in case something pops, or we do it because we just think it's important. The most clicked on or viewed on segments are often ones that matter superficially for that day, but that doesn't mean that it's all that you need to know. It's much harder to tell those stories, and it requires a funding model like ours that relies on subscriptions and direct support

rather than just filling time in between commercial breaks. And by saying the quiet part out loud throughout the article, they show us that in reality, there is only one way to change this. The whole thing just has to be burned to the ground. Cable news as it exists, and as it always will exist, is not supported to deliver you good journalism. The structure itself is poison.

And in the current rigged system where the cable news companies get the preferential seats in the White House briefing room and command immense attention by the White House, there's no matter how much they shrink in size when they still command an incredible amount of attention from the politicos that set the agenda. The entire thing has just got to go, and it's going to take a hell of a lot of money and effort and time. Look, of course we are trying to do some of it here, but we cannot do that alone. Just like cable news, an entire new ecosystem

needs to rise up from the ashes and make it so the only way for people who want attention is to get it is to align with their ability to get attention while actually pressuring the White House. Its supply and its demand and the current supply-side system only rewards sycophancy and irrelevancy. A new one can reward better topics. To give you a perfect example, YouTube just rolled out a new feature where you can see some of the top topics that your audience is searching for in the aggregate. Some of the expected stuff is there for our channel, like Elon Musk. But guess what? Number one for the show, the housing market. We've tried our best to cover it. But really think about that. The conditions of your life are not reflected in the press, and thus, they are ignored by the leaders. When is the last time you even heard a question about that in the briefing room? And until you do, we are going to see even more

of a disconnect. My only faith is that things this fake can only go so long before they break. I think the housing one is a perfect example. I mean, look at that. Number one. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com. Joining us now, we have Jordan Cheriton, our partner over at Status Coup, who is on the ground in Ohio tracking the most significant primaries there very closely. Jordan, great to see you. Hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely, man. First of all, let me give a shout out to the work you guys do, which has been truly invaluable to us already, tracking the Amazon elections, being on the ground in Ohio. So thank you for that. And guys, if you are able to support what

Status Quo does, make sure you go and check them out. Okay, that out of the way. So we already gave a little bit of preview, both of the Ohio primary and of the Nina Turner versus Chantel Brown. But just talk to us a little bit, Jordan, about what the early vote numbers look like, how things are shaking out, and whether there are any sort of tea leaves you can read about what is happening there for Nina Turner to start with. Yeah, so the early vote overall numbers are low. Turnout in primaries traditionally has been pretty low. in the areas that Chantel Brown really crushed Nina Turner in August, specifically an area, Beachwood, which is a wealthier suburb, has a strong Jewish population. Overall there, the early vote was not good for Chantel Brown, which might explain why she brought in the

Calvary this weekend, including Jim Clyburn, Hakeem Jeffries, and others. So Beachwood for Chantel Brown, numbers were low. Lakewood, which is new to the district, Bernie Sanders actually won Lakewood in 2016-2020. The initial early vote numbers were not smashing or anything, but about 800 early in-person votes. So that area, which presumably would be favorable to Nina, was better than the Chantelle Brown stronghold. And it's raining here today. So that obviously adds something. There's already been issues with polling places and ballots not scanning. So I think it's going to be a close race. But as of now, in the early voting, the Chantelle Brown stronghold was not doing so well. Got it. Jordan, you've been on the ground.

You captured a pretty interesting moment there with Nina. Do you want to set it up for the audience where she runs into her former student? Yeah, so trying to interview Nina Turner in the street is impossible because everybody and their mother stops her, cars honking and people on the streets. But she actually was approached by a former student. She was a professor here at the local Cuyahoga County College. And they embraced, and the student told her how much he meant to her, including her being like a mother to him. All right, let's take a look at that.

Oh, my God. Come over here. Oh, my God. I'm okay. I had to say hi to I see you. This is one of my family. Okay. My God, it's been so long. Are you good?

I'm good, ma'am. I'm good. I'm good. I'm blessed. I'm hanging in there. I'm surviving. You helped me so much in my life. Thank you so much. You're gonna make me start crying because I remember you were going through a whole lot. I thought about you all the time.

You're always like a mother to me, honestly. Thank you. Thank you. My God, I'm so glad. My God, my God. My God. What are you going to say? I finished the police academy.

I work for private security. I live right there. So I'm hanging in there, man. I'm hanging police academy. I work part of security. I live right there. So I'm hanging in there, man. I'm hanging in there. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. I got to tell you, you were one of those ones that I always prayed for and asked God to keep you. Thank you.

Because you have so much potential. You are brilliant. And that's why life is so challenging. But you've come a long way. You too, man. Can you take care of yourself? This is my dad. How you doing, brother? How you doing, brother?

Yes, sir. Pretty extraordinary moment there. I think it just reflects the fact that, you know, Nina has outside of her national profile, which, of course, we all know about. She has very roots, very deep roots in this specific community, not only as a community member and as a teacher and professor, also as a former state senator. So, you know, that's why she's always been sort of on strong grounding there, even to weather some of the attacks that she's facing over the airwaves. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I've covered a lot of politicians and most of them are full of shit. Those were real tears. Nina Turner was shedding.

And you could tell she's a genuine person. And it kind of goes back to Bernie. You know, the more people met Bernie during those two elections, the more they liked him. And I think the same thing is true for Nina, whereas Chantel Brown is more, you know, scripted talking points. But it was really a powerful moment. It may be impossible to say, but obviously, you know, we've been talking all morning about the leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe versus Wade. Do you have any sense of whether that could play into this particular primary, given the news just broke?

Do you think that that changes, you know, does it make people more animated? Does it increase turnout? Do you have any sense of how that might play? I think the voters that Chantal Brown would rely on, which are kind of the normie Democrats, a lot of older Black women, if I'm being honest, I think they were coming out anyway. So I doubt that. I don't really have a good feel for the wider district because it just happened last night. But my guess is the voters that Chantel Brown already needed to come out, you know, are more galvanized by that anyway. But they were coming out anyway. As far as Nina Turner, I think her voters were coming out either way also.

Yeah. Interesting. At the same time, Jordan, you interviewed a couple of Republicans coming out of a J.D. Vance rally. Just set that up for the audience. Describe to us like what you wanted to ask them an open border and all that stuff. So I kind of just wanted to hear from them why they supported J.D. Vance, if they were undecided, because Cleveland actually is where Josh Mandel is from. So he has a lot of support here. And a lot of them, several of them actually said that they liked that J.D. Vance had, you know, come to see the light, that he reversed on Trump and now was pro-Trump. Like that was a plus that he, you know,

could admit when he was wrong. Others, you know, basically were very concerned about immigration. One woman going as far to say she doesn't want them in her neighborhood. But overall, one undecided and, you know, two or three others that were sold on J.D. Vance, including because of his book and, you know, behavioral health work. One woman described it. Right. Let's take a listen to that. What's your name? My name is Brian. Brian, tell me, have you decided if you're voting for J.D. and tell us a little bit about why. I haven't decided yet. I came out because I'm local. I've seen quite a bit of him on Fox News

and I agree with a lot of things that he says. I still, like I said, I'm still undecided. But I'll be making my mind up pretty soon. Now, are you a supporter of the former President Trump? Because obviously J.D. years ago was critical of Trump, but now is kind of reverse course and supports the president. Well, I can understand that. People are most accepting if you admit that you were wrong, if you fess up and, hey, you

made a mistake. People can make mistakes. But I think he's atoned for that. And he's come clean. That's OK. And do you agree some of the things J.D., Josh Mandel have said in regards to the economic problems, you know, manufacturing, things like that, leaving Ohio has to do with immigration and things like that? What do you attribute Ohio's economic issues to? I don't think it's as much immigration as it is politicians who are making money at the back door with China.

Have you ever noticed that if a politician is not already wealthy when he comes into office, they sure as hell leave office wealthy. Why is that? Why is it that someone would spend seven figures of his own money on a campaign for a job that makes six figures. Hmm. Something to think about. So tell me what convinced you to support J.D. Vance. What convinced us? I like his policies, what he represents and things like that.

So it just hopefully you never know with politicians, but hopefully he promises what he delivers like Trump did. May not like Trump, but at least he promised what he delivered. What do you think about that? Because he gets criticized that he reversed course on Trump, criticized him in 2016. But like I said, I know a lot of people that didn't like Trump personally. But like I tell him, he did what he said he was going to do. He may not like his tweets and all that, but at least he did what he said he was going to do. He's going to build a wall. He was going to do a lot of other things. And I appreciate that. That's what I want out of a politician

represents us and not not himself or Washington, D.C. Who do you blame that the wall hasn't been completely built yet? Totally Biden's administration, all a bunch of them, him and the other guy that's his homeland secretary. It's been on TV the last couple of days, but he's been pretty awful for our country in every way, every way. On J.D., you mentioned policies. What are some of the key policies you support, that he supports? I like the fact he represents pro-life. That's a big deal for us as Christians. And a lot of other issues, I'd have to go through them, but when I compare them, it's Josh Mandel or him.

I think you do just such an excellent job of just asking the questions. That's all we wanted, so we're really happy in order to partner with you. And it's just so valuable to us as a show in order to have that on the ground experience. It just means a lot. Yeah, absolutely. And Jordan, last question to you on the Nina Chantel race. You were in the district last time around as well on the ground when Nina went on to lose by five points. This is just, you know, what are your spidey senses telling you about?

Who's got lawn signs out? Who's got energy on the ground? What are the campaign's approaches? Do you have any sort of comparison between this time around versus last time around? Number one, 5,000 to 8,000 Republicans voted for Chantel Brown in August, and she only won by over 4,000 votes. Republicans are voting in their primary today. It feels like a brand new race to me. The energy on the ground seems to be with Nina. Chantel Brown's campaign, aside from unions, does not have a ground game.

Labor unions are knocking on doors for her, but that's about it. Nina Turner's campaign has been out since February. It seems they have a much improved ground game this time. They're also targeting not a big percentage, but the Muslim community here, the Latino community here. So I think it's going to be a close race. But I think Nina Turner's ground game is a lot better and more organized from what I've seen. And in terms of signs, I mostly see Nina Turner signs like in on the grass in front of homes. I mostly see Chantel Brown signs over like highway overpasses or on public land. I haven't seen as many in in homes.

And yes or no question. You think AOC's 12 hours before election voting starts endorsement makes a lick of difference in this race? Not a lick. Yeah, there we go. All right. Jordan, enjoy the day. Keep us updated on Twitter. We'll be, guys, again, if you support what Jordan's doing, which has been extraordinarily beneficial for us already,

make sure you help him out at Status Coup. We'll have the links in the description. Jordan, thanks so much. We're so grateful. Thanks, Jordan. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks. Thanks, guys.

Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. We really just appreciate your support at this time. You scrapped the entire show late last night. Had both had to stay up past bedtime. It's okay, though. We all know that this is what we live for. This is what we do.

Make sure that we, you know, up late, wake up early in order to give you guys the news. And also have on-the-ground stuff like from Jordan Sheridan. That's what your support enables from us to be able to give you the best product possible, remain nimble, all of that. You know, we have to, you know, look, it costs money to scrap graphics, et cetera. So the more support you give us, the better of a show that we could possibly provide. So thank you all so much.

We really appreciate it. Yeah, we're so grateful, guys. I have to say, Jordan, I think, kind of proved himself at those Republican interviews. He did a good job. I mean, logically, he's where I am. Yeah, people were concerned. And I was like, look, the guy does good interviews.

I've seen him do Trump interviews before. So, I mean, there you go. It was very interesting. You got to see, you know, real voters. Just let people talk. So we're not just projecting onto it. And, you know, he asked relevant questions. So I think he is, I think it's just such a benefit to have someone who can go to all of these different places and get a real feel for what's going on.

And it's expensive to do that. I mean, that's why, you know, that's why it's easier to set up a camera and just talk than actually be on the ground and interact with voters. And, you know, yeah, and travel all over the country. So, you know, I think Jordan's a perfect example of some of the content that you all are helping to enable. And so we are extraordinarily grateful for all of that. Have a wonderful day. We love you guys. We'll see you back here soon.

See you soon. This is an iHeart Podcast.