Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Mini Show #35: Congress Corruption, Saudi CIA Meeting, Bank Fraud, Hunter Biden, New Right, & More!

Episode Date: May 14, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about black Republicans, corrupt lobbying, Saudi connections to 9/11, Louis CK comments, Hunter Biden's funding, Pelosi vs Newsom with Kyle Kulinski, Marshall Kosloff interviews on The New Right and the foreign policy blob, Ryan Grim & Ken Klippenstein on Saudis, and Matt Stoller on a massive bank fraud scandal!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/Ryan Grim: https://theintercept.com/podcasts/deconstructed/ https://theintercept.com/2022/05/08/maryland-campaign-brandy-brooks-progressive-accountability/ Matt Stoller: https://mattstoller.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Look, we don't like doing a bunch of segments about The View, but look, these guys just keep giving us content that we have to cover. They're very popular. They're watched by a lot of people. We're genuinely stunned by that. So, I don't know why, but here's our latest example. The View's Sonny Hostin says that a black Republican is an oxymoron. Let's take a listen. Okay, but I know this may be a novel point, a novel idea for somebody who's, you know, a supporter of Trump, but there are people who are capable of being related and not having ethical interests. There's many things that I don't stand by that Trump did. Trump has done things that are racist. I'm a black woman first, so always understand that. But I do say that I have many conservative values that I

will talk to you about. And so if you look at your network that you're standing behind, yes. And when you look at your network that you're standing behind, you're saying that you look at Chris Cuomo. I feel like that's an oxymoron, a black Republican. You feel like it's an oxymoron? I do. Why? Your friend right here is a Republican. We had this conversation. You do. You say you feel like it's an oxymoron that you're Catholic, but you also are pro-life. I don't understand either of you. You don't understand yourself, then. You have disagreements. I understand myself. I don't understand either of you. But it's

not a personal conversation. We're going, I don't, like, we're having a personal conversation about CNN and how things can get lead. I don't understand Black Republicans, and I don't understand Latino Republicans. Well, here's what I, here's what, today, this is not about me, and it's not about you. It's about celebrating Corinne Jean-Pierre. And I think we should.

We can agree on that. And we will be right back. What a show. Amazing. I don't understand. Black Republicans are an oxymoron. Latino Republicans are an oxymoron. I just look.

I mean, it's probably, what, the 10 millionth time that that has been uttered on cable news. But this way that we just, like, racewash people and think that they're supposed to align with different parties is just not how people of those actual races think about politics. That's what drives me the most nuts. I mean, we see more black and Latino Republicans than ever in the year 2022. It's completely false. That's the thing is I actually appreciate the honesty because she's admitting she doesn't understand it. And it's like, oh yeah, that's clear. And so like, I mean, really, like if you are, if you are a Democrat and you care about the party succeeding,

understanding why you have an increasing number of Latinos in particular identifying with the Republican Party would be an important intellectual project to engage with. Something that we've been engaging with here long before it was a hot topic in D.C. Understanding why so many Latinos back Bernie Sanders. Why this is like the true swing vote now and the gradations of, you know, what is driving that sentiment? Like, the fact that you don't understand that and you clearly don't care to understand that, it means that you're not good at your job because this is a really important political trend that is happening right now. And you might disagree with those folks. Obviously, you do. That's fine. That's not a problem. But you should at least endeavor to try to get,

all right, where is this coming from? What is the sentiment? What are they responding to? And what does it mean for this party that I care about ultimately moving forward? It reminds me too of, of course, the famous Joe Biden moment with Charlemagne Tha God, where, yeah, where, you know, Biden got pressed on some issues that Charlemagne, you know, thought were important. And Biden's response, rather than engaging with that discussion and with those, you know, many disappointments over the course of his long career in the Senate, was to shut it down by saying, if you are, what was the quote? If you're voting for Trump, then you ain't black. That's right. And so it's also a way to just shut down any criticism, justified criticism of the Democratic

Party on any range of issues, everything from, you know, they've completely failed on economics, they've completely failed on issues like voting rights, which was something that they talked a lot to the black community about in particular. And so that's the other problem with this mode of lack of thought, really, is because it's an effort just to shut down any criticism of the Democrats by just saying, well, they're better than the Republicans. You can't possibly vote for them. So you're stuck with us. It's just crazy. I mean, like I said, I mean, you have an overwhelming, more than ever before, number of Latinos identifying or voting Republican. And actually, this was a totally undercovered element of 2020, but verified exit data shows us that the only demographic group in America that voted less for Donald Trump per capita was white men. He actually increased his vote share amongst young, like amongst black men, black women,

white women, like everybody else except for the caricature demographic of the people who supposedly hated him. I saw something he tweeted like, we asked white men to do better and they did. Yeah, and they did. Everybody else actually increased their vote share for Donald Trump. So look, I mean, I'm not saying there's an overwhelming majority of black people who are voting Republican, but there's like 18, 19% of young black men in particular who seem Trump sympathetic. Amongst Latino men, it's genuinely about 50-50 right now. And it was nearly 40% in the 2020 election. And now actually that we covered that NPR Marist poll, maybe we didn't. Maybe we had to scrap it because of Roe versus Wade, whatever. It was like 60% Latino identification with the GOP in 2022. We'll see how it shakes out. I don't know if

that's true. It could vary geographically and obviously, but still, I mean, these are dramatically important things. So yeah, maybe you're right. You know, her admitting, I don't understand it. I think it's an oxymoron, but it's very racist. And it really is just, it's an elite liberal mindset on race, which is just belies the truth of the way that people actually act and behave in their real daily lives. And yeah, I think I would also submit without making Sonny Hostin personally too central to this narrative, but that general attitude, dismissive attitude is a key part of why Democrats have found themselves in this situation where they thought they had this coalition of the Senate. They thought demographics were destiny. They

thought that Latinos would only move more firmly into their camp and become more of a solid voting bloc the way that African-Americans have been for years and years for Democrats. And things have gone in the opposite direction. I think in part it is because you had this very surface level view of, you know, you can't even really call it a community because it's such a diverse and disparate group of people, but you had this very surface level view. You had this, you know, sort of like solely based on representation and immigration politics approach to appealing to the community and this like dismissive attitude of like, well, of course, you're not going to vote for them. Of course, you're stuck with us. You have no other choice.

So anyway, there it is on display. Absolutely. As you guys know, the account Unusual Whales has been at the center of exposing corruption fraud among members of Congress, especially with regard to what they're doing in the markets and how somehow they're able to beat the markets routinely, interesting trades that they're making, potentially with inside information. And they have a new report out now that looks at the impact of lobbying in D.C. And I think this is really important. So let's go ahead and throw this here up on the screen. What they say is 400 companies lobbied Congress with these companies showing up in 92 lawmakers' portfolios.

What they found is that the more that an industry lobbied Congress, the better their returns were, suggesting that they were getting some of that lobbying money was well spent. And the more that a company lobbied Congress, the more likely that company was held by members of Congress. So you have it both ways. So they're spending tons of money to lobby Congress. This is showing up in their results in the stock market. And you also have members of Congress who are being feted and, you know, manipulating course by these lobbyists. And then they also are using the information that they're gleaned there

and potentially benefiting in the market, too, their stock. Yeah, this report is actually very, very important. And what I appreciate about what he did is that before his time, nobody just took the time to just cobble the data. I mean, it's like you have all the trade data out there, but everybody has to go and compile it, and there's all these documents. And what he did here is by looking specifically at the lobbying companies, then you show up in the specific portfolios which are publicly shown to us. And then the more an industry lobbied Congress, the better that their returns actually were. And then the more a company lobbied, the more likely they were to be held by Congress, which is really interesting, right? Because if you think about it from an intuitive nature,

the way the defense that these guys always have is like, look, I'm just trading like everybody else. I mean, remember Dan Crenshaw, right? He was like, look, I'm just like an average 30-year-old guy. Trying to better myself or whatever. Yeah. Trying to better myself. And the interviewer was like, yeah, but you bought Boeing stock. And he's like, have you ever met with Boeing? And Dan is like, I don't know. And he goes, yeah, but have you met with Boeing? And he's like, I'm sure at some point, like some member of my staff might have met with Boeing, but we don't know anything. It's like, oh, really? You don't know anything about what's going on? Why do you mean with Boeing? What's happening? I've never

met with Boeing. So that's the interesting part of this, which is that if you look at the report, the more contact that they have, the more likely you're likely to hold stock. Now look, the biggest companies in the world are also the most likely to be held and are also the most likely to lobby. So it's not always a conspiracy, but something's going on here. And what I would say is that let's just remove the question, okay? Let's make it so you can't trade, period. And then we'll all know whether you're full of it or not. Then we can find out, does the lobbying correlate with market cap or does it correlate with your stock trades? And the thing about lobbying is, is it's one of those where you look at it, they would never spend this type of money if it didn't work.

Right. Right? Because sometimes lobbyists are like, look, we're just representing our clients' interests, but it's really on balance. I'm like, you mean to tell me that companies are going to spend their hard-earned money, billions of dollars worth it, lobbying Congress just for a 50-50 shot? I don't believe you. I don't believe you for a second. Right. Well, and also here's the other piece is who are these companies going to lobby? They're going to spend their time lobbying

members that are on key committees specific to their interests. So then you're going to turn around if you're that member on that committee and you're going to own stock in a company that has a direct interest in what you are legislating sitting on that committee. And that's the other thing that he reveals here, is specific lawmakers. And this is why it's so important to look at the data in the aggregate, because any one of these lawmakers could explain away like, oh, I have that because of this reason. No, of course it wasn't corrupt. No, of course it wasn't tied to the many meetings that I had with their lobbyist representatives here in my office. But when you look at the overall picture, you see how frequently

you have members of Congress being lobbied by these specific companies in these specific industries on matters that are coming in front of them on their key committees where they hold power and jurisdiction. And you start to go, listen, this is just not acceptable in any way, shape, or form. We're not idiots. Right. Right? We don't. Can you just not engage in these trades that have a clear appearance of corruption and that, of course, we know from the data you all are outperforming everybody else out there in the market, doing way better than what the market average is. And it certainly looks like there is some insider information being exchanged here to their personal financial benefit and to your detriment.

You be the judge. Does it make a difference or not? Don't let them be the judge. There you go. A very important newly declassified document from 2017 shows something that we've all suspected for a long time. Let's put it up there on the screen, which is that declassified memo confirms a direct tie between the Saudi government and the 9-11 hijackers. So let's explain. This all goes down to Omar al-Bayoumi. Now, al-Bayoumi was a member of the Saudi consulate

who had confirmed meeting connections and financial ties with two of the 9-11 hijackers. So the previous story goes like this. Al-Bayoumi is in a cafe and he overhears two young Saudi men speaking in Arabic and he's like, how can I help you two gentlemen? And then he gets them an apartment and puts down cash and does all of this stuff for them. It was said to be an on-the-chance encounter that had no direction from the direct Saudi government. If you believe that, I'm not sure what to tell you. But it was confirmed by the 9-11 Commission, and we thought that it was basically buried, despite many people like myself who said, this seems pretty sketchy. Well, a newly declassified

2017 FBI memo shows that the FBI itself wrote that al-Bayoumi was tasked with collecting and delivering intelligence specifically to Prince Bandar al-Sultan, who was at the time the Saudi ambassador to the United States. So as long again suspected, al-Bayoumi was not some innocent driver who just happened across these two Saudi gentlemen who happened to be in America, who happened to crash planes into the Twin Towers. Saudis know, the Saudi government know about it too, of its 15, of its 19 citizens who eventually crashed into our towers and into the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. What did they know at the time about the plot? That question has been buried by the US government for over 20 years because of Saudi corruption and pressure by the Saudi government. And we all just kind of moved on from it.

But I don't think we should ever move on from it because a lot of the people who are still responsible for that, Prince Turkey, Bin Faisal, Bandar, and all those people are living high and mighty in Saudi Arabia, live in the jet setting, high life, and very clearly at the very least knew what was going to happen and possibly were even involved or at the very least, knew what was going to happen and possibly were even involved or the very least derelict about what happened. And that piece of our own government's cover-up of these critical facts is also really important here. Biden does deserve some credit for long after the fact declassifying these memos, which has never been done before. And just to make it super clear, Bayoumi was literally getting paid by Saudi intelligence. Yes, yeah, right.

So, I mean, it always was a stretch credulity, the idea that he just stumbled upon them and then went out of his way to not only secure them an apartment, but really to sort of serve as a guide and help them get, you know, settled here in America and help them move to San Diego. And there's another piece here which makes it even more plain, which is there was a second raft of documents released by the British government last week. This was in response to a civil lawsuit against the Saudi government by families of 9-11 victims. And among Bayoumi's papers, literally, was a diagram depicting a plane descending toward a target on the horizon. And alongside the diagram is a bunch of formulas used to calculate the distance to the target. Okay. Paid by Saudi intelligence. I shouldn't laugh. It's so... Happens to have a diagram of a plane descending toward a target on the horizon. Okay, riddle me that. Explain that one to me in an innocent way. Now, what they say is, oh, he was working for the aviation industry, and so maybe that's what it—

Okay. All right. All right. Yeah, and they even said in the second round of FBI documents, quote, there's a 50-50 chance he had advanced knowledge of the plot. And again, back in the 2000s, they covered all of this up, guys. It was not until 2005, 2006, when there was a lot more open source reporting about al-Bayoumi. Lawrence Wright from The New Yorker wrote the whole book about it. And there was a lot more scrutiny on this. But this was the height of

Iraq mania. And then it just got lost in the Iraq war and the debates in the country. And every once in a while, around 9-11, everybody just kind of wakes up. And it's like, yeah, remember when the Saudis were involved? 15 or 19 citizens crashed into there. And, oh, and, you know, they kind of tried to get bin Laden out of Afghanistan, but not really, even though they were pretty sure about what he was up to. And then they just spirited away a bunch of their citizens and ambassadors right after 9-11. And then they bought billions of dollars worth of advertising on American TV networks in order to prop up their image. And, you know, what was going on there? They had all these connections to the Bush administration

but then they're like, well, there's inflation and Roe versus Wade and all this stuff. We shouldn't forget. A hundred years from now, it's going to be 100% clear about what's happening. I never thought I'd actually see these documents in my lifetime. I thought it'd be a lot like the JFK assassination. Still waiting on those.

Still waiting on that one. I'm glad to see it. I genuinely thought I'd be dead before any of this stuff like the JFK assassination. Yeah, still waiting on those. Still waiting on that one. Still waiting on those. But, you know, I'm glad to see it. I genuinely thought I'd be dead before any of this stuff even came out. But at least we know. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, it'll be, clearly the Biden administration not exactly having sort of a romance with the Saudis right now. So that's also the context that this comes down in.

I didn't think about why that came out, but yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, indeed. And, you know, I mean, the context. Actually, that's a good point. That this comes down. I didn't think about why that came out, but yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, indeed. And, you know, I mean, the U.S. relationship towards Saudi isn't quite the same as what it was back in the Bush years. And to my mind, that's a good thing. A hundred percent. Very interesting moment in the latest Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, who have been doing an excellent series with Louis C.K. on the American presidents. Now, I was telling you this before. I, as a history buff, am shocked at the level of knowledge that Louis and Shane have on early American history. Oh, really? Honestly, Louis knows more about the

early presidents than I do. And I've read quite a bit of early biographies. Like, he was reciting some really deep stuff on like John Quincy Adams and Madison and Martin Van Buren. I don't even know that much about Martin Van Buren. I do this through a living. And apparently this man is deeply well-versed in American history, which is kind of amazing. But in the latest example, Louis actually gave a very impassioned kind of analysis as to why shaming people for Donald Trump is both counterintuitive and against a lot of the values that liberals profess to say that they have. So let's take a listen to what he said. I'm afraid to tell you, but you're a Republican. That's what people do is like, come here.

I've got the same. I'm like you. You're like me more than you understand. And they hedge it. They go like, no, I don't agree with my opponent's bill for health care, but I have the same concern as you do about health care. I have the same values you do. We're alike. You should vote for me. But what progressives do is you actually say to them, I'm a progressive.

And they go, really? Prove it. Well, I'm for gay marriage. What do you mean gay? What do you mean marriage? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are a Trump. They like tell other people that they belong to Trump.

They give him, they push people away. They pushed everyone to him. Because the goal is not actually to win and to change the country which is a ugly difficulty really change the country is a gray difficult boring bureaucratic uh unsatisfying slow business and people want to be able to make it happen like this i can this i can just and they're not trying to make something happen. They're just trying to feel, they're trying to show what they think and perform what they are and, and just get it.

And they're addicted. It's a sickness. I feel sorry for them. I don't hate people like this. Wow. I mean, that's very profound. I mean, obviously probably impacted by Louis's own, just like the vitriol that was directed his way. But that's a very good, cogent analysis on why yelling at people and screaming at them

is not going to work if one of your goals is to actually transform the country. Well, but he also says the important part, which is that these people's goal isn't actually to change the country or to change anything or to have, like, a movement or grow their political coalition. It's for their own personal, like, this is something I can do to feel good in this moment and feel like I'm, you know, virtuous and on the right side of history and all of these things, which is, you know, a nice short-term payoff. But if you actually cared about building a winning coalition, it's obviously the polar opposite of what you would actually do. And it's something that drives me absolutely bananas because you have this bizarre instinct among a lot of progressives to basically be extremely judgmental about their fellow ordinary citizens. Yeah. judgmental about their fellow ordinary citizens. People who may share some values with them,

who might be open, who you might be able to bring along if you're willing to approach it in an open spirit, extremely judgmental with them, and then give a complete pass to the elected officials who actually have power who are not living up to their end of the deal. So it's the exact opposite of what you should do. You should have a lot of compassion for your fellow citizens. You should have a lot of openness. You should be trying to, you know, to engage and understand their concerns and bring them along. And also, by the way, have some people in your coalition that don't agree with you and that make you uncomfortable on certain issues. Like that's also part of having a winning, powerful coalition. But then when it comes to people in power, yeah, you should be constantly

holding their feet to the fire, especially when they don't do the things that they are supposed to do or that isn't within their power to do. So oftentimes it's like completely backwards. And we've talked about this some with regards to the way that a lot of progressives have approached Joe Rogan, who is someone who agrees with them on quite a number of issues and doesn't on certain issues. Probably like 80%. And so it's like the only things they highlight are the areas where he has disagreements. And so they've created this national impression that he's just like this consistently right-wing dude. And meanwhile, the right also, because they are smart enough to want

to claim him, they also highlight those areas where he has agreement. And then the places where he is on the left side of the debate, like neither side ever highlights those. So you pointed this out to me and Kyle and I talked about it on Crystal Con, friends. He made comments about Roe versus Wade. Yeah. And nobody covered it. We were the only ones who covered it because, you know, if the right behaved the way the left did, they would have pulled out those comments. They would have trashed him. He's left wing. He's a Marxist. He's this. He's not us. He's with them. And instead, nobody talks about it because the left is so invested in, like, pushing people away weirdly for their own, like, personal virtue signaling. And the right smartly, strategically is like, yeah, we'll claim it.

We'll claim the most powerful, you know, the number one podcaster in the entire world. We'll claim him. So whatever you think of Louis C.K., he makes a good point here. Yeah, exactly. I don't know how you could possibly look against it. And look, I highly recommend. I haven't listened to parts two through four, but I'm going to go and I'm going to listen to all of these because I found Louis' analysis of history like really compelling. And they were both, it's really funny, like the way that him and Shane kind of play off of each other. It's both hilarious, but really informative, both not only on what happened, but kind of like his meta-analyses of the presidency. I guess he had a lot of time to

think while he was canceled. I guess. I mean, he's put out two, what is it, Grammy awards. Did he win a Grammy, I think, for his latest thing? No idea. Whatever. Look, he's a great comedian, and apparently he's a great historian as well. So it's good to see him. Earlier, we got a report, and we asked a very basic question. It said, Hunter Biden has paid off nearly $2 million that he owed in taxes. However, he had to take a loan. Now, the corporate media didn't tell us, hey, who gave Hunter this loan? And I asked, and I said, hey, I would really like to know who paid off these taxes. Well, now we seem to know the answer to that. According to the New York Post, let's put this up there on the screen, a big shot Hollywood lawyer is apparently paying off

all of Hunter Biden's nearly $2 million that he owed to taxes. So this lawyer, his name is Kevin Morris. He's an entertainment attorney, and he was actually the guy who represents the co-creators of South Park. So he's apparently made millions of dollars in negotiating these licensing deals. Obviously, both Trey and Matt are worth, I think, hundreds of millions of dollars, like a piece based upon the IP that they've created. But this guy, Morris, and by the way, this is all alleged. He hasn't responded for a comment. So this is, again, according to The New York Post, we're simply commenting on the story, though. But he says that Morris is Hunter's, quote, latest sugar brother, according to Hunter Biden's friends. He's been funding the 52-year-old Hunter's lifestyle in Los Angeles, including his rent and his living expenses.

And the attorney has also been advising the president's son on how to structure his art sales. Now, Morris's wife slammed the door in the reporter's face at the New York Post. And I mean, look, the story's been out for a couple of days and he hasn't denied it. So, I mean, you can be the judge as to how exactly that's happening. But I think there's a lot of questions here, which is why? I mean, that is a hell of a lot of money, Crystal. $2 million in unpaid. I don't know how much money this guy has, but I don't know.

I've met some very, very rich people in my time, and even they are pretty stingy whenever it comes to millions of dollars. So who is this guy who's just willing to shell out $2 million for somebody else's taxes? We don't know if he ever has to pay it back. Apparently, he's funding his lifestyle. He's paying for his rent, all of this. He's advising him on art sales. He's the president's son. What are you getting out of it? I don't know the answer to that question. But rich people don't

spend money for free. I just don't believe it. I don't believe this is an altruistic endeavor. Out of the goodness of his heart. I don't believe it. He just wants to support Hunter Biden's lavish lifestyle and pay off his tax debt. Yeah, the why is interesting. And of course, I mean, just as a reminder, Hunter Biden continues to be under federal investigation. There were reports a couple months ago about how that seemed to be heating up. This is from Vox, so not a conservative outlet. They say,

federal prosecutors' investigation into Hunter is heating up. The indictment of the president's son is a real possibility. There were stories across mainstream outlets suggesting that the investigation run by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware has gotten increasingly active. Witnesses have been testifying to a grand jury, and it focuses on his well-compensated work for foreign interests over the past decade or so, particularly for businesses or tycoons in Ukraine, China, and Kazakhstan. The main legal questions appear to be whether Hunter violated tax laws, committed money laundering, or acted as an unregistered foreign lobbyist. And so this investigation is part of why it was so important that Hunter pay. At the

time, it was reported as a million-dollar tax liability. Come to find out, at least according to this latest reporting, it was closer to $2 million. That's a lot of money. And it is a lot of money. And even though him paying those back taxes doesn't let him off the hook in terms of if he violated tax law, The thought, according to legal analysts at the time, was that if he did pay that back tax debt, that might allow, you know, allow the grand jury to view him in a more favorable light, that it would be something that could potentially mitigate, you know, a possible indictment here. So it is a significant story, you know, because he's the president's son, because he's

being looked at for potentially illegal behavior and who and why this person wanted to come in and help him with this $2 million in debt and potentially fund his lifestyle, I think is a, it's an interesting question. Yeah. One that's worth pondering. I should just note, after the Post came out with the story, apparently CBS News has followed and is reporting the exact same thing. So they say that he maintains a robust team, which is being funded by Mr. Kevin Morris. I mean, that's pretty extraordinary here. So Mr. Morris has declined for their comment. Nothing has been confirmed, but nobody really knows what exactly this guy is getting out of it. And it just says that in terms of many of the things that they're looking into, that Morris is funding both the legal defense and his taxes and his lifestyle. And helping him structure his art deals.

Helping him structure his art deals. Funding his art career, helping him structure his art deals, art career. You really should ask the question why? And I don't see a lot of media interest in that, but you know, we'll continue to keep up on it. Indeed we will. Hey guys, Kyle Kalinsky is letting us post some of the clips from his channel that we think you guys will really love in the breaking points community on our channel. Yep. Let's get to it. So there's a little bit of a democratic civil war going on right now, and it's not the kind that we're all familiar with. The kind that we're familiar with is like the left versus the establishment Democrats. This is not that. This is corporate dem on corporate dem violence. So, Gavin Newsom was talking about the Roe vs. Wade decision. He sort of lit into

the leadership of the Democratic Party in Washington, D.C. Nancy Pelosi's on Face the Nation. The host is going to play the Newsom clip and get Pelosi to respond.

Let's take a look. Where is the Democratic Party? Where's the party? Why are we calling this out? This is a concerted, coordinated effort. And yes, they're winning. We need to stand up. Where's the counteroffensive? Madam Speaker, why were pro-abortion rights Democrats outmaneuvered? The fact is that we have been fighting for a woman's right to choose and that is to choose We have been fighting against the Republicans in the Congress Constantly because the fact is there and not just anti a woman's right to choose in terms of terminating a pregnancy but in terms of

access to Contraception and family planning and the rest both domestically and globally This is a constant fight that we've had for generations of decades interception and family planning and the rest, both domestically and globally. This is a constant fight that we've had for generations, decades I should say, in my case, in the Congress. And we had been bipartisan early on, support for a woman's right to choose, until the politics have changed. And that's what happened to the court. The science hasn't changed, but the court changed, and therefore they're deciding that it will be different.

I have no idea why anybody would make that statement unless they were unaware of the fight that has been going on. Well, you have been fighting for decades on this issue, but back when Democrats held majorities in the House and the Senate in 2009 when you were Speaker, President Obama was asked about codifying Roe v. Wade and said abortion is a moral and ethical issue and, quote, not the highest legislative priority. Do you think it was a mistake for him, for other presidents, not to push harder when Democrats had the majority? If I just may, the focus we have right now is an urgent one in order to try to improve and try to improve this, what we're calling it,

fake or draft decision, whatever it is. I think that this is a waste of time. The fact is, in 2009, we really did not have a pro-choice Democratic Party. I had to fight against some of the people who did not want to pass the Affordable Care Act. Understand how deeply disingenuous this is. Last week, after we got the decision of what the Supreme Court is going to do, Nancy Pelosi and Clyburn and other Democratic leaders, corporate Democrats, were campaigning for Henry,

Henry, Henry, Henry Cuellar, Cuellar, who is a pro-life Democrat supporting him over Jessica Cisneros, who is pro-choice. So the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade. They look at that and go, oh, okay.

Then they immediately go and campaign for a Democrat who agrees with them, who will block any sort of change they try to make in a pro-choice direction. It's hard not to conclude that they're total frauds and charlatans when you look at something like that that they're just going to use this as a wedge issue to virtue signals we're pro-choice, they're pro-life

if you agree more with the pro-choice position vote for us but we're not going to do anything about it we're not going to do anything about it so let's break this down. Now Newsom says, well, where's the Democratic Party on this? And I'll come back to him in a little bit because he's Weasley and he's a slime ball too. But he says, where's the Democratic Party on this?

The host says, why were pro-choice Democrats outmaneuvered? Pelosi goes, well, I have no idea. Well, then isn't that the problem? If you have no idea, why are you isn't that the problem? If you have no idea, why are you a leader? Why don't you step aside? Why don't you let somebody younger who actually cares about this stuff take your place? Well, I have no idea how we were outmaneuvered. Well, that's the problem. But also you do kind of know because you guys support pro-life Democrats. And the other thing is, Ro vs. Wade was settled in 1973

Jimmy Carter had a veto-proof supermajority from 1977 to 1979 he didn't codify Roe vs. Wade Carter had a Democratic Senate and House from 1979 to 1981 didn't codify Roe vs. Wade Clinton had a Democratic Senate and House in 1993 to 1995

didn't codify Roe vs. Wade Obama had a supermajority in 2009 didn't codify Roe versus Wade. Obama had a super majority in 2009, didn't codify Roe versus Wade. Biden currently has a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House of Representatives, didn't codify Roe versus Wade. So how do we get to this point? Well, all these Democratic presidents said, I'm going to codify Roe versus Wade and pass it into law, so that even if something happens at the Supreme Court, we still have the law. None of them did it. None of them did it. Obama said at one point when he was campaigning, that's going to be the first thing I do when I get in office. I'm going to codify Roe versus Wade. Then he gets in office and he's like, that's not on the top of my legislative priorities list.

How did this happen? Well, geez, I don't know. I don't know how this happened. I have no idea. Now, excuse me. I need to go campaign for another pro-life Democrat. Pelosi goes on to say about Newsom, I have no idea why anybody would make that statement unless they're unaware of the fight that's been going on. What fight? What fight? What fight are you talking about? You guys haven't lifted a finger for this. If anything, you've lifted a finger on the opposite side trying to get Kolar elected. And then she goes on to say the focus we have right now is an urgent one to try to improve the Supreme Court decision. Well, look, I support every attempt to do that, whatever protests, whatever direct actions, as long as, of course, as it's peaceful. But that's not going to happen.

You're not going to change the Supreme Court's decision on this by what, finger wagging? Hey guys, our friend Marshall Kosloff, he's going to be conducting interviews with experts and newsmakers for us here on the Breaking Points channel. We're really excited. Yep, here it is. Hey, Breaking Points. We're joined by a really great guest. I'm speaking with James Pogue.

He is the author of a new piece in Vanity Fair. It's called Inside the New Right. He's a contributing editor at Harper's. And as someone who covers this space, I think this covering this space like in 2019. Why this year, 2022, late April, why was this the moment for you to write this piece? Oh, that's a good question. I suppose, to be honest, the proof that this was the moment was the fact that before this year, I didn't really know that much about this stuff. And so I met J.D. Vance in July of last year when he was running polling at 7%. And I think part of why this piece cut through and was successful is I was coming to this stuff with a relatively new eye. I hadn't been reading people like Curtis Yarvin. I wasn't aware of J.D. Vance as someone other than a kind of, you know, as they say in the liberal media, like a kind of Trumpist,

pantomime, buffoon kind of guy. And I started talking to him and realizing that he was emerging out of an ecosystem that I frankly wasn't aware that much about. And I then went to NAPCON, the National Conservatives Conference, and was sort of blown away by the fact that there were intellectual currents that I wasn't aware of as a reporter, and that I thought honestly ought to be discussed. So let's just go down the line of the really obvious questions that we could get into it. What actually is the new right? This is a very contentious subject. And I think because you're an outsider, I'll actually trust your definition about the personal beef you usually get on the inside.

Well, so I try to explain it to people who've literally never heard anything about this stuff as kind of two twin tendencies. And so one would be this kind of broad-based idea on the right, you're going to take over the Republican Party and refashion it towards something like what we see in France with Marine Le Pen, a sort of like nationalist, anti-globalist vision of a right that is conservative, anti-globalization, and kind of proudly Americanist in a way that the Republican Party hasn't been. That's an unsatisfying answer to a lot of people who really know what the new right is, because there's also this intellectual undercurrent that is much weirder, much more online. And that is, I like to say, like a kind of intertwined set of critiques of what liberalism, frankly, is. And I don't mean Democratic Party liberalism.

I mean, the idea of liberal individualist capitalism as being the organizing force in human life. This is a set of critiques of that, that are coming from the right instead of the left, as a lot of people are used to. You know, I was gonna not quibble with your definition, but something that's probably gonna prick up in people's mind. When you say the new right is more Americanist than the current conservative movement, people say, what are you talking about? You know, like Ronald Reagan, morning in America, like apple pie, lots of flag waving, lots of boomer memes there. But I think the thing that you really capture in your piece, I'd love for you to expand

on this, is it's Americanist, but it's focused on decline in a way that the Reaganite version just wasn't by its very definition. So can you go into this bit? Sure. I mean, and I think, so when we talk about decline, I think what the new right is offering essentially is a vision that the Reaganist kind of corporatist triumphalist vision of a capitalism and a global system that was going to inevitably lead towards a better world, step by step by step, actually was the failed system and was a failed vision. And that's a difficult thing for people both on the traditional right and left to accept, particularly, I mean, I'm a millennial. We grew up with this idea that, you know,

you just kind of play the neoliberal game and over time, everything will sort of work out. Reagan was an apotheosis of that vision. And so for a lot of people on the new right, what you're actually seeing is a kind of pointed critique of a vision that Reagan and Clinton together sort of formed and created and led into the point where you might say the end of the end of history that we're living now. And so privately, I'm not going to name particular names because a lot of this is sort of at parties and things like that. But privately, a lot of the major figures on this new right are pointedly and almost violently critical of Reagan. And that's something that I think a lot of Republicans,

even in the kind of MAGA Trump mold, won't do. And something I'm wondering here is a lot of folks, especially in the Breaking Points audience, will, especially when it looked like Bernie was going to be the nominee after New Hampshire, and when Trump was obviously going to be the Republican nominee in 2020, they were like, oh, wow, there's this populist, like new left, there's this populist

new right. It's kind of mixed up. But like, is there any analog between like debates about progressivism on the left and these debates between the new right? I don't think they quite line up, but like, what do you think about that idea? So I'll go out on a limb here and give a personal response. I was there the night Bernie won the New Hampshire primary in 2020. And, you know, I was talking to my girlfriend at the time who, you know, she didn't come from the left. She didn't come from these traditions of critiquing sort of liberal notions of progress. And I just, I was so taken. I was personally so taken with that moment as a moment where we might, as a country shift from this vision of like, everything that we do, our governing value in society is going to be 3.2% economic growth.

And everything that we do is going to be oriented around market policies that basically enrich people. And that there might be a populist movement coming from the left that was going to reorient how society worked uh and then that didn't work out um and it ended pretty quickly after that and pretty brutally after that uh for me um at least and i say that because i see on the right a very similar kind of energy where there's a longing, particularly amongst young people, for a different set of values and a different kind of, frankly, metrics. That's a kind of brutal word, but a different set of measures for what a valuable life is and how a society should be organized. And that's something that I personally felt with Bernie.

And it's something that I personally see a lot with young people coming to the new right. It's so funny that you use the word metrics because it gets it kind of like the neoliberal market-oriented mind capture. I was planning like a social event and I unironically was like, okay, who's taking ownership out of like finding like the proper bar for us to go meet up to? So like we've all been captured been captured by this market neoliberal millennial-esque real subculture there. But I think something I'd like to, and once again, I think you get at this, you just made a very economic focus articulation. I think a lot of what you just said are things that people on the new right and the new left

could both resonate with. However, there's a very cultural aspect to the new right. And this is something I don't think a lot of folks, I think folks on the left, especially like you said, post Bernie deflation are looking for something. And I've just noticed this real tendency to just underplay this cultural critique that they're making. I met someone who was like, oh yeah, Marshall, you know, you do new right stuff. Like you don't care about abortion, right? People on the new right don't care about abortion. They're just like Bernie. It's like, no, that's actually like not an accurate interpretation of it. So like, how would you articulate that bit? I mean, yeah. I mean,

like I'm very much sort of on new right Twitter now, just if only because like, you know, a lot of people have followed me and I'm around it now a lot. And I remember the minute that leak happened, people were like, let's go. This, this is a kind of, this is a kind of world that is very conservative, even in a way that I think kind of the conservatism that I grew up in Southwestern Ohio around, you know, people who came to the MAGA movement, people who were Reaganites, are not even really aware of. I mean, this is a conservatism that is sort of longing for some kind of, frankly, strictures, to use that word, for boundaries and for values that a lot of people don't feel like exist for people of our generation anymore. And I mean, it's

interesting. This is talking about abortion. It's really, really fascinating to see how much in my social circles, as I've moved through this world, a lot of people are very, very uncomfortable with abortion these days in a way that I don't think would have been true or even socially acceptable to say 10 years ago, even five years ago. That's something that I've noticed has really changed. I think religion, I mean, you know, I often, you know, again, like people I'm around will often now be like, well, it's Saturday night. Should we go to church tomorrow? And that's honestly not something that I do a lot, but it's something that has inserted itself into my cultural world with a rapidity that I would have found almost baffling a few years ago. Almost, I would have never predicted it, right?

And there's a lot of chatter about how that's fake, how it's an affectation, how it's all just sort of an act. And frankly, I don't believe that. I think it is a response to the kind of, to use an invented word, metricization of the world that we live in. I think it is a response. It is a search for some kind of deeper understanding and interaction with our community and values around us. That is not an endorsement of it. That's not an endorsement. I mean, a lot of the people around here, particularly the critics of, and you will notice this a lot in this world, the critics of the sexual revolution, I find very glib. And I find that they often critique the sexual revolution and the kind of mores and values of this society that we live in now with a kind of ease and looseness that I

don't really personally share. And also that I think is very societally kind of worrisome. What's an example of that? Well, so there's a guy, Indian Bronson, who's very smart, who's on Twitter. People can find him. People should listen to and engage with his work. I'm not saying he's an evil guy. But you listen to him on podcasts saying kind of essentially undo the sexual revolution, undo this, because what has happened is essentially that women now in their 30s, they've slept around a lot and men get to sleep around a lot. And then we supposedly get to choose younger women and marry at our leisure while women are left bereft and alone.

That's an important and fair critique to some degree, but it also doesn't incorporate any of the liberatory aspects of feminism. It doesn't describe any of the things, any of the strictures that were shed during that sexual revolution. And I find that to be a glaring and important omission. That said, do I think that he's doing this in bad faith or because he like hates people? Not necessarily. I think it's an important and kind of wild ferment that people are responding to, in this case, even anonymously. And there are critiques of the sexual revolution that some people probably are going to respond to and find valuable. You don't have to necessarily incorporate those into your life.

You know, something I'm wondering here, because as you're describing this, I'm really thinking, because once again, like I run in similar circles to you. And, you know, I'm in New York City right now. And I think you really capturing your piece is that there's actually a kind of like reactionary new right like there's a scene here and it's it the scene feels very much responsive to i most of the people i know in this you know like very successful people who like you said to this millennial story like did the things they needed to be did the things they needed to be told like you know you know, you talk about, you know, interviewing JD Vance and JD Vance is obviously talking about how there are people who've been left behind who are like, you know, who are now opioid addicts. Like I do not know a single new

right opioid addict. I know a bunch of new right people who were about to go to law school after working in McKinsey for two years, but feel this like deep societal, that's what you're really speaking to. I guess what I'm wondering to actually get to a question, because I'm just trying to think out loud here is what does the left, especially like the new progressive left have to say to these people? Because whenever I talk to people on the left and the Bernie post Bernie left, it's everything's very economically focused. And that's not quite.

So there are people in the New York who are obviously economically populist, but that isn't the center of what Indian Bronson is saying. Indian Bronson isn't saying, and that's why we need 10 weeks of paid sick leave and an increase in immunization. So how does the left think about this? Well, I think there's two things. The first is that I think the progressive left is very uncomfortable with ideas of, let's say community of like the kind of the, the fact that so many people of our age have struggle, have trouble forming families, have trouble getting to a point where they can get to a place with a stable

life, a stable home, a stable set of neighbors, a set, like a kind of world that feels coherent and meaningful. These are things that for various reasons, the progressive left has a lot of difficulty talking about. And I, why, why? Well, that's a good question. I don't think that necessarily everybody on the Bernie side of things did feel that way. But if you notice, I mean, you notice the way that someone like Elizabeth Brunig is constantly attacked on Twitter for reasons that are basically cultural, not because of her views and values. You do notice a kind of aggressive energy on the left that is very skeptical of these kinds of conversations. And I think that a kind of aggressive energy on the left that is very skeptical of these kind

of conversations. And I think that a lot of people get alienated by that. I think that it's hard to stay on the left when it's so much easier to go over to the right and just be welcome, just be welcome and say, hey, cool, we love these conversations, come on over. And I think that that's not a great way of doing politics, to be frank. To go a little bit beyond that, the new right, with its kind of emphasis on re-centralizing executive power, has a real vision of how to do a lot of this stuff. And I'm not saying that it's a plausible vision, but they have an articulation of like, hey, we're going to re-centralize power in the executive branch, and we are going to do big stuff really quick. And that was something that

Bernie offered to some degree. He was saying, we're going to build a huge broad-based coalition that will allow us to move really quick and do big stuff. That got broken. And now I tend to question whether the progressive left has at this point a real articulation of how they're going to acquire and wield power quickly in a way that will allow us to do the stuff that people of our generation are asking them to do. And that I think is really worrisome because it points directly towards the kind of new right critique. What's interesting here to basically wrap up the segment, I'll ask this very obvious question, which is how much everything you're writing about and talking about is just like really, really, really interesting. But a problem I started to notice covering this space, especially during COVID, is so, and this is more of just the like, this is all just happening on Twitter. That's a very obvious excuse.

But it's the conversation of, okay, JD is very aggressive on Twitter. But if you actually go and talk to, let's say, a person who's voting for him, are they voting for him as he wins? Because of the ideas we're talking about here, because he knows Mencius, Moldbug are these different bits, because he says we're going to raise taxes on wealthy people, or because we're going to take to something you're talking about, Let's tax the endowments of higher ed elite universities. Or are they doing it just because of the culture war? And because Donald Trump gave the endorsement. Where do you come at that dilemma, it seems? I think with regard to J.D., somewhat, and I'll say this as a bit of a diss towards him. No, I don't think he's really articulating that stuff quite out in the open. The way that a fair attempt to seize the reins of the Republican. And I also think that if you look at Blake Masters, I mean, I've seen Blake Masters campaigning in private rooms and he's talking about this stuff.

He's literally I mean, he quoted Curtis Yarvin to a room of MAGA donors in front of me. So and I say that again, not with value judgment, not as a pro or con, but just as a kind of message to people that, hey, this stuff is coming and there is going to be a war for kind of control of what it means to be conservative in this country. And a lot of these young guys are ready to fight that war and they're ready to just come out and say it and articulate it and be very, very open about their views. And I think that's going to lead to an interesting and volatile space for right-wing politics going forward. You know, something you said at the start of the piece that comes to mind as I actually wrap with this question is this piece came out in Vanity Fair, right? So this isn't coming out in Jacobin. It's not coming out in like something like a little, it's like the most very prestigious, but like a very like not traditional audience for this type of discourse. Like what was the react? So what was just the

reaction that you got from, let's say like your center left 38 year old, like what was their reaction to these ideas? Well, so what was crazy about this piece and what I try to do in my journalism in general is I try to let people talk for themselves. And what's really crazy about doing that at this moment is that half of the people who read it are like, oh my God, you've exposed a threat to the Republic. This is fascism. Thank you so much. What can we do to stop this? And half of the people are like, wow, this is really cool. These guys get to talk for themselves and they're really interesting and cool. And it's almost the responses that I like and that I care most about are the responses that come in the middle of that.

And actually, I think a lot of 38-year-old center-left people were intrigued, worried, kind of bothered, but also kind of interested in the questions that the new right was posing that they didn't necessarily have political answers for. I think a lot of people, and the thing that the new right was posing that they didn't necessarily have political answers for. I think a lot of people, and the thing that I'm most proud of is actually that a lot of people discovered their first personal critique of liberalism in the pages of Vanity Fair through this. And as a critic of liberalism myself, coming from the left,

that, you know, that was something that I was proud to have done. And, you know, people often talk about ideology as the sort of water that surrounds a fish. And the hardest thing about any kind of political writing is to describe the water to the fish. And this just kind of hit a line where a lot of fish saw the water for the first time. And I try to hope that that's got to be promising because the water that we're swimming in right now feels kind of poison. And just seeing it for what it is might maybe lead to something better.

That was my hope. And I feel like I got some reads that way. So that was cool. Well, look, as a YouTube poster, I could say that definitely, I think, hit the mark. And I think that's a really good way to put say that definitely, I think, hit the mark. And I think that's a really good way to put it. So, James, this has been really helpful. Thank you so much for joining us on Breaking Points.

And we'll definitely have you back at some point to talk about these things, because as you said, this is basically just getting started. Jacob Halbrin, thank you for joining us on Breaking Points. Thank you. Here to speak with you about a recent article you wrote, how the war in Ukraine is reviving the blob. You are the editor of the National Interest. So this is right up your alley in terms of topic areas.

Let's start with a quick definition. What is the blob? It has actually a really interesting story behind its usage in this context. The blob is what Ben Rhodes came up with, who is the national security advisor to Barack Obama, came up as a form of contempt, I think, after the war in Syria and the adverse reaction that there was to Obama's decision not to enforce his red line after Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons in Syria against the rebels and on innocent civilians. So it's the journalists, think tank members, sorry, and politicians who form a kind of consensus, a bipartisan consensus,

that America needs to have a leading role abroad. Now, the blob is a mean term for what used to be called the American establishment. There has been a foreign policy establishment in the United States pretty much since the turn of the century. I mean, the turn of the night into the 20th century. We're already in the 21st century. People really goes into overdrive, made up of both Republicans and Democrats. And the idea, again, is that America takes a leading interventionist role abroad to ensure not only its own security, but that of other nations. And there's always been some degree of resentment, animosity, impatience with what we

now call the blob. What's interesting here, and this gets at what we'll get into in a second, is how you say the word establishment. This is actually why the word blob is better than the establishment because, wait, Ben Rhodes, President Obama, even Joe Biden are identifiable as figures who weren't aligned with the blob on foreign policy. So I think it's just really important to note that. So I think it's surprising then, and this is the way you frame the article, that it's pretty easy to argue that three months into the war in Ukraine, we're a day past Russia's Victory Day parade, which is commemorating victory in World War II.

It seems like the hawkish instinct is back, despite everything that's happened in the past 20 years and despite the withdrawal from Afghanistan. So speak to that part there. Speak to the way that this really seems to have shifted the narrative in D.C. Honestly, I'm not that surprised. These things go in cycles. After the Vietnam War in the 1970s, there were substantial elements in the Democratic

Party that turned against wars abroad. And there was the Vietnam Syndrome. Even during the Reagan administration, Ronald Reagan was very reluctant to send American troops abroad. He conducted proxy wars in the 1980s to help bring down the Soviet Union. It wasn't until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 that America began to embark upon a more unilateralist approach. And that was evident in Bill Clinton's willingness to go into the Balkans and bomb the Serbs. You had then George Herbert Walker Bush after 1989 had invaded Panama.

Things were starting, we were starting to get a little friskier. And then after 9-11, the neoconservatives have a blueprint for reforming the Middle East. It was supposed to end the Vietnam syndrome. Now you have the dominoes falling in America's favor in the Middle East. And you would have democracies in Iran and elsewhere after invading Iraq. However, we know the results. So everything went awry in Iraq. Intervention abroad started to become discredited, particularly after Barack Obama, on the advice of Susan Rice and Samantha Power, went into Libya and toppled Gaddafi. And that just unleashed more chaos because all those weapons in Libya started flowing into Syria

and then Syria went up in flames. So intervention abroad became discredited. And Joe Biden actually reflected that, as I tried to point out in the piece, by pulling out of Afghanistan. And people in Washington went crazy. My personal view was that Biden did the right thing, that no matter what, pulling had promised to do, but didn't. Now, however, the shoe's on the other foot. Vladimir Putin, in a way, is emulating what George W. Bush did in the Middle East. Now he's on the attack going into Ukraine. We are funding the proxy war. The Ukrainians are essentially our proxies. So yes, in Washington, the attitude has shifted, and it's shifted back toward regime change. Because if, as I try to point out in my piece in Politico, if you look at what places like the Atlantic Council or other places in Washington are saying, the mindset is moving back towards the idea that America should be the international leader and that it can use its military power to shift

the correlation of forces in our favor against China, against Russia. You know, it's really interesting the way you set up this history. And it's really important that people understand this because, look, I'll be frank, like you said, I'm a think tank person. I'm decently hawkish. But I think the clear takeaway from the past 20 years is when American power is unconstrained, when it's 2003 and your approach is, I can do basically whatever I want because it doesn't matter if France, Russia, et cetera, opposes the Security Council, we can impose our will, you're going to obviously have decades of overreach. But now, like you mentioned, there's Russia, there's China, there seems that we're operating under much more Cold War-like restraint in terms of U.S. action. So let's say whether you're hawkish or you're not hawkish, how far do you think hawks in the American foreign policy system, how far can they go? So it's not 2003. And even in the 1980s,

there were limits on hawkishness. So like you said, you're going to have a proxy war in Afghanistan, but there's no thought at all that you're going to put U.S. boots on the ground there. How should we think about that dynamic? Very carefully, as I think Joe Biden is. One of the interesting aspects of this, when you ask how far can the hawks go, the hawks are mainly outside the administration. I don't think that Jake Sullivan or others on the National Security Council are jonesing for a direct confrontation with Russia. However, people in the think tank community in Washington, some of whom served in government, I don't know the degree to which they truly believe they poo-pooed the risk of a nuclear war,

which is intellectually not an illegitimate stance. You can say that the risks are low or non-existent. I don't share that view. I think we can push Russia very hard, but I wouldn't try to go for unconditional surrender. The question being, I mean, do you want to promote the collapse of Russia itself, when you back them into a corner, then you do run the risk of them potentially using tactical nuclear weapons, either against the Baltic states or in Ukraine. I don't think we're going to get to that situation. I think in a way, maybe the hawks serve as a useful foil for Biden to allow him to look more moderate. What he's doing right now is pretty aggressive. And Biden has toughened up since the beginning of the crisis. So have the Europeans. The interesting thing is like what you were

talking about just now, is that we are back to this kind of Reaganite proxy war. And it'll be interesting to see, you know, how successful can we be in Ukraine? We probably do have boots on the ground in the sense of CIA forces, you know, in Ukraine. I'm sure there are things going on that we don't know about. So I think the real big question then, and I'm glad that you made clear that the hawks aren't in the administration, because whenever I talk to people who are more dovish than I am, I keep repeating the folks in the actual administration, it's Joe Biden's NSC, right? So like, once again, this is the administration that pulled out of Afghanistan. Folks in the community you're talking about, we're not happy about this, about this

decision. But do you think, to your point is, if we are switching to a more hawkish mindset in Washington, do you think, let's say, after the midterms, there's usually staff resets after that, let's say Joe Biden is reelected, we haven't even talked about Republicans for a second. Let's say Trump comes back, he's, I think, famously kind of wishy-washy on these things. On the one hand, he'll talk rhetorically in a, let's say, more isolationist direction. On the other hand, he'll push Kim Jong-un very aggressively, some would say to the brink of actual conflict. So how should we think of how the more hawkish turn, bipartisanly, as you make clear in the article too, will affect future, let's say, post-midterm and then whoever comes in in 2025?

I think that if the Republicans do well in the midterms and Putin is on his heels in Ukraine, we are going to see a more hawkish foreign policy, particularly towards China and on the issue of Taiwan. You'll continue to see a buildup in Europe of NATO. And the United States will probably be feeling pretty cocky over a win in Ukraine, precisely because it was perceived as a David versus Goliath battle. Now, there are countervailing forces. If J.D. Vance enters the Senate, you'll have an explicitly isolationist senator. And you have others in the Senate that may drift towards that. Now, Josh Hawley is very hawkish on China. But Tom Cotton is more of a traditional national security Republican hawk.

Overall, I think that the hawks are now the dominant voice in Washington, D.C., and that the realists who preached caution are on the back foot and will be probably over the next decade. So two last questions then. One, what is your understanding of Joe Biden in these foreign policy contexts? This is the history that's just really, really interesting. So Joe Biden, when he's vice president, he opposes the surge into Afghanistan. He, I think to his discredit, but history is complicated, is opposed to the bin Laden

raid in the form that it eventually took. And he pulls out of Afghanistan in a way that much of Democratic and Republican, let's say, establishment figures wouldn't have done. Yet, like you said, he's now escalating in Ukraine. How do you just, as a person who analyzes these situations, analyze him? I don't just mean like psychologically, just, I mean, how should we understand him? I think Biden was shaped by the Cold War. We can't forget that.

He is old, as we're told constantly. So he is dedicated to these alliances. He's also dealt with a lot of foreign autocrats over his career. So the way I read him, I think he's tougher than Obama in foreign policy. I also think he's pretty pragmatic. All of these presidents, when we're talking about Reagan, Trump, Biden, they alsoervative, hawk, so forth. In the end, all of our presidents have been sane enough to avoid, to be fearful of the prospect of nuclear war. So I think Biden approached the Ukraine crisis probably overly cautious. They offered Zelensky, you know, they were going to spirit him out of Kiev. He stayed and fought. And now that Ukraine looks like a winner, Biden ramped up pretty quickly to support Ukraine. He toughened up American foreign policy. So I guess you could argue we're getting our sea legs back to an extent.

You know, we're testing, we're probing. Putin's speech yesterday, to me, was the speech of a beaten man. The United States is winning, and it has not won abroad in a long time. Well, Jacob, this has been incredibly helpful. There's a million different places to go, but we'll keep it to this timing. Really appreciate it. And thank you for joining us on Breaking Points. Welcome back to Breaking Points. I'm Ryan Grim, DC Bureau Chief of the Intercept. And as promised, we're here with some partnership content here with my colleague, Ken Klippenstein,

who's going to talk about a big story that he broke this week about the CIA, the CIA director, and Saudi Arabia. So tell people a little bit about what you found. Yeah, so CIA director William Burns, about whom there's been relatively little reporting so far, has been in a whirlwind tour of the Middle East, which included a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which in itself is a kind of concession to the Crown Prince because Burns himself is a former diplomat who's very respected in the region. And even talking to critics of the administration in interviews for this story, people sort of conceded, yes, he's very good at his job. He's very well connected. So a meeting of that sort is kind of like a gift to MBS.

And also a little unusual, right? The CIA director is not a diplomat. Exactly. And when I spoke to folks in both the intelligence community and the national security world for this story, a lot of them were angry about that. They were saying, this is not how you're supposed to do diplomacy. And so the question arose, so then why are they doing it this way? And what I was told is that there are few advantages to using a CIA director to conduct essentially covert foreign policy, covert diplomacy. And one big one is discretion. It means that it's not going to come out. Except for here it is. So let's step back and talk about why this is important. Obviously, one reason it's important is climate change. The other reason it's

important is gas prices. But the geopolitical implications of it are profound because after the butchering and the bone-solving of Jamal Khashoggi, Washington Post journalist, who also was planning, I mentioned this before, on starting to write columns for The Intercept before he was, I don't know if I've told you that before, before he was killed by MBS in a Turkish consulate. After that, finally, Washington turns against Saudi Arabia. But the question of how significant that turn is, is now being answered. You had Joe Biden during the presidential campaign saying that he would not meet with Mohammed bin Salman, who is the crown prince. He's the de facto ruler, but he's not the king.

So he's not the official ruler. And so Biden says, I will talk to the actual king, not to MBS. And he called him a pariah. And we still hear that all the time. And so as a result, MBS has said, fine, you don't want to talk to me? How do you like $4 a gallon at the pump. And so what have been the Biden administration's efforts so far to stick to their, he's a pariah, we're not talking to him, while also trying to get gas prices down? What do they do up to Burns? Because Burns feels like almost a Hail Mary attempt. I think that's exactly what it is. And from what I'm told at the meeting, they explicitly discussed oil prices and requests to increase them, not just because of the soaring inflation rate, which that contributes to in the United States, but this sort of underlies all of international trade and because

oil- Everything costs, everything needs energy. Exactly. You drive up the price of energy, you drive up the price of everything. Yeah. Right. And this is becoming a particularly acute issue for the Democrats as we move into midterms. There's any amount of political science research that suggests that just consumer prices, gas

prices, oil prices, coming into an election has a very significant effect on voter behavior. So I think that's exactly what that was, a Hail Mary of sorts. And so they discussed it. My understanding is that there wasn't an agreement on that. Was not an agreement. Yes, on the oil production increase. But this is also becoming a geopolitically important topic because this is a bonanza of profits for Russia

as they invade Ukraine and just gives them so much more operating space to be able to do things that they wouldn't have the resources to do otherwise. And so I think that's why we're seeing even more urgency than there has been in the past to try to change that. But again, it seems like they haven't come into any sort of agreement about it. And you've written about how twice in the past, MBS has actually helped out an American president in an election year.

Talk about that. Yeah, I noticed whenever I do these stories, I always have these sort of glib responses. They're like, oh, the president can't control oil prices, that kind of thing. It's like, well, he did to some extent in the past. So in the case of Donald Trump, he influenced oil production in both directions during the coronavirus pandemic to protect domestic shale production, which was cratering in terms of the revenue that they were developing. He asked MBS to decrease production. MBS didn't want to initially, and then he threatened. He said, well, I'm going to pull the military out, and good luck defending yourself against the Iranians and against all these other regional adversaries. Lo and behold, MBS suddenly sees

the light and says, OK, yeah, that's great. We can decrease production. That's fine. He did that. And then prior to that, both times being in election seasons in 2020 and then in 2018, during the midterm elections, he asked him to increase oil production. MBS agreed to do so. And it's only now that he's choosing to do so in response to the president's requests. So you also reported that Burns brought up these sensitive negotiations between Saudi Arabia and China over ICBMs. So what have we known about that and what did you learn about this? So this is another angle to the U.Riyadh relationship that has an intense interest to Washington, that being MBS repeatedly making very public overtures to both the Russians

in the middle of this invasion of Ukraine and also the Chinese. They floated that maybe we'll sell oil in Yuan, which China has been asking for for a long time. A profound change. I mean, that would just totally undercut the whole system of economic dominance that the us has set up my own unlikely i think to happen because i agree china has capital controls right and so you would then be taking money that china then still completely controls and so it it's just not as useful to you yeah have you on as it is to have dollars.

So you'd be taking a massive hit. So China would have to do a lot in order to make it worth your while. However, maybe that lot means an ICBM. Right. So the economic component has been well-known and pretty well-reported. What's less well-known is the Chinese to Saudi military relationship, which they are using Chinese scientists. There's a program going on where they try to enrich uranium for the Saudi nuclear program. And now my understanding from several intelligence sources is that they are

trying to import completed ballistic missiles from China. And this is causing a lot of irritation in both the CIA and the State Department Because the relationship traditionally has been you know us provides military assistance and sales not one of these geopolitical adversaries and so a lot of people on the progressive left have said like Well, hey Why do you want them to pump more oil? Pumping more oil is just going to burn the planet that much faster. Why are you so worked up about these negotiations between the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia over oil production? Shouldn't we be glad that Mohammed

bin Salman is becoming a Green New Deal guy? What's your response to that? Well, I'm of two minds, because I think that keeping oil prices high does incentivize alternative energy and a shift towards that. But at the same time, the system that we have, the infrastructure that we have in place, depends on that oil as a commodity. And you can't just completely extricate yourself

from it without having set up the infrastructure for a new oil system, which we just don't have. So the effect, unfortunately, if this persists in the way that it has been, I think is going to be a recession. So I'm sort of of two minds about the question. Right. And not to put you on too much of a spot, because I know you're not an opinion journalist. You go out and get the facts, and the world can do what they want with the facts. But it is the case

that, like you said, we don't have the structure yet. That's why they're proposing a Green New Deal. They haven't even written the text of what a Green New Deal would look like, let alone even get the credits, the different energy credits through because of Manchin so far. We'll see where that goes. And so if you don't have it, all you're doing is creating suffering around the world. Now, yes, it's true that the higher gas prices go, the more people use less then try to move off of fossil fuels. But the studies also show that if people think that it's going to be transitory and people can identify like, oh, this is why this particular thing is happening, it's not like they're going to instantly go out

and buy a Tesla. And most people can't instantly go out and buy a Tesla. And so all you end up doing is empowering, ironically, kind of the allies of the fossil fuel industry. Because then they say, oh, look, gas is $4 a gallon under Democrats. Got to put us in. And we're going to drill more. We're going to do all these other things that are going to get prices down. That's clearly the messaging on the part of the oil industry is, hey, look, we didn't frack enough, and that's why we have these problems, rather than this entire suite of geopolitical problems. Like, we need more subsidies. Exactly, yeah.

Yeah. And so, what does it say that Blinken and the State Department were kind of cut out of this trip to Riyadh? And do we know anything more about the kind of long-term goals of this type of diplomacy? Because it's coming on the back end of the Abraham Accords, which were described as a peace deal. But as we know, they did not involve the Palestinians. People are like, wow, Jared Kushner solved the Mideast problem. Yeah, he solved it by pretending that the Palestinians don't exist and by getting kind of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and some others to also say, okay, fine, the Palestinians don't exist. Palestinians actually, it turns out, do still exist. Shireen Akhle, you know, killed by what appears to be by Israeli forces this week during a raid in Jenin.

And so the Abraham Accords, I think incorrectly described as a peace deal, more accurately described as basically a business deal layered over with geopolitics. And the business deal is, all right, these countries are going to recognize and normalize relations with Israel. Israel is going to share its surveillance technology. They have some of the most sophisticated kind of cyber hacking and other surveillance technology. Which is of great interest to authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia that really don't want any sort of, not even democracy, just like dissent in general. that Israeli technology perhaps rooted through the UAE was central to hacking Jamal Khashoggi's phone, the phone of Jamal Khashoggi's fiance. People all over the world, too.

Right. I mean, it's out of control. Right. Exactly. So those are the Abraham Accords. Yeah. And so then it's not as if the Biden administration has just abandoned the Abraham Accords. That's kind of the foundation of where we're going forward now from here, which is this kind of alliance between the

UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. And so how does the CIA director's trip to Saudi Arabia kind of fit into what's next for this kind of regional relationship? Right. So to answer your first question, what does it say about Blinken and the State Department? It shows that Biden was not serious when he was campaigning on, I think he said, empowering diplomacy in a way that the Trump administration, rightly in his criticism, did not do and needed to do. It shows that, I mean, it's a zero-sum thing. When you're empowering the CIA, as one intelligence official said to me, CIA is going to look for the CIA. Maybe they'll try to help you on some issues, but they have their own set of interests that are just fundamentally different than what the State

Department's and what diplomats are. And I think that the second thing that it shows is a deteriorating relationship between top Biden administration officials and MBS. So we have a report in the Wall Street Journal several months ago that described Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, bringing up Khashoggi in a meeting with MBS and MBS screaming at him and saying, you can forget about oil production. And my understanding is that that's more or less the nature of the relationship between him and Blinken and between other top Biden administration officials. For whatever reason, that enmity didn't exist between the CIA director and him. And my understanding is that that's a big part of the reason they tapped

him to do this. But as you point out, this is regional in nature. There have been other reports of Burns handling diplomacy. There was just a report yesterday, I think, that he traveled to Brazil to meet with Bolsonaro. And my sources tell me that in addition to meeting with MBS, he also met with the crown prince of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed. He also went to Doha and Qatar. He went to Oman. And if I was to care, I mean, the meetings differ in key respects.

But the common thread here is kind of like what you were getting at before, which is pushing them towards some kind of a regional agreement that I think looks similar in a lot of respects to the Abraham Accords. Right. And how does the Iran deal kind of fit into all of this? Because we keep seeing that we're 95% of the way towards an Iran deal could be struck any moment, could also just fall apart. This is the nuclear deal that Obama struck with Iran over the objections of Israel, UAE, and Saudi Arabia that then Trump walked out on, not because he opposed the deal at all, but because it was Obama's. He was just like, what did Obama do? I'm going to try to rip it out, root and branch. And so he walks out of that. Now we're walking back into it, awkwardly so, because Russia is one of the countries that is on our side of the

negotiations with Iran. Because everybody, Europe, Russia, us, we all have the same interest in preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And so how does the progress of that redeal play into this kind of regional deal that you're writing? What's interesting about these Gulf Arab states, if you look at the messaging around the reinstatement of the JCPOA, the Iran deal, it's a lot less hostile than it was last time around. And I think the reason for that is a recognition of that there needs to be some kind of regional stability. So if you talk to folks close to the governments in those regions, what they'll tell you is that Iran's drone swarm attack on a Saudi oil facility, I think in 2019, was a huge sea change in the region's understanding. It was almost like the defeat of the Spanish Armada because it was his recognition of whoa

Not only can they blow up our economy They can blow up the world economy by spending very little money with these You know drone systems to be able to do that and I think after that there's a lot more recognition of like, okay Maybe the JCBO a wasn't so maybe the Iran deal wasn't right after all. Yeah, Abu Dhabi to you had Yes, some probably Iranian supplied Houthi drones that finally were able to get into UAE airspace. And I think three or four civilians were killed eventually through some drone strikes just because they're not the most sophisticated drones. Well, the U.S. has extremely sophisticated drone strikes, and 90% of the people that we kill are civilians.

So you can imagine that Houthi drone strike on Abu Dhabi, which isn't really a military target, what they're doing, but nor are the UAE or Saudi Arabia restricting themselves to military targets. They've been using famine and indiscriminate bombing and torture as a mechanism of their war effort. So I think you're right that the attacks on the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, there was an attack right before the Formula One race in Saudi Arabia. And you had all of these F1 drivers and owners being like, wait a minute. Or in the UAE, you look at the effect, the economy, the stock market there plummeted after that.

Because there was this fiction of that, we don't have to worry about anything because Iran hasn't really done anything in the past. Well, it turns out they haven't done anything in the past because they chose not to. It doesn't mean that they can't. Right. It would be as if the U.S. were kind of waging a little guerrilla war on Canada for five, six years and assuring everybody that this is just a thing that we're doing. Don't worry. You can still come to the World Series. And all of a sudden, there's a drone strike in Boston and people are killed or in Manhattan, you could see how, despite the fact that that's a small number of deaths compared to the hundreds of thousands that have died in Yemen, because it shatters this myth that they're immune from the violence that they're perpetrating in Yemen, that right, all of a sudden people are like, well, you know what? I think we're actually going to have the conferences that we were planning for there, we're going to have that in Barcelona.

Yeah. Because there's a lot of places that we can have a conference. I think there's a lot of incentive to reinstate Iran. And you're seeing other indications of that being overtures to Venezuela, which you couldn't imagine a few years ago. This shows how desperate they are to not just move away from Saudi UAE oil, which has become fraught for the reasons I've described, but to try to have some other oil supply that you can rely on to kind of mitigate the effects of angry MBS or angry MBZ. And so to me, it's sort of surprising that they haven't reinstated the Iran deal at this

point. But I think if you talk to people close to the negotiations, they seem sort of, I don't know, I wouldn't say confident that it's not going to happen. But they're by no means convinced that it will come to pass. It's still very much in the air. Right. Right. So in conclusion, things that are good, peace, clean energy. Things that are bad, oil, war.

War is great for business until it's not. And I think the region is finding out the hard way when it gets to be not. Great reporting. Thanks so much for coming by on Breaking Points and thanks to Crystal and Sagar for having us here. What we're going to try to do is when we have big stories, interesting stories that we think you guys are going to be interested in. We'll pop by here and tell you about them. Thanks, Ken. Good to be with you. Hey, I'm Matt Stoller, author of Monopoly-focused newsletter Big and an antitrust policy analyst.

I have a great segment for you today on this big breakdown. It's about Wall Street, and it's a story you probably haven't heard about. Now, you're going to notice a theme in these segments, which is that I think that the basic problem with the American economy, actually with American society in general, is that most of our institutions are dedicated to cheating people. And this story is right on point. Okay, so you remember the Wells Fargo fake account scandal in 2016? The giant bank, it set unrealistic sales goals for its employees to acquire customers. So their employees just lied and started opening up fake accounts for people who didn't want them. It led to fees. It irritated millions of customers. It was a huge deal when it was uncovered.

There were congressional hearings, widespread media coverage, and regulatory crackdowns. Two million fake accounts secretly created. 5,300 employees fired. Wells Fargo fined $185 million. So that was just kind of one of many reports on it at the time. I want to bring you back to the halcyon days of 2016 so you can see what it was like. But okay, so what happened? So the CEO of Wells Fargo resigned during this scandal. A few years later, another Wells Fargo CEO resigned over the same scandal. The bank has paid around $3 billion in total fines and settlements. The whole thing was so embarrassing that the Federal Reserve, which is not known for being tough on banks, placed a quote unquote growth cap on Wells Fargo, saying that it's not allowed to hold more than $1.95 trillion in assets. Now, believe it or not, that's actually a penalty, and the bankers were extremely unhappy

about it. The Fed impacted their bonuses and all the rest of it, and the Fed was actually being somewhat stern. Okay, now you might think that would be that. Okay, problem solved. But one of the little-noticed consequences of that scandal is that the powerful and highly secretive bank regulator, it's called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, formed during the Civil War, it was then run by a man named Tom Curry, and he ordered an industry-wide review of bank account openings. That review ended in 2017, and it found

that, surprise, surprise, it wasn't just Wells Fargo. Other banks had aggressive sales cultures and were doing these kinds of things too. But you probably haven't heard this. Why not? Well, Donald Trump got elected, and he appointed a man named Keith Nureka, here's what this guy looks like, to run the powerful bank regulator, the OCC, Office of Comptroller of the Currency. It's the one that I mentioned before. It's an important regulator, and they hide in the shadows, so I want to make sure that you know who they are so that they feel some accountability. Okay, Nureka did not make the findings public. And last week, the Capital Forum, which is an influential newsletter that focuses on fraud and mergers, reported that one of the banks that had a similar scandal as

Wells Fargo is TD Bank. Employees at TD Bank were opening up accounts that customers didn't want in order to hit overly aggressive sales targets, particularly for overdraft protection, but for other things too. Now, this is big money, or at least it was big money for TD Bank. So according to the FDIC, which is another bank regulator, in one quarter in 2016, 35% of TD Bank's non-interest income came from these kinds of consumer charges. And that is by far the highest percentage among big banks. This was a driver of profits and bonuses for TD Bank and its executives.

Okay, so according to the Capital Forum, TD Bank established, quote, high-pressure incentive programs that encouraged sales above all else. It was a point system. If you get someone to open an account or cross-sell them other products like overdraft protections, you get points. But it wasn't like you open an account and there we go, that's fine. That account only had to be open for 90 days. So if somebody closed that account, right, and then opened a new one, you got more points. Points led to bonuses. And if you didn't get enough points, sometimes you got fired. Not surprisingly, employees would do things like mislead customers about the costs and benefits of overdraft protection. Or if

you reported a missing debit card or a debit card that didn't work, bank employees would encourage you to close the account and open a new one instead of just replacing the missing card. Call center workers who fielded customer complaints also had to sell services, and they would sometimes finish paperwork for a new account or service, even if a customer didn't give consent. Sometimes they just opened up a new account, even if the person who called didn't want it and declined. You want to be ethical, said one employee, but you have to reach your goals. Managers have the same pressure. They don't ask question if you're reaching your goal. Okay, and of course, the bank made it incredibly easy to open new accounts. Easier, in fact, than if you had reaching your goal. Okay, and of course, the bank made it incredibly easy

to open new accounts. Easier, in fact, than if you had an account and you were cashing a check. So this scandal has all the hallmarks of what Wells Fargo was caught doing. I mean, it's a little bit different, but it's basically similar. It's basically the same thing.

So why are we only now finding about this at this point in 2022, even though regulators knew about it in 2017. Well, Narenka chose not to make TD Bank's problems public. He didn't even find the bank. Instead, he issued a private reprimand known as a matter requiring attention, asking TD Bank, asking TD Bank to make sure it wasn't cheating customers. Now, to call this a corrupt parking ticket would be to insult corrupt parking tickets. And just to give you a little bit of a sense, the OCC considers banks their clients, right, even though they're the bank regulator.

So in 2020, and this is not the first time that TD Bank has been caught for something like this. In 2020, in a separate scandal, TD Bank paid $120 million to settle charges of cheating customers over overdraft protection, the same product line. So there are so many outrageous things about this scandal. For instance, at this very moment, TD Bank is actually trying to get bigger. They're trying to buy First Horizon, a $90 billion bank headquartered in Tennessee, and spread across the Southeast. That's right, TD Bank wants to become more powerful and control more customers. But the worst part is, TD Bank, according to the Capital Forum, is still pushing customers into products they don't need. That's right, the bad incentives are still apparently in place. It also looks like this scandal isn't isolated to TD Bank. In 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

and this is under Trump, right, sued Fifth Third Bank for engaging in this same activity. Right. So if it happened under Trump and Trump, Trump did some things that were good, some things that were bad, but he did not like consumer protection. So if you got sued in 2020 under Trump, that was really bad. Now, of course, TD Bank denied all of it. As most banks, they are wary of being the next Wells Fargo. They don't want to apologize. They don't want to admit fault. They just deny, deny, deny until they're under oath. But what happened to Noreko, who was the bank regulator who covered all this up? Well, he returned to his law firm, Simpson, Thatcher, and Bartlett, which is kind of a comically named law firm that, I mean, you could imagine all the evil things that that law firm probably did if it was in the 19th century.

Well, let's look at his work highlights on his firm's website. Okay, so we've highlighted that. Yes, he is bragging that he helped TD Bank, which he regulated, do a major merger deal with Charles Schwab. And his law firm actually represents TD Bank in its attempted acquisition of First Horizon. But with this scandal in the open, there could be a bit of trouble for TD Bank. At the very least, TD Bank will probably have some trouble getting its merger approved by the Federal Reserve and the OCC. Now, the OCC is run by a cautious bureaucrat named Michael Hsu, who can be scared into pressure by public scrutiny. I don't like Hsu. I don't think much of him, and we shouldn't expect that much, but he is kind of a coward. So if this gets exposed, he probably will do something. But more importantly, I expect that other regulators, the fierce head of the Consumer

Financial Protection Bureau under Biden, this guy named Rohit Chopra, he might step in. And members of Congress could get interested in the scandal as well. Now, I don't like getting partisan, and I'm not going to get partisan most of the time in these segments. But in this case, the scandal really does belong to the Republican Party for two reasons. Now, okay, first, I am no fan of how Obama handled the banks, to say the least. I worked in Congress during the crisis. It was a disaster. I am on record on this. You can, if you follow my work, it is, was really, really bad. But it was Obama's comptroller of the currency who ordered the investigation of fake accounts across the

industry. And it was also Trump's office of the Comptroller of the Currency who covered it up. Also, Biden was trying to put a really tough bank regulator at the OCC. This is one of the good things he was trying to do. Her name is Saliha Omarova, but she was blocked by Republicans in the Senate at the behest of the banking industry. Of course, there were a couple of Democrats that participated in that, but it was largely the Republican Party that blocked her. Now, I'm sympathetic to the notion that conservatives are rethinking their views of corporate power. I love a lot of the antitrust stuff. I like some of the things that they're trying to do in other areas. But so far, they still do whatever the banking industry asks them to do when it really matters. Still, regardless of partisanship, there is a broader problem here.

The fact that these kinds of annoying, deceptive practices are semi-routine across the banking industry, or at least still happening years after we saw a huge scandal with Wells Fargo, and the fact that regulators knew for years that TD Bank was doing this really speaks to the erosion of the rule of law in America since the financial crisis of 2008, to the powerful laws really are just suggestions. So we can see lots of scandals. We see lots of problems right now, everything from a baby formula shortages to a crypto crash. But all of them come down to the same thing, which is that the American economy, American society, is based on

the idea that most of our institutions are dedicated to cheating people. And that is no way to run a democracy. Thanks for watching this big breakdown on the Breaking Points channel. If you'd like to know more about big business and how our economy really works, you can sign up below for my market power focus newsletter, Big. It's in the description. It's really good. I highly recommend it. Have a good one. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. With the BIN News This Hour podcast. Updated hourly to bring you the latest stories shaping the black community.

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