Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Mini Show #41: Online Censorship, Gillum Indictment, TikTok, Social Security, Middle East Policy, & More!

Episode Date: June 25, 2022

Krystal, Saagar, and friends talk about YouTube censorship, divides within the GOP, social security, Andrew Gillum indictment, John Mearsheimer's prophetic comments, Saudi golf league, Middle East peace agreement, TikTok, Kamala Harris, & More!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Marshall Kosloff: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3O3P7AsOC17INXR5L2APHQKyle Kulinski: https://www.youtube.com/c/SecularTalkThe Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2022/06/22/abraham-accords-israel-saudi-arabia-biden/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making it impossible to function as a society and to know what is true and what is false. The good news is that they're failing and they know it. That is why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier, and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us

out. New evidence of the complete insanity of some of the YouTube censorship policies. This one even pissed liberals off. It should. This was like a full political spectrum situation here. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. YouTube deleted a January 6th committee video because it included Trump's false election claims. And by the way, this wasn't one of those where, like, once they were called out, they're like,

oh, our bad, sorry, we'll put it, no, no, no. They actually stuck by it. So they say, the House Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol has fallen afoul of YouTube's misinformation rules because its clip from the hearings included footage of Donald Trump speaking on Fox Business. The video site deleted the file uploaded by the panel on Tuesday that showed testimony from former Attorney General William Barr because it also included the former

president's election lies. So when they reached out to YouTube, the statement from YouTube's spokesperson said, quote, our election integrity policy prohibits content advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches change the outcome in the 2020 election. If it does not So, I hope everyone, everyone can see how dangerous and insane some of these policies ultimately are. That in the committee literally investigating, exposing how ridiculous these lies were, that they include in there Donald Trump saying his piece on whatever, that in and of itself is enough to take down this video. It's the same thing that happened to over on Rising, remember? Same thing happened to them. I have made this point to them ad nauseum.

We are in the news business. People who are in the news say crazy and stupid shit sometimes. You cover that. You say, do you want me to be the describer of events, or is it easier if I just show it to you, and then we talk about it? Right. What's easier? What's better for you as both a product, and also, I've made this point to them as well, which is you're actually making it so that cable news, which doesn't rely on YouTube and doesn't have the same censorship regime, can give their viewers a superior experience on their platform versus us on the YouTube platform. It doesn't make any sense. Everybody who thinks the election was stolen, or anybody even who might be swayed by that, it's happened, folks. A video on YouTube of Trump saying it is not going to do anything. If anything, the best way to debunk something,

to talk about something, is to show it to you firsthand and be like, this is exactly what Trump says. Here's what's wrong, X, Y, and Z. You're not changing anybody's minds. You're instituting an arbitrary and idiotic censorship regime, which will only come back to hurt not just independent creators, but everybody who is trying to further public discussion. So I think it's completely ludicrous.

That's not the only video they've taken down. They took that in a New York Post video. They took out videos of people who were being interviewed on January 6th. You don't think that that's not valuable? Okay they've taken down. They took that in a New York Post video. They took out videos of people who were being interviewed on January 6th. You don't think that that's not valuable? Okay, who are these people? Who are you? What motivated them?

What did they think they were doing? All that. What do you actually think, dude? Yeah, that's right, I forgot about that. What's going on? I mean, why? It makes no sense. There are people on YouTube

doing all kinds of stupid shit. Once again, fine, whatever. I mean, I just don't understand how this could be instituted on a political basis and how they can justify taking down, again, a US government produced video. Like it's not up to them to decide what's true, what's not, and all of this.

It just shows how far out of step that they've actually gotten. Well, and they're also not honest about applying these standards evenly. There's actually a new piece at Jacobin, has a few quotes from yours truly, about YouTube censorship and specifically how it has come after the left to show that this truly isn't across the spectrum or at least a sort of left-right dissident thing. Go ahead and put this Jacobin tear sheet up. This is by Bronco Marsetic, who, by the way, we're having on Crystal Cow and Friends this week. The headline here is YouTube censorship is a threat to the left. He gives a number of really significant

examples here, but one of them is Jordan Cheriton, who, you know, status quo, one of our partners here at Breaking Points. They were there on the ground at the January 6th riots and had interviews with Trump supporters, same thing, like, you know, pushing back on them even about their claims and all of that. And so ultimately YouTube censors a lot of their content from that day. But what really made it egregious is because they were there on the ground and they got this incredible footage, they licensed it to some mainstream news outlets. Those mainstream news outlets, they were allowed to keep the footage on their channel. It was just Jordan, the independent creator, who actually originated it. That's terrible.

Totally, totally terrible. And the other thing that I think is really important to keep in mind, and Ryan Grimm talks about this as well, is that, like, you know, instances like this removal of the January 6th thing, it actually in some ways is good for YouTube posturing towards the liberal audience of, like, we're taking misinformation seriously and we're being responsible and we're doing it across the board. When a lot of the real action in terms of what gets seen and what doesn't get seen is at the algorithm level. And that's what we experience more than anything. I mean, seeing the difference between the way our videos are treated here now that we're independent

versus when we were at the Hill, we still get great views. We're still really grateful for you guys and we still have plenty of audience. But the videos that would go mega viral, million views, two million views or whatever, that just doesn't happen anymore. And there's zero doubt that the decisions that are being made at the algorithmic level, there's a lot going on there. And then the other piece of it is what they do feed and what

will get clicks all day long is like total conspiracy theory. Like anytime you're playing with that stuff, you know, it's going to go, they go mega viral. I mean, you see people who lean into that as a business model. So they get to posture as like, oh, we're taking this information seriously while profiting off of pushing some of the most insane and dishonest conspiracy theories through their algorithmic choices. Yeah. What bothers me is just the double standard. And then also, you are not in the news business. It is not your job to decide what is true or not. It's up to people.

And specifically, you should trust YouTube creators and your audience to not just be like, I watched a clip of Donald Trump saying the election was stolen, thus I believe it. That's not how people work. That's not how information gets spread around. And look, the fact that they can take down a government video and there's not how people work. That's not how information gets spread around. And look, you know, the fact that they can take down a government video and there's not actually even real outcry around this, I think it's totally nuts. It's like during COVID when they would take out down testimony by legitimate doctors. Now it's extending to January. The election is going to be a nightmare. How the hell are we supposed to do our jobs? Trump is probably going

to run for president. What are we supposed to, are you never going to show you a Trump speech? You're going to take down every Trump speech. What are we supposed to do? jobs? Trump is probably going to run for president. What are we supposed to, are you never going to show your Trump speech? You're going to take down every Trump speech. What are we supposed to do? Right. You know, it's like, well, look, luckily that's where we have a podcast. That's why there's a lot of other different venues that you can watch this stuff. Cause I'm, I, we can't do our jobs properly. Otherwise, you know, we can't be self-censoring to give our audience a subpar product. I'm not going to do it. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Some interesting battle lines being drawn in the culture war. So the Texas GOP state convention happened over the weekend. Now at that convention that happened, the gay Republican group, the log cabin Republicans, applied in order to set up a booth in Fort Worth. Now this is the log cabin Republicans of Fort Worth who wanted to set up this booth.

Now, the booth permits are directly controlled by the Texas Republican Party leadership. They decided not to allow the Texas log cabin Republicans in order to have this booth. Now, this happened at the same time that the state GOP declined to remove a platform, a piece of their platform that called homosexuality an abomination, and pressure from the religious right within the Texas GOP. Now, though, it's actually becoming a national issue amongst the Trump campaign and for Republicans. So let's put this up there on the screen, because here you have the direct quote from Donald Trump Jr., and this was actually given directly to Breitbart, where Trump Jr. decries this, saying, quote, the Texas GOP should focus its energy on fighting back

against the radical Democrats and weak rhinos instead of canceling a group of gay conservatives who are standing with us in the breach. So obviously Trump himself is not weighing in, but Trump Jr., I think it's highly unusual that he would issue an endorsement or a statement without the approval of Trump. People forget this. Donald Trump was actually the first president ever elected in order to endorse gay marriage whenever he was sworn into the Oval Office, not really something that appears in the battle lines. But the reason I thought this was interesting and worth covering is it kind of shows the barstool split that I've talked about in the past, which is that you have the evangelical right, which continues to be opposed to Obergefell

and to gay marriage. But a majority of Republicans now actually do support the Obergefell decision. And obviously the Trump campaign, Trump actually held up an LGBTQ flag and was like LGBT squared for Trump or whatever. In 2016, he always called himself like the most pro-gay president of his lifetime. So anyway, I thought it was interesting that this is happening. Because Texas GOP obviously is still going to be probably the state along with like Alabama, Mississippi, and others with big Southern Baptist populations to be most influenced by the evangelical right. But this is kind of like a schism that's happening because, I mean, the Trump family knows. They're from New York, okay? They're like New York liberals. Like, they are not culture warriors in that sense. And so this is going to be like a battle line. I'm curious to see where Ron DeSantis, if he's asked about this. I have no idea where you would

fall. That is interesting. I mean, it does kind of show you because there's no doubt that reaction against the LGBTQ community has become very animating among the – I mean, it's always animating on the evangelical base but also among the, like, hard right fringe. So, like, you saw those patriot front people showing up at a pride event, getting arrested ultimately. There have been other stories about people showing up at like, you know, gay bars and stuff like that. Obviously, that's been codified in Florida and other places through the so-called don't say gay law, which is meant to be, you know, it's very vague. And there's a lot of emphasis on, oh, no, we're not talking about gay people. We're talking about transgender people. That's our concern over here. But clearly there's been a big spillover effect that has made this a very animating issue for a significant part of the party.

And so I think the party Donald Trump ran in in 2016 where he could say, like, you know, have the gay flag and run on gay marriage and all that stuff, I think that party is very different now. I think it's much harder to, you know, kind of lean into those issues than it was now because you've had the return of all this, like, this groomer discourse, which was always used to make gay people, you know, seem like they were deviant and like they were criminals and like they were preying on children. Bringing that back in has made this, reanimated this issue and made it a real, you know, schism, I think, in the country and within the Republican Party. See, I don't think so. I think this is about declaring peace on gay marriage and then putting the front line on transgender discourse, drag school, drag whatever in school, specifically gender transition for kids who are like below the age of 14. And I think bifurcating, frankly, is smart, you know, from a popularity perspective and is a legitimate unresolved, you know, issue in American society.

Like we don't have norms or even language really to discuss. We're like, well, like, when is it okay to like plug for kids full of hormones? Like should doctors get involved? The American Medical Association is like completely divided. And so I think they're falling on the course of the obviously much more i mean don't so-called don't say gay is like dramatically popular in the state of florida and i mean even if you look at texas and some of the moves that they're making like the people of texas are very much behind some of these new rules and i mean i even saw the new york times which is this is how i always know the center left is grappling with something when they're like yeah doctors have a

lot of questions about transition between the age of like below the age of 14. Well, what they're, what they dig into is the debate within the community of people who care for transgender people over how long the process should be before, um, young people like pre-pubescent are put on puberty blockers. So that's, which is irreversible. It's not the, that's not true. Puberty blockers, you can stop taking and then you go through puberty. They've been used, you're talking about hormones. Yes.

Puberty blockers have been used for a long time in girls who have, I think they call it precocious puberty where they have the onset of like menstruation, things like that, very early. And so they've been used for a long time in girls who have that issue. And then once you stop taking the puberty blockers, it basically buys you some time to try to figure out what's going on. Or if you're in that instance, then you go through puberty at a more normal age. Hormones is a different story. Of course,

surgery is another story as well. And with puberty blockers, the part that's challenging is there isn't a lot of research about potential health impacts. So, for example, there are questions about whether it can impact your fertility. There's questions about whether it impacts your bone density. And so, the debate within the community of people who care for transgender people is about, okay, how long, what does that process look like before we say, okay, we feel confident that this is the right move for you. And we feel like this is, you know, a true expression of who you are and your identity and all. So that's where the debate lies. And I do think it's important to have those debates and, you know, there are

transgender people and people who care for transgender people on both sides of those debates. So anyway, that's what's going on there. But you can see the way that this has been used in the Republican Party with massive spillover effects where it's not just about like a question of, okay, do we do a one-year evaluation or do we do a two-year evaluation? It's really a pushback over the entire idea of having people receive gender-affirming care. So in Texas, you have parents who are being criminalized for supporting their kids transitioning. You also have attempts to strip Medicaid funding from receiving gender-affirming care. And we know that that care helps to prevent depression, suicidal ideation, and ultimately suicide. So that's within the transgender

community. And then I just think it's undeniable that this doesn't just stay, however you feel about transgender people, this doesn't just stay there when you have people showing up at pride events and you have this groomer discourse coming back in, which has long been used to stigmatize everybody who is queer. So that's why you have the Texas GOP saying, hey, we can't have gay Republicans here at this. I mean, that's a sign that the party has regressed on those issues. I don't know if it's regressed. I think it's just staying put. I mean, in the Texas I grew up- They're being louder. They're being louder about it. I guess that's what I would say. It was probably always there. You're right. Pretty loud in the 90s. But

I think that the new front specifically, and I was talking about hormones there, thank you for correcting me, not puberty blockers. The issue that I think a lot of parents see, and this comes to the groomer discourse, is when you do have the Michigan attorney general saying we need drag in every school, which is insane. And you do see a general attempt at normalization of a lot of this discourse at the youngest levels of like two to three-year-olds all the way up until kindergartens. That's where, and look, it is undeniable that you see a massive increase specifically amongst people who are mentally challenged or certified autistic, where you see a socialization of transgender ideology and gender ideology that you previously saw. I'm drawing on the work of

Abigail Schreier, which you previously saw with anorexia and other social contagions of the 1990s. So then it comes down to, are you going to apply irreversible hormones and surgery to what could be a social contagion? And for all the stories of so-called gender-affirming care, which leads to lessening of depression and more, you also see post-operative depression amongst the detransition community, which is very large, actually, of people who kill themselves. Very small percentage. Well, this is all small in general, right? So we're talking about many new populations. That's true. We're talking about edge cases here. And so the most comprehensive study of young people who identified as trans and went forward with some steps, whether it's puberty blockers or others, was out of those 500, I think there were eight, who ultimately decided that they wanted to go in a different direction.

So you're talking about comparatively a much smaller community. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't make sure that there's a process in place so that people don't end up with regrets. And I think it also is legitimate to say we're talking about a somewhat different community now because obviously the number of people identifying as transgender has gone up. Now, I think that has a lot to do with the fact that it's much more acceptable that the language very much exists. But I think there are also questions being even within the community over whether there are people who, you know, they're young, they're trying to figure themselves out, and they see, you know, videos online and think that this might be their identity when ultimately it ends up not being. So there's a lot complicated going on here. Yeah, definitely. Fun culture war. It's the future.

All right, everybody, time now for our weekly partnership segment with The Lever. And joining us now from The Lever is the one and only Matthew Cunningham Cook. Great to see you, sir. Thanks so much for having me on, Crystal. Yeah, our pleasure. So more great reporting that has not been picked up anywhere else, to my knowledge. Let's take a look at this tear sheet. You say that Biden has tapped an anti-social security ideologue to oversee the program. Biden nominated Andrew Bix, a think tank denizen with a history of slamming social security to oversee government retirement benefits for 66 million Americans. What do we need to know?

Yeah, I mean, this is so it's for a Republican seat. So I think that's that's worth clarifying. So this is a joint thing dozens and dozens of his nominees. and appoint somebody who really has a history of really aggressive anti-social security statements. So he worked on Bush's privatization plan by which social security ends up being turned into a big 401k plan. He has routinely endorsed the idea of benefit cuts. He is vehemently against social security expansion. And on top of all of that has led efforts to attack defined benefit pensions in the public sector, especially in Puerto Rico, where he's on the financial control board there. And that board has mandated really aggressive cuts to public

services across the board and to pensions for public employees. So really, Biggs fundamentally is somebody who does not believe that there is a retirement crisis. He thinks that only 23 percent of Americans having less than 75 percent of their final income in retirement, oh, that's not a problem. Never mind. That's millions and millions and millions of people. So he really has extreme views that are wildly out of step with Americans' views on this subject. Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to Social Security cuts. Social Security is the most popular program in the country, consistently 85%, 90% approval ratings. And this is who, again, you know, when he doesn't have to fill this position, somebody more moderate has chosen a really a right wing ideologue for this role.

So, yeah. And you point out that Trump in a similar circumstance, he just would refuse to put Democrats on boards. So that's how Republicans play this game, just so you guys know. Some details here from your piece about Biggs' writings on Social Security. As you mentioned, he hand-waved away, you say, retirement insecurity for millions of Americans, saying only 23 percent of seniors will have retirement incomes equal to or less than 75 percent of their average pre-retirement earnings, was concerned by Social Security taxes being raised on upper middle class Americans, endorsed cuts to Social Security, argued Social Security privatization would make Americans, quote, not only richer, but also happier, healthier, more familial, smarter, and more

active citizens. Wow. OK. In 2013, he justified the idea of raising the retirement age for social security benefits as well, saying that Americans quote biggest on the job risk is, you know, carpal tunnel syndrome for your mouse or something like that. So very dismissive of this program altogether, seemingly working to find every way he can to justify raising the age, cutting benefits, privatizing it, et cetera. And I think one of the things that you and Sirota have both been raising red flags about is, listen, nobody's talking about Social Security cuts. Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Democrats are not talking about Social Security cuts right now. Republicans are starting to talk about, quote unquote, entitlement program cuts.

And we've been to this play before. We know after Obama got shellacked in the midterms, that was when he came in. Oh, we got to have a bipartisan budget hawk deficit deal, including repeatedly trying to get Republicans to the table to cut benefits on these programs. So this comes at a very risky moment for the for Social Security as well. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right, is is Lindsey Graham has made clear that, you know, if he's the chairman of the Budget Committee next year, that he plans to go after Social Security and Medicare and retirement programs. And so Biggs' nomination is really about teeing that up, I think. Biggs is a very sophisticated kind of guy who is really good at navigating Washington

bureaucracy to effectuate savage cuts against the working class. That's what he's shown in his six years on the board in Puerto Rico. So, yeah, so I think that really what we're seeing is this more or less, this announcement that got no coverage outside of the lever, really, I think, will be seen as a marking point for a new battle to protect social security. I think that social security in the next Congress, but it's going to take a significant mobilization, just like it did in 2011 and 2012 and 2013 and 2014, to defend the program

back then as well. Yeah, I think that is all really well said. Thank you so much for actually paying attention to these things. I think that, as you said, we're going to look back at some of these warning signs and recognize what they actually were and what they were building towards. So Matthew Cunningham Cook, great to see you. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Crystal. Our pleasure. Andrew Gillum, who ran for governor of Florida against Ron DeSantis, narrowly losing, had long been seen as sort of a rising star in the party. He had a star turn on CNN. He was actually a regular guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. He has now officially been indicted on a number of charges. Let's go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen.

This is before the indictment actually came through. Now, this morning, we have confirmation the indictment has come down. But this says Andrew Gillum, DeSantis' 2018 opponent, indicted for wire fraud and false statements. I'll give you the details of what he is accused of. And, of course, he and his lawyers deny any wrongdoing. It says, according to the indictment, the FBI began to sniff out the alleged scheme of Gillum and another individual's last name is Letman Hicks. Back in 2016, when he was mayor, undercover agents investigating corruption in the city he was mayor of were steered to him. The two together allegedly used

his position as mayor, as a progressive activist, and then as a top candidate for governor to skim money from a variety of individual donors and nonprofits, fraudulently pretending to perform voter outreach or to fight for local government rights while pocketing the cash, even after his campaign for governor ended. His decision to resign from his job at the liberal group People for the American Way in early 2017, really hurt him financially. He couldn't afford to forego that $122,000 a year salary. So according to the indictment, he and this other individual, Lepman Hicks, then arranged for money to flow through her communications business, which then paid him as an employee or as a contractor. So they were collecting these funds under other auspices claiming it was going to other things and then to be funneled through her firm and go to Andrew Gillum. That is the allegation here. The last piece that they have in this article that I think just as a refresher,

because even when he was running for governor, there were allegations of corruption. DeSantis hit him hard on that. He'd been under federal investigation for years, they say, starting with his time as Tallahassee mayor when he accepted freebies from lobbyists and special interests, including a free New York Harbor boat ride tickets in New York to the musical Hamilton, which were supplied by an undercover FBI agent posing as a corrupt developer with a company called Southern Pines. Gillum wasn't charged in that scheme, but he did agree to pay a $5,000 state ethics fine for improperly accepting gifts. So that was sort of the spark of this investigation. And then according to the indictment, which is quite serious, and by the way, the crimes he's accused of, and it's like 21 counts, carry maximum penalties of many years in prison, 20 years in prison. So these are very, very serious charges that he's facing at this point. This is really crazy, Crystal, because this guy came 32,000 votes away from being the governor. I mean, he lost by only 0.4% of the vote.

I don't know if people remember that, 2018. And he's at a massive—he was also a star or was considered one until a sex scandal in March of 2020. So, look, I think on a personal level, it seems like everything is falling apart. He says he was abusing alcohol. But at the same time, these charges stem from 2016 to 2019. Clearly, when he was both living in a closeted life and also engaging in some pretty sketchy behavior financially. So, I don't know. I mean, it's a massive fall from grace

because who else do the Democrats have in the state of Florida? Like he was considered the next guy to run up against DeSantis and he was like a Stacey Abrams type figure with the media. He was a paid CNN commentator, very high profile Democrat and boom. I mean, massive fall from grace.

It also does validate the corruption charges that DeSantis leveled at him during the 2018 campaign, which everybody said was false. They were like, oh, it's racist. Like, okay, well, Feds just charged him. Yeah, I mean, the bottom has clearly fallen out for this guy. There's just no other way to put it at this point. And, you know, they kind of caught—again, he denies wrongdoing, setter's error. But it sounds like they kind of caught him dead to rights directly lying to undercover agents. So on the false statements piece, which they can really get you for, that part seems pretty clear cut.

And then we'll have to see the evidence as to how the financial shenanigans worked here funnel you claim is, you know, for voter outreach or you claim is for other purposes into your bank account to try to cover this loss from the other position. So, anyway, that's what's going on. There we go. A unearthed clip of political scientist John Mearsheimer, whose previous commentary on sort of Ukraine and the dangers of expansions of NATO has proved to be pretty prescient, but he's also a very controversial figure, I think, because he does place a lot of blame on the West for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But there's a new clip that has been resurfaced of him from 2016, which has gotten a lot of eyeballs on it and passed around a ton online because of how incredibly prescient he is in his

comments here. Specifically, he was asked what the biggest disaster in U.S. foreign policy was. The panelist next to him apparently said Iraq. His answer was as follows. Let's take a listen. After a few more years, we may think that the crisis over Ukraine was the biggest mistake we made. I'm actually very nervous about the situation in Europe. The Russians have thousands of nuclear weapons. They're scared and we're doing a number of things in Eastern Europe that they view as very provocative. I've spent a lot of time studying great power behavior and great powers tend to be paranoid. You cannot underestimate how scared they get.

When you take a country like Russia that has a sense of vulnerability and you begin to push them towards the ledge, you get in their face, you're asking for trouble. It's possible that they might use those nuclear weapons. It's possible you could have a real war in Eastern Europe. And this makes me very nervous. Iraq is a disaster, but the consequences for the United States, as I said earlier, just not that great because we're so secure. But once you start introducing nuclear weapons into the equation, it's a different story. And I would also add that because the Cold War is in the distant past, most people, especially younger people, haven't thought a lot about

nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence. And they tend to be quite cavalier in their comments about nuclear weapons. And this makes me very nervous. So I think that you're right from the perspective of today that Iraq was the biggest mistake. But I think the Ukraine crisis, which goes back to your point about the third tranche of NATO expansion, may be seen as the biggest problem. Yeah, I mean, look, he has always been incredibly cogent and well-thinking. In graduate school, him and Stephen Walt were two of the biggest influences on my personal thinking. They're both arch-realists. And the realist school has really been poo-pooed and put down in the elite sphere of foreign policy thinking for a long time. The dominant thinking while I

was in school that came to rise with Trump and the end of the Obama administration was Samantha Power kind of responsibility to protect called R2P, like America is this great moral power and must act through this humanitarian impulse, not just humanitarian, but should put values over national interests. And Walt's essay, I actually just pulled it up because it had such a massive impact on me at the time. He wrote it in Foreign Policy. It's called Would You Die for That Country? Why the United States Needs to Think Twice Before Calling Ukraine an Ally, and was specifically about what it really means to have an ally, what NATO membership, expansion towards the east.

I'd never really considered that. And then the more I studied Russian history, I'm like, you know, these are paranoid people, historic, not the people specifically, but like the leaders of that country. They all kind of lead in the same direction. They tend to invade their neighbors a lot. They also deeply feel insecure relative to their status in the West. They kind of really are their own culture feeling besieged, not unfairly sometimes, for a long time. And the worst possible thing you could do is antagonize that country and induce a nuclear exchange because that's probably the place where it would be the most likely to outbreak. And then relative to our interests, trade interests and more, I mean, look, like it's outside of the oil market. This is not even close to like 10% of the world

GDP. So yeah, I think there are a lot of things that were interesting in there. I mean, where I think I dissent from Mearsheimer is his formulation is like, this is inevitable, like X plus Y equals this. And, you know, I think that that can have the impact of taking away responsibility from bad actors like Putin and, you know, and laying the blame exclusively on the West, even though we've talked about the way that what we did in expanding NATO and some of our other actions made this outcome not inevitable, but made it predictable. There were warning signs there that, you know, we should have heeded the words of Mearsheimer and others who were raising concerns at the time. It stood out to me, his comment that great powers tend to be paranoid, which I think is true because a lot of people say, you know, it's ridiculous that the idea that we're going to like, you know, that NATO represents some threat to Russia in the current day. But, you know, if the shoe were on the other foot and we were looking at this, you know, expansionist China or Russia or whoever it was coming closer and closer to our borders, how do you think we would feel about it regardless of what they were telling and their assurances that they were giving us publicly? So that's one.

I would dissent from the idea that Iraq was really no big deal for the United States of America because— To be fair, like he is talking on the like grand strategic— Security, yes. I get it. But I just want to put that out there. Obviously, Iraq was a total and complete disaster. And, you know, I think part of how we end up in the place we are now where we've had so little investment, we're so unprepared, and our country has been pulled apart by the media and all of that. A lot of those things go back to Iraq, and also the way that we completely upended the Middle East and created a disastrous security situation there as well.

But the other part that I thought was really notable and extremely prescient was what he said about the cavalier attitude towards nuclear weapons. We barely, in the media coverage and the media coverage of Ukraine has been extensive, we barely hear those reminders that, hey, this is a nuclear power we're playing with. They actually have more nukes than we do. And the one thing he talks about, you know, this is a younger generation issue, but I haven't experienced this to be a younger generation issue in particular. In fact, from the polling, the younger generation is the most concerned, most skeptical about what our policy is and the way that we are prolonging and exacerbating the chance of a direct conflict with Russia. But there is certainly a lot of cavalier attitude about like, he's not really going to do it.

He's just bluffing. This is ridiculous. Why are you even considering this? And that is deep of everything that we've seen in this war. That is the most disturbing part to me. There have been two times. You know, when I really came to grips with this was actually North Korea. So I really remember thinking about this a lot.

Back in 2017 when Trump was playing, you know, with fire and fury. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, you know, the North Koreans have a nuke that could destroy the city of Los Angeles. Like, this is real. This is real. Like, you could wipe Hawaii off the map. And they're crazy. I mean, they actually might do it.

That, imagine what the world would have looked like. It would have been like a World War I style event. And we were close. You know, we were a lot closer than people like to remember. Thankfully, Trump, you know, turned on a dime and decided to meet Kim, which I still think is one of the best things that he did as president. I wish Biden would go meet him, actually, because Kim is, you know, definitely feeling aggrieved and thinking about doing some more destabilizing stuff in the region. So anyway, the second time has been Ukraine. And yeah, things are fine now. But you never know. I mean, all it takes is one

thing. And a week later, consider the Cuban Missile Crisis. John F. Kennedy woke up one day and found out that there were nuclear weapons or nearly operational nuclear weapons in Cuba. Five days later, the world was on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe. And 13 days later, the crisis was resolved. And as Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, has said, it was luck that saved us from a full-blown nuclear war. He was like, Kennedy was rational, Khrushchev was rational, and at the end of the day, it was luck that saved us from a full nuclear exchange. So, you know, I don't want to put the odds on luck for the next one. Yeah, and let's not hand wave away the possibility of nuclear war.

All right, guys, thanks so much for watching. More for you later. We've been tracking the evolution of this Saudiudi-backed pga competitor here in the united states which is upending the world of professional golf i personally think it's repulsive and disgusting that american golfers household names who made their names on the paga tour are cashing out for untold millions by the sa-backed LIV group. And it really is just a cash grab. It's just like as blatant a cash grab as it could be. They're paying out hundreds of millions of dollars

and it's splitting the world of golf. And I think it's disgusting to allow this foreign power, which itself is a repulsive regime, in order to come here and screw with our sports. And I'm not the only people who think that. 9-11 families, let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen, a group of nearly 2,500 survivors of family members killed or injured on the terrorist attacks in 9-11 are writing an open letter to the PGA Tour members who have stayed away from LIV Golf Invitational, thanking them for remaining loyal to the tour

and not joining the Saudi-backed investment fund-backed golf tour. And I think that this really does show you that we need to make it stark and have these athletes pay a public price for publicly selling out their— and look, I'm not saying the PGA is the best. I don't even watch golf. From what I understand, they've screwed around with them. I get it, okay? But at the same time, going and taking Saudi blood money is not the answer.

Yeah. And that's what these people are doing, you know? That's what they're doing. We're talking about major stars in the golf world who are destroying the sport and doing so with our adversary and also really not paying any price. I mean, I've personally been disgusted. I don't think the sports media is really doing a good enough job here. They seem tepid in kind of criticizing this. This is a real political scandal. And I, you know, I think people in the golf world who at least I've spoken to so far

are like, hey, this is bullshit. Like this is not only not fair, they're corrupting it, but we can't have this. I mean, if this was a China-backed league, I'd be saying the exact same thing. So Kyle is obsessed with golf. So I have learned more about golf in the past year than I have ever expected to know in my entire life. And, yeah, he believes this really could crush the PGA. It's that much of a threat. And, you know, you have now Trump coming out and basically praising the Saudi-backed tour.

Because PGA pulled out of some of his properties. Not only that, but the Saudi one is hosting some events at his properties. Always, always about the bottom line for this dude. But it is also a reminder of how cozy he was with them during the administration. There was all this media focus on his relationship with Russia and all of that. When, as Ken Klippenstein always told me, no, the real story was about the corruption with regards to the Gulf states, Saudi, UAE, et cetera.

So, yeah, I mean, it's par for the course, you might say. See what I did there? It's so embarrassing. No, it's disgusting. It really is disgusting. And it's created a very clear dividing line in the Gulf world where now it's just like clear as day, who's just can be easily bought,

and is just going to go for the cash, go for the bag over literally anything else, and who actually has some principles and is willing to stick with them. Look, I don't even watch golf, and I know who Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson are. And the fact that they're going over to the LIV is so repulsive to me. And so, look, I don't know much how we can do about it, but why don't you listen to the people who lost their family members on 9-11? I think that if anything, they have the moral high ground in our society right now. So there we go. Indeed.

All right. Welcome back to another edition of Breaking Points, The Intercept, where we talk about stories that The Intercept broke. Oftentimes, those are stories that Ken Klippenstein broke. So Ken, thanks for joining me here again. Good to be with you. And thank you guys for indulging us in this and for being members of Breaking Points, which is what enables this kind of partnership to take hold. And so, Ken's story this week is the result of a FOIA. We can put it up here. It's called, the headline is, Intel Report Warned Abraham Accords Would Fuel Violence.

So this is based on an intelligence report that you and Beth obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. And for people who always hear that term kicked around, FOIA, Freedom of Information, let's start actually there for one minute. What is a FOIA? And how did you get into throwing out so many FOIAs? And how did, how did, how is it that you were the one that got this back rather than other members of the media? So Freedom of Information Act, that's a federal law by which you can essentially request any government document and have it disclosed to you. Now there are a number of exemptions. There's national security information. If there's privacy information that they can

black things out or redact them. But the general idea is a good one, which is that, you know, taxpayers fund the government. And so they have a right to see what they're up to and what it is that they're doing. And so it was with that act that I was able to file a request, get this intelligence report back from the Department of Homeland Security and see that. What's the timing here? Like, what's the request look like? How long does it take you to get it back? Well, I had to sue for this.

You mentioned that a moment ago. Right. I reported to my attorney. We went to federal court because when I put in the request for this and other intelligence reports, they didn't produce them. And when you see a report like this, you can see why that is. Right. It's just that a lot of the intelligence report found, this was Trump's own intelligence agency, the Trump administration, because this was in 2020, saying that his signature diplomatic program for all of the Middle East was going to increase the risk of terror attacks, not just in the region, but against Americans in the United States. Right. So you go to court, you get this report that DHS had put together.

And so what do they mean by, well, first of all, Abraham Accords will quickly define what that is. That's basically Jared Kushner's baby, where people said, look, how are you going to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis that's been going on for 50 plus years? And Kushner said, well, I'm going to resolve it by ignoring the Palestinians. I'm just going to cut a deal that's basically a business deal between Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, and Israel. Well, what about the Palestinians? Well, don't worry about the Palestinians. It's such a cynical move because they were trying to pitch it. And the Washington Press and a lot in the think tanks, they ran with this framing of it as a peace agreement.

Right, peace. But the question is, well, why is there not peace to begin with? Because there are millions of displaced people without a state, and that creates conflict between the Arab nations and Israel. And I would say that's probably a good reason for a conflict. Like, you know, that's not a good reason for, you know, terrorism, but it's like a good reason for there to be a disagreement and a need for a solution. Geopolitical conflict is going to be created by an illegal occupation that goes on for 50 plus years, right? Yeah. Whether that becomes, we're not saying it ought to become violent, but it's going to

create conflict between states. Right. So he's kind of, right, exactly. So their solution, their great innovation was coming and saying, hey, what if we just stick our head in the sand and pretend like this whole Palestine thing doesn't exist? Right. And we just paper over that and then we can make this agreement, which by the way is very unpopular in the Arab world.

But the sort of cynical calculation on the part of the sort of Washington planners for this kind of thing is, well, the Arab world is largely run by dictators. So the public doesn't have a say. So we can just ram something like this through and not have to worry what ordinary Arabs think. Well, it turns out sometimes you do have to worry about that because there can be unrest. There can be, you know, it leads to other problems. But they just pretended like none of that existed. And so what does the DHS find in this intelligence report? So they found, this is interesting.

So Department of Homeland Security, the word homeland being the operative term here, their concern is U.S. equities in primarily the domestic United States. So for them to issue a report saying that there's a threat of increased terrorism as a consequence of this agreement, that's very interesting. This isn't the CIA. This isn't the Department of Defense, you know, to say that it leads to an increase in the likelihood of terrorism in the Middle East would be sort of obvious. And, you know, that's bad in itself. But that there's a threat to U.S. equities in the domestic United States and, as the report notes,

against U.S. Jews, because the idea is that there's going to be resentment towards Israel and people might respond to that. A rise in anti-Semitic violence. Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, there's real stakes here if you're an ordinary American and you don't particularly care what happens in the Middle East. You just care about what happens in the continental United States. And, you know, I think that's why we had to sue for it because you disclose something like that, it's embarrassing. And the reality is a lot of these intelligence agencies, I think the rank and file tend to have more integrity, but the political leadership who are appointed by the White House, they know not to let things like this come out because it's

going to embarrass their guy in the Oval Office. Yeah. And so Democrats in real time kind of poo-pooed this for the rational reasons that we're talking about here. You can't cut a peace deal between two parties by cutting out one of the parties. Yet now Democrats are in power. And what is the Biden administration's posture now towards the quote unquote Abraham Accords? They're trying to do exactly the same thing that the Trump administration did. In fact, even worse, because they're trying to let Saudi Arabia into the normalization. If you look at the normalization deal that President Trump and his administration pursued, it was primarily between Israel, Bahrain, and the UAE.

But when you add Saudi, you know, I was interviewing for this story, Trita Parsi, a very good expert at the Quincy Institute. He said Saudi Arabia was always the prize because it's, first of all, a far bigger nation in terms of population. They have a much bigger oil reserve. So geopolitically, they're more powerful.

And crucially, they are the keeper of the most holy sites in Islam. And so the idea is that if they bury the hatchet with Israel, normalize relations, they can just totally forget about the Palestinian problem. Because this is the most powerful Arab state that's saying, you know, things are fine. We're going to reinstate. When I say normalize, I mean reinstate diplomatic ties, formal diplomatic ties with the Israeli government. And to show that the Biden administration understands what the DHS was saying here, fundamentally, there's been recent reporting that in the lead up to his coming trip to Israel, which will also involve a trip to Riyadh as well, that the Biden administration has asked the Israelis, basically, don't do anything crazy

between now and the time that we meet, because it will be thoroughly embarrassing if you, say, break ground on brand new settlement projects, if there's video of you demolishing Palestinian homes. Or if you shoot a journalist who's very famous and respected in the country. Right. So now the definition of crazy is in the eye of the beholder. So it's not as if all of the illegal activity is going to halt overnight. But how does Biden's trip to the region fit into this expansion of the Abraham Accords? Well, first of all, he's pursuing it. And if you look at what the administration said, after so many liberals decried the Trump administration rightly for pursuing this, the Biden administration is trying to do a version of it on steroids and take credit for it. And the jealousy is palpable among some of the sort of

statecraft side of the Biden administration, because the Biden administration has asked the media in the past not to use the term Abraham Accords. I think there's one way to read that, which is that we want to be able to name it for ourselves so that we can take credit for it. We're jealous of that Trump had this diplomatic achievement, if you want to call it that. The Goliath Accords, what should it be called? The Biden Accords. The Democratic Accords. And so when you look at some of these discussion around his visit to these things, it's supposed to be a blessing for this kind of interagement. Because if you look at – so here's what's interesting about it. ties with Israel between Saudi, where domestically, again, it's going to be very unpopular, including among religious orders that have power within the country and could conceivably pose some sort of threat to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince. The question is, well, what are the Saudis getting out of it? And that's what's really scary, because we are now seeing reporting in Axios and other outlets suggesting that in exchange for this, the Biden administration is willing to

give them certain security guarantees by which they can request US military power, US tax dollar backed equipment and military support to come to their aid in whatever it is that they request. And so the US is going to be on the hook to basically remunerate them for this deal that is intensely unpopular in the Arab world. So in addition to the threat of terror attacks against the U.S., that's a whole other factor that I think shows that there's going to be a cost imposed on the U.S. in exchange for this. And could it be the kind of cost that spirals into a regional conflict, like drags us into a bigger regional conflict? Exactly. So that's the problem. When you give a security agreement, that's not something that exists in a vacuum where suddenly, oh, you know, we're going to keep behaving the same way.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of these Gulf states like Saudi Arabia. You have the backing of the biggest, toughest, most powerful military. Now you can get a little rougher. How are you going to behave? Probably you're going to care a little bit less about being risk averse and cautious and worrying about responses because you've got that. Famously incautious MBS to begin with. Exactly. And when you talk to people in the diplomatic community, that's the impression. A lot of them initially were like, this isn't going to happen. It's too crazy because it's too risky for Saudi Arabia. And as Biden makes it clear that he's pushing this and MBS sends signals that he's open to it, there has been, you know, when I, in my talks with these guys,

they're like, oh my God, we might've been wrong. MBS is so young and so green, he might actually do this now. And I think that there's a shift in terms of thinking what might actually happen. And there was this incredible German military intelligence assessment of MBS that leaked maybe 2015 or something when he was just deputy defense minister that said this guy is wildly rash. He has impulse control issues. This is someone to be very nervous about. He has showed his impulse control issues now on the global stage of blockading Qatar, killing Jamal Khashoggi,

rounding up a whole dozens of people and torturing them in the Ritz-Carlton. Including family members. Including family like just stuff that is just outside the norms of even like a normal barbaric totalitarian ruler. And it seems like it's working for him. So if you're one of these risk takers like MBS and you keep taking these risks and you keep having people tell you, this is too risky, don't do this. It's not going to work out for you. And over time, it continues to work out for you. You can only imagine what kind of risks he wants to take next. And we haven't even gotten to their pursuit of nuclear technology. But that'll be maybe for another time. Another pleasant segment.

Yeah, another pleasant segment on the end of the world. We're going to have to leave it there for now. Ken, as always, it's a pleasure doing these Breaking Points segments with you, and thank you guys for watching. If you have anything that Ken should be reporting on, if you have anything I should be reporting on, my DMs are open. If you have anything for Ken, what's your signal? 202-510-1268. All right, reach out to Ken.

Always there for you. Always there for you. Always here for you. See you soon. 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, Jules. Welcome back to Breaking Points. Hey, Marshall. Good to see you again. Yeah. I chatted with you for my first ever segment, I believe. We were talking about how you went to the White House as a TikTok influencer to discuss

the importance of alternate forms of news. And I thought you were the perfect person to talk about this big story with TikTok a little earlier in the week, which basically relates to TikTok having access to personal data. Can you just explain what's really happened? You've done some great coverage of the topic. Yeah. So what seems to be happening is there were about 80 meetings, internal meetings leaked from TikTok. And it seems to be throughout the period of when Trump was trying to ban the app, which

was like a summer of 2020 into the fall of 2020. And of course, that conversation has still lasted up until today. So it's been about two years now that this has been going on. So it was 80 leaked audios from these meetings, coverage of basically saying that China still had access to a lot of, if not all of the data. So that's not just in terms of, you know, age and names of users and everything like that. That goes as far as like deleted drafts within the app. So super personal stuff for people who don't know, like something, an app like Snapchat, a lot of young people use that as like their default camera app.

And, you know, you save that to your Snapchat camera. And TikTok is kind of slowly becoming similar to that. So the stuff that you have in your drafts that you don't even intend on putting out into the world is very personal stuff a lot of the time. So it is pretty crazy that an app like China can have access to that. So a lot of these meetings were actually apparently also through like September 2021, all the way up until January 2022, was the most recent one, I believe. So that's just like five, six months ago. And at that point, China still had a lot of access to the data. And it's unclear right now if that is still the case. But apparently TikTok put out a statement last week that

a lot of the data has moved over finally to Oracle, which is again, has been in the works for two years. But even it's still a concern that having data for the past three years on a lot of America's youth, because now TikTok has surpassed Instagram and Gen Z users. It has 100 million US users. And it's also surpassed YouTube and watch times, basically time spent on the app. So just the past three years alone, having data on that for China is huge. And I'm just curious, this is a difficult question for you because TikTok is how you got to the White House. What's your personal take on whether or not TikTok should be allowed in the United States? Yeah. So it is an interesting situation. The app has a lot of pros and cons. The app has basically 180'd my life and career in a lot of ways. But I remember back in summer 2020, when Trump had announced the possible ban, I felt indifferent in the way that I do now. Not indifferent in the way that I don't care. I care a lot.

I'm fascinated by all this stuff. And I feel strongly about a lot of different parts of it. But it was one of those things where I can't yet tell if it is a net positive or net negative on humanity and in the US, I honestly sway towards net negative. So when it comes to privacy concerns, I 100% honestly agree with the ban on TikTok because in the way that WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, and YouTube are all not allowed in China. It's like the Great Firewall. Apps like WeChat and like TikTok that have huge US user bases are still allowed here. And those two apps were what Trump was trying to get rid of in the US. When people try to take the route of the psychological effects of TikTok, that's when I have a little bit of pushback because you see Instagram and you see YouTube trying to copy exactly what TikTok is doing because they are winning the attention economy.

So even if TikTok gets banned, the psychological effects are going to end up trickling into those apps as well. So then we get into the conversation of, oh, are we going to ban bottomless feeds in the US? Are we going to have opening and closing hours on social media, all of these different things. But when it comes to the privacy conversations, I completely understand why we would ban TikTok in the US. I like the way you put it in terms of delineating between those psychological effects, attention to kind of debates, and the actual who owns and operates and controls this company bit. Because something that you see people say all the time is like, wait a second, Facebook does all sorts of things too. So does whatever Microsoft's doing by Snapchat. The key difference though, is that these are largely speaking American companies. I know they're global companies, but they're also American companies and are subject to US laws.

So for example, if we don't like what's being done with the data privacy, with the opening and closing hours, all those different bits, you can pass laws affecting that. With TikTok, that's different. So I think it's just really important to explain the difference there and just answer. I get why people kind of bring it up because it doesn't seem to make any sense, but there's just a difference in accountability here. Oh, 100%. And TikTok in China, the relationship, the app in China is called Duoyan. Of course, they have a different app than we have. We're not seeing the Chinese users' content. But what's been interesting in TikTok in China, they have four different things that they're using to target their youth. It's called Youth Mode. They have opening and closing

hours on TikTok in China for people under 16, I believe. It's like 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. No one is allowed to access the app. So it's kind of this collective experience. So kids don't experience FOMO together. There is a five-second pause between every few videos, like get kids out of that hypnosis. There is, within the algorithm, they purposely put in like edutainment STEM content while in the u.s algorithm is very much a reflection of like your subconscious basically whatever you're giving the most watch time to is exactly what you're being fed and also um i believe it's like you can only spend 40 minutes straight on the app in china which seems like a no-brainer like why do you

need to be spending more than 40 minutes straight on a platform like TikTok because of that hypnosis aspect of things. So yeah, they're definitely, I mean, in China, they feel a lot of the same ways that we do about our tech companies and those psychological effects. Sometimes they feel like they can't rein kids in and they can't rein these psychological effects in. I know they also targeted video games. Like I think kids right now are only allowed in China to play, I think it's like two hours of video games over the weekend. I don't know how they enforce that. I'm sure there's a million ways around that. But that's been interesting to see as well.

Something I'm curious about then is how, what is the real difference, especially in the U.S. between TikTok and like the Instagram slash Snapchat? Even YouTube now has YouTube shorts. So YouTube in its own way is becoming much more like TikTok. So why is it that the American companies have not been able to catch up as well? Oh my God. There are so many little cultural elements of TikTok that are just so hyper-personalized. So yes, it's more fun in the way, something like YouTube, it's really hard to use different audios. So that's what TikTok started musically. So it was focused on music. We know that like the stereotype against TikTok was like, well, it's a dancing app. It was more so like that three years ago. So the audios was what

really reigned people in. The algorithm is so hyper-personalized and you're not on platforms like Instagram, on platforms, even like Twitter, Twitter, you follow some more strangers, but Instagram, you're mostly following like friends and family. You follow some like maybe mega celebrities or whatever that you're super interested in on the platform. Like TikTok, you're following all strangers because the for you page that's being fed to you is all strangers content. And also in that way, you internalize that, oh, if I post, it'll probably be only strangers that see my content and people post really personal stuff on there too. And you know, the more personal people get, the more entertaining that is, right? So there's just so many different

cultural elements that make TikTok as big as it is today. It's of course, shorter content, it's a bottomless feed. And we see that its power is moving all the way into like, people are using it as a search engine, specifically within fashion, beauty, cooking, and traveling. And those may seem like trivial things, but a lot of those things, we see how user behavior starts within those areas, and then it trickles into bigger areas of life, like politics and everything like that. So to think TikTok could end up being a search engine is pretty crazy as well. And I'm curious, you've done a lot of interesting reporting on just the implications of what these digital footprint conversations look like for younger people. So we were talking before the recording, my version of this was when I got on Facebook in 2007, the whole thing, because we were in high school and underage was like, oh man, like,

I hope that no one tags me in a picture where there's a can of beer in the background. It feels as if we've solved that. It would be weird even in like today's context now that I'm 30 years old and not under 21 for someone to just walk around taking pictures of everything and then just uploading them. Like that really feels like something that wouldn't be chill. It's also way easier to just untag yourself. And it's kind of funny, even like Facebook, not that I even really use Facebook anymore. Facebook will like notify you if like they think you're in a photo that's been uploaded online because the AI could scan your face. So that's kind of how we've dealt with that. What do you think about that? What the implications are for

like younger people who are coming up on TikTok rather than on Facebook like I did? We're going to see a weird period. I would say, so I'm 24 right now. So I would say probably towards my late twenties, early thirties, when most of Gen Z is in their twenties and early thirties. We're going to see, I think, is a lot of content that we posted in high school in our early twenties resurface. I think the first taste of that we saw was with Madison Cawthorn when those weird videos that his friends took resurfaced on Twitter. And he's younger, I think he's like 26 or something. I think there was like a hint of what we're going to see in the future. So you, people are posting more personal content than ever on TikTok, which is a weird paradox in the way that it is through the most intimate form of

content video. So like you were showing your full identity. It is very much feels authentic in real time. So it's this weird paradox, but it has to do with feeling like only strangers are going to see your content internally. So we're going to see a lot of content arise. And it's weird in the way that we're talking about, you know, this data and TikTok situation, because there was an article that came out a few days ago as well that that the FBI has access to deleted TikTok videos. They're able to inquire about that, to utilize it in different situations. And the thought that even your drafts, again, things that you might not have intended to ever put out is also considered data. And that's probably even way more personal than things that you actually put out. And that is able to be accessed by people. Are we going to see weaponization of that are we going to see you know that being low-key planted in certain areas when uh gen z gets into politics and is you know running for uh different offices like are we going to see those things arise i think in that those situations there's going to be an element of like empathy

or even dilution because we're going to be right now we see so much with cancel culture but a lot of us are realizing the culture changes so much every five years something that we think is so normal now is probably going to be looked at as insane in five ten years also we change so much year to year so i think there's going to be some empathy amongst our generation because we're all going to have that trail um but there's definitely going to be a few years where it's going to be really interesting, entertaining, crazy to watch it unfold. Yeah. So just to sum everything up, obviously you're not a policymaker, so you can't perfectly predict whether or not these continual data leaks, basically the quote unquote nightmare scenario that was really warned about. You're not going to predict where that will change things,

but I'm curious, how do you think this tension is going to continue to play out? Like, are we just going to probably keep seeing these instances? Is this going to put a pressure point on policymakers? How do you really see that going? I do think it's going to be something that we just have to go through and push through. And it's going to be something I think the generation under us, what is like Gen Alpha and even our kids are going to value privacy a lot more because watching that type of stuff unfold, I would hope that would be the like ideal scenario. I think it's just something that for like two, three, four years,

we're just going to see it unravel. Because not even just in terms of like people on the back end having our data, when you put something out there on a platform like TikTok, how something can go viral overnight, when you delete something, your hands aren't washed all of a sudden. There are people who downloaded that content because they thought it was entertaining or that they thought it was funny. And they say that to their camera roll. They don't know who you're going to be in the future. They could be going through their camera roll and be like, oh my gosh, that's this person who is in this position now. And I want to resurface this online, even though it's deleted. And you lose

ownership over your content the second you post it, especially on something like TikTok, where it can be seen by again, millions, thousands overnight, screen recorded, again, saved a camera roll. Very well said. Jules, thank you for joining. I know that you're not going to have to talk about this pretty much forever because this is always going to be a tension point, especially for the Biden administration. Look, my quick thing is, I suspect the reason why it just hasn't been banned is that because Biden's performing so poorly of young people, they just don't want to add another... Because look, I support the ban. I think it was the right policy. Folks in the Biden administration have indicated they agree

with that policy much in the same way they continue Trump's tariffs. But I just think at a political level, the last thing you want to add to just the current youth low point is really just a TikTok ban because let's get real for a second. This whole serious geopolitical data privacy debate, it's not going to translate to, I think, everyday voters, especially, at least with young people. I suspect older voters would support the policy, but younger voters who have an enthusiasm issue are not going to be supportive, obviously. Yeah. I almost feel like I might even disagree. It's weird because people have a very toxic relationship with TikTok, but it more so goes back to the psychological effects. A lot of young people I sense would feel relief if it was banned, mostly because of the psychological effects and people just being genuinely addicted to the platform.

It's a running joke on the TikTok platform about being addicted to it almost. It's become like a meme. But then it goes again to, okay, these other platforms are just trying to copy it. So we'll see. But I agree that a ban makes most sense for privacy reasons. Yeah. Well said. Jules, thanks for joining us on Breaking Points. Thank you so much, Marshall. As if you guys needed any more evidence that the Democrats were in trouble for the midterms, we get this. So Jordan Sheridan tweets, So the DNC had to move a May fundraiser with Vice President Kamala Harris to the fall because they, quote,

couldn't sell enough tickets. Tough sledding when even the donors aren't buying what you're selling. So here's what the article says. Vice President Kamala Harris was slated to host the Democratic National Committee's major money-hauling event, the Annual Women's Leadership Forum, on May 25th and 26th, a natural fit given that she's the highest office-holding woman in American history. And when the invites were sent out on May 5th, it was hyped as an incredible opportunity to mingle in person

after two years of virtual events and meetings. But the event was rescheduled at the last minute for autumn when the event is traditionally held after the DNC couldn't sell enough tickets, I'm told. Wow. Now, this might be because this particular demographic is like extra COVID conscious and they don't want to get COVID, but it also might be because there's zero enthusiasm for Democrats now and less than zero for Kamala Harris. Tickets for the event start at $250 per head for general admission, and the much-coveted photo line slots start at $15,000 and top off at $50,000.

The highest-tier tickets in particular weren't moving quickly enough, and the organizers needed more time to build interest. Emphasizing that the event is typically held in the fall even though invites were sent out from for may 25th dnc spokesperson daniel wessel countered that the vice president is a huge draw just in april she held a fundraising event for us that brought in over 1 million dollars wessel did not give a reason for the rescheduling. Okay. So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff to say about this. On the one hand, you could say it's a good thing because it shows that the donors, the big money donors are like flaking out and not giving to the Democrats. On the one hand, that's good because I don't want any big money donors in politics. other hand it shows there's so little enthusiasm for democrats and for vp kamala harris and the party that um they can't even get their most trusted demographic which is like liberal elite

moneyed interests to back them so i want you to think about this story for a second and look at this other story that we got the view host host, Sunny Hostin, Harris Buttigieg's 2024 ticket would, quote, obliterate Trump or DeSantis. Obliterate Trump or DeSantis. I don't know what world this View host is living in. I do not know what world she's living in. Now, I don't think Trump is a particularly solid candidate for 2024, given everything that's going on with the January 6th committee, and they're really doing a sufficient job of painting him as what he is, which is like a petty authoritarian dictator wannabe. And his poll numbers are going down and only 15% of the country wants him to talk about

the 2020 election and he can't shut up about the 2020 election. So he's not a particularly strong candidate for 2024, but there is no metric by which Kamala Harris and or Pete Buttigieg is a strong candidate for 2024. Their poll numbers have routinely been below Joe Biden. And Joe Biden isn't popular. In fact, Joe Biden is a little less popular than Trump was at this time in his presidency. So I don't know what world they're living in. I mean, this is the liberal elite bubble defined right here.

It's amazing that anybody would, anybody would make such a point. I mean, that's beyond comical. So anyway, I bet that, look, I honestly, I bet that this thing does sell out in, uh, in the fall, but that's still not going to be enough to, uh, save the Democrats from their massive shellacking, which is coming in the midterms, which, by the way, was totally unavoidable if they just did solid policy was totally avoidable. If you got two or three parts of build back better through, this wouldn't be happening. If you gave people universal pre-K, if you gave people elder care, if you lower prescription drug prices, if you expanded Medicare, if you extended the child tax credit, if you extended unemployment benefits, if you lowered prescription drug prices, if you expanded Medicare, if you extended the child tax credit, shit, if you extended unemployment benefits, if you did any of a number of things,

this would not be happening. But they didn't do it. And now this is happening. And they're looking in the mirror like, well, hold on. What's wrong with our messaging? It's not your messaging. It's your substance.

That's the problem. This is an iHeart Podcast.