Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Stories of Week 10/2: Nuclear Threats, Herschel Walker, Housing Market, & More!

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss nuclear threats, Brazil elections, housing market, Herschel Walker, Iran protests, & men without work!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/Chicago Tickets: https://www.axs.com/events/449151/breaking-points-live-tickets Nicholas Eberstadt: https://templetonpress.org/books/men-without-work-2/ Glenn Greenwald: https://greenwald.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Some very, very ominous warning signs coming from Russia about the potential threat of them using tactical nuclear weapons. Frankly, it's kind of terrifying, and I think the media has not taken it seriously, this risk whatsoever. Finally, Washington seems to be like, oh, maybe this is something we should think about. So we have a deep dive into that, into the Ukrainian response, into this administration's response. The very latest on that sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline. We're going to go into all of that. We've also got a couple of political updates for you.

That congressional stock ban that they were looking at last week, I know you're going to be shocked to learn it just didn't come together, Sagar. I know they really wanted to get it done, but they just couldn't get it done. Sad. We'll dig into those details. Also, a big move at The Daily Show, Trevor Noah moving on. So we'll break all of that down for you. We've also got Glenn Greenwald on this morning. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be able to get him in to talk about the results of the first round of voting down in Brazil. Before we get to any of that, though, our normal announcements, live show. Live show. Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen. We've been planning something extra special for everybody in Chicago. It's going to be a lot of fun. Go ahead and buy

tickets there. And we're going to make sure that it's going to be a great time for everybody. No matter where you're seated, we've got a lot of participation and stuff that you really are going to be able to see live. So I think it will be very special. There's a link down there in the description if you want to go ahead and nab your tickets. We got hundreds of you already have signed up, so we're really, really excited. Number two. Let me just say, we're trying things

that are a little bit different at this show. Yes, very different. A lot more audience participation. It's going to be very interactive, so we're super excited. So guys, if you can, grab those tickets before they sell out. We're psyched about that show.

It's going to be an experience, a live experience. Not just a show, an experience. Okay. All right. Number two, we got the discount going on right now. Let's go and put that up there on the screen. Counterpoints, Counterpoints Friday. Man, they had a fantastic show on Friday. I loved listening to it. I'm like a legit fan of that show. Yeah, it is so, so good. So they've just been doing such a great job, Ryan and Emily, over there breaking some interesting news about our former employer. That was interesting to watch on our new channel. So anyway, I think they're doing a great job. If you want to support them and really just our expansion and maybe support the mission of why we started this show, you got a little bit of a taste on why exactly.

Things like that might have been happening with our old one in terms of what happened with Katie Halper. Please, we've got a link down in the description. We've got the discount going on right now for annual members. 10%. I think this will be the last week that we offer it. So thank you all so much to those who have taken advantage. It means a lot to us. And putting us aside, I think what happened with Katie Halper being silenced and censored over her critique of Israel just shows you why it's so important to support independent media. Because, you know, even if you've got an outlet that sort of postures like, oh, we're anti-establishment, we're anti-censorship, et cetera, eventually you're going to find a line that you're not allowed to cross. And, you know, that's why it's so important to not be beholden to corporate

donors or any sort of corporate overlords. So thank you guys for supporting us and making it possible to do what we do here. Yeah, that's right. There are no unofficial policies of censorship here. I guarantee you that. Yes, indeed. All right. Let's start with the nuclear issue. Now, I think we've been trying to do a job of remain measured, but also cover the seriousness. And I think what you said is correct. I think it's very important when discussing this not to fearmonger. And so let's just very start with the very basic facts. Let's put this up there on the screen. Putin giving that speech on Friday with the official annexation of those four regions in eastern Ukraine after the sham referendum. Now, beyond the speech itself and the actual referendum, the points that we wanted to zero in on were specifically what Putin was saying both about the West and about opening and continuing the nuclear sable rattling that we have not seen in this world really since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And what he says there specifically is that the last 15 minutes, Crystal, of the speech, the word Ukraine was not mentioned one time. It was all about posturing this as a united Russian struggle against the West. Obviously, that is to his domestic benefit because of the dramatically unpopular mobilization happening right now. The direct quote was, the West has said for centuries it is bringing freedom and democracy to the world.

Everything is exactly the opposite. This is a longtime kind of Putinism. I remember in 2006, Bush was lecturing him about democracy and he was like, we do not want the type of democracy that you have given to Iraq. That was really – which, you know. Fair point.

Fair point. Really what I've seen from Putin is that 2003 onward, really the invasion of Iraq and really like becoming himself. It was in 2007. There was this grand speech in the Munich Security Conference where he's basically like, all of you are hypocrites. I want nothing to do with you. It was like the official Russian break with the West. And this is kind of the culmination of that, almost like a 15-year effort of at one point being a semi-friend of the West and really now posing himself as the enemy. was not only for the referendum, but for making it clear in Putin's eyes that he views himself at war with the United States and with NATO, even if we may not be in an exchange. Now,

the reason why that also matters is that whenever you posture yourself as at war with the West, and then you begin your nuclear saber rattling, you're making it clear that Ukraine is not the audience here. The Washington, Berlin, Paris, these are the audiences, the lawmakers and the policymakers in these regions. And so he brings up the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Japan, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, allied bombings of German cities, the Korean and the Vietnam War, kind of saying, look, you guys are the ones who created this scenario. Now we are well fulfill that and the breaking of the nuclear taboo. Yes. And so, I mean, basically he's saying pointing accurately to messed up things that the U.S. has done throughout history and then saying effectively that gives us justification to do the same messed up things.

Two wrongs in this instance. He's trying to argue, make a right. I mean, and this is effectively what he's been, the case that he's been making since they ultimately decided to invade Ukraine. And listen, we've covered here extensively, you know, the way that the US in particular, the Western general and NATO antagonized him, made him feel like even if it was not true, made him feel like we were sort of at war with him, like we were out to get Russia. And so that all leads to this place. Of course, none of that takes his culpability away with this illegal invasion. But what a lot of observers were saying is that this was the – he's used some of this rhetoric before, et cetera. But this was the most sort of concentrated anti-U.S. speech that they had seen him give. And it was clearly designed to scare the West and hold out

the possibility of, hey, y'all drop the bombs first and we're going to use everything that we need in order to defend our territorial integrity, which now seems to include these four regions that they have just said, oh, we had these votes. It was free and fair democracy, of course, during a time of war when we don't even know. I mean, this is how insane these referendums were. They can't even say exactly where the borders are. And we'll get to a little bit more of that when we talk about the most recent Ukrainian advances. But now they're saying, OK, this is part of Russia as well. So that creates a very terrifying situation where it's like, OK, well, if you're saying this is part of Russia, obviously there's an act of war there.

Are attacks in that area, is that considered an attack on Russia? That's where this gets extraordinarily dicey with regards to nuclear weapons because ultimately, you know, the last speech we covered last week, areas that you're saying this is my country and you don't respond, then it kind of takes away your threat and your power, which is what nuclear threats are all about is scaring people and trying to deter them. I'm glad you said that because I was going to bring that up, which is that as much as I think it is very important for the West to have clear red lines and policies directed specifically to remove ambiguity from the situation, the same is said of Russia. You can't annex a country, then lose it the next day or like territory and then say, yeah, no, but that part's not Russia anymore. But this part is like, well, you can't look what. So Russia is wherever the front line is. I mean, sure, you know, in effect. But where does the nuclear threat come from now? Of course, hit that ambiguity is probably good for him, but that also leaves a hell of a lot of room up to us.

We're like, well, how do we know when to start pushing? And that's exactly kind of the fear, the uncertainty that he wants to instill within us. That doesn't diminish, though, the seriousness of the situation. Let's put this up there on the screen. You know, I think that take away whatever anybody in the West is talking about,

let's take it from the Ukrainians themselves. Just a couple of days ago, they said the deputy head of Ukrainian intelligence says, quote, the probability of Russia striking Ukraine with a tactical nuclear weapon is very high. He says, quote, they will target places along the front line with lots of personnel and equipment. Now, look, there's a lot of different ways to read that. Number one, maybe he's telling the truth. Number two, maybe you should keep reading because here's what he says. To stop them, we need more anti-aircraft systems and anti-rocket systems. So he's like, they're going to nuke us. And that's why you guys need to give us everything under the sun in order

to stop that. So you got to take all of this with a grain of salt. Putin has got his ambiguity. He got his agenda. He wants us to stop all aid for Ukraine. Ukraine, well, this is my problem with Ukraine is they can't make up their minds. First, Zelensky says Putin will never nuke us. Now his deputy head is like, no, no, no, they're going to nuke us.

And that's why you got to give us weapons. And I'm like, well, wake up your goddamn mind here, folks, because I'm getting confused over here. Well, because initially it was, don't worry, they're not going to nuke us, so you guys should be all in with us. Yes, that's right. You should send us all these weapons. Now it's like, they are going to nuke us, so it's too late to stop them, so you've got to send us all these weapons. Like, you know, that's their approach here in this situation.

So let's go ahead and put those results up on the screen here. You can see that Lula was ahead in the first round, but is going to have to face Bolsonaro in that presidential runoff. I think underperformed where the polls had him to a certain extent. But we have Glenn Greenwald here, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who of course lives in Brazil, has broken some of the most significant news about Lula and Bolsonaro specifically. And he joins us now. Great to see you, Glenn. Good to see you, Sarah. Good to be with you guys. I would love for you, for people who haven't followed Brazilian politics closely, to explain the context here, why this election is so significant, why Lula was in prison, how he

got out of prison, and what this election really means in the Brazilian context. Sure. So, I mean, just to begin with, Brazil is an inherently important country and always has been throughout the Cold War. It's the second largest country in the hemisphere. It's the largest and therefore most influential country in Latin America. It has incredibly important resources, including enormous amounts of oil reserves, as well as the Amazon, which has become the most important environmental resource. So Brazil just in and of itself is of great concern now politically to the world. And when you add on top of that, the fact that we have now a very polarized political system where there are real differences between the party, we're not talking about Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama. We're talking about two extremely different and

radical ideologies that have now completely polarized and the entire center has virtually disappeared. There's a lot at stake in terms of the outcome of not just the presidential election, but also the elections beneath that for the House, for the Senate. There's a lot of interesting things that went on there that I think are really worth talking about too. Yeah, absolutely. So Glenn, what happened here in the election? I know that the polls had indicated that Lula might win enough to avoid even a runoff. It appears that he performed, I wouldn't say significantly below that, but below that to a certain degree. Does Brazil have the same polling problems that we do? What were the major issues at stake between the two major candidates? I can't overstate, Sagar, what a humiliating and disastrous

night it was for the polling industry in Brazil. I have not ever seen polling this radically wrong in my life. I mean, on the presidential level, it wasn't that terrible. There were no pollsters affirmatively asserting that Lula would win. Some were predicting he would in the first round. But even there, I don't think there was a single polling company that are sort of in the top tier that had the difference any less than 12 to 16 points between Bolsonaro and Lula. And Lula ended up only five points ahead. But the races that are most important right underneath that, like governorships in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and senators for those two most important states,

I'll just give you a couple of examples. And they were all in favor of the left. In the Senate race in Sao Paulo, there were two candidates, one on the left and a Bolsonaroista. And the polls had the candidate on the left winning by 15 points. And instead, the Bolsonaroista candidate won by 21 points. That's a swing of 36 points. Oh my God. Here in Rio de Janeiro, they they had the bolsonaro candidate who's the incumbent somewhat ahead by six or seven points but likely to be in a runoff instead he destroyed the left-wing candidate easily won without a runoff and won by 32 points and you go down the list and over and

over you're talking about extremely radical errors all again in favor of undercounting the support that Bolsonaro has here in Brazil, just like we had two straight elections where there was clear undercounting and under support, under polling of the support for Trump and his voters as well. So something has gone radically wrong in terms of polling analysis in these democracies. Do you have any theory or are there any working theories this morning about what that something is? It's gonna take, I think, a lot of work. I mean, these firms have no credibility at this point. I mean, one theory is that because there's so much scorn against Bolsonaro

and his movement in elite circles, there's kind of an embarrassment factor that perhaps voters are unwilling to express their support for Bolsonaro to pollsters, but then go into the voting booth and vote for him and his movement anyway. There could be changes technologically in terms of how young people only use the internet and cell phones, all those sorts of things. But when you're talking about errors this dramatic, now not just once, but in 2018, very similar errors took place, again in favor of the left and against the Bolsonaro movement.

Something has gone fundamentally wrong in polling science, and it needs to be addressed immediately if they want to preserve any credibility for themselves. Yeah, and Glenn, I was actually rereading an essay that you wrote in 2018 about Bolsonaro's original victory about polling errors at the time, the issues, what exactly, you know, Trump's almost re-election in 2020 really was presaged in what happened in Brazil as well. So in that context, I mean, what lessons do we have? Yeah, like you said, for all democracies about this level of this type of populism and its appeal at the actual democratic level? Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, one of the things that has happened in Brazil is something we've seen in many other countries, which is the disappearance of the center-right.

For 20 years, Brazil was dominated by an election between PT on the one hand, the center-right party, PSDB on the other. PSDB barely exists anymore. Conservatives and the right is just Bolsonaroismo or kind of right-wing populism. We've seen that over and over, including in the U.S. increasingly. But I think the real lesson, Sagar, is that everywhere we see neoliberalism thrive and then wreak havoc on countries, right-wing populism emerges. How many times have we seen that?

That's obviously the lesson of the Trump victory in 2016. But even in Brazil, for all the talk about Lula and the Workers' Party being this left-wing party, whether it's because they're not really that or because the constraints of the Brazilian system don't let them be, it doesn't really matter. The way they governed was really more neoliberal than traditionally leftist. Just like the Democratic Party in the U.S. And in that wreckage arises right-wing populism due to growing anger, hateful anger, towards the neoliberal establishment. So now my understanding, and I'm certainly not an expert in Brazilian politics, but my understanding is there was quite significant advances under Lula in terms of lifting people out of poverty.

There were a lot of schools that were built. There were a lot of social programs that were genuinely beneficial, even as you continued to have, you know, the rich doing quite well and large levels of inequality. So, you know, even as obviously Bolsonaro overperformed the polls, he still came in second here. So what was the message from Lula that was appealing in this round? And then what do you expect is going to happen in the next round based on, you know, the other candidates that pulled votes and who their

voters are likely to go to? Yeah, I mean, so you're absolutely right. But let's remember that Lula has been president of Brazil for 12 years. He was president from 2002 until 2010 when he was terminated out of office. You're absolutely right that not only were there very impressive social programs that even kind of neoliberal centers praised because they weren't just handouts. They were payments to poor people but in exchange for proof that their kids are going to school and getting vaccinated and performing other social obligations the kind of things neoliberals like it did help a lot of people also during Lula's two terms Brazil had a massive economic growth that became the sixth

largest economy in the world ahead of the UK but you it's a long time ago. Once Lula was out of office and he was succeeded by Dilma Rousseff, the economy collapsed. There were huge corruption scandals. A lot of anti-PT sentiment arose. But the reality is Lula won. And let's remember, he did win last night in the sense that he got the most votes, primarily because he's just such a gigantic force of personality. There's so much personal affection for Lula in Brazil that does not necessarily translate to other left-wing parties. And you can't really, you know, you have to sometimes in politics realize that a lot of it is about force of personality.

So that's a huge factor. I would still rate Lula as the favorite to win in this runoff, though I don't think it's going to be easy as a lot of other people think. But in some sense, Crystal, you're right. But 2010, when he left, was a long time ago, and the next decade was filled with a lot of misery and a lot of suffering. So the other thing that was a concern, Glenn, is that Bolsonaro, who made noises in this direction, that basically if he didn't win, then thing that was a concern, Glenn, is that Bolsonaro, who made

noises in this direction that basically, you know, if he didn't win, then the thing was rigged. And you had a resolution that was passed by the Senate here. The U.S. has been very concerned about Bolsonaro basically claiming an illegitimate victory here. And of course, the context for that is, well, we had a sort of like, you know, failed and pathetic coup attempt here in the U.S. with Trump and his supporters. There was a legit one in Brazil, you know, that did oust the democratically elected president, which you, of course, were integral and ultimately exposing. So were there noises from anyone last night saying this, you know, result was not fair? Are you concerned about that in the next round as well? I'm not. I have, you know, first of all, I have, of course,

I think the impact of January 6th, calling it an insurrection or whatever is overstated, I regard it more as a riot than like an actual insurrection. I'm not really referring to January 6th as much as I am like the fake elector schemes and the efforts in the courts to try to overturn the election. But we can leave that debate for another day. There were clearly efforts on Trump's side to try to, you know, keep himself in office. And he continues to say, I'm rightfully elected and they should just redo the election, etc, etc. Sure, sure, sure. Sure. I was just I was just trying to say that, you know, I never saw the kind of post-election instability or violence in the U.S. as a major threat. And I don't really see it as a threat in Brazil. And to the extent that I did, because I mean, just like with Trump, what I would describe

Bolsonaro as being more than anything else during his first four years in office was a weak president. I think the world in which Bolsonaro gets everything that he wants is a very dark and alarming world. The reality is a very dark and alarming world. The reality is Brazilian institutions, and there was an article in the New York Times just a week ago that examined whether or not the Brazilian Supreme Court has become authoritarian in its efforts to kind of limit and stop the Bolsonaro movement. He's really been checked and limited in lots of ways. I don't think he'd have a lot of institutional support in the military, for example, for doing this sort of thing that would be necessary to threaten the election. But the real point, Crystal, is even though Bolsonaro came in second last night, the big winner

of last night's election was Bolsonaroismo. I mean, his party is now going to be the largest party in both the Senate and the House. His ally won the governorship of Rio de Janeiro and is now the favorite to win the governorship of Sao Paulo, the two largest and most important states in Brazil. So even if Lula ultimately wins in this runoff, Bolsonaro'sismo in Brazil is not going anywhere. It remains very strong. And I think that has definitely lessened the likelihood that people are going to go out into the streets and create a lot of violence and instability in the event that Bolsonaro loses to Lula. Makes a lot of sense. Glenn, thank you so much for joining us and for breaking it down. It's just so, so helpful and a lot of parallels that we can draw for our own country. So thanks very much.

Appreciate it. Great to be with you guys. Glad you're covering this. Thanks. Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit more about the economy because this spells up more sort of democratic Thank you. of the Federal Reserve policy. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. From the Wall Street Journal, they say home builders are offering to sell homes in bulk at discount to investors. As mortgage rates hit a 15-year high and individual buyers back away, builders look to unload both planned and completed homes. So we really, at this point, have a worst of all worlds in terms of regular people and the housing market. So prices like sticker prices have come down somewhat on houses. But that has been coupled with such a massive spike in mortgage rates that these homes are wildly less affordable than they used to be. And I do encourage you to go through, listen to Sagar's monologue yesterday, because he goes through some of the numbers.

It's hard to wrap your head around just how much of a difference it makes in terms of your monthly mortgage costs, the difference between, you know, a 3% mortgage rate and a 7% mortgage rate. It like doubles the amount that you're paying month to month. So this has put these houses wildly out of reach of most American regular consumers. So at the same time, you have these home builders who were starting to like ramp up before the Fed started to hike interest rates, starting to ramp up, were building, which is something we really desperately need because we are short in terms of housing stock. And now their costs to finance these projects are going up. They don't have the individual buyers because they can't afford the mortgage interest rates as they are now.

So they're pulling back from these projects. And then the inventory that they already have, since they can't get individual buyers because of the mortgage rates, they're offloading them at a discount, oftentimes to these companies that want to buy up a bunch of single family homes and then rent them to you at a profit.

So they want to be like America's landlord. This is, again, something we have sort of been predicting from the beginning. The only people this market is good for is those who have massive amounts of cash or ability to get, you know, financing at decent rates who can snatch up all of these houses. And they're saying they're selling them for, you know, 15 and 20% discounts. So they're getting a great deal to be able to profit in the future. So if you're a renter, you're getting screwed because rents are going up. If you're a homeowner, you're getting screwed because prices are going down. And with mortgage rates so high, if you want to move, you can't because you're terrified of what that mortgage interest rate is going to be. If you're a

prospective buyer, you can forget about it because of the mortgage interest rates. Really, the only ones that benefit from this are permanent capital yet again. Other piece that I wanted to point to here, just to underscore the part about how home prices are falling, just not the affordability of homes. Let's put this next piece from Bloomberg up on the screen. This is kind of a scary headline. U.S. home prices now posting biggest monthly drops since 2009. What was going on in 2009? Cities facing steepest corrections include San Francisco. Inventory levels stayed relatively flat, according to one data provider. So you are seeing home prices pull back, which, of course, you know, if you're a homeowner and you see your value of your home go down, that means your overall wealth is going down. They're stuck in their homes if they want to move because of these mortgage rates being so high and people can't buy in now because it is so unaffordable.

It really is a worst-of-all-world situation. And to underscore what I said yesterday, yeah, you can cheer, but the home price index only fell by 0.98%. Yeah. So if the home price goes down 1% and mortgage rate goes up a hundred percent, who's coming out on top? Are you going to be able to afford a house? This is why all this cheer. Look, I just fundamentally do not believe just also from an act like literal equity perspective. I don't mean in like the diverse sense that the U S government will ever let houses drop. Housing prices drop by more than like 20%. Cause then you would just, homeowners are too powerful. Exactly. government will ever let housing prices drop by more than 20%.

Homeowners are too powerful. Exactly. They're the most powerful people in the world. They have all the money, one-third or something, I think, of the cash. Some 68% of Americans have at least some home equity, disproportionately higher amongst elder folks. I'm certain that if those people are that affected, that something will happen. So my point is that for you to wish that affected, that something will happen. So my point is,

is that you can't, for you to wish that the price keeps going down to be equal to the increase in your average monthly mortgage, you would have to wish for essentially a 50% or almost 100% reduction. That's just not going to happen. So my point is just like, okay, let's say they slide 10. Again, you're still out of a hell of a lot of money if you're still trying to afford something. And the other problem is this will be the situation for years to come. Already, the Fed is like, we are not even considering lowering rates until 2024. We're not even considerate for another year and a half or so. And then let's say they do lower it by a point, you know, 100 basis points.

So I'm like, you're still way higher than you were previously. Now, I think there's a lot of critiques of a zero interest rate environment. I think it, you know, bubbles and so many assets, et cetera. But the point is not to punish the people who won't be as affected and who didn't accumulate tens of billions of dollars of wealth during that interim period. They were just kind of skating by, you know, riding a little bit of the benefit, but they weren't reaping nearly as much of the benefit as everybody else. You have to have some sort of rebalancing that happens. Yes. I mean, this situation with housing being so unaffordable, I mean, it really is kind of a powder keg because this is a crucial part of this is the way you build stable middle class wealth for

yourself and for your kids for the future. It'd be great if there were other pathways, but this is basically the pathway. And you are for effectively, you know, now two generations, millennials and Gen Z, shutting that off. That is a powder keg kind of environment. It's not only a problem here, it's a problem overseas as well and a lot of other places. It's part of what's going on in the UK right now as well. But, you know, I don't think I really had looked closely at the numbers before of just how quickly things become unaffordable with mortgage prices going up. Right. I never thought about it either.

I really, you know, I always looked at housing prices in terms of like, oh, what is the actual cost? $300,000, $400,000, whatever. But it really has so much more to do with what that mortgage interest rate is that you are able to lock in and what your monthly payment then is going to be, whether you can afford it or not. So that has been a lesson for me throughout all of this, that the price really has very little to do ultimately with how affordable the housing stock is. And there are a lot of metrics that say basically housing has never been less affordable for your average American than it is now. That is an absolute disaster. And I think it's really important to underscore this was the intent, like this was the Fed's intent was to cause exactly this situation and to try to effectively crash the housing market. But again, if part of your issue here is a supply issue, by increasing the rates,

and that's what this Wall Street Journal piece really points out, you're also causing additional supply issues. So exactly the problem that spiked inflation to start with, you're actually exacerbating by increasing these rates as well. So it's an ugly situation. So it all started with this report from the Daily Beast. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So Herschel Walker, who is very pro-life and says he doesn't believe in exceptions. And, you know, unlike some Republicans who have sort of walked back from their abortion positions in the general election. He has been all in. Daily Beast reporting pro-life Herschel Walker paid for his girlfriend's abortion. But wait,

there's more. They have quite a bit of evidence to support this allegation. Let's go and put this next piece up on the screen. The woman who they did not name, you know, to protect her privacy, they say she supported these claims with a $575 receipt from an abortion clinic, plus a get well card from Walker that they actually have pictured in the piece with his like, you know, very clearly his signature signed on the card and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check that came from Walker. So you've got the receipt from the abortion clinic, the get well card that came right after the abortion and the bank deposit receipt that is for the rough amount that the abortion cost from directly from Herschel Walker. Crazy. So pretty hard, I would say, to deny that one. It seems like the facts are fairly clear here. Also important to keep in mind, Herschel Walker has been caught in like so many lies at this point. I cannot keep track of all of them. They were obviously the ones about his kids that he denied even to his own campaign staff

or his until he got caught red handed. Now he's trying to say, oh, I just wanted to protect them. That's why I wasn't talking about him. That was not the story at the time. In fact, his own campaign staff was leaking to the Daily Beast about how they didn't know whether he was lying, that he was a pathological liar, that they couldn't trust anything that he said, that they sat down with him after the first revelation and were like, Herschel, dude, are there any more? And he's like, absolutely not. And then that very day they get new evidence that in fact there are more kids. He's lied about his bio. I mean, you could go on and on. There's clearly a difficult relationship with the truth. So anyway, that is the context for his flat-out denial. Let's go and put this

up on the screen. Walker says this is a flat-out lie. I deny this in the strongest possible terms. This is a repugnant hatchet job from a Democrat activist disguised as a reporter. He's obsessively attacked my family. He's harassed friends of mine, asking if I father their children. He's called my children secret because I didn't want to use them as campaign props in a political campaign. That's what I was talking about before. Now they're using an anonymous source to further slander me. They'll do anything to hold onto power. It's disgusting gutter politics. I won't take it anymore. I'm planning

to sue the Daily Beast for this defamatory lie. It will be filed tomorrow morning. Just a little bit more on his response because I thought this was interesting. He kind of tried to imply that the reason they're going after him is because he's black. Let's go ahead and put this piece up on the screen. So this reporter says she was at a Herschel Walker event when the story broke, and his immediate response was, that's a lie, the Daily Beast. They said that about my kids also.

They lied. No, they didn't anyway. So I don't take anything that seriously, and I think that right now I ask this question, would they be doing that if I was white? Okay? So already a lot of drama here. However.

This takes the cake. Yes, the story goes so much further than this. So Herschel Walker, you guys may be aware of, he has actually quite prominent son, Christian Walker, who has been Herschel's probably most prominent campaign surrogate, who himself is like outspoken, right-wing conservative, you know. He has a podcast called Uncancellable.

Let's just put it that way. Exactly. And, you know, loves to own the libs and like he's down for the cause, right? So Christian has been really outspoken in favor of his father's campaign. Something about this story and the denial triggered a total 180 from Christian Walker with regards to his father. So let's put this up on the screen. He says, every family member of Herschel Walker asked him not to run for office because we all knew some of his past, every single one. He decided to give us the middle finger and air out all of his dirty laundry in public

while simultaneously lying about it. I'm done. Christian continued. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. I know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father, Herschel Walker, stopped lying and making a mockery of us. You are not a family man. When you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over six times in six months running from your violence. I don't care about someone who has had a bad past and takes accountability, but how dare you lie and act as though you're some moral, Christian, upright man. You've lived a life of destroying other people's lives. How dare you so his son who has been very unspoken in favor of him completely

turning on him in a scathing fashion and uh that's where things stand right now and uh so while you and i are on the air he actually put out a new video i haven't you know obviously we're doing the show but he just says i've stayed silent for nearly two years my whole life has been lied about publicly i did one campaign event then said i don't want any more involvement don't you dare We're doing the show, but he just says, I've stayed silent for nearly two years. My whole life has been lied about publicly. I did one campaign event, then said I don't want any more involvement. Don't you dare test my authenticity. And he's giving out his full story. He says, I've spoken to nearly all the people who have attacked me and told them I didn't want to be involved.

Now they're blaming me for everything I'm not responsible for. It's disgusting. So look, when your own son is going scorched earth against you and causing you, calling you an adulterer and confirming that the story is effectively true, I mean, you're just seeing a massive, massive mess. I think it very links neatly with the story we're about to talk about next, which is in a way I feel bad for Herschel Walker. It seems clear to me that he's just not all there. Whatever's left, he's taken very impulsive decisions in his life. He's ruined a lot of his family, and he was a flawed candidate basically from the beginning, which was obvious to just about anybody every time he opens his mouth.

So I typically, as you guys know, I don't put a lot of stock into candidate quality except in extreme circumstances. And this is an extreme circumstance. I think it is extreme. You know, when you have, you know, there have been obviously repeated issues with the lying about the kids and getting caught in that and the lying about the bio and just his inability to really, you know, explain his positions in a straightforward manner.

But then when you have, the story itself was damaging, but I don't think a total deal breaker in terms of the Senate race. But then when you have the story itself was damaging, but I don't think a total deal breaker in terms of the Senate race. But then when you have your own son who has been so prominent coming out in this manner and just guns blazing, saying you're an adulterer, you're a liar, you threatened us with violence, you've ruined all of our lives. We all begged you not to run. I mean, that's I think that's a very, very difficult thing to ultimately overcome. And, you know, this is a race. Georgia's another state like Nevada where the polling has actually been quite accurate. In fact, I think the polling going into the last two Senate runoffs actually understated Democratic support by a little bit, like maybe a point or two. So when you look at this race and you see polling that has the neck and neck true toss up, Raphael Warnock, maybe with a little bit of an edge, and then you see these this, you know,

this just disaster for for Hershel Walker and frankly, for his family. This is going to be, I think, difficult for Republicans to be able to pull off. You know, I'm seeing them being a little more hopeful about Oz now. Oz had his own story come out yesterday about puppies. Yeah, about dogs. We'll do a segment on that. We're going to have to cover that one because some of these allegations are horrifying. And I mean, obviously, it's no accident that these types of stories come out in October, a couple of weeks before an election. That's exactly when you would time an oppo dump to try to, you know, really land with the electorate before people start voting and go to the polls.

But that doesn't mean that the allegations are false or untrue or unworthy of reporting on, ultimately, even if, you know, they are sort of coming from one side of the political spectrum. So in any case, I think this makes it a lot more difficult for Republicans to pick up the state of Georgia. When we were down in Atlanta, I actually predicted Republicans would win this seat. I am changing that prediction. I now think this is going to be a very difficult situation for them to overcome just because this is all so incredibly disturbing and damaging. And so that doesn't mean that Republicans won't pick up the Senate, but they're going to need to look to states like Nevada and Pennsylvania. Even if they just pick up those two, then they'll be

able to get the one point, the one seat margin that they ultimately need here. Let's talk about Iran because there is clearly a lot going on there. We wanted to keep our eye on the protests. Obviously, we had Dr. Trita Parsi on to break down what was happening there and how widespread they were. This started all because of a young woman who was accused of not wearing her hijab properly by the morality police, which just pause for a second and think of the insanity that such a thing even exists, died in their custody. The family really believes that she was basically beaten to death. They deny it, but you take that for what it's worth. So those protests continue. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. They truly are, you know, nationwide. They're concentrated in urban centers, no doubt about it. Protests, you know, movements

often are. But you have a top Iranian official here warning that protests could destabilize the country. I think that's basically being used as a justification for what has been a brutal crackdown. You've had estimates vary, but I've seen at least 50 deaths in these protests, 50 people killed in these protests. Iran's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday the protests over the death of a young woman in police custody could destabilize the country and urge security forces to deal harshly with those he claimed endanger public order as countrywide unrest entered its third week. Posts on social media show there were scattered anti-government protests in Tehran and running clashes with security forces in other towns. On Sunday, Iranian state TV has reported at least 41 protesters and police have been killed since the demonstrations began September 17th. An AP count of official statements by authorities tallied at least 14 dead with more than 1,500 demonstrators arrested. Again, tallies vary because other numbers I saw said at least 50.

So there's clearly been significant loss of life here among protesters mostly, but also among some police officers. Now, there's a few things to say about this. One thing that I think is remarkable, Sagar, and noteworthy here is that this started with the Iranian middle class, which has been, you know, sort of economically devastated over the past number of years. But it has truly spread across class groups, rural and urban centers, and also among ethnic groups. And all of that is quite remarkable, obviously, because of the circumstances that sort of kicked these protests off. They've also really centered women and been led in large part by women. And I think it's really noteworthy that they've continued as long as they have, even in spite of this clearly brutal crackdown.

The other piece of context we wanted to put up here that I thought was interesting breakdown from, let's go ahead and put the Wall Street Journal piece up on the screen here. They say Iran's crippled economy sustains protests after religious police lit flame. The country's middle class is shrinking for the first time in decades amid U.S. sanctions corruption and, or amid U.S. sanctions corruption and economic mismanagement. You know, they interviewed some folks who were directly involved in the protest. They talked to a 52-year-old homemaker who's been protesting in Tehran, taking off her hijab, waving it with crowds of other women. And she says, the roots of these protests is the economic problems, and you now see the eruption. She and her husband, who are a small food business owner, have run out of savings and inflation threatens their middle-class lifestyle.

They once owned several properties, but they've had to sell them to raise cash. She said she used to buy a new car every two years, trading the old model for a new one. She recently had to sell her only car for cash to pay off loans. Some of the numbers underscoring this, the middle class is under pressure from 50% inflation. Think about that. 50% inflation, a currency that fell to its lowest levels ever this year. That means anything you import is going to be way, way, way more expensive. That continues to feed that 50% inflation. Today, more than a third of Iran lives in poverty compared with 20% just in 2015, and the middle class has shrunk to comprise less than half the country. And that is

a stunning reversal as well. The Iranian middle class has been sort of like famously robust for a long time. Of course. I mean, I think that that's actually very noteworthy, which is that at the same time that you are getting crippled economically, it's like you have somebody getting beaten, you know, possibly to death by the so-called morality. And you're just like, okay, what's the whole point? You know, with a lot of these types of regimes, the guarantee is always, yeah, you might have to live with some of our crazy stuff that the, you know, the more religious people support, but you'll be allowed to make money and you'll be prosperous. Yeah, we're going to have good schools. You're going to have good healthcare. You're going to

be able to become a doctor or a lawyer, and you're going to have a stability for your family. It's complicated. People are like, well, I'm not a lover of the regime, but I'm doing fine. It's like, well, if you're not doing fine and you're getting oppressed, you're like, well, why should I have to put up with this at all? And you have two things that happen here, too. I mean, you have this total economic collapse, which is partly global economy, partly U.S. sanctions, and partly because of, you know, decisions of the Iranian government themselves. Then you have a new hardline president. So, you know, whereas previously, you know, women could kind of wear their hijab,

this is my understanding based on the reporting, however they want. Now you're starting to have this like harder line morality police crackdown. And so when you couple those things together, yeah, you're like, what the hell? What am I getting out of this deal? This is a nightmare. It's an economic nightmare. And it's like a sort of like social cultural nightmare as well. And the level of like violence and brutality and all of that. So you can see how that would lead to it being a powder keg. We have go ahead and show this little bit of footage here. These are girls who, this is actually a speaker from the IRGC. They're paramilitary.

And the tweet that accompanied this video here, all these girls who took off their hijab, and they're waving at him, and they're screaming at him basically to go home, go away. They say, get lost. So this is at an all-girls school. And it's just one example of the type of protests, quite courageous, in fact, that have been going on around the country. And, you know, I know this is a little complicated because Iran is one of the, like, official bad guy regimes of U.S. government. And so there's also always speculation of like, is the CIA involved in creating this discontent and all of these things?

But it seems pretty clear this was a very organic movement that the fuse was lit by this event of police violence that there was already all this economic discontent and kindling there. And the last thing I want to say is I do see some people who are like, oh, see, this justifies the sanctions. This is what we wanted to get. And I think that's absurd.

Like it's immoral to punish a population and try to strangle them with the hope of like maybe they'll rise up and get rid of the regime. Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's much else to say except like I wish them the best and I hope it leads to some societal change in Iran. You know, look, I mean. They've got long odds. I think we got to be really clear about that. Yeah, we should be honest, which is that at the end of the day,

the Iranian regime has been willing to use deadly force to a historic degree in order to have its preservation. Kind of a longstanding tradition with authoritarian governments. That being said, you know, it works until it doesn't work. So maybe this is the one case. I have my doubts. It's been going on for a long time. But it is important that we understand, like, what exactly is being protested over there.

And I don't live in Iran. I don't know how widespread it actually is from what is leaking out and what is being brought attention to. It seems like some portion of the public of which we should obviously support, you know, in any way that we possibly can. So, like I said, I wish them the absolute best. I've lived in Islamic theocracies before, and it is stifling. It's horrific. I will never forget that. It made me such an appreciator of just our society,

like watching women completely clad in the niqab, walking 10 steps behind their husbands and hearing stories about the way that they're treated at home. And they have no rights. They can't leave the country, just for context. He's living in Qatar. I mean, even some of these princesses, they're wealthy, but they have no authority. They can't even get on a plane without the permission of their fathers or their husbands married off against their will. It really is horrific. I can't even believe that it exists in the year 2022. So to the extent that still exists in iran which it certainly does with these so-called morality police i wish them the best i don't think any human being especially

women deserves to live like yeah no i mean there's no doubt about that and the last piece that i will say which i mean maybe it's i don't know how you feel about me saying it but uh it's also bears keeping in mind that like you know we know, we had the Arab Spring. There was a lot of hope that you would have these more, like, reformists, more sort of open, liberal, tolerant, democratic regimes. And unfortunately, it didn't work out. where in a previous set of protests several years back, they basically like forcibly disbanded the labor unions and a lot of the sort of like civil society organizations that could form the bedrock of if you were going to have an actual revolution, a new government

and all those sorts of things. So that just makes the odds that much more difficult. But we don't want to lose sight of their struggle because you do have people who are really, you know, courageously fighting right right now for a very just cause. Yeah, I think that's very true. Joining us now is author Nicholas Eberstadt. He's the author of a fantastic book, Men Without Work.

Let's go ahead and put it up there on the screen, which actually has a new introduction, which is part of the reason that we all wanted to talk. Men Without Work, which demonstrates a crisis of male wages, of unemployment, talks about some of the reasons. So just for context, Nick, we actually recently had Richard Reeves on to discuss his book of Boys and Men, and we got a tremendous response from our audience, and it's something we want to tug on a little bit more. I was familiar with your work now for quite some time, so just describe maybe the original thesis of the book, and then why it becomes even more relevant in the aftershock of the COVID lockdowns and the economy that we're all living in in 2022. Sure. Well, it's a problem that's been hiding in plain sight for almost two generations. We've been seeing this previously invisible crisis of

the collapse of work for men, mainly driven by an exit from the workforce of prime age men of 25 to 54 year olds, let's say, it's been almost a straight line up from 65 to the present. I put out the first edition of this book in 2016. And the unnerving, eerie thing is the line I calculated for the exit from the workforce, which is almost straight, has just continued right on from 2016 to the present. So we've got more than 7 million prime age guys neither working nor looking for work. For every guy who's unemployed, there are over four who are neither working nor looking for work today. And that is why male work rates are now kind of at about 1937 levels. We have a depression scale problem of work for men on our hands right now. And that's obviously not the

only thing going wrong in our workforce right now. So do we know what men are, those men are doing instead of working in regular jobs? And also I was curious in the statistics, do things like, you know, driving for Uber or these sort of like gig economy type of work, is that included in the statistics of men who are working? That's supposed to be included, Crystal. I mean, you know, in principle, in practice, some of it may be missed. In practice, some moonlighting may be missed. But the scale of the problem, I think, is basically pretty for real. I think we, the scale of the problem isn't artificial. And so do we have a sense of like what they're doing

with their days instead of work? So about a tenth, maybe a little more than a tenth of these guys who are not in the workforce are really full-time students. The way they behave, the way they act is more or less like people who are employed, not surprisingly, because they're expecting to get back into the workforce. For the overwhelming majority, though, the people who are neither employed nor in education and training, you've got a really dispiriting picture that is being painted by them, by their self-reported answers to surveys about how they spend their time. They basically say that they don't do civil society, that they don't do worship or charity or volunteering.

They say that they do remarkably little help around the house, either with people at home or with housework. What they report doing most is watching. We can't tell from the surveys what they're watching. We can't tell what type of devices or what the content is. But like 2,000 hours a year, as if it were a full-time job. And before the pandemic, they also reported, almost half of these men reported, that they were taking pain medication every day, some type of pain medication. So we've got a kind of a tableau suggesting that people are kind of prepping for deaths of despair in too many cases. And so what are the downstream social effects of this?

Like, why is this? Why should people care? In essence, what socialized costs are all of us incurring as a result of this crisis? You know, I've thought about that a lot, Sagar. And as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing good that comes out of this. It leads to this huge gap in our workforce means slower economic growth. It also means bigger income and wealth gaps in our society. It probably means more dependence upon social programs and social welfare over the long term, more pressure on fragile families, less social mobility, less involvement in society and, you know, trust in institutions. There's just, you do the 360, there is nothing good that comes out of this.

And what do you see as the spark that set this process in motion? Because I believe you said it's basically a straight line since I believe you said it's basically a straight line since I think you said 1965. So what starts to happen that changes the dynamic that leads to this sort of, you know, not just dropping out of the workforce, but becoming a sort of observer of society rather than a participant in altogether? It's a really profound question, Crystal. And, you. And since this has been going on for over half a century, I mean, it's an established historical fact, a big fact. And like other big established historical facts, it's probably got a lot of influences intertwined there.

I can point to a couple of things. I mean, one has been the erosion of the previous family order in the United States, because the men who are never married or don't have kids at home are way less likely to be involved in the workforce, too. Another is the expansion of social welfare benefits. Our system is very stingy, I've been told by anybody I talk to in Europe or other affluent societies in the world, but there can still be a perverse disincentive, especially in our, I think, in our disability archipelago of programs to infantilize people who shouldn't be affected that way. We've also seen the explosion of crime and the explosion of punishment. This is a really big one. Our government does not collect any decent data on our invisible ex-con population, but we have reason to think that there are now 25 million American adults who have a

felony in their background. And you know that mass incarceration is the problem we talk about. It's like 2 million people. That's less than a tenth of this big problem I'm mentioning. So about one in seven adult guys, by my calculation, has a felony in his background. And that has to be a big part of what we're seeing here. Are we seeing a similar trend in other developed nations or is the U.S. alone in this? In every rich country, you see some decline in prime male labor force involvement. There is no other country in the rich democratic world that has had such a steady plunge as ours. I mean, of the two big rich countries in the world, the ones that are closest to being twins are Canada and the U.S. And our decline is way worse than Canada's. And so in terms of solutions,

what do you propose? Or is it just socializing the conversation, getting people to debate it, getting people to acknowledge the facts? Because I don't see them really represented in our culture at all. No. I mean, this is an invisible crisis still. It baffles me why people aren't talking about this. I mean, maybe because the guys are too often dying deaths of despair and they're not burning cars or seeming to be a menace to society. In terms of big solutions, I forgot my magic wand today, so I can't fix the family and do other sorts of fundamental changes in our society. But government can still do things. We've got this gigantic vocational

skill gap because our broken education system isn't preparing everybody the way they should to have a marketable skill when they graduate from K through 12 or from college. We need, I think, to have a work first principle in our social welfare programs. That might turn out to be more expensive, but even if it were more expensive, I think the consequences would be better for our society.

And we should be shining a spotlight on our invisible ex-con population. I mean, we can't have evidence-based policies for getting these millions and millions of Americans back into employment and families and societies if we don't have the evidence. One thing that I think is important, distinction that you have been making, which I think really matters is, you know, to me, like work is not everything. There are a lot of ways to find meaning in life that's outside of like a nine to five job. But what you're pointing to is a larger crisis of just sort of total disconnection. And as you're saying, I can't imagine that that ends in any good place, certainly for these individual men, for the people who are around them who may depend on them for various things or for society as a whole. Do we have any sort of historical models of what this looks like?

Well, yeah. I mean, back in the 1800s, there was a sociologist called Emil Berkheim who talked about anomie and atomization. He did a lot of work on suicide and things like that. I mean, if you want to kind of play fancy pants, you can go all the way back to Aristotle and talk about how he noticed that human beings were social creatures, that they needed to be part of society to thrive. And that part of our human nature, I don't think has changed in 2,500 years. So you've got people who are dropped out of work, dropped out of family,

dropped out of community, dropped out of faith. Why do we think this experiment could end well ever? Yeah, I think that's really well said. Last question for you. You talked about some of the sort of like the sticks in particular of, you know, having a work requirement for welfare programs. I'm a little bit skeptical of that, especially because of the evidence around universal basic income that shows there isn't really a drop off in like interest or working when you receive those payments. We'll put that debate aside. What about just making

work more appealing? I mean, during the time period you're talking about, you've had union rates massively declining over some significant portion of those decades. You've actually had male wages going down. So, you know, it's not crazy for guys to look at that and say like, this is just not worth it. Like I can work my ass off and still not be able to buy a house, have a family, like, live that American dream. So why should I bother? Well, I think we had a little bit of a kind of a natural experiment during the pandemic. In 2020 and 2021, immigration to the United States was severely disrupted. There was all of this argument about our immigrants stealing American jobs.

The native U.S.-born work rate for guys did not go up, or for anybody else, did not go up during that period. It's still way lower than it was before the pandemic. We had a more rapid increase in wages, especially for the lower occupational skill levels in 2021 than we'd had in a long time. And it didn't seem to have a big effect of bringing people back. I mean, there's a very good argument for having higher wages because we want to have a prosperous society and we want to have escalators that work for people. The troubling thing is that there's reason to think that once people drop out of the labor force, especially guys from this prime age group, that they tend to remain long timers, long termers. That isn't so much that has not been true with women so much. I mean, we have the existence proof of moms who go out of the workforce and go back in, but they have a very different set of skills. They don't get any sick days or vacation days

from their kids, right? They're reliable, dependable people that employers want. The sorts of habits that people develop if they're guys on the couch with pain medication is not what employers are looking for. Wow. Really interesting subject. I think we're just going to have to keep diving into it. And I appreciate your work just putting the data out there. Data in itself is a way for us to spark the conversation. So thanks very much, sir.

Thank you for joining us. Great talking to you. Pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate your support. It's just been amazing to watch. If you can, come and join us in Chicago.

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Otherwise, great content for you the weekend. And we'll see you on Monday. Love you guys. See you Monday. This is an iHeart Podcast.