Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Stories of Week 6/26: Roe v Wade Overturned, Dem Inaction, NATO Expansion, Uvalde Coverup, & More!

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss Roe v Wade being overturned, Democrats doing nothing, July 4 inflation, NATO expansion, Uvalde coverup, & Ghislaine Maxwell's sentence!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. worthy 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. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. Obviously, lots and lots of big news, starting with that monumental era-defining decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and that is where we will start the show. But there's a lot to talk about with that. We've also got some new insight into Trump's reaction to that. What he's saying publicly, a little different from what he is saying privately about the political impact, at least. Also some big developments with regards to Ukraine and Russia, a G7 meeting this week that is levying more sanctions on Russia, trying to deal with the fact that the sanctions thus far, especially the oil sanctions, have only actually enriched Putin's regime. So we're trying to figure all of that out. We also have some new

details. Liz Cheney, who is very much on the rocks in terms of her Republican primary. And she had said, no, I'm not going to court Democrats. I'm just Nancy Pelosi's incredible response to the overturning of Roe versus Wade. I know you guys are really going to enjoy that one. So that's something to look forward to. Also have Derek Thompson back on the show. He's been digging into the airlines are a complete mess. I don't know if any of you guys have flown recently, but the number of canceled flights and it's completely preventable. They know that they don't have the staffing and the crews to fly all the flights that they are booking people on. So it's completely egregious. The person who is in charge of the agency that should be dealing with this is Pete Buttigieg. He, of course, is like MIA on all of this. So Derek's going to dig

into all of that. But we wanted to start with that decision overturning Roe versus Wade. And in particular, we have some new polling that decision overturning Roe versus Wade. And in particular, we have some new polling that breaks down just how Americans feel about this. And overwhelmingly, the picture is, of course, Republicans broadly supportive. Independents and Democrats feel very, very differently. And overall in the country, this is a very unpopular move by the Supreme Court, further undercutting that court's legitimacy, which was already at record lows. Let's put this first part up on the screen. This is from CBS News and YouGov. So they asked whether overturning Roe versus Wade is a step backward for America, a step forward for America, or neither. 52%, so an outright majority, say a step backward. Only 31% say a step forward.

The remainder, 17%, say neither, sort of indifferent. Next one, let's put this up on the screen. This is what I was just referencing about the sort of partisan breakdown here. So look, it's kind of predictable. Democrats overwhelmingly disapprove of the decision, 83 to 17. Republicans overwhelmingly approve of the decision, 78 to 17. Republicans overwhelmingly approve of the decision, 78 to 22. But if you look at the ones that count, the swing voters, the independents, 62% disapprove of this decision. So no doubt about it. However you personally feel about the overturning of Roe versus Wade, there is no doubt that this decision is dramatically on the wrong side of public opinion. And the last piece we wanted to show you here

about how this might impact the midterm elections. In particular, of course, Democrats have been suffering from a lack of enthusiasm as compared to Republicans who are super revved up to vote in the midterm elections for, you know, sort of historic reasons. You always want to vote against the party in power, all that sort of stuff. So you have 50 percent of Democrats saying that this decision by the Supreme Court makes them more likely to vote. That's opposed to just 20 percent of Republicans. So, you know, I always am a little skeptical of these things because even people's impression of how they are going to act based on things, people don't always know really. People are terrible judges of what they're going to do.

Yeah, exactly, how they're actually going to talk about this in a minute, some of the really radical and extreme measures that Republicans are leaping into right away, there is no doubt that this is going to shift the direction of the midterms a bit in favor of Democrats. Now, do I think that's enough to overcome what were dramatically long odds and what looked like a total disaster for Democrats? No. Do I think on the margins or with some particular candidates it might make a difference? Yes. I actually like the way that you put it at the top, which is an era-defining decision, because that is the better way to conceive of it. You know, the things that have ramifications, they don't necessarily immediately occur. They don't just happen. What happens is that when you live in a new era, you have a whole new set of challenges, of coalitional differences, of the way that politicians are going to have to react to

different incentives. We'll talk about this both in Trump, and I'm going to be talking specifically a lot about this in my monologue. What I think it is, is that this creates an entire new set of political conditions, which introduces a dramatic amount of uncertainty into the system. Now, currently, the 2022 midterms, I think those are locked in. I mean, I don't see how that could possibly have an impact. That being said, this could be in the long term a decision that will put Republicans what I think very much on

the back foot of having to defend some extraordinarily unpopular decisions, what is still, though, a very, very powerful part of their political coalition. And I think that underlying this is a huge break in what traditionally defined the American right. Social conservatives and many others were willing to go along with the big tax cut Republicans and with others because they were promised that Roe versus Wade was going to get overturned. It was the singular promise of every Republican president since Ronald Reagan came into office. Now, though, that has completely scrambled court politics, both in the ways that Donald Trump was elected almost entirely on an inter-coalitional basis by selecting Mike Pence and saying, I'm going to overturn Roe, which is why those Republicans, those evangelicals, were willing to walk over broken glass in order to vote for him. Remember this, only 3% of the electorate in 2020 was voting on abortion and over 97% of those

people voted for Trump. Now, what's the reason? I mean, I guess you want to go ahead and award somebody for doing what they said, but let's be honest, you know, overturning something, taking action is the immediate impetus for a lot of these people to vote. And I already saw this, you know, no matter what you think, Josh Hawley has been, had made a really interesting comment, which is he said, for years, social conservatives were willing to go along with the tax cuts and the trade deals and all this stuff on judicial philosophy. That is over. We'll see in terms of how he votes and how he comports himself. I do think there's something there, which is that for a long time, there was this idea in Republican Reagan politics specifically called like a three-legged stool, which is

neocons on foreign policy. Then you had the tax cut, you know, art laugher types who were really not socially conservative at all, those two groups. But then you had, you know, the evangelicals, and those three kind of made up the coalition. Trump scrambled that a little bit on foreign policy, obviously, in terms of the way he governed governed both as a neocon-ish and then same whenever it came to tax cuts. But the social cons kind of remain that. With the stool, one leg is now gone. So what does that mean in terms of how you navigate a primary, how these people are going to vote? That's why I think looking at it as an era-defining decision in terms of how the Republican Party is going to have to operate. Also, the Democratic Party. I mean, there's major fissures. You and I were talking about this yesterday. I've never

seen the amount of kind of like PMC women who are repulsed by the major Democratic Party. That's a totally new phenomenon in terms of their like faith, I guess, in the Nancy Pelosi's. And I mean, look, if you were an RBG stan and you had an RBG bobblehead or whatever here in D.C., her face is everywhere. I mean, there's no person whose narcissism more is responsible for this decision. Her inability to retire when she should have under Obama, if she had not done so, then Justice Roberts is on record saying he would have stuck with a 15-week ban. That's very much where he wanted this court to go. That's where he wanted it to go. He wanted the Dobbs actual ruling to be the law of the land under Roe v. Wade.

So you have nobody but RBG to thank. I think a lot of people are coming to this realization politically. I think so. I think so. And this is part of what I'm going to talk about in my monologue that, you know, I've spoken before about my politics and why abortion isn't necessarily at the center, even though, you know, I do find this decision, frankly, I find it horrifying. They really don't care how it could damage the institution of the court. And I don't so much have an issue with that because I'm not a Supreme Court fan anyway. I think even though obviously in certain instances, Civil Rights Act being a great example, the court has moved the country forward more often than not. They've made terrible decisions, which are reactionary and regressive. This being clearly one of them, in my opinion. On the Republican side, you know, I wouldn't say that the third leg, the evangelical, like, religious right is gone. I mean, we see them springing into

action because even though the court's logic here is, let's just, let's let the states decide. That is not what most of the religious right wants. They want this to be national nationwide policy. I mean, Mike Pence, who is one of the key clear leaders beloved on the religious right, the first thing he says is, hey, you know, national ban, we got to go there. There's already been legislation introduced by Republicans in the House and the Senate to do exactly that. So they're not going to be satisfied. It says everything that they leapt into action not to say like, now we need to have affordable child care and make sure no baby grows up in poverty. No, what they leap into action to do is to say like, you know, let's get DAs to prosecute women who now cross state lines

to try to get an abortion in states where it is illegal. So, you know, there's a lot of demands for governors in states that have already more or less banned abortion to call a special session and ban it even harder. There's pressure on DeSantis down in Florida who just passed what was, you know, already an extraordinary and contrary to Roe ban, 15-week abortion ban. Well, there's pressure on him now to call a special session to do a six-week abortion ban. So I think that the momentum and the energy from the religious right is still very much there, very much focused on this issue. And it really shifts the locus of the culture wars.

So whereas we have been, and I think you're going to get into some of this in your monologue, we have been having this, you know, discussion about woke overreach and, you know, cancel culture and policing language, which I think Republicans had a major advantage in that conversation, even though personally I think they're, you know, hypocritical on a lot of those things in ways that we've talked about. But there's no doubt that they sort of leaned into this, we got to have free speech and people got to be able to say what they think. And it was working in terms of prosecuting the culture wars. Well, now you got a very different issue on their hands.

Who wants to go out and defend criminalizing women who are trying to, you know, not even just like get an abortion in their state, but cross state lines to get an abortion? As unpopular as defund the police was, this shit is even more unpopular. So good luck defending that. And that because this is such a powerful part of the Republican base and because so many congressional districts are drawn in a way that these are safe Republican districts, they're not worried about a Democrat or a moderate Republican. They're worried about challenges from their right. So you have a coalition that is organized, that is determined, that is feeling confident because they've just scored this, you know, huge multi-decade victory that they've been working for. They are not going to stop here. And I think it is a real wake-up call for, you know, people who are against this

decision that, you know, these kind of rights that we've taken for granted for generations can be rolled back like this. And there's been a lot of liberal complacency that, you know, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice that I think has just been completely overturned. Even things that, you know, we've kind of put behind his take for granted, certainly gay rights, you know, right to contraception, all these things that Justice Thomas said in his concurring opinion that agreed with the majority but laid on his view. He says, hey, if we're going here with abortion, we should be going here using the same logic with all of these other issues. So it is a real eye-opening kind of a moment. There is an interesting kind of fissure here. I mean, you've got Biden coming out. He gives a speech. He's saying all the right things. But then when it comes down to, OK, what are you going to actually do? It's crickets. And look, Democrats have a trifecta right now. They have

not been willing to push the bounds of what they could do. They haven't been willing to get rid of the filibuster. You know, they haven't been willing. He hasn't in other issues been willing to use executive power. And there are a few things he could do by executive order here as well. But Karine Jean-Pierre, the new press secretary, being asked about, well, how does he feel about the filibuster now? Let's take a look at, this is a tweet. According to the transcript, she said, she basically says, go vote. I mean, look, if we got more members of Congress who support Roe, then the thinking would be that we'd be able to pass a law to get that done. Get that done, meaning codifying Roe at a national level. I don't think the filibuster would play a role there. I

mean, listen, we're not stupid. Democrats are not going to be able to hold on to the House or likely the Senate. You think we're going to be able to get a super majority of Democrats? Come on, come on. And that's where this just completely breaks down. And there have been AOC and Elizabeth Warren, I think, have been sort of the most aggressive in kind of calling out the inaction on the Democratic side and the fact that the first reaction from Democrats, from Pelosi in particular,

and we'll talk about this a little bit more later, was like to send out a fundraising email, chip in your $15 now to send more Democrats in the House. It's like people who are liberals feel like we already did this. We gave you a trifecta. We already went and voted for you multiple times, not to mention going back to the Obama era

when we voted you in with a supermajority. You said this was important and you didn't do shit about it. And it's just so incredibly undeniable, not to mention that, you know, just in the past couple of weeks, Democratic leadership went to the mat for an anti-choice lawmaker, Henry Cuellar, down in Texas, pulling him across the finish line by a couple of hundred votes. And then you have the nerve to turn around and say, like, oh, you've got to elect more of us. You've got to trust us. And we're really fighting for you when the evidence just is not there that they actually mean that on this issue or many other issues, by the way. And so here's a little

bit of what AOC has been saying and getting a lot of support for. Go ahead and put this tweet up on the screen from AOC. She did a long tweet thread, and this is just the beginning of it, kind of calling out Democratic inaction. She says, here's how Dems can and must do more than wait for an election. She lays out, listen, the sort of lack of legitimacy of the court. In her view, she says, let's start with why seven of the nine justices were appointed by a party that hasn't won a popular vote more than once in 30 years. One of those seats was stolen. Several lied to Congress to secure their appointment and goes through some specific actions that she thinks Democrats need to take other than just fundraising. And she even says something to the effect of, she says, president and Dem leaders can no longer get away with familiar tactics of committees and studies

to avoid tackling our crises head on anymore. She also says, if you spent the time after we learned that this was coming from the leak, fundraising more than coming up with a policy response, you need to rethink your priorities. And then she also shared, let's put this up on the screen, this clip that kind of went viral. I have the full clip in my monologue you'll get to see. But these young women who were at a protest and they were really pissed off that the first thing Democrats did was send out a fundraising message. And her quote here is, my rights should not be a fundraising point for Democrats. AOC shared this favorably saying, we've been sounding the alarm about this for a long time. Some may want to go after the messenger, but we simply cannot make promises, Hector people to vote, and then refuse to use our full power when they do. We still have time to fix this enact, but we need to be brave.

She has been, listen, she's gotten some pushback from all the users who said, oh, this is Jill Stein's vote, this is Susan Sarandon's vote, you people, you're, you know, I know. How is that not bad? I know, it's insane, right? There's still, I was tagged on lists of like, these are the people who are to blame for Roe being overturned. Yes, that's right. Not RBG, of course. Complete insanity. But it was notable to me that there are a lot of liberals, a lot of blue wave emojis in the replies saying you're 100% correct. And so this is the biggest liberal progressive

split on the Democratic Party that I have really seen, where for the first time there really is, it's not enough to just be like, oh, well, the Republicans are worse. Okay, yeah, sure, fine. If this is your issue, no doubt about it, right? But it's just so blatant, the inaction and the complacency and the using of this issue just for fundraising and campaign points rather than an actual commitment to it, that it's just undeniable even for people who are sort of staunch vote blue no matter who. I'm curious to see how much of this is going to be a top issue. Like I said, only 3% of the electorate voted on abortion in 2020. I think something similar, maybe slightly higher, in 2016. I wonder how much of that is going to be Democrats and specifically younger women who overwhelmingly probably share these types of politics. So I'm

curious as to how much of an impetus it will give. I mean, at the end of the day, the problem for them is they just simply don't have the votes on Roe versus Wade in the House. So Roe versus Wade, the last time that it came up in May of 2020, fell by 51-49. Joe Manchin now comes out and says, however, that he would support codifying it. At the same time, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski also there. So I think that's a majority at like 52. But then, of course, neither Murkowski, Collins, or Manchin will commit to using the filibuster on that, not to mention the president. So obviously that's not going to happen. I do think it is interesting because Biden and the Dems and Pelosi, all of them, they don't really have anything that they can say.

The one point that they could make is, okay, what we would need is you have to go and deliver us seven more seats in the Senate come 2022. That's not going to happen politically. So I think that they need what their own framework of what the right has had over the last 40 years, which is a federalist society. Like they need to implement some sort of plan and be like, look, I mean, you know, I can tell you this from my friends who are very pro-life. They have all been aware, both of them, they knew the ins and outs of every law in this country for the last, like, decade. They're like, oh, the Dobbs decision, it's written specifically to preempt the Supreme Court and force their hand. You know, there was coordination all up and down the line from Washington to the way.

I haven't really seen that. And somebody made a good point to me, which is that the head of Planned Parenthood actually immediately reacted to the decision, like, not from work, but in a hotel room. And I just, that really struck me, where I was like, wow, like, you know, she knew this decision was probably going to happen. Right. Why is she taking it seriously enough? And it does seem to be, I mean, again, this is anecdotal, but here, walking the streets of D.C., you see the human rights campaign or the ACLU. They're all raising money. They're like, hi, do you have a moment in order to protect your board? It seems to have turned into a fundraising mechanism

without the action that the groups like family, I forget, the Family Research Council here in Washington, the Federalist Society, I mean, not just well-funded, but well-organized organizations, political organizations. Yes. I don't see that level of seriousness right now on the left in order to come up with a legitimate plan. Nope. No.

Yeah. I mean, no. There's not. That's a major political failure. I mean, listen, part of this, part of the reason the right has been able to score what is a generation-defining victory in their view is because they teamed up with capital. I mean, federalist society isn't just about abortion, right? It's about, like, you know, corporate power. And abortion is kind of like, the social issues are like the window dress.

I mean, very important for the constituency that cares about it. But so they team up with capital, and they're able to get their way. So, I mean, that pathway is not going to be open for the left if you're going to have a movement that's about more than just kind of, like, the surface-level cultural rights. I don't want to like dismiss those as unimportant, but you see what I'm saying here. But yeah, I mean, listen, the organizations that do exist, like the Guttmacher Institute, we talked to Ryan Grimm about how they're like in meltdown mode, in fighting, you know, progressives like inter-fighting, sniping, canceling each other

rather than focusing on the mission. And there's been a total lack of funding and focus on the long term. So there's no doubt about it. I mean, I think the response on both sides of this issue is extremely telling. The Republicans are saying, what's next? How do we get to that nationwide ban? How do we, even in states like Texas and Missouri, where we already have the bans in place, how do we go even further and make sure that women can't go out of state to get abortions also?

How do we crack down on abortion pills? How do we, you know, in states that have a 15-week ban, how do we push forward for the six-week ban? They are focused on what's the next step? What's the next action? How do we organize to get there? Public opinion be damned, by the way. And I think that's important, too, because there's been a lot of talk on the left about popularism and all this sort of stuff. Listen, they don't care if it's popular or not. They care about their agenda. And they're going to do it come hell or high water. They're going to figure out the lever to use power to get done what they want to get done. And the response on the Democratic side is like, chip in $15 to send more Democrats.

We like you're already there when you didn't do anything. So what's going to be different this time around? No plan, no strategy, no nothing. Even though, again, Democrats have the people on their side. They have certainly the Democratic base on their side, but they also have independents on their side and 22% of Republicans on their side, too, in terms of how they feel about this decision. And yet, is there any grand strategy to, you know, try to roll these things back, to try to get the other side on the defense? No, not at all. I see that as a major

political failure. I really do. Especially because, like I was saying, these proliferationist groups, like ultraviolet, like why are they, why were they spending time trying to cancel Joe Rogan three months ago? I knew this decision was coming, so did you. We talked about it here, the day that the court accepted it, I was like, this is it guys, like from what I'm hearing, you know, it pretty much says Roe is dead. Why are these organizations spending time talking about pregnant people and, you know, making a laughingstock of themselves by picking fights with other liberal groups or tweeting out clips of Joe Rogan when they should have been doing this? So I think it does show a fundamental lack of seriousness. As you said, say what you want about the Fed sock, but like they knew what they were doing over the

last 40 years. And these Catholic groups for life and all these people, they spend a lot of money and they draw a lot of attention. I mean, I remember, I think it was under Trump, there was a justice who had not even said she was pro-choice, but had not been like wholesale, like I'm 100% pro-life. And they almost vetoed her actually to make sure that she didn't get onto the, I believe it was the DC Circuit Court. This caused like a big brouhaha in Republican politics.

I don't see any level of seriousness on that level of organized opposition. All these groups that were supposed to be there to push Biden left. Yeah, right. It's a joke. I mean, they've just disappeared. They really have. And I do think that, I don't know that it's 100% of the issue, but I do think a lot of it is this like CIA op that has caused progressives to spend all their time fighting with each other and like, you know,

deciding who's the real progressive and who's woke enough rather than actually pushing any sort of mission or agenda forward and it lets Democrats get off the hook. I mean, and so now you do have maybe a little bit of an awakening of some liberals of just the extent of the failure and, you know, and the rot on the Democratic side. Does that turn into anything? I have no idea, but it is kind of an interesting moment in terms of Democrats grappling with how we got here. Let's talk a little bit more about the politics. Kamala Harris had a big sit-down interview yesterday with Dana Bash. And, you know, I think a lot of Democrats,

we talked yesterday about how a lot of the Democratic base is really waking up to just how failed Democrats have been over the past 50 years in preparing for this moment. Or even consider, you know, the Biden administration kind of got a little bit of a head start on this since the draft was leaked. We all knew this was coming. They had quite a bit of time to prepare some kind of a response and they got nothing. You know, any idea that anyone puts forward of, hey, let's get rid of the filibuster, let's codify a row. Hey, how about we, you know, any idea that anyone puts forward of, hey, let's get rid of the filibuster, let's codify a row. Hey, how about we, you know, what about we could put something, Elizabeth Warren said we could put clinics on federal lands. What about these justices that lied during their confirmation hearings? Shouldn't we do something about that?

One after another, it's just like, oh, we're really upset and give us $15. Are you going to do anything? Yeah, no, not so much. Here's one example of that with Kamala Harris and Dana Bash. Can the administration expand abortion access or abortion services on federal land? Meaning, provide the access on federal land that might be in and around states that ban abortion? I think that what is most important right now is that we ensure that the restrictions

that the states are trying to put up that would prohibit a woman from exercising what we still maintain is her right, that we do everything we can to empower women to not only seek but to receive the care where it is available. Is federal land one of those options? I mean, it's not right now what we are discussing,

but I will say that when I think about what is happening in terms of the states, we have to also recognize, Dana, that we are 130-odd days away from an election, which is going to include Senate races, right? Part of the issue here is that the court has acted, now Congress needs to act. But we, if you count the votes, don't appear to have the votes in the Senate. Well, what do you think of that, Crystal?

I mean, personally, I think it's an idea that is worth exploring. And, you know, to the broader point, issue on idea after idea after idea, they just say, no, we can't do that. No, we won't do that. Now we won't do that. And yet they somehow want the Democratic base to believe that if you put them back in power in the fall, that things are going to be different. And there's just no evidence whatsoever that

that's the case. So you can't send out these fundraising myths of send us $15 so we can protect Roe and so that we can overturn this horrible precedent. And then every idea that's brought to you, you shoot it down for one reason or another, or you say, as she did there, not even, look, I'd respect it more if they said, no, I don't think that's a good idea for X and Y and Z reason. No, it's, eh, we're not even really thinking about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, on that particular proposal, I'm pretty sure it would just get defunded and there's no way that it would get funded by the Senate. So I do think that the core point around the Senate is important. But look, I mean, to the point that we talked about earlier, there is no actual real plan that I've seen from the Democrats yet beyond give us some money. And to do that, you're going to have to win

elections. And you need to look, I honestly don't think it would be that difficult. I mean, Louisiana, for example, does have that pro-life governor, John Bel Edwards. I don't actually see anybody even talking about that, even though he's a Democrat, which is kind of mystifying to me. Same whenever it comes on terms of codifying it at a national say this, saying, hey, we need to pick up these two seats, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that would give us enough votes in order to end the filibuster in the case of this particular vote. And we could do that. But I haven't heard that yet from President Biden. That's a great point. If you believe in that, then you should run on it. So this is, there's a lot of dishonesty, I think, that is happening. On the political fallout point from the right, as we predicted and as I previewed yesterday, let's put this up there on the screen here in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger in a district, which we'll talk about in a second, which is very much a toss up for the Democrats. She was running in a very tight race. Yassili Vega, who's the

Republican nominee against Abigail Spanberger, here's what she had to say at an event in Stafford County. She said, quote, I've actually heard it's harder for a woman to get pregnant if she's been raped. Have you heard that? She was asked this. And then she responded, well, maybe because there's so much going on in the body. I don't know. I haven't, you know, see any studies. I'm processing what you're saying. It wouldn't surprise me. It's not something that's happening organically. You're forcing it. The individual is not, oh my God. I can't even continue reading this, which just, look. Todd Akin vibes. Yeah. Todd Akin vibes. It just shows you the spot that a lot of these people are in. They

have to juggle extraordinarily religious voters at the primary level and also not sound freaking crazy. I mean, this is something where, look, it doesn't take a genius or a reproductive health expert in order to tell you that there's no validity to what she's saying, but it is a preview of exactly the problems that the GOP will face down ballot now for a long time. And it exactly shows you, there's no claim on this show that's going to lead to some blue wave come November. But put this up there in terms of the Cook political report and their toss-up races. Spanberger is right there in the toss-up category. There are 23 races that are right on the edge. Henry Cuellar's district was an example. Spanberger there.

Priscilla, you were telling me that she's still probably going to win this Republican lady given what's happened with redistricting, but who knows? I looked into it. I mean, yeah, who knows? It's actually my district now. I've been redistricted into this one.

So it's a choice of a former CIA op and this lady who's actually a cop. Oh, good. Yeah. This all came up because she brought up the fact, seeming again to downplay that getting pregnant from rape was a thing. She was like, I've only dealt with one instance like this in my career in law enforcement. And that's what led to this exchange where however she's talking to is like, yeah, what do you think about that? Is that like,

is it less common? And then she goes, well, I haven't seen any studies, but yeah, what do you think about that? Is that like, is it less common? And then she goes, well, I haven't seen any studies, but yeah, it kind of makes sense to me. Anyway, it's a D plus one district. That means that the district votes on average one point more democratic than the nation as a whole. I would say that's going to be very tough sledding in this particular year. Now, listen, you always have an advantage when you're incumbent, and you have another advantage when you have your opponent saying things like this. But I will also say that at the congressional level, at the House level, it's very hard to break apart from sort of whatever the national trends are. Now, if it's a Senate candidate like Todd Akin was, for example, gubernatorial candidates, a statewide race, you've got more media, you've got more money, you've got more media attention, like, you know,

earned media, then candidate quality and some of the crazy things they're saying can make more of a difference. At the House level, it's hard. It's mostly just people are voting based on whatever the national wins are. It really doesn't matter how people position themselves, what they're saying, et cetera, et cetera. So I think it's going to be tough for Abigail Spanberger, but ultimately we'll see. I mean, one of the other races that is going to be really critical here is the—I mean, there's a few of them. I actually think the gubernatorial races, it's going to be really interesting to see how this impacts things at the state level because there are such clear stakes in this fight now since it has been kicked to the state level. So Pennsylvania, perfect example. You have Republicans have nominated someone who is extreme on everything, including abortion, you know, wants to ban it outright in a swing state. And so far, the race has been pretty close. The Democrat Josh Shapiro has been

up by a few points, but more or less inside the margin of error. So this is one that, you know, if it was, if there wasn't Roe and if Republicans had nominated someone who was more moderate, they would probably win this seat. Now you'd was more moderate, they would probably win this seat. Now you'd have to say that Democrats will probably win this seat. And again, the stakes are quite high, not only for abortion, but also as we've discussed on Stop the Steal Insanity, where this dude is a total nut job on those issues as well and would be able to appoint a secretary of state. So I think at the gubernatorial level, you may see more of a shift towards Democrats candidate by candidate than you see at the federal level

and certainly at the House level where it's hard to distinguish yourself. It's interesting too to think about this in the Obama context, which is, what is it, a thousand state legislature seats went Republican under Barack Obama. People really do forget this, but the country became very red at the state level under Obama as part of that backlash. He was always fine in terms of getting himself elected, but for down ballot, it was kind of a disaster, both House, Senate, and especially at the state. Yes, it was a disaster for every other level of the Democratic Party. And if you consider the state legislature, Republicans do have a major advantage. They've been concentrating a lot of their efforts there for decades now. So this actually brings me back to the FedSoc point

I made yesterday. The organizing level on that down ballot in terms of fundraising, knowledge, attention here in Washington seems very, very lacking compared to the GOP effort. And I do want to go back to the discussion we were having about Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and, you know, all like, yes, there are barriers to them doing everything they would or could or should do, what the base wants them to do. But contrast their posture versus the Republican posture. The Republicans didn't look at the polling

or the, you know, what numbers they had at that moment in the House or the Senate or state legislation, say, eh, they had at that moment in the House or the Senate of State legislation and say, eh, nothing we can do. And even now, they're not saying, eh, we won, nothing more we can do. They find a way to get done what they want to get done. Democrats have this, first of all, they have an allergy to governing, right? Second of all, they have, and Obama's notorious for this, they have this view of politics like it's totally static. Like nothing can move, minds can't be, arms can't be twisted,

nobody's minds can be changed. Like the votes are what the votes are, and that's that. And, you know, if we've got the filibuster in place today, there's nothing that we can do about it. They have this idea that they are completely powerless to change the dynamics of the political landscape. And so, you know, I mean, I'll give you one example of something they could do that doesn't even have to do with abortion. But Clarence Thomas and his, Justice Thomas, in his concurring opinion said, hey, I think we should come for marriage equality and contraception and gay intimacy next. OK, well, what's stopping you Democrats from codifying gay marriage into law? I mean, that would be a very tough vote for Republicans.

How would Republicans fall on that in the Senate? Sure. You know? Yeah, I honestly have no idea. Yeah, I don't either. And it's very possible that you actually could get to 60 votes for gay marriage in the Senate because of how much the politics have shifted on that issue. And if you don't, then you have, you know, in stone where these people actually stand on an issue that they don't really want to say anything about. So just as one example of something that

they could potentially do that is not going to do anything about abortion right, but at least it will help to protect another existing right that very much seems to be on the table now. So I'm just, I'm not impressed with their feigned impotence, their total lack of creativity, their unwillingness to sort of rise up and meet the moment, and their constant, constant obsession with basically finding excuses to do absolutely nothing. Keeping an eye on inflation. And look, it's always better to try and connect it to something that everybody's going to experience in their daily life. So let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. July 4th barbecue

season is here. People are getting ready. And the inflation index on this, we did this in Thanksgiving, and I remember being shocked at the numbers then. Now we're talking about July 4th. Well, the price, it will be up as much as 36%. It is led by beef, but grocery costs for the Independence Day party are rising the most since the Farm Bureau began even tracking all of the data. So ground beef prices are up 36%. Chicken breast has actually also gone up by an entire third. People can expect to spend 17% more on food across the board for the barbecue, the biggest increase since people began tracking. And in 2021, the cost of the Independence Day cookout actually declined by about 1%. But

since then, obviously things have skyrocketed. They can't blame this one on Putin. And when you look at it, it really is insane. So ground beef, chicken, both above 30. Pork and beans also up at 33%. Center cut pork chops, 31%. Fresh squeezed lemonade, 22%. How is lemonade up? 20%. What's happening? Potato salad, 20%. Hamburger buns, 16%. Vanilla ice cream, 10%. 13-ounce bag of chocolate chip cookies, 7%. Strawberries are down 60%. Wow, I feel bad for the strawberry farmers. I don't know what's going on there. Sliced cheese is actually down 13%. I guess it's a good thing, depending on what type of cheese they are buying. And potato chips are relatively flat.

So not sure what's going on in the lemonade markets. I should do a deep dive into exactly what's going on there. But I do think that just focusing on the most basic areas of life where stuff is getting more expensive is something that our government lacks. And, you know, you and I have noticed with great interest, our airline segments are doing phenomenally. And I was like, huh, you know, like, why? Like, why are people so interested? Anytime I see something unexpected pop, I'm like, wow, that's interesting. And I think it's because a lot of people are flying. You know, yesterday was a TSA record over the last two years. And like, hey, this shit is crazy. This is crazy. The stop is canceled all the time. I saw a story of a guy

who was connecting via Europe. Air Canada just canceled his connection. They said, oh, you have another flight two days from now. And they're not taking phone and there's a three-hour line at the airport. That's nuts. I mean, in terms of the disruption to daily life, people are going to visit their parents. People are flying internationally. People are finally going on vacation for the first time. It's a total disaster. Lots of reports about honeymoon couples who had booked travel, and they're losing one, two, three whole days in order to travel. Nightmares.

This is not a well-ordered society. And another area where I'm looking at this is cars. Let's throw this up there on the screen. The cost to finance a new car right now is at $600 a month. And auto shoppers are actually going to have to pay even more because of the Federal Reserve rate hike. So new car prices not only are up 13% and used car up 16%, according to the latest data, but the 0.75 basis point bump is actually going to increase the average auto loan to 5% over 70 months, meaning that just for a basic average car, you're paying $650 per month. Then you consider gas.

I've already run the numbers on that. Depending on where you live, it's anywhere between $250 to $300 a month. So now you're looking at $ thousand bucks. If you consider insurance, depending on the type of car and more, let's call it 200, maybe, you know, on average, depending on who you are, family, all of it. If you have a family, you're especially those, but if you're a single person, I mean, now we're talking about $1,200, $1,500 just for a basic brand new car or even for a used car. Yeah. These, that's a lot of money. The used car numbers are not much lower. 546 for used cars versus 656 for new cars. That's nuts. I mean. The used car numbers are not much lower. 546 for used cars versus 656 for new cars. That's nuts. I mean, since when has that ever happened in history, like, in terms of

the used car? I tell you, look, my Jeep just got into an accident, and they're like, oh, yeah, it's going to take a long time in order to try and fix this. There's no parts for all of this. The bills are astronaut. Luckily, insurance is covering it because some lady came and hit the Jeep. But look, I mean, this is, it's difficult for people who are out there. Not everybody can afford it. Also, you know, just try going without a car for like an entire month while you're waiting for it to get fixed in the shop. Yeah, I mean, impossible, especially given the shit status of public transit in almost all of the country. Like New York is like the only exception.

I think it's really important to underscore with regards to the cost of financing a vehicle. This is the intent, the explicit intent of the Fed lifting rates. This is what they want. This is their goal. And again, I mean, we've discussed this, but it's so important to underscore that because our political system has failed and is unable to deal with some of the other underlying issues, the supply chain issues, because Biden's committed to keeping the war in Ukraine going forever, it all falls to the Fed. And what the Fed can do and what they're being pushed to do by Biden and by Republicans have the same desires is to make it much more difficult for you to do things like buy a car, buy a house, to hit your bank account, okay, to lower your wages. I mean, they explicitly said this, to lower your wages and to hike

unemployment. We did that segment about how Larry Summers is saying we need 10% unemployment for a year. 10% casually. That's more than triple what it is. Like you're not talking about millions of people's lives and livelihoods. And as you always rightly point out, people will literally die because of that pain and depression from losing their livelihood. This is the sign that the policy that they are trying to implement here, the goal of it, which is to hurt you, is working. And the really scary thing, though, is that it may not even work to get inflation under control. Because as I just said, there are a lot of other factors that are going in. And in fact, the stimulus that was given to the American people people, which as I pointed out to Bill Maher, was much less than what was given to Wall Street and corporate America. But the stimulus that was given to working class people,

that's mostly burned off. I mean, we haven't had a new stimulus program in, what, 15 months? It's been a long time. People's bank accounts are down. Credit card debt is as high as it has ever been in history. So we are now dealing with a problem that doesn't exist. And the other things that are festering that are keeping inflation high, we're doing nothing about. Look, again, to go back to Democratic impotence here. Yes, in certain ways, they have political constraints. There's no doubt about it. But just take the example of after the stock market crash in 1929, Congress held a series of hearings called the Pecora hearings, where they investigated

Wall Street to see how the hell this happened. And lo and behold, it wasn't just, oh, the all-knowing market and it had a hiccup, whatever. There were wrongdoers there who were intentionally fleecing regular people, getting them into the stock market. They introduced, oh, you can buy this on margin. Just outright fleecing consumers, lying to them about what the risks were, and then betting on the other side. This is exactly the same thing that happened

in the housing financial, in the crash there as well, where they knew these were bad investments. They're betting on the other side of it and screwing over the very customers that they claim to be serving. This all came out in the PCOR hearings. Guess what? Politics isn't static. When the public learned the way that they had been screwed over, there was a massive outcry for financial regulation and some of the bedrock financial regulation that made banking a relatively safe and stable and boring enterprise for a lot of years, for decades, until basically the Clintons

came along, was implemented during that time because there was something exposed that was so deeply shocking and outrageous to the public that they would not let the politicians stand by and do nothing. Where is that energy now? Where's that energy now to do something about this? So even if you don't have the votes right at this second, that doesn't mean that you cannot do anything that you're completely helpless, that you can't move things forward. And especially, listen, the power of the bully pulpit is very powerful. If you call these corporate CEOs who are intentionally hiking up their prices because they can, because they're monopolists, you haul them before Congress, you call them to account, that in and of itself cools things down in terms of corporations jacking up prices because they

don't want to be the next one that is the subject of a public ire. Yeah, nearly one-third of inflation is actually expectations. So being able in order to set expectations in a different direction by the government, you know, either talking specifically about what they're going to do or calling people out or even looking at ways in order to ease supply. I mean, I think it's telling that it took children starving from lack of baby formula for the government to invoke the EPA. That's right. And that took months. Right. But look, it's not as dire, but it's still bad when people can barely afford to live and to work.

I mean, I'm looking at an article that just came out this morning about all of the macro data tells us that people are cutting back significantly on quality of life expenses. They're pulling their kids out of summer camps or not pursuing activities that are extracurriculars for their children, driving less, cutting down any sort of vacation that had already been planned, eating out less. Look, you don't have a right to eat out, but it's nice for people. It eases the burden sometimes whenever you want to. Sometimes it's fun in order to change things up on a Saturday. So those are the first things in order to go for a lot of people. And the cost of eggs even is up 75% in a year. That's crazy.

You consider all of these price increases on the aggregate. And at the end of the day, when you're looking at your credit card bill, you know, another thing I was going to tell people, go and look at some of your old Amazon purchases or past purchases from like five years ago on basics like paper towels. And you'll be shocked at how much more you're paying. And it's like people can see that. They feel it viscerally. That is, if Biden, I would be talking about gas and cars and food every single day. That's all I would spend my time on. And yet, I mean, I'm doing a whole monologue on this. They're proposing yet another inflationary move in

order to stick it to Russia, which is probably not even going to work. I can't get my minds around these politicians. I don't know what they do all day. I really don't. And they have the American people ready to hear this message. Yes. You know, about Wall Street speculation, about corporate America. Anything. Greed, and it's not the whole picture,

but it's a part of the picture. So tell that story, call them to account, do something instead of just saying, eh, what can we do? The baby formula thing is interesting because, you know, up to a point, they were dragging their, oh, there's not much we can do and blah, blah, blah.

And then once it got to a point, oh, guess what? They figured out how to do something. Isn't that interesting? Oh, yeah. You do almost love to see it. All right. Let's talk about NATO. So some seismic moves being made across the pond.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen. So President Erdogan of Turkey has lifted his hold on Finland and Sweden. Joining NATO, he announced that at the recent NATO summit in Spain. So President Erdogan of Turkey has lifted his hold on Finland and Sweden joining NATO. He announced that at the recent NATO summit in Spain that happened yesterday. So what he said is that he will be lifting his hold because Sweden and Finland lifted some restrictions on a Turkish group, on a Kurdish group, which he claims is a foreign terrorist organization. That's not for here right now of discussion. But anyway, that's all you need to know. He was the only person who was holding it up and now he's allowing them in. And so NATO has formally extended an invitation to both Turkey and to Sweden and to Finland. Now it leaves it up to all of the NATO countries themselves in order to ratify the NATO treaty and allow their ascension, of which is very likely to happen without any debate

whatsoever. Now, I actually do think the more noteworthy piece to me is not even that. It is the current expansion of the US military footprint in Eastern Europe. People are not discussing this, but this is a seismic change. Put it up there on the screen. So President Biden, in his speech at NATO, here's what he said. We are going to establish a permanent military headquarters for the Fifth Army Corps in Poland, one of the most forward-deployed permanent army deployments of the United States all the way up near the Russian border. Number two, maintain an additional rotational brigade of 3,000 troops in Romania, even more forward-deploy deployed than the troops who are in Poland, and then enhanced rotational deployments to the Baltic states, obviously the most cutting edge

of the NATO alliance. On top of that, sending more F-35 jet squadrons to the United Kingdom, additional air defense and other capabilities in Germany and in Italy, and then two new destroyers to the naval station in Spain. So a massive buildup of new military equipment and of military deployment, which is permanently deployed, not temporary, towards the Eastern European flank, right up against the Russians. Let's also throw this up there on the screen.

Here's what they claim, just so you know. They say, we now have many allies spending above NATO's benchmark of 2%, increasingly seen as a floor, not a ceiling, the White House says. Nine allies will be 2% this year. Nineteen have clear plans to meet it by 2024. Five more have commitments to meet it later. So another way of reading that is that the vast majority of the people at NATO are not paying their 2% on defense.

And that five of them think that we are such jokes that they don't even have to fake commit to a 2% defense spending. They're just like, yeah, for sure. We'll eventually, we'll get there. And America's like, oh, cool. All right, we'll continue to blow out our military budget like 4% of GDP. And we'll put all these troops in your country and all these nuclear weapons and the umbrella and air defense. And don't worry about it. If you eventually get there, it's all good. Finland and Sweden, you know, Sweden won't even commit actually to 2% in perpetuity. They also promise they'll get there. I'm sure they'll get NATO membership before

that they do that. Finland is the same thing. And look, I just think in general, it's a seismic move. It is somewhat predictable given the invasion. I actually said this, I think, the day after. I was like, look, I was wrong. Putin would invade. Part of the reason I didn't think he would do it

is because he's now united the entire West, and now he's basically guaranteed American and NATO troops on the eastern flank of NATO and all the way up to the Russian border, which is what he claimed that he didn't want. He's united and increased military budgets of the entire, he got the French to spend more money on the military. I mean, that's an impossible task. The Germans, you know, also

committing now to 2%. They were at 1.4, 1.6 for a long time. The UK spending more than they ever have. At a certain point, politically, this is a fait accompli. I hate to say it. I think we should have a much more robust debate, but I don't see any way that 67 people in the Senate, that there's less than, yeah, I don't see any way that there are less than 67 votes. Basically every member of the Senate supports it. I do think we should have a debate and like, hey, you know, is this wise? Like, is this, could this trigger more problems with Russia? Is, you know, I actually think we should take a page out of the Turks books. I'm not saying that their, their demands of Finland and Sweden were just, but they were like, Hey, we have something that's important to us. So unless you give it to us, we're not going to give you NATO membership

in the West. We're like, Oh, we'll just give it to you. Whatever you want. It's like, Oh, I didn't know that Helsinki and Stockholm have a right to the U S nuclear umbrella. Just whenever they request it and they ask for it. Like there's no debate in our country. It is a thorough indictment of our political system and our media class that this is happening with next to no discussion. Next to no discussion. And, you know, it's echoes of the way that NATO expansion has worked over decades where this is done casually. There's next to no debate. The people who are out there warning that this could go badly are treated as cranks and, you know, Kremlin apologists and all this stuff. I'm sure they'll come at me for this. Oh, of course,

of course. But the reality is this is an extraordinarily significant development, not just the addition of Sweden and Finland, but also as you point to, I mean, Bloomberg phrased this as this addition of troops and bases and all of this capacity to NATO. They say NATO returns to combat stance to counter a new and hostile world. This is the biggest upgrade of NATO's military presence in Europe since the end of the Cold War. And you just always have to ask yourself, how is Russia going to perceive that? How is Russia going to react to that? The more that we make this war an existential threat to Russia, the more dangerous we make the landscape and the more likely we make it that they use nukes.

They, in their nuclear doctrine, say that it is justified to use nuclear weapons in the event of an existential threat to Russia. Which they define. All of which they define. Which they define however they want. Exactly. Every move that we are making here makes it more likely that they interpret the stakes of this war as an existential matter for Russia. And that is a potential disaster. And no one is talking about it. I mean, we're just this was our fear from the beginning that we're just sleepwalking through this thing. No one is really dealing with it serious. No one's considering, okay, what might Russia do in response? And in fact, Russia is already warning, Putin warns, NATO on moving military personnel and infrastructure to Finland and Sweden, saying they will respond in kind to

any buildup in the Nordic nations. So I think that this is extraordinarily foolish and haphazard, what we're engaging in with next to no debate. And it gets back to this bigger picture question of, you know, the instinct, the sort of neoliberal instinct of, oh, we'll just trust the experts. We're not going to actually delve into the details ourselves. I'm sure they're handling it. We're just going to accept we're being fed. They understand we don't.

No, we need the public to be deeply involved and deeply engaged in this debate because ultimately you are the ones who are going to be most impacted by these decisions and also by the, you know, endless continuation of this war, which is having its own, you know, impacts on us and on the world in terms of food prices and gas prices and all the rest. So it says everything about our political culture, how we are just sleepwalking into some, whatever you think of them, support or don't support, incredibly significant, momentous decisions.

No discussion. I think people should may have to make the case who support this, why American troops should die for the integrity of Helsinki and of Stockholm. And if you're Finnish and you're Swedish, listen, I get it. Like I said, it's beautiful, beautiful countries, all of Stockholm. And if you're Finnish and you're Swedish, listen, I get it. Like I said, it's beautiful, beautiful countries, all of that. However, we're talking about our resources and

our blood. If I were you, I would do the same thing, but I'm not. We have to decide what's good for us. You and their advocates should make the case as to why it's in the strategic interest of the United States. So like I said, I'll present the counter argument, which I do think is a fair one, which is that any world where Russia is going to invade Finland and Sweden is going to involve the United States anyway, as we always get dragged into these European conflicts, like in World War I and in World War II,

so we might as well just extend them the protection at the top. My response to that is very simple. I would rather get dragged into that kicking and screaming whenever it actually attacks our fundamental interests, rather than have to just go in automatically which we article 5 would require the other question is whether this action makes that eventuality more likely yeah that's good because it's a provocation it is a provocation so um the from the beginning the lack of debate the lack of

seriousness the lack of discussion it is lack of seriousness, the lack of discussion is extraordinarily troubling and really undermines our ability to actually function as a democracy when these decisions are just made and never taken to the American people whatsoever. Well, it'll go to the Senate and we'll cover it here. I want to see at least one say something on the floor like, hey, does anyone want to make the case? Do we want to just sign ourselves up for an automatic trigger in order to go to war for the integrity of the most Eastern part of Europe, of which we've never traditionally defended? Europeans, I know you're all mad at me and we're airing our segment about this right now, but listen,

I have to make this case very simply. Europe is one sixth of global GDP. Okay. It is declining area of the world. It's mostly old people, demographics. They have a problem innovation. They have some real issues. It's basically a welfare state whose best days are long behind them. Yes, we have cultural ties with Europe that go back a long time. However, I mean, whenever you're staking the future of your country, militarily, the use of nuclear weapons, you should consider what those resources really mean. And if you think that Asiaaking the future of your country militarily, the use of nuclear weapons, you should consider what those resources really mean. And if you think that Asia is the future, which I certainly do think it is, overtook Asia, Europe on GDP both in 2019, going forward, it will be our major trading relationship. And I believe our future rests far more there than over there. Well, you know, military resources actually are finite. And now we are deploying

even more, both of an extension of commitment and of military resources on the European continent, which at the very least could be directed elsewhere, innovation, maybe even to our own domestic populace to shore up our domestic political problems. None of this, again, is of a consideration. None of it is being debated. This is probably the only dissenting view that is even out there, which is even in the same semi-mainstream. And I think that's a major indictment. I think the American people should have a say, as we had a say in World War I, as we had a say after World War I. And we also all had a say on the Marshall Plan.

You know, that was a buy-in by America to say, you know what? We agree with this vision of the world. President Truman, Secretary of State Marshall, this is the world. Our boys fought and died for Europe. And so let's make sure that we rebuild it and reap the benefits going forward and protect democracy against the Iron Curtain. But nobody's making that case out there right now.

And I personally think that we deserve much more of a say in this than is being given to all of us. Yeah, indeed. And by the way, guys, Sagar and I did have a big old debate over Europe. So you can catch that over the weekend. Yes. Okay. This one, we will not forget about what happened in Uvalde. We're just not going to forget what happened in Uvalde as much as the cops and the government officials want us to ignore all of it and move on.

And there's a new piece in The Washington Post about just some of the conduct here in stonewalling journalists who are trying to get to the truth of what actually happened on that day when those kids were massacred. Put this up on the screen. The headline here from The Post is, Journalists in Uvalde are stonewalled, hassled, threatened with arrest. And I want to read to you from the very beginning, sort of the lead of this article, just to give you a visceral sense of what is happening to these journalists on the ground who are just trying to get the actual facts of what happened, which I don't

think any of us feels confident we have at this point. They said that journalists had been threatened with arrest for getting too close to the mourners. So Houston Chronicle reporter Julian Gill stayed in the designated media area. So he was doing what they told him he had to do when he was reporting on funerals. Nevertheless, a phalanx of uniformed bikers confronted Gill, the journalist, outside the cemetery gates. They called themselves guardians of the children and claimed to be working with police officers who stood watch. Gil, the journalist, says, I'm not trying to disturb anyone, guys, according to a video that he posted online. I'm not trying to ask anybody any questions. I just want to watch.

That's all we can do, right? The bikers followed and harassed journalists anyway, Gil wrote in the Chronicle. When he accidentally bumped into one of these biker cop affiliated people who claimed to be a paramedic, the bikers accused him of assault and battery. And they said to him as a public servant, that's kind of a felony, according again to the video. They go on to say that journalists have been threatened with arrest for quote-unquote trespassing outside public outside public buildings okay quote-unquote trespassing they've been barred from public meetings refused basic information about what police did during the may 24th attack and after several early error-filled news conferences officials have routinely turned down interview

requests refused to hold news briefings. The situation is made even more fraught by the spider's web of local and state agencies involved in responding to investigating the shooting, some of which now blame each other for the chaos. So they are being shut down and intimidated, actively intimidated in every possible way. And we know that the cops directly have also intimidated that incredibly courageous mom who was handcuffed. And then when they had the handcuffs taken off her, she runs in the school and saves her kids. They've been coming and flashing their lights and trying to intimidate her and threatening her with criminal charges just for her willingness to speak out and be honest about what happened on the day. So this is a whole of government cover-up at this point.

There's just no other way to spin it when media organizations are being stonewalled, shut out, forced out of public spaces, and being blocked from access to any of the records and data from that day. Yeah, and I want to emphasize, these ain't Jim Acosta or CNN-like crying people. These are people who work for Univision, Houston

Chronicle, San Antonio Express. These are all local reporters, people who are trying to do their jobs for their actual communities. They literally live there. And they're trying to bring the news to mostly Hispanic. Many of them are even Spanish language reporters, and they're getting blocked, frozen out, intimidated, going after them. The fact that they have people kind of surround them and block them from public spaces, this is outrageous. You combine it with what's happening with that Uvalde mother who's being harassed, and she's so afraid that she had to separate herself from her kids who were in a horrific shooting. Traumatic event, yeah. It's not like a good thing that happens and we've pointed before about the cops you know trying to arrest journalists for trying to go into the city council pete arredondo is just in hiding even though he's

been placed on quote-unquote leave this mayor and all these guys are you know shooting uh they're they're like shooting accusations at each other they're saying oh they're lying they're like no you're lying again i'm just saying the governor the attorney general somebody needs to step up to actually take control of this situation whoever this police force is they need to be completely either disbanded taken over by the state totally somebody needs to move in here and restore like order and give people confidence that what's happening is not a horrific and tremendous cover-up

because that's what everything, everything currently points to. Everybody wants to avoid jail time and public scrutiny. And you know what? You let 18 little kids get murdered while, you know, you sat out with your thumb

up your ass for an hour. You deserve it. Whatever comes your way. We're supposed to have real accountability. They could have used somebody who, they could have used the diligence that you're putting and protecting your reputation and your life and all of that while they were in there.

And I think that's how most people feel. And I really just wish somebody in Texas, the government, FBI, somebody would step up. But they're not. It's a total shit show what's happening down there. It's completely insane. It's disgusting. All right.

Let's move on. Some, I guess, good news, mixed bag. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Ghislaine Maxwell has been given 20 years for aiding Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking. This is something we've been covering and looking at for a long time. Yes, we have. The problem, unfortunately, we've covered basically since the day that it all broke back in trafficking. This is something we've been covering and looking at for a long time. Yes, we have. The problem, unfortunately, we've covered basically since the day that it all broke back in 2019, is that we really just did not learn a whole lot about Ghislaine Maxwell and about Jeffrey

Epstein in this trial. It's like the FBI went out of its way in order to prosecute crimes that happened decades and decades ago. They focused very specifically on these two or three crimes. They did not focus on many of the famous people that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were involved in. And with the conclusion of the trial, you actually basically end the ability to gain access to the FBI's evidence that they did seize from Epstein's mansion and from many of the Epstein-affiliated finance networks and more. The indictment and all that gave us a little bit of a preview into how Epstein would move money around and him and Maxwell would work together in order to fund both European prostitutes and all this other disgusting behavior. But a lot of the open inquiries are closed at this point. The Virgin Islands, we still haven't heard a hell of a lot

about exactly his estate getting divvied up. Maybe we'll learn more because many of the victims are actually suing. But the point is, is that this was the last chance in criminal court in order to air this out to the public. And the grand trial that we all deserved where names were named has just not come out. And conveniently, you know, at the same time, let's put this up there, Maxwell has now been placed on suicide watch. You know, they say ahead of her sentencing that they say that, oh, she's exhibited, you know, she's exhibited behavior in which she's depressed. I mean, obviously-

Our lawyer says she's not suicidal, by the way. Right, our lawyer says she's not suicidal. She's been placed on suicide watch. Anyway, I don't know who you should believe. Maybe that's a way of trying to get around it. They are preparing her for sentencing. Now she's been sentenced to 20 years in prison. But just remember,

she has a hell of a lot of information and she's still not talking. She is protecting Prince Andrew and continues to. Reports were that a hell of a lot of famous people were very upset and worried

whenever she was arrested at that FBI compound in the middle of New Hampshire or whatever. Now they can sleep easy, can't they? They can probably sleep easy. I mean, at this point,

what confidence should we have that any information is gonna come out of this? Basically, everything we've learned has come out. I'm glad that she's gonna spend 20 years in prison, but frankly, she's 60 years old. That means she could actually walk at some point, which I think is disgusting and outrageous. And at the end of the day, all of my hopes for the trial were dashed

basically the day that the FBI charged her with those two older crimes. I'm not saying those crimes aren't just, but we have crimes being committed up until 2013. We had no information about it. And it also was part of, just to remind everybody, the prosecution strategy was what they called thin to win, which means you just focus narrowly

on these couple of pieces to try to get the conviction without painting the broader portrait of all of the decades of criminal behavior, the massive pattern of recruiting and grooming these children into this horrific abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They introduced some of that during the sentencing, but in terms of the actual trial and what the convictions were based on, they just tried to focus in on these few narrow charges, again, which were very serious and obviously which ends up with her receiving 20 years in prison. They say that with potential credit for good behavior in the two years she spent in jail,

she could leave prison in her 70s. Yeah, see, that's outrageous. She may still see the light of day. She was given a sentence which was less than the recommended. Feds asked for 30, and the judge only gave her 20. They asked for 30 to 55, I think. This is the problem. If you go thin to win, then they get sentenced

on whatever they're actually convicted of, which, look, that's how it should work in a court of law. I'm not saying that it should work otherwise, but there's a hell of a lot more that could have come out on this trial that never actually did end up coming out. And now there's a lot of guys. Leon Black, Leslie Wexner, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Aoud Barak. It could go on forever.

Billionaires and others that she'd not only been pictured with but had cavorted with privately. People we don't even know. Kevin Spacey. Who's a guy from rush hour chris tucker bill richardson bill richardson yeah there's a lot of foe alan dershowitz there's still a hell of a lot of folks who can probably sleep easier some i guess good news mixed bag let's go and put this up there on the screen uh galane max Maxwell has been given 20 years for aiding Jeffrey Epstein in trafficking. This is something we've been covering and looking at for a long time. Yes, we have. The problem, unfortunately, we've covered basically since

the day that it all broke back in 2019, is that we really just did not learn a whole lot about Ghislaine Maxwell and about Jeffrey Epstein in this trial. It's like the FBI went out of its way in order to prosecute crimes that happened decades and decades ago. They focused very specifically on these two or three crimes. They did not focus on many of the famous people that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein were involved in. And with the conclusion of the trial, you actually basically end the ability to gain access to the FBI's evidence that they did seize from Epstein's mansion and from many of the Epstein-affiliated finance networks and more. The indictment and

all that gave us a little bit of a preview into how Epstein would move money around and him and Maxwell would work together in order to fund both European prostitutes and all this other disgusting behavior. But a lot of the open inquiries are closed at this point. The Virgin Islands, we still haven't heard a hell of a lot about exactly his estate getting divvied up. Maybe we'll learn more because many of the victims are actually suing. But the point is, is that this was the last chance

in criminal court in order to air this out to the public. And the grand trial that we all deserved where names were named has just not come out. And conveniently, you know, at the same time, let's put this up there, Maxwell has now been placed on suicide watch. You know, they say ahead of her sentencing that they say that, oh, she's exhibited, you know, she's exhibited behavior in which she's depressed. I mean, obviously. Our lawyer says she's not suicidal, by the way. Right, our lawyer says she's not suicidal.

She's been placed on suicide watch anyway. I don't know who you should believe. Maybe that's a way of trying to get around it. They are preparing her for sentencing. Now she's been sentenced to 20 years in prison. But just remember, she has a hell of a lot of information, and she's still not talking. She is protecting Prince Andrew and continues to.

Reports were that a hell of a lot of famous people were very upset and worried whenever she was arrested at that FBI compound in the middle of like New Hampshire or whatever. And they can probably sleep easy. I mean, at this point, what confidence should we have that any information is going to come out of this? Basically, everything we've learned has come out. I'm glad that she's going to spend 20 years in prison, but frankly, she's 60 years old. That means she could actually walk at some point, which I think is disgusting and outrageous. And at the end of the day,

all of my hopes for the trial were dashed basically the day that the FBI charged her with those two older crimes. I'm not saying those crimes aren't just, but we have crimes being committed up until 2013. We have no information about it. And it also was part of, just to remind everybody, the prosecution strategy was what they called thin to win.

Yes. pattern of recruiting and grooming these children into this horrific abuse, sexual abuse and rape. They introduced some of that during the sentencing, but in terms of the actual trial and what the convictions were based on, they just tried to focus in on these few narrow charges, again, which were very serious, and obviously which ends up with her receiving 20 years in prison. They say that with potential credit for good behavior in the two years she spent in jail,

she could leave prison in her 70s. Yeah, see, that's outrageous. She may still see the light of day. She was given a sentence which was less than the recommended. Feds asked for 30, and the judge only gave her 20. They asked for 30 to 55, I think. This is the problem.

If you go thin to win, then they get sentenced on, you know, whatever they're actually convicted of, which, look, that's how it should work in a court of law. I'm not saying that it should work otherwise, but there's a hell of a lot more that could have come out on this trial that never actually did end up coming out.

And now, you know, there's a lot of guys. Leon Black, Leslie Wexner, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Aoud Barak. I could go on forever. Billionaires and others that she'd not only been pictured with, but had cavorted with privately. We don't even know. Kevin Spacey. Who's a guy from Rush Hour? Chris Tucker. Bill Richardson. Bill Richardson. Yeah. There's a lot of folks. Alan Dershowitz. There's still a hell of a lot of folks who can probably sleep easier. This is an iHeart Podcast.