Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Stories of Week 8/28: Fed Policy, Midterm Elections, Trump Investigation, Ukraine War, & More!

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

Krystal and Saagar discuss Federal Reserve policy, midterm polling, midterm messaging, senate contests, abortion politics, Ukraine war, Trump investigation, Jackson water crisis, & more!To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E005CD6DBFF6D47 Opening: [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making it impossible to function as a society and to know what is true and what is false. The good news is that they're failing and they know it. That is why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier, and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points premium member today

at BreakingPoints.com. Your hard-earned money is going to help us build for the midterms and the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage of what is sure to be one of the most pivotal moments in American history. So, what are you waiting for? Go to BreakingPoints.com to help us out. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Some big stories that have been breaking over the past couple of days. So the Federal Reserve chairman making some very disturbing comments, sending the markets into a tailspin and basically just outright saying that he is going to cause you pain in order to get inflation under control. Good stuff there. So we'll get into all of that. Also, some new legal developments with the former president. Judge indicating that she is likely to appoint that special master to help go through.

We'll talk to you about what that means. Also, on, was it Friday that it came out? The redacted affidavit was revealed. Not a whole lot that was new there because the redactions were fairly extensive, but we will tell you what we learned. A bunch of new polling that is out. CBS News' new battleground tracker showing Democrats making some gains, but Republicans still in position to win control of

the House. Biden's approval rating ticking up a bit. And also some new polling showing that overall the student debt relief from Biden is rather popular with the public. We also have this just, I don't even know what to say about this. Moderna suing Pfizer, alleging that Pfizer stole their mRNA technology. Newsflash, the U.S. government and you, the U.S. taxpayer, funded the development of that mRNA technology that they're now suing each other over even after they made unbelievably, unbelievable amounts of profits off of all of this. So we'll get into those details. Also, some quite interesting comments from Mark Zuckerberg on a podcast with Joe Rogan about what exactly the FBI said to them about the Hunter Biden stuff. We have a legal expert on Bradley Moss who made a pretty bold prediction that Trump—

Yes, yeah, we had Brad on before. He's very bullish, but I still think it's worth hearing him out. Yeah, I want to hear him make the case. So he made the argument Trump will be indicted based on what he saw in that affidavit that was released. So yeah, we'll have him lay out the case

and see what he thinks. But before we get to any of that... Live show. Let's throw it up there on the screen. Almost a couple of weeks now that we have, and it's going to be 17 days, September 16th. We're going to be there in the city of Atlanta. Thank you to everybody. We even had folks compile entire dossiers of recommendations. Yes, that was very sweet. Very appreciated.

You guys are the best. We have future dates and cities we're literally discussing at this moment. So you're going to have to keep those recommendations coming. Only a few tickets less. Go ahead and nab yours. We want to be 100% sold out in order to show the world that is what we do over here. But let's start with the Fed. That's what's important. Indeed. So as we mentioned to you last week, a bunch of the Fed folks were getting together in Jackson Hole to, you know, these are always these comments are really closely watched to see what direction the Fed is going to go in. And there are some real question marks here because on the one hand, inflation obviously continues to be high. On the other hand, we did just get some recent indications that perhaps it's cooling a bit. Meanwhile, we have some indications that,

you know, the economy is taking a real hit from the Fed's moves to increase the interest rate. This was their goal. It was, we've been discussing their whole approach here is to basically crush you in order to get inflation under control. Jerome Powell mincing no words, really making it quite clear that they intend to stick to a very aggressive course of interest rate hikes. Let's take a listen to a little bit of what he had to say. The burdens of high inflation fall heaviest on those who are least able to bear them. Restoring price stability will take some time and requires using our tools forcefully to bring demand and supply into better balance. Reducing inflation is likely to require a sustained period of below-trend growth.

Moreover, there will very likely be some softening of labor market conditions. While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses. These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation. But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain. We'll bring some pain. I mean, that is the understatement of the century, because as bad as it is to have rising inflation straining budgets, it is much, much worse to have inflation and also not have a job, which is the direction that the Fed is intentionally pushing the economy into. With the cheering of many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, I might add,

let's go ahead and put CNBC's wrap up of their analysis of this speech. They say Powell warns of some pain ahead as the Fed fights to bring down inflation. Powell says delivered a stern commitment Friday to halting inflation, warning he expects the central bank to continue raising rates in a way that will cause some pain to the U.S. economy. Stocks fell more than 500 points. Dow Jones Industrial Average off more than 500 points. Price stability, he said, is the responsibility of the Federal Reserve and serves as the bedrock of our economy without price stability. The economy does not work for anyone.

And in an early indication of how the markets felt about this anyway, go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. Powell's eight-minute speech erases $78 billion from richest Americans. Not that I'm going to cry too hard for them, but it shows you how closely these remarks were watchdogger and also shows you, listen, we've been talking a lot about the Fed this year, but there's a reason. The Fed is really central to what is happening in the economy, not just for the richest Americans, but for you. And, you know, whether you're able to put food on the table, whether you're able to keep your job and whether you're able to have the sort of power that we've seen also among workers who have been able to organize because of the state of the economy. Yeah, Chairman Powell basically saying we're going to have high interest rates. What we're seeing currently is maybe even the

median point. We could go even more past that, going to continue to jack things up. Housing markets falling off of a cliff. The Dow Jones, everything going down. Businesses are going to find it much, much more expensive to borrow. This is going to hit the tech sector. This is going to hit small businesses. It's going to hit even major corporations. I think that we should begin to see a lot of business decisions in the context of this new economy. And I also just hate the Fed speak and econ speak for what these like. We're going to see a softening of this new economy. And I also just hate the Fed speak and econ speak for what these, like, we're going to see a softening of the labor market. He's like, what he's saying is,

is that the unemployment rate is going to go higher. That's really what he means. Softening of the labor market means you're going to lose your job. Yeah, you're going to lose your job. You're going to have unenable. A lot of the collective bargaining that we've seen in the union sector, that's going to go down. We're going to have 6%, 7%, maybe 8% unemployment.

Remember, 6% really is the target, which is nearly double what the current unemployment rate is. And demand side is just frankly not where we see most of the inflation coming in. We've talked about this. The vast majority of the inflation people are experiencing in their lives have to do with supply side problems. And as Chairman Powell has admitted himself while being questioned in the Senate, the current Fed playbook does not target the supply side factors, gas, chips, new cars, so much of that. All they can do is just make things so painful that you'll try and reduce your spending. So they're trying to massively curtail consumer spending. Another reason that this matters for our overall economy is he's making these comments in August. So right now,

we are entering October, November, and December. Almost 40-something percent or whatever of retail spending for many major corporations happens in this quarter. And the reason why is Christmas gifts, frankly. People spend a lot more during the holidays. This is a massive spending spree. Everybody, Black Friday, all these other things. Well, if you're going to hit consumer demand ahead of that, you're actually targeting the yearly bottom line of a lot of businesses, which they then use that revenue to pay employees in January. Amazon and others, they always hire like 40% or whatever more seasonal workers. That will likely go down as a result of this. That's why everybody is watching this. They're like, wow, this means that the economy is going to slow down. And that has just

major downstream effects on everybody, you know, from small businesses like ours to the biggest corporations in the world. Whenever people have reduced spending power and they are going to lose their jobs, it's just, it really is a catastrophe. I mean, we were saying, I was showing you before the show, Germany, you know, obviously is not here,

but their power prices are up 1,000%. Oh, my God. So 1,000% year over year for natural gas. What does that have to do with consumer demand? Nothing. It's actually the same. It's Russia. It's like the Russian, it's the war and the sanctions. Like that is what is driving a huge amount of the inflation. The Biden administration doing all these victory laps, less than gas is still like 370 a gallon. That's still very, very high. And that, you know, don't see it going down from3.70 a gallon. That's still very, very high. And that, you know, don't see it going down from there. Well, and it's also important to point out,

and actually, let's put this next piece up on the screen. So Powell's comments come even after you had what's described as the Fed's favorite inflation gauge here cooled in July. The personal consumption expenditures inflation index fell on a monthly basis. In July, gas prices swooned. An annual gauge slowed. Now, gas prices going down, which is what contributed to this gauge cooling in July, that had nothing to do with Fed policy. Which, again, just shows you how disconnected what the Fed is doing from the actual primary drivers of inflation. So there continues to be a real chance that the Fed crushes the economy, causes unemployment to spike, causes millions of Americans to lose their jobs, and all of the—that's not some pain maybe experienced the labor market's having.

That is a total catastrophe in the lives of so many families across the country. Just sort of casually, casually taking this action is completely insane and sort of disconnected from the real pain that that's going to cause. And meanwhile, they could do that and still have inflation running rampant because you are not addressing the real causes. And in fact, as has been pointed stance and, you know, casually sort of talking about the incredible pain that is going to be in effect for so many Americans. And it really is wild to just watch our leaders take this kind of direct action to create pain for American consumers and, you know, American families. But that's exactly what's happening right now. No, you're absolutely correct, Crystal.

Let's talk about polling. So some interesting times for the Biden administration. On a macro level, we have to be honest, right? Things don't seem to be going as badly for them. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. And it looks like the American people agree. President Biden, and this is for Gallup, shows that he's got a six percentage point bump up to 44 percent, his highest approval rating in a year. Now, it's still not great underwater in terms of 44 percent, but not in the 38th

percentile. And I think the reason actually that this matters in the context of major politics is that, look, for the president to not be above water is not a good thing, but Donald Trump was also never above 50% very often throughout his presidency. And what was always noteworthy to me is that Biden was actually less popular than Donald Trump when he was sitting previously at his 38th percentile. Now that he's at 44, that's actually right around where Trump was. And obviously Trump nearly got reelected to the presidency. Now that he's at 44, that's actually right around where Trump was. And obviously, Trump nearly got reelected to the presidency. So that puts him at least in some sort of contention to at least possibly contest again the 2024 election. And more importantly, it kind of scrambles how things were going to be with the midterms.

As we've discussed, the Dobbs decision seems to have had a major impact. But also, gas prices fell from $5 a gallon, I just checked this morning, $3.850. Still not great. Still $5.20 a gallon in California. But it's not $6 a gallon as it used to be. The trend is in the right direction. Not necessarily because of anything Biden has done, but it is what it is. And that was the major pressure point on the Biden administration.

On top of, he does seem to have some intraparty wins having passed Inflation Reduction Act. That was something that I don't know if it necessarily energized a base, but people can say, oh, the president did something. There's just a sense that he's got some mojo. Right. So he got the CHIPS Act. He got the Inflation Reduction Act. There does seem to be things rolling in the correct direction. And let's put this up there, which is that the direct quote, and I think this is important, the improvement does put him in better standing before the midterms than actually five predecessors over the last 40 years. Reagan in 82, Clinton in 94, George W. Bush in 06, Obama in 2014, and Trump in 2018. Again, the reason that

that matters is we all remember how well the Democrats did in 2018, how well the Republicans did both in 2010, but also people forget the 2014 election. Clinton, massive wash in 94, and also Reagan in 82 took a quote, shellacking as W did in 2006 as well. Now, we may not seem the same level of shellacking. We could see a modest Republican gain in the House of Representatives. And right now, things are like 50-50 as to whether they're even going to really win the Senate at all. So if the Dems keep control of the Senate, that would actually be a major win, I think, by the Biden administration. And then really what it is is that the House districts and the swings, how exactly that's going to play out on top of,

of course, Biden heading into the general election. I mean, previously when he was sitting at 38% and sometimes even lower in some polls, Crystal, it was not inconceivable that he would not be able to run again in the presidency. Not that he wouldn't want, not that he wouldn't still be probably the strongest Democratic candidate, just given, you know, the bench that exactly exists at the elite level. But it was inevitable that somebody was probably going to primary him if he continued in Jimmy Carter level. Now, getting a little bit of a bump, it's still obviously he could fall. It's not like he's got the great managerial skills or whatever, but he's in a better position. I think that's undeniable.

Yeah, I think that's right. The CBS News battleground tracker, they still show Republicans with an edge to win the House, but it's much more narrow. And there's a lot less margin for error on the Republican side. And, you know, that's reflected in the special elections that we've been tracking here. state New York that Biden only won by a point and a half. The Democrat was able to prevail against what was considered to be quite a strong Republican contender and really outperformed the polls by something like eight to 10 points based on the poll that you were looking at. That was a really significant indicator of how much the ground has shifted from, if this was going to be a massive red wave election, you would expect a contest like that to not even be close. I mean, if Republicans are going to take the House, which they are still very much favored to do,

they're going to have to win seats like that. And so the fact that they didn't was very, very eyebrow-raising. They also point to a few other things that are interesting in this CBS News poll. So first of all, abortion, obviously, Roe versus Wade being overturned, that has completely changed the dynamics electorally where, you know, people, especially white college educated women who had been there for Democrats in 2018, been there for Democrats to defeat Trump in 2020, they were starting to back away. Well, now they're basically back in, maybe not at the same levels as 2018, but much more solidly with Democrats than they were previously. And in these sort of suburban swing districts, that obviously matters a lot. The other thing that they point to here is Trump.

The fact that he's back at the center of the news, that his candidates are the ones who prevailed in so many of these Republican primaries. You have way more voters saying that Republican candidates are extreme than saying that Democratic candidates are extreme. So Trump coming back in as this polarizing force has been really detrimental to Republicans. People are much more likely to say they are voting to oppose Trump than they are to say that they're voting to oppose Biden. So Republicans really wanted this to just be a referendum on Biden. You know, McConnell's strategy from the beginning, which at the time was a very smart strategy, is we're not going to put on any policy platform of our own. We are just going to focus on Biden is bad, inflation is high, kick out the Democrats. Now, things kind of out of their control, the Dobbs decision and Trump being back at the center of

the news have made it very difficult to just have the midterms be a referendum. It is now much more of a choice. And on that front, Democrats have a much better shot than they did previously. Yeah, let's put that abortion piece up because it's important to give context. 77% Dems say abortion is, quote, very important. Then describe any other issue in that way. Neck and neck with guns and actually ahead of the economy and inflation. So if that is top of mind, then that is going to get people out to the poll. So the next one up there, which is this is per the generic ballot, still shows the Republicans at 47% and Democrats at 45%. Now, listen, you should, of course, always remember Republicans have been dramatically underestimated in every poll so far. However, this would kind of-ish track with some of the special election results that we've seen.

So whether it's accurate or not, I have no idea. In terms of the enthusiastic number, Republicans have a plus-7 spread. They used to, though, have a plus-25 or a plus-30. So really what it is is you're seeing that number creep down. So I think right now it's multifaceted. We don't really know where things stand. And I would just say in general it's complicated. It's going to be one of those things where Republicans could win the House.

It's not like that wouldn't be a victory and it would effectively end any sort of future legislative achievement by the Biden administration. But not having the Senate would be very bad. You could also have just a one seat gain by Republicans. It would still be a win, but it wouldn't even be close to where things are. I was actually reading today, Kevin McCarthy, if they only have a slight majority who take the House, he can be in some serious trouble for speakership. He would basically get, you know, the Freedom Caucus would smack him across the face and demand all kinds of things from leadership, which they've done previously to John Boehner and make his life miserable. Same with Paul Ryan, who'd seen that dynamic play out. So there's all kinds of interesting possibilities. Even Mitch McConnell. I mean,

we don't know for sure if he's actually going to get fully elected, especially if there's a very slim majority. So we don't know yet. But where things stand, I would bet on, I mean, probably slight gain, Republicans in the House, Senate, genuinely a toss-up. Like, I have no idea. And there's a lot of money still yet to be spent, both by the Democrats, but, you know, it's not like Republican billionaires are going to sit on their hands. No, they're going to get the gain. Massively spend in the month of October. I think some massive, massive checks are coming. As the RNC has said, they're out there pleading with their donors. They're begging. They're like, we need some Senate money, folks, and we need it now.

Somebody's going to come through for them. Don't worry. They'll have plenty of cash. And, you know, ultimately it matters to have money in these races, but I find that more of an indication of both sort of like financial mismanagement on the Republican side and also the way that Democrats have caught up in terms of grassroots-based enthusiasm when you compare the grassroots fundraising totals on the Democratic side versus the Republican side. Another specific issue that we've been taking a look at and that is proving to be very problematic for Republicans is their positions on abortion. Now, the pro-life, the very extreme pro-life part of the GOP coalition is not a majority of the voters,

but they're very influential. And so a lot of Republican candidates in their primaries took very extreme and really unequivocal positions on abortion. Perfect case in point is Blake Masters. He is the Republican nominee in Arizona for Senate. And he has been caught now changing his website to really moderate his views on the issue of abortion as, you know, Dobbs has made this issue really central and has become a big problem for Republicans in places like Arizona. So let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. So this tweet says, new Blake Masters campaign scrubbed the abortion section of his policy page. It's the latest sign of how abortion rights are shifting the political

landscape. They've got screenshots here of the before and after. Just to give you a taste of some of the changes that were made, which were, you know, really clear and quite dramatic. Federal, in the original version, he advocates for a federal personhood law that would basically ban abortion altogether from, you know, the minute that there's a heartbeat. So this is a very extreme law that he's saying he wants passed at the federal level. Very clear, non-equivocal in the primary. Now it says, well, I want to ban late-term abortions. So on much more solid political ground there. Now, that doesn't directly contradict the idea that you also would want a federal personhood bill, but that's a very different thing to focus on.

And another thing he just outright took down is he used to say that he would have a litmus test on all judges. They had to understand that Roe and Casey were wrongfully decided. That has been taken down. This is a guy who he called abortion genocide. He was really, really out there in terms of the type of inflammatory language he would use on this issue. And that has all now been dramatically moderated in terms of his website. Well, stripping it off of his website in a way is just such a stupid move because you only draw even more attention to it. And now the Kelly campaign is

actually just smacking him over the head even more. They're like, look, he realizes that it's so bad that we're going to continue attacking him. And Blake is trying to change the message with his new ad. Just take a listen on how he's trying to spin it. Most people support common sense regulation around abortion, but Mark Kelly votes for the most extreme abortion laws in the world. We're talking no limits up until birth. Think about how crazy that is. That's more extreme than Western Europe.

It's way more extreme than what Arizonans want. Look, I support a ban on very late term and partial birth abortion. And most Americans agree with that. That would just put us on par with other civilized nations. Mark Kelly? The only countries that support his no-limits extreme abortion policies are China and North Korea. I'm Blake Masters, and I approve this message. TIE fighter incoming.

The problem for masters is that most of the Republican pro... Let me give you this example. If I had come out 60 months ago and said, you know, Roe versus Wade, I don't know. I support European style abortion law, which is 15 weeks, pretty much universal. There's no way they would have called me pro-life. That's not what being pro-life means. Being pro-life means you're opposed in all circumstances. Which is like, listen, I actually, by the way, do support European-style abortion law. 70-some percent of the American people does as well.

I think it's like 76, which is a 15-week ban. Okay, fine, you know, whatever. That seems pretty reasonable. And yet, though, they have to now defend every extreme case of the 10-year-old and others instead of being defenders of a much more popular status quo. And again, all American politics is which side seems like they're the most extreme. For a while in abortion politics, again, for a while, I would say like three years, it was a lot of the cultural left figures were coalescing around late-term abortion, and I was proud of an abortion,

abandoning safe, legal, and rare. Caitlin Flanagan wrote a whole good piece about this in 2019, about the death of safe, legal, and rare, and how it was possibly one of the best political slogans and policy kind of campaigns of all time for a very complicated human issue. Well, now though, it seems that the Democrats, by just trying to defend a Roe status quo, are on the side of more of a safe, legal, and rare rather than the most extreme. And then the Republicans are the ones who have to defend all this other stuff. And when he came out and said not only, quote, I'm 100% pro-life, but after the reversal of Roe versus Wade and Dobbs, what he said is that he's like, I think I would go further than that, basically intimating that he would support a complete ban

and even the personhood legislation. Now he opens himself up to the point where he has to be like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a defender of the European status quo. First of all, that's a complete flip flop. And once again, having known, I know a lot of people who are pro-life, they would not call you pro-life if you actually support that position. They would say, yeah, it's better on balance, but it's not a quote unquote pro-life position. So they're in a real, they got, I mean, it's a problem of their own making. Yeah. And yeah.

Well, and I mean, there's a lot to say about this. First of all, all of these people are trying to be like, they took me out of context. It's like you literally had on your website that you want a federal personhood law, which is effectively a national ban on abortion. How is that taking you out of context? They're not lying about you. They're just literally saying what your position was in the primary and repeating some of the things that you yourself said. So that's number one. Number two, I mean, it's very revealing that they felt the need to go up with very limited campaign funds that they had, by the way, especially since the Senate leadership fund is hanging him out to dry, to go up with this ad trying to push back because they very

clearly see this as a real problem for them and a real issue and trying to reframe the debate. Because, yeah, this was firmer ground for Republicans back when the question was about late-term abortion and how does that all work out. That's very difficult ground for Democrats. But I think it's really important to understand why the debate has shifted so dramatically. Because under the Roe regime, when Roe was still in place, you could still ban late-term abortions. The whole question was around fetal viability. And so now, inherently, if you support the Dobbs decision, you support Roe being overturned, that means you support bans and

restrictions that are in those early days where it is much more extreme, much more controversial. And of course, as we said, these people during their primary campaigns were pushed into very extreme language and very provocative, incendiary language and very, you know, very provocative, incendiary language and very, very extreme positions. You know, a good sort of test case of whether it's going to work for Blake Masters and other candidates to try to now moderate their positions is the special election that we just had in New York, where a lot of the conversation was around abortion. The Republican who was running there, Molinaro, he actually was more of a moderate on abortion and did not have this kind of extreme language in terms of his

past and in terms of his history. Didn't matter. Didn't matter because the whole party now has been painted with this brush of extremism. And so this ended up being a big problem for him in that race. There's a couple other little tidbits here that are kind of interesting. So first of all, Master's team is leaking to the press that he himself edits his own website. So it's not like this was some— It's honestly worse. You should just blame a staffer. Exactly.

So it's not like it was some consultant who just came in and did this and, like, tried to massage it. Apparently his staff—and this also tells you, like, his staff must hate him, his staff leaked to the press that he himself changes the language, which is funny. And then the other piece that's also revealing is, put this next one up on the screen. This is another dude who- Yes, another Republican. Yeah, there's another Republican congressional candidate who removed his entire value section of his campaign website because it had his anti-abortion positions on it, which is hilarious. But put the next one up on the screen. So Masters apparently has excluded his campaign website

from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. So his campaign is explicitly instructing web crawlers and robots to skip the site altogether. So they're trying not to get caught on that one. And then the other thing, there are a bunch of candidates who are in the same boat. There's the dude who deleted his whole value section. There's this other dude who's running in Iowa who said all abortion should be illegal. Now he's published an op-ed saying like, yeah, actually I support exceptions. You've got a

Minnesota Republican gubernatorial nominee who was asked about abortion during his primary. He said he would try to ban abortion as governor. Now he's saying he supports various exceptions. So a lot of backtracking, a lot of trying to, like, moderate the position, scrub the websites, all of those things. And this all comes at a time when things are not going particularly well for Masters from the sort of monetary standpoint we covered before, how he was basically begging Mitch McConnell, who he was very critical of during the primary and said he wasn't going to vote for him for leadership, to come in with his Senate leadership fund money and rescue him. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. McConnell's like, yeah,

not so much. The Senate Republicans' primary super PAC is canceling nearly 10 million dollars in Arizona and Alaska ad reservations. So in Alaska, they feel confident Murkowski is in good position. So that's why they're pulling the money there in Arizona. Apparently, they've decided that they've got a better shot in taking Georgia and or Nevada than they do of taking Arizona. So they are kind of hanging Blake Masters down to dry. And to be honest with you, they're kind of direct about it in this piece. Senate Leadership Fund President Stephen Law told them, we're leaving the door wide open in Arizona, but we want to move additional resources to other offensive opportunities that have become increasingly competitive, as well as an unexpected expense in Ohio where they're having to shore up J.D. Vance with tens of millions of dollars in

order to overcome a tougher than expected challenge from Tim Ryan. Yeah, I mean, I'm reading this and also even looking at the polls. So remember, Trafalgar, one of the most Republican pollsters that is out there. Here's how they rate Arizona. This just came out last night. Mark Kelly at 48 and Blake Masters at 44. That doesn't mean it's a completely runaway campaign by Mark Kelly. Blake Masters certainly has a shot, but this is where some of his trifling with Mitch McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund is a real problem. This brings me back to something that I was talking about yesterday, which is that because Trump is sucking up so much money, it actually means that the NRSC, which has been chronically financially mismanaged, and Rick Scott clearly is a complete moron while he's vacationing on his super yacht and has blown over $100 million,

it means that you need the Senate Leadership Fund more than ever because they're one of the only large organizations with massive amounts of cash that can come in and buy ads. Now, to be clear, they are still going to buy some ads on his behalf come October. But just noteworthy, Masters was not included in— there was a confab that McConnell recently just did. He did a fundraising thing, and Dr. Oz was there. Even Herschel Walker was there. Blake Masters was not there. So he was like, I pick the candidates who I think I can win.

Once again, there are all sorts of subtle... If you speak McConnell, he's basically twisting the knife in his chest. Oh, definitely. And making it known. It's like, hey, you come at the king, you best not miss. And with Masters, look, it's a major unforced error. Honestly, he should have just kept it on his website and taken the hit. Like, at that point, you said what you said.

There ain't much else you can do about it. Apparently, he also removed the ad or the section of his campaign website where he said that the election was stolen. Yes, correct. He also removed that portion of his website. He did that infamous ad whenever he was trying to get Trump's endorsement. He's like, I think Trump won. But even if you didn't, you have to admit the media, you know, whatever. And coming back to the kind of high IQ. I might have stopped this deal. Stopped this deal that I've discussed before. So, look, he shot himself in the foot big time. And, you know, who could have seen this coming?

Coming out against contraception at the Supreme Court level. Could have had electoral consequences on a statewide campaign. And the funniest thing to me about all of this is that now that he's just campaigning against late-term abortion, Crystal, he's essentially turned himself into John McCain. Think about it. The senator from Arizona, McCain, got hammered in 2008 for not being 100% pro-life. And he's like, well, I'm against late-term abortions. Like, well, now you have become McCain. It is no longer Crenshaw.

You are watching in his footsteps. He also has the issue of he's one who's flirted with privatizing Social Security, and there are a lot of old people in Arizona. Yeah, which they are smacking him across. I'm glad you brought that up because I forgot about that. He actually still stands by that, which is insane. As much as the abortion stuff is a problem for him, like in Arizona. Yeah, you know how many old people live in Arizona?

This is an issue. Right, exactly. This is also a very big issue that, you know, he is dramatically on the wrong side of it. I do want to point out like Mark Kelly, whatever you think of him, you know, he's more of a sort of centrist corporatist figure than my ideology, but he's got a good profile in the state. He's a solid candidate and isn't like particularly polarizing or divisive. He's a hero. He's married to Gabby Giffords. Yeah. And so they are able, since his bio is well-established in the state, they're able to focus most of their resources

on making the case against Blake Masters. And that appears to be a big problem for Blake. Absolutely. Let's talk about Ukraine. So important news out of Ukraine on a couple of fronts. Number one is the actual front line. So let's start with that. Now, Ukraine, and let's put this on the screen, is claiming that breakthroughs have been made against the Russian forces in their southern offensive and officially have launched what they say is the southern offensive to retake the strategic city of Kherson, which was occupied by the Russian forces earlier in the war. Kherson has now become a flashpoint and a symbol of the Ukrainian military for wanting to retake it. It has major strategic importance, both to the Russians and to the Ukrainians, and its access to more strategic

areas where Ukraine should be able or wants to be able to continue to export goods, have supply lines and more, and also would be a front line if they were to ever continue to move on to Crimea. It's in the very southernmost part of the country. So anyway, this is going to be a major flashpoint going forward. In terms of the actual operations and more, I have not been able to find a lot of information about the actual strategic success in what is happening. Now, the way that Ukraine is saying is that this is the beginning of the offensive. However, the way that the Western press is interpreting what's actually happening on the ground, Crystal, and again, look, we're not in Ukraine. It's difficult

to say. They say Ukraine steps up strikes in the South. So they are casting the Ukrainian government the beginning of more strikes on the South, as the beginning of the offensive. That certainly would be. However, we also need to see the movement of actual troops on the ground and the movement of the front line. Now, so here's what they say. The Ukrainian military is pounding targets across southern Ukraine as they seek to disrupt Russian supply lines, degrade Russia's combat capabilities, and isolate Russian forces. Part of what analysts said could be the beginnings of a broad and a coordinated counteroffensive. In other words, we have not yet actually seen the movement of mass forces and the employment of all of these troops in the

South. We are simply beginning to see rockets being fired, the use of, you know, also the Ukrainians are using some decoy missiles and other things in order to try and fool the Russian forces. But, and here's the caveat, Russia has now had months to reinforce those lines of defense in the South, making any Ukrainian advance there going to be very tough and very bloody. The reason that we all have to pay a massive amount of attention to this is we have all shipped a hell of a lot of weapons to Ukraine for this purpose, not just to be defensive, but to give them some sort of offensive capability. So what is the actual fighting capability of the Ukrainian force when they are offensively taking on the military of a great

power nation with tremendous more economic and military might resources than they have. To be fair, it's not like Russia has employed the full force of its military or anything like that in this war, so we'll see. But the beginnings of this operation could mount a real decisive point in the war, which is that if the Ukrainians are outright defeated or if they are unable to have any sort of successful offensive, it's just going to be like, all right, well, what are we doing here? You know, like what is the point of all these weapons that we're giving you?

Sure, it's great that you have a defensive front line that your Russians can't move forward. But if you can't retake anything, then it's time to negotiate, right? You know, like that's where things— Yeah, that's what you would certainly think. That's what you would think. Again, we don't know. There's a lot of propaganda being cast by the Ukrainians. They're trying to cast this into this big, grand movement.

We should believe it when we actually start to see troops roll on the ground. As for now, it just seems to be a set level of strikes, even though they are claiming breakthroughs and all this other stuff that is going on. And Zelensky, obviously, under a lot of pressure to start this counteroffensive. And so, yeah, the way that I saw this described previously in the New York Times, which, again, it's important to see the New York Times view because that's like the official U.S. government view. That's how they're trying to shape the—

It's like center-left lib massaging. Yeah, well, and with a lot of direct sort of like sourcing from the Biden administration and exactly the portrait of this that they want to paint. But they talked about how this was intended to sort of shape the battlefield to try to prepare them for this counteroffensive. But Zelensky is under a lot of international pressure and a lot of domestic pressure to begin this counteroffensive because remember, they also have to contend with the changing seasons. It's going to start to get cold there soon. It's going to start to get really muddy there very soon. And that makes it very, very difficult to launch the kind of counteroffensive that they ultimately want to be able to, you know, push

Russian troops back and show that they have the ability to retake this territory. Because Zelensky continues to say very directly, their goal is not just to retake the territory from before this particular invasion, but they want to retake Crimea. They want to retake the areas in the eastern part of Ukraine that had already been sort of de facto Russian-controlled before this new Russian invasion. So we're going to see very quickly whether that is a pipe dream or whether that has any grounding in reality with the incredible support that we've given them. In the history of warfare in this region, this has been always the most critical part of time. So from Operation Odessa with the Nazis to Napoleon and their invasion, every time it's really interesting, actually.

You go and you read the accounts of the soldiers. I'm getting some of this from Dan Carlin, but he talks about how the first snowfall in October is always like the death knell, that the soldiers realize they're like, this is it, the snow is coming. And it's like October 15th or so is when the first snowfall is always recorded. And from there, it just becomes exponential as it gets cold. Sometimes the cold is advantageous. It's not as muddy, the roads ice over, but it's brutal, right, in order to actually conduct military operations in. So decisive campaigns are always aimed both by Hitler, by Napoleon, anybody who's fought in this region as right now.

So things need to begin the month of September when the weather is temperate, especially. It's not as hot in order to fight in. This will cease probably some of the most decisive times in the war. And if we don't see that, that also tells us a hell of a lot of what's happening. Yes, then you're in for this grinding winter where there's unlikely to be many gains made on either side. And, you know, does anyone then start to look for an exit ramp? Do we start to push for an exit ramp? The last thing I want to say here is something that we haven't really focused on here too much, but I think it's really important to note that the Biden administration has actually assigned a general to oversee this, you know, what they call our military aid to Ukraine, but really is in effect a U.S. proxy war against Russia. And that just shows you that even

though, you know, yes, this is still on the front page of the New York Times, but a lot of the cable news media has moved on. They are not doing anything like the intensive coverage of this conflict that they were in the early days. You know, the American people are understandably focused on a lot of other issues here at home and abroad as well. This continues to be, you know, an exceptionally volatile conflict. We continue to have sort of these little incremental escalations. And it continues to be a major, major sort of military focus that is occupying large pieces of our defense infrastructure at great cost. So that's why we continue to really try to focus on it and not take our eye off of it, because this thing could, you know, escalate or turn at any moment and is already reshaping global politics in

ways that have incredibly direct implications for you and for our European friends. The very latest in the Trump-FBI-Mar-a-Lago-DOJ saga here. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. The government, as part of an official sort of legal filing this week, pushing back on the Trump team's efforts to secure a special master for this case. As part of that rather extensive filing, I'll get more into the details now, released this photo, which is quite explosive. It shows a lot of one secret and a bunch of top secret documents. At least these sort of, you can see the cover sheets of them strewn across the floor. This appears to be in Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago.

Kelly O'Donnell says the DOJ filing submitted tonight includes a photo showing the obvious classification markings on documents seized at Mar-a-Lago. Also, LOL, in the corner of the photo is a bunch of Framed Time magazine covers classic Trump. I saw those in the Oval Office, so some things have not changed. Yes, so classic Trump. Trump, of course, responding to this quite aggressively. In fact, his whole world seems to be very upset about this photo because it is quite damning to see all of these documents laid out

that he had kept in his possession even after his lawyers had attested the fact that they had exhaustively searched for everything and turned everything over. Here was his initial reaction. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. He says, terrible the way the FBI during the raid of Mar-a-Lago threw documents haphazardly all over the floor, perhaps pretending it was me that did it, and then started taking pictures of them for the public to see, thought they wanted them kept secret. Lucky I declassified. A lot going on there.

I mean, they've been really leaning into this argument saga or his side that, like, this was somehow meant to show that Trump just had these documents laid out on the floor, but I didn't interpret the photo that way at all. I just interpreted it as, this is kind of standard procedure when you go in and do this kind of search. You document, you know, what evidence is found. So they took this photo and they include it. But yeah, they're like really up at arms at the idea that there's an insinuation that Trump's office is messy.

I have no idea whether this is standard procedure or not. I do think it's probably a little bit staged. But listen, I mean, are they there or are they not there? Because I think that's probably all that materially matters in court. The next truth was like, I had all these documents in a carton. Yes, I have that here. I can read that. As if that's exculpatory.

So this is the latest. You're admitting you had those documents. You just had them in a carton as if that makes it better soccer. Yeah, so late last night, here was the truth. Quote, there seems to be confusion as to the picture, in quotes. Don't know why that's in quotes. Where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see as if that's what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong.

They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big find for them. They dropped them, not me. Very deceiving. And remember, we could have had no representative, including lawyers present during the raid. They were told to wait outside. So as some people have pointed out, Trump is so annoyed about the optics of the photo that he is actually ignoring the legal implications of acknowledging that he had these in his office, which again, I mean, I'm not saying it's appropriate or whatever for the DOJ to do this. I think it was clearly a photo meant to be leaked. I'm not even leaked to the press. It was just released

publicly. That being said, uh, skeevy SBI tactics aside, it doesn't matter in a court of law. The court of law is, did you have it in your office after your lawyer said that you would return them? Because that seems to be the case. Whether or not they were on the floor or in a carton, it doesn't really legally make a difference. But yeah, it's very clear that he was upset and the people around him upset by the optics of this because, you know, pictures do speak very loudly. And so when you just see it all laid out there, I think it is because, you know, pictures do speak very loudly. And so when you just see it all laid out there, I think it is fairly, you know, it definitely sends a statement. And there's zero doubt that the government intended with this filing, which was quite, I would say,

aggressive in its language and much less muted than some of their previous filings have been, they clearly intended to speak to the American people, not just, you know, argue a narrow legal point over whether or not there should be a special master in this case. So that's extremely noteworthy. And I want to get into some of the specifics here. But before I do that, I am becoming more convinced that they are actually going to indict Trump. Because, I mean, what really sort of, from a laywoman's perspective, what really sort of tipped me in that direction is how aggressive this filing was. How much they intended to really kind of lay on a public case here and rebut some of the talking points that have come out of the Trump side. That made me feel like, oh, you know, this is not, this was not just an effort of like, ah, we got to get these documents back and this was the only

way we could do it. It does feel more and more like they are truly building a case towards, especially obstruction, because that's, and that's part of what has increasingly come out. That's part of what is revealed in this latest filing is, you know, there was a messaging coming out of the Trump team that like, oh, we were working with, we were cooperating, we invited them in, Trump greeted them, we said, go and find whatever you want to find. Well, the government very, you know, pointedly sort of rebuts that saying that they were, you know, not greeted as heroes or liberators. That was kind of indicated by Trump. They were barred from certain areas of the building,

including that storage room, according to the government, again, in contradiction to what Trump said. And then it's now been reported that his lawyer, I think her name is Christina Bob, is that her name, is the one who signed that attestation saying that we looked everywhere, we did an exhaustive, you know, diligent search, this was everything we could come up with. Well, then the government in just a few hours was able to come up with far more documents than had originally been turned over as responsive to the government's subpoena. I agree with you, Crystal. Let's go to the next one up there on the screen. I mean, as you said, I encourage you guys to go and read this whole thing for yourself. But the aggression in the

special master case and the laying out consistently, they're basically revealing that the lawyer had signed that attestation, then saying that they found those specific documents in the office. I mean, I guess the only way that Trump could possibly find his way out of this is if he could say that his lawyer lied, not necessarily on his behalf, but that would require her to fall on her sword. Right. But when he makes comments acknowledging, like, I had these documents in my cartons, makes it harder to just pin the blame on the lawyer. And given the reporting that we currently have, whether it's true or not, but nobody

involved has denied it, that Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch was telling Trump, no, you can hang on to these things, that would show a willful knowledge of I am hanging on to these as I instruct my counsel to say otherwise to the Department of Justice. Now, you can put just prosecution and all that aside. I'm just telling you that the people that I follow, even on the right, who I trusted a lot through Russiagate, Andrew McCarthy specifically, who, you know, if you're a Republican, he was on Fox News all the time. He was very against Russia.

He wrote a whole book about it. He wrote an entire book about it, about how it was not just. He is now saying he thinks Trump will be indicted. Again, you put any, whether you think he should be or not, on the way the Department of Justice is behaving, on the facts of the case, as we know them now, given the photos, given the attestation, given the filings, it's going to be a tough way to see Trump wriggle his way out of this one. Yeah. Will it still happen? Possibly. Possibly. I don't know. And it's possible, you know. They may never charge him. It's possible too. It's possible the DOJ,

you know, just decides like, ah, this is too hot. I mean, that's honestly, that's, it's pretty clear at this point, that's what the Trump team is mostly betting on. They're not really betting on any sort of legal strategy because they've been all over the map. They really initially sort of bet the house on this declassification strategy of like, oh, president can declassify anything. So, you know, these documents, I all, I of course declassified all of them. So nothing to see here. Doesn't really matter. And so when that legs were cut out from under that defense, they've really struggled to come up with something that is going to make sense from a legal perspective. You can even see in the response to this photograph that Trump tries on a couple of

different defenses here. I mean, at first there was sort of an insinuation of like, ah, maybe the FBI planted these documents here. We don't know where these documents came from. And then in the very next truth, he acknowledges, no, FBI planted these documents here. We don't know where these documents came from. And then in the very next truth, he acknowledges, no, I had these documents, but they were neatly in cartons instead of splayed across the floor. So they're struggling in terms of a legal strategy. What the effort is today to secure the special master, which we've kind of gone into in detail with you,

they're arguing that a special master is required to sort through which documents are subject to executive privilege based on his status as former president. Very murky legal ground there because a lot of people say, okay, well, you're not president anymore. So the person who gets to decide that is the current incumbent administration, but that's what they're trying to argue today. But, you know, as we pointed out before, the government is saying, hey, we already went through all these documents and we had our own filter team go through for attorney-client privilege, something different. Those documents have already been pulled out. We've already reviewed everything that we have here. So this

is kind of irrelevant. The whole strategy, as far as I can tell from a legal perspective on the Trump team, is just to try to slow things down, try to muddy the water, try to throw up as many sort of procedural hurdles as they can. But in terms of a comprehensive legal case, it's not clear to me what direction they're going in. Again, I'm not a lawyer, but just reading the analysis, reading the filings, trying to, you know, evaluate this as best I can, it seems pretty clear the real strategy they're leaning into is more of a political one to basically say, and this is what Trump, you know, back-channeled to Merrick Garland, like, hey, things are pretty hot. You wouldn't want them

to get out of control. Lindsey Graham going on television saying there's going to be riots in the street. So sort of pushing on that button, saying, like, you don't want to go here because it could be really divisive. It could be really dangerous, it could be really explosive in terms of our national politics, and trying to scare, you know, people who are sort of, like, naturally risk-averse, Merrick Garland and other bureaucrats in the DOJ, sort of naturally risk-averse people into holding their fire, even though, you know, at this point, it's incredibly clear if this was anyone other than Trump, they would already be indicted. Yeah, and let's put the final element there up on the screen. DOJ saying, or likely based on Bloomberg reporting, to wait past midterms to reveal any Trump charges.

Theoretically, they could actually file charges under seal before the election and then unseal it ahead of time. But given the, you know, election policy on not to make any cases ahead of a major election, even if Trump is not necessarily on the ballot, that's not something that they are likely to do. So there you go. This was another item that pushed me in the direction of they are going to indict him. Because the fact that they're leaking this to the press of like, well, an indictment's not coming right now. Right. Rather than if they really wanted to tamp things down and, you know, indicate like, oh, this is really just about getting these documents back. We're not planning on charging the former president. I feel like that would be getting leaked to these reporters. And the New York

Times had a version of this as well. They said something like the DOJ isn't close to charging Trump, also indicating like this will come further down the road. But, you know, it doesn't have any indication they're not going to do it. Just, like, don't expect it right away, basically. At this point, we're all Harry Potter in the tea leaves class.

We're all just like, what's going on? This did push me more in the direction of they're serious about this. I think they're serious, and I even put the DOJ aside, and I look at the, quote-unquote, outside analysts like McCarthy, and, like, when McCarthy says he's going to get indicted, I think they're serious, and I even put the DOJ aside, and I look at the quote-unquote outside analysts like McCarthy, and when McCarthy says he's going to get indicted,

I'm like, wow, that personally was the most significant one for me. Because people like Brad who you had on the show, Brad has always been that way. Yeah, he's a resistance guy. I mean, that is his framework, which we try to be upfront about, even as he is an expert in the specific area. Totally, but it's like when I see the skeptics either go silent or start attacking the DOJ over the photo,

and then I see the ones who I really trust and have always thought intellectually honest be, say, or Judge Knapp, you know, we'll talk about that too, who was on Fox, got fired from Fox. I forget exactly why he pissed Trump off. But anyway, I've always liked and trusted Judge Knapp as well. When those two say an indictment is coming, again, some of the biggest Russiagate Mueller skeptics that existed, I listen. And Judge Napolitano is opposed to Trump

being indicted, but he's just looking at the case that's been laid out and what the government is saying and the way they're approaching this. And he was quite clear that he believes that he will be indicted. I'll tell you another thing, just again, as a layperson that seems to me to argue in that direction is Trump's lawyers are now in pretty significant legal jeopardy. And so if you end up with a situation, like I feel like it'd be difficult to indict the lawyers, but then let him off the hook. You know, so now that you have people who don't have any sort of claim of like, you know, presidential protection

or we should treat them differently, who were pretty clearly possibly in violation of the law here with regards to testing that, oh yeah, of course we did this exhaustive search and turned up everything we could. I don't know. That to me also makes it more difficult

for the government to kind of come up with a case for not charging him, given what has come out and what they've laid out at this point. And let's start with this. President Biden is very, very happy to not talk about inflation, to not talk about gas, to not talk about the economy, to not talk about the Federal Reserve. All this man has ever wanted to do, and all, frankly, was ever good at, was talking about Donald Trump. And he is returning to his political roots in the latest midterm campaign rally. Let's take a listen. You're on the side of a mob, on the side of

the police. You can't be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection. You can't be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6th patriots. You can't do it. What are we teaching our children? It's just that simple. Now it's sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the life of law enforcement agents and their families for simply carrying out the law and doing their job.

Look, I want to say this as clear as I can. There's no place in this country, no place for endangering the lives of law enforcement. No place. None, never, period. I'm opposed to defunding the police. I'm also opposed to defunding the FBI. Best thing that ever happened to Joe Biden, Crystal, and he's running with it all day long. Let's put this up there. Return to the very beginning of the campaign. President Biden traveling to Pennsylvania today and to give a primetime speech on what the White House is calling a battle for the soul of the nation. Where have I heard that one before? Democracy in peril. The 2020- Hey, it worked last time. Listen, it did work. This is why, can you blame the man?

It's not like he's been all that good at governing. So what do you return to? The greatest hits. This is what Trump always did whenever he was in the fight for his election. This is exactly what Joe Biden is doing. And the greatest thing that has ever happened to Joe Biden is the supremacy of Donald Trump on the chyron of every news channel in this country, on the top of every newspaper. Because what does it remind you of? Trump. And this, the more we talk about Trump, the chyron of every news channel in this country, on the top of every newspaper. Because what does it remind you of? Trump. And this, the more we talk about Trump, the better it is for Biden. Two-thirds of the people voted for Biden, did not vote for him affirmatively. They voted against Trump.

The more that Biden can turn this as a cast against Donald Trump. Now, with the Jan 6th stuff, I generally, I mean, we have a slightly different view. I don't really think it had any real impact. But to the extent that it matters and you pair it then with the FBI investigation, then again, it just elevates it even more up to the top. And we start talking about things 18, 20 months ago than what transpired, by the way, in the middle of those 20 months. You know, it's a fascinating view of politics because you have these meta political trends, which mattered so much in November with Glenn Youngkin, school closure, inflation, all of that. But the moment Trump comes to the fore, it's just the most insane thing to me is how this man and his personality can dwarf life expectancy, school closures. I mean, the data came out this morning. We have a two decade reversal

on school children learning. Is that going to be talked about by some of these Republicans on the campaign trail? No. They're going to be talking about Trump. It's like the more that that's all that we're talking about, even Fox, frankly, the more that that is really at the center of mind, the less it's good for Republicans. There's no other way to say it. Well, and also, I mean, schools have been open this year. So we've also, like, COVID as an issue is just not the center of gravity that it was, either for the right or for the left. Very true. And so, you know, we sort of moved past that cultural moment, which was very beneficial to Glenn Youngkin. I mean, there's a new Wall Street Journal poll out this morning that has Democrats gaining and edging out Republicans on the generic ballot, has Biden's approval rating up a bit. And, you know, I think it reflects a lot of things. I think you've got the fact that, yes, Trump is back in the news and reminding everybody why they were anxious to get rid of him in the first place and being the polarizing asshole that he always is and chaos generator that that's what he does. So there's that reminder, which is not helpful to Republicans who wanted to make this a referendum on Biden.

So that's one. Number two, I mean, very obviously, the Dobbs decision. Yeah, huge. That really was the game-changing moment in this election. All the trends shifted. The vibe shift starts with the Dobbs decision

overturning Roe versus Wade. That gives Democrats something to just hammer the hell out of Republicans on and paint them as extremists. And that ties into their defenses of Trump and January 6th and all of those things. All sort of adds up to this view of the Republican Party of like, these people are really out there. And I may not be happy 100% with what's going on. I may feel like the country's on the wrong track.

But I don't know about letting these people back in charge either. So that was another piece. And then the other thing is, look, Democrats have delivered on a few things lately. You know, they actually got a few things through. They got the PACT Act, which delivered for veterans, toxic bird pit victims, which has been long overdue. And they finally got that done. I think that's really significant. The CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and now Student Loan Debt debt relief, which I think has really changed Joe Biden's fortunes with young people, but also was very important and very popular among African-Americans, of course, a key Democratic-based constituency as well. So when you add the focus on Trump on top of all of that, yeah, it has made it so that, and I'm always careful to not overstate the case, it has made it so that Democrats have a shot. Whereas before, there was no shot.

They were losing the Senate. They were getting wiped out in the House. Republicans were staring down potentially historic margins. Democrats in Biden plus 10 districts were shaking in their boots. Now I just saw more ratings changes come out this morning, shifting more House districts towards Democrats. They've outperformed, and we'll get to this a little bit more in the midterm section, they've outperformed in every single special election. They've outperformed Biden's march into these districts in every single special election

post-Dubbs. So yeah, I'm not surprised that Biden who I don't know what like drug cocktail mixture they've given him but he's like a different guy these past couple weeks he's definitely got a little bit more of something that he was lacking before kind of a smart move that they're leaning into this moment he's doing the primetime speech apparently um there was a memo that was put together by Jonah Jen O'Malley Dillon, who is a deputy White House chief of staff in Anita Dunn, a top communications advisor. And they're sort of leaning into this playbook. Biden is expected to trumpet legislative victories that, quote, beat the special interests, smart framing there, and attack the extremism embraced by Mr. Trump and his allies, both

strategies emphasized in the memo. So really leaning into, you know, the vibe shift and trying to make the most of it that they possibly can. At the same time, some moves that maybe indicate Biden is, I personally am of the view Biden is running for president again. There are other people who don't agree with that, especially since you add a number of Democrats, Carolyn Maloney up in New York being like, it's my understanding that he's not running again. So question marks there. But I personally think, especially with his gains in approval ratings, Democrats are going to prop him up, you know, if they possibly, possibly can, because they've also got a Kamala Harris problem of, you know, if he doesn't run, she's the obvious successor. It'd be hard to put her to the side, given her sort of trailblazing

historic status. So he did file an update, I guess, to his Biden for president committee. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. Initially, reporters really seized on this of like, oh my God, this is it. He's filed for president. The Fox News headline says Biden FEC filing, not a reelection announcement. An official says they were updating the treasurer on this filing is my understanding of what was happening here. But you know, obviously he will be in a much, much stronger position to run for reelection if they're able to maintain this momentum. And it shows you that for Republicans, I mean, this is the double-edged sword with Trump. His people really love him.

He still is very much in the poll position to get the Republican nomination actually stronger than he's ever been in his post-presidency. He's never been stronger than right now to win the nomination, and he's never been weaker to win the White House back than he is right now. That's a problem for them. It will be the problem, as I say, until the day he dies. So, look, we'll see. By the way, I personally can't stand this whole everything on the dividing line of Trump, but I have to be honest with people.

Horrible for politics. We have to be honest with people that this is the stuff that frankly matters. Joe Biden has had a terrible record. Last couple of months have been decent for him. I mean, look, I should give credit where credit is due. He did pass the CHIPS Act. They have been using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to reduce the price of oil, which is something I advocated for very strongly. And I think it took them far too long in order to do so. They passed the PACT Act. They had the Inflation Reduction Act. They also had student loan forgiveness. I don't personally agree with the policy, but we'll see how it politically shapes out. So these are things. I think people will get it.

More what I would say is action always beats inaction. That's right. Because inaction, as we know, we had an entire eight-month period where inaction was the status quo and the Republicans were cleaning up. So they have given themselves a shot. They've definitely shot themselves in the foot with Dobbs, but that's really out of control of the current Republicans. It's been a multi-decade project, and we're just living in a whole new world. Yeah. And I think that's a big part of it.

Yeah, and you mentioned gas prices going down. That should not be overlooked in the fact that, you know, things are feeling a little bit better for Democrats right now. That's probably as key a thing as any of them. Okay, let's get to a couple of these Senate races. So some significant developments in Pennsylvania. As John Fetterman continues to struggle to recover from his stroke with issues, I think with speech in particular, but also he says auditory issues. He has decided not to

participate in a scheduled debate. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. This is from Jonathan Tamari, a reporter that we used to have on Rising all the time. He's a great reporter. Fantastic Pennsylvania local reporter. He says Fetterman confirms he won't attend KDK's proposed debate, accusing Oz of mocking his stroke. He says, quote, this is from Fetterman, as I recover from this stroke and improve my auditory processing and speech, I look forward to continuing to meet with the people of Pennsylvania. They'll always know where I stand. Oz's team has taken the gloves off on this stuff and are being extremely, I'll just say, aggressive in how they are framing all of it. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.

So I'll read this whole thing. The Dr. Oz campaign released the following list of concessions it's willing to make if John Fetterman will agree to debate in one week. Dr. Oz promises not to intentionally hurt John's feelings at any point. We'll allow John to have all of his notes in front of him along with an earpiece so he can have the answers given to him by his staff in real time. At any point, John Fetterman can raise his hand and say bathroom break. If the topic of his pardoned murderers comes up,

we'll allow extra time for him to explain that second-degree murder is not as bad as first-degree murder. We'll pay for any additional medical personnel he might need to have on standby. And here's a quote. The first debate at KDKA is set for one week from today, but there's been no response from lying liberal Fetterman. I mean, if I had to defend releasing convicted murderers and not paying my taxes, I'd be pretty worried too. I guess John Fetterman is afraid of debating Dr. Oz. What did you think of this saga? Yeah, I don't know. It's odd. I have no idea if it'll work or not. I've spoken with some people who are privy to some polls that I'm not privy to, but you never know whether you're being spun or not. They claim that it is working, that internally

they see some doubt amongst Pennsylvania voters about his stroke and that they want to remind people of it as much as possible. I could see it going of two ways. On the one hand, Fetterman cannot claim that you have problems. In his statement, he says, I have problems with auditory processing, but that will not affect my job as a senator. Come on, dude. That is just, stop. Like there is no chance that one of the most important jobs in the United States is not going to be affected by your health problems. Now, politically, as to whether that matters or not, it's two things. One, which is that with Biden, the attack on age sometimes worked, sometimes it backfired. With Fetterman, here's the thing.

I'm just going to say this kindly. People in Pennsylvania, especially the older folks, probably not the healthiest population. So they actually will find some kinship with John that he has suffered through a major health event. And he actually recently had a rally, a Democratic rally, and he was like, how many of you guys have suffered a health event? The entire room basically raised their hand, which is sad. Sad. I'm not saying it's a good thing. Yeah. This is America. Listen, we have a terrible healthcare system. That's my entire monologue is about today, about life expectancy, specifically amongst older people, fat people, et cetera. So everybody was like, I would. And he was like, can you imagine

a doctor attacking you over your head? And everyone's like, oh, boo. Now these are people at a Fetterman rally. You would want to believe that type of politics works. My bigger problem with all this is this seems generally indistinguishable to me from generic Republican positioning nationally. Yes. And that's not why I believe Dr. Oz would be a good candidate in the first place. And I took a look to see who wrote that statement. And lo and behold, Brittany Yannick, who's the current communications director for Dr. Oz,

what was her previous job, Crystal? She worked at the Republican National Committee nine months ago as a comms director for— This is a pure, through and through-through, GOP, standard politician. She worked at the RNC. Before that, she was deputy director of communications for the White House under the Trump administration. And before that, she was just some generic replacement-level comms director on Capitol Hill in the House of Representatives. So I know these people. They don't have an original brain in their heads.

The lying liberal thing and all of that very much just tracks with generic GOP positioning. If I were Oz, and again, why I thought he would be very effective, is Oz was somebody who had a deep emotional connection with people on TV that was born of a positive message. And now people do vote negatively, but there's a way to be positive about the negatives, about bringing ourselves out of something terrible and casting Fetterman as a part of that horrificness. So how it lands, I don't know. I generally have no idea. Yeah.

I tend to agree with you. And putting the morality of attacking someone who's just suffered this horrific health event, I mean, look, it's politics. People are going to use whatever they can use to try to— Well, I think it's fair game. If the guy can't hear properly, that's a problem. Yeah, I mean, that's fine. Make that case. But, you know, just from a political perspective, I think they are going about this in a very ham-handed way that just feels mean-spirited and makes John a more sympathetic character.

Then there's a way to do these, and it's not having it come directly from the candidate. It's probably more innuendo and super fast stuff. Right, so like, okay, so again, putting my sleazy political operative hat on, the way you do it, you leak stuff to the press, you get your allies, you get your attack dogs who are outside of the campaign, so you have plausible deniability.

And if you're Dr. Oz, you wear your, like, Mr. Rogers, America's doctor, gosh, I'm just concerned for his health, you know, bless his heart. That's the way that, that's who you are. That's the character you're supposed to be playing. I personally think because the attacks feel so sort of like edge, like they have a hard edge and they're sort of like mean spirited in their approach. It more plays into this idea that Dr. and they're sort of, like, mean-spirited in their approach. It more plays into this idea that Dr. Oz is just kind of this, like, rich, out-of-touch asshole. Yes.

Versus the impression that, you know, a lot of TV viewers over a lot of years had of him. So it feeds more into that narrative the Fetterman campaign has been pushing about who this guy is and what he's all about versus really, you know, causing questions for voters about Fetterman's health. That's my read on the situation that it's not that I don't think the health issues could find some purchase and traction if done in the right way. It's got to be done a little bit delicately, though, and they have not done it delicately at all. And you see that this is actually uncomfortable for Oz himself. He got asked on a radio, local radio interview, whether it's appropriate for his campaign to make fun of Federman's stroke. And he said, the campaign's been saying lots of things. My position is I can only speak to what I'm saying. That's your campaign. Bro, it's your fucking campaign. Come on, like,

own up to it or go in a different direction. Like, again, the sleazy, the way you do this effectively is you leak stuff to the press. You, you know, get clips of him that look really bad and you send them to people who are your allies. You get them spread around. You get the Fox News machine working so that you have plausible deniability and you can remain above the fray. It's not a good look to look like you're just like being mean about somebody who clearly struggled through a significant health event. I'm also a little bit skeptical about how much these health attacks really work because ultimately people care more about like, how do I feel about this person? What's their ideology? Then, I mean, the Biden age questions didn't, that didn't hurt him. John McCain, there were,

I guess, you know, I think that did hurt. Do you think so? I don't, that didn't hurt him. John McCain, there were, I guess, you know, McCain. Well, I think that did hurt. Do you think so? Well, I mean, it was such a terrible election for him. I don't think that was the problem for him. There were lots going on there. I think Sam Palin was more of the issue for him. So, I don't know. I'm a little skeptical of, think of Bernie Sanders.

Yeah. Heart attack, and then he comes back, and he was never stronger than, you know, in the primary. I think we should be honest here. Like, Fetterman, there are a lot of clips out there, and it's not looking so good. I mean, the guy can't debate because he literally can't speak. Like, that's a big... Well, let me say this, and go ahead and put this next poll up on the screen from Emerson. So, Emerson has Fetterman up four over Oz, 5% undecided, much closer poll than some of the other ones we've been seeing recently. I think this is much closer to where this race actually

is versus, you know, we saw these polls that were pretty skeptical of the world like Fetterman up 13. It's Pennsylvania. I just don't buy that. It's going to be a close election. And in my opinion, if Oz is able to make a comeback here, which is very possible, very possible. This is still, in my view, a toss-up state. I think it's going to be more about national mood, inflation, gas prices, feeling the country's on the wrong track than, you know, these attempts, which to me feel a little bit desperate about Fetterman's health.

I don't know. I have no idea. As for Fetterman, I think it probably has less to do with Oz and can the man speak by the end of the campaign. I mean, for real, like, honestly, if I were him, I may take a little bit more of a health break and just try and be as good as possible. Most people don't pay attention, really, until three weeks before election day. So he's got a little bit of time. Apparently, he's going to the Hamptons this weekend to go raise some money. Good for him. You know, he's getting himself out there. He did not appear or will not be appearing with Joe Biden scheduling conflicts.

He says, and I always love that. I'm just like, come on, he's unpopular. Just say you don't want to appear next to him. So that's,

but Josh Shapiro is, which I also find kind of interesting. Yeah. I don't really know why he would choose to do so, but Fetterman wouldn't.

Maybe it's a different poll. I have no idea how it's going. Yeah, who knows. So it's interesting. Nonetheless, yeah, I don't know.

Personally, I mean, I wouldn't do it. I think it's a very risky strategy. Could it be effective? The people who claim they're in the know say it is. They could be spinning me. I have no idea.

Again, I think there's a way it could be done that might be more effective. This, I feel like they're just making him into a more sympathetic figure. And as much as I would like the, like, they won't debate me attacks, I would like it if those attacks worked. I think those attacks should work. I think we should have a requirement constitutionally that candidates have to debate and have to take questions from the press so that they really have to sort of prove themselves and put themselves out there. But I don't think it really works. All right.

Let's talk about Jackson, Mississippi. This is just a horrible situation. So Jackson, Mississippi, of course, the capital of that state, home to hundreds of thousands of people, is without water. They had significant flooding of the Pearl River, which runs through the city, overwhelmed their water treatment facilities. And this is a system that has been struggling for years and years. They actually had a winter storm last year that also crippled the system and left their residents without safe drinking water. Now they're in a situation where, you know, at times, not only is the water not safe to drink and you have to boil it. By the way, they've been on a boil alert for a month. Yeah.

This didn't just happen now. And this isn't the first time either. Right, exactly. So not only is that water not safe to drink, at times they just have not had water to the point that, you know, they had to close the university that's based there. They've had to close the schools. And they were concerned about literally not having water to fight fires. So state of emergency has been declared. Governor of that state, Tate Reeves, had this to say about the situation. The city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets, and to meet other critical needs. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency

will take the state's lead on distributing drinking water and non-drinking water to residents of the city of Jackson. So that's from the governor. Now, the mayor of this city, and I think it's worth saying that this is a majority black and highly impoverished city, and the mayor is a self-described socialist. So there's been some tension between the mayor and the Republican government over the years, no doubt about it. And so, you know, for example, at that press conference right there with Tate Reeves, the mayor was not invited to be part of that press conference, which I think is just like petty and mean spirited personally. And also this has been a problem for the city for years and years, and the state has not given them the funds to be able to deal with it, which I think is absolutely unconscionable. So here's what the mayor, Chokwe Lumumba, I think is how you say

his name. Here's what he had to say about the situation. What our focus is, is a focus on a coalition that works together, a coalition that is arm in arm, making sure that we work towards the residents of Jackson and making certain that we can conclude these challenges. We need an overhaul of our water treatment facility. In all actuality, a new water treatment facility would be in order because the water treatment facility we have has never functioned optimally and has had challenges from the moment that it was created. So here's where we are. Let's go ahead and put this Mississippi Today article up on the screen. So as I mentioned before, this water treatment plant has only been operating in partial capacity

for a while. For more than a month, the city has been under a state health department issued boil water notice. It boggles my mind that an American city can go a month on a boil notice and it doesn't even make the national news. That is an unconscionable failure to start with. Add to that the fact that, yes, everyone knew that this problem was going to reoccur. This is not the first infrastructure issue that they've had. It's not the first water issue that they've had. As I mentioned before, they had that winter storm just last year. And the government, the governor still has not laid out any sort of long-term fix for these

issues. So he's saying, okay, we're going to truck in the water, we're going to bring in the National Guard, we're going to get it back online as soon as we can. But in terms of actually fixing the system, still no word. And, you know, some of the questions have been asked here because Mississippi did, Sagar, get a bunch of money from the Infrastructure Act. So what the hell is going on with that? Apparently, the city, after that snowstorm in 2021, asked for $47 million to try to get ahead of this crisis, and they were given $3 million. And the reality is the infrastructure bill dedicated $238 million for water infrastructure and only $75 million in this type of funding for the entire state for the year of 2022. The mayor says that it will probably take

a billion dollars to fix, to actually fully fix this entire water system. Now, anytime you have a round number like that, you have to assume this is, you know, kind of a back of envelope calculation, but nowhere near adequate funds have been devoted to this. And then think about, you know, how many billions of dollars did we just send casually to Ukraine? And we've got citizens of an American city who cannot drink the water or flush their toilets.

Yeah, it's horrific. Unconscionable. You know, you and I did a, I just checked, March 5th, 2021, it's a crystalline saga. Media ignores Jackson, Mississippi missing water for two weeks. So it's not like people didn't know. We knew. I've been talking about that.

I mean, I'm not going to say I've been following the story day in and day out, but the moment I saw it, I was like, oh, I remember Jackson. We did a whole story about how they haven't had water before. And this is the same thing. So it's like Flint all over again, right? Flint didn't just happen. It was a multi-year process, a lot of corruption. Nobody ended up going to jail for basically criminality, what, all the way up and down the chain in terms of obstruction, corruption.

Jordan Sheridan has been following closely. Yes. It's completely insane. Jackson, same thing. Won't be surprised. Unfortunately, if this takes years, there'll be embezzlement once the funds actually do reach it. It's literally the capital. Apparently that doesn't mean anything. Yeah, it's just very, very sad. Ask yourself if this happened in a wealthy area, how fast it would be fixed.

Yeah, and I think that that is always the perfect critique that I'm absolutely willing to go for, which is that, look, these people have been forgotten. It's been a downwardly mobile area for decades. I remember that whenever we were doing this about how the population continues to shrink, so they have low tax base, which means that they can't fund anything and the city or the state doesn't want to give them anything. And so it just continues to go down, down, down, and down. And no capital of any American state should look like this. But capital aside, no city should look like this. No town, no city, no state. There's no area. It's indefensible. President Biden, to his credit, has said that he's pledged to fix it.

How much actually the feds can do in this case, I don't know. It's not like Obama did a hell of a lot for Flint. Don't get me started on that. Going there and covering. He went there and covered for the corrupt administration is what he did. I mean, drinking the water. Oh, that's fine. Don't worry about it. Hopefully we can muster a better response this time around, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I mean, this is really, it's another sign of who matters and who doesn't in our society. It's another sign of sort of national decline that we had allowed this kind of situation to unfold, totally preventable, totally predictable for our citizens. It's just an absolute,

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Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about. I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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