Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Stories of Week 9/4: Trump vs Biden, Ukraine War, PA Senate, & More!

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Krystal and Saagar cover Biden & Trump's speeches, Trump documents, UK Prime Minister, Ukraine war, Fetterman vs Oz, & 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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First of all, I'm sure you guys saw us are dueling speeches in Pennsylvania over the past several days with President Biden and former President Trump. Both the kickoff to the like launch to the midterms, the final stretch here, but also kind of the unofficial kickoff for 2024. So we'll start with that. We've also got some legal updates. The judge sided with the Trump team is saying, yes, let's go forward with a special master. We'll break down what that means. Definitely a setback for the government. How much of a setback for the government? Unclear. So we'll dig into all of that. Also, there's been a big question about what the hell is going on over at the National Republican Senatorial Committee with their money in particular. Rick Scott is heading up that outfit. First of all, it's become very clear

that a lot of people completely hate Rick Scott because they are leaking to the press on him like crazy. There is also a feud between him and McConnell, but we have some new details about how exactly they spent all of that money and put themselves in a very difficult position. Down the stretch here, we have a new prime minister of the UK. We will tell you about her and what it might mean for our war with Russia in Ukraine. We also have an update out of California that is actually potentially very positive. Last week,

I told you about how they were considering something called sectoral bargaining for the fast food sector, where basically all workers at fast food restaurants, large chains would be able to be subject to the same conditions negotiated at the statewide level. So everybody's wages would be lifted theoretically. That is going through. So could have major implications there and around the country. We have Jordan Cheriton. His team has been on the ground in Jackson, Mississippi, where they have been without water. So we've got an update for you there. With all of that out of the way, let's get to these two dueling speeches from current President Biden and former President Trump. We'll start with Biden. So they really sort of built up to this speech as this is going to be, you know, a big discussion

about the future of the country and the threats to democracy, etc. They did this in Philadelphia. We'll get to this in a minute. The staging of it was quite dramatic, let's say. Here's a little taste of what the president had to say. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. But there's no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country. MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.

They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country. Throwback to 2020 campaign. Yeah, for sure. So I got kind of excited when I saw the commentary about this speech because I didn't watch it in real time. I watched it after the fact. And I saw the visuals, which let's go ahead and throw the picture up on the screen. A lot of people like really honestly melting down over this photo because, of course, the real threat to democracy is red LED lights. There was a whole discussion about the optics.

And I got excited. I was like, oh, my God, he's like embracing dark Brandon. And I do think that's kind of what they were trying to channel. Right. I think that was kind of intentional. So, and then there was a whole freak out about the content of the speech. So I was like, oh, maybe this is like really something. And then I listened to it and I was like, this sounds like the same thing that I've heard for four years. I mean, it's, it's fine. I don't have an issue with it. I just, there was a major meltdown over the speech, over the optics around it, over the whole thing. And I was like, my problem with it is just sort of like not actually that powerful of a speech and just similar banal language that

we've heard for Democrats for years now. This is just the clear banality of, I mean, listen, this, as we, I think we did this in our last show on Thursday. This is the correct strategy if you're Joe Biden. You do not want to run on the economy. You do not want to run on inflation to the extent that you've had limited political success. You know, CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of those other things. As we've all said, that's very likely not to move the needle. What moves the needle? It's getting people to come out and vote against something.

And by getting people to come out and vote against Trump, that's how he got elected to the Oval Office. So he is returning right back to that frame. We've got Trump at the top of mind. We're going to be talking about Trump here in the show. Trump himself very happy to embrace this because it helps solidify his hold over the Republican Party. And Ben Shapiro's analysis, I think that we brought everybody everybody last Tuesday is eminently correct, which is that the more that you make this about personalities and about these two dueling figures rather than any underlying social force of which people originally were coming to vote out against as Republicans, this is exactly what any unpopular politician or semi, you know, 41% or whatever approval rating,

this is exactly what you want, which is you're not voting for me, you're voting against the other side, especially by tying it to abortion. I think very strategic choice there by the Biden administration. And I think there's a couple things that are, because I mean, it does sound to me, to my ears, very similar to rhetoric we've been hearing from Biden since, you know, it sounds like an echo to his 2020 campaign and the way that he ran that and the sort of themes that he ran on. So there was nothing to me shocking about that. The couple of things that are new that makes it hit a little bit different is number one, as you're pointing out, Sagar, now we have the overturning of Roe versus Wade. So that gets layered into making the case that Republicans are outside of the mainstream, that Republican elites and the elected officials and Trump are sort of, you know, on the

extreme fringe. So that's sort of added into it. And I think does give the argument more heft because we are seeing, and we're going to cover this more in the midterms block, the way that women have been extraordinarily moved. And it really has shifted the ground, that decision. The other thing is, I mean, you know, last time Biden was running, we hadn't had stop this deal yet. We hadn't had January 6th yet. We hadn't had fake elector schemes yet and all of that part of our history now. So I do think that that sort of changes the context and the backdrop for it. But look, we know that as much as I would love for them to be running on an affirmative vision, Democrats haven't told us what they would do if they win, if they manage to keep control of

the Senate, if they manage to add a couple seats and have a crack at doing something bigger than what they were able to do with Manchin and Sinema by basically running the show. Republicans also haven't told us what they're going to do. So I do think that it's an effective argument. I think it's the argument that has led to Democrats having a shot at keeping control. But, you know, I found the like panic attack over it, I found it kind of amusing. And there were a lot of people who were like, oh my God, the norms and the guardrails who, you know, when it comes to Trump, they were like laughing at the pearl clutchers for the same thing.

Let me just say this. Anybody who's like, oh my God, he used the military. You ever heard of the mission accomplished speech by George W. Bush? Like, I'm just going to say, like these norms were shattered a long, long time ago. And this also just gets to, are the norms being shattered right now or were they shattered already? And that's why Donald Trump got elected in the first place. I'm going to go with the latter. Now, Biden, his problem is he's like, I'm the norms respecter whenever he just does what any president does, which is use the mantle of the Oval Office in order to promote your agenda and yourself politically.

I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I did hear a lot of crocodile tears from the right. And everyone's like, oh, but I did hear a lot of crocodile tears from the right and everyone's like, oh, he looks like a dictator. Trump had his reelection rally on the South Lawn at the White House, okay? Like, I don't, and by the way, I was fine with it. I was like, whatever. And Trump is right now out there like, they should just go ahead and install me as president. Let's just toss out the election and just install me as president. He's said multiple times now. The president gets to use the White House and all of the majesty of the Oval Office in order to run for reelection. Is it unfair? Yeah. Trump used to roll up with Air Force One, get off the plane, have Air Force One

behind him and do multiple rallies. Once again, that's how it goes, folks. I don't really want to hear complaints, especially whenever we all know Trump is just as flagrant of a norms violator. And maybe those norms are stupid and annoying and were always fake in the first place. The norms were never my issue. I have many issues with Donald Trump that we've talked about here plenty of times. But all the pearl clutching about, oh my gosh, the grid rails, the norms, how could you? The civility, where's the civility? Okay, relax everybody.

That's right. And this is the additional context for this speech. Let's go ahead and put the latest polling. This is from the Wall Street Journal that just continues to show Democrats gaining ground. You've got— A4. This is A4. Democrats gaining on the generic ballot for Congress, 47-44. You've got President Biden's job approval disapproval rating at 45-54.

Still underwater, but markedly improved from where he used to be. And then in the head-to-head, you've, but markedly improved from where he used to be. And then in the head to head, you've got Biden 50, Trump 44, U.S. headed in the right direction, wrong direction, though still a disaster. Only 23% say we are headed in the right direction. 68% say we are headed in the wrong direction. So the other thing that Republicans, Fox News, et cetera, were trying to make a big deal of out of Biden's speech is even though, in my opinion, he's gone out of his way to be like, I'm not talking about all Republicans. I'm just talking about MAGA Republicans and this extreme fringe and, you know, people with tendency to violence. They really want to seize on his comments to try to turn them into

another sort of deplorable moment and make it like, oh, you're talking about every single Republican in the country. So Biden was asked about that by, I think it was Peter Doocy who asked him this. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. I don't consider any trouble. I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence fails to condemn violence when it's used. They're accused of the knowledge that an election has been won. It insists upon changing the way in which the rules and count votes. That is a threat to democracy. Democracy. So he says there, I don't consider any Trump supporter a threat to democracy. I do have

a problem with people who, you know, support violence. So getting a lot of questions on this, again, this is the thing that a lot of Fox News types are sort of seizing on to say, oh, he hates all of you. And he's saying you're all fringe and that every Republican, but, and he does have to continue to make it clear that's not what he's saying because they definitely want to make that case that like, they just hate you and think you're evil and think you're extreme, etc., etc. But in my opinion, he made it pretty clear in the speech that's not what he was saying. Beyond even that, beyond the strategy, that's the smart thing to do. I mean, what you want to do, and I'm not saying it's moral. What I'm saying is that it's not like Republicans haven't said

that a vote for any Democrat is a vote for radical left policy. I've watched and lived through the last several of these campaigns. Being divisive is good for politics. I'm not saying it's good for the country. What you want is to rile up your base, get the people who are against whatever's happening, cast everybody who is even marginally connected to that movement as extreme, and then say, a vote for me is the vote for normalcy. It's the candidacy and the tactic that has been used by both major parties for basically the last 25 years. It was used against George W. Bush, against John Kerry.

It was used by W. against the Al Gore campaign. Gore used it against W. 2008. That's exactly what the McCain campaign went into Obama. It really comes actually from the Newt Gingrich playbook in the 90s. He was really sort of like the pioneering figure in this and sent out a famous memo that said, describe your opponents as anti-family, as anti-American.

So it really stems from those sorts of politics and I think does, again, illustrate just, you know, as long as Trump is at the center of our politics, like he is going to be the central dividing line. It is it works very well for him within the Republican base. It doesn't work out particularly well for the Republican Party as a whole. We saw that in 2018. We saw it again in 2020 when they lost the White House.

We saw it very much in those two Georgia Senate races where Democrats are then able by this narrow margin to gain control. And I think you see it now where I have no doubt if Trump was not such a central figure to the election right now, Republicans would be in a better spot for the midterms. Again, Dobbs and overturning of Roe versus Wade has also been a major part of shifting the ground towards Democrats. But I think Trump is further complicating the situation for the Republican Party right now. And y'all better get used to it because he is definitely not going anywhere. His candidates, by and large, won their primaries. They are at the forefront of the Republicans' efforts to take back both the House and the Senate.

And as we're about to get to in a moment, you know, he is now out on the stump campaigning for them. Yeah. I mean, look, 80% of the people who voted in the Republican Party to impeach Trump are now gone. They're either retired or got their asses kicked out of office. So you tell me who's in charge. And as long as he's at the forefront, as the Dems ran against Trump in 2018 and in 2020 and 2016 as deplorables, these people, you know, are with him, extreme. Why wouldn't you do it again? I'm not, you know, obviously it didn't work for Hillary, but it worked for Joe Biden. It worked in 2018. For the midterms, they have a decent hit rate. The problem is, is it guarantees pretty much a close election, more divisiveness.

But this is always the thing. It's like, is Trump the cause? Is he the effect? I would say he's both, right? But the fact is, he's here. He's here to stay. And the way he gives his speech, I mean, look, we're about to talk about it, but it's not like you see anything all that different over what's going on there.

Yeah, for sure. So he gave a speech kind of in a way, a response to Biden. He also went to Pennsylvania to Wilkes-Barre campaigning for the Republican candidates there, Mastriano and Dr. Oz. I did listen to the whole speech just so I wasn't, you know, only listen to the snippets that were getting clipped down on Twitter or whatever. And, you know, it's exactly what you expect. It's Trump's speech. He's obsessed with Stop the Steal. He's still obsessed with Russiagate. Oh my God, like relived a whole story about Adam Schiff and Donald Trump Jr. and all this stuff. And, you know, newly obsessed with the FBI raid. And that was the bulk of what he talked about. Let's get a little taste of that. The evil and malice of this demented persecution

of you and me should be obvious to all. And it is. Even media companies that are pretty far left have come out and said, we can't believe this is happening in the USA. We are being assaulted by the same group at the FBI and DOJ that just a few years ago declared no reasonable prosecutor would charge crooked Hillary Clinton. Now these same people, the exact same people,

are sending the FBI storming through the home of their number one political rival. It's a disgrace, a disgrace like possibly never before. Our country's never seen anything like it. They talk about documents not being properly stored, yet they go in and take documents, dump them on the floor, stage a photo shoot, and pretend that I had done it, like I had put them all over the floor, stage a photo shoot and pretend that I had done it like I had put them all over the floor. They took that back after a lot of prodding. Then they put out for public consumption

a picture which is seen all over the world. This is what they do. It's called disinformation. These are very dishonest, sick people. He was so upset about that photo. He was very upset about the photo. But notice what that speech is about. Me, me, me, me, me. And look, it works, right? And this also is what translates to the people who are seen as the most astridid allies of Trump. So I was looking especially at some of the reporters who were in

attendance it's the snippets to me that really jumped out where dr. Oz came on the stage people clapped they didn't boo at least like they did the first time that Trump endorsed him but Mastriano came out there he was a rock star well rock star and came out on the stage and what was it that Trump praised him for it was stop the see exactly it was he it that Trump praised him for? It was stop the steal. Exactly. He was there. He was fighting for us.

And so it does illustrate perfectly the bind that these Republican candidates are in. Because, yeah, Mastriano is rock star with the base. You know, for Oz, he's got to go and sort of pay homage to Trump and bend the knee so that he can try to consolidate the Republican base, because that's part of his problem in these midterms and why his polling numbers have struggled is because there isn't a lot of trust and love there with the GOP base. But at the same time, like the way Republicans view stop the steal, the FBI raid, et cetera, I mean, Russiagate, everybody except them has basically moved on from, is very different from how independents and certainly how Democrats or sort of like moderates might view it. So the fact that they're still obsessed with these things,

that that's what it's all about, yeah, it might help them rally the base. And that matters a lot in a midterm election, but it is not going to move the needle in terms of bringing new people over to the cause. Yeah, let's go and put this up there on the screen. So when Trump, you know, if you look and you pepper through, we're like, what exactly is the attack on Biden? Here's what he says, quote, above all, this election is a referendum on corruption and extremism of Biden and Democrats. And that is what he is tying both to stop this deal to his general election message for the midterms and then highlighting Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano. But as you said to him, corruption and extremism is solely based on

Stop the Steal and on the FBI investigation against him. That's what he's praising Doug Mastriano for. He attacked John Fetterman a little bit. I think he said he was like a teenager, looked like a teenager getting high in his parents' basement. But beyond that, he didn't have an affirmative enough message for Oz. And in general, this just reminds me of a lot of the problems with the 2020 campaign. I remember Trump was on the stage at the debate, and he was like recounting the exact problems with some sort of Russiagate. And I was like, dude, nobody knows what you're talking. I'm like, I know what you're talking about because I do this for a living in terms of declassification and the documents and what they showed here, Obamagate and the FISA. Normal folks don't care. And to the extent that Republicans were doing the best, it was when they

were against the tides of social change, against inflation, against the general feeling of everything is in chaos. But now with kind of the narrowing with Trump in particular, you are seeing the effect. At the same time, look, let's be honest, can a single other Republican bring out that many people to a rally? No, absolutely not. There's no way. People love him. The people in the base, they come out not to vote. They come out to vote for his allies. They come out in numbers that have never been seen before. I watched a rally or a video of the rally, the comparison between Biden and Trump. Look, a lot of people were at the Biden rally, like don't get me wrong. Look, a lot of people were at the Biden rally. Like, don't get me wrong.

But the reception that Trump gets is unlike anything anyone has ever seen in modern American politics. Like, if you've ever been to a Trump rally, and I've been to a lot of other types of political rallies as a journalist, I've never seen anything like it. And it reminded me, same energy. Same energy as 2016, honestly, even 2015. I mean, the guy just inspires people in a way that nobody has seen in a long time. This core group. I mean, it does remind me of the early days of Obama. The sort of rock star following that he had in those days.

But, you know, listening to the speech, I was actually reminded of something Ann Coulter had said. I mean, she's out there, and she's been over Trump for a long time. And so it's nothing new for her to be like, this guy is done and over. But she wrote a recent column that was like, Trump is done. And she compared his speeches and the reception to him as like, you know, like the deadheads that follow the Grateful Dead around concert to concert, wanting to hear the greatest hits and like relive the old memories it really does especially with the Russiagate stuff and going through all of that and you know I mean he'll still sometimes riff on how he won the 2016 Olympics go through that and like blow by blow it does kind of feel that way I think at one point they were chanting Locker Up I mean it

is really kind of like let's get the old magic back. Let's get the band back together and relive our nostalgia from the good old days. It does have that kind of quality. But at the same time, there's no denying, you know, this is the guy in terms of the Republican Party. And every candidate in the Republican Party, they sort of live by Trump and they die by Trump. Because on the one hand, he was the kingmaker in the primaries. A lot of these candidates would not be their nominees. Certainly Dr. Oz, possibly Mastriano, but definitely Dr. Oz.

No way Mastriano. Yeah, without Trump. So, I mean, he made both of these candidates. On the other hand, not just is he such a divisive figure and a lightning rod whose obsessions do not align with what the public is actually interested in, he also sucks up all the money. So you're also very dependent on him for any sort of fundraising. We're going to get to the problems with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, but part of the details that came out in that article is how dependent they are on Trump for their fundraising. Like every fundraising email they send out is about Trump. It's not about,

hey, here's what we're going to do. Or even about like, oh, the Democrats are terrible and here's how they're destroying the country. It's like all about Trump. They are completely dependent on him, but they also are extraordinarily limited by him for how far they can go. Yeah, that's right. And let's put the poll up there on the screen as well. Just again, to underscore this, the Mar-a-Lago raid boosted Trump amongst GOP voters. Yeah. They say may damage him with most voters. I don't know.

I mean, listen, I never have any way to know. What history teaches us in general is that the more the country becomes mired in the details of these idiotic investigations, well, the more that people generally lose interest. And in general, it has helped Trump. Is this one different? Because this one might actually lead to his actual indictment, which all signs currently point to. To be clear, on what timeline, I have no idea. Will it damage him?

Maybe. Will it damage him as much as January 6th? Probably not. I don't think so. I mean, look, in my opinion, I've expressed this before. This is qualitatively different than Russiagate in that there is very clear they're there. And you see that certainly, by the way, Republicans who were initially very enthusiastic about defending him have now gone pretty quiet with some exceptions. They as more details have come out. So there's that. There's the fact that he's not president anymore.

So he doesn't have, you know, all of the the sort of stature of that office. And he doesn't have as much of an ability to just control the narrative the way that he used to be able to do. You got to go over to frickin' Truth Social to find out what the hell he's saying these days. So I do think that those things make a difference. And clearly, like, now we've had enough polling to see overwhelmingly American people think, like, the search was justified, and they think that, you know, a majority thinks he should be prosecuted if he is, in fact, in violation of the law. So I do think it continues to kind of like harm him with normies who, like it or not, are still very like, you know, they respect the FBI. They want law and order. Like, you know, I mean, really. And so it's definitely bolstered him with the base. I really think it strengthens his position in terms of making sure he secures the Republican nomination. All of the talk from a couple months ago about DeSantis rising the polls and whatever, I think this kind of nips that in the bud. But I do think it's one more thing that reminds people who had kind of forgotten a little bit in him being a bit quieter, how obnoxious, how chaotic it is when he's around, how divisive it is,

and how much they were swayed by the Biden narrative of like, let's just calm things down and let's just try to get back to whatever normal actually is. We'll see how that looks. And listen, I mean, I think the Dems are in a better position than they've been in for a long time. There's a lot of multifaceted reasons as to why. Trump is certainly one of them. At the same time, the reemergence and reascendance of Trump more from, you know, not to say he wasn't already in charge, but especially to put him at the top is very good for him personally. Well, listen, this really, you know, obviously is the kickoff to the final stretch for the midterms. No doubt about that. Both these guys out there making their respective cases and Trump and the Republicans are, there's no splitting them apart.

So that's, it is going to be a choice election. I think that's pretty clear at this point. Welcome to hell, folks. But I also would say this is the, you know, this is the unofficial kickoff for 2024. This is, these campaigns and elections start earlier and earlier. Trump could announce any time. The expectation is Biden will also announce fairly soon. So this is the path we're going to be headed down for quite a while now, friends. The redux is truly here. Just like Hollywood, the sequel, nobody asked for it.

And yet, we'll get shoved down their throat. Okay, let's talk about Liz Truss. So let's go and put this up there on the screen. Last night, the news broke. British Conservative Party members have chosen Ms. Truss, the, quote, hawkish foreign minister, foreign secretary, sorry, over Rishi Sunak, who is the chancellor of the Exchequer. She will take over the country in a, quote, serious economic crisis. And from what we have seen this morning, our time, Ms. Truss went over to Balmoral Castle in Scotland and officially was, I forget the exact process, but having watched The Crown, I know something involves kissing the hand

and becoming the leader of Her Majesty's government. So Boris Johnson has, I believe, resigned at this point in the show, gave a speech, a farewell speech, warning about the economic crisis, about the problems ahead. Liz Truss, having been the foreign secretary under Johnson and having been intimately involved in Ukraine policy, that's probably what matters the most for our purposes. Now, don't take a genius when even the New York Times is describing you as the, quote, hawkish foreign secretary. In general, we're going to see a continuation of UK policy. Maybe they can ship some weapons over to Ukraine under

this government instead of bailing out their own businesses. However, more importantly, again, is that the posture of the UK government, which there were possibilities of change in terms of some of the other candidates who are up for grabs, really has not changed at all in terms of how the Anglosphere will be presenting itself towards the conflict with Russia. Michael Tracy found this insane portion of a Q&A with Liz Truss about her willingness to use nuclear weapons. We forget that Britain is, of course, a nuclear-armed power. Here's what she had to say. Now, here's another question. One of the first things, and very briefly, if I could, one of the first things that will happen when and if you become prime minister, you'll be ushered into a room, very privately at Number 10, will be laid out in front of you what are called the

letters of last resort, your orders to our Trident boat captain on whether you, Prime Minister Liz Truss, is giving the order to unleash our nuclear weapons. It would mean global annihilation. I won't ask you, would you press the button? You will say yes. But faced with that task, I would feel physically sick. How does that thought make you feel? I think it's an important duty of the Prime Minister. I'm ready to do that. I asked how it would make you feel. I'm ready to do it. That's your answer. Liz Truss, thank you for those answers. Ladies and gentlemen, Liz Truss. I mean, I would just hope for a little bit more empathy or like, yeah, it's the most solemn responsibility a leader can have. Of course, you know, you know, in the defense of our nation, like even I could give a better answer than that. We would do everything we possibly could to avoid nuclear annihilation, okay? As the leader of the UK, I would do everything to defend our homeland,

and only in the defense of our most horrific times would we even consider that option. If I'm prime minister, we will never get to that place. Yeah, great. Whatever. We can both come up with it. But also, what a weird question. Strange question. British media is very—

I know you do it. How would you feel about it? Like, wait, what? The way that they question their politicians over there is insane. Also, their laws are nuts, you know, in terms of they have this whole thing where you can basically, if you have enough complaints against you, the government can investigate you, Oxfam or whatever it's called. I remember this whole thing whenever the Piers Morgan, Meghan Markle thing was going down. So, anyway, sorry, UK.

You actually don't have nearly enough of a free press as we do. Even though they're going to protest. I'm also just going to say this and y'all can call me sexist or whatever. But there is a problem with these like neoliberal type women wanting to prove that there is toughness. It's like Hillary. Hawkish neocons. Yeah, it is. It's Hillary.

I mean you see. Like there's a pattern of this. They got to prove that there is, like, warmongering as the dudes. And so I think that's also part of what you see there. And she's been extremely hawkish in her language when it comes to Ukraine as well. So, listen, I mean, we shouldn't delude ourselves that the war that is going on in Ukraine started by Russia, no doubt about it. But we have fully joined as a proxy partner here and the UK has been our primary backup and support. They have been our ally in the way that

we want to prosecute that war. France and Germany wanted a different approach. They were much more in favor of diplomacy. Macron, of course, was on the phone constantly with Putin, trying to keep them at the table. And we and the UK blew it up. So no doubt about it that she is going to continue to be a full partner in whatever it is that Biden wants to do with regards to this war. Here's what she said in March, quote, Putin must lose in Ukraine as the foreign secretary of the UK, making it very clear here what the posture will be. In fact, people are saying that she could not only double down, but increase British support to Ukraine. And here's my thing, you know, in terms of their positions and all of that, you can have position whatever you want, but then you need to pony up

and you need to be a major actor in the conflict. And they're not. And let's be honest. I mean, they are, if anything, some sort of client state of ours. You know, Johnson going over there, I don't know if it was on his own behalf or on ours. I don't know what those conversations look like. I'd be willing to bet there probably his own behalf or on ours. I don't know what those conversations look like. I'd be willing to bet there probably was some input on our side. We just seem to be taking this very odd, like, backseat but also interventionist policy. Yeah. Which is the worst of all worlds, right?

Which is that you're basically writing a blank check to a foreign government. No foreign government is ever going to act purely on your interests. And then we don't seem to be really taking any steps in the other direction. And then we're letting these euros basically sit on their hands and do nothing, bailing out their own people. And we're supposedly stepping up and doing all of the military assistance. I mean, you know, if it's so important to you that you're willing to spend, in France, Germany, and Britain's case, hundreds of billions of euros or pounds,

then you would want to see some sort of requisite step up. If it's so existential, then you do something in Ukraine as well. And yet, I don't see them as the ones driving the train here at all. Like I said, I mean, they wanted a different approach. And we basically were like, no. Well, the UK is having the same. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It's very hypocritical on their part. 100%. Well, and she says she wants to increase their defense budget. Well, then do it. We can send less.

So I think, you know, she's happy to go even further in terms of hawkishness than Boris Johnson. So, yeah, I mean, ultimately, probably very much the status quo prevailing here, both in terms of economic ideology, also in terms of foreign affairs ideology. Nothing much appears to have changed. Good morning, everybody. Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. Lots of interesting stuff this morning. New revelations about just what sort of documents Trump was keeping at Mar-a-Lago. They continue to—there was a big leak to prove just how extraordinary these circumstances are. So we'll give you all of those details.

Also, Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, who was by his side through the Russiagate stuff and defended him in a lot of instances when he was attorney general, he is now making some pretty extraordinary comments about just how much evidence there is against Trump, about how he thinks that the DOJ could be close to having enough for an indictment, about also responding to people calling him a rhino, which is kind of preposterous. So we'll play those comments for you as well. Also new developments out of Ukraine. Putin actually going and giving a big speech. Some interesting things there. They're buying weapons and sort of refueling and restocking from North Korea.

So what does all of that mean? New developments in that Pennsylvania Senate race between Fetterman and Oz. Oz, as we've been reporting, has been more aggressively going after Fetterman on his health, pushing him to debate. Fetterman says he will debate. So I think all eyes will be on that. Only in October. Yeah, all eyes will be on that moment when that comes down in October. Crazy, crazy story out of the state of Nevada, Las Vegas specifically. This dogged investigative reporter, really phenomenal reporter there in Las Vegas who had looked into mob ties and the Las Vegas shooter and all kinds of corruption, all kinds of stories, was murdered at his house. Now they have arrested a politician who had been the subject of this reporter's investigations, and he had just foiled some new documents on this politician. This guy is now arrested in connection with this

murder. Absolutely insane story. Finally, we've got some developments for Steve Bannon, who has been indicted in the state of New York. The reporting suggests it's related to this, what is it called? Rebuild the Wall. Rebuild the Wall. Rebuild the Wall fundraising grift where they raised all kinds of money from Trump backers and supporters with the idea we're going to go out and build the border wall. And then they never did

and said they like bought themselves yachts and things like that. Derek Thompson will be back on the show talking about how America is a rich death trap. It's not just on COVID. It's on basically every metric. Americans die at quicker and at higher rates than other developed nation peers. Gun deaths, overdoses, car accidents, all of the above.

What is going on there and what critically can we do about it? But before we get to that, we've got a little discount for you. That's right. Don't forget, CounterPoints is launching next Friday with Ryan Grimm and Emily Jaschinsky to celebrate that. And in order to really just not fund this show, but even further operations, as a reminder, we're hiring somebody as well. We're giving a 10% discount on the annual membership. Now, as we've said before, that money, annual membership specifically, help realize the cash immediately and help us be able to plan all the way out into the future. It's tremendously helpful to us. I don't know if that doesn't take a genius to figure out that things are up and down in the advertising markets, YouTube ad revenue, podcast ad revenue, all that stuff comes and goes.

You cannot bank on it whatsoever. The only people that you can bank on are you, and we always appreciate the way that you guys show up for us. So there is a link down in the description. And again, it will run until October 6th. We deeply, deeply appreciate all of you who have stepped up. And if you can, there's a link right there. So thank you all again. Let's get to the show. Yeah. Thank you guys to those of you who have already done it. The response has been really, really appreciated. So thank you for that. And make sure if you're able to go ahead and jump on that discount. Okay. Let's get to the very latest in the Trump Mar-a-Lago document FBI situation. So last time we spoke, the judge had ruled against the government and had ruled in favor of Trump and said, hey, we're going to go forward with appointing a special master to sort through all of these documents.

And kind of, you know, punting on the question of whether a former president can assert executive privilege, but leaving open the door to such a claim. So the government, having taken that law, sort of said, okay, that's fine. How about we leak another little juicy nugget to the press here? And this is pretty eye-opening. Let's go ahead and put this Washington Post report up on the screen. Here they say, material on foreign nations' nuclear capabilities was seized at Trump's Mar-a-Lago. Let me go ahead and read you a little bit of this bombshell report. They say, a document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found by FBI agents who searched former President Donald Trump's residence and private club last month, underscoring concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about classified materials stashed at that property. Some of those seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations

so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his cabinet, or a near-cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special access programs. According to people familiar with the search, documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis. So you can't, it's not just you have top-secret clearance. You have to have top-secret clearance and then get, like, special authorization on top of that to be able to view and even know about these documents. They are kept not just in the skiff, but under lock and key inside the skiff. So it's like a skiff inside a skiff. That's how sensitive these documents allegedly are, according to this report. And,

of course, we had previously, I think Washington Post also had the leak earlier that there was some nuclear-related documents here. So now we're getting a little more specificity about exactly what that means. Let's go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen. Just underscoring how sensitive these are. This was part of what made this such an eye-opening revelation that some seized docs were so closely held only the president, a cabinet or or near-cabinet level official, could authorize others to know. And Sagar, previously, they had also reported that some of the FBI agents involved had to get special clearances in order to be able to deal with some of the documents that were seized. They don't say where these documents were taken from. We know that most of the documents were either in the storage room or in President Trump's office.

We don't know where these particular documents were. It's also important to remember that, you know, Trump has been hosting all kinds of characters in his office. There's photos of him with, like, Nigel Farage in his office, with Bolsonaro's son in his office, with Ray J, for some reason, in his office.

So if these sensitive documents were kept there, there have been all kinds of both, you know, domestic nationals and foreign nationals coming in and out of that office. So that's part of why, I guess, the FBI and the government felt they needed to take this extraordinary action. Yes. Well, don't forget esteemed characters like Kodak Black as well. I mean, whenever we're talking about nuclear weapons, now that we know it's about a foreign country, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's only nine countries with nukes. Russia, China, the United States, France, the UK, Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia, if you believe some reports. Okay, so it involves one of them.

My bet, and I continue to believe this, based on everything that you and I had learned and also talked with some people in the know previously, is it still has to involve Russiagate. Now, think why. There's also a story that came out last night in Rolling Stone that Trump had told White House team he needed to, quote, protect Russiagate documents, which he called his, quote, evidence of a deep state plot against him. You combine that, you combine the fact that Tom Fitton is involved over at Judicial Watch, a Russiagate absolute obsessive. Many of these others who said that Trump wanted and had a deep connection to these,

combined also with all of this, not only foreign nuclear capability, but they said programs that are so special that nobody else knew about. I recall that based on the initial ODNI investigation, when they were like, we determined that Putin himself ordered this. There were leaks out at the time that this was a result of human intelligence from a source all the way up in the most highest circle of Putin's advisors.

And so you put these things together. Of course, a human intelligence classified source in Putin's inner circle, that would be one of the most sensitive areas. If you think back to some of the other famous Soviet spies that we had, it was actually very similar in terms of how we used to handle that type of information. And it would also make sense that that person would be giving the U.S. information, as we always have had spies in Russia. And what we care most about is what their nuclear capabilities, their cruise missiles, and all that are. I'm just speaking from pure speculation. Could be North Korea, could be Iran too. Wouldn't surprise me if it was North Korea. Trump had a deep obsession with North Korea as well. Yeah.

I really don't know. I really don't know. And it's also possible because there's a lot of documents overseas. I mean, we're talking about, you know, what was it? Hundreds of classified documents, but then thousands of just government documents overall. So it could be some of this is Russiagate related. Some of it we know was like Kim Jong-un's love letters and things that he found special for whatever reason and wanted to keep as just like mementos of his time as president. And so it could be a mix of a lot of different things. I have no idea. It could be related to Saudi. It could be a mix of a lot of different things. I have no idea. It could be related to Saudi.

It could be Israel. We also know that there was information there reportedly about Macron's love life, like dirt on Macron. Could be France. I mean, I genuinely— See, that I would support declassification. I genuinely don't know. But, you know, this is another – what I took from this report, first of all, is like, okay, this is – it was possible that the nuclear documents that had been reported before were actually no big deal. Because you can imagine things that are really, really, really sensitive. And then you can imagine things that are like kind of common knowledge and publicly reported already and not actually that big of a deal. This seems like

the government's attempt to once again, to the public, make the case that like, no, no, no, these documents were a big deal. This was on the side of super, super, super sensitive, not something that you would just like wave a hand and like, I think I'll just declassify these because I feel like it. Not in that category of thing or things that are subject to over classification, that these truly were genuinely sensitive, closely held secrets that could only be viewed by the highest level of government officials on a need to know only basis. And so the fact that the government is clearly trying to make this case in the public sphere, I mean, that's, you know, you have to understand the sort of like cat and mouse game that's going on here.

Their response to, okay, you're getting your special master, here's our next move. To leak this sort of information tells me that they probably are building towards an indictment. Because once you put so much out into the public sphere, where, I mean, you know, it's become increasingly, totally clear that if it was anyone else, the indictments would already have come down. It wouldn't be any sort of a question.

So once you have all of that information out there, how do you not indict him? It creates a big political problem for you on the other side if you do not then go forward with an indictment, given everything that the public knows at this point. Yeah, and we also got some news last night that the FBI wanted to interview Trump's body man and personnel management officer at Mar-a-Lago who followed him on the way out of the White House. Just to give even more color to what you're discussing, There's a specific nuclear classification that refers to,

it's like SFRD. So the abbreviation for quote, formerly restricted data, which does not mean, by the way, that it was no longer classified. That is reserved specifically for the military use of nuclear weapons. And also in the subpoena were 100 plus classified documents in August that were marked HSC, which is a category for highly classified government that refers specifically to human-controlled systems, human being human intelligence. So, you know, moles, spies, information gleamed from those sources. You put those two together, those, of course, are the most classified secrets in the U.S. government,

specifically in the intel community, and it makes sense they would be paired together. Often, some of the most highly valued spies in U.S. history, the so-called billion-dollar spy and others in the Soviet Union, are ones who gave us deep clarity and information into the Soviet nuclear arsenal at the height of the Cold War. Yeah. And Klippenstein describes this. It's almost like a religion among these guys, protecting those sources and methods. It should be. I mean, you know, a million dollars by was killed. Lives are literally on the line, you know, keeping those sorts of things secret.

So anyway, that's the very latest in terms of what we know about what he was holding on to. We still don't know why he was holding on to it. We still don't know why even after the government came calling, he continued to sort of obfuscate and hold onto these documents. You know, his lawyers attested, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we gave you everything. We did an exhaustive search. And in just a matter of hours, the FBI was able to turn up far more documents than had been originally turned over willingly by the Trump team. So a lot of questions still there. Lots of very interesting stuff going on in Ukraine. We're going to start with that southern offensive. So to preview, it's actually interesting. Now, we have been describing this as the offensive. We've been using the Ukrainian language. The U.S. government

declined to actually acknowledge it is an offensive up until yesterday when Colin Kahl, the deputy chief over at the Pentagon, affirmatively called the Ukrainian military move an offensive. One of the reasons why they had been reluctant to do so is because then we have to judge is the offensive successful or not rather than is it a campaign? Is it a pre-operation? Is it a whatever? Anyway, so now we are using the Ukrainian and the U.S. government definition that Ukraine is in the midst of an offensive. So how's it going? Well, it's a mixed bag so far.

As we discussed, this town of Kursin has called off that poll where they originally were going to vote on whether they wanted to join Russia or not. Not saying it's going to be a free poll or a free vote or anything like that. But anyway, the Russians felt the need to call it off in the midst of these, quote, tactical operations. But what really caught my eye was a rare bit of just on-the-ground shoe leather reporting, which shows you the toll that this is taking. Let's put this up there on the screen. Washington Post. John Hudson, a guy that I know, he's actually a pretty good reporter, reporting out from the hospitals of southern Ukraine, here's what he says. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers reveal the steep toll of the Kursan offensive. Soldiers said they lacked artillery needed to dislodge Russia's entrenched forces, described a yawning technology gap with their better-equipped adversaries.

Interviews provided some of the first direct accounts of a push to retake captured territory. Here's what one wounded Ukrainian soldier said, quote, they used everything on us. Who can survive an attack for five hours like that? Describing a lengthy barrage of cluster bombs, phosphorus munitions, mortars. He and others talked about, from seven different units, offered a view of basically a technologically outmatched military on the front line. And in many of these cases, we're talking about guys who have lost limbs, who have been badly, badly wounded, littered with shrapnel and with others. And I think, Crystal, it's a grim view into what's happening

because, look, we have shipped some $40-something billion worth of arms to Ukraine. President Biden announced, actually, no, Secretary Blinken announced just this morning, he's in Kiev, that we're sending $2 billion more. President Biden is now asking for $13 billion. We have sent untold numbers of weapons, rocket systems, all kinds of defense things to Ukraine. And the preview that I'm getting from this is that basically, no matter what you give these people, the Russians are still a formidable force. Yeah. And in a way, I mean, look, this has always been the case. Russia is a great power military.

Does that mean that it's as good as the U.S. military? No. Is it even as good as the Chinese military? Probably not. that Ukraine, which is, you know, it's second-rate power at best, even in the continent of Europe, that it's going to be able to overnight, even with extraordinary amounts of U.S. weapons, affirmatively and offensively take on this military, that's always what I've been skeptical of. Militaries, especially in the modern age, always have the advantage whenever they're doing defense, especially on their home territory.

Here, when we have the static front line, and then you have the Ukrainians want to try and make this offensive, they were always going to incur major casualties. And we'd read previously, before the fall of the Donbass region, the Ukrainian soldiers were like, we're losing 200 guys a day. Many of these people were six weeks earlier in boot camp. Now they're here on the front line. A lot of them are draftees. Some of them don't necessarily want to be there or are forced to be there. And of course, the Russian conscripts are the same way, but they just have a hell of a lot more of them. So this is a really, really grim view as to what the potential. Look, could be the beginning. Maybe they have a lot more that we don't know about.

Maybe we're going to ship something to them, which would be a game changer. But to be honest, I don't really see that because even in that supplemental appropriation, there's no new weapon system that we're sending over there. Right, it's just replenishing their stocks. When you read this, I mean, again, war is horrific. It's heartbreaking to read this account. Go look at people losing their limbs. This is what the reality of war looks like.

This guy also, he's 30 years old. He had no military experience before this war. He made a living selling animal feed to pig and cow farms. His replacement as platoon commander also had no previous military experience. So you're talking about people who, you know, in some instances never held a weapon before now. In other instances had just, you know, the bare minimum of training before being put in leadership positions in this war. And he said that we lost five people for every one that they did. And the part of it that I found in some ways the most gut-wrenching is they're trying really hard to keep their spirits up

and trying to tell themselves that it's worth it, that the cost and the lives and the pain and the injuries, that all of this is ultimately worth it. Because, yeah, it is a different deal when you are now trying to go on the offense to retake territory. They talk about how the Russians, you know, have their tanks like behind these concrete walls. They can like pull the tanks out, go crazy, kill a bunch of Ukrainians, and then go back behind the walls and basically escape any sort of retaliation. Ukrainians are claiming that they have reclaimed a couple of sort of smaller towns. That's very much in dispute. The account that I read, I don't remember if it was this reporter or a different one,

reporters were denied access to those towns, so they were unable to independently confirm what's going on there. The people they talked to said that the battle for those little towns continued. So very uncertain what, if any, progress has been made at this point. And, you know, it's a critical time for a lot of reasons that we've been underscoring. First of all, at some point the U.S. public is going to go, another $13 billion? Another $10 billion? Another $20 billion?

Really? What's going on here? That's number one. Number two, as you've been covering and we've both been covering, in Europe, the energy prices are so high as they move into winter. There is going to be a turning of public opinion in Europe in terms of how we are approaching this war and what it means in terms of the domestic populations across Europe. That's number two. Number three, reality's on the ground as, you know, fall turns to winter and, you know, things sort of settle in for the long haul and these soldiers are exposed to extreme temperatures. That makes things very difficult and is a real morale killer. And so that's why Zelensky is launching this counter

offensive now because it really is, no pun intended, kind of a do-or-die moment for them. He knows that there is going to progress and continued weapons flows there and continued energy price increases around the world and food price increases around the world. So he knows he's really got to make a stand here, and that's why this counteroffensive is ultimately so critical and so important to them right now. Yeah, look, it's September. They've basically got about a month, you know, in terms of accounts and all that,

from what we know of the region, which is that in Napoleon's army and Hitler's army, around October 15th, first snowfall usually comes, and that's a harbinger of a very, very slow decline, both in terms of mud, but also in terms of snow and the temperature. So that's only a month and a half away. It's not that long away.

Usually in this region, you fight all the way through the summer hoping that you can do something within three and a half, four months. So it's going to be a difficult slog up. And they have actually a pretty limited time window into which major operations can continue. And then things don't really restart until February, which is when the Russians launched their invasion in the first place. That's when the ground is cold enough in order to actually move on it. So anyway, I think it was

important to give people an update as to what the reality of this stuff really looks like. It's a terrible account. We'll have a link in the description. People can go and read it for themselves. It is becoming more of a central campaign issue, Fetterman's recovery from his stroke that he suffered just before the Democratic primary. And, you know, it is very clear in his speeches that he is not all the way recovered. His campaign is being is saying, you know, not only does he have some speech issues, he also has some auditory, some hearing issues. So I know some of the interviews that he's been conducting recently, he's got the closed captioning so he can make sure that he doesn't miss any of the language, any of the words that are being spoken. Just to give you a sense of that, here's a little bit of John Fetterman on the stump. Please understand the stakes in this race. Send me to Washington, D.C. to send so I can work with Senator Casey

and I can champion the union way of life in Jersey, excuse me, in D.C. Thank you. Thank you very much. And it's an honor. I live eight minutes away from here. And when I leave tonight, I got three miles away. Dr. Oz in his mansion in New Jersey. You've got a friend and you have an ally. Send me to Washington, D.C. Thank you very much. Thank you, steelworkers. So you can see they're struggling to get through, you know, the talk there at the end.

And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette just put out an editorial saying, you know, basically, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. It's hometown paper. They say basically, like, you know, Oz has been very, like, nasty about the way that he's gone about this. But the truth is, they say that that said, Mr. Oz has raised legitimate concerns. If Mr. Fetterman's communication skills have not yet recovered sufficiently to effectively debate his opponent, many voters will have concerns about his ability to represent them effectively in Washington. While he has gamely undertaken one more campaign events and media interviews in recent weeks, Mr. Fetterman still speaks haltingly and relies on closed captioning to fully understand his conversation partners. This was all sort of sparked by this conversation about would he or would he not debate. There was a debate that was upcoming that he backed down of. Now the very latest is, and let's put Politico up on the screen here, he says he will debate.

Dr. Oz, he will do that in October, not specifying which debate or providing an exact date, but the expectation is he is going to be on the debate stage. And, you know, I'm someone who thinks that that's important. I think it should be required of all candidates that they answer questions and then voters can decide for themselves whether they feel, you know, that his health concerns are enough for them to change their mind and change their vote and go in the other direction or not. They deserve to have that information. I think there's no doubt about it. But I also, and this is where I come back to the point I was making about Dr. Oz that I think you might disagree with,

but because they have been so aggressive and so mean-spirited in the way that they've prosecuted this case, they've also set the bar very low for Fetterman. So if he's able to perform in like a reasonable way on the debate stage, he doesn't have a very high bar to clear here. It kind of reminds me of, you know, Biden during the Democratic primary when there was a lot of talk about like, oh, I don't know if this guy's up to it at all. Then if he just got on the stage and didn't like make a total fool of himself, we were like, he's okay. It's good enough. No, you're not wrong. That being said, is there a realistic expectation that in a month that you're going to be all that much better? I mean, I don't think there's a doctor on planet Earth that would

say as a stroke victim that you should be out there, you know, doing what John Fetterman is doing. And he's, you know, look, I hate to say it, but if you can't understand speech properly, you shouldn't be a senator. If you can't speak like that, if that's, if that's as good as it gets, at least for the next year or so, I don't think you should be a senator. I mean, I really don't. How can you possibly live up to the demands of the job? But no one's saying he has like, like problems understanding or like a problem. It doesn't matter. Look at the, they can't speak. But like, again, this is something the voters can decide. Oh, listen, I mean, sure, I wouldn't vote for him. I can tell you that. But I think we have a lot of examples

where people look at, you know, Biden as one example and they're like, yeah, he's slowing down. But ultimately, I freaking hate Donald Trump. So I would vote for Biden's corpse over that guy.

I mean, I feel that way about, like Bernie Sanders post-heart attack. I would take Bernie because he represents an ideology and is going to be there on the policies that I care about over anybody else, even if his health is flagging and if he's, you know, slowing down physically. So I really think a lot of voters feel the same way where it's much more about like, okay, does this person, do they represent my values? Number one.

Number two, like what are the sort of, what's the sort of national mood? I don't see that these health concerns have been all that persuasive to voters in recent elections because ultimately they care. Okay, how are you going to vote? Are you able to vote? Are you able to cast votes in the direction that I want? That's what I ultimately care about. And do I feel like you are going to represent me and my interests? I don't disagree with you. So we'll see. The Bernie example is a good one. He came back and bounced back big time by Joe Biden. Same thing.

I do think this one is a bit more stark. And I do think also that if the man is literally unable to speak even two weeks up to election day, that will have some sort of negative effect. Does it mean that he'll lose? No, not at all. I do think Oz made a mistake in making the vegetable comment. If he'd ever eaten a vegetable in his life, he wouldn't have had a stroke. He didn't make that comment, to be clear. One of his campaign—I think that was a mistake. I don't think that's what he should have said.

Again, given that Pennsylvania is not a particularly healthy state, especially the old people who live in Pennsylvania. So, I mean, Fetterman has a sympathy factor, but it only goes so far. And listen, Biden, yeah, he may misspeak, but for some reason with Biden, when it actually counts, he seems to be fine. It's a mystifying thing where if he's off the cuff and he's meandering, you know, even in Afghanistan, like he'll give like a forceful statement and he did that weird thing where he leaned on the podium. He's a strange cat. I don't really get it.

But Bernie. They got the drug cocktail figured out. Bernie never did look, even post heart attack, honestly, he looked fine. I mean, for an old man, he always spoke particularly well. He actually looked better after that. He really did. Like, he lost—even Trump. I mean, look, Trump is obese as hell.

I mean, listen, after he left the presidency, Frank probably looks better than he did when he was in office. The thing with Betterman is how stark it is. Like, when you're skipping words and not being able to speak. And then also, he made a mistake. He shouldn't have said that he couldn't debate because of health reasons. He should have just said, I'm not going to debate somebody who I disrespect, who disrespects me so much like us. Never should have cited it.

I disagree with that because I think part of what has been – I think it has been relatable, the way that they've approached this, because they've been, after the initial stretch, they've been relatively upfront about his recovery, that he still has these speech and auditory processing issues. They're, one of the things they talked about for this debate is can he get closed captioning to make sure that he's hearing everything.

So I think actually that that is a smart way to play it because everyone would, no one would be fooled if you were like, no, it's just because I don't like Dr. Oz. People would be like, dude, we know it's because you're recovering from your stroke. Yeah, that's fair. So I think it, I think it's better for them to be candid. I think that the way that the Oz team has played it has been foolish because there is a way to raise these concerns. Like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did it in a much more effective way, frankly, where they're like, Oz is being an asshole, but there are legitimate questions here. The way that the Oz campaign should have done it is to try to get these, you know, stories planted with sort of, you know, allied media figures

where it seems like it's being raised organically, where it's a press conversation, where they can weigh in just with like, gosh, we really hope he recovers. But, you know, he needs to be able to answer questions to the public, and we're pushing forward with debates because we think it's important to have that accountability. That should have been more their tone versus this, like, he's fat and he doesn't eat vegetables, and we, you know, like, basically cheering for him to be ill and making fun of him for his recovery. So anyway, we'll see. I mean, it's going to be a big question mark how he's able to perform in that debate. I think there will be a lot of eyes on it. I do think the way that the Oz team has approached this, they've set the bar very low for him so that if he's able to sort of like, you know, muster a decent performance,

that's going to be good enough for voters to say, all right, he's good enough. It's much better than what was portrayed. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband.

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