The Young Turks - Cash 4 Clunkers

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

A federal judge has blocked the largest supermarket merger in history. Trump has chosen Andrew Ferguson to lead the Federal Trade Commission and reportedly received a last-minute ""dark money"" boost. Wall Street is investing billions in rental homes as homeownership becomes increasingly unattainable" HOSTS: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. USA. USA. The guy! Live from the Polymarket studio in L.A.

It's the Young Turks. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian. And today's show is going to be a massive roller coaster ride because unlike most days, we actually have some really great news to share with you. And most of it is coming from one government agency, the Federal Trade Commission. So I can't wait to talk about what Lena Khan has been able to accomplish. But the roller coaster sets in once you realize that the Trump administration will be replacing her.

In fact, he has named his nominee to replace Lena Khan. We'll tell you who he is. We looked into his background and what he stands for. And that story does not make me happy, especially when you consider, you know, the juxtaposition of Lena Khan to who is now being nominated to replace her. Later in the show, we're going to talk a little bit about cash for clunkers. And no, we're not going all the way back to like 2009 with Obama's policy of getting people to trade in their cars for more than what they're worth in order to buy better fuel efficient cars. No, no, we're talking about cash for political clunkers. Okay, we're going to talk about the corruption in our political system and what transpired in the very tail end of the presidential election as it pertains to money in politics.

In the second hour of the show, John Iderola will be joining me to talk about another win from the FTC, thanks to the leadership of Lena Khan. So I'm looking forward to covering all of that and sharing the news with you all. As always, just want to encourage you to like and share the stream if you're watching us live. And you can also support TYT by becoming a member by going to TYT. dot com slash join. All right. Well, let's start off right off the bat with some good news. The FTC has been squarely focused on making sure we're using all of our tools and

authorities to protect the American people from illegal business practices. Lena Khan has become a force in the Biden administration, winning some surprising allies and some powerful enemies along the way. I mean, you've really shaken this place up. I'm a law enforcer. And in many ways, we're undertaking. a deeply conservative project, making sure we're going back to the roots of what the FTC is about, the actual text of the laws that Congress created, and making sure we're being faithful to the law

on the books and the legal precedent. I got to say, perfect framing from a badass, the woman you just heard from, Lena Khan, who just won big on behalf of the American people. Now, the largest supermarket merger in American history has just been blocked by a federal judge, thanks to Lena Kahn's leadership and tireless efforts as the chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Now, the move will save jobs. It will protect consumers from rising prices at grocery stores.

And we're going to get into all of it. We're going to get to the details. So here's some background that's worth knowing about. We've covered this in the past, but for anyone who might have missed it, this has to do with a proposed merger where, Kroger would essentially purchase Albertsons. And that sounds like a simple merger, right? Except these two companies actually have a lot of other supermarkets that fall under, you know, their

umbrella. So this merger, which was announced back in 2022, would lead to Kroger shelling out $25 billion to acquire Albertsons. Now, if the deal were to be approved, it would combine the fifth largest and 10th largest retailers in the country. Now, keep in mind that these two companies own dozens of grocery chains across the country, including Safeway, Vaugh, Vons, Harris Teeter, which I've never heard of in my entire life, but it doesn't matter. I'm sure it exists somewhere in the country, Fred Meyer, and more. And so if you're living in a big city and you have what seems like endless options for grocery stores, we'll keep in mind that different grocery stores under different names might actually fall

under the same company, same parent company. But putting that aside, you know, if you do live in a big city and you have endless options, you're very, very fortunate. You have to consider the fact that a lot of Americans live in parts of the country where they don't have as many options, right? Smaller towns, rural areas. And so these types of mergers can really be devastating when it comes to the cost of food. for their families, for their household. And so the fact that a federal judge just blocked this merger is really good news. It doesn't necessarily mean this is the end of the story. I'm sure that Kroger is going to maybe challenge this, maybe appeal this.

It's being referred to as a temporary block. And so to me, that signals that this might not be the end of the story. But for where we are right now, this is actually very good news. Now, the merger was allegedly meant to fight off competition from Walmart and Amher. Amazon, which do not have a unionized workforce. So let me be clear about that. So they made this whole argument in court, right? And this was a three week long hearing that, look, we have to merge.

We have to merge because we have a unionized workforce. And it's really hard for us to compete with Amazon, with Walmart. But it turns out that the judge wasn't really buying it. So when the deal was announced back in 2022, Kroger's CEO Rodney McMullen said the following. The merger would accelerate our position as a more compelling alternative to larger and non-union competitors. And then he laughably argued that Croger, this is my favorite part, he laughably argued that Kroger was committed to lowering grocery prices by as much as $1 billion a year following

the merger. Now, obviously, there's really no way of ensuring that they do that. And in fact, quite the opposite would happen. See, the problem with mergers and acquisitions is it really does screw over the consumers. Competition is supposed to drive prices down, right? You go to one grocery store. Let's say you go to a grocery store in your neighborhood. You see that the price is for something that you typically buy, usual staples, pretty high.

You might want to shop around and find, you know, the same items at a different grocery store at better prices, fairer prices. But when you have these mergers and acquisitions, what it does is it robs the American people. of different options. And it also does a way with competition, which again, drives prices down. And then, you know, he laughably says they're going to lower grocery prices by a billion dollars a year. I just want to note one other thing. We're talking about a publicly traded company that has a fiduciary responsibility to whom, to their consumers, to their customers, or is that fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders? Oh, that's right. It's to their shareholders who are looking for a return on their investment.

And so this idea that they're going to like, we're going to be the good guys and we're just going to lower grocery prices out of the kindness of our own hearts. No, that's an argument they're going to make in court. And luckily, in this case, a federal judge was not buying it. So in February of this year, the Federal Trade Commission, under the leadership of Lena Khan, decided to pursue basically blocking this deal. And it worked with a federal judge in Oregon. and luckily that federal judge has decided to side with the FTC.

Judge Adrian Nelson said the supermarkets are distinct from other grocery retailers and are not direct competitors to Walmart, Amazon, and other companies that sell a wider range of goods. She also said in her ruling that the merger would essentially eliminate head-to-head competition between Albertsons and Kroger, which would lead to higher prices. Like, she wasn't buying it. Like this whole thing about like, oh, it's going to lead to lower grocery store prices. She's like, no, less competition. We know what that leads to higher prices, less options for consumers.

And then Kroger tried to offer up this deal where it had said that, you know what, maybe we're going to do some divestment in order to increase competition. So here's what CNN reports. To a late competition concerns, Kroger and Albertsons agreed to divestment. 579 stores to CNS wholesale grocers. But the FTC said that CNS was ill-equipped to run the divested stores and would turn into a non-functioning disaster.

And look, one of the things that tends to happen in mergers and acquisitions is layoffs, downsizing. So that's another thing to keep in mind. So their intention was probably to shut down some stores anyway. And so this idea of like divesting from, you know, 579 stores and allowing CNS, a company that isn't well equipped to deal with that to essentially take over those stores. They knew that those stores were likely to fail anyway, but that was their way of trying to sweeten the deal and get the judge to side with them in this case. Now, Judge Nelson agreed with the FTC saying there is ample evidence that the divestiture is not.

not sufficient in scale to adequately compete with Kroger and Albertsons together and will significantly disadvantage CNS as a competitor. Smart judge, love it. Now, while Kroger shared their frustration, the White House decided to celebrate the fact that they were celebrate, share the fact that they were celebrating this win. So the Kroger Albertsons merger would have been the biggest supermarket merger in history, raising grocery prices for consumers and lowering wages for workers. Even more heartening is that this was actually a bit of a bipartisan effort, which I'm really happy to see that because there are certainly plenty of people on the right, plenty of politicians and political operatives on the right who have no problem with

mergers and acquisitions, usually because, you know, the companies attempting to merge have engaged in campaign donations, you know, all sorts of typical political corruption that now baked into our system. But that's not the case here. Luckily, there were some Republicans on board for this. So unions, small grocers, and a coalition of Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah also strongly opposed the merger from the start. And you love to see it. And I just want to say something about Mike Lee and other Republicans who agreed with him in wanting to block this merger. You know, you hear a lot from Republicans about how much they value capitalism.

Well, capitalism ain't crap if you don't support what makes capitalism work well or function, and that's competition. Again, competition is what's supposed to lead to innovation. Competition is what's supposed to give consumers options and lead to lower prices. And so I'm really happy to see that, at least in some cases, you have an example or a few examples of Republican lawmakers, who are standing true to what they allege they believe in regard to capitalism and how it's supposed to work. Now, I want to just quickly pivot to the bigger picture when it comes to mergers because, look,

the grocery store sector of the economy has definitely seen quite a bit of mergers and acquisitions. So I want to share this stat with you guys because it gives you a sense of how bad it's been. So in 2019, the 20 largest retailers controlled 64% of total food sales more than double the share from 1990, according to the Agriculture Department. So starting with the Reagan administration and some of the deregulation and antitrust loosening that he pursued, you started to see an acceleration of mergers and acquisitions in general, right? not just when it comes to grocery store chains, but other sectors of the economy as well. And that has been to the detriment of the American people. Workers lose their jobs. Consumers have

less options. Prices rise. And that happens simultaneously with wages stagnating, with the trend of globalization and jobs being outsourced. And so when you take a step back and you look at the whole of our economy and what has happened to, you know, to it in recent decades, you have a better understanding about how some of the policies that have been implemented intentionally by our lawmakers, by various administrations, have really weakened the buying power of consumers, weakened the ability to earn living wages for American workers. And so I'm really happy to see the FTC fighting the good fight on issues like this and actually doing what the FTC is supposed to do, which is enforce antitrust laws. That's what

Lena Khan has been doing. And while, you know, there's a lot of whining about it, even from self-described Democrats like Reid Hoffman, who heavily funded Kamala Harris's campaign and made it abundantly clear on CNBC that he wanted Kamala Harris, should she get elected, to do away with Lena Khan. All of these, you know, incredibly wealthy people, you don't want to weaken the FTC, do not want the FTC to enforce our antitrust laws. But if you are someone who wants to prevent, you know, the rise of socialism in America and you want to protect capitalism, the best way to do it is to actually pursue the spirit of what capitalism is allegedly supposed to be, which is, you know, fostering an environment of competition, ensuring that,

you know, these monopolies are not formed. And, you know, Lena Kahn's actually doing the work. Now, unfortunately, Lena Khan will be replaced in the Trump administration, and that's something that, you know, he, in my opinion, deserves a lot of criticism for because Lena Khan has done really great work, and her replacement is not interested in pursuing antitrust enforcement the way that she has been doing so. But one final thing that I'll say about Lena Khan, you know, it's not just about pursuing specific cases of mergers and acquisitions. It's that when you have a leader, when you have a chair of the FTC, who actually has the courage to pursue the blocking of these mergers and acquisitions, it creates like a paralyzing effect in the economy when it comes to other possible mergers and acquisitions. If you know you have a cop on the beat, you're less likely to pursue mergers and acquisitions that you know that the FTC is likely going to fight back against. And so when there is no cop on the beat, well, that's usually when crime is committed because there's less likelihood of punishment or less likelihood of someone intervening. And so that's something to keep in mind. But for now, let's go to the next story and talk a little bit about what we can look, I don't want to say look forward to, but what we can expect with the Trump administration, despite people like J.D. Van saying that he loved Lena Con and was appreciative of the work that she was doing.

So Donald Trump has made the awful, terrible decision to get rid of Lena Con as the chair of the Federal Trade Commission. and is actually replacing her with a pro-business guy who only wants to go after big tech for perceived personal grievances. And that's really a shame because you have various Republicans who purported to really appreciate the work that Lena Con was doing. One of them is vice president-elect J.D. Vance, who said that Lena Con was doing great work. You also had recently Matt Gates, former congressman from Florida, saying that she deserved a round of applause for some of the accomplishments at the FTC under her leadership. But nonetheless, Trump has chosen current FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to take over as chair. And let's learn a little bit about him. Let's see what he's all about. He's a former law clerk for Supreme Court

Justice Clarence Thomas. We are not off to a good start. And I'm sure that MAGA will be upset at the fact that Trump has tapped a guy who actually served as an advisor to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, you know, a real rhino. I mean, these days, no one's really loving on Mitch McConnell, including Republican voters, including MAGA voters in particular. And so what seems to be the case when it comes to Andrew Ferguson, he strikes me as a traditional conservative Republican. very much in line with the Mitch McConnell brand of republicanism.

And it's really sad to see that. So he was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as one of the FTC's Republican commissioners in July of 2023 and was confirmed by the full Senate in March. So I have no doubt that Ferguson will have any issue. He will not have any issue in getting confirmed. Now, Ferguson is not expected to prevent or break up corporate monopolies. Certainly, he will not pursue them the way that Lena Con has. Punch Bowl News reported that a proposal advocating for Ferguson's appointment cited his intention to reverse Lena Khan's anti-business, fight wokenness, and fight back against the trans agenda.

Okay, this is the Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to enforce antitrust laws, break up monopolies, ensure that our capitalistic system is actually functioning the way it's intended to, meaning that there's supposed to be competition in the system. And when you don't break up monopolies, when you allow massive mergers and acquisitions to happen, Well, the only people who really benefit from that are the executives and the shareholders of the company that's acquiring another smaller company. The people who are harmed by that are the workers, usually, because workers get laid off as a result of the mergers and acquisitions, right? Lots of layoffs happen. Lots of downsizing takes place. Consumers have less options. That's definitely clear. And less options means what? Well, prices go up.

Less competition leads to rising prices. This is why Lena Khan was getting some praise from Republicans who are actually, you know, legit, like they actually believe in what they say about capitalism. But, you know, crony capitalism is what we're living under right now. And unfortunately, this seems to be the type of guy who wants to protect that. Now, in response to Democratic FTC commissioner sent Ferguson a letter on Tuesday asking him to clarify his priorities, noting that the word fraud is absent from the proposal reported by Punchbowl. We urge you to correct the impression created by this document, wrote commissioners

Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bidoya. But he was pretty salty about big tech. So if you pay close attention to the way that mass media has been kind of framing him, they'll say things like, well, he's not like a warrior against monopolies like Lena Con is, but he's real tough on big tech. Oh, okay, tough on big tech. Super interesting. I want to know more about that. Except not really when it comes to big tech having too much power or various platforms, you know, being too large. He's not about breaking up big tech. He's concerned about big tech being censorious to the right. So that's what he means when he talks about going after big tech. So in response to Trump's announcement of his nomination, Ferguson wrote the following. Thank you, President Trump,

under your leadership, American businesses will become stronger and more competitive and will better serve workers and consumers than ever before. I'm honored that you've chosen me to be FTC chairman in your mission to make our country great again. Okay, the usual like platitudes and all that. But the second part is what matters the most. He says at the FTC, we will end big tech's vendetta against competition and free speech. We will make sure that America is the world's technological leader and the best place for innovators to bring new ideas to life.

He seems to emphasize the speech issue more than anything. And look, I want to be clear about something. I do think it's important for these platforms, even if they're private entities that are not, it's not the government, doesn't have to abide by the First Amendment. I get that argument. But nonetheless, when you think about something like Twitter, for instance, when you think about something like meta, whatever it is, whatever platform we're talking about, I do think it's important to avoid tilting the scale in one political direction or the other.

And yes, I acknowledge that prior to Elon Musk buying Twitter or X that he's now rebranded it to, you know, there was some evidence of Twitter communicating with Democrats in regard to censoring certain content on the platform. And I think that was wrong. I think it's also wrong when you have Elon Musk putting his thumb on the scale. I get that the Constitution doesn't protect us from that. He has every right to do it as the sole owner of Twitter. But he himself has admitted that he will throttle certain posts, especially if those posts are, you know, directing people on X to click on a link to read someone's article or go to someone's video. He says that links will be deprioritized. And just to show you the evidence of

that. Let's go to this exchange he had with Paul Graham. And by the way, a lot of Musk supporters and Trump supporters were not happy with Elon Musk, and they believe that he was wrong on this. So I want to give them credit for that. But let's actually hold him accountable and not drop the ball on this because this is an issue. So Paul Graham says the deprioritization of tweets with links in them is Twitter's biggest flaw. It bothers me more than all the new right-wing trolls.

trolls, I'm used to, but what draws me to Twitter is to find out what's going on, and you can't do that without links. Musk responds, acknowledging that this is happening, by the way, just write a description in the main post and put the link in the reply. This just stops lazy linking. I just, does it? Does it stop lazy linking? I mean, if you have a lazy tweet or post, people aren't going to notice it or click on it.

So anyway, but Ferguson is expected. to roll back much of what Lena Kahn has been doing, including, by the way, going after Big Tech for the right reasons. So she has been going after Microsoft's multibillion-dollar investment in Open AI to see if it violated consumer protections. In addition to a $650 million deal between Microsoft and inflection AI, the FTC under Lena Kahn is also taking on Apple's iPhone dominance. And finally, while Google is waiting for a federal judge to rule on the agency's recommendation, well, it is currently waiting on a judge, a federal judge to rule on the FTC's recommendation that it should be forced to sell its Chrome business. Now look,

I'm not an expert on these separate cases, but clearly the intent by Lena Khan is to go after the tech industry in areas in which consumers are being harmed because of monopoly power, because of mergers and acquisitions, because of these companies becoming too big, too complex, and essentially kind of like morphing into different types of businesses bundled into one, which also makes it a lot more difficult to regulate. Now, securities analyst Dan Ives wrote that he expects that Ferguson will continue to have a keen eye on the tech world and antitrust swirl. However, he will clearly roll back Kahn's head-scratching anti-tech agenda, including ending efforts to regulate AI and abandoning a brutal standard for any merger of any size for the tech world.

Christmas came early for the tech world. So look, I am a huge fan of Lena Kahn, so there's no surprise that I'm saddened by this story. And for anyone who thinks I'm carrying water for Trump, I think this was a terrible. terrible, terrible replacement. I would have been super excited to see him keep Lena Con in place. But look, I also wasn't polyanish about the Trump administration. I knew that she was likely to be replaced. By the way, regardless of who won. And why do I think that? Well, you have corporate donors on both sides of the political aisle, essentially legally bribing these politicians and making it very clear that they wanted to get rid of Lena Con. Again, Reid Hoffman did that on

national television after giving Kamala Harris a massive campaign donation. He didn't like Lena Khan, wanted to get rid of her. And so it doesn't surprise me that the same is transpiring on the right. Now, I want to talk about one other thing before we go, because there's one other person who Trump has tapped for the FTC. In this case, the individual would be serving as a Federal Trade Commission commissioner, and that person is Mark Meeter. And he actually has a mixed record. Okay, so he's a former counsel to Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and Mike Lee, actually, to his credit, has been supportive of some of Lena Kahn's antitrust efforts. And so I like Mike Lee, in this regard, he was very much in favor of blocking a massive grocery store merger between Kroger and

Albertsons. And, you know, I like knowing that he, Mark Meeter, this new FTC commissioner, worked for Mike Now, Meter has been working at an antitrust law firm as well. The website IPwatchdog.com says that he played a pivotal role in the preparation and review of several landmark antitrust bills, including the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act and the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, which passed into law in 2022. He continues to be a sought after speaker and advisor on conservative antitrust policy. Now look, conservative antitrust policy doesn't tell us much, right? Because there are conservatives who actually have the right take on antitrust policy. And when you look at what he managed to accomplish, I do think, again, his record is mixed. So let's focus a little bit on that 22 law, which Biden did sign.

Now, this is also known as the H.S.R. Act, and I'm going to keep referring to it as that because it's got a very lengthy name. It does some really good things. So it revises merger filing fees in order to raise fees for some transactions and lower fees for others. It all really depends on the money involved in the merger or the acquisition. And the whole point of that is to raise more money for federal antitrust agencies, which I'm definitely in favor of. more importantly, this is my favorite part of the HSR Act, it bars defendants from transferring lawsuits brought by state attorneys general to venues potentially more favorable to defendants. That's good. That is a very good thing. So I love the fact that Meeter worked on this and accomplished it or helped to accomplish it. But again, as I said, his record is in fact mixed Because remember, I said that he worked as a lawyer having to do with antitrust cases.

Well, Mark also previously represented parties appearing before federal and state antitrust enforcers, including in merger, civil, and criminal investigations. Mark provided ongoing antitrust compliance advice to several clients and was deeply involved in multiple matters relating to big tech. So look, if he is giving them advice to follow the law and avoid breaking antitrust, trust regulations, I think that's fine. But if he was serving as the counsel or lawyer defending companies that were attempting to engage in monopolies or mergers and acquisitions, that's an issue. So it really depends on the details involved here. But the facts are the facts. And the reality is he did work on passing this incredibly important legislation in 2022, which further funds federal

antitrust agencies so they can actually enforce the law. On behalf of the American people, might I add, and also it helps to prevent these companies from trying to transfer their cases to friendlier jurisdictions so they can have their way and get the judge, the federal judge to rule in their favor, or at least increase the likelihood of that happening. So that's what's happening with the FTC. Never did I think I'd spend 30 minutes of the show talking about the FTC alone. But I think that this is an important topic and gives you a sense of what to expect in the upcoming administration. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we've got a lot more news to get to, including some of the latest disclosures in regard to who funded Donald Trump's campaign

in the final hour and what that usually means when it comes to picking people for his administration. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone, one of our members wrote in and made a point that's absolutely correct about how, look, obviously Trump is going to be beholden to corporate donors. Yeah, of course. I mean, he takes money from corporate donors and he rewards them. pretty handsomely, as you're about to learn in this next story. So let's get to it. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, President-elect Donald Trump received quite a bit of money, or at least his super-packed, to the tune of $62 million in Dark Money from a Dark Money

Group. Now, as a reward, that Dark Money Group's leader has now been tapped for a White house position. And that's how the sausage is made, folks. Look, for everything that we hear about Trump draining the swamp, we got to call a spade a spade because there's a lot of quid pro quo happening here, right? And so sludge does a really good job covering corruption and money in politics. And what I love about sludge is that they're nonpartisan in this effort. And the truth is, as we all know, here at TYT, you know, corporate corruption is a huge issue on both sides of the political aisle. But for the of this story, let's focus on what they've learned about Trump, thanks to the latest financial disclosures at the FEC. So according to a recently posted FEC filing covering the final stretch

of the campaign, a group called Securing American Greatness, SAG, gave $62 million toward the end of October to Trump's Super PAC, Make America Great Again, Inc. Now, let's break down how this money was sent to this political action committee and how this all worked out. So SAG, which is based in West Palm Beach, Florida, gave MAGA Inc. That's a political action committee supporting Donald Trump, obviously, $52.6 million on October 22nd, dark money. So we don't know who the donors are, but we know, you know, where the money came from in regard to, you know, the securing American greatness, you know, sending that over to the pro-true. Trump pack. And then an affiliated super PAC that is funded by SAG. And again, SAG is not the actors union thing. Okay, SAG is the, you know, securing American greatness, a group that is essentially playing a part in funding the political action committee tied to Donald Trump. So they fund this affiliated super PAC, which also gave an additional $9.4 million on October 18th. So prior to that, as prior to that in October, October 16th, to be exact, Maga, Inc. had just $31 million

cash on hand heading into the election. So I mentioned that because it shows just how critical the infusion of cash from, you know, securing American greatness meant to helping Donald Trump win in the final stretch of the campaign. So SAG is run by veteran Trump campaign aide Taylor Buttowich, who also founded the MAGA Inc. Super PAC before leaving it in August to join the Trump campaign. On October 13th, Trump announced he was hiring him as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel and assistant to the president. So that's how this all works. And by the way, let me be clear. This is how it works on both sides of the political aisle. individual who either facilitates like the bundler of campaign donations, the large dollar donor usually gets rewarded in some way. Typically, they get rewarded with ambassadorships, right?

So I'm familiar with someone who actually held a fundraiser for Joe Biden for the 2020 election. That individual was like just as soon as Biden was elected, that person got rewarded with an ambassadorship. By the way, I should also note Kimberly Gilfoyle, who rumor has it that she broke up or there was a breakup with Donald Trump Jr. Can I get some confirmation on that? Yeah, yeah, that did happen. Anyway, she has been named ambassador to Greece, which, look, I'm not even going to hide the ball. I'm very jealous about that. I don't know if I would date Donald Trump Jr. to get that position. And I don't think she did that to get the ambassador But, man, that sounds like a sweet gig.

Who doesn't want to be in Greece for an ambassadorship job, which, I mean, it's bad to be an ambassador in a country that the United States is kind of like feeling some tension with. There might be some conflict, but Greece, Greece is going to be fine. It sounds like a great job. Anyway, moving on, let's get back to the topic at hand. Yeah, so you guys get the point, right? These individuals who contribute massive amounts of money to these politicians, in this case, presidential candidates, should the candidate get elected, usually they get rewarded in some way. It could come in the

form of legislation. In this case, it could be something like deregulation, or it could come in the form of being tapped to serve in Trump's administration in some way. And that's certainly happening with Trump's administration. There's no question about that. Now, not only is this corrupt quid pro quo, It is legal, unfortunately, but it is horrible for America. So we've been talking a lot lately in this country about the culture of participation trophies or people being named for positions when they have no merit or no credibility. They didn't earn it. And look, I think that's a just conversation to have. I think it's an important conversation to have.

But why is it that any time that discussion or that discourse takes place, it never. takes place in the context of individuals who just happen to be incredibly wealthy, who happen to donate an insane amount of money to political campaigns, and just get tapped for, in a lot of cases, important roles within an administration, but they didn't really earn it. They don't have the expertise to serve in that role. Let's talk about that a little bit whenever the topic of merit or the meritocracy comes up. Now, by SAG making its contribution after the last pre-election disclosure deadline, the funding remained hidden from the public until after election day.

So Sledge calculated that pro-Trump super PACs had received about $23.2 million in dark money as of October 23rd, only a slice of the nearly $200 million in dark money backing Harris's super PACs. And I actually remember covering that reporting from Sledge because I thought it was like super fascinating that here you have the Democratic candidate taking far more money, dark money in particular, compared to Donald Trump. And so with the updated disclosures, right, the later disclosures, Sledge was able to learn that, no, there was actually more money sent to Trump's super PAC to the tune of $62 billion. But to be fair, Even with the $62 billion, Trump still raised a lot less dark money than Kamala Harris did.

The total is around $92 million, whereas Harris raised $200 million in dark money. But going back to the corruption issue and how it's rewarded. So Howard Lutnik is another example. He's the CEO of Financial Services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and Trump campaign fundraiser who had been tapped to be Commerce Secretary. And he donated $3 million worth of stock in Royvent Sciences to MAGA, Inc., about two weeks before Election Day. Big donos get big roles. That's what tends to happen.

And believe it or not, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance is also trying to get the Supreme Court to toss out any remaining protections we have left against corruption in our system. And what do I mean by that? Well, as we've shared with you before, there are still some regulations in place. A lot of them, yes, have to do with like foreign countries and, you know, if you are working as a lobbyist on behalf of foreign interest, you have to register as a foreign agent. But that's not what we're talking about here with J.D. Vance. What he wants to do is essentially loosen up regulations pertaining to campaigns coordinating with super PACs. Now, because of Citizens United, donors can funnel as much money as they want to super PACs. When it comes to donating directly to the candidate, there are some significant, you know, limits to how much money you can donate to a campaign, to a specific politician. But when it comes to super PACs, unending as much money as you want, but the super PACs are not supposed to coordinate with the campaigns.

J.D. Vance wants to do away with that regulation. Vance and his co-plaintiffs argue the limits restricting how much money political parties can spend in coordination with candidates. violates the First Amendment and should be tossed out by the Supreme Court. Now, that argument is concerning because Citizens United was decided based on that same argument that bribes are speech, the same as speech. I disagree with that. But just to give you a little more information about who is fighting to loosen this regulation, Vance's co-plaintiffs include the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and former House Republican Congressman Steve Chabit.

Now, since the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 were passed, the law has limited how much money political parties can spend on goods and services for candidates when they discuss those expenditures with the candidates. Parties can spend an unlimited amount to support candidates through non-coordinated independent expenditures, but coordinated spending is subject to caps, which vary by the office sought and the voting age population.

So this year, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals actually took up the Vance case, and I'm happy to report that they ruled against him. So they argued that the Supreme Court had previously upheld the limits in a case titled FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. This was back in 2001. And in his opinion, Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote the plaintiffs made fair points, but that on the hierarchical legal system, we must follow that decision and thus must deny

the plaintiff's First Amendment facial and as applied challenges. And so who knows if that precedent will be respected moving forward? I have no doubt that, you know, J.D. Vance and the plaintiffs involved in challenging this regulation are going to keep fighting to further loosen whatever we have remaining of our campaign finance laws. And so we'll see how this plays out. But, you know, this whole debate really does remind me of something that we heard on Pod Save America when they had hosted the Harris campaign staff to talk about what they believed went right,

what went wrong. That conversation certainly taught us that they've learned all the wrong lessons. And this really stood out to me the most. So take a look. He had an army of super PACs that were so coordinated. I'm sure there's some legal way they were communicated, but like...

I'm sure it was legal. Yeah, right. Or illegal. We have to stop playing a different game as it relates to Super PACs and the Republicans. Love our Democratic lawyers. I'm tired of it.

Okay? They coordinate more than we do. I think amongst themselves, I think with the presidential campaign, like, I'm just sick and tired of it, okay? You know, to Stephanie's point, clearly it is not legal what they're doing, but we're at a disadvantage when our folks are playing by a different set of rules than they are. I just think at the end of the day, this is important. Again, this is not at the top of the reasons that we had a different outcome here.

But, you know, to win close races, you kind of want to be maximizing every piece of the arsenal. And so I think this is something we really have to reflect on and make some adjustments going forward. So right now as we speak, J.D. Vance and the co-plaintiffs are trying to make that coordination legal. And the lesson that Democratic strategists learned is that, first of all, they're speculating that the Trump. campaign was breaking the law. They haven't really proven that case. So I'm going to say it's speculation for now. But they speculated on that. And essentially what he's saying there is we should break the law too. We didn't have enough corruption in this political process and in this particular presidential election. That's crazy. They're so addicted to the bribes. It's insane.

I see that as like the core problem in everything that we're seeing in our country right now, politically speaking. Because if you have a system in place where moneyed interests have far more sway over our politicians than the American people do, than the voters do, than their constituents do, then you're going to have this system where you're not going to get representation. You're not going to get appropriate representation. And that's what I think a lot of Americans across the political spectrum are feeling right now. So that's the issue in addition to the fact that our lawmakers in Congress are allowed to trade individual stocks, thus investing in corporations and companies where they literally have a vested

interest to ensure that these companies maximize their profits so they get a return on their investment. That's a sick system. So that needs to be banned. I mean, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. I'm going to be real about that. But when you look at what's broken in our political system, I think those are the two issues at the heart of what's going wrong. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including great news. There's actually a lot of housing construction taking place, specifically for private equity firms that are looking to lease them. I'm going to give you the details on that and more coming up. Don't miss it.

Guys, we got to talk about lease nuts because that's what private equity firms are. They're lease nuts. Giant, giant lease nuts. So with that in mind, let's get to the story. Richard Belote loves the view from his back yard. Every morning I get up and I go outside with the dogs and I have a cup of coffee. But he doesn't own this brand new house. In fact, it's not for sale. His Montgomery, Texas community is part of a rapidly growing trend in the U.S. housing market.

Blocks of single family homes built specifically to rent. It's a good stepping stone. Despite saving diligently to buy a home, the interest rates are just too high to manage. He and his fiancee feel priced out of their house hunt. really kind of crossing our fingers that those rates go down. Stepping stone in what is likely to be an overpriced rental unit that was specifically built, not for working class Americans to be able to afford and buy in order to build wealth, but specifically for lease. Now, look, typically, I don't have a problem with that, right?

I think when you increase housing stock, that is a good thing. But we need to increase housing stock for both rentals and houses for families to be able to purchase. So they can, you know, build wealth, have stability, not worry about their landlord, increasing their monthly rent. So Wall Street firms are now getting rich off of the housing crisis by essentially investing in build to rent homes, which Americans can never actually purchase. And look, overall, I wouldn't have a problem with that, especially when you have this trend of private equity firms buying up our remaining inventory of single family homes that people typically buy to own. When it comes to that existing stock, it's terrible when they buy those homes. So I think they're going to engage in this.

Yeah, sure, you can make the argument that it's better that they're specifically building new houses for their little financial schemes. But when you couple that with the fact that, that construction for homes to buy has dipped even further, this is a huge problem. I do find it to be a huge problem. And it's also interesting that these firms are able to easily construct homes. All of a sudden, there's no problem with overregulation and these parts of the country. They're not running into red tape. It's just so easy for them to build the single family homes.

No problem, right? No fuss, no must. But when it comes to construction of homes for Americans to buy, we get all the arguments about overregulation, which, by the way, in some cases, is definitely true. In places like California, definitely overregulated, definitely makes it difficult to construct new homes. So I'm not saying that that argument has no credibility.

However, we're now approaching the system where everyone is not going to own anything, right? You're going to rent and you're going to like it. Okay, the argument that was made at the World Trade, you know, what was it called the, I'm forgetting the name of the yearly or annual conference where they just basically said, you know, we're going to pursue this system where people don't own things. They just rent things. I don't think that's the kind of system most people want. But nonetheless, look, we'll get to more details about how disastrous this is.

But before we do it, I should probably give you some more details. Let's revisit how insanely out of reach. Just buying a home right now is. Take a look. A July poll found 86% of renters say they can't afford a home, and 54% believe it's unlikely they'll ever be able to. CBS News business analyst Jill Schlesinger. House prices have gone up by more than 40% in just four years.

There are a lot of people out there who really, want to be in homes and they just can't afford to get there. And it's incredibly frustrating, especially when you consider the World Economic Forum, by the way, is what I was referring to, especially when you consider, you know, our wages, people's salaries certainly are not rising to keep up with this housing inflation, right? Housing inflation has far surpassed, rapidly surpassing what people. people are earning. So you can do everything right. You can work really hard. You could have a good career. You could be making good money. You could be stacking paper. And then just when you think

you have that 20% down payment ready to go, well, the market just exploded further. And it's impossible to buy a house. And it's unfair to hardworking Americans. They deserve, by the way, I have a firm belief that if you want to calm down the resentment and rage, that we're seeing in this country, make it easier for people to buy homes, seriously. Make it easier for ordinary, hardworking Americans to build wealth. But the greed just conquers all, and it's so frustrating.

So CBS Evening News spoke to a gentleman by the name of Brent Long. He's the president of the developer known as Christopher Todd Communities. So this developer brands itself as the leader in built-to-rent homes. Now, Brent Long admitted that, that at least some of his tenants are now renting because even though they have great jobs,

even though they have good pay, they've got no other choice. Take a look. We're really in the first couple innings of the BTR business. Rent Long is leading the built-to-rent expansion for Christopher Todd communities. He says renters stretch from Gen Z to baby boomers. It's really renters by choice and renters by need. If the traditional view of the American dream is you buy a home and that becomes your biggest asset, what does this do to that concept? I don't think it takes it away. It solves some issues that are out there in terms of affordability, availability. It takes it away. Okay, you're not building wealth when you're renting. Let's keep it real.

And look, that's a huge problem for sure. But then there's the other problem. problem. When you're a renter, you can't rely on the stability in housing costs that people who own can enjoy, right? So, you know, there are parts of the country right now where people are seeing their rent go up, especially if they're living in a part of the country where rent control isn't a thing, right? So they'll see their rent increased by $500, $1,000. I mean, that crushes American families. And so the idea that like, no, no, no, No, no. Pursuing this system where it becomes more and more difficult for people to buy homes and they have no other option other than renting, that's not going to help them build

wealth. How does that make any sense at all? So let's talk a little bit about the idea of availability. So this business is based on building new homes that cannot be bought. And look, again, generally speaking, I'm okay with that as long as there is new construction for people to purchase homes as well. But that's not what's happening. These homes are specifically being purchased. I'm sorry, they're being constructed specifically for people to rent because these Wall Street firms see it as a massive investment,

a way to essentially make money off of people who have no other choice, who have no choice but to rent from one of their developments. But Matt Beerenbaum, who is the chief investment officer at Avalon Bay, another real estate investment trust currently acquiring build to rent homes states that build to rent developments don't come at a cost of for sale supply because the firm isn't acquiring rentals that an individual homeowner would have otherwise purchased. And you know what? That's true. That is fair. I would much prefer this system over what's been happening with Wall Street firms buying up remaining inventory of homes. But I do have a problem.

with the lack of construction of homes to buy. He told the Wall Street Journal, we are not competing with individuals trying to buy individual homes in the private market. Avalon Bay states that it plans to invest a billion dollars in build to rent homes going forward. And obviously, location matters too. So if we're talking about specific cities or specific locations in the country, where there is a lack of homes to purchase. And these lots are being taken up by Wall Street firms that are only developing homes to lease, well, yeah, that actually is a problem, right? And of course, our politicians are pathetic. I'm not just talking about on a federal level, in some cases, also local level. And if you don't have regulations

in place to ensure that there's a balance here between rental units and homes to purchase, well, yeah, it's going to rob Americans of one of the main opportunities they have to build wealth for themselves and for their family, generational wealth. This is where it comes from. Now, Beerenbaum says, we think we're really in the early stages of what could be a pretty significant almost new asset class. And that's

really what they're thinking about. Asset class, okay? These asses love asset classes. Now, so just how many build-to-rent homes are there? Well, in 2023, builders completed an estimated 97,000 build-to-rent residential homes, including those

outside build-to-rent communities. an increase of 45% from the year before and a record for the sector, according to estimates from John Burns' research and consulting, which provides independent research on the U.S. housing industry. Now, couple that with this harsh reality from the U.S. Census Bureau, they found that in 2023 last year, the U.S. residential construction decreased, decreased for the second consecutive year. 1.41 million new homes were built last year, which was actually down 9% from 2022 the year

before. So you're seeing the construction of homes to buy decrease little by little year after year, and the construction of homes to rent increase. And so I do see that as a huge problem. So the properties do remain relatively niche. This is a relatively niche sector of the housing market making up a record 7.9% of all single family housing starts in 2023, according to Arbor Realty Trust. But obviously, this is trending upward. It's not like this is something that's slowing down. These Wall Street firms are just getting started with this new asset class or, you know, planes. And so some of the Wall Street firms looking to capitalize on these homes are Blackstone Invitation Homes. You've heard these names before. We've covered them

in depth. There's another one called Predium Partners. Meanwhile, more and more Americans are in fact renting because buying a house is just out of reach. For the first time in more than two years, the growth of the U.S. renter pool has outpaced that of homeowner households for the past four quarters, according to a Redfin analysis of U.S. census data. In the third quarter, the formulation of renter households increased 2.7% three times faster than homeowner households and the second fastest rate for renters since 2015. This is not a good trend. I think Americans deserve the opportunity to be able to work hard, save, and buy a home. I want that for everyone. And it sucks to see that it's becoming less and less likely, less and less attainable for

people who have done all the right things. They're hardworking Americans, taxpaying Americans. It's just that right now it doesn't seem like we have a political class that's really looking out for them when it comes to this sector of the economy. All right, that does it for the first hour. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, John Iderola will join in. We're going to talk a little bit about what RFK Jr. is expected to do. do in the Trump administration as it pertains to vaccines. We've gotten a little more clarity on that. So stick around. We'll be right back.