رونوشت کامل 4/20/23: Trump Humiliates DeSantis w/ Florida Endorsements, Republican Debt Ceiling Demands, Abortion Pill SCOTUS, Big Business Child Labor, New UFO, Fox Settlement, Is Elon Right About AI?, Desantis Disney Fail, Saudis Buying NFL Team

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a Congressman from Florida, he's a republic Let's go put this up there on the screen. He actually endorsed Donald Trump immediately after a meeting with Ron DeSantis' as big as an f as there is, and here's what he had to say. 00:05:25 Speaker 3: They actually asked him like, why did you do this? 00:05:27 Speaker 2: He says, quote DeSantis never once reached out to me during my five years in Congress, nor replied to my multiple attempts to connect. Stevie recalled a recent news conference dealing with damage from Hurricane Ian where the governor's aides initially invited him to stand along DeSantis, only to tell him he would not be part of the event whenever he showed up. Trump, on the other hand, was the first person that Stube remembers calling him in the ICU to wish him well after he was injured in a January tree trimming incident. 00:05:57 Speaker 3: To this day, I have not heard from Governor to Santas. He says. 00:06:01 Speaker 2: Things suddenly changed last week when Trump started rolling out for Florida congressional leader's endorsements. He says, quote, for the first time ever, I hear from DeSantis's political person. For Stube, the outrage was too little, too late. He continues to have sharp words for DeSantis, criticizing his robust political travel schedule amid a busy legislative season. Floridians want him focused on Florida. I mean, look, when you've got your home state and this isn't just one guy, just so people know, like we've got significant numbers. I am. Here's the endorsement that I reference. Is going to put this up there. Specifically about that, he even literally says Trump is the only person that can reverse the disastrous policies of the Biden administration. And in the tweet Crystal that he announced, he said, just had a great meeting with Ron DeSantis, Proud to endorse President Trump. That is as big of a slap in the face as it gets. And at this current point, guys, Trump is absolutely wiping the floor with DeSantis in Florida. Put this up there, Vern Buchanan late last night, so I alluded to, is now the eighth Republican to endorse Trump? 00:07:13 Speaker 1: Eighth Florida Florida Republican. 00:07:16 Speaker 3: To endorse Trump. 00:07:17 Speaker 1: One day after DeSantis. 00:07:20 Speaker 2: Visited Capitol Hill to speak with GOP president or sorry, with GOP elected officials. I don't know what more evidence that people need, not only just in terms of the voters, but also in terms of his hold on the institutional GOP. 00:07:34 Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. These people, none of them has a courageous vote in your body. They're all finger in the wind, right, every one of them. I mean, think back to right after the midterms when DeSantis has this big night in Florida, wins easily. It's the only state in the country where Republicans do really, really well in New York being you know, secondary to that, and Trump, you know, looked like his candidates didn't do well. He had a whole stench around him. And he

announces right after that, and even Matt Gates couldn't find it in his heart to make his way to Trump's presidential announcement. You'll call apparently there were weather issues. Now we checked the weather. I was like, perfectly sunny here, perfectly sunny down in Florida, but he had to come up with an excuse not to be there. Now you can see they're looking at the polls, they're looking at the mood, they're looking at the landscape that we're looking at, saying listen, it's going to be Trump focused media, it's going to be indictments, it's going to be trials, it's going to be you know, all about Trump's legal quandaries and situation. There is no oxygen left over for anyone, including Ron DeSantis. And then you layer on top of that. You know, you talked about Stuby and how there was no hour, which is astonishing to me. I mean, this is someone who is your home state congressional delegation. I'm shocked that they're not buddies, like usually that's the way these things work. And then with Vern Buchanan, they note that DeSantis did not come to Buchanan's aid when he was in a fight to Share the Ways and Means Committee earlier this year. It did not go unnoticed. Now, listen, these people are egomaniacs. Should any of this matter, No, it shouldn't. That they're like how much they flatter your ego and you know, in Bernie's words, like he's not gonna call you and wish you happy birthday. That's just stuff. Shouldn't matter what it does, but it does. And if you're playing DeSantis is really trying to play kind of an inside game. I know they would object to that, but that's the reality of where his support primarily lies. You have to be extra good at this type of just basic blocking and tackling political outreach exactly for moments like this. So, you know, to make the Bernie contrast, Bernie at least had a big grassroots based going for him. He was truly an outsider, so you might have forgiven him a little bit for not doing the like typical political outreach. But even for him, this ended up being a problem for him in terms of the Democratic primary that he didn't even try to change the dynamic in South Carolina with the elected officials, with with Jim Clyburn, they are in particular, so it's even an issue for a candidate like Bernie Sanders. It's definitely an issue for a candidate like Ronda Santis who's trying to play the inside track. 00:10:07 Speaker 2: He can only be an outsider whenever you're a guy like Trump who is independently famous and you have a genuine base. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: Of people who support you. 00:10:14 Speaker 2: Remember, you know, not even what was it Jeff Sessions I think was the first GOP official to endorse Trump. Yeah, maybe he was a congressman, I forget exactly, but the point was they had no endorsements, but he was winning in the primary. DeSantis is not winning in the primary, so you have to trade it for him to get endorsements. The reason why I think it's important, especially from the state of Florida, it has to be a united front of get I turned Florida into a dark red state. Every single person from Florida knows that if they cross me, they're going to suffer consequences. Guess what they all crossed you, Stuby in particular, he didn't even stab in the back. He stabbed you in the eye and he didn't care. And you know this also gets to again some base political instincts. Let's go think about some of the governors who were elected president and what made them all different and what made them good politicians. How exactly did Governor Bill Clinton from Arkansas No offense Arkansas, but let's just say, you know, not the most important state in the Union. How did he become the nineteen ninety two presidential nominee and eventually become the president. He was a fantastic politician who stayed up until two am every single night calling every state legislator in Arkansas. The whole state was united behind him. After he solidified his control over the state. Then he got himself ahead of like the Democratic Governors Association is constantly on a plane, you know, scratching backs and helping fundraise for Jerry. You know, people in California, people in wherever, a all across the country. Became a national figure that way. Whenever he ran for president, he not only had name id, he had institutional backing. That stuff matters whenever you're trying to have more of an upswing campaign. That especially I think for a guy like Ron de Santis, who so many of the for DeSantis to get to fifty one percent, he needs to unite that never and but also people who like Trump might be willing to move on from Trump. There's no evidence, in my opinion that those people even really exist, but let's say. 00:12:08 Speaker 3: That they do. 00:12:09 Speaker 2: A key part of that would be getting people with credibility in the base, people like your congressman and other to go ahead and support him. 00:12:16 Speaker 3: Doesn't exist yet. 00:12:17 Speaker 1: The bottom line is the Bill Clinton point is a good one because, I mean, put aside his terrible politics and policies, all those things, he was a political sourvietor. Oh yeah, and there was nothing that he was better at. I mean, he was famous for having a photographic memory for people's names, their faces, and a little bit of their backstory. So you could see, you know, someone he saw once at some event, he'd see them again and it's, oh, Susie, how are you? How's your son doing? You know, how's how's Kansas? The rough it I mean, it would have these few little details like a rolodex in his brain. And so what that meant, All of that outreach and all of that sowing the seeds that he did before his presidential race meant that when he did have a little bit of good fortune in the race, wanted to come on board. Whereas DeSantis now has the opposite situation. When he's a little bit down, people are looking for the opportunity to stab him in the back. You see this in media all the time too, Like you can tell who has been a

jerk in terms of like media personalities by whose staff is ready to leak on them the minute that they have the opportunity to. It's the same thing with politicians, like if you you know, invited someone to your event saying they're going to stand with you, and then you don't, that's humiliating for that person. You don't think they're going to be looking for every opportunity to try to stick it to you when they had a chance, and Stebe certainly found his moment here. So you know, it's an extraordinary just example of how the political wins have shifted where people clearly think things are going at this point. And it's especially devastating for someone who was thinking that they were going to have a lot of institutional support behind them, and that was really their play in order to win. Clearly that game plan has fallowed. 00:13:57 Speaker 2: Apart certainly did Let's go and move on to the next one. A fascinating twist in American political history. The son of Robert Francis Kennedy, Robert Francis Kennedy Junior, prominently known for speaking out about vaccines and specifically comings of prominence around COVID, has now announced his official entrance into the Democratic primary for twenty twenty four. And before you laugh, he's actually making more of a dent than people think. Here is a little bit from his announcement yesterday. Let's take a listen, and the. 00:14:28 Speaker 4: Coup de gras was the lockdown. Lockdown was the biggest shift in wealth in human history. And I'm going to tell you about that in a second. And I blame President Trump for the lockdown. I do not believe that everybody at the CIA as a bad person. My daughter in law, Amillis, who is who is one of the top officers on this campaigns her entire career as a Clendensteine agent or the CIA as a spy, and the weapons of matter's destruction program and some of the most dangerous parts of the earth. And I have never met anybody with such courage. This is what happens when you censored somebody for eighteen years. 00:15:20 Speaker 1: I got a lot to talk about. 00:15:25 Speaker 4: They shouldn't shut me up that long, because now I'm gonna really let loose on him for the next eighteen months. 00:15:30 Speaker 5: They're gonna hear a lot. 00:15:32 Speaker 2: There you go, a little bit of a taste made COVID a big centerpiece going after the Biden administration, and even Donald Trump kind of running at him almost from what I guess would be coded right today, although who knows, I guess it would have been coded left fifteen years ago. Somebody who's really been more on the fringes of the American political system for eighteen years, but coming to obviously to prominence at least with some portion of the public. 00:15:54 Speaker 3: Because let's go in put. 00:15:56 Speaker 2: This up there on the screen, Robert Francis Kennedy Junior has now got some fourteen percent of support Crystal in the primary. There were several hundred people there at the announcement that he had yesterday, And in terms of the dent that he's making, I mean, I think that people forget first of all, obviously the Kennedy name, Kennedy, magic, et cetera. But I don't think people realize his book, I think was the real Anthony Founcer was one of the best selling books in the country for like. 00:16:26 Speaker 3: Almost a year. 00:16:28 Speaker 2: It sold at least, at very least hundreds of thousands of copies, lots of copies. He certainly made the rounds and you know podcasts and all that, and you know, quite a bit of people even know who he was before that, just given name ID. And on top of that, a lot of media, probably more media covered this event even than Mary Anne Williamson in terms of his announcement, again because of the Kennedy name. So between earned media between a genuine like pop culture or at very least like public recognition, I'm not going to say necessarily had quote as a shot. But he could be more of a menace, I think than a lot of people are going to give him credit for. 00:17:04 Speaker 1: There's a lot to say here. So, first of all, with regard to the poll, it is a little bit of a weird poll because they didn't pull likely primary voters. They pulled people who voted for Biden in the last general election, which is just kind of an unusual universe to pull. And it's very likely actually a broader and less overtly democratic based political than a primary poll would be. I mean this, and so it is a bit of a strange universe. But still when you have Joe Biden only garnering sixty seven percent of his own voters that already selected him one time, and you have you know, over you have over thirty percent that are either going to RFK junior marian or like yeah, I don't know or not yeah exactly. I think it speaks to how vulnerable Biden really is and how much the media tries to cover for him, because every article that's written about Joe O'biden, it always says in there they've always got out of the line in there. No serious primary candidate has emerged. Okay, by whose measure? Because y'all sure treat Tim Scott who's at like one percent, and Nikki Haley and you know, potentially Mike Pence and all these other flew of Republican candidates, you take them seriously, Well, they're pulling lower, it appears, than either RFK Junior or Marian Williamson, both of whom are let's put their politics aside, how are you feel about them for a moment. I'll get to that and how I feel about them in just a second, But both of whom are best selling authors, very well known, have their own base of support, separate and apart from the current political moment. So to just dismiss them like, oh, they don't have a shot and no one's going to pay attention and no one cares about them, I think this is evidence very much to the contrary not to mention every poll when you ask Democratic voters do you want not the general public Democratic voters do you want Shoe Biden to be your nominee? Again, they're like, eh, thank you for your servicer, thank

you for defeating Donald Trump. Can we have some other options here? So listen, RFK Junior has come to prominence. He's really made it his recent life's work to be he would object to this characteristic, but he's an anti vaxxer. He's been one of the primary people, you know, tying autism to the increase in the vaccine schedule. There's no evidence of that, and the fact that vaccines exist and autism exists, to me, is not remotely proof. So I have issues with his dances. I don't agree with him on some of those things. Do I think that means he should be censored, shut up, not allowed to be on a presidential debate stage. Absolutely not. And you know, I want to give credit to you. I was listening to some of his interviews in advance of this segment. I was listening to a long interview he did with Megan Kelly. I thought she handled it perfectly. You know, she was very tough with him, challenging him on the science backing what he was saying. She made sure to fact check. She took her time to record the interview and then go back get comment from people, look at the research, and she was able to present that that's the way that you deal with claims that are not scientifically based or that you disagree with that's the way you approach it. Now, the Democratic Party, for all their supposed care and concern for democracy, they don't even want to let these people on a debate stage, even though both of them have already achieved way beyond the polling criteria that would be reasonable to allow them on a stage to debate against Joe Biden. So if the Biden team is so confident in his abilities and so sure that these are not serious candidates, let them on a stage and have a debate, and let's let the American people decide. 00:20:38 Speaker 2: I agree with you. And it just gets to the numbers question that I referenced earlier. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen once again. Here you can see hardcover frontlist fiction RFK has already sold about three hundred thousand copies of the book that was Just or Sorry. He sold three hundred thousand copies of the book before January of twenty twenty two. That book remained at the top of the chart. So look, we don't have a way to know the exact number, but I would guess probably a million books that he was able to sell throughout the pandemic. And that's how people That is like it's like a Titanic best that's like Dan Brown novel level like success or at the very least in a year. So again, ignored by the media, basically ignored mostly by everybody. But I don't think you know, you cannot deny a serious political people that want to look at things objectively, see a fourteen percent bump in the or at the very least in the general electorates millions of books sold and say this person again. I'm not saying they have a shot, but they will demand attention, and I think rightfully so as you said, Look, if you're so afraid, yeah, if you want to challenge him, then have him on the stage and te him he's an idiot. 00:21:45 Speaker 3: You can do that. 00:21:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of people have done that before. Yeah, but if you're afraid, that says more about you. 00:21:50 Speaker 1: I think it's also interesting the way that originally you said he's now coded right when Steve Bannon was oouncing he his praise is saying, we love this guy. You know, he's done interviews with Tucker Carlson and whatever. He's more embraced in a lot of ways by right wing media now than he is by the left. But that's That's what's interesting to me is that, you know, the coding of being a vaccine opponent has really shifted over the years. I mean, this was he was like sort of in this la liberal lefty anti vax moment, and now that has become coded very you know, hard right wing, and it's certainly you know, opposition of lockdowns and all of those things, even though yeah, he does critique Trump and Biden alike, so interesting figure in that way as well. I mean, he originally is an environmental lawyer. Still, as an environmental lawyer went after a lot of companies for the sort of toxins that they would put into the environments. I don't want to undermine that work that he's done, even as obviously a disagree and I'm opposed to his views as with regards to the vaccines. But you know, for me, the bottom line here is you now have in this poll, which again it's a weird universe, and I would say probably a significant amount of his support is just people who are like, I don't like Biden. Here's a Kennedy name. Sounds good to me, right, But fourteen percent in this universe of voters, and Mariam's at fourteen percent in battleground with battleground state voters in a different poll. So you already have two contenders who are putting double digits on the board against Biden, and yet the media still wants to tell you now now he's safe, no serious contenders, etc. Listen, maybe maybe and very likely, right, very likely that Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, no doubt about it. But to completely invisibilize these people, to try to shut down any opportunity for people to evaluate their choices, to try to shut down any opportunity to have the three of these individuals on a stage and be able to work through the processes of democracy that again, the Democratic Party claims so much to care about. I think it's disgraceful and I think it's hypocritical. 00:23:52 Speaker 3: Yeah, I completely agree, Crystal. 00:23:56 Speaker 1: All right, we have some updates for you on the whole debt ceilings sit situation. You will recall Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans, both in the House and the Senate, have decided to once again use the debt ceiling as a hostage taking mechanism to get things through that they could not otherwise get through. We have been waiting for McCarthy to put some details down about what exactly the Republican Caucus is proposing, because you know, you've got more moderate figures who represent Biden swing districts in New York that are very uncomfortable with a lot

of hard cuts, and you have Freedom Caucus members who were, you know, some of the dissidents who really were pushing Kevin McCarthy to make some extreme deals in order to even claim his speakership. So he's in a precarious position. The Republican Caucus, which only has a four set majority in the House, is in a precarious position. So yesterday McCarthy put out a somewhat more detailed outline of their approach on the debt ceiling, although there's still a lot of details that continue to be left out, which is noteworthy in and of itself. Let's put Jake Sherman's tweets up on the screen. Now. This is how McCarthy characterized what is in this bill. He says that his bill provides four point five trillion dollars in savings. Sherman says, we don't have a bill, yes, so we can't know whether that's true or not. It's also not scored, So we're trusting the GOP's math as to whether the amount of savings, etcetera, etcetera pre twenty twenty two spending levels, budget increase capped one percent per year, clawback billions of dollars of unspent COVID money, repeal funding for IRS agents, green tax credit repeal, prohibits, student loan quote giveaway for the wealthy HR one Rains Act, which I looked at what that was, but I'm forgetting now work requirements for social programs and prevent executive overreach whatever that means. Do you remember what the Rains Act is? Or Government Loopholes Bill, Government Loopholes Bill? Okay, put the washtpost up on the screen. This has some more of the details. You know, the things that are targeted here. It's not going to surprise anyone. Some of the big cuts are to Medicare Medicaid sorry, and to food stamps or snap. Medicare and Social Security are left off the table, as well as any cuts to the military budget. Pentagon cuts or originally floated those are no longer being talked about here, and there's a significant limiting of who would be eligible for both Medicaid and for food stamps and increasing work requirements. The expectation is that more than ten million people could be kicked out of the food stamp program if these provisions are put into place. That amounts to one in four current SNAP beneficiaries. In the case of Medicaid, gop led states have introduced similar work mandates in the past, and they also have seen significant drops in enrollment, which is where the money savings would come from. The Other thing that's really noteworthy here, Sager, is they really take an ax to like all of the green energy, including electric vehicles. I wonder if some of those things, you know, the subsidies for electric vehicles. I wonder if some of those things might be controversial in some of these Republican districts where jobs are related to the EV industry. 00:26:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just not sure. I've never actually thought that the base really agrees. All they have to do is sell it not on evs necessarily, but more in terms of spending, especially stuff like food stamps, is where they would really most people at the very least, you know, don't want to be seeing cuts with that program. What they're going to be able to do rhetorically is they can phrase this as standing up to Biden. The specifics honestly don't matter because at the same time, like, none of this is real. 00:27:26 Speaker 3: This isn't actually. 00:27:27 Speaker 1: Going to get like a fantasy. 00:27:29 Speaker 2: This is what's always annoying, you know, and it's always difficult for us to characterize. We're like, look, technically, on paper, this is what they say they're going to do. I also literally lived here how many times we're like, this is the plan in which we're going to repeal Obamacare, and then whenever it actually came to a chance, they're like, yeah, none of that is actually what we're going with. 00:27:45 Speaker 3: Everything is new on the table. 00:27:46 Speaker 2: So to the extent that this is real in any way, like, let's just not take it all that seriously, it's. 00:27:51 Speaker 3: An opening bid. 00:27:53 Speaker 2: I mean, really, what does it tell us they want to extract cuts effectively across the board in all federal programs outside of Social Security and of Medicare. And if they do touch programs which people rely on, especially large constituencies that are live in red states, it will be politically unpopular. But it will also remain politically unpopular if you are seen as throwing people off or not working with people specifically in the time of inflation. That's not really one where people want. People want many people actually agree with reigning in the national debt, with reigning and spending, but whenever you ask them, what they really want are cuts to things like the military budget or they want, you know, to see like less spending on things that don't have to do with everyday services right now? More like, yeah, like how many times have we talked here about you know, outrageous F thirty five programs and things like that. Yeah, that's where and where. 00:28:53 Speaker 1: A lot of money is. Yeah, if you want to be real about this, I mean generally speaking in terms of the pulling people, Okay, do we need to lower the deficit? Do we need to lower the debt? They're like, yeah, that sounds good. When you ask them about okay, do you want to cut this program, they're like, hell no, you want to cut that prop? Hell no? Right. The only thing people really want to cut is like foreign aid, which amounts to like tiny, little, teeny sliver of the budget and will make no difference whatsoever with regard to the debt and the deficit. Yeah, if you are leaving social security and Medicare and the military off the table, then you are limiting yourself to making really draconian cuts in you know, the small percentage of the federal budget that is ultimately left because the bulk of the money goes to those programs. And guess what, So Security and Medicare are extremely popular. They're also extremely successful and very effective at, you know, mitigating

senior poverty in particular, and Medicare obviously, you know, very successful as a healthcare program, very popular as well, and by the way, cheaper on a cost per per person basis than private health insurance. We'll put that aside for another day. So, yeah, they've kind of limited themselves in terms of what they can do. And the important piece here too is even within the Republican Caucus, a lot of the details here of where and how these cuts are going to be made, they're left up to the various committees. So he's still trying to pull this bit of a slide of hand, where by not having all of the details sketched own, he's hoping to keep his own caucus together to put pressure on the Biden White House. And you know, I just don't know how successful that is ultimately going to be. There's also a line of thinking that the whole debt ceiling thing is a bit of a far citiiturade. The only thing it's really used for is these, in my view, unconsciable hostage shaking tactics where you're like, I'm willing to tank the entire global economy in order to kick more people off of healthcare and like cut food stamp benefits for people. So there's a line of thinking that there are some work around here that the Biden administration could deploy. We've talked about minting the trillion dollar coin. But put this up on the screen. This is Nathan Tankas, one of the people an economists who's one of the people who's been thinking about some of these options. Put the next hair sheet up on the screen here, So he says Biden can steamroll Republicans on the debt ceiling and FED chair j. Palell will not interfere. So what's key in what he's arguing here is there's always been a question whether it's mint the coin or one of the other workarounds that are essentially sort of like accounting gimmicks. Would the FED go along with it? And last we discussed the mint the coin thing. Nathan Tankas was one of the people that was like, well, here's what you do. You'd have to like send the military to the FED and like force them. Were like, I don't know about that one. However, you feel about that? Can you imagine the Biden administration doing that? No, you cannot. Well, in this article he lays down actually Fed chair pal kind of showed his hand a while back indicating that he would follow along with what with the sort of workarounds like mint the coin in his you know, own FED chair way, and so the whole military option wouldn't be necessary. And he's encouraging the Biden administration to use one of these workarounds in order to just completely short circuit this whole process and deny McCarthy and the Republicans any sort of leverage around the debt ceiling. Now will they do that, I don't know. At the very least, they should very credibly threaten to do it, because that would undercut the Republicans position here. But we all know these are like hardcore institutionalists without a lot of spines. 00:32:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I just keep going back to. I think we're going to have to see some sort of cross I mean, look, the Biden administration is never going to agree to cut its EV tax credits, like it's. 00:32:50 Speaker 1: Just not happening. 00:32:51 Speaker 2: Yeah, exist, this. 00:32:51 Speaker 1: Is your signature achievement. 00:32:53 Speaker 3: I actually think they might. 00:32:54 Speaker 2: I mean, you know, given his track record, I definitely think I could see him caving on work increasing work requirements for welfare and for food stamps. I don't think there's no way he's going to cave on his signature benefit. So I get. But again I come back to picking and choosing in just why I think some sort of sequestration seems to be the most likely scenario is there's no genuine agreement what many Republicans Freedom Caucus them cared more at the time and probably still care today as the overall dollar figure rather than you know, rather than like which particular programs. And this is also an easy way for them to say, well, the Biden administration is forcing our hand, so we are going to have to have some sort of defense budget cuts, which a lot of Freedom Caucus people secretly do agree with. They just can't say it because it goes against the donor class. We will see, we still have several months. He's going to blink, who can what can even pass? As you said, important thing too, is do all the Republicans even. 00:33:47 Speaker 3: Agree on this. There's not a lot of evidence for that. 00:33:50 Speaker 2: You know, Nancy Mace came out and said that she wouldn't vote for it. 00:33:52 Speaker 3: That's one. You only need a couple more. You're dead out. What are you gonna do? 00:33:56 Speaker 1: Right? Well, and that's what I was trying to say about the eedy tax credits is, you know, the electric vehicle industry, in the auto industry in general, the significant part of the American economy, and a lot of these some of these congress people are going to represent districts where the EV industry is really important to them in terms of you know, jobs and future economic growth. So are they going to be cool with cutting out all of those benefits because that's one part where they really take an ax to every green energy credit, but in particular the EV subsidies that make those cars more affordable for consumers to buy, you know, best case scenario. So that could be an issue. Last time we covered this on Tuesday, we're talking about how the New York Republicans are very uncomfortable with the food stamp cuts. Are they going to go along with, you know, with one in four recipients being kicked out in the program Medicaid obviously, also, you know successful and popular. Is that going to be okay with people? And then there's all sorts of things that are not the top lines, that are these little individual you know, programs that you rarely hear about that are important to say West Virginia, are important to other places around the country. And because they've taken Medicare, social Security, and the

military off the table, all of that stuff is going to have to get cut. So I think the White House's strategy is the right one so far, which is just to say nothing. Say basically, send me a clean debt ceiling. That's it. End a story, and watch the Republicans try to work this out among themselves and see if they can even get to the finish line with their own debt ceiling. Bill I saw Biden had some quote yesterday that was like, they're trying to get me to agree to all kind of wacko stuff in order to Yeah. 00:35:40 Speaker 2: I think wacko notions he said, is that a turn of race particularly articulate, He. 00:35:45 Speaker 1: Got his point across. So anyway, I think the White House strategy is more or less day silent and see if the Republicans can figure this out with fair confidence that they probably won't be able. 00:35:53 Speaker 2: That's the correct one. Also, there's a reason that nobody in the Senate has even said a word about this. The ultimate test is, is Canny pass it? If he passes it? Okay, Now, you're an actual serious negotiating partner. If you're not, well, then we're just going to continue to laugh at you. So all I stay tuned. We'll see how it works out. 00:36:07 Speaker 1: Yes, by the way, it was House Republicans are threatening to default on the debt unless I agree to all this wacko nonsense nonsense. That was the quote. That's the latest. Serle I asked, Okay, we've got a couple of stories with regard to the Supreme Court that we wanted to bring to you this morning, both of which are really significant. So we were actually waiting for a decision from the Supreme Court with regard to that abortion pill ruling. You had two contradictory rulings. You had a Texas judge that said the abortion pill, which is now used for more than fifty percent of abortions nationwide, that it should be banned, not only in states where abortion is banned but in all states, so California and Texas alike. You also had a judge from Washington State that said the status quo with regard to this pill should remain in place. So you got conflict here, and that made it almost guaranteed that this thing was going to head up to the Supreme Court. They had set a deadline for themselves of last night at midnight to make this decision. But what happened. They decided to extend that deadline, go ahead and put this up on the screen. Supreme Court on Wednesday extended for two days a pause on a lower court ruling that it sought to limit access to the abortion pill myf of pristone, ensuring that the drug would continue to remain widely available for now. In a brief order, Justice Samuel Alito announced that the pause would lapse on Friday now at midnight, giving the Court more time to consider the case, though it could act before then. And they kind of read the tea leaves here and say the fact that the Court did not meet that earlier deadline suggest there might be disagreement among the justices in their first major case about abortion access since the conservative majority in June upended the constitutional right to an abortion. It could also indicate there might be a descent in the case. Could also indicate none of that. I mean, it's very hard to read into these things, but you know, I did know you're kicking it to Friday. That's like Friday news dump, right and midnight plastic timing. If you're trying to bury something, you don't want to get a lot of press around. And you know the fact that it's taking a while for them to work through this, that could indicate that there is real disagreement between some of the more liberal justices and some of the more conservative justices and that this is a difficult one for them to make a decision on. One thing that's noteworthy here, I think as well, is in the Dobbs decision, which overturned Row versus Wide. They really made a big show of saying, like, Okay, this is great. Now the Supreme Court is out of the abortion We're going to leave it to the states, and we're going to let them do what they want to do in accordance with their democratic process, et cetera. You know, if they back this Texas judge who is saying we want to ban this pill for every state across the entire country. Well, that's not exactly leaving it up to the states, now, is it. 00:38:48 Speaker 6: Well. 00:38:48 Speaker 2: I also think that the reason why this is also outside of it is because it focuses on FDA procedure and whether it has been valid for what is it, Yes, eighteen years, twenty three twenty three years, that's right, twenty three years. So effectively, I mean the judges, the judges ruling in the case in Texas. What he said that these people who they challenged the approval of the pill more than two decades ago. So if I had to guess, Crystal, a lot of this is going to focus Unfortunately, because this is how the law works, is not really going to focus on the merits of what we're talking about in your popularity. They're going to focus on the process of approval and appeals. And as I understand it, the way that the Texas judge had issued the order is he had said that the original approval itself was wrong. Whereas I think that the court is going to focus both maybe on that narrow legal question, but also on the overall question of the validity of the overall approval of the legal process through which that all happened. 00:39:45 Speaker 1: Yes, So in terms of what they actually put out as their justification for their decision, no doubt that's what it's going to focus on. In terms of their actual thinking behind the scenes, they will certainly be weighing the politics of it, the public perception and the popularity of this pill, and all of those sorts of things. But you're absolutely correct to point out that if they do decide to agree with this Texas judge who says that it should be ban nationwide, that is an extraordinary new precedent, which would basically say the Supreme Court now has the decision sort of above and beyond the FDA to decide what sort of treatments

are popular, and especially since this has been in use for decades. And by the way, and I went through this in the monologue I did about it, the science around whether or not this pill is safe is really not controversial. There were like one hundred and one studies done on it, hundreds of thousands of women who took this pill. There was one death in all of those hundreds of thousands that had anything to do with it, and it was related to an infection. With regard to the abortion, it is as safe as like aspirin. So what the judge in Texas ruled is that because this is not like a fun thing to go through, you're basically forcing a miscarriage. And since women went through discomfort while they were going through this process, that's what he chalked up to it. It's not really as safe as the FDA is ultimately saying. So this would really open up all sorts of potential avenues for challenging other drugs that have been authorized by the FDA and putting that in the hands of these unelected judges instead of the representatives that you know. Listen, we've got our issues with the FDA. I'm not saying that they're a perfect organization whatsoever, but there's at least a democratic process with regard to that's the agency that is supposed to sort through the evidence, and that we have some sort of transparency into how they're making these decisions. 00:41:42 Speaker 2: Right, So that was actually going to be Look, I want I hate the FDA. I think we should burn much of it to the ground and completely revamp the way that we approve drugs and all of that. But I want a more democratic process. Yes, I don't actually want to go I don't trust these judges as much I trust as judges as much as I trust the FDA, which is I don't trust period. Really, what we need is more actual democratic, small d control and transparencies into the way that the drug companies, the FDA have a revolving door, the types of studies that they have, the scientific journals, and this entire industrial complex that exists outside of our plane view, where if we got real pictures into some of this data. 00:42:20 Speaker 3: And this isn't about just the abortion pill. 00:42:21 Speaker 2: I'm talking about all drugs and all vaccines too, by the way, which is the actual data needs to be made very much more available to people for independent analysis pre approval. But that's very separate, I think from the abortion pill question, which also, as you said, you know, we do have decades now of people who are using it. So in terms of and this isn't even about how you morally feel about the issue, we're literally talking about whether they improperbly circumvented their approval process by discounting adverse reaction to the drug. Like we're not talking about whether it's murder, and like the anti abortion groups are not bringing the case on those grounds, And I don't think people understand that they think this is like a religious ruling. I'm like technical in the way that it was made. It had nothing to do with that. 00:43:02 Speaker 1: Yes, that as well said, in terms of how the public feels about this, you will not be surprised to learn that roughly two and three go ahead and put this up on the screen from the Hill. Roughly two and three respondents in a new poll said that the abortion drug mif of pristone should remain available in states where abortion is legal, following that Texas federal judge's decision to block the pill nationwide earlier this month. This was a CBS News poll was released just in the past week found that sixty seven percent said it should remain available in those states where abortion is legal, only thirty three percent said it should not. There is a partisan split on this issue, but you know, even among Republicans, they're basically split fifty to fifty. You've got forty six percent, forty six percent saying it should be available, fifty four percent saying it should not be available. So there's a little bit of a tilt towards the Texas judges ruling with regard to the Republican party. Close to fifty to fifty terms of Democrats and Independence is ain't close at all. Eighty four percent of Democrats and seventy two percent of Independence say it should remain available. And that in a nutshell, is the issue that Republicans have with regard to all facets of abortion and the current landscape, which is that even within their own base, their own base is not all on board with like the level of extremism that is represented in this ruling, and that's represented in some of the laws that are being passed passed in states and certainly which would be represented by a nationwide abortion ban, which is being pushed by plenty of Republicans, including you know, potential presidential candidate Mike Pence. They are not only is their whole base not really on board with it, but Independence and certainly Democrats, but Independence being the key group here, they are not on board with it at all either. Every persuadable voter is effectively on the other side of this issue from Republicans, and that's why you see this and it's very motivating too. That's the sort of deadly combo here is it's unpopular and people are highly motivated by it, which is why we've seen a lot of the election results that we've seen in recent months and years. 00:45:08 Speaker 3: I think you're right. 00:45:09 Speaker 2: And it also relates very much to our next story, which we will not drop, about the judges and how they get there in the first place. 00:45:15 Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, so we have been covering Justice Thomas and the way that he has received literally millions of dollars in gifts and trips and feti and whatever from this billionaire named Harlan Crowe who also and this one was perhaps the most explosive, bought Clarence Thomas's mother's house. This was his childhood home. While his mother is still living there too. By the way, she's living there rent free courtesy of this billionaire. And none of this was disclosed. And this is

not a close call in terms of disclosure. This is very clear cut. If you have a real estate transaction over one thousand dollars, you are supposed to report it. He did not do that. When you pile that on top of there have been previous issues in the past, not disclosing reimbursements for trips, not disclosing his wife's employment, you know, which was both significant because it was ideological and because she was earning significant salaries from that employment. He's had to revise his financial disclosure over and over again, and never because it was like, oh my bad, I found something that should have been in there. It's all under pressure once he gets caught, which I think is also really noteworthy. So there was a thought of, Okay, we're going to investigate this guy. But Democrats are actually really limited in what they can do. Why because Diane Feinstein sits on the Judiciary Committee and she has not been present at work for quite a while now. Not only that, but you know, her original idea it was like, oh, you could just replace me on that committee. I'm not going to resign, of course, because why would she. She's doing such a bang up job here. But you know, you guys can replace me on the committee. Well, unfortunately, have to get the Republicans to agree to that, and lo and behold put this up on the screen. They are not going to allow that to happen, because why would they. I mean, honestly, why would they. They don't want these judges to be confirmed through the Judiciary Committee. They don't want them to be passed through the Judiciary Committee. They don't want Clarence Thomas to be investigated, So why would they give the Democrats an assist? The headline here from PBS News our Republicans block temporary replacement for Senator Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee. South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, who's the top Republican on that committee, objected to a resolution offered by Chuck Schumer that would have allowed another senator to take Feinstein's place on the panel while the Democrat recuperates from a case of shingles. So that is the lay of the land right now. Republicans certainly not going to cooperate. You have this vacancy on the Judiciary Committee and is really hamstring Democrats' ability to get anything. 00:47:52 Speaker 2: Done right, and yet the entire party and institutional power structure is defending her, including one Karijian Pierre from the White House. 00:48:01 Speaker 3: Take a listen. 00:48:02 Speaker 2: This is a decision for her to make when it comes to the future, her future. 00:48:07 Speaker 7: That is something that she gets to make and should be allowed to do that. 00:48:12 Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't know it was her decision to make. That's true if you're in, you know, like a private job. It's not true when you're in a public job and you're eighty nine years old. You're not showing up to work, You're holding up the process. You're an active thorn in the side of ongoing efforts that are vitally important, allegedly to the Democratic Party. 00:48:31 Speaker 3: We're at large, So what's happening here? 00:48:33 Speaker 2: It's like, why do we all just pretend that this is all on her and we're trying to be nice? You know. Somebody even said the worst defense I saw was, well, sometimes we have colleagues that have been gone for a year and we didn't kick them out. I'm like, yeah, why not? That's one sixth of your whole job, and like that's crazy. 00:48:51 Speaker 7: Yeah. 00:48:52 Speaker 1: Well, and I mean this is an extraorinary situation too, because you're like, is she going to be able to come back at all? We don't know, right, I Mean, that's that's the question, is do we know if she'll even be able to return to do the job whatsoever. The other thing I can't help but think of listening to Kreeane Jean Pierre there is can you imagine the Republicans allowing something like this to happen and hamstring their ability to push judges through You think Mitch McConnell would allow anything to get in his way of getting his judges on the bench. Not a chance in hell. But the Democrats are so weak with this stuff, and so oh, you know, it's all about these individual politicians like narcissistic personal journey and then I want to hurt this lady's feelings and putting that above the needs and interests of their own base and by the way, the whole country. When you talk about holding a justice to account and launching an investigation that is critical to root out any sort of corrupt dealings that may have gone undiscovered thus far, to give you the details on that part, put this next piece up on the screen here in terms of why Feinstein's absence is a problem in terms of any sort of Clarence Thomas invest litigation. So Democratic Aids says, the Judiciary Committee cannot issue a subpoena as part of a Clarence Thomas inquiry that would require a majority on the panel, and Democrats do not have it without her, so that option is out of the question. So they are talking about launching some sort of an inquiry, but in terms of actually issuing a subpoena to get Justice Thomas or anyone else for that Hartland Crawl or anyone else, but for that matter, to testify, you need Diane Feinstein, right, So, how much, how effective, and how much teeth is your little inquiry going to have if you can't even compel people to come and testify to what happened and what they know about this. So it's a real issue here. 00:50:41 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just such a joke all the way around. And actually you found this crystal. Even the media is beginning to report about how quote countless countless Democratic senators actually agreed. This comes from Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is a Democrat, speaking on NBA News last night. 00:51:01 Speaker 3: Let's take a listen. 00:51:03 Speaker 8: But this is not about us. This is about our country, and we have a crisis of honesty in Congress. I think that's fair to say, and I'm tired of serving with people who

say one thing privately and refuse to say the same thing publicly. If you took a survey of those in the Congress, both the House and Senate on this subject, I know what the results would be, and my colleagues know. But we have a culture of protecting ourselves at the expense of the country. 00:51:26 Speaker 1: In the Congress. Senators just to be clear, Congressman. 00:51:29 Speaker 8: Countless, absolutely, yes, absolutely, Okay, are. 00:51:32 Speaker 1: You prepared to name any of them here? 00:51:33 Speaker 8: No, I'm not going to hurde other people. They know who they are. 00:51:36 Speaker 9: You know that. 00:51:37 Speaker 8: My colleague Grocana, member of the California delegation, went first. I wasn't going to do this first, even though I felt this for some time. And again, this goes to a deeper problem, Kristen about members of Congress being honest. 00:51:48 Speaker 1: Culture of protecting ourselves at the expense of the country, well said, and yeah, behind the scenes, every one of them, including Nancy Pelosi, who's out there smearing Rokana and anyone else's sexist for daring to question whether Diane Feinstein should still be serving in this Senate seat. All of them want her to step down. They just don't want to say it publicly. So yeah, I mean that's what connorson Conna told us when he was here. He was like, Yeah, behind the scenes, they're all like, thank you, we agree. It's like, okay, we'll come out and say it. Come out and say it. There's one way that you could change the dynamics here if you had overwhelming pressure from the Democratic Caucus. There is a chance she would actually step down, but instead they're all too cowardly. 00:52:33 Speaker 2: You're totally right. It's a complete disgrace, this entire situation. It's one of those clear situations where everybody knows what's going on and nobody's saying it. And that is what makes Americans feel crazy. Yeah, how different and special that these people apparently are when they're supposed to be representing us. 00:52:50 Speaker 1: There's just a bunch of liars too, and that's that's it is what we're disgusting. This cover up has been going on for years now at this point, all right, I wanted to cover something that's unfolding. An IOA was part of actually kind of a trend of rolling back child labor law regulations, and I think Iowa is the state that has now passed the most aggressive rollback of child labor regulation. Let's put this up on the screen. More Perfect Union did a deep dive into this, including a video that I recommend you all check out, which tracks the roots of where this rollback came from. In surprise, surprise, it's a lot of business interests, including the National Restaurant Association, a lot of locally powerful business interests in the state as well, say the say breaking. The Iowa Senate passed a child labor law before dawn today. The bill lets fourteen year olds work six hour night shifts, fifteen year olds work on assembly lines, and sixteen and seventeen year olds serve alcohol. The Senate went through the night and voted on child labor at four fifty two am. I think it's important to note a couple of things here. So, first of all, because you have a relatively tight labor market, that's why all of these business interests have suddenly become like obsessively focused in rolling back child labor protections so that they can keep paying the low wages they become accustomed to paying, and not increase wages whatsoever to you know, try to attract actual adults who should be working in some of these very dangerous jobs. Right. It's also important to note I always minimum wages still seven to twenty five an hour. So if you can't attract the workers you need for your business without hiring a fourteen year old to work the overnight shift, maybe you should try increasing your wages and see what happens. Then. Child labor law violations have been up thirty seven percent since the pandemic. So even without these rollbacks, companies are taking upon themselves to violate child labor law or look the other way at the very least. And so there's been a huge spike in companies getting caught employing kids, including migrant kids, by the way, exploiting the fact that they're in a vulnerable situation. There's a big New York Times expose about that. So it's a very disturbing direction that these states are going in, something that honestly, I mean, is sort of shocking to see how far they're willing to go. And listen, I had summer jobs when I was fifteen years old as well, you know, but they weren't working in like a meat packing plant cleaning bone saws, or an assembly line or construction sites. That's another thing they want to open up to younger and younger kids. Was like lifeguarding and working at a like little fishing tackle store, right exactly. That was the sort of thing that I was doing over the summer when I was fifteen years old, not like working in a meat packing plant, which no fourteen or fifteen year old has a business store. 00:55:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we had parsed and say that like if it involves dangerous work, specifically overnight, then I don't think that that's really anything that we should know. But the one you know, you and I were talking about this yesterday, like sixteen seventeen year old serving alcohol, it's like whatever, you know, especially the bill I even says it says that you can if they could do it with the written permission of a parent or guardian. That's good work in many cases, like especially if you're most of the time you wouldn't even be serving as a bartender, assuming you'd be serving as like a bar back and then participating in a pool tips, so you know, the wages and the money you can even get from that would actually be kind of decent. And I do think this should probably be available to sixteen and seventeen year olds. 00:56:22 Speaker 3: But I think the issue is. 00:56:23 Speaker 2: That the over like the animus behind the bill is

about trying to circumvent wages for adults, correct, And that's the problem, which is that they are basically trying to do a backdoor way to pay people even less and open up the labor pool in an even worse case. You know, we're not even just talking about like illegal immigrants. We're talking about straight up children, and like, that's where I think some people should have the objection here, which is we shouldn't be there's one thing to want to care for kids and want them to do well and give them access to job, which I do agree with. Even in construction, you knows if you're not working as position. 00:57:00 Speaker 3: Like, I think that's fine. 00:57:01 Speaker 2: Construction is period, it depends, It depends on the job that you're doing. My point is that giving an apprenticeship and all that is one thing. Trying to game wage law, though, is actually a whole other one. 00:57:14 Speaker 1: To me, there are two pieces that are really important here. Number One, the type of dangerous jobs that they want to open up to fourteen and fifteen year olds, to me, is absolutely insane. Number Two, the fact that they want to increase the number of hours that they can work per week. And we're not talking about just like during the summer. We're talking about during the school year. And there's a lot of research about how anything over basically like twenty hours a week really starts to be very detrimental to kids' grades, ability to focus, ability to get the work done in terms of their school work, which is obviously the most critical thing that you should be, you know, dealing with and focusing on setting yourself up for the future when you're fourteen and fifteen years old. And then the other piece is, you know, allowing them to work later at night. Again that has a major impact on their ability to like focus and do what they need to do during the day at school. So those are the pieces that are to me unconscionable. I kind of tend to agree with you on the sixteen and seventeen year olds serving alcohol. I do want to give the other side of that though, to play Devil's advocate, which is like, Okay, well this is going to put like sixteen year olds in bars with a bunch of intoxicated. 00:58:15 Speaker 2: Adults, eighteen year olds in bars with intoxicated adults. 00:58:18 Speaker 1: It's a difference between sixteen and eighteen though. But yeah, I mean, listen, I kind of tend to agree with you on that one. Maybe I'd like to see some more restrictions about Like I wouldn't want them serving as like a bartender, right, so maybe put some more guardrails around that one. But in terms of assembly lines, meat packing plants, construction, allowing them into these very dangerous jobs long hours during the school week. And this again is not about the interests of these children or their parents or anybody other than the corporate interests who want to keep late wages as low as possible. And let me that's why I pulled this statistic, which I think is important context and backdrop here. Put this next piece up on the screen, which is that we actually had just now, median inflation adjusted weekly earnings of full time wage and salary workers were up in the first quarter of twenty twenty three, per the latest report, for the first time in two years, real wage growth has exited negative territory. So to translate that from kind of econ speak here, this is the first time, even when accounting for inflation, in quite a long time, that you've had actual wage growth. So of course every corporate interest in the entire country is like, oh my god, we can't have that. We got to keep being able to pay them pennies at seven to twenty five an hour, and we got to keep our fat profit margins, which continue to be at literal record levels. So what's our solution since unemployment is super low, Well, I guess we're going to have to bring fourteen and fifteen year olds into the workforce and allow them to work longer hours and overnight shifts and in dangerous areas. 00:59:55 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:59:56 Speaker 2: Look, in general, I just think an easy workaround to this would be like make sure you raised the minimum wage to something decent and then sure so like if kids want to work as bar backs, it's like, that's great in terms of as long as you're not trying to circumvent and pay less. Mostly I'm good with it as long as they're not in a dangerous position. I'm curious what other people think. I honestly don't know. Comment let us know what you think. All right, let's talk about UFOs big hearing that happened yesterday and led mostly by Senator Kirston Jill Brand. I have many critiques of Jill Brand, but on the UFO issue, she does genuinely seem to be passionate about it. She's been calling hearing, she's been very involved in a lot of people in the community feel as if she's actually trying to get to the bottom of this. I hear the same thing about Senator Rubio and a few other members of Congress who do seem again to actually want to get to the bottom. Now, there was some interesting testimony from the head of the new aa ARO office. I'll tell you what that means afterwards, but here's the main takeaway in terms of what they want us to know a little bit of a dual message around possible alien activity. 01:01:00 Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say. 01:01:01 Speaker 10: Arrow has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off world technology or objects that defy the known laws of physics. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously and subsequently commented on by the US government, I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit to research to credible, peer reviewed scientific journals. Arrow is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media. ERO is developing and implementing its science plan. It has to do so grounded in a solid foundation of scientific theory across the entire range of hypotheses that

have been presented for what UAP are. That range spans adversary breakthrough technology on one hand, known objects and phenomena in the middle, all the way to the extreme theories of extraterrestrials. 01:01:52 Speaker 2: So what did we learn from that? What I thought was interesting is at the very beginning is like, we have no evidence extraterrestrial activity defy laws of physics. And then a second thing, He's like, well, part of our hypothesis is that it could be extraterrestrial. It's one of those where they're trying again. They always try it together. We have no evidence that it is. It's like, well, you don't have any evidence that it isn't now in terms of what the possible terrestrial explanations are, I did think it was important for me to raise this. This has actually come from the Washington Post. Washing Posts finally got around actually looking at some of those leaks. One of the things that they talk about, Crystal is that the Chinese are currently reading a supersonic spy drone unit, which would go, let me see here, three times faster than the speed of sound, a high altitude spy drone one that has not yet been seen by adversary or technology, and clearly, if seen by the naked eye or somebody who's not in the military, would be amazed by you know, something is going mock three and is a high altitude drone, not man possibly a smaller object. So you could easily conceive of a civilian situation where you would think like, oh wow, that's something that we had a note about. 01:02:58 Speaker 3: But let's also remember many of. 01:03:00 Speaker 2: The videos that we have looked at happened well before this said drone doesn't even think it supposedly hasn't yet been deployed yet, so it's not like you can explain past incidents. You also have no evidence of Russian technology that comes even close to this. My personal view is well or in the fight. You know of their lives in Ukraine, So if they had some crazy tech, like, don't you think they would use it? 01:03:20 Speaker 3: They did. 01:03:21 Speaker 2: They used the hypersonic missile for no reason, you know, even though they didn't have an attack. 01:03:26 Speaker 3: A nuke on it. 01:03:27 Speaker 2: They have all kinds of stuff, you know, outside of nuclear technology. They've basically thrown everything they have at Ukraine. I just presume, like, if you're in a war which is depleting you supposedly, and you have tens of thousands of people to die, that you would reach for something that's not non nuclear and which is you know, a major step forward in terms of technology. You would think haven't seen anything like that. Those are really the only two countries even possibly capable of creating something like this. 01:03:52 Speaker 1: Well unless it's our own program that. Yeah, that's another policy on look. 01:03:56 Speaker 2: I mean that one is a counterfactual where there's just literally no way to do. 01:03:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what they I mean, it is annoying how they play. This is the same rhetorical game that they played, and like the media writeups of the analysis of these objects to be like, well, there's no evidence it's extracharge, but then there's also they can't point to any evidence of what it actually is. So you're really not ruling anything out here. It's very unhelpful. That's Wiley, it's just gaslighting effect. 01:04:20 Speaker 2: Next video is very important because this is one that was captured over the Middle East from twenty twenty two, where you can see clear drone footage of people who are on the ground and then a metallic spherical object that zooms through the frame and then is actually followed by the camera of which they have no idea what this thing is here, go ahead and watch it for yourself. 01:04:50 Speaker 11: You'll see it come through the top of the screen. There it goes, and then the camera will slew to follow it. You'll see it pop in and out of the screw field of view. 01:05:00 Speaker 6: There. 01:05:02 Speaker 11: This is essentially all of the data we have associated with this event from some years ago. It is going to be virtually impossible to fully identify that just based off of that video. 01:05:17 Speaker 2: They don't know what it is. They have no clue, they have no explanation. And look, you think it. You think we don't see consumer drones over Iraq all the time or the Middle East. I covered the Battle of Isis, I said, had all kinds of crazy Chinese made like DGI drones and stuff like that. That they were we know what a drone looks like. We know what a Chinese drone looks like. We know what Russian drone looks like. We know what consumer drones look like. We could they could easily rule it out and say we know exactly what that is. 01:05:47 Speaker 3: They have no idea what the hell is going on here. 01:05:49 Speaker 2: It fits with the Mozel orb photo that Jeremy Corbel has released. Apparently this is the second one that hadn't previously been seen. Now, look, is it proof? 01:05:57 Speaker 3: I don't know. 01:05:58 Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting, and I think the most important thing is we don't know what it is. I just wish that they would be more honest. I also thought that doctor Kirkpatrick or I forgot to tell everyone AAR is the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, you know, pentagons speak for UFOs. But the thing that annoyed me in his initial talk, he's like, this is not going to be solved by social media. This is not going to be He's like calling up basically people like us, people like other in the UFO community for building hype around it. It's like, here's the thing, man, we can't trust you to do any rigorous analysis, not after years of cover ups, not after years of lies. Really, all you can all we can trust, in my opinion, are the people outside looking at this independently. Also, it's not just the people who believe it's aliens, people like you know, even Mick West and other UFO debunkers. At least they are working in a frame where

they're being honest, they're being opened. They're trying to put things out there and then taking videos and analyzing them in their own way. Even if I don't necessarily agree with what they're saying, it's at least out here in a public domain, in a public sphere. You know, honestly, if you're a quote unquote UFO skeptic, nobody's done you more service. Then people like him who are out there giving you, you know, things that you can say of why you don't believe in the phenomenon. It's not the government that's actually helping you out. 01:07:19 Speaker 1: Yeah, well okay, so if it's not going to be solved by the like social media UFO, yeah, community, who that's the answer? No one, right. They don't like people digging around and doing their own thinking about this, doing their own research about this. Obviously, they're very agressive about shutting down any attempts that they possibly can, So, yeah, they want to keep control of whatever this investigation ultimately amounts to. 01:07:40 Speaker 3: At the end of the day, we just need more info. 01:07:42 Speaker 2: And you know, part of the thing piss me off here is he dangles like this one little video of this twenty twenty two from the twenty twenty two report from the Middle East drones, like we already know based on former public officials, they are sitting on s troves of videos, a photos, of evidence of so many different fascinating and interesting things that they cannot explain even you know, in ones where they have claimed that they could solve it through whether related incidents. It's like, we can't just take your word for it. You have to prove that. You have to prove exactly how you determined that this was a mirror photo or a collade or you know, an optical illusion or something you can't like, we cannot just take these people's word for it. So I think in every case we need a lot more transparency. 01:08:29 Speaker 3: You know, even this, I love how they're like blurring. 01:08:31 Speaker 2: Things out in the frame. I'm like, nobody cares. I'm sorry about It's not going to do any damage, I think to national security. So more info, more hearings. Thank you, Senator Jill Brand. Yeah, thank you people in the community who flagged these videos and some of this testimony for me. I thought it'd be an interesting update for all of you. 01:08:46 Speaker 1: If this is what they're willing to share, you can only imagine what they are secret. 01:08:50 Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. 01:08:51 Speaker 1: We had one more piece we wanted to add to the show last minute because our friends over the Lever broke a really big story that actually has now been picked up this morning the New York Times in regards to that Fox News settlement with dominion voting systems, which I should say we sort of predicted it was going to ultimately have it because there was no way Fox was going to allow like their entire prime time lineup to have to go and you know, sit under oath and testify about whatever

the hell was going on during the Stop the Steal era. So this settlement seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars sounds like a lot, right, Well maybe not so much. Why because they are able to deduct take a tax deduction on a significant amount of this payout. And that's the piece that the lever uncovered. Kudos to them, Our great partners put this up on the screen. So they say Fox can claim tax right off for defamation settlement. The company says it can deduct the cost of its seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars payment to Dominion over its election lies. Let me read you a little bit of the details here that they uncovered Fox's massive settlement with private equity back voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems. Didn't just spare the conservative news organization from a lengthy public defamation trial or a full public reckoning for its election lise, it could also mean a tax break as large as two hundred and thirteen million dollars. On Tuesday, Fox News and their parent company agreed to that defamation settlement as the largest known defamation payment in US history. So again you're going like, oh my god, it's a lot. Is significant. It's going to deter them from doing the same thing all over again. However, thanks to an arcane line in the tax code, Fox can deduct that settlement payment from its income taxes. According to a company spokesperson and tax experts consulted by the Lever, that's because federal law allows taxpayers to write off many legal costs, providing that they are ordinary and necessary business expenses. The IRS has repeatedly affirmed that for major corporations, paying out settlements is just part of the cost of doing business, and that's how they all look at this stuff. I mean, whether it's this, whether it's big Pharma. Not to mention, Fox may also have insurance that covers significant part of this. So not only are they able to do a tax write off over this as like the US taxpayer sort of like footing the bill for their own impropriety during the election, but also they may have insurance that covers a lot of this. So what does this ultimately amount to them? Probably not that much. 01:11:17 Speaker 2: And while they wouldn't be able to write off the part that's from insurance. They would then be able to deduct any increase in your premium that you would have from Now, I want people to think about when you do something that's not even your fault. This actually happened to me. My fiance was in the jeep that I had and it was t boned. Now the person, the person was clearly at fault, but you know she disputed it. The insurance company, you know whatever, no contact. So my premiums went up, Like, and it's not even my fault. Do I get to do I get to pay like? Or do I get to write off the increase of their premium? 01:11:54 Speaker 12: No? 01:11:55 Speaker 2: And that's when you're not even at fault. And let's say also, let's say you know, you do something stupid and you know, you dig somebody, you're back into somebody, et cetera, and you then have an increase in your prem do you get to write off that? 01:12:08 Speaker 9: Like? 01:12:08 Speaker 12: No? 01:12:09 Speaker 2: Why do these corporations get multi billion dollar write offs and all this stuff when average people who may even have an insurance premium go up through zero fault of their. 01:12:17 Speaker 3: Own don't get to do anything. 01:12:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's completely ridiculous. 01:12:20 Speaker 7: Yeah. 01:12:21 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:12:21 Speaker 1: Also the fact that the corporation putting aside this like Fox situation, but the corporation, the corporate entity always absorbs all the blows and there's like very little, almost never is there any personal accountability for executives, like for example, in the two thousand and eight financial crash, for the executives who were making the decisions behind the scenes, they just skate scot free. The corporate insurance handles it, they write off it's a big tax deduction, and then next time around, you know what, this this was successful for their business. Ultimately, they kept their audience. They sort of pushed off the Newsmax and one American news threat. You don't think they're going to do these same exact calculus all over again. Based on this math, it seems like it's working out for them. And the other indicator that the New York Times, which cites the Levers reporting, I mean again, kudo's the lever Because you got all these giant news outlets, none of them pursued this angle of the story, which is incredibly important for understanding how this all unfold and what it will mean for Fox News and other media organizations going forward. So they cite their reporting here, but they also note that, you know, Fox's stock is barely budge since the deal was announced on Tuesday, so their shareholders don't think this is a problem, this historic seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar defamation settlement. Their show shareholders are shrugging this off as no big deal again, just cost of doing business. So quite extraordinary, quite revealing of exactly who our society is set up to benefit, who basically can get away with anything, with any sort of behavior and pay literally no cost here. 01:13:53 Speaker 2: Right, well, said Crystal. Very well, sir, and funny. Kudos to the lever for exposing this. What a bs you know, SYSM. Yeah, sometimes I just look, it just makes me so angry, you know, to think about it. I'm like, like I get to write. Imagine if you could write off. 01:14:07 Speaker 3: Increase of your premiums. 01:14:09 Speaker 2: Think about that. Can imagine if you could do. 01:14:11 Speaker 1: This like Purdue Farm, all the farm that like, know that they're injuring people, know that people are getting addicted, whatever. And but again they just see it as like, well, we're gonna you know, we'll have the profits on this side, We'll be able to write write off any settlements. We have to come to with the

families or with the governments or whoever. So cost of doing business, I guess it's worth it, or the banks. I could go on and on. Yeah, yes, man, all right, Sager are looking. 01:14:35 Speaker 2: At There's been a lot written about Elon Musk's interview with Tucker Carlson, almost none of it having to do with the interview and most about going on the show in the first place, but perhaps the most interesting part focused on AI and the original motivations for Elon's involvement with open AI in the past, and sparks by a shocking conversation with the co founder of Google, Larry Page that he revealed Let's take a listen. 01:15:00 Speaker 5: The reason open I exists at all is that Larry Paige and I used to beak close friends, and I to day his house in Palo Alto, and I talk to him late to the night about AI safety, and at least my perception was that Larry was not taking AI safety seriously enough and. 01:15:17 Speaker 6: What did he say about it? He really seemed to be. 01:15:21 Speaker 5: One sort of digital superintelligence's basically digital god, if. 01:15:24 Speaker 6: You will, as soon as possible, if he wanted that. 01:15:28 Speaker 5: Yes, he's made many cooler statements over the years that the whole build Google is what's called a GI artificial general intelligence or official superintelligence. But no, and I agree with him that there's great potential for God, but there's also potential for bad. And so if you've got some radical new technology, you want to try to take a set actions that maximize probably it will do good, minimize probably will do bad things. 01:15:50 Speaker 2: There's a lot going on there. So Larry Page wants to create a digital god without regard for its possible effect on humanity. 01:15:56 Speaker 3: This is terrifying. 01:15:57 Speaker 2: And now that we've seen multiple stories of large life which model programs like Chatchipt and bing Sydney do just weird and bonker stuff like try to make it journalists fall in love with them, or make up sexual assault allegations against someone. All of us can kind of agree we do need control over AI. The problem is that when we say control, not all of us are agreeing on the same thing. For example, here is Elon's view of what is wrong with AI, and specifically Chatchipt. 01:16:23 Speaker 12: The intention with OPII was observing good, but it's not clear whether it's actually doing good or whether it's I Can's helpless point except that I'm worried about the fact that it's it's been trained to be poletically corrected, which is something another way of being saying on truthful things. 01:16:39 Speaker 5: Yes, so that's not a bad sign. 01:16:41 Speaker 12: That's really a path too. 01:16:42 Speaker 6: I just ope. 01:16:43 Speaker 2: So there's more. In that interview where Elon talks about how Open Eye is now closed it's a multidillion dollar organization with Microsoft for profit. It lays out the case actually pretty well, and in fact, the objection is that AI is not programmed to be truthful enough, and as political correctness hardwired into it. Now, imagine a world where you do go to a future Google or a Bing for an answer to your question, and you get one that seems right but is actually completely distorted version of the truth vetted for you by the mainstream media and the politically correct. And we already live in a reality that somewhat resembles that, but the Internet at least empowers some of us to fight back. This would simply completely solidify total control for them. The problem that we really have, though, is that when the other side talks about AI safety and regulation, they don't actually care about any of this. In fact, their objection is that chatch ept and AI is not politically correct enough, and they actually want the government to set the terms exactly of how politically correct they should be. Take the new so called AI Bill of Rights. It's released by the Biden administration recently. The document lays out the Biden administration's vision of how AI should be governed, including quote, safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination, data, privacy, notice and explanation, human alternatives, consideration, and fallback on their face, all lost on fine like corporate speak. But the one that immediately raises my eyebrow is algorithmic discrimination. 01:18:06 Speaker 3: Let's read further like clockwork. 01:18:08 Speaker 2: The first sentence of the document includes the buzzword d jore equity. If you have not yet heard of equity, I encourage you all to go watch my previous monologue on Tuesday about how it effectively in many cases entails being so woke you're racist, forcing people towards desired social outcomes. 01:18:24 Speaker 3: But let's continue. 01:18:25 Speaker 2: Sentence number two reads, quote, Algorithmic discrimination occurs when automated systems contribute to unjustified different treatment or impacts disfavoring people based on their race, color, ethnicity, sex, including pregnancy, childbirth related medical conditions, gender identity, intersex status, sexual orientation, religion, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other possible classification. 01:18:47 Speaker 3: Protected by law. 01:18:49 Speaker 2: Quite a mouthful. 01:18:49 Speaker 3: I'm glad that they fit all of them in there. 01:18:51 Speaker 1: Now. 01:18:51 Speaker 2: Now, this is per the Biden administration, how AI should quote include proactive equity assessments as part of the system design and would constantly need to be independently evaluated by the government to ensure that companies are producing equitable AI outcomes. In other words, that's social engineering. That's more political correctness. That is some sort of weird nineteen eighty four language board full of nonprofits and governments who get to decide which group is now not allowed to be criticized and then program that into AI. This is what they mean when they say

regulation. If you didn't want more evidence of what the left establishment actually wants for the new AI regime, look at this. This is a new declaration from Open Philanthropy. It's a technology nonprofit. It's funded by several left wing, left aligned multi billionaires in Silicon Valley. Some of their new propositions for AI regulation sound fine like software export controls, but some hint at total dystopia. One proposition, for example, is to have some sort of government implanted chip and inside AI systems. 01:19:52 Speaker 3: The chip would. 01:19:53 Speaker 2: Monitor the AI at all times and shut it off if they deem it to be going off rag. Now again, you can actually world where that could be justified. But you could also see one where would be one of the greatest tools for control ever devised. Number four, too, is about licensing. All companies that want to work on AI create some sort of registry. Here, again, we have an easily gamable system. Consider we already have two of the largest companies on planet Earth competing in this space, Microsoft and Google. You think they won't fight tooth and nail to make sure the only ones with a license. Note I am just trying to poke holes in every argument here. I don't have any idea what to think. On the one hand, I am terrified of a Matrix like scenario unchecked and unchecked power. On the other, terrified if some oligarchic arrangement where a few tech companies controlled by the government a nonprofit industrial complex have a monopoly on information and use it to push their social agenda on the American people and really the world. They're equally terrifying to me, and my view is one I've laid out here yesterday. But I see people, very few people pushing for AI should be pro human, should have enforcement mechanisms with them, and to assure they're always being working towards a tool, not towards supplant us. I think AI should be required to stay within the balance of the First Amendment here in the United States, and only the First Amendment should also be required not. 01:21:09 Speaker 3: To deviate from it. 01:21:10 Speaker 2: In other words, no equity manipulation, nonsense, the truth, and robust actual competition meaning rigorous antitrust enforcement to ensure that what happened to the Internet from nineteen ninety to twenty ten does ever happen again. Centralized control of the next generation of tech in the hands of very few in the ideologically captured personally, I really don't think that's going to happen. The most likely scenario is the one that really exists today social media and tech, total ideological regulatory capture, effective control over the most powerful sector of the economy. But at the very least, let's hope and try to make sure that doesn't go that way again, because if it does, we could really all be in for a bad time. It's really hard, Crystal right, because you can see there's downside to everything there. 01:21:56 Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue, become a pre Damium subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. 01:22:06 Speaker 3: What are you taking a look at? 01:22:07 Speaker 1: Well, guys, smelling blood in the water. Former President Trump has opened up a new front in his war against Ron DeSantis, torching him relentlessly over the Florida governor's ongoing battle with Disney, and especially the humiliating spectacle of DeSantis getting outplayed by the mouse. Now, before I get into this whole thing, let me just promise by preface by saying there is no one to root for here. DeSantis is hitting an unaccountable giant corporation in Disney, but he's doing it in the dumbest possible way for the dumbest possible reasons. Disney has humiliated Dasantis, which is kind of satisfying to see, but their power does legitimately deserve to be checked and their hollow virtue signaling exposed. Trump is also torching DeSantis, which is also kind of satisfying, but in doing so is standing on the side of unchecked corporate power. So it is all a bit tangled here. I suppose that is what makes the story interesting to me, though, all right, quick refresher on how we got here. Desanta's passed the Don't Say Gay Bill, which was basically a way to set signal his anti grumor cred in the right wing culture war. Dujore. Disney, with a large gay fan base, has long billed itself as LGBTQ friendly. Under pressure, they belatedly put out some weak ass statement against the bill and cut off GP donations. Spotting an opportunity to bolster his anti woke cred, DeSantis and his alleys then went on the attack against Disney and their so called wokeness. In particular, DeSantis targeted the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which has since the sixties basically allowed Disney to govern itself, including taxing themselves, loving bonds, green lighting infrastructure, running fire and police stations. Even provided Disney with the rights to build a nuclear power plant should they ever desire to do so. Unaccountable taxpayer backed corporate power is indeed wrong and bad. But after patting himself on the back for his big alpha male energy, DeSantis took his eye off the ball, and the giant corporation did what giant corporations do in America. They took power, and a publicly noticed meeting, the still Disney backed Reedy Creek Board granted a massive development deal to Disney. This effectively handed all control of the region back to the big corporation mere weeks before DeSantis cronies were set to take control of that board. Now, Disney's maneuver immediately turned what had been a winning hand for DeSantis with the GOP base into a potentially disastrous catastrophe. He scrambled to respond with some fake blusters, suggesting perhaps the building state prison next to Disney take a listen to that. 01:24:22 Speaker 13: You're not going to have Disney have its own government in Central Florida. They're going to live under the same laws as everybody else. 01:24:28 Speaker 3: What should

we do with this land? 01:24:30 Speaker 13: And so you know, it's like okay, I mean people have said, you know, maybe maybe have another maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks. Someone even said like maybe you need another state prison. 01:24:44 Speaker 6: Who knows. 01:24:44 Speaker 13: I mean, I just think that the possibilities are our end list. 01:24:51 Speaker 1: I wasn't the only one who can smell the desperation here and every single DeSantis and me immediately pounced twenty twenty four hopeful Nikki Haley and potential presidential can ends, Chris Christy and chrisni Sanu Nu they all got in on the action. So Nunu accused DeSantis of just going after a headline saying the fight convolutes the entire Republican message. Hailey's super pac called it an embarrassing blow and mocked DeSantis's desperate attempt to regain the alpha position by suggesting he might build a prison next to Disney. Nikki Haley, I guess kicking sideways there. After all, here in part is what Chris Christy had to say. 01:25:24 Speaker 9: I'm all for the use, the appropriate use of governmental power to achieve latable goals. And when you're the governor of a state, and our governorship is constitutionally the most powerful governorship of the country, the New Jersey governorship has enormous authority, and I loved using the levers of that authority to be able to accomplish things. But can you put someone in that position or have a composition to president. If you're going to use those levers, you've got to look around the corners to see what the result of that will be for him to have taken the action he took against Disney and did not have foreseen that Disney was going to do what they did in response, which was to completely take over the millions and millions of acres, and his any decisions of that before they got the authority. Well, I'll tell you this much, that's not the guy I want sitting at cars for President g and negotiating our next agreement with China. We're sitting at cars for Putin and trying to resolve with having Ukraine. If you can't see around the corner that Bob Ig're creating for you. 01:26:15 Speaker 1: So for their park, Disney had already troll DeSantis showed they were not remotely deterred by announcing they will host the largest LGBTQ plus conference in the world at their Florida park just this summer. Now, to be honest, even though Disney busting DeSantis is embarrassing, the governor is clearly struggling to figure out how to improve his now very poor position. I still would have bet on the Disney fight being a net benefit for the governor. With the Republican base base that really couldn't care less about what Nikki Hiali or Chris Christy or christ the New New things about this or any other matter really, But now the big dog has weighed in the way that only he can. In a post on truth social Trump trash, DeSantis writing Dysanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney. His original pr plan fizzled, so now he's going back with a new one in order to save face. Disney's next move will be the announcement that no more money will be invested in Florida because of the governor. In fact, they could even announce a slow withdrawal or sale of certain properties or the whole thing watch that would be a killer. In the meantime, this is also unnecessary a political stunt. Ron should work on the squatter mess. Now. The political dynamics of this, to me are kind of fascinating. The more upscale chamber of commerce part of the Republican Party that is Governor DeSantis's more natural base, they don't like his move here because it's anti business. And the more downscale populist part of the Republican Party that probably initially liked the anti Disney fight is the most likely to be swayed by Trump trashing DeSantis over it and basically calling him a cock. And let's face it, the GOP base is basically held together by vibes and aesthetics at this point, so if you get branded a cuck and a loser, the details really won't matter all that much. At its core, the whole situation reveals how confused, listless, and chaotic the Republican Party is right now. The new goal of standing out up to quote unquote wont capital exists very uneasily along the other longtime goal of giving giant corporations literally everything they could possibly want at every turn, and so lacking any coherent organizing philosophy, the center of gravity and political sentiment generally moves whoever wins the latest alpha male dickswinging contest. Whatever happens with Disney, that is not a fight that DeSantis can win. I'm clearly not the only one who sees it that way. As we covered earlier, Trump just rolled down a whole newslate of endorsements from Florida Republicans. Florida Republicans six members now eight of Florida's congressional delegation are officially backing Trump, including several who are not hard Trump loyalists, and should have been imminently gettable for DeSantis. I suppose they can read the vibes in the polls as well as anyone else. As DeSantis once said, just look at the scoreboard. So, Sager, I just read this morning that apparently, you know, DeSantis is trying to make some legislative moves to roll back that deal. 01:28:51 Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. 01:29:00 Speaker 1: Very excited to introduce our next guest, who I actually grew up with but has become a big time sports radio host. He's always been a huge sports fan, and especially a huge Washington sports fan, Grant Paulson. He is host of the Grant and Danny Show on one of six to seven the Fan, and he joins us now to talk about whatever is happening with the latest commander's sale story. So great to see you, Grant. 01:29:22 Speaker 6: Welcome, Great to you, man, Great to you, good, good to meet you. Yes, absolutely happy to be here. How are you guys? 01:29:27 Speaker 2: Very good? 01:29:28 Speaker 1: So Dan

Snyder has been like the worst NFL owner in history, and the team is now up for sale, which you know. I'm a long time suffering Washington sports fan as you are as well, and so I've been following a little bit loosely what is going on here? My understanding is it looked like they had a deal and things were kind of proceeding normally, and then there was this curveball thrown in at the last minute of an all cash offer, where I was like, but where is this money actually coming from? And there are now rumors put this up on the screen that this all cash offer maybe coming from Saudi Arabia. So give us the details of what exactly is going on here, Grant. 01:30:05 Speaker 7: Yeah, So, for a little while, as you said, it did seem like this was going to be a moderately normal sale, although there's not a whole lot normal about it. Very rarely do owners sell teams that they don't want to sell. But what has happened here is that Dan Snyder, either by way of force or some force, is being told he can no longer own the Commander's best we could tell by way of the National Football League and other owners. After he is being investigated by an all the way up to the house Oversight Committee Virginia, Maryland has investigated him. There was an ESPN report that the FBI was looking into possible bank fraud because he didn't have his minority owners sign off on a loan they were supposed to sign off on before he bought them out to buy the entire team. 01:30:47 Speaker 6: He owned sixty percent. 01:30:48 Speaker 7: Now he owns one hundred percent after buying those owners out for forty percent. So there have been so many investigations, so many headaches for the league recently that they want Dan Snyder, who as you said, has done a very poor job running the team on the field and off the field for twenty four years out. So he is in the process of selling and it looks like we are almost at the finish line with an actual bid and real money from Josh Harris, who owns the Philadelphia seventy six ers in the NBA, New Jersey Devil's in the NHL. There's a billionaire he's working with, Mitchell Rails out of DC. These two guys are combined with former basketball icon and legend Magic Johnson and thirteen other people to try to buy this team out of nowhere. Though there is a gentleman named Brian Davis, who is a former star basketball player in college at Duke, who had a cup of coffee in the NBA, who apparently has, as you said, engaged now in trying to buy this team with what he says is his money. He claims he can offer seven billion dollars in cash. He claims he can additionally offer another two billion dollars to do some different things that need to be done with the stadium and some other financing. And he says he currently has ten billion dollars in the bank account that that he recently got from what he calls not investors, but partners. And so, as you guys can imagine, when there's no recent record via Forbes or any kind of valuation of this person being worth this

kind of money. Oprah Winfrey's worth two billion, Tiger Woods is worth a little over a billion, Donald Trump's worth two point five. You look at some of the people and what they're worth, and then this guy says he's got ten billion dollars who nobody's heard of? 01:32:25 Speaker 6: How is this a thing? 01:32:26 Speaker 7: And so when you start digging into that, there are major questions. 01:32:29 Speaker 3: Okay, got it? 01:32:30 Speaker 2: And so then in terms of the bidding process, forgive me. I'm not entirely familiar. 01:32:35 Speaker 3: Are they like? 01:32:36 Speaker 2: Is Snyder required to entertain all bids? Is this more of a media process? I had read previously like Bezos was interested but because Snyder didn't like Bezos. It's not like a shareholder corporation as I understand it, where they have to entertain all bids regardless of whether they like them or not. 01:32:54 Speaker 7: So you're correct, it's not that different, maybe than selling your house initially, where Dan Snyder can sell to he wants to. Here's the problem with that, though twenty four NFL owners, there are thirty one of them, because the Packers don't technically have one, twenty four of the thirty one are going to have to sign off on whoever this new owner is to welcome them into their club. So, as an example, when Dan Snyder bought the team over two decades ago, there was actually a person that had agreed to buy the team from the previous owner, John ken Cook, who didn't get approved by the National Football League. They said no to that person. Snyder swooped in and got universally accepted as an owner, which I'm sure they regret now. 01:33:35 Speaker 6: But yet he could sell to whoever he wants to. 01:33:37 Speaker 7: I guess theoretically as long as he thinks the money is legit, or maybe as he gets ready to pack up shop he's already it seems like living in or going to be living in London, maybe taking his money and leaving. He could say, you guys ran me out of here. The fans hate me. I don't care what kind of shambles I leave you in. I'll sell to whoever I want. The problem with that is that the League would never approve someone who just fell into billions of dollars. And we actually had this guy, Brian Davis on our radio station yesterday for a thirty plus minute interview that was somewhere between fascinating and riveting and comical. Where I mean, there are just so many unanswered questions where he has said he sold his intellectual property for fifty billion dollars, which again just common sense would say, if George Lucas is worth five billion dollars, how is this person that nobody knew a couple of weeks ago, somehow selling his intellectual property for fifty billion, which he explains away is he has a business that creates business and he was able to get someone to buy in on a very small scale at a big amount, which now makes them worth this much larger amount when you extrapolated out, it just doesn't make a lot of sense, but it has been a

fascinating diversion to It looks like a sale to the Harris Rails group that could be happening imminently. 01:34:54 Speaker 1: Huh. So the Saudi rumors that they're the ones who are really behind this, which you know, makes some logical sense. Obviously they've invested in what I would characterize is basically it's like sportswashing with the big live golf play. Are those just rumors or is there anything to back that up? 01:35:11 Speaker 6: So so far they're just rumors. 01:35:13 Speaker 7: I mean, he point blank on the radio yesterday said that that wasn't the case, and what was kind. 01:35:17 Speaker 6: Of an awkward exchange. 01:35:19 Speaker 7: Right, Let's start with the fact that when he initially said he had this money, I think everyone believed. 01:35:24 Speaker 6: That he didn't. He has, what I. 01:35:26 Speaker 7: Have been told by folks in the media been able to at least partially try to prove that this money is in an account somewhere. Okay, so he claims not only that he has the money, but then the idea was well if you have money, it's not your money. Who are you trying to buy this team on behalf of He says, it is my money. 01:35:44 Speaker 6: This is his opinion. He says, this is my. 01:35:46 Speaker 7: Money they paid me for essentially my company. I can now do what I want with this cash. So the thought was, Okay, who is backing this and it's an anonymity, we don't know. I think that's where some of the rumors the thoughts came from. As you said, based on the landscape right now, based on what we're seeing with the live tour, people suggested maybe it is Saudi Arabian. 01:36:06 Speaker 6: He adamantly said it wasn't. 01:36:09 Speaker 7: And his comment on the radio, which was I thought very weird, was that the money came from white people, as he put it. He then said that he said it was a Jewish Italian and Sicilian was what he suggested. 01:36:23 Speaker 1: That was his words, but is a weird way to characterize it. 01:36:28 Speaker 6: It was very odd. 01:36:29 Speaker 7: I will say again, the interview was something. It was really good radio. I don't I don't know what else it was, but it left a lot of people with a lot of questions. But he says he doesn't want people saying it's it's from Saudi Arabian money. He said it's not the case. But he also claims, I mean, he claimed a lot of things. He said that, you know again, intellectual properties worth fifty billion. He's already been paid ten billion for it. Now here's the big question. I think there's there's two parts of this. Number One, does he actually have the money? He says it come clean? Number Two, would the league, ever, let's say he does have the money, let's say somethhow he got the money. Would the league sell the team to this person? And that's where, guys, all along my answer has been no. I will badly apologize to him very loudly in a megaphone when he buys the team. 01:37:17 Speaker 6: I'm not going to start writing that apology. 01:37:19 Speaker 1: Yeah wow, And Grant, finally, a bigger picture question take us through, like what has happened to this franchise. I mean, this one used to be one of the most valuable, if not the most valuable sports franchise in the entire world. As you said, the tenure under Snyder has just been one disaster effectively after another, both on the field and you know, in terms of personnel, in the way that the business side has been run like, what is the state of this enterprise at this point? 01:37:46 Speaker 6: It's incredible. 01:37:47 Speaker 7: I mean, Chris, I won't bore people too much with the football element of this, but I will say that you could literally teach a four hundred level course and frankly, somebody should on how not to run a business by just wining to what has become of this organization. When we were growing up in the DC area two plus decades ago, this team was one of the most successful pillars of a sport that owns a day of the week, right, I mean, the Washington Redskins brand as a three time Super Bowl champion was iconic in sports. It was right there with any of the big teams, the Yankees and the Dodgers. 01:38:28 Speaker 6: He takes over this team. 01:38:29 Speaker 7: They are among the elite in ticket sales and attendance, and they have a new stadium, and they are among the best. It's a top ten media market in the country in TV ratings. They have been dead last the last two seasons in attendance and specifically this last year dead last. Think about that their TV numbers have dropped off and cratered so much that there are times in their TV window in the DC area where they get outdrawn by the Ravens in Baltimore or a random AFC. I mean, these things would be utterly unfathomable. And it's most specifically, and I think directly because of people's hatred for this owner. They have decided, I will not put a penny in this person's pocket. I'm not going to buy tickets, I'm not going to buy gear. Subsequently, they have had to change their name, which is a massive story both in and outside of sports obviously, but there are plenty of fans who have left and will never come back because of that. That just happened within the last few years and also can be tied back to probably Dan Snyder, who, rather than having the name and just proceeding quietly this losing team, he was very vocal they would never change the name. In a USA Today story said right in all caps, will never change the name and basically egged on the idea that wouldn't happened. 01:39:48 Speaker 6: He lost that battle, but a couple. 01:39:50 Speaker 7: Of years ago, forty plus employees came forward to say they've been harassed. Some have an alleged assault directly against Dan Snyder sexually. This has been a person that for decades, the only team in the NFL that hasn't won eleven games while he's on the team. They have two playoff wins in his twenty four seasons. One of them was his first year taking over when someone else built the roster. Just one playoff win since. On the field, horrific, and it's been better on the field where they were arguably the worst team in the league under his watch. Ben Off the field, whereas I said, he's been investigated over the last few months by Congress Virginia Maryland DC, and apparently according to the ESPN, you know, the FBI has been looking into some of his practices financially, so you know, the allegations are bountiful, and fans just kind of got fed up of trying to explain themselves. 01:40:43 Speaker 6: To be in the bunt of a joke. 01:40:44 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I can result I can say for myself personally, and I used to be a religious watcher of Redskins, grew up in the whole fandom, super committed. I mean, it just becomes exhausting. Really, this is not worth my time, It's not worth my emotional investment. Like, I'm done here, got other things that I need to do with my life. 01:41:03 Speaker 7: Sports are supposed to be fun, right, Like, people listen to my show occasionally because either something in the world or news or politics whatever. 01:41:11 Speaker 6: Sometimes can get to be too much. 01:41:13 Speaker 7: So you come to me for a little bit of a diversion and we'll talk about the Nats throwing a good game or the Redskins now Commanders winning a football game. It got to a point, to your point where it was exhausting, it was work like being a fan of the team literally stopped being fun. And when that happens as a sports entity, you are done and dance night. 01:41:36 Speaker 1: So true, so true. Grant Paulson, Pride of King George County, Virginia. Where can people find you and listen to your show? 01:41:42 Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm on social at Grant H. Paulson. 01:41:45 Speaker 7: If you like sports and movie and food takes those are my three category that I stink too. 01:41:51 Speaker 2: Congrats on your success. We really appreciate you joining us. 01:41:54 Speaker 3: Man thing. 01:41:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so great to see you. 01:41:56 Speaker 6: Same to you, guys. Keep up the great work. 01:41:57 Speaker 1: Yeah you too. 01:41:59 Speaker 2: Thank you guys so much for watching. We really appreciate it. As we said at the top of the show, if you can help us out while we're building this new studio, biggest expense ever in the history of Breaking Points, more so than when we even launched the show itself, building up for twenty twenty four and more. 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