Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 4/22/26: Fed Chair Nominee Grilled, Data Center Revolt, CIA Officers Die In Mexico, VA Redistricting

Transcript

4/22/26: Fed Chair Nominee Grilled, Data Center Revolt, CIA Officers Die In Mexico, VA Redistricting · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:34
Speaker 3: The battle for the Federal Reserve played out in the
0:36
Speaker 3: Senate yesterday, but the morning started with Donald Trump himself
0:40
Speaker 3: on CNBC commenting in an interview with Joe Kernan extensively
0:45
Speaker 3: on the war with Ron. We covered that earlier in
0:47
Speaker 3: the show, but he also talked about oil prices. Let's
0:50
Speaker 3: go ahead rule this clip see one.
0:53
Speaker 4: And they said, Wow, that's going to be bad. I said, yeah,
0:55
Speaker 4: it's going to hurt the market and it's going to
0:58
Speaker 4: drive up the price of oil whatever it is. But
1:01
Speaker 4: that's peanuts compared to what would happen if we let
1:03
Speaker 4: this happen, And I told them forty seven years other
1:06
Speaker 4: presidents wanted to do it, they never had the guts.
1:08
Speaker 3: Okay, so that'll hit a lot of Americans, I'm sure
1:12
Speaker 3: as callous at best. But interestingly, Donald Trump himself has
1:16
Speaker 3: been agitating for the FED to cut rates for a
1:19
Speaker 3: long time. But now he promised Americans he was going
1:22
Speaker 3: to bring down inflation, he was going to be the
1:25
Speaker 3: anti Biden, and now with prices going up, his pick
1:28
Speaker 3: for FED chair was in front of the Senate yesterday,
1:32
Speaker 3: and obviously Trump trying to squeeze in his FED chair
1:37
Speaker 3: is an effort to get the rates cut. The war
1:40
Speaker 3: in Iran completely changes the calculus on whether or not
1:45
Speaker 3: that's a good idea. So, Elizabeth Warren, this is Kevin Worsh.
1:49
Speaker 3: If you haven't been following the situation surrounding Worsh, we closely.
1:57
Speaker 5: Other than if you said yes to this yeah, well,
2:00
Speaker 5: actually never mind, we don't need to know anything else
2:01
Speaker 5: about it. He said yes to this job under these
2:05
Speaker 5: circumstances and conditions, we don't need to know anything else.
2:08
Speaker 3: I mean, he's like a fellow at the Hoover Institution,
2:13
Speaker 3: Stanford Grad School. He's a pretty it's to me at least,
2:16
Speaker 3: he seems like he's a pretty conventional Republican pick for
2:20
Speaker 3: the FED, except for.
2:21
Speaker 6: The fact that he said yes to this.
2:23
Speaker 3: Well there's that, and he was trying to play that
2:26
Speaker 3: he was. He was a member of the Board of
2:27
Speaker 3: Governors over at the Reserve System from two thousand and
2:30
Speaker 3: six until twenty eleven. He was the Fed's rep to
2:33
Speaker 3: the Group to the G twenty and their emissary to
2:37
Speaker 3: the Emerging in Advanced Economies in Asia. So he's had
2:40
Speaker 3: all kinds of these official titles employment.
2:44
Speaker 6: I'm impressed.
2:45
Speaker 3: He was a Special Assistant to the President for econ
2:47
Speaker 3: policy in the Bush administration. So two thousand and two
2:51
Speaker 3: that went fine, doesn't do two thousand and six. And
2:53
Speaker 3: then he was doing M and A at Morgan Stanley
2:57
Speaker 3: and then vice President Executive director over at Morgan's.
2:59
Speaker 5: Day how the Bush administration economic policy, and that was good.
3:03
Speaker 6: I was fine.
3:04
Speaker 3: Everything was crap o good. And as far as I'm aware,
3:07
Speaker 3: Donald Trump is a fan of the work of the
3:09
Speaker 3: Bush administration on the country, so he is. He was
3:13
Speaker 3: obviously getting grilled.
3:14
Speaker 6: Now.
3:14
Speaker 3: Trump started this investigation into corruption at the FED over
3:18
Speaker 3: this massive, this massive renovation that's going on next to
3:25
Speaker 3: the White House. Actually I was there that day he
3:27
Speaker 3: toured the FED renovation with Powell and Tim Scott. Yeah,
3:31
Speaker 3: I was a new media pool. There's like eight of
3:34
Speaker 3: us in the this like scorching hot, and Trump and
3:38
Speaker 3: Powell are standing next to each other. Tim Scott's third wheeling,
3:41
Speaker 3: and you could have cut the tension with a knife.
3:43
Speaker 3: It was deeply uncomfortable. And at the time I asked Trump, well,
3:47
Speaker 3: why aren't you just if you're saying that all of
3:49
Speaker 3: these these interest rates are hurting American families so badly,
3:52
Speaker 3: and you're threatening to fire him at one point, why
3:55
Speaker 3: not just do it now? And Trump said, well, I
3:56
Speaker 3: don't think it's come to that. This was playing out.
4:01
Speaker 3: Democrats are having a field day with us, of course,
4:03
Speaker 3: as you can imagine yesterday. So let's go ahead and roll.
4:06
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren laying into Kevin Walsh. See two.
4:10
Speaker 7: Bunk has made clear that he does not want an
4:13
Speaker 7: independent FED. In fact, he has said, and I quote,
4:16
Speaker 7: anybody that disagrees with me will never be FED chairman.
4:21
Speaker 7: And he's made clear that you are his sock puppets,
4:24
Speaker 7: saying last week that interest rates will drop. Quote when
4:27
Speaker 7: Kevin gets in Yeah, I think they do. Not when
4:31
Speaker 7: economic conditions change will get lower rates. Not when the
4:35
Speaker 7: economy needs it. Nope, he said, When my die Kevin
4:39
Speaker 7: Walsh is in there, we'll get the interest rates that
4:42
Speaker 7: I Donald Trump wants.
4:44
Speaker 8: So independence takes courage.
4:46
Speaker 7: Let's check out your independence and your courage. We'll start easy,
4:50
Speaker 7: mister Walsh, did Donald Trump lose the twenty twenty election?
4:56
Speaker 8: We try to keep politics if I'm confirmed out of
4:58
Speaker 8: the fund.
4:59
Speaker 7: I'm just asking a fact one question I need to know.
5:01
Speaker 7: I need to measure your independence and your courage.
5:05
Speaker 8: Senator, I believe that this body certified that election many
5:08
Speaker 8: years ago.
5:09
Speaker 7: That's not the question I'm asking. I'm asking did Donald
5:12
Speaker 7: Trump lose in twenty twenty?
5:13
Speaker 8: Man, I'm suggesting you in your huge inflation problem, and
5:19
Speaker 8: you certified the election. So let me ask another. Out
5:22
Speaker 8: of monetary policies and army, you.
5:24
Speaker 7: Have one hundred million dollars in undisclosed assets. And what
5:28
Speaker 7: I'm asking is, are any of those with this outfit
5:32
Speaker 7: that invests in companies affiliated with President Trumper's family, companies
5:39
Speaker 7: that have facilitated money laundering Chinese control companies or financing
5:44
Speaker 7: vehicles set up by Jeffrey Epstein's.
5:46
Speaker 8: Yes or no question, Senator, I have worked tirelessly with
5:49
Speaker 8: the ethics officials at the Office of Government, and you
5:52
Speaker 8: have not and have a greed, Senator, to sell all
5:58
Speaker 8: of my assets.
6:00
Speaker 7: Mister to tell us if you have investments, for example,
6:07
Speaker 7: in vehicles set up to advance Jeffrey Epstein, is that
6:11
Speaker 7: what you're telling us?
6:11
Speaker 8: You just won't tell us. Center. What I'm telling you
6:15
Speaker 8: is that those assets that you represent at Juggernaut will
6:18
Speaker 8: be sold if I'm confirmed before let me follow us
6:21
Speaker 8: and sign the oath of all.
6:23
Speaker 3: So that was a pretty representative flavor of how the
6:25
Speaker 3: hearing went yesterday. Now CNN on that one hundred million
6:28
Speaker 3: dollars in assets reports among the key questions yesterday quote
6:33
Speaker 3: why Worsh failed to disclose any details about more than
6:35
Speaker 3: one hundred million dollars in assets. Worsh declined several times
6:38
Speaker 3: to say what those assets were, naming only the private
6:41
Speaker 3: funds in which they were held. He also said that
6:43
Speaker 3: he would follow government ethics guidelines and convert his assets
6:47
Speaker 3: into something quote vanilla resembling cash within the required time frame.
6:52
Speaker 3: After his confirmation what do you think?
6:55
Speaker 6: It seems okay?
6:55
Speaker 3: Right, it seems fine. It's it's always were when people
6:58
Speaker 3: don't disclose things.
7:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, you should disclose it. Am I missing something because
7:02
Speaker 5: that seems okay? If if, if he actually is is
7:06
Speaker 5: going to sell them now, I think.
7:07
Speaker 3: The fair question as to why you wouldn't maybe.
7:09
Speaker 5: The fear would be like, he's not going to disclose it.
7:12
Speaker 5: He's going to promise to sell it, and he doesn't.
7:13
Speaker 3: Sell it, and then doesn't disclose that he doesn't sell it.
7:16
Speaker 3: I guess if you're.
7:17
Speaker 5: Worth a hundred million bucks, Yeah, there's a lot of money.
7:22
Speaker 3: That's what happens when you're rich. You can just be like,
7:23
Speaker 3: oh that one hundred million, don't worry about it. Well,
7:27
Speaker 3: he got more question.
7:28
Speaker 6: Hundred million doesn't buy what he used to though.
7:30
Speaker 3: That's so true, your Senator Smith, laying into Kevin worsh
7:36
Speaker 3: as well.
7:36
Speaker 9: C Three the roaring economy is roaring like never before.
7:41
Speaker 8: So do you agree with that statement?
7:43
Speaker 9: Is that how you see the economy that is roaring
7:45
Speaker 9: like never roaring before?
7:48
Speaker 8: So so, Senator, if I can clarify two things. One,
7:51
Speaker 8: there's a difference between the change in prices and inflation.
7:54
Speaker 8: The change in prices happen in a market economy. When
7:57
Speaker 8: inflation moves up, that's because the FED had something to
8:00
Speaker 8: do with it. Now, on the state of the economy,
8:03
Speaker 8: I would say that the broad contours of the economy
8:05
Speaker 8: are improving. The potential of the economy, the real results
8:09
Speaker 8: of the economy are improving, but I think it can
8:12
Speaker 8: improve more, and I think in the years ahead, I
8:14
Speaker 8: think the economy's potential is strengthening.
8:17
Speaker 9: So you know, the reality is that the economic data,
8:21
Speaker 9: understanding what you're saying about economic data being not imperfect,
8:24
Speaker 9: that there was almost zero job growth in twenty twenty five,
8:28
Speaker 9: and so that looks to me like not a roaring economy.
8:31
Speaker 9: It looks like a weak economy.
8:33
Speaker 3: And finally, take a look at this line of questioning
8:35
Speaker 3: from Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia.
8:38
Speaker 10: You currently serve as a lecturer at Stanford University. If
8:44
Speaker 10: you were to assign, if Professor Walsh where to assign
8:48
Speaker 10: a letter grade to the American economy today for the
8:52
Speaker 10: average working family, what grade would you assign?
8:56
Speaker 8: A senator was good to meet with you in your office.
9:01
Speaker 8: You know, in modern academic institutions they give everybody as
9:05
Speaker 8: so it's not a fair comparison, especially at elite universities.
9:11
Speaker 8: I know everyone gets perfect rates.
9:13
Speaker 10: Well, what grade would you give the economy?
9:17
Speaker 6: Well, if I.
9:18
Speaker 8: Gave a student anything other than A, the dean would
9:20
Speaker 8: summon me to his office because I would have hurt
9:22
Speaker 8: his self image.
9:23
Speaker 10: Well, Well, the Americans that I talked to, particularly in
9:27
Speaker 10: the state of Georgia, who haven't had the benefit of
9:33
Speaker 10: attending some of these elite institutions, are trying to make
9:38
Speaker 10: their lives work. They're sitting around their kitchen tables trying
9:43
Speaker 10: to figure out how to put their kids through school.
9:48
Speaker 10: And regardless of how the markets are doing, consumer confidence
9:52
Speaker 10: is at a record low. So that's their grade on
9:56
Speaker 10: the economy.
9:57
Speaker 3: So actually, consumer confidence at a record low. The board
10:00
Speaker 3: Republicans Democrats. That happened before the war in Iran Ryan,
10:04
Speaker 3: which is a reflection on a very different presidency, or
10:09
Speaker 3: how Americans are interpreting this presidency very differently than they
10:13
Speaker 3: were the Trump the first Trump presidency. And I wonder,
10:16
Speaker 3: I mean the question of where the rates should go
10:20
Speaker 3: now that Trump is saying, oh, it's fine that oil
10:23
Speaker 3: and gas prices.
10:24
Speaker 6: Will be up.
10:24
Speaker 3: Everyone should have done this. They wanted to do this war.
10:27
Speaker 3: Nobody had the courage to do it until I did.
10:28
Speaker 3: It is now a very very different question than it
10:32
Speaker 3: was even before.
10:33
Speaker 5: Yes sending in a Trump hack to the Fed right
10:39
Speaker 5: after he blows up the economy. It's just such sad
10:45
Speaker 5: timing for us as people, because.
10:48
Speaker 3: Well, you're a lower the rates guy, aren't you?
10:50
Speaker 5: In general? But if you have run away inflation like
10:57
Speaker 5: and what I think, you know, I had read a
10:59
Speaker 5: lot about inflation in the seventies and in the eighties
11:01
Speaker 5: and the political implications that it had and how hard
11:04
Speaker 5: it was on families. Experiencing it yourself, I think is different.
11:08
Speaker 5: And I think that's probably true for you know, everybody
11:11
Speaker 5: out there, like we didn't. We haven't had significant inflation
11:16
Speaker 5: since the eighties, right, We've had pretty a rare case
11:21
Speaker 5: of a long stretch of pretty stable prices and then
11:26
Speaker 5: with COVID.
11:27
Speaker 3: Not like sudden inflation.
11:29
Speaker 5: Then you have boom, all of a sudden, like stuff
11:32
Speaker 5: is like going crazy and continuing to climb, like it's
11:35
Speaker 5: not climbing like it was in twenty one and twenty two,
11:38
Speaker 5: but it's still getting worse. And now what Trump has
11:41
Speaker 5: done is he's thrown in you know, fertilizer prices going
11:45
Speaker 5: through the roof. It's going to be food shortages. We're
11:48
Speaker 5: going to have a lot of countries gonn have food rationing.
11:51
Speaker 5: Will we will ration it by just making it, you know,
11:54
Speaker 5: out of reach for a lot of people. But prices
11:58
Speaker 5: of food are going to go way up. Prices of
12:01
Speaker 5: all goods that require energy, which is all goods, are
12:04
Speaker 5: going to go up. And the cost of heating your home,
12:08
Speaker 5: cooling your home, putting gas in the car gonna go
12:11
Speaker 5: way up. Meanwhile, we're building out all of these AI
12:14
Speaker 5: data centers that are that are also driving up prices.
12:17
Speaker 3: Which we're going to get to.
12:18
Speaker 5: I'm a low interest rate person in a normal world,
12:21
Speaker 5: but if you have runaway prices, inflation is eats away
12:28
Speaker 5: at people's you know, ability to make it, make it
12:32
Speaker 5: from week to week.
12:34
Speaker 6: Uh.
12:35
Speaker 5: And if you keep rates low in that that environment,
12:39
Speaker 5: in some ways it helps the situation because you can
12:42
Speaker 5: make you you can reduce housing prices, maybe reduce rent,
12:45
Speaker 5: but you drive up the price of everything else. And well,
12:51
Speaker 5: your low interest rates kind of juice assets and which
12:55
Speaker 5: is housing prices, but they reduce mortgage rates so you
12:59
Speaker 5: can and so the price goes up but they become
13:02
Speaker 5: more affordable as complicated, but then the price for everything
13:06
Speaker 5: else goes up. So there are there are occasions where
13:09
Speaker 5: you do actually need higher.
13:11
Speaker 6: Rates to get inflation under control.
13:14
Speaker 5: I think it would be nice to have somebody who
13:16
Speaker 5: was like thinking about these things seriously, and I don't
13:20
Speaker 5: think that's what Trump wants. Trump wants somebody's just going
13:23
Speaker 5: to lower rates as much as possible into the election.
13:26
Speaker 3: And we should mention a Republican Senator Tom Tillis, who
13:28
Speaker 3: is retiring, used his time during yesterday's hearing to say
13:34
Speaker 3: he wants Trump to drop the FED investigation and then
13:38
Speaker 3: he will vote to confirm worsh And that could be
13:41
Speaker 3: a real I mean, that could be a real problem
13:43
Speaker 3: for the administration going forward. And tell Us has been
13:46
Speaker 3: a thorn in their side on this issue for many
13:49
Speaker 3: months now, so it's possible. This investigation into Powell, which
13:54
Speaker 3: let's just say, I mean, the renovation obviously looks lavish.
13:59
Speaker 3: I really don't think there's a question about that, but
14:01
Speaker 3: that it's raises to the level of anything other than
14:05
Speaker 3: or that this is anything other than warfare is a
14:08
Speaker 3: little bit absurd.
14:09
Speaker 5: Also, how do we care the FED literally prints money
14:13
Speaker 5: if they want to print a billion dollars and build
14:15
Speaker 5: themselves a nice building, Yes.
14:17
Speaker 3: It's MMT in a building they believe in MMT. Now,
14:23
Speaker 3: if they're.
14:23
Speaker 5: Using tax dollars, that's one thing they're not like, they're
14:26
Speaker 5: just printing money giving it to DC contractors. A lot
14:31
Speaker 5: of things that get upset about in this world, that
14:33
Speaker 5: that one. I've never been like really upset about the
14:36
Speaker 5: FED printing money and.
14:37
Speaker 6: Building seves a nice office.
14:39
Speaker 5: And yeah, you're a money printer, you get to build
14:42
Speaker 5: yourself a nice office.
14:43
Speaker 4: Now.
14:43
Speaker 3: Worst probably found a lot more sympathy with the public
14:45
Speaker 3: con senators when he was talking yesterday about mission creep
14:47
Speaker 3: at the FED, wanting to end mission creep at the FED.
14:49
Speaker 3: Obviously there was a lot of I think there's there's truth.
14:52
Speaker 3: So some of the allegations that the FED under Powell
14:54
Speaker 3: has been dabbling in cultural politics over the last decade,
14:58
Speaker 3: a lot of that has has since gone away, is
15:00
Speaker 3: my understanding. So he probably did what he needed with
15:03
Speaker 3: most Republican senators till it seems to like him, he's
15:06
Speaker 3: just holding up the vote over whether or not the
15:09
Speaker 3: investigation stays open goes away. Futures as of right now
15:13
Speaker 3: have risen after the ceasefire extension. But midterms coming up
15:18
Speaker 3: in just a number of months. So Donald Trump gets
15:22
Speaker 3: into office promising to decrease inflation. Now all of these
15:26
Speaker 3: down ballot Republicans Trump's not on the ballot obviously in November,
15:30
Speaker 3: are going to have to face the music. Let's talk
15:34
Speaker 3: about data centers. Got to talk about data centers. Always
15:38
Speaker 3: should be talking about data centers for rocking many many
15:42
Speaker 3: places in the country, local politics, rocking all kinds of different.
15:48
Speaker 3: I mean, let's just put this element up on the screen.
15:51
Speaker 3: This is D one. This is a tearsheet from the
15:53
Speaker 3: Free Press, which had a wonderful piece of reporting. We
15:57
Speaker 3: got to give credit where it's due, a wonderful piece
15:59
Speaker 3: of report into what happens when the headline is what
16:03
Speaker 3: happens when a data center comes to town. This is
16:06
Speaker 3: about a rural Ohio county where there's this eight hundred
16:10
Speaker 3: acre data center being planned that would produce get this drine,
16:15
Speaker 3: the massive total of fifty permanent jobs.
16:19
Speaker 5: I think it's like all of these two yeah, yep.
16:22
Speaker 3: Of course typical where they'll have about I think it's
16:25
Speaker 3: like twenty are twelve hundred construction jobs for the first
16:29
Speaker 3: phase and quote at least fifty permanent jobs. Once construction
16:33
Speaker 3: is complete, it will generate hundreds of thousands of dollars
16:35
Speaker 3: and greatly needed tax revenue. And one local man said
16:39
Speaker 3: he hasn't seen this. He's the county commissioner, told the
16:42
Speaker 3: Free Press, he hasn't seen this sort of local investment.
16:44
Speaker 3: Quote in my lifetime. It is a very poor county.
16:48
Speaker 3: But the piece reports not all the neighbors feel that way.
16:51
Speaker 3: After announcing plans for the data center in January, dozens
16:54
Speaker 3: crowded into the local courthouse. They're wondering how much water
16:56
Speaker 3: the data center will use while their power bills go up.
16:59
Speaker 3: What about the noise? We played a video last week
17:02
Speaker 3: on the show about someone recording just from their back
17:06
Speaker 3: deck the noise from a nearby data center absolutely insane.
17:12
Speaker 3: According to Google's own assessments. The Free Pass reports each
17:15
Speaker 3: individual data center consumes anywhere from ten thousand to more
17:18
Speaker 3: than one billion gallons of water. But the reality is
17:22
Speaker 3: that nobody really knows what that number will what those
17:25
Speaker 3: numbers will look like for Franklin Furnace. So this is
17:28
Speaker 3: a Google data center, it would involve a seventy five
17:32
Speaker 3: percent tax abatement, and they're again looking for eight hundred
17:36
Speaker 3: acres of land right by the river. You can see
17:39
Speaker 3: how this would get on people's bad side very quickly.
17:42
Speaker 3: Just in Wisconsin recently, think it was Whitefish Bay, there
17:46
Speaker 3: was a referendum where voters came in and rejected It
17:49
Speaker 3: was one of the first big referendums in the country
17:51
Speaker 3: where you saw local voters rejecting future data center data
17:56
Speaker 3: centers in a big, big vote. You know, breaking points.
17:59
Speaker 3: We've been this for a long time. Dave Weigel has
18:01
Speaker 3: been covering this at Semaphore, but you know, we can
18:05
Speaker 3: actually throw up on the screen here at New York Times.
18:08
Speaker 3: This is going to be D three New York Times
18:11
Speaker 3: tear sheet. Job cuts driven by AI are rising on
18:15
Speaker 3: Wall Street. It's coming not just for rural Ohio Ryan,
18:18
Speaker 3: but rapidly in some of the white collar sectors as well.
18:23
Speaker 3: Let's move to D four. These are just two headlines
18:25
Speaker 3: from yesterday. AI Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements
18:31
Speaker 3: keystrokes for AI training data. So big data centers going
18:37
Speaker 3: up all over the country, job cuts even on Wall
18:40
Speaker 3: Street mouse tracking to train AI at Meta. Everybody's happy,
18:45
Speaker 3: everyone's loving it.
18:47
Speaker 5: And so if you're in this rural area where they
18:50
Speaker 5: want to take eight hundred of your acres along the
18:53
Speaker 5: river to install a wirring like water gozzling, energy guzzling
19:01
Speaker 5: at a.
19:01
Speaker 3: Center with tax breaks that you don't get.
19:04
Speaker 5: Tax brikes that you don't get for a couple bucks
19:07
Speaker 5: for a couple.
19:07
Speaker 6: Jobs, and tax revenue what on earth? And maybe some time? Okay, so.
19:14
Speaker 5: What on earth would be the argument for doing that?
19:17
Speaker 5: The best argument, I guess could be, Yes, tax revenue
19:20
Speaker 5: you get and you put that into schools, and okay,
19:24
Speaker 5: so that if you actually believed that that was gonna
19:29
Speaker 5: come forward, then okay, that that's at least an argument
19:33
Speaker 5: for it. When I would say like that that this
19:35
Speaker 5: is the this is this is the place where the
19:38
Speaker 5: public has their has their leverage to strike some sort
19:42
Speaker 5: of grand bargain with AI where it's like, Okay, you
19:47
Speaker 5: want this and you need this from us, what do
19:50
Speaker 5: we get? Pitch us on how AI is going to
19:56
Speaker 5: bring us a better world?
19:59
Speaker 7: Right?
20:00
Speaker 5: And I and you like groc being able to take
20:05
Speaker 5: the clothes off of a twelve year old, isn't it?
20:07
Speaker 3: Or to prosecute wars in the Middle East, which is
20:13
Speaker 3: the other.
20:13
Speaker 5: Thing that's not it either like, what is this, What
20:16
Speaker 5: is the society that you're going to create that is
20:20
Speaker 5: better than the one we have now in order for
20:23
Speaker 5: us to agree to do this with you, because you
20:27
Speaker 5: can't do it without the land that people control. So
20:31
Speaker 5: that's the And so there is this big movement that
20:35
Speaker 5: is fighting back against these data centers, and it really
20:39
Speaker 5: does seem to be the only thing that humanity has
20:41
Speaker 5: against the creep of these robots.
20:43
Speaker 3: It's one of the things I love about the story
20:45
Speaker 3: is that it focuses on the history of this particular
20:49
Speaker 3: place in Appalachian, Ohio and how they have had the
20:51
Speaker 3: rug pulled out from under them during the last decade
20:55
Speaker 3: or in Tecae, the last century of industrialization where you
20:58
Speaker 3: had these plants. That it's a chemical plant, so sun
21:02
Speaker 3: Cooke Energy. At one point quote the plant makes up
21:05
Speaker 3: material called coke critical for steel production. But a decade
21:08
Speaker 3: ago the plant was fined by the EPA for violating
21:10
Speaker 3: the Clear Clean Air Act, and McDavid claims one of
21:12
Speaker 3: the people in the story, residue from the plant still
21:15
Speaker 3: rains down on the houses and cars in the neighborhoods nearby,
21:19
Speaker 3: and just over and over again. How you get economic
21:22
Speaker 3: opportunity rug pulls out. Rug is pulled out from under
21:25
Speaker 3: you because the opportunity goes away, the jobs go overseas.
21:28
Speaker 3: I think there was a printing business in this area
21:31
Speaker 3: as well. At one point the story is fantastic, and
21:34
Speaker 3: then you get people who open plants like the sun
21:39
Speaker 3: Cooke one, and it has like just dirt raining down
21:42
Speaker 3: on you and you're promised over and over again, this
21:45
Speaker 3: is going to be a great investment. This is exactly
21:47
Speaker 3: what the community needs, and now they're asking for it
21:50
Speaker 3: again with something that's not even tangible. Right. It's one
21:54
Speaker 3: thing when you're like, okay, we are making this, we
21:56
Speaker 3: are making that. I can see it. I get it.
21:59
Speaker 6: Right.
21:59
Speaker 3: Now you have what thirty five percent of the S
22:02
Speaker 3: and P five hundred is these mag seven companies. Feels
22:04
Speaker 3: like a total bubble and nobody even other than people
22:08
Speaker 3: who are you know, using propped up by golf money,
22:10
Speaker 3: propped up by golf money. That's another good point. And
22:13
Speaker 3: there was a study that came a horrifying study that
22:15
Speaker 3: came out the other day where it showed I'm I
22:19
Speaker 3: stually just going to pull it up because it's it's
22:21
Speaker 3: worth mentioning. This is from a Google Deep Mind researcher.
22:25
Speaker 3: It's called the abstraction fallacy. Why AI can stimulate, can
22:29
Speaker 3: stimulate but not instantiate consciousness. Oh wait, that's the wrong.
22:34
Speaker 3: Say that's another good study. But there was a study
22:36
Speaker 3: that came out the other day that a huge proportion
22:39
Speaker 3: of LM use is actually personal, something like sixty percent.
22:43
Speaker 3: It's not work based. So people are using AI for
22:47
Speaker 3: like conversational needs in their personal lives. AI therapy, conversation
22:53
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing.
22:54
Speaker 6: How to fix the water heater, how to fix.
22:56
Speaker 3: The wrong I don't know. I think it was actually
22:57
Speaker 3: like not even just not eve those types of questions, yeah,
22:59
Speaker 3: but like actual personal questions.
23:01
Speaker 5: So anyway, how do I tell this person I'm not
23:02
Speaker 5: going to the happy hour?
23:04
Speaker 3: Right? Yes? Questions like that that seemed really personal, right,
23:09
Speaker 3: happy How you're buyding on skipping?
23:11
Speaker 6: They know to them all.
23:11
Speaker 3: So but anyway I need chat GPT's help with that.
23:15
Speaker 3: And yeah, the consciousness study too important one because the
23:18
Speaker 3: Google Deep Mind researcher was arguing that llms can ever
23:21
Speaker 3: be conscious, not in ten years or one hundred years.
23:24
Speaker 3: And it's like this is what this is the waters
23:26
Speaker 3: that we're swimming right now, people are being expected to
23:28
Speaker 3: give tax break to these massive companies that want to
23:32
Speaker 3: push these technologies on you without producing juice that feels
23:36
Speaker 3: like it's worth the squeeze.
23:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, but yeah, Asoff clearly sees a lane there. There
23:42
Speaker 5: are some efforts in the Georgia legislature to crack down
23:44
Speaker 5: on the data center build out. Those efforts have been stopped,
23:48
Speaker 5: and so Asoff clearly, who is running for reelection and
23:52
Speaker 5: is talked about as a presidential contender, assuming he wins here,
23:57
Speaker 5: he says he's investing.
23:58
Speaker 6: He's he sent a letter to the Georgia.
24:01
Speaker 5: Power plant Company or utility, which is now run by
24:04
Speaker 5: a Democrat right after that big win as asking them
24:08
Speaker 5: to investigate precisely how it is that AI data data
24:11
Speaker 5: centers are impacting rising power bills.
24:14
Speaker 6: And the reporting out.
24:15
Speaker 5: Of this is that that he sees he sees a
24:18
Speaker 5: wide open lane now in Georgia. Then he's he's going
24:21
Speaker 5: to be the guy who's going to take this mantle
24:23
Speaker 5: and say these data centers suck.
24:26
Speaker 6: And if he can drive down.
24:29
Speaker 5: The Republican margins in rural Georgia by being the guy
24:34
Speaker 5: who is willing to say that, he's going to lock
24:37
Speaker 5: he's got a lock on Atlanta already, and he's very
24:39
Speaker 5: good at not trying not to be a Democrat, Like
24:44
Speaker 5: I don't know if you saw his speech the other
24:45
Speaker 5: day where he was going after Situszans United and corruption
24:49
Speaker 5: and in politics, and he repeatedly said both sides are
24:56
Speaker 5: infected by this.
24:57
Speaker 3: Which is a big problem though a lot of centristand
25:00
Speaker 3: yes who are trying to be populist they can't quite
25:04
Speaker 3: like even in their act, they can't quite get it right.
25:06
Speaker 5: You have to be able to use all identity is
25:08
Speaker 5: that Democrats good, Republicans bad. Right, So any admission both
25:13
Speaker 5: sides are bad at something, so well, how could you
25:15
Speaker 5: possibly say that?
25:15
Speaker 3: And this is where Trump succeeded and where Bernie succeeded. Yeah,
25:20
Speaker 3: the other person who's trying to take this lane among
25:22
Speaker 3: Republicans is run to Santas. So if Ruanda Santis runs
25:25
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty eight, it actually makes me think he's
25:27
Speaker 3: more likely to run in twenty twenty eight that he's
25:29
Speaker 3: trying to own or pave actually this path of being
25:33
Speaker 3: an anti data center Republican lawmaker sort of pushing back
25:36
Speaker 3: on some of this stuff in Florida so quietly making
25:41
Speaker 3: that his thing, possibly if he wanted to blow that
25:45
Speaker 3: up into a campaign attack against other Republicans, potentially a JD.
25:48
Speaker 3: Vance who's very close to some of these tech oligarchs
25:52
Speaker 3: or has been throughout his career. You know, should this issue.
25:56
Speaker 3: I mean, the polling on this has shifted dramatically over
25:58
Speaker 3: the last year. We've report on some of that here.
26:01
Speaker 3: So the tech companies, you know, at the very least,
26:04
Speaker 3: need to do a better job of selling this to
26:06
Speaker 3: the public. That much is abundantly obvious. So Republicans now
26:11
Speaker 3: in the midterms have to own that. Trump on what
26:14
Speaker 3: day two of his presidency, did his major press conference
26:18
Speaker 3: with all of these AI oligarchs behind him, promising to
26:22
Speaker 3: support their data center builds outs with the support of
26:25
Speaker 3: the federal government. And every Republican now has to face
26:29
Speaker 3: that part of the GOP agenda on the ballot.
26:32
Speaker 5: It's good because this is our this is our chance,
26:34
Speaker 5: this is all we got against these guys.
26:37
Speaker 3: Now, let's go ahead and turn to Mexico.
26:40
Speaker 6: Ryan, two CIA agents.
26:44
Speaker 5: We're in a car accident in Mexico, which conveniently ended
26:48
Speaker 5: with all of the evidence going up in flames. You
26:51
Speaker 5: can put up E one here the Washington Post and
26:55
Speaker 5: others reporting that this that this car accident involving two
26:59
Speaker 5: Americans was in fact it was in fact connected to
27:02
Speaker 5: the CIA, that these were CIA officers dying in Mexico.
27:07
Speaker 5: The last time at a high profile American official died
27:13
Speaker 5: in Mexico would be the Dea agent in the nineteen eighties,
27:18
Speaker 5: which sparked a massive cartel war as well as what
27:22
Speaker 5: an HBO or Netflix series. Anybody who's seen seen Narcos
27:26
Speaker 5: knows this knows the story of that one. So joining
27:29
Speaker 5: us to try to unpack what the heck is going
27:32
Speaker 5: on here, Wanda vid Rojas want to me, thank you
27:35
Speaker 5: so much for being.
27:36
Speaker 6: Here, Thanks for having me back on guys, Yeah.
27:38
Speaker 5: You got it. What happened here? Like, where did this happen?
27:42
Speaker 5: And what do we know about the circumstances?
27:45
Speaker 11: It's uh, I mean, yeah, we don't exactly know. This
27:48
Speaker 11: is the official story. So in the border state of
27:52
Speaker 11: Chihuahua in Mexico's norths the borders with Texas and New Mexico,
27:58
Speaker 11: on the way back from account or a narcotics operation,
28:01
Speaker 11: there was a car accident and the Chihuabua state authorities
28:07
Speaker 11: claimed that around two am this convoy around six vehicles.
28:13
Speaker 11: It was dark, apparently presumably, and the vehicle carrying the
28:19
Speaker 11: two CIA agents along with two Mexican officials crashed and
28:25
Speaker 11: the four of them died. I mean, I will say
28:28
Speaker 11: it's possible. I mean, you know that late at night,
28:31
Speaker 11: you're in a rural area, mountainous. I mean, it's I mean,
28:35
Speaker 11: it's kind of strange that there aren't really more details
28:38
Speaker 11: and kind of odd that all four of them died.
28:41
Speaker 11: I mean hard to say. What do we know about
28:44
Speaker 11: the operation?
28:45
Speaker 7: Right?
28:45
Speaker 6: What kind of operation is going on here?
28:48
Speaker 11: Yeah, the official story is that these two CIA officers
28:53
Speaker 11: were training Mexican officials on how to use drones to
28:57
Speaker 11: destroy methamphetamine labs in rural areas of Chihuahua. That's the
29:04
Speaker 11: official story. And I will say that that's fairly normal
29:08
Speaker 11: in Mexico. That you know, US officials provide intelligence support
29:13
Speaker 11: training to their Mexican counterparts has been going on for
29:16
Speaker 11: decades under the current president, previous presidents. What's odd is that,
29:21
Speaker 11: you know, typically that would be you know, the purview
29:24
Speaker 11: of like the CIA, even the FBI. All the collaboration
29:27
Speaker 11: with the FBI typically isn't It isn't in person although
29:31
Speaker 11: you know, we had cash Beteau with Ryan Wetting the
29:34
Speaker 11: snow King, and we could talk about that case as well.
29:38
Speaker 11: But what's odd here is that hm CIA officers counter
29:41
Speaker 11: narcotics isn't actually the purview of the CIA. That's more
29:45
Speaker 11: like regime change and supporting you know, wars abroad. But
29:49
Speaker 11: the reason for that is because last year Trump designated
29:53
Speaker 11: Mexican cartels, along with the host of all other kinds
29:56
Speaker 11: of like drug trafficking organizations in the Hemisphere, as foreign
29:59
Speaker 11: terror to organizations, and that gives the CIA leeway, now,
30:03
Speaker 11: you know, to treat these you know, cartels as national
30:08
Speaker 11: security threats terrorists and drastically expanded operations in Mexico and
30:14
Speaker 11: other countries in the Hemisphere, which has definitely happened.
30:17
Speaker 3: And one you covered OMLO closely. My understanding is that
30:21
Speaker 3: AMLO had put safeguards in place essentially to take to
30:27
Speaker 3: shore up Mexican sovereignty when it came to potential CIA
30:31
Speaker 3: DEA operations and you had what is it AI in
30:35
Speaker 3: Shihuahua doing this big drug bust. I'm reading from another
30:39
Speaker 3: great reporter, Joan Grillo right now, who says that the
30:45
Speaker 3: let me just make sure you have the right part
30:46
Speaker 3: of this. Officials initially gave mixed and confusing explanations as
30:49
Speaker 3: to what the agents were doing. US Ambassador to Mexico
30:52
Speaker 3: Ronald Johnson, himself a former CIA agent, broke the news
30:55
Speaker 3: by reporting, quote the tragic loss of two US embassy personnel,
30:59
Speaker 3: others claiming that the agents were doing training to the
31:02
Speaker 3: point that you made AI picked them up en route,
31:04
Speaker 3: but didn't go. They did not go on the operation,
31:07
Speaker 3: which is obviously a huge point in question. Right now,
31:10
Speaker 3: Claudia Shinbaum is claiming she didn't know about the op
31:13
Speaker 3: or the role of US agents, according to Yowan over
31:15
Speaker 3: at Crashout, which everyone should subscribe to, and that it
31:18
Speaker 3: should be investigated. Chihuahua is ruled by the opposition party
31:22
Speaker 3: in this case, So how is this playing politically for
31:25
Speaker 3: Shinebaum and with the Mexican public. It's it's such a
31:30
Speaker 3: sensitive question about the country, it's sovereignty itself.
31:34
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, And it was funny.
31:35
Speaker 11: I was talking to Yoan yesterday and what he was
31:38
Speaker 11: telling me is that, you know, we probably wouldn't have
31:40
Speaker 11: found out about this at all if just Ron Johnson,
31:44
Speaker 11: who actually I know personally, by the way, wouldn't you know,
31:48
Speaker 11: just blurreted out that, oh, hey, we had you know,
31:50
Speaker 11: two of our guys killed. He like tweeted this out
31:53
Speaker 11: on Sunday. You know, at the time, he didn't specify
31:55
Speaker 11: that they were CIA. You know, later this came out.
31:58
Speaker 11: But still it's kind of curious that he felt compelled
32:01
Speaker 11: to just you know, blurt this out. As far as
32:04
Speaker 11: how this is playing in Mexico, I mean, there's a
32:08
Speaker 11: lot of spinning going on. And again, I mean I
32:10
Speaker 11: don't want to speculate too much. I think that would
32:13
Speaker 11: be irresponsible. But yeah, Shinbaum, she says that they're going
32:19
Speaker 11: to get to the bottom of whether the two officers
32:22
Speaker 11: were there illegally. Any sort of foreign official, especially security official,
32:28
Speaker 11: needs to be authorized by the national government to be
32:31
Speaker 11: able to conduct, like, do youaning, you know, any sort
32:36
Speaker 11: of assistance or support with officials inside of Mexico, including
32:42
Speaker 11: state officials. Chihuahua actually signed a security agreement with Texas
32:47
Speaker 11: in twenty twenty two, and this was authorized by the
32:52
Speaker 11: national government.
32:53
Speaker 6: But yeah, the fact that.
32:55
Speaker 11: She says that, you know, she didn't know, the Mexican
32:58
Speaker 11: government didn't know a lot of people within the governing
33:01
Speaker 11: party are basically saying that the Chihuahua State government, who's
33:06
Speaker 11: run by the right wing Bond Party, like they invited
33:09
Speaker 11: these officials without permission, and that would be a huge scandal.
33:12
Speaker 11: If these guys were there on tourist visas, I wouldn't
33:16
Speaker 11: put it past Madukampos, the opposition governor. But you know,
33:21
Speaker 11: it's also possible that they had permission. Hard to say,
33:25
Speaker 11: I mean either way, I think the bottom line of
33:29
Speaker 11: this story is that, yeah, we kind of have boots
33:31
Speaker 11: on the ground now in Mexico and whatever exactly happened here,
33:36
Speaker 11: I mean, you know, you can just connect the dots.
33:40
Speaker 11: What if, like, you know, next time it's confirmed the
33:44
Speaker 11: you know, CIA officers were killed by one of the cartels,
33:48
Speaker 11: like you'll have Lindsay Graham and the other Hawks advocating
33:52
Speaker 11: for us to go into Mexico unless maybe we're still
33:56
Speaker 11: in around.
33:57
Speaker 5: And last question, like so, let's it's hard to figure
34:00
Speaker 5: out whether or not, Okay, the opposition governor allowed them
34:04
Speaker 5: in or Shine Bamb knew about it and doesn't want
34:07
Speaker 5: to say. How do their policies towards the cartels and
34:11
Speaker 5: towards American cooperation differ? The Shinebamb versus her her kind
34:15
Speaker 5: of right wing opposition in that area.
34:17
Speaker 11: Good question, the great question, and a hard question. And
34:21
Speaker 11: you know, this is a sad thing. I'm basically convinced. Unfortunately,
34:25
Speaker 11: I hate to say this, but I'm probably going to
34:28
Speaker 11: be on the show again in the future when we're
34:30
Speaker 11: discussing military operations in Mexico, because that's just kind of
34:34
Speaker 11: trump Ism and Trump himself work. What's sad is that
34:39
Speaker 11: both the Trump administration and the Shineman administration have like
34:46
Speaker 11: objectively really good accomplishments on this front. I mean, first
34:51
Speaker 11: of all, you know, it's increasingly this is Trump's most
34:55
Speaker 11: loansome achievement. You know, border crossings through the southern border
35:00
Speaker 11: or at like a fifty year low. But in addition
35:03
Speaker 11: to that, fentanyl flows have dropped like fifty percent, and
35:06
Speaker 11: ventinal seizures south of the border are at record highs.
35:11
Speaker 11: Scheinbaum is going really really hard against the cartels, but
35:14
Speaker 11: she's doing it in a smart way. Independent analysis like
35:19
Speaker 11: the economists have shown that under her first year, homicides
35:23
Speaker 11: have dropped at least fifteen percent, and that's historic since
35:27
Speaker 11: the drug war in Mexico began in two thousand and six,
35:30
Speaker 11: no other administration had managed to have homicides drop in
35:34
Speaker 11: its first year. She has this superstar security minister oh
35:39
Speaker 11: Marhara Garzia Harfuch, who himself was the victim of an
35:44
Speaker 11: attempted assassination by the CJNG. You know, was it two
35:49
Speaker 11: months ago? And Menschell, the head of the CJNG, was
35:53
Speaker 11: killed in this huge operation. And what's interesting about that
35:56
Speaker 11: is that, yeah, you know, we saw a lot online
35:58
Speaker 11: about subsequent violence, but actually only lasted around like two days.
36:02
Speaker 11: They surprisingly were very capably able to contain subsequent retaliation
36:08
Speaker 11: pretty quickly.
36:09
Speaker 7: You know.
36:10
Speaker 11: It's not to say that, you know, everything's perfect all
36:12
Speaker 11: the time everywhere in Mexico. It is a complex situation,
36:16
Speaker 11: especially in different states, but there's definitely achievements that both
36:20
Speaker 11: governments can point to and can law in terms of
36:23
Speaker 11: their cooperation. Marco Rubio has done this, but unfortunately a
36:27
Speaker 11: lot in MAGA and you know in Trump as well,
36:30
Speaker 11: they don't really seem to talk about this very recognize
36:34
Speaker 11: or realize it so well.
36:36
Speaker 3: And what the what Claudia Shinebam wants to avoid is
36:38
Speaker 3: we can put E two up on the screen. This
36:41
Speaker 3: is a drop site headline. Rare survivors of Pacific boat
36:44
Speaker 3: strikes allege US forces kidnapped and tortured them. Everyone should
36:49
Speaker 3: go read this piece, and Ryan, you may have more
36:51
Speaker 3: to say about it, but it is really fascinating reporting
36:55
Speaker 3: and for leaders in Latin America, but they don't want
36:59
Speaker 3: to look like as they're cooperating with a brutal American
37:03
Speaker 3: regime that's also encroaching on their sovereignty. So Wandavid Rojas,
37:07
Speaker 3: thank you as always for jumping on the show. We
37:11
Speaker 3: were excited to have you on to help us understand
37:14
Speaker 3: what on earth could possibly have been going on in
37:16
Speaker 3: Chihuahua over the last several days.
37:18
Speaker 8: Appreciate it anytime, guys.
37:23
Speaker 5: Voters in Virginia went to the polls to decide whether
37:26
Speaker 5: or not they were going to radically jerrymander the state.
37:30
Speaker 5: We can put up f one here, they said, yes.
37:33
Speaker 6: Let's do it. By a very narrow margin.
37:36
Speaker 5: Democrats basically out voted Republicans.
37:40
Speaker 6: What is it? What are we at? Forty fifty one
37:42
Speaker 6: forty nine something.
37:43
Speaker 3: It's really close.
37:44
Speaker 6: We're going to end up being very close.
37:46
Speaker 3: As of right now, it's fifty one point five to
37:48
Speaker 3: forty eight point five.
37:49
Speaker 5: And it's going to take a congressional delegation that is
37:52
Speaker 5: currently six Democrats and five Republicans, which is about as
37:58
Speaker 5: fair as you can get in a state that went
38:00
Speaker 5: by like what six seven points to Kamala Harris, and
38:04
Speaker 5: it's going to take it to ten, likely going to
38:08
Speaker 5: take it to ten Democrats, one Republican. Oh boy, what
38:12
Speaker 5: a wipeout. Put up F two here. This is one
38:17
Speaker 5: of the hilarious. It's a good tweet this person, this
38:22
Speaker 5: Cameron Corduroy. I've read a name because it's you have
38:26
Speaker 5: a good tweet like this, a banger. You get your name,
38:29
Speaker 5: Red says welcome to the new rural subjects of the
38:33
Speaker 5: Arlingtonian Protectorate. All voters will be required to provide at
38:37
Speaker 5: least two sets of pronouns pronouns to vote in upcoming elections.
38:42
Speaker 5: And it's showing this this wild district that's drawn where
38:47
Speaker 5: you have deep, deep blue Arlington voters who will then
38:52
Speaker 5: overwhelmed this like deep stretch of rural Virginia that rolls
38:58
Speaker 5: through the suburbs, out out the highways there and then
39:02
Speaker 5: deep into actual rural Virginia where.
39:05
Speaker 6: There are many fewer people.
39:07
Speaker 3: And many fewer Democrats. It looks like a lobster. If
39:10
Speaker 3: you're listening to this, it looks like a lobster. The
39:11
Speaker 3: tale is the Arlington area and then the claws are
39:16
Speaker 3: like rural central western Virginia like Gapalaysia.
39:19
Speaker 6: The original terms.
39:20
Speaker 5: As nerds in DC know, Jerrymander comes from a district
39:25
Speaker 5: that was drawn in like the seventeen hundreds to look
39:27
Speaker 5: like a salamander. Incredible, it looked like a salamander. And
39:30
Speaker 5: that's where Jerrymander. I don't I don't know where they
39:32
Speaker 5: got the Jerry.
39:32
Speaker 3: Called it Jerry lobster.
39:34
Speaker 6: Yeah.
39:34
Speaker 5: But so this one looks this one actually looks almost
39:37
Speaker 5: rational compared to some.
39:40
Speaker 3: Some of the Maryland ones are wild.
39:42
Speaker 6: Yeah. And so there was so.
39:47
Speaker 5: Much delightful back and forth over this, whether it was
39:52
Speaker 5: Republicans complaining about it after having launched the war.
39:58
Speaker 3: So let's I think it's unclear who technically launched the
40:01
Speaker 3: war in the big picture, but this cycle Republican cycles.
40:04
Speaker 3: This started with Texas cycle.
40:07
Speaker 6: Right.
40:07
Speaker 5: The jerrymandering fight goes literally back to like eighteenth century.
40:13
Speaker 3: We can't keep blaming the Whigs, right.
40:15
Speaker 5: No, Whigs weren't even around yet. But the actual mid
40:22
Speaker 5: psych doing it mid cycle rather than every ten years.
40:24
Speaker 5: That was Republicans doing it in Texas. But let's read
40:29
Speaker 5: Hakeem Jefferies, who's feeling his outs. He's never felt so
40:32
Speaker 5: good and put up f F three. So this this
40:36
Speaker 5: is from the Democratic leaders expecting to turn this into
40:40
Speaker 5: becoming Democratic speaker.
40:42
Speaker 6: He says.
40:42
Speaker 5: Last July, Donald Trump demanded that Texas drew five draw
40:46
Speaker 5: five new Republican seats in the middle of a decade,
40:48
Speaker 5: igniting a chain reaction of corrupt MAGA state legislators attempting
40:53
Speaker 5: to rig the mid term elections. While many expected Democrats
40:56
Speaker 5: to roll over and play dead guilty, sure I did
41:00
Speaker 5: the opposite. Democrats did not step back. We fought back
41:04
Speaker 5: when they go low, we hit back hard. We won
41:07
Speaker 5: Prop fifty in California reclaimed, which which redrew California to
41:12
Speaker 5: give a give Democrats a bunch of new seats, reclaimed
41:14
Speaker 5: a seat in Utah. True, they're gonna get another Democratic
41:18
Speaker 5: seat there.
41:18
Speaker 6: Pushed back extremists in Ohio.
41:20
Speaker 5: They did block the Ohio stuff and halted toxic GP
41:23
Speaker 5: efforts in Indiana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, and Kansas. You know,
41:27
Speaker 5: a lot of the credit for halting those efforts actually
41:29
Speaker 5: goes to Republican lawmakers who didn't want those their own
41:32
Speaker 5: seats to kind of redrawn, and some of them just
41:35
Speaker 5: on principle didn't want to see it happen and actually
41:38
Speaker 5: faced in Nebraska like significant threats of violence from Republican legislators,
41:45
Speaker 5: faced threats of violence from Republicans and stood up to.
41:48
Speaker 6: Them to block this. He goes on. This war is
41:51
Speaker 6: not over. This one. I want your take on.
41:53
Speaker 5: Next week, Ron de Santrance is hauling the Florida Legislature
41:56
Speaker 5: back into a special session to redraw maps because Republicans
42:00
Speaker 5: know they are on the verge of an epic defeat
42:02
Speaker 5: in November. Desantras is clearly more interested in illegal jerrymandering
42:06
Speaker 5: than lowering the high cost of living blah blah. If
42:09
Speaker 5: Republicans proceed with this illegal scheme, they will only create
42:13
Speaker 5: more prime pick up opportunities for Democrats, just as they
42:16
Speaker 5: did with Trump's dummy mander in Texas.
42:19
Speaker 3: That's from Hakim Jeffries. He's a dummy mander.
42:21
Speaker 6: Bro thought he ate he did eat. We will aggressively
42:24
Speaker 6: target for defeat.
42:26
Speaker 5: Mario Diaz, Billart, Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Jimenez, Kat Kamnak
42:31
Speaker 5: Anna Paulina, Luna Laurel Lee, Corey Mills, and Brian Mast No,
42:36
Speaker 5: not Corey Mills. We are prepared to take them all on,
42:39
Speaker 5: and we are prepared to win maximum warfare everywhere, all
42:42
Speaker 5: the time.
42:43
Speaker 6: So the one reason he's eating.
42:44
Speaker 5: Here is is it it was a dummy mander in
42:48
Speaker 5: Texas in the sense that they misunderstood the depth of
42:54
Speaker 5: the support they had among Hispanic voters.
42:55
Speaker 6: In Texas.
42:57
Speaker 5: They drew a bunch of districts that require them to
42:59
Speaker 5: have levels that are close to twenty twenty.
43:01
Speaker 6: Four to keep them to keep those seats.
43:04
Speaker 5: So the way you do a jerrymander, you have a
43:07
Speaker 5: seat that's like seventy thirty, right, so you take it
43:10
Speaker 5: down to like fifty five forty five, So you're going
43:14
Speaker 5: to win that one. And then you take the Republicans
43:17
Speaker 5: or the Democrats, whoever's doing it, and you move them
43:19
Speaker 5: into a district that previously the other party held, move
43:23
Speaker 5: those voters over and now you win both. That's why
43:26
Speaker 5: they call it. That's the goal. If you move these
43:31
Speaker 5: voters over here and they don't vote for you, and
43:35
Speaker 5: the voters that you had over here are these let's
43:38
Speaker 5: say they're Hispanic voters or the others who voted for
43:40
Speaker 5: Trump but now hate Trump and they flip. Now you
43:44
Speaker 5: lose both these seats.
43:47
Speaker 6: That is a legit dummy mander. So now it would
43:51
Speaker 6: be legal.
43:52
Speaker 5: The Florida Constitution is probably going to save DeSantis because
43:55
Speaker 5: it's very clear in the constitution it says you can't
43:58
Speaker 5: jerrymander for purposes.
44:00
Speaker 3: Yeah.
44:01
Speaker 6: Straight, it's like very crystal clear. Maybe they'll do it anyway.
44:05
Speaker 6: So what they're arguing here is.
44:06
Speaker 5: If you take these cats that we just listed down
44:10
Speaker 5: to fifty five percent, they're in trouble. We're going to overperform.
44:14
Speaker 5: We're going to beat them. So go ahead, make our
44:17
Speaker 5: day you feel unlucky.
44:19
Speaker 3: So, which is also what Republicans are saying about, like
44:22
Speaker 3: Corey Mills, right, but no, they want to keep that seat.
44:27
Speaker 6: So I've seen it.
44:28
Speaker 5: There were a decent number of Republicans who were like, look,
44:31
Speaker 5: I told you that doing this Texas thing was a
44:34
Speaker 5: bad idea. It's wrong in principle, but also the politics
44:39
Speaker 5: is wrong. Trump has now once again started a needless
44:43
Speaker 5: war and he's losing it. Yeah, Like it's one thing
44:45
Speaker 5: to start a war for no reason and win it.
44:48
Speaker 6: And went a little political gain. He's starting wars and losing.
44:52
Speaker 3: It became a proxy for who's willing to use their
44:55
Speaker 3: raw political power when the other side has seeming to
45:00
Speaker 3: voters discarded with the principle. And that's understandable. I mean,
45:05
Speaker 3: it's completely understandable. And now you have Republicans waxing sanctimonious
45:09
Speaker 3: about how jerrymandering is antidemocratic and unprincipled. Barack Obama like
45:16
Speaker 3: congratulated Virginia Democrats on taking a step to uphold democracy,
45:20
Speaker 3: which is just hilarious when you look at districts like
45:24
Speaker 3: the Arlingtonian what was it Arlington stand whoever? The great
45:28
Speaker 3: tweeter put up? That was a great one. But it's California, Texas.
45:35
Speaker 3: Now Florida. Jakim Jeffrey's using the quote illegal jerrymandering term
45:40
Speaker 3: is interesting because he's defending the jerrymandering in Virginia. Florida
45:44
Speaker 3: actually has a lot in its constitution that you can't jerrymander.
45:48
Speaker 3: So whatever they do in Florida, they're going to have
45:50
Speaker 3: to be really careful about for obvious reasons. Now this
45:53
Speaker 3: could my understanding is it's possible it could go down
45:56
Speaker 3: at the Virginia State Supreme Court shortly, but that it's
46:00
Speaker 3: unlikely it gets rejected by the Virginia State Supreme Court,
46:03
Speaker 3: and that Democrats have picked up probably what five seats
46:06
Speaker 3: and then ten in California. Republicans picked up somewhere around
46:08
Speaker 3: like seven to ten in Texas. So just absolutely duking
46:12
Speaker 3: it out for control of the House going forward. But
46:16
Speaker 3: I think that's what it's really become, is just this
46:18
Speaker 3: proxy for failing the Michelle Obama test. When they go low,
46:24
Speaker 3: we go hi. We all now, like the base as Americans,
46:28
Speaker 3: we all want political parties, not you and I, but
46:31
Speaker 3: everyone wants the political party to fail that test. To say,
46:33
Speaker 3: when you go low, we punch back harder is and
46:36
Speaker 3: that what Hakim Jeffrey said. It's funny to hear, like
46:40
Speaker 3: to read that post in Hakim Jeffrey's voice, which is
46:42
Speaker 3: just like impotent. But speaking of which, Ryan, we should
46:47
Speaker 3: get this from the President pro Temporary of the Senate
46:50
Speaker 3: of Virginia. We got to put this post up on
46:52
Speaker 3: the screen. F four.
46:53
Speaker 6: She's been on fire.
46:54
Speaker 3: El Louise Lucas. I have the utmost respect for Senator
46:58
Speaker 3: Kine and Senator Warner, but we do not need quote
47:01
Speaker 3: coaching on redistricting coming from a cock chair in the corner.
47:06
Speaker 3: How about you all to stay focused on the fasts
47:08
Speaker 3: in the White House and let us handle redistricting in Virginia.
47:11
Speaker 3: Oh to one. And if you look at Louise Lucas's
47:15
Speaker 3: Twitter profile picture, she's an elderly woman, so it's even
47:20
Speaker 3: funnier to hear her talking about the cock chair.
47:23
Speaker 6: It's incredible. No, it's crazy, well done. She like you
47:28
Speaker 6: should just scroll through her whole Twitter feed.
47:30
Speaker 3: Is it good?
47:31
Speaker 5: The whole thing is good. At one point I can't
47:33
Speaker 5: find it, but she said something like, hey, look when
47:38
Speaker 5: when Republicans jerry mannered all of the black voters into
47:42
Speaker 5: one district, they said, we should be grateful gifting us,
47:45
Speaker 5: you know, this representative district. She's like, we're now we're
47:48
Speaker 5: putting all of you into one district, so thank us
47:52
Speaker 5: for it.
47:52
Speaker 6: You're gonna love it, see how you like it.
47:55
Speaker 3: The other thing is, you know, you never have a
47:57
Speaker 3: push for unilateral disarmament just an arm it's a we're
48:01
Speaker 3: in a jerrymandering arms race. To Louise's point, we're in
48:05
Speaker 3: a jerrymandering arms race, not.
48:07
Speaker 6: Just in That wasn't her. I think it was though
48:08
Speaker 6: I can't find it.
48:09
Speaker 3: Either way, not just in Virginia but across the country,
48:12
Speaker 3: and Ryan insisted that we put up at five. This
48:17
Speaker 3: is a classic post on X from twenty nineteen. Brian,
48:22
Speaker 3: why don't you go ahead and tell us what we're
48:23
Speaker 3: seeing here?
48:24
Speaker 5: Oh, the old reaping and sewing. That's right, it's incredible.
48:27
Speaker 3: The quote is haha fuck yeah, yes.
48:30
Speaker 6: Republicans in Virginia.
48:31
Speaker 3: Oh so yeah, yeah, the tweet is me sewing ha
48:35
Speaker 3: ha fuck yeah, yes, me reaping. Well, this fucking sucks.
48:39
Speaker 3: What the fuck? Yeah, shout out to the golden sir,
48:44
Speaker 3: Creaman but calm, not so great? Yeah never, but that's
48:50
Speaker 3: the reaping and the sewing will continue until morale improves.
48:53
Speaker 3: And morale does not seem pois to improve.
48:55
Speaker 5: No, no, indeed, I have one other little nugget of
48:59
Speaker 5: news to get out for people before we move on
49:01
Speaker 5: from this one. So in if you've been following Philadelphia's
49:06
Speaker 5: congressional race, it's an it's an open contest. We had
49:10
Speaker 5: Chris Rap on the program, he before, before.
49:14
Speaker 6: He before we had him on.
49:16
Speaker 5: Since we had him on, he's picked up like endorsements
49:19
Speaker 5: from like everybody, from like Jamie raskin justice Democrats like
49:24
Speaker 5: so the like real progressive kind of consolidation behind him.
49:28
Speaker 5: He's a he's the breaking Points mentum. He's endorsed by
49:34
Speaker 5: Phillies d s A Chapter, and he's running up against
49:39
Speaker 5: Sharif Street, who is more of the kind of establishment pick,
49:48
Speaker 5: kind of a legacy dynasty guy with a lot of
49:52
Speaker 5: a lot of ethical challenges, you could say. And Alice Stanford,
49:57
Speaker 5: who is one of who was a leading candidate who
50:00
Speaker 5: is has gotten more than a million dollars in support
50:03
Speaker 5: from this super pac called three fourteen Action, which I
50:07
Speaker 5: previously reported back in twenty twenty four. APAC was using
50:11
Speaker 5: it as a shell to funnel money into some congressional campaigns.
50:16
Speaker 5: It claims that it supports scientists and doctors, and it
50:20
Speaker 5: does often supportces and doctors, but usually to the tune
50:22
Speaker 5: of tens of thousands or maybe low six figures. It's
50:26
Speaker 5: extremely rare that three fourteen Action has more than a
50:30
Speaker 5: million dollars unless they're working with APAC. APAC is not
50:35
Speaker 5: publicly endorsing anyone in this race because they're so toxic,
50:39
Speaker 5: but people have suspected because of that three fourteen Action
50:42
Speaker 5: support that Stanford is getting APAC money, and they also
50:46
Speaker 5: then were like, oh, She's totally getting APAC money. When
50:48
Speaker 5: she was asked why it is that she is unwilling
50:52
Speaker 5: to say that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza,
50:57
Speaker 5: and she said that using the G word is similar
51:03
Speaker 5: to using the N word, and people are like, I'm sorry, what.
51:08
Speaker 6: So she was actually should what?
51:11
Speaker 5: So she was asked again about this last week and
51:15
Speaker 5: she said, there are a lot of Israelis who get
51:19
Speaker 5: very hurt feelings when you accuse them of having of
51:23
Speaker 5: committing genocide. So this is like her campaign line that
51:27
Speaker 5: she's not going to say that Israel's committing and genocide
51:29
Speaker 5: because it could hurt the feelings of the people carrying
51:32
Speaker 5: out the genocide. So we do have some news on that.
51:35
Speaker 5: Finally went through her went through her FEC report and
51:41
Speaker 5: found nearly thirty thousand dollars. I think we're going to
51:44
Speaker 5: find more if we keep looking, nearly thirty thousand dollars
51:47
Speaker 5: of contributions that flowed through Democracy Engine. Democracy Engine is
51:53
Speaker 5: the payment processing platform that APAC uses, and so that's
51:59
Speaker 5: how you can now confirm al Stanford is getting a
52:03
Speaker 5: pack money. So what they do is they'll send out
52:06
Speaker 5: an emails to their major donors and say privately, here
52:10
Speaker 5: are the candidates that we are supporting, please make a
52:13
Speaker 5: contribution through this democracy Engine portal, and then sometimes on
52:19
Speaker 5: the FEC report it shows up as having been funneled
52:23
Speaker 5: through its Democracy Engine portal. And so thankfully in her
52:28
Speaker 5: latest report we can see a little over twenty seven
52:32
Speaker 5: thousand dollars having run through a democracy engine and from
52:36
Speaker 5: candidates who are who have in the past given huge
52:42
Speaker 5: amounts of money to Apack and to a pack super.
52:46
Speaker 5: So case closed, it's done. She's getting a PAC money,
52:51
Speaker 5: she said in her recent town hall where she was
52:55
Speaker 5: where she's made this comment about Israeli's hurt feelings that
52:58
Speaker 5: she's not getting any APAC money. So that's a lie.
53:01
Speaker 5: She is getting a PAC money.
53:03
Speaker 3: Good stuff for him.
53:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, so we'll so this is it's going to
53:07
Speaker 5: be an interesting race and we'll see if Philly elphin
53:09
Speaker 5: Choir actually shocked shocked the world by endorsing Chris Rap
53:13
Speaker 5: that's because that's like that's they're not known interests, like
53:17
Speaker 5: a kind of progressive leaning.
53:19
Speaker 6: But anyway, we'll see how that race goes.
53:21
Speaker 3: Well, that doesn't for us. On today's edition, of Breaking Points.
53:24
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. If you want a premium subscription,
53:27
Speaker 3: breakingpoints dot com is where you can go to support
53:29
Speaker 3: our independent journalism, help us keep going, and you get well. Actually,
53:35
Speaker 3: Ryan has declared the Friday show is totally free, so
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Speaker 3: but you do get the show every morning in your
53:38
Speaker 3: inbox in full, which is really how it's meant to be.
53:41
Speaker 6: If you pay, you also get it free.
53:43
Speaker 3: There you go. Uh yes, Ryan. Also, we wanted to
53:47
Speaker 3: mention if you find yourself in the area or you
53:51
Speaker 3: want to travel Michael Parenti, his memorial is coming up.
53:55
Speaker 3: You can go to event create dot com. That is
53:58
Speaker 3: where it's in Berkeley.
54:00
Speaker 6: Yes, it's in Berkeley.
54:01
Speaker 5: Do we have the precise details? April twenty fifth.
54:06
Speaker 3: Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley.
54:08
Speaker 5: Yes, so check that out two to three pm at
54:14
Speaker 5: the Unitarian Universal Church Saturday, April twenty fifth. If you're
54:18
Speaker 5: in the Bay area, a memorial for Michael Parenti.
54:22
Speaker 3: All right, we'll see you.