Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 8/26/26: Professor Pape Ridicules Bessent's D-Day, MAGA Influencer Caught Working for Pentagon, Beef Controversy w/ Dan Osborn

Transcript

8/26/26: Professor Pape Ridicules Bessent's D-Day, MAGA Influencer Caught Working for Pentagon, Beef Controversy w/ Dan Osborn · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: the future of this show.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: together for you every morning in your inbox.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Joining us now is a great friend of the show,
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, a great
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: friend of our show.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It's great to see you, sir. Thank you for joining us.
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's so great to be with you this morning.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: So, sir, we know we're going to talk about South Korea,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: but we also know that an extensive part of your
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: work is around economic sanctions. We just did an entire
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: segment about China's expected response. We could put C1 up
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: here on the screen so you could give a little
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: bit more of your analysis. China is saying that they
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: will hit out at, quote, illegal new U.S. sanctions on
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Iran and its trading partners. Considering your expertise and your
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: decades-long research into the subject, what do you make of
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: the Secretary Besant's economic D-Day threats here against Iran and
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: its trading partners?
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: Yes, what Scott Besson is doing is going through another
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: route of the escalation trap. He's presenting it as an
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: alternative to war, but that's not what it is. What
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: it's really going to lead to is another escalation trap.
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: And if anything, if he in fact goes forward, it
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: would be more military war. So for 30 years, I
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: have studied, as we all know, air power, but also
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: side by side with that, Economic Blockades and Economic Sanctions,
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: publishing big articles, fat appendices, all the cases since.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: World War I.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: And here's what people need to know, that starting in
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: World War I, the pattern is different before, but starting
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: in World War I, economic blockades and economic sanctions have never,
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: never on their own won a major war. They've never
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: toppled a government on their own in a major war.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: And they have never led to capitulation of that government
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: to the coercer's demands. This is extremely important to know
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: because in World War I, there was massive British blockade
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: on Germany. World War II, massive economic sanctions and U.S.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Blockade on Japan.
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: And in both those cases, that blockade did not stop
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: a messy ground wars. In fact, they only ended with
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: messy ground wars and with Japan, the atomic bombs.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: If we look at.
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, we imposed economic sanctions on
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: Saddam Hussein after we kicked his forces out of Kuwait.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: And those stayed on for a dozen years. They dropped
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: the economy's GDP by 48% each year for 12 solid years.
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: And did not stop us from having to invade with
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: 150,000 ground forces. Iran, we've been slapping sanctions on Iran
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: for decades.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: And also Putin.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Look at what happened with Russia after he invaded Ukraine.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Now, what has been the.
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: We slapped economic sanctions on Russia. What has been the
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: result in all of these cases? All of these cases, notice,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: they don't lead to peace. They don't lead to ceasefire.
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: They lead to failure, strategic failure, and more war, more escalation.
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: So Scott Besson is really not doing a good service
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: to the world. by saying that this is an off-ramp
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: to escalation. And the one question the media should have
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: asked at the press conference is, Secretary Besant, can you
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: name one case since World War I, over the last
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: hundred plus years, just one case that fits your model?
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: All we need is one, sir, one case. And you
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: know what? There's not a case.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: And this is something that's important because there's a second
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: point I want to make, which is you.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Also see the targets lashing back.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: It's the sanctions we slapped on Japan that led to
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: the Pearl Harbor attack. This is not a controversial point
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: at this point. This is well known. And we run
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: the risk that if we go forward, what's going to
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: happen is Iran will lash back then we're going to
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: spiral back, and that is the escalation trap. These are
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: not off-ramps to war. They're effectively the Western way of
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: war because they persuade liberal audiences, done everything you could do,
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: so force.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Is a last resort.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: That's how you get the liberals on board.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: For wars, they don't want to fight.
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: And what examples throughout history do we have of a
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: country as powerful as China being sanctioned?
• 5:16
  Speaker 7: And what are the implications for the U.S. ability to
• 5:22
  Speaker 7: carry through its threats?
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Well, we don't have to look that far back.
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: Just go back a year, because what the tariffs were
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: on China were effectively economic sanctions. So President Trump used
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: the word tariffs. But if you peel the onion and
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: you look under the hood... they're exactly the trade cutoffs
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: of sanctions. So they're really not much different than sanctions
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: at all. In fact, they're identical. And what happened? China
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: responded with cutting off rare earths. And that may sound
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: a little inside baseball to most people, but it's important
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: to know that these things we call rare earths are
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: not just dirt, but they show up in all the
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: chips that we put in our cars. I drive a RAV4.
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: You can't produce RAV4s here in Ohio. or in the Midwest,
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: in the American plants, if China cuts off those rare earths.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: So this has much more dramatic consequences. And I'm not
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: at all surprised. And what I've been saying China would
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: do is they're just going to bluff it off. They're
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: just going to ignore this. Now, if Scott Besson goes
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: forward and truly cuts off China's banks, then I think
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: China's going to respond. But I don't think China sees
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: this as a real threat yet. I think it's too
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: much bluster here. And that's why Scott Besson wouldn't even
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: mention the word China. Notice, he didn't even say the
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: word China. And he said, and somebody asked him, why
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: aren't you being tough? And he said, well, I don't
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: want to blow up the world financial system.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: He literally said those words. So think about it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: Here we've got the Secretary of the Treasury unrolling, rolling
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: out a plan. And he says, oh, and by the way,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: if I execute the plan, we all go down with it.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: I don't understand. That's not a plan for victory in
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: my book. Maybe you can help me understand this. Washington.
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: This must be what happens in Washington.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: No, this is more from a standard episode of Veep, unfortunately.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Professor, we also wanted to ask you about South Korea
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: and just generally in the broader context of what's happening
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: in Asia. We can put D1 up here on the screen.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Some pretty shocking new public polling actually coming out.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Of South Korea.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: For the first time in modern history, really, you see
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: that the opinion of the United States among South Koreans
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: is near an all-time low in 2026, much of it
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: on the heels now of Trump canceling these military exercises
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: with the South, trying to court the DPRK in the North,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: but also with a lot of our trade relationships and
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: blustering against South Korea on top of many of the
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: other incendiary actions taken against their companies here in our nation.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I know that you have previously given some analysis about
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: when the United States seeks to potentially abandon South Korea,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: that they can pursue a nuclear weapons program. How do
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: you put it in the broader context of the realignment
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: of U.S. position of power in Asia?
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: Yes, and I've also been to the Seoul Dialogues. I've
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: actually been to South Korea with the president and so
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: forth on the stage. So I know a little bit
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: about these subjects and it's part of what I study.
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: So what you are seeing in that chart, it's very interesting.
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: The actual point where it starts to spike up is
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: in 2025. And what happened in 2025? Trump's tariffs, which
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: I told you were sanctioned. So he tariffed South Korea
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: as well. And this has an enormous impact on the
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: South Korean economy. And yes, he pulled back a bit
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: from this, but there's still these pretty serious tariffs there.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: And by the way, South Korea is really peeling the
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: pain from this. So it's no surprise at all that
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: this is where the spike is. And then in the war,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: it's during the Iran war. Now President Trump is asking
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: for South Korea to essentially give us some of their
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: destroyers to put at risk because we won't put our
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: destroyers at risk.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: No, no, no.
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: We just want to, we're going to fight to the
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: last South Korean destroyer. So notice this is not working
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: out very well, and the South Korean public is able
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: to follow this. Now, the bigger picture, though, is what
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: you see is that we are in a quagmire in
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: the Middle East, and we're now pulling our aircraft carrier
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: from Asia that's supposed to be protecting South Korea into
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: this quagmire, and there's no replacement to go back to Asia.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: So what South Korea, what you really have to worry
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: about as time goes on, is not just this short-term kerfuffle,
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: but South Korea sees there's no more protection from Big
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: Brother Uncle Sam. And what does that mean? The last
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: time they worried about that, they went for nuclear weapons
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: in the 1970s. And it was only when we absolutely
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: guaranteed that our ground forces would be there, et cetera,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: et cetera, and actually stationed in South Korea. that they
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: turned off the nuclear program. So this is not a
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: small issue. It may be a bit under the media
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: radar right now, but this could be the first nuclear
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: domino to fall outside of the Middle East. We've seen Iran,
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: Saudi Arabia, now South Korea.
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: Well, so racing for nuclear weapons is one way of
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: trying to create some stability. Another is to actually just
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: reach a peaceful coexistence with your neighbor. Is there a
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: prospect for that in the region? Like, could you imagine
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: a world in which the U.S. kind of withdraws its presence?
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: I mean, clearly they're already withdrawing their military capacity there.
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: And that forces the parties there to say, you know what,
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: we're not going anywhere. Like, we need to reach some
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: sort of mutual agreement here by which we can live
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: together peacefully.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: I do think that's possible.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: So from 2012 to 15, one of the reasons I
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: went to South Korea is I made eight trips to China,
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: South Korea, and Taiwan in that three-year period. And I
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: was meeting with high-level people, including at the level of
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: the president here, especially the office. I will say I
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: won't say the individual because if you ever have those conversations,
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: you don't want to say that. About having a meeting,
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: an international conference, And the first step of that that
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: would make sense would be to do it not as
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: a government set of governments getting together, but the way
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: this really happens to build that kind of walking to
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: cooperation is often with academics and civil society, think tanks.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: And we got quite close here, I would say, to that.
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: I think it would be wise to try that again,
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: but it's difficult right now because the Obama administration was
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: much more open to cooperative international efforts, you're not seeing
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: any signs of the Trump administration interested in brokering.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: These efforts.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: And it's not impossible to do without the United States,
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: but it's obviously much easier if there's at least a
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: wink-wink support, that this isn't generally supported from the White House.
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: What you're seeing is the opposite. You're seeing heavy-handed action.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: Scott Besson doesn't talk to, doesn't, there's no effort, month-long
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: effort to bring the world together for an international coalition
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: against Iran.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: He just up and announces.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: That, and it's his way or the highway, you don't
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: like it, you're either with us or against us. Well,
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: this is not the way to actually bring people together.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: So but I do think it's possible. I do think
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: it's really possible. And I think it's worth trying.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Connecting to your previous point, Professor, about South Korea, you
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: mentioned Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: What do you make?
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Got very little coverage here in the West. It did
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: seem to be a monumental new security arrangement. What do
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: you make of that security arrangement as we continue to
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: see the emerging security order post-Iran war?
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: Well, this is what is part and parcel of what
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: will happen when Iran becomes the fourth center of world power.
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: So as I've explained, Iran is on the trajectory to
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: become the fourth center of world power. And as it
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: gets more and more powerful, as you're seeing, we started
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: talking about this, I think, back in April, and now
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: it's becoming more and more a reality. Well, what that
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: means is Iran will want to extend its influence over
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: the frontline Gulf states literally like the Soviet Union did
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: when it occupied Eastern Europe, and it will want to
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: control the governments. Well, Saudi Arabia, of course, doesn't want
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: to be controlled by Iran. So what does it do?
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: It starts to look for international help. That's Pakistan and Turkey.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: And then also starts to think seriously, not just on whiteboards,
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: about nuclear weapons. And that's what you're seeing with Saudi Arabia.
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: They're responding to the result of Iran on the trajectory
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: to become the fourth center of world power. And this
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: will not go unnoticed. It might not be covered much
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: by the media, but you can bet all the governments
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: in the Middle East and the governments in Asia are
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: noticing this. And they are not going to be sort of,
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: even though the media may not cover Iran as the
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: rising fourth center of world power, the world is going
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: to react to that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: So we were talking at the beginning of the program
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: about the interesting dilemma that Iran finds itself in, which,
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: to borrow a phrase, is almost like a de-escalation trap.
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: And what I mean by that is that while they
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: have fought the U.S. to maybe better than a standstill,
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: they've wiped out a bunch of American bases, they've shown
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: that they can withstand the amount of American punishment that
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: America is able to dish out.
• 15:18
  Speaker 7: We know that the American.
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: Capacity, the ammo capacity is minimal at this point, so
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: they don't have a whole lot more left.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: U.S.
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: Is looking at something like 40 days of oil inventories left.
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: But Iran, too, is facing a severe economic crisis, which
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: could lead to a political crisis. And so now there's
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: a staring game. Who can outlast the other one? And
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: so there's a concern among some Iranian hardliners saying, if
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: we are stuck in this stasis— Like, we actually start
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: falling behind.
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: So that's why I say maybe it's a de-escalation trap.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: They need them to ratchet it back up to get
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: out of it.
• 16:04
  Speaker 7: The only way out is through. So where do you
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: see this kind of stalemate ending?
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: I don't think it's a stalemate. I understand that's the
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: common narrative. But Iran has the upper hand, and they're
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: putting their pedal to the metal by initiating attacks.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: So it's not true.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: Just because we're not bombing Iran doesn't mean Iran... is
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: not using attacks. So it's not tit for tat anymore.
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: There's no tit for tat's been gone. This is just
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: the wrong framing. What's occurring is Iran is initiating attacks.
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: They've attacked seven UAE tankers in the Strait of Hormuz
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: since August 5th. And what they're doing is they're trying
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: to squeeze America economically in order to have gas prices raised,
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: in order to wreck the Trump presidency. There's a clear
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: game plan here by Iran that I think the media
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: is mostly missing, which is Iran is not sitting back
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: and is, oh, treading water. Iran is squeezing the oil
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: more and more in the Persian Gulf and also with
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: the Houthis against Saudi oil. And what that's doing is
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: it's causing the price of gas to go up and
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: also causing real rockiness in our financial markets. Those are
• 17:22
  Speaker 5: the reasons for that. And I think they want to
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: do that through the midterms, at least maybe through January,
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: to basically wreck the Trump presidency and install the Democrats
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: and force the Democrats to take a position on the
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: Iran war. So this is Iran playing American politics, not
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: just simply treading water.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Makes a lot of sense. Professor, we have another guest
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: standing by. Otherwise, we'd love to keep talking to you.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much for joining us.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Of course. Oh, and Substack. We'll have a link down
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: in the description.
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Let's get to influencers.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: I'm just personally obsessed with this story, kind of about
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: the way that information works in the modern right and
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: in the magosphere. influencers and how it's now been revealed
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: that one of the top ones is actually being paid
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: by the United States government, is an employee over there.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: So let's put this up here on the screen just
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: to reveal how this entire thing happened. I hate to
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: cite the bulwark, but, you know, they had the best
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: write-up on it, so it is what it is. So
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: they say, a MAGA propaganda circular firing squad. How leaking
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: to a prominent pro-Trump influencer prompted accusations of entrapment and
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: a deep state conspiracy. So, Will Sommer, He writes, pro-Trump
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: internet sleuth, Jessica Pounds, better known as Data Republican to
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: her 1 million followers on Twitter, made a grim announcement
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: on Friday. Deep state operatives embedded within the Trump administration
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: had tried to entrap her into committing treason. She says,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: it is not okay when the deep state sets you
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: up to commit a crime. I have never been more
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: angry in my entire life. In Pounds' portentous telling, An
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: unnamed official, soon be to reveal Sarah B. Rogers, who
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: is the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy at the State Department,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: had offered to leak her government documents about Cuba to
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: publish as an exclusive. While Pounds was initially enthusiastic, markings
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: on the documents prompted her to panic that she was
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: being set up Had she published the documents, Pounds felt,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: she would have exposed herself to criminal prosecution. And she
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: then puts all of this out there in an unhinged conspiracy.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Then eventually what happens, it becomes revealed that Ms. Rogers,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: who works as the undersecretary for public diplomacy, had these documents,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: which should already be publicly cleared to be released by FOIA,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: had it been leaking them to her as an exclusive.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: So you and I, Ryan, see this type of BS
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: all the time. Some public official wants to use you
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: for propaganda purposes. They say, hey, I've got an exclusive
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: for you.
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: It's like 99% of your interactions with public officials.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Literally 99% of your interactions abound to something like this.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: And you go, okay, what is it? They give it
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: to you. 99%. And again, 98.9% of the time, it's bullshit.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: And you say, I don't care.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Go ahead and release it publicly.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: However, these MAGA influencers, for her, she was going to
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: release these documents about Cuba, about how bad things were
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: going on in Cuba. It's pure propaganda, right? And so
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: what's revealed about this entire thing and why I wanted
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: to do it was to show both the low human
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: capital problem that abounds on the modern right but also
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: a distinction between independent media and independent journalism. Because anybody
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: who knows anything about journalism would not have thought, wow,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: this is an elaborate ploy to entrap me. They would
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: have said, this is a stupid story, which has no
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: news value whatsoever. And instead, she's happy to do the latter,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: but it's the former which she gets upset about.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It also shows how these.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: People who are total anonymous, people who come out of nowhere,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: who have no background in journalism, who have no interest
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: in learning, who abide by rules, which the legacy media,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: who I hate, as you know, would never even put
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: themselves in that depths of depravity, basically by releasing whatever
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: they want on behalf of the state. That for them,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: their lack of professionalism is putting them now in situations
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: where they have to interact with these public institutions and
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: totally beclown themselves. And what's so funny about this, and
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you'll love this in particular, is, let's put
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: E3 up here on the screen, is it now turns
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: out that according to the DOD, that she serves, quote,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: at the Department of War as a special government employee
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: and is no longer a credentialed journalist at the Pentagon.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: So get this, she previously, remember we covered this extensively,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: the two of us, this bullshit Pentagon.
• 21:55
  Speaker 7: They brought in a whole new press corps.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: They brought in a.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: New press corps, which is a bunch of MAGA influencers.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: They barely hold any press conferences. They kicked all the
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: real Pentagon journalists out of the building because they refused
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: to sign something saying that they basically wouldn't do their jobs.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: And so now it turns out that she was part
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: of that press corps, but now literally works as a
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: special government employee.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Doing what exactly? But I mean, on behalf of us.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: And so in this case, you have a government official
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: trying to leak to another government official, and the whole
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: thing comes and she's like, you're trying to entrap me
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: because I'm a government official. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: so you're paying anonymous ex-influencers who publish a bunch of
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: weird Zionist nonsense?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: All the time about deep state conspiracies. You're part of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the deep state.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: You're working at the Pentagon this entire time. So I
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: had to give it coverage to show low human capital,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: the bottom feeders in a lot of independent media that
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: exist right now. Because they have no standards. They have
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: no journalistic experience. They have no ability to discern general fact,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: reach out for comment, do anything normal. And yeah, it's
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: like the fact that all of this happened just, I think,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: demonstrates what you can see in the emerging MAGA ecosystem.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: And I didn't pull this element. I probably should have.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Ezra Klein wrote a piece in the New York Times,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: which I actually thought was quite prescient. And he said Democrats,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: he said Republicans are making the same mistake that Democrats did.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: They had a major Twitter problem. As in, ever since
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Elon bought Twitter, is that people are literally living in
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: a parallel universe where they think things are more popular
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: than not, both rhetorically, politically, from different types of politicians,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: or even overestimating their own influence. And that legacy is
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: bleeding through the Republican elite in the same way that,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: let's say, wokeism bled through the Democratic elite during woke one,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: which was crazy, although not really over, as you showed
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: in your Abdul El-Sayed coverage yesterday. But as he said,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: that Twitter problem of the small group trying to set
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: the discussion is bedeviling the right in the exact same way.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: And I think this is a good example of that
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: entire thing.
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah, right.
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: It would be like if... It's like they have their
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: own blue sky. Like Twitter has become... the kind of
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: right's blue sky in it. And you can imagine like
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: the same problems that were created by old Twitter for
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: Democrats would exist if all Democrats had to rely on
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: was current blue sky. Like they'd obviously govern like complete lunatics.
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: And that's what's happening here. But yeah, the Stata Republican,
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: it's just amazing. I walked in with good faith, ready
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: to collaborate on Cuba. I had a Cuban official reach
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: out to me. They're like, what on earth is going
• 24:36
  Speaker 6: on here?
• 24:37
  Speaker 7: This is your deep state? I was like, this is
• 24:39
  Speaker 7: our shallow state.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 24:41
  Speaker 7: What were they even trying to leak? What is going
• 24:44
  Speaker 7: on here?
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: They got shoved a bunch of hard copy documents to leak.
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: Didn't check them before accepting. Yep, markings that would have
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: gotten me in big trouble. So she really, really thought
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: that They hired her to be a propagandist.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: At the DOD.
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: At the DOD. To then set her up.
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 25:05
  Speaker 7: Because she didn't understand how FOIA works.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: See, that's another tell, is that any journalist, literally any,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: even one of the most basic things you do in
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Washington as a junior reporter is file these annoying FOIA requests.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: So you become familiar with what FOIA markings look like.
• 25:22
  Speaker 6: Like if you had experience on this, you'd be like, well,
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: wait a minute. I didn't file this FOIA. What journalist
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: am I screwing over here? Because some journalists went through
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: the actual work. Or actually, this might have been a
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: right-wing organization that filed the FOIA.
• 25:35
  Speaker 7: That's probably what happened. So you go through this work
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: and you file a FOIA.
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: And then once it's ready, the entire public has access
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: to it. But because they paid the money, they did
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: the labor, like the courtesy at least is that they're
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: supposed to get the scoop on the FOIA documents.
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: They're not supposed to call in.
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: Now, the way it would work differently is if it's
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: a kind of right-wing kind of organization. activist organization that
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: filed the FOIA, and then they'd be fine if you
• 26:03
  Speaker 6: gave it to a propagandist to break.
• 26:05
  Speaker 7: Ben Smith had a good response in here.
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: He says, seems like the alternate information space you are
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: trying to nurture needs some work. It is a skills
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: and training gap, which has been part of the right
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: for decades now. I remember Tucker Carlson in the 2000s
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: giving a speech saying one of the reasons he built
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: Daily Caller was to confront this skills gap of like
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: actual journalistic skills gap.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, that's a testament. I, you know, that's
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: where I got my job by first start.
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: He later said it didn't work.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Well, he did say it didn't work, but I mean,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: I would dispute at least somewhat, because if you look
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: at the generation, I mean, not just.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Me, I'm not going to toot my own horn. I mean,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: there are a lot better journalists that came out of
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: it than I am.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: I eventually just became a talking head moron. But at
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: least I came from the background of it. And I
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: have the skepticism to know when people are trying to
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: use you, when they're, you know, how the basics of
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: FOIA work.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, these things matter.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: And there's nothing wrong, you know, with being if you
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: want to expound on politics, be my guest. But if
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: you were going to talk about exposure, you need to
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: know the very basics of your craft and not look
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: like a conspiracy theorist. you know, written, like, I mean,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: just look at this, like you're literally working for the,
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: first of all, what does it all say about our
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: government that they hire somebody like this?
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: What?
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: It's like, this is humiliating for you on every level,
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: both on the government side, the fact that she was
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: credentialed previously at the Pentagon. So this is the type
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: of work, you know, that they think is appreciative. And
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: I think the worst part for me was that the
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: woman who she accused of trying to set her up,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: Sarah Rogers, was like, It's okay.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: You should be distrustful of the government. I was like, what?
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: She's totally debasing herself before this clown.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: No, you should say, you're an idiot. It's like, yeah,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you are literally an idiot. So, yeah, that's where things
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: stand as of right now.
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: Another former Trump administration lawyer responded, unfortunate misfire from two
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: of our best.
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: And that is your problem.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and somebody put out.
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: These are two of your best.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Somebody showed a funny past. Let's put E5 up here
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: on the screen where... She had put out one of
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: these long screens. This is kind of her classic. Who
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: controls the media? This goes way beyond biased journalists.
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: U.S.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Taxpayers spend billions funding media abroad to promote democracy. Media
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: is a key soft power tool used to steer public
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: opinion and culture. Media outlets aren't required to disclose who
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: funds their training.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: This creates a backdoor.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Journalism training programs, funders, can influence media narratives without transparency.
• 28:35
  Speaker 7: All true.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: You and I both know that's all true.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: You're literally a government official working for the United States
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: government and the Pentagon.
• 28:43
  Speaker 7: Not disclosing it.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And you did not disclose that to your readers while
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: apparently making a shitload of money off of these X subscriptions.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: By some estimates, nearly a million dollars per year, which
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: I don't even know how you'd square that with ethics.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: I guess special government employee status you're allowed to make.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: outside income for up to six months but yeah put
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: it all together the whole thing is.
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: Great she only has 22 subscriptions how.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure i don't know exactly where the number
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: came from i apologize if that uh number was incorrect
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: as i said some estimate there was some estimate that
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: she was making quite a bit of a sum in
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: some of these so anyway uh look regardless if people
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: are paying you for your information you're not disclosing uh
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: where that you know who that who is paying you
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: i think that's pretty uh pretty egregious As Ben said,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: maybe your information system needs some professionalism.
• 29:34
  Speaker 7: A little cultivating there, yes.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Dan Osborne standing by. Let's get to it.
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: We wanted to get to this rather extraordinary and controversial
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: move when it came to beef imports from President Donald J.
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: Trump that is rattling the cattle ranching industry. Last week,
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: let's put up this truth social from Donald Trump announcing
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: this deal that I said today I concluded a deal
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: to substantially lower the price of ground beef for working
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: American families. As everyone knows, under President Biden, beef prices
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: soared at their fastest rate and the American beef herd
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: fell to its smallest size in modern history. As we
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: work to rebuild this herd and help our ranchers for
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: the next 90 days right through the election, coincidentally. The
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of
• 30:24
  Speaker 6: product for ground beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff.
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: We have a commitment that this beef will be sold
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: at 25% below current market prices, which is coincidentally precisely
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: what the tariff is. This deal will reduce prices for Americans,
• 30:42
  Speaker 6: not guaranteed at all, while giving space for our great
• 30:46
  Speaker 6: American beef herd to grow again.
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: So I watched a couple of.
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: Cattle kind of Beef industry podcasts in the wake of this.
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: And that was the line that had them the most confused,
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: to put it generously, or enraged, that it's going to
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: give our giving space for our great American beef herd
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: to grow again. So clearly somebody and the ranchers all
• 31:12
  Speaker 6: assume that it was JBS, which is a Brazilian beef company,
• 31:18
  Speaker 6: which is a massive donor company. to the Trump administration
• 31:21
  Speaker 6: because they have some American subsidiaries that can legally donate
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: to American politics, that JBS got in his ear. And
• 31:29
  Speaker 6: somebody gave him a talking point that this will give
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: them space to grow their herds, you know, like, because
• 31:36
  Speaker 6: they won't be able to sell any of their own cattle.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: And so the cattle will just be out there making
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: love and making more.
• 31:44
  Speaker 7: Right. Making more calves. Making more calves.
• 31:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: How does it actually work?
• 31:47
  Speaker 7: The ranch is like, we're all going to go out
• 31:49
  Speaker 7: of business. Like, we're all going to quit.
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: And a bunch of them are saying that they've heard
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: from so many people who are like, this is the
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: last straw.
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: Like, we're out. Like, we don't even see this as
• 32:02
  Speaker 7: a business that we.
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: Can be in, that our children can grow into, that
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: we cannot compete.
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: What they want.
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: if they want to grow the herd, is some level
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: of certainty that going into the future, there will be
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: a price for their product at which they can sell
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: it and not lose money. Believe it or not, that's
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: how they want to operate a business, not getting no money.
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: And then the herd is just going to magically grow.
• 32:34
  Speaker 6: They're like, what on earth are you talking about? So
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: then the question is, where... Where is this beef going
• 32:41
  Speaker 6: to come from? Trump was asked. Here's, let's roll F1.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Now, the presumption is that it's going to come from
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Brazil and Argentina.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: That is what all of the cattle industry is assuming.
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: Argentina can send a decent amount. Brazil has most of it, ironically.
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: Maybe it won't bother Sager. But the way that Brazil
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: grows its herd is by chopping down the rainforest.
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: And turning the rainforest. No, why would that?
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't that? Of course that bothers me. No, you
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: don't have to be a bleeding heart liberal.
• 33:29
  Speaker 7: I don't know, that's woke lefty environmentalism or something.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: What, you got to love the rainforest to be a lib?
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think so.
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: By the way, you go to Florida, the Gulf, and
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: you see all that disgusting red algae type stuff that's
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: destroying the tourism industry in the Caribbean and in Mexico
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: and Florida. A lot of significant amounts of that are
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: Saharan issues.
• 33:51
  Speaker 7: Right. Dust.
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: So now go go pull out your map like the
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: Sahara and Brazil are kind of lateral. And it is
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: only only because of the rainforest that we don't have
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: a Sahara across there.
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: Well, if we do, good Lord.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would I would more say this way is
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: that obviously environmental concern is a major concern, but it's
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: not the primary concern, I guess, for me, which is
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: that ultimately is that you can't be a nation, which
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: is that can't you can't be a real nation. If
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: you can't sustain yourself at a very basic level. And
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: that's effectively what has happened with this. What I read
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: about with cattle is that the herd sizes have been
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: dramatically decreasing for six consecutive years. This year was the
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: first year that it actually was going up. And then
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: what happened is that this undercutting has made it so
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: that they may not be able to make money, period.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: And it will extend the losses for enough of time
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: on top of fertilizer, diesel and all these other things.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: that are influencing many of these ranchers and farmers, which
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: is what's screwing them, basically simultaneously all at the same time.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: All of that is reflected for the small cattle herd
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: is reflected in the high price. Ultimately, that's what it's about.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: That's why beef prices have gone where they are. To
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: the extent that we need the government intervention, it's to
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: make it so that American cattle ranchers can grow more
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: or can have more cattle in a and have more
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: cattle over a longer period of time in a sustainable
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: fashion to make it so that we have stability of
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: price now and in the future. The other problem is that,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: like you said, about the cattle and the beef is
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: not all beef is the same. And look, I got
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: a lot of problems with America's beef industry. I think it's,
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: you know, catastrophic the way they're treated, et cetera. And
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: we could go, it's a balance because if you treat
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: it better, it would cost a lot more. Fine with me,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: but not fine for most people because we're in the
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: middle of a beef crisis. So the problem, I think,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: is reflected, though, in that you talked about environmental. There's
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: also care standards, whether fed, quality concern. We've seen slashing
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: and USDA inspection. Are we sure that all of this
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: is going to cover or is going to qualify for that?
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: And if you talk to the American cattle rancher, they
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: often will say, look, you can come after us all
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: you want. We treat and raise our cattle in a
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: much better and healthier way, at least for the population
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: of the United States, than compared to a lot of
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: these South American producers.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: So it's a crisis on every level.
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: And what the South American producers do when they are
• 36:19
  Speaker 6: producing these unhealthy cattle is they blast them with antibiotics
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: that are illegal here and dangerous to human consumption.
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: We can get into that in a moment.
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: But we'll be joined by Dan Osborne, a candidate in
• 36:29
  Speaker 6: Nebraska who's going to be a big issue. It already
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: is a big issue in the Nebraska race. We can
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: actually jump to, and this is related to the Nebraska race,
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: we can jump to F4. The other thing that is
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: driving prices here is that there's this massive consolidation in
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: the meatpacker industry. And what the meatpackers have been doing
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: is they've been strategically shutting down processing facilities around the country.
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: They did it in Nebraska. And in a town of
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: like 10,000 people, this processing facility employed over 3,000 people.
• 37:11
  Speaker 6: And you're talking 10,000 men, women, and children in this town.
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: So basically the entire town was organized around this processing plant.
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: And The argument that the Packers make is, well, there's
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: not enough business coming in. But what actually seems to
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: be going on is that by shutting down this particular plant,
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: and as you saw there, we've seen a massive plant
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: that just shut down in Illinois, another plant shut down
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: in Pennsylvania.
• 37:41
  Speaker 7: That means that the.
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: Ranchers who then need to sell their cattle are They
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: have fewer options to sell it to, and they have
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: to travel further, so they're willing to take a lower price.
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: So that pushes down the price that, again, that the
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: ranchers can get for the cattle. And then, because there
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: are only a few of these packers, they can then
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: set the price when they sell it to the customer.
• 38:11
  Speaker 7: So they're setting prices.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: when they're buying from the farmers and they're setting prices
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: when they're selling it to us. That's why, as I
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: said at the beginning, when Trump says that importing this
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: 300,000 metric tons is going to lower prices, it doesn't
• 38:25
  Speaker 6: have to if you have a monopolistic, concentrated industry. They
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: can sell for whatever they want to sell it for. Now,
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: Trump might make some phone calls and kind of jawbone
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: it down for 90 days just to get through the midterms.
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: But that obviously is not a long-term solution. Now, again, now,
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: Brooke Rollins, the Ag Secretary, has been fighting against this,
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: as have a lot of Republican senators for a very
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: long time. And she stopped him from doing this previously.
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: You can tell from this clip here that she's kind
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: of been cut out of the question here. So let's
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: do F2.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: What specific countries have been in talks with the U.S.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: About stepping up to the courts, aside from Mexico?
• 39:13
  Speaker 9: I am not privy to talk about that. I think
• 39:15
  Speaker 9: the conversations are still going on. And that's Ambassador Greer,
• 39:19
  Speaker 9: who's finalizing what exactly that looks like. And I think
• 39:22
  Speaker 9: the president's involved in that as well.
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: Always always good when your ag secretary is not privy
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: to the negotiations. So then to underscore the politics of this,
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: she's against this. So the fact that she's clueless on
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: this suggests who's winning it. We put up F5 Republican
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: Senator Tim Sheehy from Montana, just absolutely losing his mind
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: over this.
• 39:47
  Speaker 7: And this relates to nearby Nebraska.
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: I've advised President Trump against this course of action for
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: a year because American ranchers have been struggling against the
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: Packer monopoly for decades, and this will further harm them,
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: most of whom are MAGA Republicans.
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: The president's heart.
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: Is in the right place on wanting lower prices for
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: the American people, and beef prices have been impacted by
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: the Mexican screwworm, which.
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: came up because we stopped monitoring for the screwworm.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: Thanks, Doge.
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: But the reality is this action will make it more
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: down prices for the American people. And most importantly, this
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: will harm our ranching families who feed the nation. Chuck Grassley,
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: still a senator, despite the loss of his vacuum, Beth, recently,
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: says after Tyson closure in Illinois last week, I'm concerned
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: for the cattle markets and now President Trump's decision to
• 40:38
  Speaker 6: temporarily open up subsidized beef imports. USA cattlemen should always
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: be put first through America first policies, need to keep
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: up progress, fighting through worm and expanding domestic herd.
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: Those are just a couple of.
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: The reactions from these Midwestern and Western senators who are
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: just appalled at what this is doing to the industry
• 40:59
  Speaker 6: and to people who have supported the president for.
• 41:03
  Speaker 7: A decade now. Exactly.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Let's bring in Dan Osborne and give his reaction.
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: So, yes, joining us now to discuss is independent Nebraska
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: Senate candidate Dan Osborne. Dan, thanks for being here. Really
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: appreciate it.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Good to see you, sir.
• 41:17
  Speaker 8: Yeah, thank you for having me on.
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so this is an issue that you have been
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: focused on throughout your campaign, particularly because of the processing
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: facility that was shut down in Nebraska.
• 41:28
  Speaker 7: It was Lexington, Nebraska? Is that the town?
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, correct.
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: It's about 3,300 jobs.
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: 3,300 jobs in a town of something like 10,000 people.
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: First of all, let me start with that. What has
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: happened to the town? Have you been there since?
• 41:42
  Speaker 7: How has the town.
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: Weathering the collapse of its entire industry.
• 41:51
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it's definitely struggling. I mean, it's not just that
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: Tyson plant that's affected, right? It's the gas stations, the schools,
• 41:59
  Speaker 8: the churches, the car dealerships. I mean, you think about
• 42:03
  Speaker 8: the hotels, the landlords, everything that goes into a town
• 42:07
  Speaker 8: that size. They are definitely struggling to try to pivot
• 42:12
  Speaker 8: to a Find some industry to come in there to
• 42:16
  Speaker 8: help prop it up.
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and I remember at the time you were arguing
• 42:20
  Speaker 6: that the federal law, I think the Stockyards and Packers Act,
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: should come into play because it seemed like the packers
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: were strategically closing the plant in order to manipulate prices,
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: which is against law.
• 42:33
  Speaker 7: Federal law.
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: Your opponent, Pete Ricketts, said that he looked into that
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: and decided that it was not a violation of the
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: law and that it should be treated more like.
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: A natural disaster.
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: So what has the federal government done if this was
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: a natural disaster?
• 42:52
  Speaker 8: Abandonment, I suppose, would be the word for it. I mean, look, Tyson,
• 42:56
  Speaker 8: this is what Tyson does, right? They've just paid out
• 42:59
  Speaker 8: two lawsuits recently of over $ 80 million for price fixing,
• 43:04
  Speaker 8: strategically working with other packers to shut down plants around
• 43:08
  Speaker 8: the country so they could dictate to the producer what
• 43:10
  Speaker 8: they pay for the product all the way to the
• 43:13
  Speaker 8: grocery store what we pay. And this is just like
• 43:16
  Speaker 8: a little fine. It's kind of like the New York
• 43:18
  Speaker 8: Yankees going above the salary cap. It's just a price
• 43:21
  Speaker 8: of doing business for them. So it's very frustrating. And
• 43:25
  Speaker 8: they are breaking the law. by not putting that plant
• 43:28
  Speaker 8: up for sale too. Tyson did the same thing in Norfolk,
• 43:31
  Speaker 8: Nebraska years ago with a chicken plant. They dumped concrete
• 43:35
  Speaker 8: down their drain on the way out so a competitor
• 43:37
  Speaker 8: couldn't buy it.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: So, sir, one thing I'm curious about is you and
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: your opponent both seem to find yourself against this administration's
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: order on beef. I believe that Senator Ricketts says, yeah,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: he says that this is not a long-term solution. Flooding
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the market with lower quality beef compromises Nebraska farmers' and ranchers,
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: they should be enabled to grow herd sizes and meet
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: consumer demand. So what actually sets you apart from Senator
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Ricketts on this issue?
• 44:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I think that it's, I'm not a rubber stamp, right?
• 44:09
  Speaker 8: That's what, you know, he's rubber stamped everything that's happened
• 44:12
  Speaker 8: up until this point. You know, as governor, he had
• 44:16
  Speaker 8: an opportunity to go after the meat packers. And let's
• 44:19
  Speaker 8: be clear, that's who's going to win in all this, right?
• 44:22
  Speaker 8: Because what happens with foreign beef is it comes up
• 44:25
  Speaker 8: across the border.
• 44:26
  Speaker 7: It goes to the packers.
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: They take the package off from Brazil or Argentina, whatever.
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: They repackage it with a sticker that says USDA. And
• 44:34
  Speaker 8: that's where M-Cool is so important. Mandatory country origin of labeling.
• 44:39
  Speaker 8: People deserve to know where their product's coming from. And
• 44:42
  Speaker 8: the ranchers, they deserve a premium for their premium product
• 44:47
  Speaker 8: that they raise right here in Nebraska.
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: Nebraska's first in beef.
• 44:51
  Speaker 8: So, you know, this issue is going to hit our
• 44:53
  Speaker 8: state pretty hard in an industry that's already been being
• 44:57
  Speaker 8: hit pretty hard with fires and drought.
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: And Sagar and I were just talking about this before
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: the program. From a consumer perspective, I think neither of
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: us are really interested in this kind of Argentinian beef
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: that they're trying to force on us. But it's very
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: difficult to even tell if that's what you're getting.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: How do I know?
• 45:14
  Speaker 7: So we can put up F8 for a second.
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: So the FDA, you know, has been reducing the number
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: of inspections, may end some of them entirely.
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: Meanwhile, you put up F9 here.
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: Recently, China rejected a massive shipment of frozen Argentinian beef
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: that was headed over there because they found residue of
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: an antibiotic that is illegal to use in the United States.
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: The Chinese don't want it and it can even be
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: fatal to humans who even in trace amounts. So there's
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: a good reason that we've made this illegal. But if
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: you're raising the cattle and slaughtering them in unhealthy, unsanitary circumstances,
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: then you kind of have to blast them with this
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: kind of illegal antibiotics and other things that these foreign
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: importers are using. And then we see F10, and you
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: can put this up, this is in the state of Florida.
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: Florida announced a recall earlier in August of something like
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: 20,000 tons of Argentinian beef that was shipped throughout Florida
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: and Texas for various problems that it was having. And so, yeah, Dan,
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: just kind of as consumers, let's say we just bumped
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: into your bar and we're asking for your expertise in
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: this area. Like as consumers, if people are watching this
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: and they want Nebraska beef, but they don't want this
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: Argentinian stuff that has God knows what in it, how
• 46:48
  Speaker 6: do you go about figuring that out? That's a great question.
• 46:53
  Speaker 8: I don't have an answer for that. You know, like
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: I said, it's going to go through the meat packers.
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: Hopefully the administration does the right thing. Hopefully our governor here,
• 47:05
  Speaker 8: who is against this transaction, that they do do some
• 47:11
  Speaker 8: country of origin labeling here to protect consumers. And this
• 47:15
  Speaker 8: is right on the tail end of Taylor Farms and
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: lettuce and jalapenos that we've already been dealing with. So
• 47:24
  Speaker 8: this is definitely troubling for consumers. And then we're going
• 47:27
  Speaker 8: to rely on the meat sellers to actually give us
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: a discount if we are purchasing that beef, which I'll
• 47:35
  Speaker 8: hold my breath on.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Dan, I'm curious for your perspective. We read a lot
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: about the American farmer.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: We hear about how they're under pressure on diesel, on fertilizer,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: and now here in terms of being undercut on beef.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Can you just tell us a little bit about what
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: you're hearing from some of your potential constituents?
• 47:51
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 47:52
  Speaker 8: The first person I called is a rancher friend of mine.
• 47:55
  Speaker 8: And he was like, man, I'll tell you what, this
• 47:57
  Speaker 8: is really frustrating because this is happening at a time
• 48:00
  Speaker 8: where ranchers are taking their product to sale barns and
• 48:03
  Speaker 8: they're selling it And last year they finally made, you know,
• 48:08
  Speaker 8: a decent amount of money for what their product's worth
• 48:10
  Speaker 8: comparatively from years prior. So our ranchers are finally starting
• 48:17
  Speaker 8: to turn profits. And he told me this is absolutely
• 48:22
  Speaker 8: going to undercut my business at a time where he
• 48:25
  Speaker 8: had to cut his herd in half from last year
• 48:28
  Speaker 8: because of the drought that's happening because, you know, They
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: have to have water, and their feed that they have
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: isn't growing near as fast as it should be.
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: And then you add on the fires.
• 48:42
  Speaker 8: Over a million acres have burned in Nebraska. So this
• 48:46
  Speaker 8: is a huge problem, but we have to let the
• 48:48
  Speaker 8: market course correct itself. And again, flooding it with foreign
• 48:51
  Speaker 8: beef is a massive mistake for our ranchers.
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: I want to finish by asking about the poll that
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: was done by your campaign that is now circulating in
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: the Nebraska press this morning. Kind of shocking, and we
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: can maybe add this in post. It finds you tied head-to-head, 47% Osborne, 47% Ricketts,
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: the rest undecided. It shows you with a 67-20. 25%
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: lead with independent voters. Ricketts is the son of a
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: billionaire family. I think they, what do they own? The
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: Cubs or they own Wrigley Field or they own E-Trade
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: or Ameritrade. Like it enormous amounts of money have kind
• 49:36
  Speaker 6: of rained down onto the Ricketts family, which he's been
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: able to use to spend on endless advertising against you.
• 49:45
  Speaker 6: And so you would expect that at this point in
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: the campaign, you'd be a little bit behind. Have you,
• 49:50
  Speaker 6: have you gone up on the air at all yet?
• 49:52
  Speaker 8: Uh, no, my, my campaign has not gone up on
• 49:55
  Speaker 8: the air yet. We're getting outspent six to one and, uh,
• 50:00
  Speaker 8: you know, his ads are all negative. Uh, 99% lies
• 50:06
  Speaker 8: about me.
• 50:07
  Speaker 7: That's what he does.
• 50:09
  Speaker 8: But the poll reflects the sense that I'm feeling on
• 50:13
  Speaker 8: the ground. There's a lot of energy. There's a lot
• 50:16
  Speaker 8: of momentum. And we're in the middle of a 93-county
• 50:20
  Speaker 8: tour going to every single county in Nebraska. We're turning
• 50:24
  Speaker 8: out people that are concerned for many reasons.
• 50:29
  Speaker 7: It's always the economy. It's health care. It's our farming.
• 50:33
  Speaker 8: It's our ag industry that's struggling right now through bad
• 50:38
  Speaker 8: tariff policy.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: Now the war in Iran.
• 50:40
  Speaker 8: And people are looking for a change. And again, they're
• 50:44
  Speaker 8: fed up. So he just wrote himself a check for
• 50:48
  Speaker 8: $ 5. 25 million. He spent $ 3 million on this negative ad
• 50:53
  Speaker 8: campaign he's running. But Nebraskans aren't dumb. They're fed up.
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: And I think it's time for a change. And it's
• 50:59
  Speaker 8: time to give this seat back to the working people
• 51:02
  Speaker 8: in Nebraska where it belongs.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: We watch your campaign with great interest, sir. Thank you
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: for joining us.
• 51:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me on.
• 51:09
  Speaker 7: Appreciate you. We got it. Talk to you soon.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 51:15
  Speaker 7: All right, that was Senator Dan Osborne.
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: And actually, maybe we can add that little thing if
• 51:20
  Speaker 6: we were still recording in post.
• 51:21
  Speaker 7: No, no, he didn't.
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: We asked him as he was leaving for his thoughts
• 51:25
  Speaker 6: on Dolly Parton. Had a touching thing. But the thing
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: about Dolly Parton, it's the only universal thing left in
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: the United States. I think we have this incredible... Side
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: by side. Side by side, which we genuinely are never
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: going to get again in our lives.
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: So....
• 51:45
  Speaker 7: You have on the one side, Democratic Socialists of America.
• 51:50
  Speaker 6: DSA extends our deepest condolences to the family, friends and
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: fans of Dolly Parton, a hero of the working class
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: and an inspiration to us all.
• 52:00
  Speaker 7: And then next to it, Donald J.
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: Trump, very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: the greatest country singers and far beyond ever, has just
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: passed away. This is a true loss for millions of people.
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: There's never been anyone like her and never will. In
• 52:13
  Speaker 6: her honor, I am lowering the American flag throughout the
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: United States for a one-week period beginning tonight at 6 p.m.
• 52:20
  Speaker 7: Rest in peace, Dolly. The world loves you.
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: To have both DSA and Donald Trump memorializing the figure.
• 52:28
  Speaker 7: So I wanted to finish this with one line.
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: From a song of Dolly Parton's that has always stuck
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: with me for how profoundly it captures the experience of
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: poverty in America. And it gets at her ability to
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: relate to a country that is so kind of steeped
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: in it and has such a complicated relationship with it.
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: And so here's how I described it, then running into
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: the quote itself. I wrote, and this is from We've
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: Got People, there's nothing simple about the experience of poverty,
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: a trauma that manifests in people in many different ways.
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: It is also that rare experience that people work hard
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: to obscure in real time. yet almost universally tend to
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: exaggerate later in life. There's a deep shame in being
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: poor yet great pride in having been poor, a contradiction
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: that was best put into words by Dolly Parton in
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: her song in the good old days when times were bad,
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: the chorus goes, no amount of money could buy from
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: me the memories that I have of then no amount
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: of money could pay me to go back and live
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: through it again. It, It really gets at the essence
• 53:39
  Speaker 6: of so much about America and the way that as
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: we're living, as we're poor, we do everything we can
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: to pretend that we're not. And then later, when we're
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: looking back at it, we have deep pride in it.
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: And many people will even exaggerate how poor they were.
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: I think what I respect about Dolly was not only
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: her music, 9 to 5, obviously, like a working anthem,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: I think, for a lot of America, but For her,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: she embodied this person who both came from her area.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: She never abandoned her roots to the community. She donated
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: millions of dollars to the people directly around her and
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: kind of always used her platform to enrich or to
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: at least help. The people who she always felt like
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: she owed her career to. And to the extent that
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: that's admirable for rich people in this country, it's ultra
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: admirable at a time like now where, what has Sam
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Altman done for San Francisco?
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: What have any of these people done?
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: At least Carnegie had the decency to build us a library,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: which is now an Apple store here in Washington, which
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: makes me cry.
• 54:46
  Speaker 7: It's crazy. I look at it.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: You know, you can go to the J.P.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Morgan Museum in New York City. Can you go to
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: the Altman exhibit, to the Amadei, to the Jamie Dimon?
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like none of them. And sure, they
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: whitewash their money.
• 55:02
  Speaker 7: And we get the Gates Foundation.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the gates on this, which is like, God, who
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: even knows, you know, in terms of the conspiracy behind
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: that one. But just more broadly, there's just something so
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: deeply American and admirable about I came from this place.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: I know these people. I'm going to use whatever I
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: have to actually take care of them, to sing on
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: behalf of them and to try and use that platform.
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: And so we shall not see her like again.
• 55:25
  Speaker 7: In 2020, I took the kids to Dollywood.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Oh, nice.
• 55:28
  Speaker 7: Spectacular amusement park.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I know people loved it.
• 55:30
  Speaker 7: It's great.
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: And in it, they have a complete accurate rendition of
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: the home that she grew up in.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 55:40
  Speaker 7: That, to me, is the most memorable part of it.
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: You could probably just Google and find an image of it.
• 55:47
  Speaker 6: It's incredible because it's this one-room home. So if she
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: was 80, you know, 1940s, you know, electrification was barely.
• 55:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I know.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: People have no comprehension of what poverty looked like pre-1960s.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: This one-room home where there were like eight to ten,
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: you know, fluctuating members of the family. basically people sleeping,
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: sitting up, um, spending the entire day outside.
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: Cause there's just nowhere inside.
• 56:14
  Speaker 6: Like, um, look, look that place up. That's where she
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: came from. She never forgot it. And she never forgot
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: the people and the way that it, uh, the way that.
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: It shaped her.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: RIP Dolly. I won't see another person like you.
• 56:26
  Speaker 7: No, we won't.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Uh,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: another bro show for everybody tomorrow.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: See you then.