Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/28/26: U.S. & Iran Exchange Fire, Trump Says He Doesn't Care About Midterms, CDC Scrambles Amid Ebola Outbreak

Transcript

5/28/26: U.S. & Iran Exchange Fire, Trump Says He Doesn't Care About Midterms, CDC Scrambles Amid Ebola Outbreak · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:36
Speaker 1: forbody today. What are we have, Cristel, indeed we do.
0:38
Speaker 2: We have new US air strikes in a run and
0:41
Speaker 2: some new pretty stunning comments and threats from Trump towards Oman,
0:45
Speaker 2: so we'll break all of that down for you. Also,
0:48
Speaker 2: we're going to take a look at that ebola outbreak.
0:51
Speaker 2: The Trump administration is looking for volunteers to go to
0:54
Speaker 2: the airport two screen incoming passengers for illness, so the
0:58
Speaker 2: response there not looking too great. We're also going to
1:01
Speaker 2: take a look up with John Meerscheimer about what is
1:03
Speaker 2: happening in the straight up hoor moves, the way that
1:05
Speaker 2: Israel is trying to undermine any potential peace process. And
1:08
Speaker 2: we also wanted to dig in with him to the
1:10
Speaker 2: latest out of Ukraine. It's a subject we haven't covered
1:13
Speaker 2: nearly enough recently, but there are some significant developments and
1:16
Speaker 2: some concerns that Russia could in fact be looking outside
1:19
Speaker 2: of Ukraine to escalate this conflict. So I want to
1:22
Speaker 2: talk to him and get his view of what exactly
1:24
Speaker 2: is happening there.
1:25
Speaker 3: Also, as you probably know.
1:27
Speaker 2: The Pope issued and AI focused in cyclical so we
1:30
Speaker 2: have a Catholic who is also an AI expert on
1:33
Speaker 2: to talk to us about that and break down the
1:36
Speaker 2: import We also have a number of Trump administration actions
1:39
Speaker 2: to continue to push AI forward at breakneck pace, and
1:43
Speaker 2: the labeling of anti data center extremists as a new
1:48
Speaker 2: focus of a federal government crackdowns.
1:50
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Speaker 1: In a few weeks you won't even think about it
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Speaker 1: and everything will just be a lot better. Okay, let's
3:45
Speaker 1: go ahead and start with Iran. As Crystal said in
3:48
Speaker 1: deja vu from our Tuesday show, in the middle of
3:51
Speaker 1: ceasefire negotiations, talks and all of that, what happened, Oh,
3:54
Speaker 1: let's go and put it up here on the screen.
3:56
Speaker 1: Late last night the news broke the US military struck
3:59
Speaker 1: a military side in Iran near the Strait of Horror
4:01
Speaker 1: Moods and intercepted four Iranian drones that carried out new strikes,
4:05
Speaker 1: targeting a military site that a US official said posed
4:08
Speaker 1: a threat to American forces and a commercial traffic in
4:11
Speaker 1: the Strait of Horror Moves. US military also intercepted drones
4:15
Speaker 1: launched from Iran on Wednesday. Now, allegedly these drones, let's
4:19
Speaker 1: put in a zero B please up on the screen.
4:21
Speaker 1: This is from Tree to Parsi. Allegedly these drones were
4:24
Speaker 1: launched from Iran towards a US commercial vessel. Obviously we
4:27
Speaker 1: don't know the exact details, but here's some immediate analysis
4:31
Speaker 1: from doctor Parsi. Two new US strikes on Iran. US
4:34
Speaker 1: says it was in response to drones. Unclear where there
4:37
Speaker 1: were casualties on the Iranian side. It is unlikely that
4:39
Speaker 1: Tehran will accept this as a new normal. A low
4:42
Speaker 1: grade conflict gives the United States a major advantage. It
4:45
Speaker 1: can inflict comparability more damage on Iran while slowly eroding
4:51
Speaker 1: Iran's new one deterrence. A strong Iranian response, on the
4:55
Speaker 1: other hand, would escalate matters beyond Tehran's preference and play
4:58
Speaker 1: right into Israel's hands, jetzing any progress made in the negotiations. Instead,
5:02
Speaker 1: Iran may opt to respond elsewhere. Either way, this is
5:06
Speaker 1: putting dangerous pressure on the already fragile situation. Trump appeared
5:09
Speaker 1: frustrated today and might have requested limited kinetic action. Washington
5:13
Speaker 1: may calculate this will help push the negotiations forward, but
5:16
Speaker 1: it might as well easily kill the talks. And just
5:19
Speaker 1: as you can almost set your watch by a zero C,
5:22
Speaker 1: please so here from Centcom ten pm Eastern time last night,
5:27
Speaker 1: Iran launched a ballistic missile towards Kuwait. It was successfully
5:31
Speaker 1: intercepted by Kuwaiti forces again according to them. The egregious
5:35
Speaker 1: ceasefire violation was by the Iranian regime. Occurred hours after
5:39
Speaker 1: Iranian forces launched five one way attack drones opposed a
5:43
Speaker 1: clear threat in and near the Strait of Horn Moves.
5:45
Speaker 1: All drones were successfully intercepted by US forces, which prevented
5:48
Speaker 1: a six drone launch from an Iranian ground control site
5:51
Speaker 1: in Bandar Abbas. US Central Command and regional partner partners
5:54
Speaker 1: remain vigilant and measured. So if Iran strikes back, that's
5:58
Speaker 1: a ceasefire violation. If the u U strikes the it's
6:00
Speaker 1: not a ceasefire violation. Still trying to wrap my head
6:02
Speaker 1: around what the ceasefire means if the fire is not ceasing.
6:06
Speaker 1: Seems to be a common thread here with a lot
6:08
Speaker 1: of these US and Israeli actions in modern times. But look,
6:12
Speaker 1: I mean, the bottom line is it demonstrates that the
6:14
Speaker 1: ceasefire is falling apart the extension of these fire still
6:17
Speaker 1: hasn't happened. There was a lot of optimism on Sunday.
6:20
Speaker 1: They're blaming the Ranians. They're saying, oh, they move slow
6:23
Speaker 1: and all. That is certainly true. But really what it is,
6:26
Speaker 1: apparently on the Ranian side, is they need buy in
6:28
Speaker 1: from all factions to the government that the Supreme Leader
6:30
Speaker 1: to sign off. They need Gallibof to sign off. There's
6:32
Speaker 1: internal disarray. Some of the hardliners are mad at Galliboff
6:35
Speaker 1: from even negotiating in the first place. Basically everybody in
6:39
Speaker 1: that system has to sign off on the new deal. Oh,
6:42
Speaker 1: except all the new people in that system. Are you
6:45
Speaker 1: the new generation? The old ones are all dead, the
6:48
Speaker 1: people were more likely to maybe strike a deal and
6:50
Speaker 1: who respected US power, And the new ones are like, no,
6:53
Speaker 1: we have to establish credible deterrence and all the Meanwhile,
6:56
Speaker 1: ballistic missiles are going off, drones and all of that
6:59
Speaker 1: are happening. The second US strike in the matter of days.
7:02
Speaker 1: Really our Tuesday show let off the exact same way.
7:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Trecha's point is exactly the right run. Are
7:06
Speaker 2: the Iranians just going to sit there and take it?
7:09
Speaker 2: And why should they write they if they permit this
7:12
Speaker 2: to go forward, where the US can just randomly blow
7:15
Speaker 2: up this, randomly blow up that, and that's not considered
7:18
Speaker 2: to seize fire violation and there are no consequences for that,
7:21
Speaker 2: then they are seating so much of the power and
7:23
Speaker 2: control that they were able to win previously on the battlefield. Meanwhile,
7:27
Speaker 2: Trump is saying all kinds of wild things we covered before.
7:30
Speaker 3: How now He's like.
7:31
Speaker 2: Oh, in every country has to for some reason get
7:35
Speaker 2: into the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel as
7:38
Speaker 2: part of this deal, and those countries literally went silent
7:42
Speaker 2: on the phone and were like, uh, I don't think
7:44
Speaker 2: that we're really down with that. I don't know why
7:47
Speaker 2: that's being included here. So when you add things like that,
7:50
Speaker 2: it makes it even more difficult to come to a deal.
7:53
Speaker 2: And then yesterday he comes out and threatens to blow
7:57
Speaker 2: up the country of Oman if they don't get on
8:00
Speaker 2: board with the things he wants them to do.
8:02
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
8:04
Speaker 4: Now, the Strait's going to be open to everybody. It's
8:07
Speaker 4: it's international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going
8:11
Speaker 4: to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's
8:13
Speaker 4: going to control it. This part of the negotiation that
8:16
Speaker 4: we have, they would like to control it. Nobody's going
8:18
Speaker 4: to control it's international waters. And Oman will behave just
8:22
Speaker 4: like everybody else, So we'll have to blow them up.
8:25
Speaker 4: They understand that they'll be fine.
8:27
Speaker 2: Oman will behave like everybody else, or we will have
8:30
Speaker 2: to blow them up. And this again comes down to you. Remember,
8:33
Speaker 2: we're getting all those tweets from regime aligned meeteria they're oh,
8:36
Speaker 2: we're ninety five percent of the way there. We just
8:38
Speaker 2: have these tainty tiny details to work out, like the
8:41
Speaker 2: entire nuclear program and the control of the straight up
8:44
Speaker 2: foremost well, everything we've seen from the Iranian side and
8:48
Speaker 2: even leaks from the US side about the way that
8:50
Speaker 2: would work, it's like, okay.
8:51
Speaker 3: Well, you're going to have Iran and Oman in control.
8:54
Speaker 2: There won't be a toll, but there might be some
8:55
Speaker 2: sort of environmental payment fee or something of that nature.
8:59
Speaker 2: And Trump is coming in said, no, there's not going
9:02
Speaker 2: to be any Omani control. There's not going to be
9:04
Speaker 2: any Iranian control. It's going to go back fully to
9:07
Speaker 2: the way that it was. There is no way that
9:09
Speaker 2: Iran is going to accept that.
9:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, this Oman thing is so insane because Oman was
9:15
Speaker 1: literally the only good regional partner who was trying to
9:20
Speaker 1: mediate and stop some sort of kinetic action. Now, of course, look,
9:23
Speaker 1: Israel was the number one i would say foreign force
9:26
Speaker 1: that wanted this war. But what also came out, and
9:28
Speaker 1: you know, some of this is a little hard to trust,
9:30
Speaker 1: but some of the Saudi Arabia of reports said actually
9:34
Speaker 1: MBS behind the scenes, he was like, yeah, go ahead,
9:37
Speaker 1: let's do it. And then the UAE even that was
9:40
Speaker 1: a little bit behind the scenes. But what we do
9:42
Speaker 1: know is that after the war kicked off, the Saudi
9:45
Speaker 1: Arabia and the UAE were definitely in Trump's ear saying
9:48
Speaker 1: let's go, go go. Now they're getting chastised a little
9:50
Speaker 1: bit whenever it comes to the Abraham Accords, but threatening
9:52
Speaker 1: to blow up the country of Oman for doing what
9:56
Speaker 1: for having the temerity to ask for no war in
9:59
Speaker 1: the first place. Remember the Omani foreign minister the day
10:01
Speaker 1: before the war went on. I think it was faced
10:04
Speaker 1: the nation because we played the clip here on the show,
10:06
Speaker 1: and he was like, none of this has to happen.
10:08
Speaker 1: There's still a way out of this. He met with
10:10
Speaker 1: the Vice president. Now we know from behind the scenes
10:12
Speaker 1: they had decided to attack Iran like a week or
10:15
Speaker 1: so beforehand, even while they're pursuing this sham so Oman
10:19
Speaker 1: I mean Oman, by the way, it's not exactly a
10:21
Speaker 1: country that you would want to push away in a
10:23
Speaker 1: situation like this. It actually is a pretty decent us
10:26
Speaker 1: ally has good negotiations and relations with Iran and also
10:30
Speaker 1: happens to be the only other country with control over
10:33
Speaker 1: the Straits of Hormuz or the ability to exert control.
10:35
Speaker 1: So not you know, trying to go out and threaten,
10:37
Speaker 1: Oh we're going to blow you up. How do you
10:40
Speaker 1: think that's going to go over in Muscat? I don't
10:42
Speaker 1: think very well.
10:43
Speaker 3: You know.
10:43
Speaker 1: So this is a country, this is a country where
10:46
Speaker 1: they have long prided themselves on their ability to facilitate
10:50
Speaker 1: these negotiations or relations, you know, with Iran, and this
10:53
Speaker 1: is you know, to openly just say oh, we're going
10:55
Speaker 1: to blow you up when you're an ostensible US ally
10:58
Speaker 1: I mean shocking right to everybody who who is over there.
11:00
Speaker 1: And yeah, it also just it demonstrates, it demonstrates that
11:04
Speaker 1: if you are Israel or anything, you can help blow
11:06
Speaker 1: up the Seaspire. I mean I was showing you a
11:09
Speaker 1: picture this morning be root. Oh my god, you know,
11:11
Speaker 1: look at what is going on over there. They're lighting
11:13
Speaker 1: this place on fire, bombing and pass you know, sending
11:17
Speaker 1: troops into New Lebanese villages. Nothing from the President of
11:21
Speaker 1: the United States oman they didn't even do anything this time.
11:23
Speaker 1: He said you might be working with Iran for some
11:26
Speaker 1: sort of environmental feed and he's like, oh, we're going
11:28
Speaker 1: to blow them up.
11:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, when's that sort of language is going to be leviated?
11:32
Speaker 2: Could you imagine, Oh, if Israel doesn't get in line
11:35
Speaker 2: and abide by the ceasefire, and Lebanon, We're going to
11:37
Speaker 2: blow them. I mean, he would never, he would never,
11:40
Speaker 2: But yeah, with Oman, it's just let's just, you know,
11:42
Speaker 2: throw them to the wolves.
11:43
Speaker 3: And then I'm skeptical.
11:45
Speaker 2: Actually of that reporting from early on that Saudi was
11:48
Speaker 2: pushing for this war, and I mean, we don't know.
11:50
Speaker 3: But the reason I'm.
11:51
Speaker 2: Skeptical is because it's been bad for them. Number one,
11:55
Speaker 2: and number two, we had that moment where they denied
11:58
Speaker 2: us use of their base and even overflight rights, which
12:02
Speaker 2: was an indication that they were not happy with the
12:06
Speaker 2: continuation of the war and that they were very uncomfortable
12:09
Speaker 2: with the direction. So to me, that was an important indicator.
12:12
Speaker 2: But you know, Trump has some pretty strong words for
12:15
Speaker 2: them and for Katar and other nations as well, saying
12:18
Speaker 2: that if they don't agree to get into the Abraham
12:22
Speaker 2: Accords and normalize relations with Israel, even though they have
12:25
Speaker 2: always said that they will not do that until there
12:29
Speaker 2: is a pathway and a clear pathway to establishment of
12:33
Speaker 2: a Palestinian state and resolution of the Palestinian issue. So
12:36
Speaker 2: he's saying that they owe it to us to get
12:39
Speaker 2: into the Abraham Accords. Even though you know, this disastrous
12:44
Speaker 2: war with Iran has gravely I mean, there's been a
12:47
Speaker 2: big problem for them. It is going to hurt their economy, so,
12:50
Speaker 2: you know, incredibly harshly. Let's go and take a listen
12:53
Speaker 2: to Trump talking about how Saudi and Qatar owe us.
12:57
Speaker 4: And would like to have the countries we're talking about Arabia,
13:00
Speaker 4: ue Guitar and the others. We'd like to have them
13:04
Speaker 4: immediately join the and Steve Woodcoff is working on that
13:07
Speaker 4: with Jared and some others, but would like to have
13:09
Speaker 4: them join the Abraham Accords. It'll be historic if they
13:12
Speaker 4: do it, and we would I think they I think
13:14
Speaker 4: they owe that to us, to be honest, I think
13:16
Speaker 4: because that really would be a tremendous sign. And I
13:20
Speaker 4: think those countries owe.
13:21
Speaker 1: It to us.
13:22
Speaker 2: Their countries are getting blown up soccer because of us,
13:26
Speaker 2: but they owe it to us to do what we
13:28
Speaker 2: want them to do well.
13:29
Speaker 1: And you know, for them, I keep I keep looking
13:32
Speaker 1: at this the UAE, it's obviously already part of the
13:34
Speaker 1: Abraham Accords. I don't really get what's going on in
13:37
Speaker 1: their population there. I mean, again, these are monarchies, but
13:41
Speaker 1: remember like modern monarchies they have to have some level
13:44
Speaker 1: of political support. And for the Amoranti people, you know,
13:48
Speaker 1: there's a social contract. It's like, yeah, we accept the
13:51
Speaker 1: you know, the rulers, and in exchange we're all filthy rich.
13:54
Speaker 1: But you know, that only goes so far. Like with
13:56
Speaker 1: the Saudi Arabia, they have they have much bigger population,
13:59
Speaker 1: I guess, so that's part of the reason why it's
14:00
Speaker 1: a bit different. But they do have to manage internal politics.
14:03
Speaker 1: That's where a lot of the religious Wahabism and all
14:05
Speaker 1: that other stuff comes from. So for them, it is
14:07
Speaker 1: not like a politically tenable solution to just say, yeah,
14:10
Speaker 1: we're going to recognize Israel in its current form without
14:12
Speaker 1: any recognition of a Palestinian state. Now, again, the government
14:16
Speaker 1: itself doesn't care, but that doesn't mean that the people
14:18
Speaker 1: don't care. Especially Oh my got in Qatar and some
14:20
Speaker 1: of these other places when I lived there, I mean
14:22
Speaker 1: this was almost twenty years ago, but I remember there
14:24
Speaker 1: would be donation boxes in public for the Palestinian like
14:28
Speaker 1: for either pa or something, and I mean that just
14:32
Speaker 1: and I would often see Katari people, Katari families and
14:35
Speaker 1: Thobes and others. They would put money into them. So
14:37
Speaker 1: if this is something that's been going on for decades,
14:40
Speaker 1: and so for their government to have to sit there
14:42
Speaker 1: and be like, Okay, we're gonna fully recognize Israel, normalize
14:45
Speaker 1: relations entirely, and then in a post October seventh environment,
14:49
Speaker 1: it seems inconceivable they wouldn't face some level of internal pushback.
14:54
Speaker 1: They don't have that level of fiat. I just don't
14:56
Speaker 1: think it exists. Maybe with the UAE. Again, there are
14:59
Speaker 1: people they all se to be fine with it. I
15:00
Speaker 1: guess they literally have IDF soldiers in Iron Dome on
15:03
Speaker 1: their soil, which I still think is probably not going
15:06
Speaker 1: to go over that well with some of the people
15:08
Speaker 1: in Abu Dhabi or any of the Amorantis. But yeah,
15:11
Speaker 1: just seeing this demand, I just want to bring it
15:14
Speaker 1: back for the audience. It's about Trump not wanting to
15:16
Speaker 1: admit that he failed. Like that's what it's about. It's
15:18
Speaker 1: about a grand Bargain style thing that he's adding on
15:22
Speaker 1: at the very last minute, because to sign the deal
15:25
Speaker 1: in its current form is an admission that the entire
15:27
Speaker 1: war was a failure to reopen the straits of hormones,
15:30
Speaker 1: which we're already open to stop nuclear weapons from being built.
15:33
Speaker 1: That weren't being built. It could go down the list
15:36
Speaker 1: literally after we obliterated their nuclear program, so we had
15:39
Speaker 1: a bomb in to reobliterate it, and now it hasn't
15:41
Speaker 1: been obliterated, which means that they need to turn it over.
15:44
Speaker 1: It's like none of it makes sense for even five seconds,
15:47
Speaker 1: even when gas is at some five you know, what
15:49
Speaker 1: is a four thirty five or something like that a
15:52
Speaker 1: gallon nationally, it's absurd. That's why he wants the Abraham Accords.
15:55
Speaker 1: We can sell it as some sort of big new thing. Yeah.
15:57
Speaker 2: I mean, I was listening to the Monk debate with
16:00
Speaker 2: John Meyerscheimer and we'll play a clip for him and
16:03
Speaker 2: get his reaction to how this went. And he was
16:06
Speaker 2: up against with his partner in writing the Israel Lobby book.
16:10
Speaker 2: He was up against Victoria Neulan and Mike Pompeo. Newland
16:13
Speaker 2: doesn't even support the Iran war, and then Pompeo. I mean,
16:17
Speaker 2: it was impossible for him to defend how things are
16:20
Speaker 2: all could He could only take the Neocon line of
16:23
Speaker 2: we need to go further, we need to do war,
16:26
Speaker 2: real war against Iran has never been tried, right, That
16:29
Speaker 2: was his line. Because even he couldn't defend if the
16:32
Speaker 2: war ends. Now, what an incredible disaster it was. That's
16:37
Speaker 2: how bad it is. Is even you know, the staunchest neocons,
16:40
Speaker 2: all they can do is not say, oh, yeah, this
16:42
Speaker 2: is going great. They have to say, no, it's been
16:44
Speaker 2: a disaster, but if we just do more war, that'll
16:47
Speaker 2: solve the problem. And unfortunately, as the days tick by
16:50
Speaker 2: here and as Trump makes comments like this that completely undermine,
16:54
Speaker 2: you know, any potential peace steal, as we bomb inside
16:57
Speaker 2: of Iran, which is certainly going to complicate it any
17:00
Speaker 2: sort of diplomatic negotiations. As the days go by, it
17:03
Speaker 2: seems more and more that those neo con arguments of
17:06
Speaker 2: you can't stop now, the only way out is through
17:10
Speaker 2: are holding some sway with Trump. And then of course
17:13
Speaker 2: the Israelis are going to be pushing that as well
17:15
Speaker 2: and doing everything they can.
17:17
Speaker 3: We've got a clip will play.
17:18
Speaker 2: For Meerscheimer later where Ben Gavera is out there saying
17:22
Speaker 2: Israel will not let the US go forward with a
17:26
Speaker 2: deal with Iran. That's the way that they are seeing things.
17:28
Speaker 2: So it's hard to imagine how this all comes together.
17:32
Speaker 2: Maybe it will right, Maybe the Iranians will just ignore
17:35
Speaker 2: these little bombings, and that they are so desperate, I
17:38
Speaker 2: know their economy is struggling, that they'll be so desperate
17:40
Speaker 2: to get their assets unfrozen and some sort of sanctioned
17:43
Speaker 2: relief and go back to some sort of level of
17:45
Speaker 2: normalcy that they will choose to turn a blind eye
17:49
Speaker 2: and move forward with negotiations. But you know, it's a
17:51
Speaker 2: lot of question marks. At the same time, Trump under
17:56
Speaker 2: incredible domestic.
17:57
Speaker 3: Political pressure here.
17:59
Speaker 2: The midterms are looking like a full blown disaster. Obviously,
18:05
Speaker 2: you've got Ken Paxton, who won the Republican primary with
18:07
Speaker 2: Trump's backing in Texas.
18:09
Speaker 3: He is incredibly corrupt.
18:11
Speaker 2: There's all sorts of personal issues there, so kind of
18:14
Speaker 2: an ideal candidate from the Democrats perspective in terms of
18:17
Speaker 2: even having a shot of taking the Texas Senate. So
18:21
Speaker 2: Trump was asked about the political ramifications here, and obviously
18:25
Speaker 2: gas price is really high, something that people feel every day,
18:28
Speaker 2: and he says, I don't really care about that.
18:29
Speaker 3: Let's go ahead and take a listen.
18:31
Speaker 4: Economic system is broken down. They thought they were going
18:34
Speaker 4: to outwait me. You know, we'll outweigh him. He's got
18:37
Speaker 4: the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. So what
18:39
Speaker 4: happened last night that was the prelude to the midterms.
18:42
Speaker 1: I don't care about the mid time.
18:43
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 2: I mean, look, maybe it's bluster because that is kind
18:46
Speaker 2: of their calculus is to bake him pay in the midterms.
18:48
Speaker 2: So if he's like, yeah, I don't even care about that,
18:50
Speaker 2: maybe that's bluster. But he certainly is acting like he
18:53
Speaker 2: genuinely doesn't care about the midterm.
18:55
Speaker 1: Gas is three ninety two a gallon in Texas. That's unfathomable.
18:59
Speaker 1: Did you see Ted Cruz bragging about how gas was
19:02
Speaker 1: only three ninety nine. Yeah, he was like, hey, Gavin,
19:05
Speaker 1: gas is only three ninety nine here in Texas. I'm like,
19:07
Speaker 1: oh my god, dude, you're the senator from Texas. You're
19:10
Speaker 1: bringing a four dollars gas in Texas where the gas
19:14
Speaker 1: is literally from and where the refineries are. It's like
19:18
Speaker 1: it's insanity. That is just oh man, I can't even
19:22
Speaker 1: continue to talk about it. But yes, on the political level,
19:25
Speaker 1: it's so very obvious like this has been extraordinarily damaging.
19:28
Speaker 1: I don't I still am not sure it's at a
19:31
Speaker 1: full blown crisis level for the average American. I think
19:34
Speaker 1: what's happening is that they are looping it into all
19:37
Speaker 1: of the other cost of living factors and especially look,
19:40
Speaker 1: I mean we've talked about this. The vast majority of
19:43
Speaker 1: Iran attention that is paid by most people is to gas.
19:46
Speaker 1: Gas has remained now high for almost three months, so
19:50
Speaker 1: it's been eighties something days. I think that this has
19:53
Speaker 1: gone okay, So the elevated gas price, let's call it
19:55
Speaker 1: two months this entire time. It's not going down anytime soon.
19:58
Speaker 1: And I really said Memorial Day weekend, I thought a
20:01
Speaker 1: lot of people would would really wake up because that's
20:03
Speaker 1: the first probably long drive and you fill up a
20:06
Speaker 1: couple of times or something like that. And then now,
20:09
Speaker 1: especially as we move into summer travel season and the
20:12
Speaker 1: general inflation, what we're really watching is also what it
20:17
Speaker 1: does is when when life feels extraordinarily unaffordable, and then
20:21
Speaker 1: you also, I think, have this kind of obscene level
20:25
Speaker 1: of wealth spending that is being flashed by a lot
20:28
Speaker 1: of the cultural elite. At the same time, it really
20:31
Speaker 1: makes people very angry, like have you seen all this
20:33
Speaker 1: Knicks ticket stuff? Like what is a court side seat
20:36
Speaker 1: for these? I think NBA finals are going for like
20:39
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars. I asked the guys in control room.
20:42
Speaker 1: I was like, what do you guys think, and they're like, oh,
20:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. Ten fifteen. I was like, try time's ten,
20:47
Speaker 1: you know, to get on there and US Open. I
20:50
Speaker 1: know you love the US Open. I think the new
20:52
Speaker 1: tickets are like have gone up to like twenty six
20:54
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, Like you can't even walk in. That was
20:57
Speaker 1: again I'm not going. But I saw people.
20:59
Speaker 2: Talking usually go yeah, but I haven't looked at the
21:01
Speaker 2: ticket prices yet. But yeah, I was looking at the
21:04
Speaker 2: prices for the Knicks because that was big Knicks fans.
21:06
Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, maybe we should go to
21:08
Speaker 3: a game.
21:08
Speaker 2: Just to walk into the door like the nose bleakes
21:11
Speaker 2: and if you've been in MSG those nosegame.
21:13
Speaker 1: They are actual nose leads.
21:15
Speaker 2: Okay, thousands of dollars. Yeah, it's Crazy's going to be
21:19
Speaker 2: the most expensive like NBA final in history.
21:22
Speaker 1: Right, And I'm only bringing up because it gets flaunted
21:25
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. There are a lot of
21:26
Speaker 1: casual Knix fans. Last time I checked a lot of
21:28
Speaker 1: casual US Open fans. Tennis, it's not just a rich
21:31
Speaker 1: man's game.
21:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.
21:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. The front the front of the final is but
21:34
Speaker 1: a lot of people like to go. And so you
21:36
Speaker 1: see people out there like what is going on? Like
21:38
Speaker 1: I can barely keep my head above water. And then
21:41
Speaker 1: there's other people, you know, Jason Kalakanis is tweeting about,
21:44
Speaker 1: you know, going to these Knicks Finles games. That's fine,
21:46
Speaker 1: they're billionaires, like they can go. I'm just saying, I
21:49
Speaker 1: think it rubs it in a lot of people's face
21:51
Speaker 1: at a time like this.
21:52
Speaker 2: Well, and I think for I mean for a lot
21:54
Speaker 2: of people from many many, many Americans maybe not a majority,
21:58
Speaker 2: but pretty close to fifty percent are really living hand
22:01
Speaker 2: to mouth. And so if gas prices are up for
22:04
Speaker 2: a sustained period of time as they have been, they're
22:07
Speaker 2: already really feeling that pain. And that's starting to trickle
22:10
Speaker 2: through to grocery store prices as well. You know, if
22:13
Speaker 2: you look at the costs of like your classic Memorial
22:15
Speaker 2: Day barbecue items, everything was up really significantly. But don't worry,
22:20
Speaker 2: because Treasure Secretary Scott Bessnant tells us this is just transitory,
22:24
Speaker 2: just hanging there, guys, It's going to go away quickly.
22:27
Speaker 2: Of course, we've been hearing that for three months now
22:29
Speaker 2: at this point. In fact, somebody puts together a compilation
22:32
Speaker 2: of all these Trump officials being like, Oh, it'll come
22:34
Speaker 2: right back down, don't.
22:35
Speaker 3: Worry about it. This was again months ago.
22:37
Speaker 2: But let's go ahead and take a listen to Treasure
22:39
Speaker 2: Secretary Scott Assn't.
22:40
Speaker 5: Sir on the economy two words resilience and prosperity. The
22:45
Speaker 5: continued resilience of the economy speaks for itself even during
22:49
Speaker 5: the Iran the conflict, and it speaks to the strength
22:53
Speaker 5: of your leadership. Pro growth policies are creating conditions for
22:57
Speaker 5: American families and businesses to prosper Entering the second half
23:01
Speaker 5: of our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary year with renewed
23:05
Speaker 5: optimism and momentum, it has never been a better time
23:08
Speaker 5: to be an American. And as you said earlier, we
23:11
Speaker 5: have a record number of Americans working. The economy that
23:15
Speaker 5: you were building is not only strong, but secure and
23:18
Speaker 5: resilient and better position to compete globally. Real GDP has
23:23
Speaker 5: risen two point seven percent over the past four quarters,
23:27
Speaker 5: something that many economists said couldn't be done. In the
23:30
Speaker 5: first quarter of twenty twenty six, despite Iran conflict, GDP
23:35
Speaker 5: grew to two percent annual rate. The Atlanta Fed GDP
23:39
Speaker 5: now is predicting four point three percent for this quarter.
23:43
Speaker 5: In terms of prices, I believe the prices are transitory
23:47
Speaker 5: oil will be lower than pre conflict levels when this ends.
23:51
Speaker 5: Natural gas is already down. As you men mentioned, drug
23:55
Speaker 5: and pharmaceutical prices, they are plummeting, and rent is down.
24:01
Speaker 2: Where transitory gives me PCSD sograpy Yeah.
24:04
Speaker 1: I know, well it should. I mean, you know, this
24:08
Speaker 1: is not to get too deep into the wood leads
24:11
Speaker 1: around all of this, but you know, they have the
24:14
Speaker 1: same logic as the Biden administration did and they're actually
24:17
Speaker 1: doing the exact same things. So if people recall the
24:20
Speaker 1: insane transitory debates of the time, many of the transitory
24:24
Speaker 1: you know, Team Transitory and all that was the idea
24:27
Speaker 1: that the supply side would be resolved. Ultimately that's not
24:30
Speaker 1: what happened. And the reason why it didn't happen is
24:33
Speaker 1: they didn't have aggressive government action. There was also the
24:35
Speaker 1: government There was the invasion of Ukraine. So really those
24:38
Speaker 1: two things together, high gas, COVID shock, basically nothing ever
24:42
Speaker 1: went down. And then housing in particular just because of
24:45
Speaker 1: supply and even some market dynamics. I think that's another
24:48
Speaker 1: huge part of it as well, just because you know,
24:50
Speaker 1: assets have gone so wildly up over the last five
24:54
Speaker 1: or six years, and then there's a limited amount of
24:56
Speaker 1: housing stocks. So that's why housing prices of skyrocketed, especially
24:59
Speaker 1: in very high cost of living areas. But here they're
25:02
Speaker 1: making the same piece where oh, it'll just go back
25:04
Speaker 1: down because the supply side thing will resolve itself. It
25:07
Speaker 1: cannot resolve itself entirely. You have had eighty something days
25:11
Speaker 1: of the strait of hormones. That's closed period. That just
25:15
Speaker 1: we've had too many oil and energy experts on to
25:18
Speaker 1: discuss what that level of shock to the system will
25:21
Speaker 1: look like. Per Rory or resident energy expert. He was like, look,
25:25
Speaker 1: oil was trading a sixty dollars a barrel before the war.
25:27
Speaker 1: We could probably be in the fifties right now. If
25:30
Speaker 1: the war hadn't happened, Oil's at one hundred. So you
25:33
Speaker 1: really think things are going to go back down to
25:35
Speaker 1: fifty Like, No, I don't think so, it will remain elevated.
25:38
Speaker 1: So and I think even the White House at one
25:40
Speaker 1: point honestly said, yes, gas will not be below three
25:44
Speaker 1: dollars a gallon for like a year. Yes, I think
25:46
Speaker 1: that's correct. Fundamentally, even three fifty and all that national
25:50
Speaker 1: average of that seems pretty pretty much baked in for
25:54
Speaker 1: a long while.
25:55
Speaker 3: I guess it all depends on your definition of transitory.
25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
25:58
Speaker 2: That's over a long enough frame it is transitory, right,
26:01
Speaker 2: I mean, even the last one. Eventually the supply issues
26:04
Speaker 2: worked themselves out and things got back more or less
26:07
Speaker 2: to normal, and inflation, inflation had come down quite a bit,
26:11
Speaker 2: back to sort of normal levels.
26:13
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean the prices.
26:14
Speaker 2: Went back to what they were, Oh no, No, it
26:16
Speaker 2: just means that the rate of increase had slowed. So yeah,
26:20
Speaker 2: over the long term, will this be quote unquote transitory. Yes,
26:25
Speaker 2: But for Americans who are struggling right now with no
26:28
Speaker 2: and really insight and US continuing to bomb and run
26:31
Speaker 2: and Trump threatening to blow up Oman just for funzies,
26:36
Speaker 2: it's not looking too great here. Let's go and put
26:39
Speaker 2: this next one up on the screen, just in terms
26:41
Speaker 2: of you know where we are with the deal. So
26:44
Speaker 2: Iranian State TV is saying that the draft deal with
26:46
Speaker 2: the US would reopen hormones shipping and the naval blockade.
26:50
Speaker 2: But again there's so much dispute and disagreement. This runs
26:53
Speaker 2: sort of, you know, the Iranian conception here runs counter
26:56
Speaker 2: to the Trump conception that Oman would have no involvement.
26:59
Speaker 1: Whatsoeppen.
27:00
Speaker 2: Iran continues to expect that while they will not charge
27:03
Speaker 2: a quote unquote toll, there will be some sort of
27:05
Speaker 2: fee for service. So in their minds, we are not
27:09
Speaker 2: going back to a previous horrmus status quo. And yet
27:13
Speaker 2: that seems to be now where Trump is really pushing
27:16
Speaker 2: things towards. We can also put a sixth up on
27:19
Speaker 2: the screen, this White House account saying that the report
27:24
Speaker 2: from Iranian controlled media is not true. The memo of
27:26
Speaker 2: understanding they release is a complete fabrication. No one should
27:29
Speaker 2: believe what Iranian state media is putting out in all caps.
27:32
Speaker 2: Facts matter. So the draft proposal that had come out
27:37
Speaker 2: in the press, that had been discussed, they're saying, no, no, no,
27:40
Speaker 2: this is not it whatsoever. Again, not a good sign
27:44
Speaker 2: that we've sort of seen this before. When Trump had
27:47
Speaker 2: originally come out and said, okay, we've agreed to use
27:49
Speaker 2: their ten point framework as the basis for negotiations, and
27:52
Speaker 2: then when there was pushback from the neo cons then
27:55
Speaker 2: the White House quickly came out, Oh no, no, no,
27:57
Speaker 2: the ten point plan you guys saw, that's not it
27:59
Speaker 2: at all, Like that's not remotely what we're talking about here.
28:02
Speaker 2: And so this seems again the same playbook of denying
28:06
Speaker 2: the reality of what the Iranian position actually is because
28:09
Speaker 2: Trump cannot accept and be seen to have taken such
28:14
Speaker 2: a loss in this conflict, and that again is the
28:16
Speaker 2: central barrier to be getting of being able to conclude
28:19
Speaker 2: this thing.
28:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the problem is that if the details become
28:24
Speaker 1: public to what they would actually agree to, it would
28:27
Speaker 1: be an unambiguous failure for the White House. This is
28:30
Speaker 1: again explains the Abraham Accords. And so in a weird way,
28:34
Speaker 1: the longer that this continues, I think it benefits Trump
28:38
Speaker 1: because gas is where it is. He says he doesn't care,
28:41
Speaker 1: I'll just believe him. I think one of the reasons
28:44
Speaker 1: why they don't care is because where the S and
28:46
Speaker 1: P is. I mean literally every single day, let me
28:47
Speaker 1: look at the futures. It's down a bit, it's down
28:49
Speaker 1: a little bit, not too bad. I mean overall, it's
28:52
Speaker 1: we're still talking about like crazy all time highs. So well,
28:55
Speaker 1: if the market's going to be at all time highs.
28:57
Speaker 1: That's what he and most of the people in his
28:59
Speaker 1: administration care about. There's no real market signal, even oil
29:03
Speaker 1: at four at one hundred dollars a barrel, or national
29:05
Speaker 1: gas price of four to thirty eight gallon. Look, it's
29:07
Speaker 1: a crisis for a lot of people, but it's not
29:09
Speaker 1: for them. It's not six dollars, which they think that
29:11
Speaker 1: people would be panicking, So they have the runway. They
29:14
Speaker 1: think that they can just continue this on again, off again,
29:17
Speaker 1: because as long as that happens, kind of like Afghanistan,
29:19
Speaker 1: then nobody has to just put their hands up and
29:21
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, it's a horrific, really disaster, a historic disaster,
29:25
Speaker 1: even though anyone could recognize it in Afghanistan starting in
29:28
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, maybe earlier on two thousand and five,
29:32
Speaker 1: but it took till twenty twenty one for everybody's eyes
29:35
Speaker 1: to become fully open. That seems to be their strategy
29:38
Speaker 1: right now. Now, well, iron accept that that's the big
29:41
Speaker 1: that's a big question too, all right. Ebola.
29:46
Speaker 2: So I wanted to bring everybody up to date on
29:48
Speaker 2: this rapid spread of ebola centered in the Democratic Republic
29:53
Speaker 2: of Congo. We can put this up on the screen
29:55
Speaker 2: in terms of our own country's response. So the CDC
29:59
Speaker 2: is seeking VA and tears from their staff to go
30:02
Speaker 2: do ebola screenings at airports as that outbreak response expands.
30:08
Speaker 2: There's a lot to get to in terms of the
30:11
Speaker 2: US response that I'll save for a moment.
30:13
Speaker 3: First, Let's go and take a.
30:14
Speaker 2: Look at where the ebola outbreak is centered and just
30:19
Speaker 2: how dire the concerns are here. So we've had obviously
30:21
Speaker 2: a number of ebola outbreaks, unfortunately not unusual. This already, though,
30:27
Speaker 2: is the third worst outbreak that we have seen, and
30:30
Speaker 2: you can see here on the map where the worst
30:33
Speaker 2: spread is. You've had already hundreds of deaths, two hundred
30:37
Speaker 2: and twenty three deaths that have been linked to this outbreak.
30:41
Speaker 2: You've had nine hundred suspected cases. Remember this is an
30:43
Speaker 2: area where it is very difficult to get actual real information.
30:48
Speaker 2: There is a lot of skepticism of the local population
30:51
Speaker 2: in terms of aid workers coming in, so it is
30:55
Speaker 2: hard to know exactly what the case number is, but
30:58
Speaker 2: we can see the way that has expanded. The other
31:00
Speaker 2: problem is that it appears it was detected quite late,
31:04
Speaker 2: where there had already been significant spread before the World
31:08
Speaker 2: Health Organization and other global health organizations or you know,
31:11
Speaker 2: the US health organizations detected that this ebola strain was
31:17
Speaker 2: there and was spreading.
31:18
Speaker 3: There's a few reasons for that.
31:20
Speaker 2: Number One, it is a more of a rare strain
31:23
Speaker 2: of ebola. It's not the most common ones, so it
31:25
Speaker 2: wasn't the one that they were routinely testing for.
31:27
Speaker 3: That's number one.
31:29
Speaker 2: Number Two, you know, you have a situation where we
31:33
Speaker 2: completely defunded USAID, so a lot of our AID workers
31:36
Speaker 2: who had been there, who may have been in the
31:40
Speaker 2: an ability to do like an early warning of oh
31:42
Speaker 2: I hear that there's some weird thing that is spreading here,
31:45
Speaker 2: they weren't there, so that may also have hindered the response.
31:49
Speaker 2: And then you also have you know, this is obviously
31:51
Speaker 2: a war torn area. This part of the DRC is
31:54
Speaker 2: kind of like a rebel stronghold. It's far from the capital,
31:57
Speaker 2: so the fact of the remote location of where this
32:00
Speaker 2: began to develop as also part of the problem. But
32:04
Speaker 2: health experts are saying that this is actually the most
32:06
Speaker 2: rapid spread that they've seen, so even though it's not
32:09
Speaker 2: yet the worst outbreak, it has a lot of momentum
32:12
Speaker 2: which is why this is so so disturbing and why
32:16
Speaker 2: people are paying so much attention to it. Let's go
32:18
Speaker 2: and put B three up on the screen. Here, you
32:21
Speaker 2: can see that Uganda has also closed its border with Congo,
32:25
Speaker 2: where suspected cases of this rare ebola type are surging.
32:29
Speaker 3: They ordered that closure.
32:30
Speaker 2: This is actually in defiance of what the World Health
32:33
Speaker 2: Organization had recommended, and I'll tell you why. Their view
32:38
Speaker 2: is that this border is extremely porous. There's paths that
32:43
Speaker 2: go back and walking paths that go back and forth
32:45
Speaker 2: across this border, across the entire length of it, and
32:48
Speaker 2: so their view, the World Health Organization's view is if
32:51
Speaker 2: you close down the official border crossings, you're just going
32:54
Speaker 2: to push people to those informal crossings, and it's actually
32:57
Speaker 2: going to make it more difficult to detect the spread
33:01
Speaker 2: and be able to stop, you know, stop this virus
33:04
Speaker 2: from spreading. So that's kind of what we know about
33:07
Speaker 2: the uh you know, the extent of the cases here.
33:09
Speaker 2: But there's all kinds of problems in terms of the response.
33:12
Speaker 2: Before up on the screen. You've had a number of
33:14
Speaker 2: instances where family members in this instance, they stormed an
33:18
Speaker 2: Ebola hospital demanding the return of the dead. One of
33:22
Speaker 2: the things that's been instituted in the Congo is that
33:26
Speaker 2: you have to use, you know, official authorities to conduct
33:29
Speaker 2: burials because that is one of the ways that the
33:33
Speaker 2: that ebola is primarily spread. It has to be direct
33:36
Speaker 2: contact with bodily fluids, and so the you know, the
33:39
Speaker 2: burial rights are one of the places that they're really
33:41
Speaker 2: trying to get a hold on. And I was doing
33:44
Speaker 2: I was telling you Sagara is doing kind of like
33:45
Speaker 2: a deep dive into Okay, well, why are people so
33:47
Speaker 2: skeptical because you also have aid workers that are like
33:50
Speaker 2: getting attacked, who are coming in trying to spread information
33:53
Speaker 2: and trying to you know, trying to help out. You
33:56
Speaker 2: had a doctor's without Borders tents that were set on
33:59
Speaker 2: five where you had a number of suspected infected patients
34:03
Speaker 2: who escaped. And it's kind of has a lot of parallels,
34:07
Speaker 2: but in a more extreme form of like the you know,
34:09
Speaker 2: vaccine and other medical skepticism here in the US, which
34:12
Speaker 2: tends to be among populations that have been directly abused
34:17
Speaker 2: and have reason to be skeptical of the medical establishment.
34:20
Speaker 2: In Congo, you can imagine that is taken to an
34:22
Speaker 2: extreme because you've had all kinds of outsiders come in
34:24
Speaker 2: to basically like steal their natural resources and wealth.
34:28
Speaker 3: So when you have.
34:28
Speaker 2: People coming in from the outside that you haven't seen
34:30
Speaker 2: before telling you you've got to do all these things
34:33
Speaker 2: that you don't want to do, there's a natural resistance.
34:36
Speaker 2: Another reason is because this is a part of the
34:38
Speaker 2: Congo that is like a rebel stronghold, and so if
34:41
Speaker 2: the official government is telling you like, oh, no, you've
34:44
Speaker 2: got the sound break and you've got to do all
34:45
Speaker 2: these special things, there's a natural skepticism there.
34:48
Speaker 3: And then again because.
34:50
Speaker 2: We defunded USAID, so we don't have these health workers
34:53
Speaker 2: who have been on the ground who have built that
34:55
Speaker 2: sort of trust. Now they see all of these health
34:58
Speaker 2: workers coming in and they're like, oh, oh, you lost
35:01
Speaker 2: your payday, so now this is your chance to get
35:03
Speaker 2: back on the gravy train.
35:05
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of rumors.
35:06
Speaker 2: That they get paid, the health workers get paid per
35:08
Speaker 2: case that's identified, et cetera. So there's significant skepticism. Y, Yeah,
35:14
Speaker 2: there's significant skepticism that ebola even is a thing and
35:18
Speaker 2: not just some like invented concoction to further subjugate the population.
35:22
Speaker 2: And again given their history, you can understand where they're
35:24
Speaker 2: coming from, even though it's incorrect.
35:25
Speaker 1: I'm where you're talking. I'm like, maybe I'm on the
35:27
Speaker 1: Congolese side here.
35:29
Speaker 3: You can see what you think that way.
35:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just like, oh, they're ignorant and they
35:33
Speaker 2: don't get it.
35:34
Speaker 3: It's like, no, this is a people who.
35:35
Speaker 2: Have been incredibly abused, traumatized, exploited, et cetera. So when
35:39
Speaker 2: you suddenly have all these people coming in, Oh, I'm
35:42
Speaker 2: going to save you, they're like, who are you and
35:44
Speaker 2: what are you really doing here?
35:45
Speaker 3: Totally obviously inhibittois.
35:47
Speaker 1: I mean also, you know, so first of all, like
35:49
Speaker 1: you said, I didn't realize all of that, but I
35:51
Speaker 1: did know about the rebel issue when I was reading
35:53
Speaker 1: about it, and how far and how difficult. That also
35:55
Speaker 1: makes it so, Yeah, government authorities coming into a rebel
35:58
Speaker 1: area and look, I mean I do think what this
36:00
Speaker 1: highlights is this, first of all, Ebola. I'm not worried
36:04
Speaker 1: about this becoming a global pandemic the way COVID was.
36:07
Speaker 1: One of the things that we learned a lot during
36:08
Speaker 1: COVID was that why it became so deadly as airborne
36:11
Speaker 1: and the you know, the proximity. For how sorry not
36:14
Speaker 1: why COVID would have spread so easily not deadly was
36:16
Speaker 1: because was airborne and spreads very very easily, whereas ebola
36:19
Speaker 1: literally only spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. And
36:22
Speaker 1: I also, isn't it the whole like it actually kills
36:25
Speaker 1: you so fast? It's not that easy to spread because
36:28
Speaker 1: it's so deadly too, right, body, your.
36:30
Speaker 2: Your ideal for a virus, for you know, from the
36:33
Speaker 2: virus's perspective is that it is deadly, but not in
36:36
Speaker 2: a large proportion of the cases, because if you kill
36:39
Speaker 2: the host, then you're unlikely to be able to propagate.
36:42
Speaker 2: So yes, Unfortunately, the fact that it is so brutal
36:45
Speaker 2: and so deadly is one of the things that it
36:47
Speaker 2: has going for it in terms of it not spreading
36:50
Speaker 2: too far. But still, you know, for for people in
36:53
Speaker 2: this region and for concerns with global air travel, et cetera,
36:56
Speaker 2: it's obviously you take very mcha.
36:58
Speaker 1: And that's that's another thing we learned about the globe,
37:00
Speaker 1: the interconnectedness, how easy it is and how often we'll
37:03
Speaker 1: see somebody who you know, you're like, how can somebody
37:05
Speaker 1: in from the Congo end up here? It's like, well,
37:07
Speaker 1: it's not that hard. You can get there in less
37:09
Speaker 1: than sixteen hours, like and that's all it took. I
37:11
Speaker 1: remember the last Ebola outbreak, we had multiple doctors and
37:14
Speaker 1: others that were present here in the US, and remember
37:16
Speaker 1: there were cameras on all the hospitals and all those things.
37:19
Speaker 1: I do think, I think, I think this was an
37:21
Speaker 1: important story for the reason why you let off with,
37:23
Speaker 1: which is CDC, and I do think it actually bears
37:25
Speaker 1: out like the genuine dual crisis that we have right
37:28
Speaker 1: now in public health, which is first and foremost a
37:31
Speaker 1: significant part of the population. My hand up. The last
37:34
Speaker 1: people I would want in charge are the Biden era
37:37
Speaker 1: people who bungled the last public health disaster. A significant
37:41
Speaker 1: reason why the Jay Boticharia and Marty mccari and RFK Junior.
37:46
Speaker 1: I mean literally, I think the number one reason why
37:49
Speaker 1: RFK Jr. Is the current AGHS secretary is because of
37:51
Speaker 1: the COVID response. Now, I'm not also going to sit
37:54
Speaker 1: here and say they've done a whole bang up job,
37:56
Speaker 1: right because that hasn't happened either. And so what we've
37:59
Speaker 1: seen is a signal, gnificant, significant, verified, and in my
38:02
Speaker 1: opinion appropriate skepticism of the broad public health establishment. I
38:06
Speaker 1: mean doctor Tedro's from WHA. It's the same COVID guy, right,
38:10
Speaker 1: I remember all of the nonsense that they were spewing
38:12
Speaker 1: around over COVID, many of the lies. But then also
38:16
Speaker 1: we have to deal with well ooh, but we also
38:18
Speaker 1: have now these MAHA guys who are in charge, they've
38:21
Speaker 1: defined it doesn't seem like they're all that competent eye.
38:24
Speaker 1: So we had a crisis of competence I think on
38:26
Speaker 1: literally all levels here in the United States when we're
38:28
Speaker 1: facing now a genuine disaster potentially here with ebola, and
38:33
Speaker 1: people are going to freak out. That's one of the
38:34
Speaker 1: reasons we're covering it early. I remember, I mean you
38:37
Speaker 1: remember twenty fourteen with Obama the Holy it was a
38:40
Speaker 1: National store, it was yeah, I forgot, yeah, So it
38:46
Speaker 1: was walling wall.
38:48
Speaker 2: Guy comes in and everyone's you know, cameras tracking him
38:51
Speaker 2: in the area.
38:51
Speaker 1: I remember, I freaked out. I went to the same
38:53
Speaker 1: bowling alley as one of the guys who had was
38:57
Speaker 1: a doctor at e Bowla and they just shut the
38:58
Speaker 1: whole bowling alley down and we were all like, oh
39:01
Speaker 1: my god, we're gonna get any both, but this is
39:02
Speaker 1: a big thing I remember, so anyway, we're covering it
39:05
Speaker 1: now for that reason, but this is going to highlight
39:07
Speaker 1: I think the same problem is that warring you know,
39:11
Speaker 1: expert opinion. We don't have a real public health infrastructure
39:15
Speaker 1: here in the United States. RFK, Junior and others are
39:17
Speaker 1: not trusted by a vaswath of the country. The others,
39:20
Speaker 1: many of these other docs, I don't trust them either,
39:23
Speaker 1: So you're like, Okay, what do we do? And then
39:25
Speaker 1: when this hyper politicization, especially with Trump now in charge,
39:29
Speaker 1: I mean there's a crisis I think of competence and
39:33
Speaker 1: of trust right now in public health, which is look,
39:35
Speaker 1: RFK and others were supposed to restore it. They haven't
39:37
Speaker 1: done so, and I honestly, I think that's part of
39:39
Speaker 1: the tragedy.
39:40
Speaker 2: It's part of the reason why people were so upset
39:43
Speaker 2: and concerned about the hunt of virus spread as well,
39:45
Speaker 2: because I think everyone with three brain cells looks at
39:48
Speaker 2: this and it's like, if there's another pandemic, we're so fucked,
39:51
Speaker 2: Like in every way, there's no trust. The agencies here
39:55
Speaker 2: have been dismantled, they've been doged to death. You've got
39:58
Speaker 2: wildly incompetent people who are in charge. And you can
40:02
Speaker 2: see here too, you know, some of the fallout of okay,
40:05
Speaker 2: you know, completely dismantling usaid. There are some consequences to that,
40:10
Speaker 2: and one of them is that we didn't have people
40:12
Speaker 2: there to be able to identify this spread. Now, like
40:14
Speaker 2: you said, I don't think that this is a grave
40:15
Speaker 2: threat to the US because of the nature of Ebola.
40:19
Speaker 3: You know, it's horrific for the.
40:21
Speaker 2: People who are impacted in the region, But as a
40:24
Speaker 2: direct threat to the US, I'm not deeply.
40:25
Speaker 3: Concerned about it. But it's a warning sign.
40:28
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, what if it wasn't ebola, What if it
40:30
Speaker 2: was something that spread more easily. What if it was
40:33
Speaker 2: a virus that, you know, was not so deadly that
40:35
Speaker 2: it killed the host, but deadly enough that it's going
40:37
Speaker 2: to kill millions of people like COVID did. We are
40:41
Speaker 2: not at all prepared to detect that. We're not prepared
40:43
Speaker 2: to be part of the global response. Our own domestic
40:46
Speaker 2: facilities are, you know, in shambles. The level of population
40:49
Speaker 2: trust is complete and utter chaos and disasters.
40:55
Speaker 3: You know, I thought there was a.
40:56
Speaker 2: Quote here from a former CDC director who said that
41:00
Speaker 2: it was it's too simplistic to tie the Trump administration.
41:03
Speaker 2: Actually this is the Axios report, the B six that
41:05
Speaker 2: it's too simplistic to tie the Trump administration actions too
41:09
Speaker 2: late detection of the virus. But he said dismantlement of
41:12
Speaker 2: us I D, which drew from the World Health Organization,
41:15
Speaker 2: and deep cutse of the CDC staff delivered what he
41:17
Speaker 2: described as a one two three punch to global health architecture.
41:21
Speaker 2: It's sort of like climate change, where it's very hard
41:23
Speaker 2: to say, Okay, this climate event is because of these
41:26
Speaker 2: you know, this level of temperature rise or whatever, but
41:30
Speaker 2: you can look at the overall framework and say, yeah,
41:32
Speaker 2: this probably did not help.
41:34
Speaker 1: So this is I don't disagree with genuinely a word
41:37
Speaker 1: you're saying. I just am not going to sit here
41:39
Speaker 1: and live in a world where usai D was some
41:41
Speaker 1: great functioning organization, right or it was like oh it
41:44
Speaker 1: was so like it was a money laundering organization for
41:46
Speaker 1: the CIA. It occasionally also did some good.
41:48
Speaker 2: Well it did both, right, but there's consequences to, you know,
41:52
Speaker 2: just completely defunding all of that public health architecture.
41:55
Speaker 1: I don't disagree. I don't disagree, same with CDC It's
41:57
Speaker 1: like we should also live in a world where every
41:59
Speaker 1: CDC bureaucrat was some like incredible public servant, like, no,
42:03
Speaker 1: they've massively fucked up the last pandemic when the cd
42:06
Speaker 1: I will tell you this for me, the way you
42:08
Speaker 1: probably feel about Trump and RFK Junior, I feel that
42:10
Speaker 1: way about both. If I have some massed up freak
42:12
Speaker 1: telling me about what to do with this pandemic. I'm
42:14
Speaker 1: doing a hell of a lot of research this time around,
42:17
Speaker 1: saying people are doctor Fauci and all these no no,
42:20
Speaker 1: no no for me to put a mass back on
42:21
Speaker 1: or put some vaccine again in my arm. The amount
42:23
Speaker 1: of skepticism that's going into that is going to be
42:26
Speaker 1: two hundred times old, from doctor Teddros, from CDC, from anybody.
42:30
Speaker 1: I never thought I would be the person who's sitting
42:33
Speaker 1: here trying to read preprints of pharmaceutical studies, but I
42:36
Speaker 1: am now have to be after what I just lived through. Now,
42:39
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you should sit here and say, oh, yeah, RFK,
42:41
Speaker 1: you tell me what to do and I'm gonna do it. No,
42:44
Speaker 1: that's also not the case. But that's the issue I
42:47
Speaker 1: think that we I mean Trump and the HH, the
42:49
Speaker 1: revolution of Trump in particular, which a lot of us
42:52
Speaker 1: forget now this time around has been I get it.
42:55
Speaker 1: In the beginning, a large part of it was the
42:57
Speaker 1: Biden skepticism of the way CDC, who and everybody handled.
43:01
Speaker 2: The last That is kind of crazy because Trump was
43:04
Speaker 2: the one who was president during the last Oh.
43:06
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, well, I'm not defending him either.
43:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just saying, like the rewriting of that is
43:12
Speaker 2: kind of wild, since he was the one who was
43:14
Speaker 2: actually president during that initial outbreak that implemented the initial measures.
43:19
Speaker 3: But I did a lot to roll all of that back.
43:22
Speaker 2: But you know, I mean, I would just say that
43:24
Speaker 2: I share some of your critique, certainly of the COVID response, especially.
43:28
Speaker 2: I mean things like, you know, once we figured out
43:31
Speaker 2: the school closures is to be the most cut and dry,
43:34
Speaker 2: where once we figured out that, okay, this is not
43:36
Speaker 2: particularly you know, it's it's very unlikely to be deadly
43:38
Speaker 2: to a child, and now we can see the learning
43:41
Speaker 2: loss that I mean, we're still sewer recovering, especially lower
43:45
Speaker 2: income there's no doubt about that. I would just say, look,
43:48
Speaker 2: as flawed as it was, I would take them every
43:51
Speaker 2: day over what we've got now.
43:52
Speaker 3: Which is like completely defunded.
43:54
Speaker 2: RFK Junior is a maniac crank, and it's to me,
43:59
Speaker 2: it's the different between. Okay, if you think about the
44:01
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical industry, which I have a lot of critiques of,
44:04
Speaker 2: and the fact that money is so central to it,
44:06
Speaker 2: and the way all of that works and the revolving door.
44:09
Speaker 2: I've got a lot of concerns and problems with all
44:12
Speaker 2: of that. I would trust them a million times over
44:15
Speaker 2: the like snake oil supplement salesman, which is what RFK
44:19
Speaker 2: Junior will like, you know, pump up all kinds of
44:21
Speaker 2: like bizarre supplements. Those have no testing, those have no efficacy,
44:26
Speaker 2: they can like lie to you directly, and there's effectively
44:29
Speaker 2: no regulation and so no, but there are at least
44:33
Speaker 2: you have to like go through clinical trials and there
44:35
Speaker 2: is a process and the thing usually works, you know,
44:38
Speaker 2: the way that.
44:38
Speaker 3: It's supposed to.
44:40
Speaker 2: I would trust that million times over the supplement industry
44:44
Speaker 2: and the snake oil salesman, which is bactively what we
44:46
Speaker 2: I do think it is and which is.
44:48
Speaker 3: Effectively what we put in turns. I think the public health.
44:50
Speaker 1: Operatus is no see the current the previous CC. I mean,
44:53
Speaker 1: think about all the lies from masking to the vaccine,
44:56
Speaker 1: to the booster shots, the mandates that were put in placement,
44:59
Speaker 1: the vaccine didn't work, like period, end of story.
45:02
Speaker 2: Okay, that's out there saying that if you get your
45:07
Speaker 2: child's circumcised, it's going to give them autism.
45:10
Speaker 3: Okay, that's what we're dealing with now, soccer.
45:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am seeing and these.
45:15
Speaker 2: Specialists have been you know, all of that has been dismanded.
45:18
Speaker 1: I didn't mean for this to turn into this, but like,
45:20
Speaker 1: don't forget, we had the same public health authority said
45:22
Speaker 1: it's because racism is a virus. It's okay for people
45:25
Speaker 1: to go outside and to protest, but for if you
45:27
Speaker 1: have a mass protest or whatever, that you're actually violating
45:30
Speaker 1: public health. I remember a lot of this stuff. I
45:32
Speaker 1: remember the CEC sex freak who was literally out there
45:34
Speaker 1: having vaccine mandates, will engage in gay bondage porn while
45:38
Speaker 1: posting it on time. Like, let's not forget, who's some
45:41
Speaker 1: of the freakazoids who were in the previous and.
45:43
Speaker 3: You take this over that.
45:44
Speaker 1: No, I'm saying both are you're okay?
45:46
Speaker 3: But this was worse.
45:47
Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't say it's worse.
45:49
Speaker 3: It is absolutely worse.
45:50
Speaker 2: I think it is a mess. They've accomplished nothing. All
45:53
Speaker 2: they've done is dismantled or ignore the public health apparatus
45:59
Speaker 2: that exist. I am not ignoring those disasters. I was
46:02
Speaker 2: here with you covering them, and I share your skepticism.
46:06
Speaker 2: But to replace them with just a bunch of like
46:09
Speaker 2: influencer cranks who just make shit up?
46:13
Speaker 3: Why is the previous Why.
46:16
Speaker 1: Was the legislate out here literally who's posting, posting and
46:19
Speaker 1: celebrating his gay pink porn while working at the CEC,
46:22
Speaker 1: who's in charge of my child's back you're talking about Oh,
46:25
Speaker 1: I'll I'll send you exactly what.
46:30
Speaker 4: You want. R.
46:30
Speaker 3: Junior over that.
46:32
Speaker 2: You think things are better now, But the way they
46:34
Speaker 2: were when you had actual people who were at least
46:36
Speaker 2: professional and trying to follow some sort of scientific.
46:40
Speaker 1: Guys, see that that's professional. It's not professional. The same
46:42
Speaker 1: people were talking about racism is so horrible, So you're
46:45
Speaker 1: it's horrible, okay, Sure, yeah he got in protest, but
46:47
Speaker 1: if somebody else wants to protest, that's that's not okay.
46:50
Speaker 1: I mean everybody should have.
46:51
Speaker 2: Been protests, and there were plenty of protests against the
46:54
Speaker 2: mandates as well.
46:54
Speaker 1: He said one thing was fine and one thing Wasn't
46:57
Speaker 1: you have to lock down for this? You shouldn't lock
46:58
Speaker 1: down for that, like that was a serious problem.
47:01
Speaker 3: If I recall not denying that, Sager.
47:03
Speaker 2: But but I'm saying you had some professionals who had some expectise.
47:09
Speaker 2: All you have these people between DOGE and the RFK
47:12
Speaker 2: Junior approach, all you've had is a complete dismantling of
47:17
Speaker 2: the entire public health approach and a replacement with a
47:21
Speaker 2: bunch of cranks who just make shit up.
47:23
Speaker 3: That's what I'm based on.
47:25
Speaker 1: Other people weren't cranks either. That is crank behavior. Saying
47:28
Speaker 1: that you know, mandating vaccines for a one year old
47:30
Speaker 1: is crank behavior. Mandating vaccines or lockdowns and school closures
47:34
Speaker 1: and recommending all.
47:34
Speaker 2: That that's vaccines literally saved millions of lives.
47:37
Speaker 1: Well in terms of reducing I would like much rather have.
47:40
Speaker 2: Of those vaccines going on to the public and millions
47:43
Speaker 2: of lives saved and going a little too far than
47:46
Speaker 2: saying letter rip and millions of people can just die.
47:49
Speaker 3: And it is what it is.
47:50
Speaker 1: Sins and committed in the era or in the direction
47:52
Speaker 1: that we agree with are fine. What I'm trying to
47:54
Speaker 1: point out is that I think that what a lot
47:56
Speaker 1: of happened with RFK Junior and others, uh for dismantling,
47:59
Speaker 1: let's say, of some organizations, and what they have done
48:01
Speaker 1: has not been necessarily good. But I will never sit
48:04
Speaker 1: here and defend like the previous public health regime and system.
48:07
Speaker 1: That's all I'm trying to say is you can recognize
48:10
Speaker 1: the disaster and dramatic failures and then also see, yes,
48:13
Speaker 1: we were supposed to have a revolution in a different direction. Ultimately,
48:17
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gone in the correct competence way
48:19
Speaker 1: that it has, but we cannot. I just I cannot
48:21
Speaker 1: sit here and ignore the absolute failures.
48:24
Speaker 3: No one is ignoring that.
48:25
Speaker 1: Somebody just you prefer it if.
48:27
Speaker 2: I took something okay, something that was bad, and they
48:30
Speaker 2: made it vastly worse. And there is no doubt in
48:32
Speaker 2: my mind if we had a pandemic now, it would
48:34
Speaker 2: be way worse. And I just don't think that there's
48:36
Speaker 2: any doubt about that the response would be worse. These
48:39
Speaker 2: people are incompetent. They're out here like we're looking for
48:42
Speaker 2: some volunteers to go to the airport to screen for ebola.
48:45
Speaker 2: Good luck with that we've got, you know, measles, outbreaks,
48:49
Speaker 2: diseases from the past coming back, and complete obliteration. I mean, yes,
48:53
Speaker 2: there was damage to public trust that was done under
48:56
Speaker 2: the previous approach, but any is anyone going to approach
49:02
Speaker 2: believe what RFK Junior has to say about anything when
49:05
Speaker 2: he just makes up insane some people will completely ideological.
49:09
Speaker 1: Oh I'm not so. I will treat it with the
49:11
Speaker 1: same skepticism that I did under doctor Anthony Fauci. That's
49:14
Speaker 1: what That's what I'm trying to say. And I can
49:16
Speaker 1: see very clearly how we will be in that position.
49:18
Speaker 1: I will also blame them because they're the people who
49:21
Speaker 1: are in charge if that's where we end up. And
49:22
Speaker 1: this is Look, this is why we had to cover this,
49:24
Speaker 1: because this is the reality. We're gonna have Anni Jacobson
49:27
Speaker 1: on soon to talk about her Biological War book, and
49:30
Speaker 1: like this is this is probably the number one thing
49:33
Speaker 1: I'm like most worried about now after seeing because look,
49:36
Speaker 1: like I said, he Bolo is not the big threat.
49:38
Speaker 1: But I'm like, okay, well, these people are in charge now.
49:40
Speaker 1: As you said, fair, fair, It's all fair. We can
49:43
Speaker 1: debate doge CDC and all that other cuts. Many people
49:45
Speaker 1: like me will remember many of the failures of the
49:47
Speaker 1: previous administration too, and basically anything the government tells me
49:51
Speaker 1: from now on, I'm like, yeah, we'll see, we'll see.
49:54
Speaker 1: That's basically kind of where I'm at. And I think
49:57
Speaker 1: a lot of liberals now like yourself, are in that
49:59
Speaker 1: position because of the not a liberal but anyway, you
50:01
Speaker 1: know what I mean, I apologize a lot of people,
50:06
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are against the Trump administration
50:08
Speaker 1: is a catch all, right, are now also in a
50:11
Speaker 1: similar position to where some of us were under the
50:13
Speaker 1: Biden administration. And I think that is genuinely like a
50:16
Speaker 1: crisis point.
50:17
Speaker 2: For again, the Trump administration where COVID was most of
50:21
Speaker 2: the COVID response was.
50:22
Speaker 1: Okay, sure, what to say that what Biden didn't preside with.
50:25
Speaker 2: No, I'm just saying, there's such an erasure of you
50:28
Speaker 2: know what, the early decision making and the way that
50:31
Speaker 2: went down, and there's such a like, there's just such
50:33
Speaker 2: a fabrication of reality around the fact that the COVID
50:36
Speaker 2: response was all under Biden.
50:38
Speaker 1: When I mean, yeah, we got them together, the masking
50:41
Speaker 1: school lockdowns, all that all happened under Trump. It was
50:44
Speaker 1: a warp speed was under Trump too, which a lot
50:47
Speaker 1: of people also forget.
50:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, in my opinion, warp speed was one of
50:51
Speaker 2: the best things that Trump did.
50:52
Speaker 1: All right, well, there you go. All right, let's get
50:53
Speaker 1: to horm moves.