Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/28/26: Trump Admits Weapons Shortage, Americans Cut Back On Groceries, Abdul Vs Haley Debate

Transcript

7/28/26: Trump Admits Weapons Shortage, Americans Cut Back On Groceries, Abdul Vs Haley Debate · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. Welcome to Breaking Points. Emily,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: great to see.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: You, Great to see you, Crystal, good to be here.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot to get into you. This morning.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: We've got Trump saying that he is ready to go
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: back to war with Iran as they say they are
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: not interested in negotiations, Americans buying fewer groceries, as Trump
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: claims this is the best year America has ever had.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Wonder if people out there are really feeling that sentiment
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: right now? Abdulah sayad based off versus Hey Stevens in
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: a big debate last night. As that race comes to
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a dramatic conclusion, AI companies are buying and shredding rare
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: books on mass in their latest assault on humanity. Mitch McConnell,
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: is he dead or alive? The reporter who has been
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: staking out his hospital literally every day, is.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: Going to join us.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited to talk to her and learn what
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: she has gleaned in reading the tea leaves some of
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the big questions she has about the lack of communication
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: that we are getting from him and his team. And
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Francesca Hang might be the first socialist governor in American history.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: She is up in the Wisconsin Democratic primary. And Emiliana,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you've taken great interest in this one. I mean this
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: would be a major, major, significant development if you had
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: a socialist who not only won the Democratic primary, but
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: obviously then would be in contention to become the governor
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: of a swing state. So you can't can no longer
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: say oh, it's just California, it's just Brooklyn. This is
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: a key part of the argument for socialists that they
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: can really win anywhere.
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and Wisconsin has quite a history with socialism, so
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: not entirely out of the question. We have some pull
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: numbers we'll break down in that interview as well. That
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: is your right, Crystal, a very big one.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Getting back to their roots, the sewer, socialists, all of
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. So love to see it. I
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: know you do too, m It's just the best. As
• 2:20
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  Speaker 2: early in your inbox, all of that good stuff. So
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: and thank you so much for the feedback. People seem
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: to really be enjoying the product. With that being said,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: let's go ahead and jump into the show. Trump gave
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: a big speech yesterday. I did a big rally in
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Michigan that was meant to focus on economic issues. We'll
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: talk more about that in a moment in the economy block. However,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: he also talked some about Iran and gave people a
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: new rationale, or the latest rationale for why we're in
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: this war.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: To begin with.
• 3:02
  Speaker 6: Let's take a listen, we have the greatest people, We
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: have the best equipment in the world. I built it
• 3:07
  Speaker 6: during my first term and I'm using it now. We
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: had no choice again, we can't let what was happening
• 3:14
  Speaker 6: in Venezuela go on. And it was very decisive, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: we can't let what was and is going on. They
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: killed fifty two thousand protesters. Think of it in a
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: four month period, for fifty two thousand in Iran. But
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: we've already paid for the Venezuela operation, as I said,
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: And likewise, we're winning big time with the Islamic Republic
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: of Iran, and we're ensuring that they never have a
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: nuclear weapon. When somebody comes up and says, why are
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: we doing this, just say because we cannot let them
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple. So you have
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: to say, there's nothing else you have to say. If
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: you understood the power of the nuclear weapons, you'd understand
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: exactly what I was saying.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Of course, the reality of the situation only is that
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: they are more likely to to a nuclear weapon now
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: that we have launched this insane war than they were
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: previously when we were negotiating with them on exactly this issue.
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: Well, and also as we're about to talk about. Because
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump is facing this the weapons stockpile. If you
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: miss out on or if you deplete the Tomahawks or
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: that level of the supply, does Trump then feel as.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Though his next option is something that hasn't.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: Been depleted, that's more powerful tactical nukes. I don't know
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: what it is, and I'm not saying it's going to happen,
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: but obviously his options are narrowing right now.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: What makes you raise that in particular, Emily, because that
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: is something that I've been concerned about as well, especially
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: when they started talking about Pickaxe Mountain, and presumably the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Israeli started floating this intelligence about, oh that nuclear program
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: that you've been claiming was obliterated, Actually they moved everything
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: into Pickaxe Mountain. Military experts say that conventional weapons would
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: really do nothing to actually penetrate. You could collapse some
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: tunnels or something of that nature. But as we've seen,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the Iranians have proven themselves very adept at being able
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to dig out these facilities, whether it's the underground missile
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: cities or presumably nuclear facilities as well. So when I
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: started hearing that talk, I became very concerned. In the
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: same direction.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's exactly right.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: And it's just been in an amplification of that talk
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: from the Israelis, and some of them were hawkish people
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: here in the United States. Combined with the fact that
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: you have depleting supply of the stuff that's been used already,
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: and so when the president feels like he's squeezed, he
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: doesn't want to take an l and he doesn't want
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: to escalate with ground troops, the options start to narrow
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: in a way that's very concerning, unless he decides once
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: again to kind of this might be the most likely path,
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: take a deal and try to frame it as a
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: dove even if it's really Now.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to your point about the weapon stockpile, you was
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: asked about this on Air Force one, and to my knowledge,
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: this is the first that he admitted that there might
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: be a bit of a problem there. Let's take a
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: listen for about soft piles.
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: If there's a brow me.
• 6:08
  Speaker 7: We our money. We have a lot of ammunition, different types.
• 6:12
  Speaker 7: You know, Biden gave a lot to Ukraine and so
• 6:15
  Speaker 7: we're building that up, but we have a lot. We
• 6:18
  Speaker 7: have a lot of the mid level stuff too, I
• 6:20
  Speaker 7: mean more than we could ever use no matter what.
• 6:23
  Speaker 8: But we have a lot.
• 6:24
  Speaker 7: I'd like to have more, to be honest, but so
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: much was given to Ukraine by Biden when I left.
• 6:31
  Speaker 7: The cupboards will full. When I came here with Obama,
• 6:35
  Speaker 7: he didn't buy ammunition. We had very little and I
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: got it built now as soon as I left. They
• 6:44
  Speaker 7: gave a lot of it to Ukraine. I mean, I
• 6:46
  Speaker 7: mean numbers and nobody's ever seen before. So we're building
• 6:51
  Speaker 7: it very rapidly. Plants are being built, a lot of
• 6:55
  Speaker 7: equipments being built. The Patriots in particular are being built.
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: That system is going up. We have a lot. Every
• 7:03
  Speaker 7: one of our contract is just building four to five
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: plans right now, and we're in very good shape. But
• 7:11
  Speaker 7: were some of the more sophisticated itself. We certainly liked
• 7:14
  Speaker 7: that more. Biden gave a lot of it away.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: So he says there's some of the more sophisticated stuff,
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: even as he tries to downplay the overall issue. And
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this a lot emily. Certainly, the
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: diminishing weapons stock files is something we've talked about a
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: lot here, even pre dating the Iran War, is a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: major issue, and there was NBC News reporting that they
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: are in fact having to ration interceptors, so they're.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Having a pick and choose.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, is you know, is this a target that's so
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: important we need to protect it or not. That shows
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: you the limits of what we're able to do just
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: because the lack of material. However, I was reading Policy Tenser,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you follow him either on Twitter
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: or I also subscriber to his substack, and he's saying,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: you know, this is really kind of missing the point
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: because even if the cupboards were full in the parlance
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: there that Trump was using, you still would not with
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: conventional weaponry and a air campaign, be able to achieve
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: your objectives in Iran. You still would not be able
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: to fully protect your bases in the region and have
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: that basing strategy make sense anymore. Even as a lot
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: of people are saying, Okay, well, now we don't have
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: what it takes to defend ourselves and deter China. Well,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: China's looking at this and going, even if you had
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: full stockpiles at this point, you weren't going to be
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: able to do anything anyway, because the very nature of
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: warfare has changed. So while I think this is a
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: really important, significant near term issue which is shaping the
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: choice array for Trump in the short term, and which
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: his commanders are certainly alerting him to, etc. I don't
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: actually think it is the primary issue that has led
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: to this disastrous defeat for the US in Iran, which
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: is more about Iran strategic positioning, their intelligence strategy, and
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: the way that they've much more effectively adapted to modern
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: warfare than we have.
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: We weren't prepared. Clearly, we're not prepared for the asymmetric warfare.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's just no question about it. The Center
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: for Teaching and International Studies estimates that we have fired
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: about one thousand Tomahawk missiles from a baseline of about
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: three thousand. That is going to take years to reconstitute
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: the supply to that level. They're estimating as many as
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: fourteen hundred Patriot defense missiles have been used. So this
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: is a problem that is now going to take years
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: to resolve. That's why Pete Hegseth was talking about quote
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: critical shortfalls on Capitol Hill last week as he asked
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: for more money.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And there are companies that are trying.
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: To bring the Pentagon into the twenty first century and
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: prepare it for more asymmetric warfare.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: But that's not all what we've seen so far in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Iran at all.
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: What we've seen is I would say, if anything, an
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: effort to wage this conventional air war in the hopes
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: that again the Netsan Yahoo scenario of the Kurds coming
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: in would take place, that never happens. So Trump is
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: almost just running out the clock until he feels like
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: he can frame something as a big win.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've continued to take losses. Let's put these
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: images of the latest MQ nine Reaper drone that was
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: reportedly shot down over a rock. You're looking at thirty
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: to thirty four million dollars. They're laying smoldering on the ground.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: They've been able to take down a lot of these
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Reaper drones, and then their drones, which we have actually copied,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: which is quite unusual for the American military, almost unprecedented
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: to copy an adversaries drone or weaponry like that. In
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: any case, they're able to spend them ount for much
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: less cost, and in a very short period of time.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: They've maintained their industrial base so they can spin these
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: things out, and I'm sure have continued to do so
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: over the course of the war. At the same time,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: put a four up on the screen. This is the
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: big latest Barock revied report. Here, he says Trump told
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: me we're in very deep talks with Iran. There is
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: no indication that that is true. The Iranians are denying
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: that they are talking with the US or that they
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: are interested in talking with the US. At this point,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Trump goes on to tell revealed if they don't work out,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: we will go back to very strong military action. Asked
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: how long he's willing to give diplomacy, the President said
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: not much.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Time. Either goes fast or not at all.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: This seems like another I think there's a few things
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: going on here. First of all, you know, we had
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: another sort of market manipulation, moved to calm things before
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Monday morning markets opened, so you could get oil prices
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: down so that the stock market wouldn't completely tank. So
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: they start floating out. We're doing these negotiations, we're having
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: these talks. You know, the bombs stopped flying. That certainly
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: is is in fact reality. The other piece of this, though,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: is I think that there was a you know, there
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: was a loss of life. Our service members were killed,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: and there was a threat from moron that they were
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: going to continue killing our service members for every Iranian
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: civilian who was killed, but there would be a one
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: for one loss. And I think Trump is well aware
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: that Americans are not prepared to accept really any losses
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: or casualties, you know, in a normal war. Sagar and
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I played Ben Shapiro yesterday. I'm sure you're familiar with
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: his comments too, where he was like, yeah, we're willing
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to accept casualties. Like, first of all, who are you,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: buddy to tell us what we're willing to accept. But
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: you know, in a sense, he's correct that if you
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: had a just war, if this was like World War
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: two and we're up against the Nazis, yes, Americans would
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: have a stomach for some level of sacrifice. But they
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: have never received a straightforward justification for why this is
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: either necessary or intelligent. You know, we're talking about them
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Well, this has made
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: it more likely that they pursue a nuclear weapon. The
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: war has increasingly become about who has control of the
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: strait of hormones. Well, previously the straight of hormones was open.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So not only is the war not achieving any objective,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: any reasonable objective you may have set has been rolled back,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: has been set back significantly by this incredibly stupid, disastrous war.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: So no, Americans are not willing to accept any casualties.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: Really were already up over six hundred casualties over the
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: course of this war, and I believe hundreds just in
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the past couple of weeks, so really significant, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: injuries and damage to our service members that they'll spend
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: their lives dealing with and recovering from. And I think
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Trump is smart enough to know that we really don't
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: have any tolerance for that. And so when he saw
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: this very credible threat from the Iranians, and you couple
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that with the low stockpile very limited ability to deter
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: or thwart those attacks, I think that's part of why
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: he pulled back here as well.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: Well, and now potentially having problems in the Red Sea.
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: It's it's a mess, I mean, and that's what everybody predicted,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: except for one person we're going to hear from in
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: just a moment, Mark Levin and Benjamin Ntinia, who But
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: that's what everybody predicted basically would happen. I think the
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: low stockpile has probably had a lot to do with
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: this decision personally. But you know that's what's also really
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: scary right now. He's in this between a rock and
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: a hard place of his own fault. He put himself
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: in that position by choosing who to listen to and
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: what to do in this war. And Man, if you
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: are running for Congress as a Republican right now, you're
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: looking at this in terror because all signals point to
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: gas prices probably remaining pretty high, inflation remaining pretty stubborn
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: over the next couple of months. And more importantly, if
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: you're somebody who's looking to pay your damn bills, you're
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: probably thinking about it exactly in the same way, because
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: this is obviously rippled throughout the economy. Meanwhile, Crystal, let's
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: listen to what Mark Levin thinks should happen.
• 14:18
  Speaker 9: The reason this president will go down in history for
• 14:22
  Speaker 9: a thousand years, the reason the Prime Minister of Israel
• 14:25
  Speaker 9: will go down in history for a thousand years, is
• 14:29
  Speaker 9: because they saw the danger and they stood up to
• 14:31
  Speaker 9: the danger, and they're.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Fighting the danger.
• 14:35
  Speaker 9: And Donald Trump will go down in our history is
• 14:39
  Speaker 9: one of the greatest presidents ever ever because of what
• 14:44
  Speaker 9: he is doing today, as well as other things that
• 14:46
  Speaker 9: he's done, but certainly because what he's doing today and
• 14:50
  Speaker 9: dealing with this grave threat in Iran, I.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: Look forward to Mark Levin's monologue on how we are
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: dealing with the grave threat from North Korea's new clear
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: missiles and ICBM capacity. Doesn't seem to have the same
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: level of concern about that, Crystal. So we are now
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: getting his monologues to an audience of one, maybe literally
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: an audience of one, about how great Donald Trump is.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's a few boomers out here who take him
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: seriously too, and they're not all in the White House,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: just one, very.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: More than a few.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, you know, he may be right that Trump goes
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: down in history for a thousand years, but not for
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the reason that they would hope, as the man who
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: destroyed an end of the American Empire. And he may
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: be right about Netanyahu too, that he goes down for
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: a thousand years in history as the man who effectively
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: destroyed the state of Israel. So it is possible that
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: they end up as quote unquote great men in history,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: certainly consequential men, And in a sense, I think Trump
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: cares more about being consequential than whether the consequences of
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: his action are for good or ill, and that's a
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: big part. This type of language is exactly what fueled
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: his ego driven decision to launch this disastrous war. You know, Netnyahu,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I'm sure undoubtedly told him, this will be your legacy.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: You'll be able to accomplish something no other president was
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: able to accomplish. Her. It's all there for you. We
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: can see how we can take out the leadership class.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Iran will crumble, Ahmadinajad will rise to power, the Kurds
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: will flood in, they'll take over these cities, and Trump,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: wanting high on his own supply and wanting to believe
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the hype and wanting to believe that he could be
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: that consequential man in history, decided to pull the trigger
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: and now is in an absolute disastrous trap for himself,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: for the country, really for the world. One last piece here,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: this is Shane Smith from Weiss talking about how he
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: in his recent trip to Tehran, is like, you know,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: this economic pressure we're supposedly putting on them, they seem
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: to be doing pretty well. And the reason this is
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: consequential is because this is the key part of our
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: war strategy, is the economic warfare. You know, the imposition
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: of the blockade, the long standing sanctions regime. The idea
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: is that we can make life so miserable for the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: entire Iranian population that they will buckle and they will
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: come to the table and they will have to make concessions,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: rather than the dynamic right now is that we are
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the ones who would have to make all of the concessions.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: We would have to agree to allow Oran to control
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the straight orform moves. That is clearly where they have
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: drawn their redline, and they are not going to go
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: into negotiations until that much has been made clear from
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: the US side. In any case, let's go ahead and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: take a listen to Shane Smith on the Bulwark podcast
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: talking about his experience in Tehran.
• 17:26
  Speaker 10: Eighty percent of the people have either relatives in London
• 17:29
  Speaker 10: or in la like in the big Persian communities, very
• 17:32
  Speaker 10: well informed to run is actually a sort of cosmopolitan city.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: What the economic situation look like.
• 17:37
  Speaker 10: It's nuanced. We've had these crippling sanctions. The first thing
• 17:41
  Speaker 10: you notice is there's traffic jams everywhere, which means everyone
• 17:44
  Speaker 10: has a car, everyone has gas. We're not crippling anything.
• 17:47
  Speaker 10: Store is full. We hear about sanctions, the sanctions have
• 17:51
  Speaker 10: been going on for decades, crippled economy, and I come
• 17:54
  Speaker 10: here and it's like all the stores are filled, all
• 17:56
  Speaker 10: the people are shopping. America is bombing there on and
• 18:00
  Speaker 10: everyone's like, hello, how are you nice to see you?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: You're good?
• 18:03
  Speaker 10: There need to be that crippling. The revolutionary guards are
• 18:06
  Speaker 10: like the mafia. They're the import export engines. So they're
• 18:09
  Speaker 10: just getting more powerful. They all have guns. They have
• 18:12
  Speaker 10: all the guns. If there's regime change, they're either going
• 18:14
  Speaker 10: to jail or getting strung up. So are they going
• 18:16
  Speaker 10: anywhere or now? And they're making oodles of money. By
• 18:20
  Speaker 10: the way you go around to around, They're building brand
• 18:22
  Speaker 10: new skyscrapers everywhere. And I'm like, well, who's though, We're
• 18:26
  Speaker 10: not crippling anybody. They trade with China, they trade with Russia, Fine,
• 18:30
  Speaker 10: they can go on forever. If we think that our
• 18:32
  Speaker 10: crippling sanctions are clippling in any way, we're wrong.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: What did you think of that?
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: M Yeah, I mean I think that's probably generally accurate.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: And on top of that, bear in mind, part of
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: the reason Netanyahu was whispering in Trump's ear about regime
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: change is that the regime did slaughter thousands. I don't
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: buy those super high estimates that we get from some
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: of the hawks. But the IRGC slaughtered thousands of people
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: in January and Netnyahuo was saying, now is the time
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: they will revolt, and that did not happen. So if
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: it's if that doesn't do it, the idea that the
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: economy is going to trigger some mass revolt in Iran
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: is foolish.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you think about the theoretical goals
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: that have been floated at different times, I mean the
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: most preposterous one was always like, oh, we care about
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: the human rights and the dignity of the protesters, believe.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: But if your goal is, you know, we're going to
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: weaken the government and filment some sort of regime change,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: government appears to be stronger than ever, I believe. Jane Smith,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I think it makes sense that they are probably making
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of money because when you increase the black market, yes,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: those are the sorts of people that are going to
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: ultimately benefit. So you've strengthened the government. If your goal
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: is to deter them from seeking a nuclear weapon, you've
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: made it much more likely they're going to pursue a
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: nuclear weapon. Both by killing, murdering the previous Supreme leader
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: who had issued a fatwa against the nuclear weapon, and
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: also just through the logic of the state looking at
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: an existential threat and saying, okay, well, how can we
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: deter that. Let me look around the world. Looks like
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: people are leaving North Korea alone. Maybe that's the model
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to go with. So on that front, you've been incredibly counterproductive.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: If you wanted to weaken their economy. Well, now they've
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: been able to assert control of the Straight of Hormons,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: very likely guaranteeing themselves as sort of endless stream of
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: revenue from cargo ships transitting the Straight of Horn moves.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So on any of the levels that you could imagine
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: of what the goals theoretically could be, even though we've
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: never really gotten a straight consistent answer about what those
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: goals are, we've set ourselves back on every single one
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: of those goals. We were in a better place, closer
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: to the achievement of those theoretical goals before we ever
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: launched these attacks.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, that's a fact pattern at this point,
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: like incontrovertible unless you buy into some of the deeper
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: conspiracy theories of the ron Hawk world. So absolute mess,
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: and we keep seeing why every single day in like
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: renaissance portrait form, flamboyantly wrong every single day.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and turn now from the
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: impact on Ron to the impact on our own economy.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: President Trump flew to Michigan yesterday to deliver an economic speech,
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: and the news is good, folks. Don't worry. You're pretty
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: much doing as well as you ever have.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Let's think a listen.
• 21:20
  Speaker 6: We're having the single greatest year we've ever had as
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: a country.
• 21:25
  Speaker 8: We're not going to let these people destroy it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: We're delivering the largest prescription drug price cuts in the
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: history of our country by far, with differences of four hundred,
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: five hundred and even six hundred percent. Nobody can believe it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: We will pass the Great Healthcare Plan. That's what it's called,
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: the Great Healthcare Plan, to stop all payments to big
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: insurance companies and give the money directly to you, the people,
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: so that they can buy their own healthcare, which will
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: be much less expensive and be a much better healthcare.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: Meanwhile, let's put this Washington Post headline up on the screen.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: Republicans see quote scary lack of enthusiasm among core voters
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: ahead of midterms. A little bit from the piece here, quote,
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: Republican polsters and political groups are raising the alarm their
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: party faces a listless and demotivated base ahead of November's
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: midterm elections. A raft of discouraging data from polling, door knocking,
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: and focus groups is unsettling Republicans as their party heads
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: into a midterm election season that would be challenging no
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: matter what, given President Trump's low standing in polls and
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: the fact that the party control in Washington almost always
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: loses seas, which, by the way, is something that Trump
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: was saying ahead of the Iran war.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: He was saying he gave a speech in Iowa.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: I think it was back in January Krystal where he
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: was talking about how you know, it's.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Not a big deal.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: He probably won't Republicans probably won't win the midterms. Now,
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: not only is that historical president still salient, but he
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: also has Let's just check the triple a gas price.
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: The national average today is about four dollars and one cent.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: That is within one hundred days of the midterm election.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: I think we just passed the one hundred day benchmark
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: what two days ago, So no wonder, no wonder, they're
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: seeing a quote signs or seeing signs quote of listlessness
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: among the base. And I'm curious Crystal for your take
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: on his messaging of the economy being he's doing a
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: little bit of blaming Biden but then also saying it's great.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: It's a total mixed message, but doesn't have much to
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: work with at this point, of course, when he's trying
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: to tell voters everything is just fine and in fact
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: it's actually better than.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Ever many a president has crashed into the rocks trying
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: to convince voters that the economy is good when the
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: economy is not in fact good. I think it's one
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: of the hardest things to bullshit on, even for the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: most effective bullshit artists, perhaps of all time in American
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: political history, Donald Trump. Because people have their own individual
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: experience with the economy. It's numbers, it's math. At the
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: end of the day, Am I able to afford what
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I used to be able to afford at the grocery store?
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Am I able to make rent? At the end of
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: the month? Am I able to even conceive of the
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: possibility of ever becoming a homeowner? Am I able to
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: afford my health insurance premiums? And so you can't. There's
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: very few people. There may be a few, but there's
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: very few people that you're going to be able to
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: rhetorically persuade that their economic situation is different than their
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: actual experience of it. So when he says America is
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: having the best year of all time, there are going
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: to be very few people who are going to be
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: persuaded by that, and all of those people were going
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: to be diehard Trump fans. The latest Gallup poll has
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: only twenty two percent of Americans who say the economy
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: is either good or excellent. That is absolutely dismal. That
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: peace in the Washing Post is really quite dire because
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: you have them saying, you know, one in five Republican voters,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: so twenty percent of the Republican base is at risk
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: of either staying home or voting for Democrats. That is
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: an extraordinarily high number. I think, you know, when we're
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: looking at the generic ballot, and okay, theoretically Democrat versus Republican,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: et cetera, it's very hard to actually capture, but who
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: is going to show up? And midterms are are one
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: hundred percent a game of who is actually going to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: show up? And I think that lack of enthusiasm is
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: the biggest problem for Republicans. It's not necessarily that diehard
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: MAGA voters are in large numbers going to flip to Democrats,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: although I think some of them will. It's that many
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: of them will be demobilized and simply stay home. They
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: interviewed some Trump voters in Iowa, which Iowa is a
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: state that Barack Obama won it, but that feels like
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: a million years ago at this point.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: It shifted hard to the right, very rural.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: You know, this is the type of place that has
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: increasingly moved against Democrats. You got both a governor candidate,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Democratic candidate and a Senate candidate who have been pretty
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: consistently up in the polls, including in a recent Fox
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: News poll. You Democrats winning both of those seats. So
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: they interviewed this guy, three time Trump voter in western
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Iowa's very rural lance silentic resident of Iowa's rural Harrison
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: County described the past three presidential elections as quote the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: worst three mistakes I've ever made in my life, saying
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the president had failed to fulfill his campaign promises. Higher
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: gas prices have been costing his family an extra three
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: hundred five hundred dollars every month for their motorcycle and
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: four cars. He said, quote, we voted for Trump. He
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: did the opposite of what he said he was going
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to do. Gas prices were going to be two dollars,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: food was going to be cheaper, Energy prices were going
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: to be in half. We were going to get two
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: rebate checks to the American people. We weren't going to
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: have any new wars, and we're going to build a
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: wall into Port thirty million illegal aliens. Interesting that he's
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: also disappointed on that front, and he did none of it.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: So this man, you think he's going to win, Trump
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: is going to come out as, oh, but it's the
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: best year of your life, sir, don't worry. I don't
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: think that's going to be very persuasive for him.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Mumbly, No, of course not.
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: And one of the things we should mention about the
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: analysis that you brought up from the Washington Post piece
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: is that it was done by Americans for Prosperity. So
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: that's a coke back group that has basically it's the
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: old Tea party ground game, but it's still here in
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty six, and they were out making this analysis
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: based on door knocking and actually talking to voters. So
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: it's not even just like a cold statistical analysis. It's
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: a lot of it is qualitative having these conversations. And
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: we should also mention from the post piece, the latest
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: Washington Post in IPSOS polling on this shows that quote,
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: Democrats have a ten percentage point advantage over Republicans among
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: voters who say they're absolutely certain to vote in November.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Now that is huge.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: Ryan and I covered last week the generic congressional ballot
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: differences between now two thousand and six and twenty eighteen
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Democrats and Harry Anton, who we're going to hear from
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: in just a moment, has pointed this out. And if
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: you look at real clear for those years too, it's
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: pretty obvious Democrats are lagging. Like they're up in the
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: generic congressional ballot. I think it's five points last time
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: I checked on OURCP last week. They should be up
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: higher if they're looking at like a blue tsunami year
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: from the same points in twenty six and twenty eighteen.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: That doesn't necessarily mean they won't have a blue tsunami,
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: or that those numbers won't change and be even more
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: lopsided in their favor.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: By the time election day rules around.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: But as of right now, there's still work for Democrats
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: to do to capitalize on the fact that Republican voters
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: are possibly considering pulling the lever. For some Democrats, we're
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: staying home altogether, So a fascinating dynamic.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Let's put the CNBC headline up.
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: US grocery slowdown deepens as shoppers buy fewer items, raising
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: pressure on food companies. Shoppers are buying fewer items than
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: a year ago, and grocery sales are declining as weakening
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: unit sales are now outweighing rising prices.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: CNBC reports.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: This is according to a new analysis from Bain using
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: Nielsen IQ.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Grocery data shared exclusively with CNBC.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: Grocery units, which refer to individual items or products sold,
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: fell one point eight percent in June from a year
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: early year, a sharp reversal from the point one percent
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: year over year growth recorded.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: In June twenty twenty five.
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: While prices continue to rise about two to three percent
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: year over year, that inflation cushion for the industry is
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: no longer enough to keep overall sales growing. So Trump
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: went from recording a point one percent growth year over
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: year his economy went from recording point one percent growth
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: year over year after Liberation Day, by the way, which
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: is somewhat interesting. Obviously these adjustments can take a long
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: time to trickle into all parts of the economy, but
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: in the midst of the Iran war to a dip
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: of one point eight percent from June to June. So
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: the way that Democrats are going to get Republican voters
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: either to stay home those one in five that by
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: November to stay home or vote Democrat. I mean, this
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: is such a gift politically. It's a tragedy for the country,
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: but a gift politically.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: Crystal, Yeah, and Emily, I know we talked a lot
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: before about how Republicans were pinning a lot of hopes
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: on the big beautiful bill and the tax savings that
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Americans were going to be, you know, feeling in their
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: bank accounts and the Trump baby accounts and these sorts
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: of things. There was a recent pull and I had
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the numbers in front of me that you know, unsurprisingly,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: American voters are very like meh on the tax savings
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: because there is what it is, right number one, they
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: don't know what it is. Number two, whatever savings they
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: may have achieved is being instantly eaten up the very
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: next time they go to Phillip their guest tank. So,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: you know, you talked about we're one hundred days, you know,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: away from the midterms more or less, we're six months
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: into the Iran war. There's no end in sight, and
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: those economic indicators are just going to continue to decline.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: You know, we're going to have even higher grocery price.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: If you'll get a chart at the cost of groceries
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: over let's say the past six years, the way it's skyrocketed,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: it is truly a jaw dropping how much more people
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: are having to spend for the same items. I'm sure
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you've seen these viral tiktoks where people like pull out
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: their receipts they're like Target receipts or their Walmart receipts
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: from twenty nineteen and just be in shock and how
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: much more they're paying for the exact same items. So, yeah,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: you're not going to be able to talk that away.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: That is one area where people really have a very
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: fine tuned sense of what is actually happening, much more
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: so I think than is even captured in the top
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: line numbers, which you know, unemployments low. It's not like
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: things if you just look at these certain macroeconomic indicators
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: look that disastrous. But you know, your average American is
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: really feeling a lot of pain and a lot of
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: despair about the direction that the country is going in
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: and what the prospects are for them and their children.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: And that is the reason why if we put before
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: up on the screen, Trump is seeing his lowest approval rating.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: Room.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Sorry, this is actually a sort a Harry Enton sot
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: talking about some of these poll numbers of how Americans
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: feel about the economy and how just dismally they're rating
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Trump's performance.
• 31:47
  Speaker 11: Here, Promises made, promises broken in the minds of the
• 31:51
  Speaker 11: American public, forty four percent thirty eight percent said they make.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: Them worse off.
• 31:56
  Speaker 11: Back in October of twenty.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: Twenty four, look at these numbers.
• 31:59
  Speaker 11: Now, oh my goodness, John shaking his head off on
• 32:02
  Speaker 11: the side. Now fifty eight percent, nearly three in five
• 32:06
  Speaker 11: voters say that Trump is making them financially worse off.
• 32:09
  Speaker 11: That's up like a rocket, the better off down through
• 32:12
  Speaker 11: the floor. Back when Trump was reelected November twenty twenty four,
• 32:16
  Speaker 11: look at that, forty two percent of Americans less than
• 32:19
  Speaker 11: fifty said that in fact, the economy is getting worse.
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: Look at that now fifty nine percent, fifty nine percent
• 32:26
  Speaker 11: say the US economy is getting worse. I don't know
• 32:29
  Speaker 11: how this works for Republicans come to midterm elections. When
• 32:33
  Speaker 11: the economy is the number one issue with inflation and
• 32:36
  Speaker 11: three and five say it's getting worse off and just
• 32:39
  Speaker 11: about one in five saying that it's getting better. That's
• 32:42
  Speaker 11: an equation that does not work out.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: And Emily, I saw Trump going back to the well
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: and that Michigan's speech was supposed to be all about
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the economy, about like transports and utilizing kids, and these
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: sorts of culture war issues that you know, he believes
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: will help to rub up the base. And you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: for some sure, but I think when you're dealing with
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: this pessimistic of an outlook on the economy and pessimistic
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: view of Trump's own handling of the economy, because let's
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: be clear, these are all complete own goals, you know,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: manufactured crises of his own making, I don't think the
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: culture war red meat is going to be enough to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: rescue him.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: Well, he was talking also about prescription drug prices, and
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: the fact of the matter is healthcare premiums. Early data
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: for the year shows that they're likely to be increasing
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: again this year. So he can talk about prescription drug
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: prices that he's been able to via executive order and
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: deals with some of these individual companies muscle down and
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: in some cases I think that's good, but the overall
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: picture is not a rosy one, and so calling attention
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: to this kind of hodgepodge quilt of executive order accomplishments
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: only go so far when the big picture for people
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: is not But it doesn't reflect the optimism that he's
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: trying to project. And that brings us full circle to
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: the point you made initially a classic pitfall for precedents.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: He's not on the ballot, which is another problem from
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: the Washington Post article raised one of the experts saying
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: we have a high propensity voter problem. That is from
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: again one of the right leaning experts who say, listen,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: Trump's out on the ballot. So not only do we
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: not have the voters who turn out for Trump that
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: Trump coalition that does have more Hispanics, more men, in particular,
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: that you don't have that coalition, and a lot of
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: polling suggests it's already fractured. Anyway because of the war
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: and prices and the like. But on top of that,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: your high propensity voters that used to make up the
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: Republican party base are less energized and interested now too,
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: so they're in an absolute mass right now.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and even on a prescription drug price thing, he
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: just announced, they just announced that they're slapping tariffs on
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: generic drug imports, which is going to increase the logically
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: increase the cost of those generic drugs, which are the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: less expensive alternatives to brand names here in the US.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So you know, even on this one area that he's
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: trying to claim some progress, at the same time he's
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: undercutting his own progress on that that same issue. And
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: then I don't even know what he's talking about with
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: this healthcare plan because we've never heard anything else.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: About it, at least I haven't. Maybe you have.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: I guess this is the next phase of the concept
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: of a healthcare plan that we were promising the presidential election.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: But I don't think anyone's holding their breath for that one.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think so either.
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: I mean, maybe they're trying to squeeze something into reconciliation.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I have no idea. It seems unlikely to happen.
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: But good luck to Donald Trump trying to convince people
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: that it's all not just fine but better than ever.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Well, a marquee race in Michigan, that being the Senate
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Democratic Primary, is coming down to the wire. Election day
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: is next week on Tuesday. Abdil Al Sayad and Haley
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Stevens faced off last night in a very interesting debate.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Let's start with a little bit of Abdul criticizing Eally
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Stevens for the money that she's been taking. This was
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: a primary line of attack against her throughout this entire
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: debate night. He tied a lot of his answers back
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: to her APAC funding and other corporate funding coming into
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: her campaign.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and listen to that.
• 36:15
  Speaker 8: What are you doing.
• 36:16
  Speaker 12: That's something that perhaps we haven't heard before in Washington.
• 36:19
  Speaker 8: That's different to keep the cost of living down.
• 36:21
  Speaker 13: So just tell you for me, it's I don't take
• 36:24
  Speaker 13: money from the corporations who are jacking up your prices
• 36:26
  Speaker 13: in the first place. When you're bought off by DTE
• 36:29
  Speaker 13: and Blue Cross and big pharma and big tech and APAC.
• 36:34
  Speaker 8: Don't be surprised that.
• 36:35
  Speaker 13: There's a pro quo that comes with that quid. That
• 36:38
  Speaker 13: money doesn't just fall off tree. Sixty million dollars from
• 36:40
  Speaker 13: outside organizations in this race they just cover nowhere. It's
• 36:44
  Speaker 13: because those exact same organizations expect something on the other side,
• 36:47
  Speaker 13: and that's that they get to expect it to own.
• 36:49
  Speaker 8: Your next US Senator. So it starts with.
• 36:52
  Speaker 13: Being able to say I'm the only candidate in this
• 36:54
  Speaker 13: race who doesn't take any money from corporations, never have,
• 36:57
  Speaker 13: never will. So I just want to say the difference
• 37:00
  Speaker 13: between us is forty six million dollars of apax spending.
• 37:03
  Speaker 13: They've set a record in this race to help elect
• 37:06
  Speaker 13: my opponent because they know that she'll be a reliable vote,
• 37:09
  Speaker 13: just like she took last week to send your tax
• 37:11
  Speaker 13: dollars to a foreign government that is aiding, arming, and
• 37:15
  Speaker 13: a betting the very people who want to foreclose on
• 37:17
  Speaker 13: the possibility of Palestinian self determination. Look, at the end
• 37:21
  Speaker 13: of the day, my job is to take care of you.
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: Here.
• 37:23
  Speaker 13: I want to be your US Senator. I want your
• 37:25
  Speaker 13: tax dollars spent in Michigan to provide schools in Michigan,
• 37:29
  Speaker 13: to build healthcare in Michigan, to build roads in Michigan.
• 37:31
  Speaker 8: And I think that money sent.
• 37:33
  Speaker 13: Over there to kill kids and women is the worst
• 37:39
  Speaker 13: use of our tax dollars, and yet that's exactly what
• 37:41
  Speaker 13: forty six million dollars in spending will buy you.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: And Emily, he really hit this theme again and again.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: You know, it's it's really interesting and a little bit
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: risky because I'm not sure I've ever seen campaign finance
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: this prominently featured in any election. You know, a lot
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: of times both sides are taking a lot of money
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: and it kind of gets lost in the sauce of
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: who's taken what from whom. But it's a sign of
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: the times because APAC has become so incredibly toxic and
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: such an important litmus test in terms of the credibility
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: of Democratic candidates in these primaries. I think it probably
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: packs a punch. He also did the thing I thought
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: was very clever where you'd say, hey, they're going to
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: go to commercial break, you're probably going to see two
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: three ads funded by APAK from my opponent, and let
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: me tell you you know what the problem is with
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: that and what they're saying, etc. So I thought it
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: was a very interesting strategy from him.
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it is interesting, and also I think for the
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: kind of normal Michigan voter. What makes it less of
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: a risky strategy when you think about it in the
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: context of twenty twenty six is that people are people's
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: frustrations with money and politics are boiling over because of
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: obviously the war, because of the gauz of war.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, but it's I think also just.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: A proxy crystal for people's friends with money and politics
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: in general and with the system. So if people on
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: the right in the center are saying he keeps bringing
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: up a pack because of Israel, I think actually it's
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: more than that. I mean, just as we followed this
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: issue really closely, you see people around the country reacting
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: to APAC, not even necessarily always with a foreign policy
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: aversion to it, but just saying what happened to Thomas Massey,
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: for example, was gross. It was just an example of
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: everything they don't like and don't trust about the American
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: political system.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: It's a catch all for a lot of different a
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: lot of different themes.
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, between APAC data centers, which we'll talk about
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: later in today's episode, and flock cameras like these are
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: big what's the best way to put it there, they're
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: sort of touchstones, they're things that represent what people hate
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: about politics right now, and they're unifying in a weird way.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I think that's absolutely right.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Hailey Stevens, for her part, her attacks on Obdual were
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Number one, she's been trying to make a big deal
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: about how he hadn't released his financial disclosure. That didn't
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: land as hard because he did release his financial disclosure
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: yesterday and there wasn't anything that was particularly scandalous there.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: But she was trying to still launch that attack I
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: think as a way to kind of muddy the waters
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: where he's saying her like she's basically corrupt, and she's saying, well,
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: he's corrupt because he's not disclosing everything about his finances.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: That was one of her attacks. Another one was to
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: try to frame him. This is a way to kind
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: of jiu jitsu the fact that he's much more camera ready,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: much more charismatic, intelligenic in front of a camera than
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: she is. You sorry for all the Stevens stands out there,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I know, deeply sexist commentary in my part. In any case,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: she tried to flip that around and say, well, we
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: don't need Yeah, he can go on all these podcasts,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: we don't need a celebrity, Senator, I'm the one who's
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: in the trenches getting the work done, etc. In any case,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: let's take a listen to the way that she attempted
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: to attack Abdul over his lack of financial transparency.
• 40:58
  Speaker 14: Not released your full text returns three hundred thousand dollars
• 41:02
  Speaker 14: in other income while you sat in the podcast chair
• 41:05
  Speaker 14: and you hawked junk healthcare cures that RFK Junior would
• 41:09
  Speaker 14: thumbs up. You talk about getting money out of politics
• 41:12
  Speaker 14: and putting money in people's pockets, but still no one
• 41:15
  Speaker 14: knows who's putting the money in your pocket. You know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 14: I have been transparent and I am offering, you know,
• 41:22
  Speaker 14: real plans to address the cost of living prices.
• 41:26
  Speaker 8: You want to be able to tackle Donald.
• 41:27
  Speaker 12: What you're talking about, what you did, But you also
• 41:29
  Speaker 12: made some accusations here. Doctor, I'll say ed, that is
• 41:32
  Speaker 12: a question that some people may have that Congressman's talking about.
• 41:35
  Speaker 8: Talk about the money and the financial.
• 41:37
  Speaker 13: Disclosures you were going to release. We released all of
• 41:39
  Speaker 13: our financial disclosures. Again, this is a distraction from the
• 41:42
  Speaker 13: issues in your life. But I'd love to talk about transparency.
• 41:46
  Speaker 13: I really would, because I want you to ask yourself.
• 41:49
  Speaker 13: There is this group called the Center for Democratic Priorities.
• 41:51
  Speaker 13: They didn't exist until they popped up and started running
• 41:54
  Speaker 13: odds from my opponents.
• 41:55
  Speaker 8: And then there's this other group called Center.
• 41:57
  Speaker 13: Forward that paid for a flight for the congresswoman and
• 42:00
  Speaker 13: her mother to go to Portugal, and they just released
• 42:03
  Speaker 13: their donors. And then it's a whole bunch of show
• 42:05
  Speaker 13: five to one C four organizations.
• 42:07
  Speaker 8: They're the folks who are.
• 42:08
  Speaker 13: Literally putting money in our pockets right now to try
• 42:11
  Speaker 13: and miss and disinform us about this race.
• 42:13
  Speaker 12: No concern about the forty six million plus dollars spent
• 42:16
  Speaker 12: on the behalf of APAC. That should worry people about
• 42:19
  Speaker 12: perhaps you doing their bidding should you win the seat.
• 42:22
  Speaker 14: Well, I don't think there's much difference between super packs
• 42:25
  Speaker 14: going in for a dual or super packs going in
• 42:27
  Speaker 14: for me. We have a problem with campaign finance reform.
• 42:31
  Speaker 14: You didn't call me an ogre.
• 42:32
  Speaker 12: No again, for the record, it was mister Fetterman that
• 42:36
  Speaker 12: was apparently called an ogre in the call, not you.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: That last part.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, it'd even get started with that. Yeah, yeah,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: put C four up on the screen. So Politico had
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: this whole piece about how there was leaked audio of
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Abdul talking about John Fetterman, not Haley Stevens, saying I
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: have no problem primary people like John Fetterman.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: I have no problem to do that.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Ideally, you put in one ogre on a pike and
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: then everyone else gets the message and all of a
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: sudden starts to sound a lot different Hailey Stevens and
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: mirror tan and tried to turn this around like he
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: was talking about Hailey Stevens being the ogre on a pike,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: which is what she said. There she gets fact checked
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: in real time by the moderator. I think, probably highlighting
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: the fact that abdulahl Sayah, like the entire rest of
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: the Democratic base absolutely despises John Fetterman and thinks that
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: he's an ogre who should be taken out. It's probably
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: not the win, the propaganda win that they were hoping
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: for him.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: Well, she couldn't even land the plane on the financial disclosers.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, it just sometimes it's frustrating.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Chris.
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you ever experienced this as somebody
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: who covers these races to watch the candidates even when
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: they're so bad, like Hailey Stevens, flustered because look right
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: into the camera and say, this is your working class
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: champion as one hundred thousand dollars. His wife has one
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: hundred thousand dollar rental property in Dubai. Like, she couldn't
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: even land an effective punch on that. Do I think
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: it's a huge issue for Michigan voters. No, but it
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: gave her something to work.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: With, at least want to do it right. Yeah, she
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: couldn't even do it.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: She couldn't even do it, and she could.
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: You could hear her trying to like interrupt and then
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: deciding that she probably shouldn't interrupt. Like she just lacks
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: a I mean it's not just Riz, but like she
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: she kind of lacks like a convincing self confidence in
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: that setting at least.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Well, this is the hard thing about standing for nothing.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: It makes it much harder to have a convincing self
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: to put forward. I mean, genuinely, I think about Kamala
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Harris suffering from this. You know, we talked about Kamala
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Harris's untalented. It's not really true. It's very hard to
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: not really know where you stand and have to answer
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: all these questions about where you stand.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: That's really difficult.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: It's much easier if you have an ideology and you
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: can just take the question in and respond with what
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: you actually think based on a well thought out ideology
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: and some sort of principle. And so I think there's
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: no surprise that you have this big gap in the
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: capability and the charisma of the lefty candidates versus the
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: interest Because the lefties, whether you like them or you know,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: don't agree with their worldview, they have a worldview and
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: they're not afraid of putting it out there and they're
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: not running away from it, and they you know, so
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: it gives them a real lag up when you're in
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: a situation like this and you're just having to respond to, Okay, well,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: what is the question what I actually think about this,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: rather than what did my briefing books say? What's the
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: clever retort that my campaign team came up with when
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: we were workshopping this in practice? So I think that's
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: part of what's going on here as well. We have
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: another Hailey Stephens moment that we wanted to highlight here
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: and shout out to Sam Robinson, who is a journalist
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: in Michigan. He's actually going to join us on Friday
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: to give us a breakdown of the race. He's just
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: been following the candidates around and talking to them, talking
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: to the voters who are interacting with both Abdul and Haley,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: getting their sense of things. And he captured a pretty
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: extraordinary moment here where Haley Stevens was meeting with a
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: constituent who was a community leader. He expressed his concern
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: over her support for the slaughter in Gaza and in
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: a very you know, compelling and personal way, and uh,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: you know, she she really was sort of uncomfortable in
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: the exchange, and it was it was it was a
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: very telling moment. I think in terms of how voters
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: are processing their choices here, let's go ahead and take
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: a look at that.
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: One.
• 46:21
  Speaker 15: I did already vote early, voted somebody who's going to win.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: I do not want Mike Rodgers today.
• 46:26
  Speaker 8: Whoever.
• 46:27
  Speaker 13: It is. Like I said, it's not an issue, She's
• 46:29
  Speaker 13: not a candidate issue.
• 46:30
  Speaker 15: It's a yeah, secretary, I know, it's not like a
• 46:37
  Speaker 15: broken record. Those six year olds that I coach here,
• 46:41
  Speaker 15: they're just as precious as the six year olds in
• 46:43
  Speaker 15: time of time. And it just absolutely breaks my heart
• 46:45
  Speaker 15: when I see him Limb's missing children. They're having to
• 46:50
  Speaker 15: play soccer on crutches with no legs, having to live lives,
• 46:54
  Speaker 15: and I feel like my country is directly responsible for
• 46:58
  Speaker 15: those actions.
• 46:59
  Speaker 13: And nieces Donor, when you hear make of this interaction
• 47:02
  Speaker 13: that you just said, what do I make of it?
• 47:04
  Speaker 15: I mean again, I she not a deviled me. You know,
• 47:09
  Speaker 15: she's somebody that could potentially win the seat. And I
• 47:13
  Speaker 15: wanted an opportunity to speak to somebody about an issue.
• 47:16
  Speaker 15: And I have no pals to you blood in me.
• 47:19
  Speaker 15: It's just I have to believe what I see. I
• 47:22
  Speaker 15: have to believe what I see.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: So about the interaction, it was.
• 47:25
  Speaker 8: Fine, it was cordial. We have to talk about both.
• 47:28
  Speaker 15: I tried my best to talk about both sides of
• 47:30
  Speaker 15: what I care about in my professional work but also
• 47:33
  Speaker 15: as a person.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: So you see there he says, you know, it's not
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: a candidate issue, it's a human rights issue. And she
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: says yeah, okay, and she walks out, and then reporters
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: are left there to ask him more about Okay, well
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: who are you voting for?
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: Who did you vote for?
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: And tell us a little bit more, put a little
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: more texture behind why you hold these views. I think
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: his views are entirely common within the Democratic base, and
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: the question is not whether his view or Hailey Stevens
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: view is more popular. There's undoubtedly the case that the
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Democratic base is more aligned with Abdullah Siah and with.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: This gentleman who was speaking here.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It's a question of whether that fifty million dollars that
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: has come into this race is going to be enough
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: to confuse people about Hayley Stevens, about Abdullahsaiad and you would,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: you know, you have to take that seriously, you really do.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I've seen pictures of the people's doors just stuffed full
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: of mailers, you know, many of them from a pack
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: backed by this this flood of money that has come
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: into this race, and that's what they're hoping. They're hoping
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: to make an example of Abdul and show that if
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: you're on the wrong side from their perspective of Israel Palestine,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: that they will come in, they will spend whatever it takes,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: and they will make you pay. Because right now, I'm
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: only the political incentives are shifting very rapidly in the
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: other direction, where Democrats for the first time are having
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: to worry that if they are too pro Israel, they
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: are going to be primary and they're going to suffer
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: electoral consequences. APAC is trying to even the score so
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: that they have to consider okay, but then am I
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: going to draw the ir of APAC and have fifty
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: million dollars spent against me in my primary?
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: My bluetooth speaker just went off as you were being
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: very eloquent, Crystal.
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: But yeah, it's like the turnout problem for Republicans is
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: also a big problem for Hailey Stevens because the voter
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: that we just heard from in Michigan represents the type
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: of person that you can pretty much be sure is
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: going to turn out on primary day. That is somebody
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: who is highly motivated by something they see as a
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: fundamental human rights question, a fundamental American values question, and
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: they see somebody who they think is just flagrantly on
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: the wrong side of it, and so that is the
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: person who's going to turn out.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: So it's a real.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: Problem for Hailey Stevens that this is the issue that
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: has motivated Democratic voters in a way that, let's druxtapose
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: it with the Massy primary. Republican voters are not right
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: now having this reckoning at large. Right Younger republic voters
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: absolutely are but younger Republican voters are not the majority
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: of voters in a primary, and they're not even the
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: majority of like the grassroots on the right. And that's
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: one of the big differences I think between the left
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: and the right is you have more young people involved
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: in the grassroots level on the left. And so if
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: you Juxapose Massey and you can Kentucky four with this
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: Michigan primary, it's not the same dynamic at all because
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: Democratic voters right now see this as a litmus test
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: for everything else, for authenticity, for corruption, and of course
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: for foreign policy and humanity and decency as well. So
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: this is the type of person that's highly motivated to
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: come out on primary election day, and I don't know
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: that Haley Stevens has a comparable kind of cohort on
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: her side.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: I saw someone talking to I wish I could remember
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: who right now, but I saw someone speaking in terms
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: of what we did in Gaza with our taxpayer dollars
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: is a moral injury to the American people, and so
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: separate apart from the horror that most Americans feel at
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: the genocide being committed in Gaza with our funding and
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: our support, it also I think is experienced deeply personally.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, this is it's shameful.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: It's horrifying that to have any sense that we were
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: involved with this, that our money that we sent into
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: our federal government went to these horrific crimes. And so
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: I think that's an important lens for understanding the depth
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: of feeling around this too. You know, that man said, look,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I'm not Palestinian, I don't have any post, I don't
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: know anybody there.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: But when I look.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: At these kids that I coach, I see them as
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: exactly the same as these kids who are having their
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: limbs blown off, and that's unacceptable to me. So, you know,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: I see a lot of like why do people care
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: so much about this? And I think it's very easy
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: to understand the depth of feeling around that, the level
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: of shame that comes from having been complicit, and as
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: you're pointing out, Emily, the way that that maps onto
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: a whole host of political issues and how politicians are
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: going to conduct themselves in office. On the other side
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: of the Ledger, Hailey Stevens has gotten some really I
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: think important endorsement. Scretch and Whitmer, who's the governor of
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: the state, endorsed her. You know, we'll see that maybe
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: really impactful for some of the people who were undecided
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: who aren't following terribly closely who you know. I think
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: she's generally well liked within the Democratic base, so she's
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: got that going for her. Gary Peters, the current senator,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: also came out. Both of these people, by the way,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: had said they weren't going to get involved in the race,
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: but then it was like, oh, Abduel's going to win.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: They're like, I guess we have to decide.
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: They were like, oh, we're not going to insert ourselves.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: We're going to let the people decide. But then when
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: it started going and direct and they didn't like they
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: changed their mind about just letting the people decide.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Zooming out from the Michigan race, we were talking earlier
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: about the broader democratic landscape and how you know, a
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: lot of things are going poorly for Republicans, but it's
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: not all rosy on the Democratic side. Could put this
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: tear sheet up on the screen. Ken Martin, who's the
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: head of the DNC. Apparently things are not going well there.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: They're broke.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: They said to spend a lot of money helping Kamala
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Harris pay off her debts. Fundraising is not going all
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: that great. There's a lot of drama and infighting. There
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: was some phone throwing incident that occurred where Ken Martin
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: threw his phone either at the desk or you know,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: I guess it's in dispute. How close it came to
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: an aid It led to an HR complaint. There was
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of talk about this anyways, just a sign
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: that things are not going particularly well there for the DNC.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: And you know, you've got all this, you got plenty
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: of money washing into these primaries, but people are so
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: disappeared and disgusted with the overall party apparatus. That's not
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: exactly an exciting thing for anyone, whether a larger or
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: smaller donor, to want a pony up money to this
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: dysfunctional institution.
• 53:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and this is definitely why it's a double problem
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: for Haley Stevens, by the way, but other candidates like her.
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: This is definitely why we were talking about Dems lagging
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: in the generic congressional ballot based on their own performance
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: at this exact same part of the cycle, this point
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: in the cycle two thousand and six. In twenty eighteen,
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: both Big Blue wave years. I think because there is
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: such disillusionment among people, particularly like you. See how motivating
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: this is in primary elections. The question of Apak or
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: the question of Israel, it is a central motivator. It
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: is what is fueling the Democratic Party's grassroots right now.
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: So if you're a Democratic voter that doesn't have one
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: of these upstart anti establishment candidates in your area, would.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: You vote right like? You actually might not at all.
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: Even if you're a generally motivated Democratic Party voter you
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: usually show up in primaries, you can understand why there
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: would be a lag in the generic ballot because there's
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: such disillusionment with the way the National Party is being run,
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: which Ken Martin, by the way, was elected specifically to
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: fix and there was a lot of dubiousness about whether
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: he'd be able to do it at the time, but
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: that was what he was supposed to do.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: It seems like it's only getting worse.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: And lastly, in this the DANC came together and set
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: some of the primary calendar for twenty twenty eight with
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: the mind to trying to thwart the rapidly rising leftist
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: part of the party. They've been very successful at doing
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: that in the past, but they are losing their grip
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: simply because the left has won the argument with the
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: base of the Democratic Party. And so even if you
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: may be able to and I think this is very
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: much in doubt rescue let's say Hailey Stevens, the winds
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: are shifting and the credibility that the Democratic elite previously
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: had with the base is completely shot. Their electability arguments
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: are completely shot. After handing the White House back to
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. Their media landscape is profoundly different from how
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: it was even in twenty twenty when they were able
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: to thwart the rise of Bernie Sanders, both with media
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: sort of marching and lockstep for Joe Biden and also
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: some behind the scenes maneuvering from Barack Obama and an endorsement,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: by the way, from Jim Clyburn that was very consequential
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: for Joe Biden in South Carolina. So now the move
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: is okay, We're not going to wait for South Carolina
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: to go because this is the most establishment friendly and
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: conservative primary electorate almost in the country for Democrats. So
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: they've decided to move South Carolina up to be first
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: in the nation with their primary. And you know, I
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: understand what they're trying to do. I'm not sure Emily
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: that it honestly serves their purposes that well, because the
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: previous position of South Carolina was you'd already had a
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: few states that went You had Iowa and New Hampshire
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: and the Nevada that had gone before South Carolina in
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: the past, and then you come to South Carolina. It's
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: this sort of like Marquee consequential moment, and they were
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: able to use that as like, Okay, now black voters
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: have had their say, everybody else has to get on
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: out the race. That worked if you have South Carolina
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: fill in the space that Iowa previously did, Like, Iowa's
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: role is not I'm going to crown the victor. Iowa's
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: role is okay, the people who just aren't going to
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: be able to compete at all, it's going to winnow
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: the field somewhat.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: So it served a different role.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: So I think maybe this doesn't work out for them
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: the way that they're thinking it ultimately will to put
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: South Carolina first, and rather than having it serve as
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: the kingmaker that it has in the past, having it
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: serve as like the initial culling the way that Iowa
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: used to.
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: Right, and their argument is purely on the grounds that
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: South Carolina is more representative, but they are doing it
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: now for a reason, more representative of the broader population.
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: That argument has basically always existed, but they're doing it
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: right now because they're actually scared that they've lost control
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: right now, which might have something to do with refusing
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: basically to allow Joe Biden to run in a serious
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: contested primary election and then foisting Kamala Harris on everyone.
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: So no surprise that they feel like their control is slipping.
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: But yeah, that's a really interesting perspective on whether it
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: even backfires on them because they don't necessarily I mean,
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: they don't have control over the grassroots in general right now.
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: It doesn't matter whether it's an Iowa South Carolina.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: By the way, latest stuff, Pole has AOC doing very
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: well with black voters, So you know, I don't know
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: that this is going to be the stumbling block they think.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Put this quote up on the screen to your point
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: about why South Carolina, because you have the party chairwoman
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: of South Carolina weighing in with this quite telling quote.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: If Nevada gets elevated over South Carolina would be because of
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: their Latino votes, So you then be telling black voters
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: you matter less than brown voters. And I refuse to
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: believe our party wants to send any type of message
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: like that. So are you because South Carolina's first, are
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: we now saying that black voters matter more than brown voters?
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Is that the message that's being sent there?
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: Or the white voters in Iowa?
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, like it's just what any way to divide
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: people completely?
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: This disgusting racial resentment politics is so it is always
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: weaponized to try to thwart the left. They're doing the
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: same thing to Abdul in Michigan, by the way, who,
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: by the way, is the person of color who was
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: running in this race versus this white woman. And they're
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: still trying to play this like, oh, his base is
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: not the way, you know, it doesn't have enough of this,
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: doesn't have enough of that, et cetera. Jim Clyburn coming
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: in to make these allegations, et cetera. So in any case,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: they made it pretty plain what was going on here,
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: and it has all to do they don't care about
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: black voters in particular. They just think that those with
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: the voters in South Carolina. It's not just black voters.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: It's older black voters who are more conservative, more likely
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: to back the establishment candidates. That has been the track record,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: and so that is the reason why they're elevating South Carolina.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: I think anyone who's looking at this with any sort
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: of rational view can see what's going on.