Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 9/23/26: Trump Threatens To Annihilate Iran, Diesel Export Ban, Trump Praises Zohran, Newsom Sells Out Hollywood

Transcript

9/23/26: Trump Threatens To Annihilate Iran, Diesel Export Ban, Trump Praises Zohran, Newsom Sells Out Hollywood · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
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  Speaker 5: All right, good morning and welcome to Breaking Points. It
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  Speaker 5: is September 23rd, 2026. There have been many false starts,
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  Speaker 6: No, Ryan, this was actually because I knew you would
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• 2:13
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: Well, unfortunately, none of the rest of this show is
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: going to be funny. Donald Trump embarrassing the entire nation
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: in front of the world, going before the United Nations,
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: threatening to annihilate Iran. Once again, we'll discuss that and
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: everything else going on at the U.N. General Assembly week
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: in New York. Trump floating a ban of exporting diesel.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: We'll talk about what the effects of that would be.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: He also met with his best friend, Mayor Zoram Omdani,
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: in New York while he was there. We're going to
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: be talking as well to former FTC Commissioner Avaro Bedoya
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: about the dramatic last-minute news where a judge is stepping
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: in and stopping the settlement, the Paramount Merger settlement, saying
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: that they do not believe that, well, But they don't
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: believe that the settlement is necessarily up to snuff. So
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: we'll see. There is still hope that Tinseltown could live.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: Wendy's is closing more than 300 locations. We're going to
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: talk about why that is. New poll out of Texas
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: has Tallarico hitting 50 percent. Ken Paxton all the way
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: down at 44. And then we've got a lot of
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: interesting news coming out of Maine, particularly the FBI was
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: circling Susan Collins in a bribery investigation. before the Trump
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: administration gutted the public integrity unit at the DOJ. And also,
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: Washington has pulled off a coup and effectively taken over
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: the Troy Jackson campaign, instructing him to walk back his
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: rhetoric around Medicare for all and back off of calling
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: what's going on in Gaza a genocide. We'll get into
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: that as well. But first, Emily, let's start with the U.N.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: President Donald Trump, here he is during his 35-minute rant
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: in front of the United Nations.
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: But I have a big decision to make. Will a
• 4:04
  Speaker 7: deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and
• 4:09
  Speaker 7: create a far greater country than it ever was before,
• 4:14
  Speaker 7: maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic
• 4:22
  Speaker 7: and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to
• 4:25
  Speaker 7: kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive
• 4:30
  Speaker 7: them into hell with no chance of survival and no
• 4:33
  Speaker 7: hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: make a deal right after the election. Great than at
• 4:43
  Speaker 7: any point by far since the conflict began. And again,
• 4:47
  Speaker 7: a big portion of what we've done, maybe 99 percent
• 4:52
  Speaker 7: of it is to make sure that Iran doesn't have
• 4:55
  Speaker 7: a nuclear weapon. Those sites have been blown up. We
• 4:57
  Speaker 7: may have to blow up another one. Pickaxe Mountain. That's
• 5:01
  Speaker 7: we're not seeing a lot of activity there. But if
• 5:03
  Speaker 7: we do, we'll blow it up immediately.
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: So, Ryan, this is like remember when Gaddafi would give
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: speeches in front of the U.N. and everybody would laugh like, oh,
• 5:12
  Speaker 6: ha ha. How amusing. This dictator is out here saying
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: crazy things. Trump is Gaddafi, basically.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: He's Gaddafi with nuclear weapons.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: And Gaddafi, may he rest in peace, certainly wishes that
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: he actually had pursued and kept his nuclear profile because
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: the second he gave it up, the West moved on
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: him and ended up sodomizing him to death. The difference,
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: Trump does have nuclear weapons. Trump has said that if
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Iran had nuclear weapons, he would be much nicer to them. Instead, he, quote,
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: bombs the hell out of them. Like, he has said
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: outright that if that was the case, that's what he
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: would do. And I don't think there's any other way
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: to read this, right, than as a threat of nuclear
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: war against Iran.
• 6:00
  Speaker 8: Like, that, I.
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: Can see no other meaning behind the words, there will
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: be no future generations in Iran. I understand why This
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: isn't a bigger story that Trump is threatening, again, nuclear annihilation,
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: but it does feel like there's some dereliction of duty
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: among the press to not be making as big a
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: deal as possible out of these continuing threats. If he
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: does actually carry it out, which hopefully in the chain
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: of command, people will say, wait a minute, hasn't the
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: Congress voted to make this war illegal multiple times? I
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: don't think we can launch a nuclear attack here. God
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: help us if he does, though.
• 6:46
  Speaker 6: Well, that's what also makes it kind of pathetic is
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: that the press is, to some extent, correctly reading into
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: this that he's doing his typical negotiating in public or
• 6:57
  Speaker 6: the deal nonsense. And he's doing it in front of
• 6:59
  Speaker 6: the whole world. And it's intentional. And it's a negotiating strategy.
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: But again, That's what also makes it kind of Gaddafi-esque. Yes,
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: Trump has nuclear weapons. Yes, that means it's 1000% more
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: serious every time he says something like annihilate, no future generations,
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: et cetera. At the same time, I don't think anybody
• 7:19
  Speaker 6: looks at him and sees this is a man who
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: is winning. He's on a like tear. He is a conqueror.
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: So it comes across as honestly really pathetic. Right.
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: You know, you say a, Modest insult about another country
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: and they walk out of the UN the Iranian Representative
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: kind of just sat there. Okay, right you're gonna end
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: our civilization You know sure it's not one before it's
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: Monday Now when talking about Venezuela, he was pretty openly
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: bragging about taking the spoils.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Let's roll a two and the.
• 7:51
  Speaker 7: Numbers are Absolutely incredible when you add the United States
• 7:57
  Speaker 7: and Venezuela together We have more than 60% of the
• 7:59
  Speaker 7: oil in the world So it's perhaps the biggest deal.
• 8:05
  Speaker 7: It was a war, but it's perhaps the biggest deal
• 8:09
  Speaker 7: ever made. To the victor belong the spoils.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: You've all heard that.
• 8:14
  Speaker 7: Our actions in Venezuela are proof that the United States
• 8:18
  Speaker 7: will no longer permit threats to America to gain a
• 8:21
  Speaker 7: foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And if necessary, we
• 8:25
  Speaker 7: will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital
• 8:31
  Speaker 7: national interests of the United States. As you know, Venezuela
• 8:34
  Speaker 7: had the finest equipment in the world from other countries.
• 8:37
  Speaker 7: And guess what?
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: It didn't work.
• 8:39
  Speaker 7: Didn't even come close to working.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Emily, there was a recent report that the.
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: Trump administration is continuing to stonewall investigators from the Government
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: Accountability Office who are asking, where are these spoils? Like,
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: there are billions of dollars that have been paid to
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: Venezuelan linked oil companies for this oil that has gone
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: into American controlled coffers. But nobody knows where those billions
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: of dollars are. And government watchdogs so far can't find
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: out how concerned should we be that this money is
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: just going to be taken.
• 9:19
  Speaker 6: Well, he's openly referring to it as spoils, which is
• 9:21
  Speaker 6: another thing that you're kind of numb to with Trump
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: using phrases like, to the victor go the spoils. But
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: that's how spoil systems work, actually. And I think that's
• 9:30
  Speaker 6: playing out pretty much as you would expect it to
• 9:32
  Speaker 6: under a Trump administration takeover of another country's oil, is
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: that right now what appears to be happening is you
• 9:38
  Speaker 6: have a tangle of business interests, some domestic, some foreign,
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: trying to apportion literally a portion of the spoils. So
• 9:47
  Speaker 6: not particularly surprising, but it also strikes me that he's
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: given some weird UN speeches before, but he's also given
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: one or two that a lot of people on the
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: right looked at and said, these are historic moments because
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: what you, have is Trump post-Obama reasserting American hegemony, and
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: he was reading the lines that whatever speechwriter put in
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: front of him. Look at this. And he's just like
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: doing his greatest hits riffing about Iran and riffing about
• 10:17
  Speaker 6: Venezuela in ways that, to your point, don't actually even
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: make a lot of sense. And I didn't see much
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: from people yesterday being like, wow, what a people on
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: the right. That is to say, wow, what a fantastic speech.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: What a historic speech for the Republican Party. There really
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: was none of that. Not not surprisingly, I suppose. But. Actually,
• 10:37
  Speaker 6: kind of surprisingly, because it used to be the case
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: that whatever he said, people would be like, oh.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Not even trying anymore.
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: So King Abdullah of Jordan gave, I thought, a rather
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: interesting speech, and we can talk about why. But lest
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: we forget, the inspiration for this disastrous war that has
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: driven the economy over the cliff came from Israel. King Abdullah,
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: the neighbor of Israel, addressing his neighbor and the world's
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: relationship to his neighbor here.
• 11:07
  Speaker 9: This Israeli government's expansionist appetite is now a regional threat.
• 11:14
  Speaker 9: And today, Syria is the warning the international community is
• 11:20
  Speaker 9: choosing not to see. Repeated incursions, creeping territorial expansion, new
• 11:27
  Speaker 9: facts imposed on the ground, including around vital water resources.
• 11:34
  Speaker 9: Step by calculated step, Israel is testing how far it
• 11:38
  Speaker 9: can go. And every time the international community looks away,
• 11:45
  Speaker 9: Israel learns that it can go even further across borderlines
• 11:51
  Speaker 9: and legal limits.
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: Of course, Jordan houses a lot of American personnel, American bases,
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: and every time that Iran has fired at Israel during
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: the war, Jordan has very aggressively tried to defend Israel.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: Is this just for his own domestic consumption? What do
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: you make of this kind of odd speech complaining about
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: the aggression of the neighbor that he constantly defends?
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: I don't know about you. I look at that and
• 12:20
  Speaker 6: it seems almost like a plea to the Trump administration.
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: I'm kind of curious what you think of it, but
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: that to me, it sounds like you have a platform
• 12:27
  Speaker 6: at the UN General Assembly to kind of make that
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: case really What's the best way to put it? You
• 12:34
  Speaker 6: can kind of craft an argument with the UNGA speeches
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: and you have the attention of the world on you.
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: And I kind of wonder if that wasn't for President
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: Trump and for the American diplomats.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: I think that could also be for that as well.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: The Israeli ambassador and Netanyahu both, by the way, live
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: it about insults from Mamdani. Let's roll a little bit of,
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: this is Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danone. And
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: partly we just roll this because we kind of just
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: love this guy's voice.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: So let's roll Danone.
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: We have a very exciting week ahead of us.
• 13:13
  Speaker 10: Unfortunately, Mayor Mamdani is continuing to incite against Prime Minister Netanyahu,
• 13:19
  Speaker 10: labelling him as a rogue criminal.
• 13:21
  Speaker 11: It will not help him.
• 13:22
  Speaker 10: The Prime Minister will come for a very quick visit.
• 13:24
  Speaker 10: He will stay on the ground for a.
• 13:27
  Speaker 9: Few hours, but he will speak in the General Assembly.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: He will address the United Nations.
• 13:31
  Speaker 9: And I would advise Mayor Mamdani to focus on the
• 13:34
  Speaker 9: problems of the City of New York and stop with
• 13:37
  Speaker 9: promoting anti-Semitism.
• 13:39
  Speaker 10: Elsewhere, Danone suggested Mamdani should be arrested.
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: But more importantly, is that like a French accent?
• 13:43
  Speaker 10: Is that what's going on there? You know, I couldn't.
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: Tell if it was French and British times Israeli.
• 13:48
  Speaker 7: Maybe it's all three of them.
• 13:49
  Speaker 10: At the same time.
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: In the same dulcet tone.
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: Well, meanwhile, Philadelphia area high school graduate Netanyahu was back
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: in the country, also upset about Mamdani.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Let's roll A5.
• 14:17
  Speaker 10: Shame on you, Mr. Mamdani. Shame on you for supporting
• 14:20
  Speaker 10: the Hamas terrorist monsters who butchered our people. Shame on
• 14:24
  Speaker 10: you for inciting riots against New York Jews. I'm coming
• 14:28
  Speaker 10: to the UN. I'm going to tell the truth about
• 14:30
  Speaker 10: our heroic soldiers. And I'm going to tell the truth
• 14:34
  Speaker 10: about you.
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: Well, he'll be speaking tomorrow before the United Nations. He's
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: just over a month away from election. So everything that's
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: going on here is going to be for his own
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: domestic political consumption.
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: Maybe that was also the Jordanian prime minister's speech. Maybe
• 14:56
  Speaker 6: that was also factoring.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: In.
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: Although that, you know, any criticism he gets, Netanyahu gets
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: around the world, he kind of likes it. Because it
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: kind of helps going into Israeli elections, because then he's
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: the one that's defending the Israeli people against the anti-Semites
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: from around the world who want Israel's destruction and so on.
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: So Trump was also asked about.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: the Ukraine war. Let's roll A6.
• 15:25
  Speaker 12: President Zelensky told us once that he is ready to
• 15:28
  Speaker 12: come to Miami for a G20 summit and sit down
• 15:30
  Speaker 12: with you and Vladimir Putin. If you extend this invitation
• 15:34
  Speaker 12: to Vladimir Putin, will he respect it?
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: Will he join you?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know.
• 15:37
  Speaker 7: I know that he will meet, and we've had a
• 15:39
  Speaker 7: meeting already in Alaska.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: He can do another one.
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: I don't know about Miami. We have a big thing
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: happening in Miami very soon, but he's willing to meet.
• 15:50
  Speaker 12: He'd like to see the war ended. Would both you
• 15:52
  Speaker 12: and President Zelensky?
• 15:52
  Speaker 13: I think they both want to see the war ended,
• 15:54
  Speaker 13: to be honest with you.
• 15:54
  Speaker 7: It's time. A lot of people are being killed, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 7: they don't want that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 12: But I think they both.
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: Want to see the war ended.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: Emily, Trump had urged Zelensky, and we're going to talk
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: about the potential diesel export ban in the next segment.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: Trump had urged Zelensky to stop firing at and stop
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: targeting Russian oil infrastructure. Zelensky initially suggested that he would.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: but then later said that he felt like it was
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: a good idea, but that he's only going to stop
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: if Russia stops attacking Ukraine as well. And so you've
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: continued to have this week just extraordinary destruction of oil
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: infrastructure in both countries. How harmful is it to Trump
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: going into the midterms that it feels that it seems
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: that he cannot even get Zelensky to do kind of
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: basic things, like just pause on blowing up diesel plants
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: for a week.
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: You and I probably both know that people aren't going
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: to the polls and voting based on that. Obviously, we're
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: going to cover in just a moment gas prices and
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: diesel prices. So it actually harkens back to the days
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: of the Biden administration in many ways, where you have
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: Biden basically blaming Putin and blaming greedflation for high prices.
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: And Republicans at the time were basically making fun of
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: it and saying, that's ridiculous. You know, so much of
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: this is in your control and in your power. You're, uh,
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: you know, allowing Ukraine to just completely get thrown into this,
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: this meat grinder. And there's little leadership on controlling the
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: war on top of that you're allowing. And then the
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: Biden administration would be going after the CEOs, which is
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: for price gouging, which the Trump administration is doing now
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: as well. So I don't think it's ever helpful. when
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: you have campaign promises on the table, like ending the
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: war within a day that have proven obviously impossible to
• 17:48
  Speaker 6: deliver on. And then on top of that, you haven't
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: been able to deal with, that's why, this is why
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: he's frustrated and like trying to find different ways. We're
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: going to talk about it in just a moment. So
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: I don't want to jump ahead too much, but trying
• 17:58
  Speaker 6: to find different creative ways to bring down gas prices
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: really quickly is because he's realized that there's, there's nothing
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: he can do right now, uh, between to broker a
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: piece between Zelensky and Putin.
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: And so we started this segment with some jokes. We
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: wanted to finish with a little bit of joke. And
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: so for that, we're going to go to, of course.
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: Two great comedians. Two great comedians of our time bookending
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: the segment.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: To Al-Qaeda's Ahmed Alshara, who is now the president of Syria.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: He was at the United Nations. He had actually a
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: really good one where it was his version of Woke
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: One Was Crazy, where he was asked.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: About his time in Al-Qaeda. And he was like that.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: It's 25 years ago. I was a different guy. It
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: was a different time. Not really appropriate to discuss that
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: right now.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Well, one was crazy.
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: The guillotine one was crazy.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: The guillotine one was crazy.
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: He also then told this story about how he confronted
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump after Trump gave the Golan Heights to Israel.
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: He said, it's not yours to give. Why don't you
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: give New Jersey to Israel? Let's roll Ahmed Elshara here.
• 19:05
  Speaker 13: President Trump stood to the side of Syria, supported Syria,
• 19:09
  Speaker 13: and issued a historic resolution or decision to lift sanctions
• 19:14
  Speaker 13: off Syria. And I have a very unique relationship with him.
• 19:18
  Speaker 13: But once when I visited him in the White House,
• 19:20
  Speaker 13: I was surprised. I made a joke with him, and
• 19:23
  Speaker 13: when he said about the Golan Heights that it has
• 19:27
  Speaker 13: the sovereignty of Israel, I said, why don't you give
• 19:29
  Speaker 13: New Jersey to the Israelis? You don't own Golan Heights
• 19:33
  Speaker 13: to give it to them, but you own New Jersey.
• 19:36
  Speaker 13: And I believe that New Jersey is full of Democrats,
• 19:40
  Speaker 13: and they are not voting for Trump, so it will
• 19:42
  Speaker 13: be good to give it to the Israelis. So at
• 19:45
  Speaker 13: least this is something that you own, but this President
• 19:48
  Speaker 13: Trump doesn't own the Golan Heights. So regardless of this joke,
• 19:54
  Speaker 13: the Golan Heights, it is owned by its own people.
• 20:00
  Speaker 13: So it's neither the Syrian president or the American president
• 20:03
  Speaker 13: or any other person to abandon them or to give
• 20:06
  Speaker 13: them up to others.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: As funny as that is, close watchers of it picked
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: up on the very end where he said the people
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: of the Golan Heights kind of own the Golan Heights,
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: which people read as another kind of capitulation, actually, to Israel.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: Because you're kind of opening up ground there for, well,
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: who's to say who actually owns the Golan Heights? The
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: people of the Golan Heights own the Golan Heights, which is,
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: if you're Israel, well, maybe they'll take New Jersey. But
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: more pressingly, they want you know, formal legal control over
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: Golan Heights. And they hear that and like it doesn't
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: sound like he's that actually oppositional to us on it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: I think that's a really good point. And lest we forget,
• 20:50
  Speaker 6: there are probably more buildings and roads with Trump's name
• 20:54
  Speaker 6: on them in the Golan Heights than there are in
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: New Jersey at this point. But the point about him
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: saying the people of the Golan Heights is actually pretty interesting.
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: I hadn't picked up on that until you said others
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: were picking up on that, Ryan, but I don't know
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: why else you would phrase it that way, to be honest.
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: That seems very intentional in particular.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, a lot of Cubans in New Jersey, too. I
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: wonder how they would feel about that. But in any event,
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: let's move on to Diesel.
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: President Trump is supporting a ban on exporting diesel. We
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: can put this first headline up on the screen. This
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: is from Axios. It's reporting Trump backs ban on diesel exports.
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: President Trump said Tuesday that he has called for ban
• 21:34
  Speaker 6: on U.S. diesel exports while Treasury Secretary Scott Besson confirmed
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: the administration is examining whether a full or partial ban
• 21:41
  Speaker 6: is feasible. So Trump got a question on this on
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly just yesterday.
• 21:48
  Speaker 6: Let's take a listen here to how he responded. This
• 21:51
  Speaker 6: is B2.
• 21:52
  Speaker 8: President, Senator Sullivan today has called for a ban on
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: diesel exports, a temporary ban.
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: A what?
• 21:57
  Speaker 8: A ban on diesel exports. Chuck Grassley called for the
• 22:00
  Speaker 8: same thing. Mike Rogers called for the same thing. Is
• 22:01
  Speaker 8: that something you are considering?
• 22:03
  Speaker 7: Well, I've called for that, too. I've said let's not send.
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: Out the diesel.
• 22:07
  Speaker 13: We make a lot of diesel.
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: That could have a little.
• 22:10
  Speaker 7: Bit of an effect on regular automobile gasoline because when.
• 22:14
  Speaker 8: You do that, you know, it's sort of a flow.
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: It's a balance.
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: But, no, I've called for it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: I've called for it within my people.
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: I've been talking about it.
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: But as you heard in the question there, this does
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: have the support of Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Also,
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: John Thune, who's from South Dakota, Senate Majority Leader, said
• 22:31
  Speaker 6: that he would be, quote unquote, open to it. Other
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: Republicans in places like Iowa, Ashley Hinson included, have agreed
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: with Grassley on this. Meanwhile, let's also take a listen
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: here to an Iowa farmer talking to MS Now about
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: diesel prices.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: These high diesel fuel prices couldn't have come at a
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: worse time.
• 22:50
  Speaker 11: Hardly any farmers have fuel on hand for this fall.
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: The last time I bought diesel fuel was in 2025,
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: a year ago for the crop, and that was $ 2.
• 23:00
  Speaker 10: 29.
• 23:01
  Speaker 8: I hope this is not the long-term new level of
• 23:06
  Speaker 8: diesel fuel prices.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Iowa is, quote, tricky for Republicans this cycle, and GOP candidates,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: they know it.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Late last week, J.D.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Vance made a visit to the state and got a
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: high-profile snub, the GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson skipping his event. Today,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Hinson trying to further distance herself from Trump, calling for
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: an end to the Iran war, despite previously voting to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: let Trump continue the war six times.
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: So, Ryan, Access is reporting that Trump does technically have
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: emergency powers that would allow him to do this. Congress
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: could do it as well. But there's an enormous amount
• 23:40
  Speaker 6: of potential economic implications to break down here. And I
• 23:43
  Speaker 6: know you've been following this pretty closely because it's suddenly
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: extremely interesting. I mean, it's generally interesting, but suddenly right now,
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: because you have so many people taking a serious look
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: at it, it's very interesting. What, from your estimation, would
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: the immediate effect of this be?
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you and I were doing our homework on this
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: to try to figure out what would actually happen if
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: they did this. And what Trump is alluding to in
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: his comment there is a very real problem. And what
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: he said there was that you actually might have gas
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: prices go up. And there's a good reason for that.
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: And so right now, if you're Ashley Hinson, it's not
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: actually great for you if he doesn't export band because
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: the Midwest has its own refineries, is operating at effectively
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: maximum capacity, and the Midwest serves the Midwest. The Midwest
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: refineries do not export diesel. So it's not increasing supply there.
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: the refineries that do export diesel are down in the Gulf.
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: And so they make a lot more diesel there than
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: they can use in Texas and Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: They export it basically to Europe and Latin America. And
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: so the pipelines that run from the Gulf up to
• 24:56
  Speaker 5: the Midwest are basically full already. So it isn't as
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: if you refine more that you could then ship it
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: up to the, or that you're not, you didn't refine more,
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: but you have more because you can't sell it. You're
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: not gonna be able to ship it to the Midwest.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: You could potentially put it on boats. If you give
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: a Jones Act waiver, Jones Act says you have to,
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: you can only ship along the coast with American ships
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: and American crew.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: So you do a waiver for that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: Let foreign ships pick up the diesel and take it
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: up to say New England.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe you could do that. But New England gets most
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: of its diesel imported.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: So all you're doing is trying to fill the gap
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: that you've now killed, because if you are not exporting,
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: the countries that are exporting to New England and to
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: the East Coast, they're going to stop exporting. Obviously, they're
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: going to send it to Latin America and elsewhere where
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: the price is now going way up. So you're not
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: going to have a change in the Midwest. You'd have
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: a kind of a crash in prices immediately in, say,
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: Texas and Louisiana. But what that does is the refiners...
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: are then going to make less diesel. Quite simple, supply
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: and demand is less demand. Now, the problem is when
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: you take a barrel of oil and you refine it,
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: we're all learning way more than we wanna know about
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: this stupid industry. So you have a barrel of oil,
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: when you refine it, you get gas.
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: I don't know, I watched Landman, so I'm already pretty.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: There you go, you're up to speed.
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: Uh, so you get gasoline, you get diesel, and then
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: you get all these other refined petroleum products along with it.
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: And so if you want to reduce the amount of
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: diesel you make, you have to refine fewer barrels. You
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: can't just target diesel and say, we want less diesel
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: because now we can't export it. So you're going to
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: get less diesel, fewer refined products across the board and
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: less gasoline. What's less gasoline mean? higher gasoline prices. So
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: in order to bring down diesel from where it is
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: by whatever dimes that he can bring it down, you're
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: going to push gas prices up. Now, if you don't
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: do this, he's going to look like he's not doing
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: something that he could be doing to help the American people.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: So he's really in a box here because if he
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: does it, he will be screwing an enormous number of people.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: God only knows what kind of global crisis he's going to...
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: Brett Erickson, in a text to me, called it Russian roulette.
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: It's going to be bad, but it might actually blow
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: your head off. At some point, there's going to be
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: a bullet in the chamber and this entire thing unravels.
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: And he said that across the board, oil energy people
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: are just praying that he doesn't actually go through with
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: this because of what a calamity it would be. Now,
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: maybe it pushes diesel down in Texas. but then also
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: pushes gas prices up in Texas. Uh, so I don't
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: know what, what, what as a Trumpologist, like, does he
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: go through with this? Cause he seemed to know from
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: that clip that it would push gas prices up. Like,
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: so he's, he's been briefed all his, Oh, and the
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: energy secretary and the ag secretary have assured everybody that
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: this will not happen. So it's going to make them
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: look like total losers. So what do you think this goes?
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: And not only that, but I was just going to say, actually,
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: Doug Burgum agrees with basically everything you just outlined. Doug
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: Burgum said last week that this would be a good
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: option if it actually would lower prices. And his quote is,
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: but that's not the case. So he just made the
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: Ryan Grimm argument, which it seems, I mean, this gets
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: the politics of why Chuck Grassley and Ashley Hinson would
• 28:26
  Speaker 6: float this. Is it? To keep Iowa Republicans above water
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: and kind of sacrifice Trump. The MS Now clip that
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: we watched mentioned Hinson not wanting to campaign with Vance
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: when he was in Iowa. So are they trying to
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: make it look like they have an innovative idea that
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: could help with this and they're doing something, they're proactive
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: and then it helps them. because people aren't really voting
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: for Trump on the ballot. He's literally not on the ballot,
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: even though he's told Republicans to pretend like he is
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: on the ballot. And that way, they're able to kind
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: of scrape by, look like they had an idea. It's
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: not their fault if the White House doesn't do it.
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: So is this all actually even a political maneuver, the
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: fact that they're talking about it, a way to give
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: ag state Republicans a lifeline and say, this is what
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: we want to do. This is what we think we
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: should do. And it allows them to have a talking
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: point and allows them to have something they say could
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: work and they're pushing for it. They're pushing for it,
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: but they can't force the White House's hand. But I
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: don't think Trump would actually do it, Ryan. The only
• 29:26
  Speaker 6: thing that scares me is what you mentioned about the
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: Jones Act, because when you combine the old school Republican
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: obsession with waiving the Jones Act with Trump, that is
• 29:39
  Speaker 6: a powerful force because on the one hand, you get
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: all of the former Heritage Foundation staffers in the Trump
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: administration now just itching, jonesing to do this Jones Act waiver.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: That's the thing that makes it most likely is they
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: get an opportunity to waive the Jones Act.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Because it would make shipping a little bit cheaper for them, right?
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. And where is it that they have a
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: waiver for the Jones Act right now?
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: Puerto Rico.
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, Puerto Rico. Well, they're trumpeting how it proves their
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: point about the Jones Act. They've been doing that for
• 30:10
  Speaker 6: like the last six months. So anyway, that was a
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: little bit of a joke. But in all seriousness, if
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: you get an opportunity to waive the Jones Act, there
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: are a whole lot of people that will be eager
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: to latch onto the policy. I don't think that it's
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: going to happen in this case, because when you have
• 30:22
  Speaker 6: even the Interior Secretary saying it's not going to lower prices,
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: that's what Trump is hearing behind closed doors, too. You
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: know it is. And So why would you do that?
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: In the last two days, we had polls showing Iowa
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: Senator Ashley Hinson down substantially to Turek in Iowa. So
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: she came out against the war. You had a poll
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: finding Mike Rogers down by seven to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: And so you had him now coming out against the war.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: And you now have a.
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: Poll in Texas. We can put up before this one
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: really turning a lot of heads because. I don't think,
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: so James, if you're just listening to this on podcast,
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: James Tallarico, 50, Ken Paxton, 44. This is a Marist poll.
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: And so I don't think that Beto, during his entire run,
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: ever really hit 50% in a poll.
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: No.
• 31:18
  Speaker 6: In fact, it wasn't even close. Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: And so that's always a key thing that people watch for.
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: It's one thing if you're showing leads of like 44
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: to 41, 45 to 42, you're up 46, 43. Like
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: it gets Democrats excited because they're winning. And technically you're
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: supposed to win, you know, just have more than the
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: other guy. But if you get less than 50% in
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: those polls, the big concern is that as the race
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: gets closer to the finish line, all of those undecided people,
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: they're all just coming home to what they always do,
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: which is vote Republican. And so The poll number that
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: you see Democrats getting in Texas, that number ends up
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: becoming their final number.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: And for Republicans, they get everybody else.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: And so Ted Cruz kind of jumped over Beto O'Rourke
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: and ends up beating him. To have Tallarico hitting that
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: 50 percent threshold is pretty huge. What are you hearing
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: from Republicans? Because we don't have much joy in this world.
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: At least we can get a little schadenfreude out of
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: their reactions to like just this absolute tsunami of polls
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: from everywhere from Kansas to Iowa, Michigan to Texas to Florida,
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: showing them there was a Texas internal was a House
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: House race or state Senate race where Trump won by
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: 17 and Alarico's up by like 11. Just disastrous stuff
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: across the board. So what what are you hearing from
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: Republicans out there?
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: Well, I think people are starting to come to terms
• 32:51
  Speaker 6: with the fact that there isn't going to be some
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: type of like DSA saving grace, meaning you're not going
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: to prevent the 2018 blue tsunami, as Harrington called it
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: at the time appropriately, just because there are DSA candidates
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: nominated that you can tie Abdu'l-Sayed to or James Tallarico to.
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: I think that's what Republicans are coming to terms with now.
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: And you can see it by the fact that actually
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: just to tie this all together, you have people like
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: Ashley Hinson floating this policy maneuver that I don't think
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: anybody really truly believes would provide much relief for people
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: over the course of the next couple months before election day.
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: We're at 41 days until election day. So that alone
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: feels like a last ditch kind of desperate talking point.
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: But I'm looking here at the polls that RealClearPolitics indexed
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: going into Cruz versus Beto in 2018. Not a single
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: poll Not a single poll had Beto at 50%. One
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: Emerson poll in late October had him at 47%. And
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: the Quinnipiac poll at the same time had him at 46%.
• 33:57
  Speaker 6: That is actually in and of itself significantly different. And
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: just we've been hammering it over and over. Beto never...
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: ever led in the RealClearPolitics average. Never once in that race.
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: He ended up coming within about two points, a little
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: over two points of Ted Cruz. So the polls in
• 34:16
  Speaker 6: that race underestimated Beto O'Rourke. That's another important thing to notice. Tallarico,
• 34:21
  Speaker 6: this has been flipped. He has been leading in every
• 34:24
  Speaker 6: single poll that RCP has indexed, every single one of them,
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: since August. And it looks like the gap is getting
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: bigger when you have polls like this heading into October.
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: showing a 50% number for Tallarico. It is the first
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: poll since a Texas Public Policy Foundation poll in late
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: August that had 50% for Tallarico. That poll also had 50%
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: for Paxton, but no other poll has had either of
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: them at 50%. So that is, I agree with you,
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: a very significant benchmark to see. And it's very, I think,
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: clear when you compare this race to 2018 Beto O'Rourke,
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: which is a pretty good comparison because you have a
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: donor-friendly high-profile opponent to I guess one difference is Cruz
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: was an incumbent and Pakistan's not an incumbent but this
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: is just Absolutely brutal.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and we'll finish with some good news for Trump
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: the Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline Which some people thought might
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: be out of commission for months. They have got it
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: pumping some oil and Saudi Arabia Apparently, Aramco is telling
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: some Asian buyers that they can expect deliveries again very
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: soon and that they're starting to pump again from these
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: major ports. The war continues, though, and a pipeline remains,
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: I don't have to tell anybody this, a rather vulnerable target.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: Let's move on to the weirdest and most interesting and
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: most fun bromance in American politics, Trump.
• 35:59
  Speaker 6: It's kind of a one-way bromance.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: While he was in New York, President Donald Trump went
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: to Gracie Mansion to meet with New York City's mayor.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: Let's roll a little bit of this.
• 36:13
  Speaker 7: No, I certainly hope he will be a great mayor.
• 36:16
  Speaker 7: You have to understand, I want what's good for New York.
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: I want what's good for the country. So If I
• 36:21
  Speaker 7: had a choice of having him be a bad mayor
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: or horrible mayor, I don't want that. I want him
• 36:26
  Speaker 7: to be a great mayor, and he's certainly got potential,
• 36:29
  Speaker 7: got great potential.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. That's all the time we have.
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: So you hear that Mamdani aide trying to end the thing,
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: but Trump's.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Like, no, no, no, we can keep going. We can
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: do this.
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: We've got time.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently put a C2 here.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: This has Republicans and some, weirdly, some centrists, There's center-right
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: Democrats like Neera Tanden and Sarah Longwell melting down, but
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: most of it's Republicans melting down. It says, GOP rank-and-file
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: hope to turn Mamdani into the midterm boogeyman. Instead, as
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: Mamdani's time to brief the press came, he asked Trump
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: on the spot to join him, and the president agreed,
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: according to a person familiar with the meeting. During the presser,
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: Mamdani called on MSNOW, CNN, and Politico, the three outlets
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: Trump banned from the White House last week. And Emily,
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: let's just finally put up C3 here. So there's also
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: a little bit of lip reading that somebody did because
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: this wasn't on Camry. Trump apparently told Mamdani, I'll look
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: after you. You look after the New Yorkers and we
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: can both make it work.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: I want to support you. Help me. Come with me
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: to the White House. See how I work. This is just.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: He's talking to Melania.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is too much. Like, I can't... It's embarrassing. Like,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: what is going on here?
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: I mean, the crash out on this has been something else.
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: Playbook had incredibly funny Republican strategist quotes. So this is, quote,
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: I don't think from Playbook on yesterday, I don't think
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: people really want to see you toasting the Chinese premier.
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: A Republican close to the White House said, you're hosting
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: this glamorous state dinner time when people are like, are
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: you focused on me? And this was also a strategist
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: saying he's Oh yeah, here's this. The person says, this
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: is Barrett Marson, Arizona-based GOP strategist. The in-your-face arguments from
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: Republicans this election cycle is that Democrats want to bring
• 38:26
  Speaker 6: socialism or communism to America. This is the quote I
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: was thinking of. Here's the next line. Trump warmly embracing
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: two of the most outspoken leaders of those ideologies makes
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: it that much harder for the message to resonate with voters.
• 38:37
  Speaker 6: When I read this yesterday, I almost did a spit take.
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: You're in the same breath comparing Xi Jinping and Zoran Votanyi.
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: And you understand what they're saying, which is that Trump
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: has been campaigning against communism and socialism relentlessly. And then
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: he's hanging out with Xi Jinping and an open socialist,
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: Zoram Amdani. But just the equating of both of them
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: as though this is an apples to apples political offense
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: that he would have a state dinner for Xi Jinping
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: and go to Gracie Mansion with Zoram Amdani. Incredible crash
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: out vibes from Republicans on this. Did you see Laura
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: Loomer's tweets?
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. I almost feel bad for her. She
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: can't handle it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: Well, she's saying we've been working so hard. I'm paraphrasing her,
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: but she's basically saying we've been working so hard and
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: to see Trump then cozy up to socialist mom Donnie. Now,
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: I will say, Ryan, you can tell Trump is freelancing
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: this stuff, that he has absolutely no concerns about the
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: big picture election question at all, because if he did,
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: it's very obvious that when you're trying to tie Republican
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: candidates around the country in red states or swing states,
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: to Zohra Mamdani in particular and say, these Democrats are
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: too radical for voters, then Trump lavishing Mamdani in praise
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: is when he's saying, pretend that I'm on the ballot. Basically,
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: you're voting for me if you're voting for a Republican.
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: And that Republican is running against Mamdani-ism. On paper, it
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: makes absolutely no sense. So you can tell that he's
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: clearly freelancing this and that it's not at all tethered
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: to his political operation. But what did Republican strategists expect
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: from him? Seriously. Yeah.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: And so, yes, exactly. Chairman Xi will be here tomorrow.
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: Chairman Xi, though, is here now. Let's see, though, what
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: he's been able to accomplish. So in 2020, when he
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: first ran for assembly, actually, gig companies put a whole
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: bunch of money into the race to try to stop
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: him from becoming an assembly member.
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: He beat them.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: In 2024, DoorDash put a million dollars behind Cuomo to
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: try to elect Cuomo. Well, this is a nice, like,
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: you know, how it started, how it's going. Let's put
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: up C4 here. I wish we had the sad music
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: to play here. DoorDash statement. Since 2023, more than 200,000
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: dashers in New York City were underpaid.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Or paid late under the city's delivery worker payrolls. These
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: errors were unintentional. Who hasn't made.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: 200,000 unintentional errors? But that doesn't make them acceptable. Dashers
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: should be paid in full, on time, every time. We
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: take full responsibility and we're deeply sorry. We've reached a
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: $ 131. 5 million settlement with the New York City Department of
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: Consumer and Worker Protection. Every impacted Dasher will receive the
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: amount they are owed and they'll be contacted directly with
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: payment details. We understand the impact.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Of even one.
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: Missed or late payment. We've addressed the issue that caused
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: these errors and made changes to prevent them from happening again.
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: So when people see that a company like DoorDash is
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: spending a million dollars to back Andrew Cuomo, somebody like
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: Andrew Cuomo, they think, wow, that is an enormous amount
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: of money to spend in an election. But when they
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: see why they're spending it, they get it. They were
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: trying to spend $ 1 million To prevent having to pay
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: 131.5 million that they had stolen from New Yorkers. And
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: so when people ask, what do you get if you
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: elect somebody who is not on the payroll of major companies?
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: What do workers get for it? Well, this is one
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: example of what they get for it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: Well, and I'm sure there'll be a close eye kept
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: on how DoorDash rewards its top executives in the next
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: year or so as well, because the argument is Zoran
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: is going to threaten all these companies to do what's
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: right by workers, follow these laws, and then prices are
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: going to go up for absolutely everyone. But if you're
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: also increasing executive compensation and raising prices at the same time,
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: I'm sure Mayor Mamdani, as you call him, Chairman Xi,
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: is going to have his eye on that.
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: And Producer Mac, by the way, says it's not a bromance,
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: a correction from the control room.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: It is non-consensual lustfulness. Our apologies.
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: It is somewhat unrequited.
• 43:05
  Speaker 13: It is.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: It's tragic. It's truly tragic.
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, but on the other hand, Mamdani, this
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: is going to face Janice Lewis George in Washington, D.C.
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: In fact, already is facing Janice Lewis George, incoming Democratic
• 43:18
  Speaker 6: Socialist Mayor of Washington, D.C., she's posturing in a way
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: that suggests a disinterest or a lack of willingness to
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: take Mamdani's tack here in Washington, or, well, I'm not
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: in Washington right now, I shouldn't say here in Worcester,
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: but in D.C. And for Mamdani, it's not entirely unrequited.
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: We might be assuming internally it's unrequited, but he's also
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: reciprocating in a way that is probably helping New York
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: at this point. That's a raging debate, I know, but
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: it seems like the results are clear.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: And as D.C.
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: Residents, maybe let us put in a plea here with Mamdani.
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: Start a group chat, you, Trump, and Janice, and maybe
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: that'll help, you know, thaw things between Trump and Janice,
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: and he won't, like, actively, intentionally, deliberately destroy the city
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: for no reason other than just, like, spite.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: Political strategist, Ryan Graham.
• 44:12
  Speaker 8: Let's see.
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: Reporting live.
• 44:14
  Speaker 7: All right.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: Up next, the Paramount merger is on hold. Well, the
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: Paramount Warner Brothers merger that everybody thought was a done
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: deal is on hold, at least for now. A judge
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: can put this element up on screen. The judge overseeing
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: the antitrust litigation has canceled Thursday's hearing on Paramount's bond request,
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: but scheduled a new one to address outstanding questions about
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: the proposed consent decree. She has not yet approved the settlement.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: So joining us now is former FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: to walk us through everything that's going on with this merger.
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: So first of all, all week long we're getting this
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: news that the AGs have capitulated to basically the threat
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: that the company would leave Los Angeles and not do
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: the filmmaking in Nashville instead of not doing any filmmaking
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: in Los Angeles.
• 45:09
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: And so under that pressure, they came up with a
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: deal where they would create an independent board that would
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: oversee CNN. And then people look closer and like, oh,
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: David Ellison would appoint the members of this independent board
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: and that they would agree to make a certain amount
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: of movies. And people looked closer, including yourself, and were like, actually.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure they've actually agreed to do anything at all.
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: So first of all, why what do you understand from
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: this judicial order pausing this situation is interesting. Is there
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: any hope here, or should we just assume the public
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: is going to get rolled over eventually anyway?
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: So there have been so many curveballs with this thing
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: that I want to do zero prognosticating.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: Fair enough.
• 45:53
  Speaker 11: But what is at stake are three things.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: Like J.P. Morgan's oil analysts.
• 45:57
  Speaker 11: Is that right?
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: They announced last week they're done.
• 46:00
  Speaker 11: Yeah, is that right?
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: They're like, we don't have any ideas.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: So, look, this is a judge who is a serious judge,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: is a confident judge. there's three things she's going to
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: be looking at. Is this fair, adequate, and reasonable? Is
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: this in the public interest? And does this.
• 46:16
  Speaker 11: Violate the underlying law that the lawsuit was filed under?
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, you might be able to say
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: a couple of things about this bizarre independent oversight board.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: You know, you might say, wait, this was an antitrust case.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: This is like a speech thing. What's that about? You
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: might also say that a independent oversight board that is
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: supposed to be independent of the Ellison's that is named
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: by the Ellison's that reports by the Ellison's is not
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: in the public interest. Um, so it's hard to say
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: how this plays out. There are a lot of unhappy
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: people with the settlement. So there is a world where
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: they try to intervene or try to file an amicus
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: and hit some of these points. Um, It would be
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: unusual for this thing to be turned over, to be
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: completely shot down by the judge at this stage. But
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: it is also unusual for an attorney general to sing
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: to the high heavens that his red line is divestments
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: and then win zero divestments.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: What does he mean by divestments for people not steeped
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: in this?
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: So this isn't just like a deal between one streamer
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: and another streamer. This is one media conglomerate with another
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: media conglomerate. So you have two of the five legacy studios,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: TV and film studios, becoming one. You have two of
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: the five biggest owners of cable channels becoming one. You
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: have two of the five biggest streamers becoming one. And
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: so the unusual thing that the Attorney General of California,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Rob Bonta, did was go out there and just say,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not interested, bro, with these little weak settlement offers
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: until you come to the table and want to talk
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: about structural remedies, which means unless you're ready to sell
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: off your stuff, don't.
• 48:03
  Speaker 11: Come talk to me.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: And the actors, the filmmakers, the crews who signed this
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: massive petition to stop this merger, they listened to him
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: and they took him seriously.
• 48:15
  Speaker 11: They thought, hey, this thing actually might stop.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: And so when he goes into that room and wins
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: zero sell-offs, divestment, structural remedies, it was a total shock
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: to the system.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: And so the counterargument that I've seen is there's not
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: a strong case here because you've got these big streamers
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: like Netflix that are gobbling everything up. And the only
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: way for the studios to survive is by teaming up together.
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: And it's not about competition between studios. It's actually about
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: competition between this legacy industry and the industry of the future.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: And if they're going to survive and then pivot to
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: the future, they need this strength in numbers.
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's some circumstances that is true. This entity would
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: have been so, sorry, would have been, will be so
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: massively competitive bogged down by debt, that there's an open
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: question what the heck they'll be able to do. So
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: already there is so much debt on this deal that
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Paramount has junk status for its credit. They are going
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: to have to fire thousands upon thousands of people, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: yet somehow.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Let's put up D1, go ahead.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, make more movies, make more TV shows that are
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: better and more competitive.
• 49:45
  Speaker 11: It doesn't math out.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: And so, yeah, there's certain circumstances where combining with another
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: company makes you stronger. But what we saw at the
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: FTC when we were in is we would hear this
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: song and dance.
• 49:58
  Speaker 11: We would block the merger.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: And then six months, 12 months later, like with NVIDIA ARM, right,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: this massive chipmaker ecosystem deal. Oh, this is going to
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: be critical to the industry. They need this to compete.
• 50:11
  Speaker 11: Turns out they actually compete better when they're.
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: On their own.
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: Is there a world in which this is actually just
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: kind of a vulture situation where the investors here are
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: just going to loot the thing and we'll look at
• 50:23
  Speaker 5: the end of it in.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: A decade or so?
• 50:26
  Speaker 11: Hopefully not.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I am for the people working in film and television.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: A lot of people think this is a rich person's industry. No,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: this is a blue-collar industry and it's a national industry.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: I was fully against this merger. I still hate it.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: But I hope for the sake of the people working
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: there that they survive. There is a world, though, where
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: when you're loaded down with $ 80 billion in debt, it
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: turns out to be more profitable to sell different parts
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: off of it. So that is a world we could
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: be looking at down the road. I hope it doesn't
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: get there.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: Isn't that what the AG, though? they wanted from the AG?
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: What's the difference between these fire sales down the road
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: in bankruptcy versus spinning it off now?
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: I think you said it.
• 51:12
  Speaker 11: I think it's a fire sale. It's one thing to
• 51:14
  Speaker 11: see the asset fully degraded and then say, hey.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Sell it for the IP.
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: Yeah. It's another thing to.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Say, we're going to break off these studios that have
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: this great IP and they're doing well, but it's just
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: not part of the business model. And it's a difference
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: between selling a viable competitor and selling a loser.
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: And so California's AG, Rob Bonta, didn't even necessarily keep
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: the company in Los Angeles.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: Let's listen to this.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: There is a commitment in the deal, the consent decree
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: that we're filing, that they keep their lots here through
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: the term of the deal.
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: So they're not moving them. They can't sell them.
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: They need to lease them for the similar purpose that
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: they're you know, for making movies and TV shows.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: So the lots are in the agreement.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Is that the same as having their headquarters remain in California?
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: It is.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: And I believe that will be the case, that they
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: will have their headquarters in California for the foreseeable future.
• 52:17
  Speaker 7: You believe that or it's part of the deal?
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: It's not part of the deal.
• 52:20
  Speaker 8: It's not?
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: It's not part of the deal.
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: The body language there, Alvaro, towards the end, it kind
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: of like shrinks into a non-existent being in front of
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: our faces.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: When asked that final question.
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: So what do you gather from this inability to get
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: into the deal that they will stay in Los Angeles?
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: What'd they get?
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: Honestly, it makes me sad to say it, but he
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: got played.
• 52:44
  Speaker 11: He got played.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: The pressure that was put on him was to keep
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: this thing in California, but as even he himself admits,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: he got a guarantee that the lot.
• 52:57
  Speaker 11: would.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: Stay operating under either them or someone else in the
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: film and TV industry. And like so many other parts
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: of this deal, it is unfortunately, and again, it pains
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: me to say it, the opposite of what it purports
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: to be. They say there's an independence board actually controlled
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: by the Ellisons. They say this is about keeping Paramount
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: headquarters in California. Doesn't say that. They say this is
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: about making 30 films a year.
• 53:25
  Speaker 11: Actually, no.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: It only promises that they'll make, in other words, produce
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: 15 films a year. And there's few guarantees about the
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: remaining films. They could be something they buy on the
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: cheap and put no marketing dollars behind. And anyone in
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Hollywood will tell you If you make a film and
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: you have zero marketing budget, it's like a tree falling
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: in the woods.
• 53:43
  Speaker 11: No one sees it.
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: What do you make of this report from The Hollywood
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: Reporter and put up D4 with David Ellison basically saying,
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: I would never leave Los Angeles.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: I have so many feelings about this, but let me
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: just say... The move of, I'm going to take my,
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: you know, capital ball and go home, this is a
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: established move in the oligarch playbook. Larry Ellison did this,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: I believe, with Oracle. Obviously, Elon Musk did it with Tesla.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And I don't know what it is as to why
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: it keeps on working, but it does keep on working.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: And the unfortunate part Fact is, if you look at
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: the actual numbers, there's going to be massive layoffs at
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: these companies. And so they're trading away this vague guarantee of,
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: they're taking this vague guarantee of we're going to keep
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: the headquarters in the state, even though they're giving up
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: the fact that there will, as a matter of fact,
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: be massive layoffs in the state. And that's the other
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: very strange aspect of this deal is that they secured,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: in theory, $ 1. 5 billion over five years of more domestic
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: spend in production. And look, this industry is hurting. And
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: so I, you know, okay, that's okay. But AG Bonta said,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: this is about California jobs. There's no earmark for that
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: within California. Last year, according to a report issued by
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: the LA Economic Development Commission, Of the 19 films that
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Warner Brothers and Paramount made, one of them was made in.
• 55:25
  Speaker 11: California. It wasn't even in Los Angeles.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: It was in Eureka. It was one battle after another. So,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: you know, doesn't guarantee California jobs, doesn't guarantee California headquarters,
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: doesn't guarantee independence, doesn't guarantee 30 films. This is, it's
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: really hard to square it with the position that they
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: were in before.
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: I've heard people say that if this deal goes through,
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: it's basically the end of Hollywood. Why are people saying that?
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: Why is it so much worse for workers and the
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: industry writ large if it goes through?
• 56:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: So I think people need to understand how bad things
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: are for film and TV workers. So one thing we
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: did at the American Economic Liberties Project together with the
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Writers Guild We did these town halls in independent theaters
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: and the Writers Guild in New York.
• 56:17
  Speaker 11: So Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: I think people need to understand that you can go
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: to Atlanta, meet someone, let's say in the art department,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: look at their IMDb, and you can tell they're a
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: master craftsperson. I worked on Stranger Things. I worked on
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: The Walking Dead. I worked in Atlanta. Going back even
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: further than that. And they'll sit there and tell you,
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I haven't had a job since 2024. I don't have
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: health insurance because I can't find work. And again, let's
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: stay focused on Atlanta because people get it in their heads.
• 56:52
  Speaker 11: This is about Hollywood.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: The people in Atlanta have gone through more mergers than
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: they can count. Because you'll remember, these are the Ted
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: Turner properties.
• 57:03
  Speaker 11: All right.
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: So it was bought by AT & T. It was
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: bought by AOL. It was bought by David Zaslav and Discovery.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: Now it's getting bought by David Ellison. Every single one
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: of those mergers, they shed thousands of jobs. And so
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: they know the reason some people say this is the
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: end of the industry is that they know this will
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: only mean more layoffs. And already these guys can't pay
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: their rent. They can't qualify for health insurance under their guilds, right?
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Because a lot of these guys are 1099s. I do
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: think there is a measure of hope here, if it's.
• 57:40
  Speaker 11: Okay to share a hopeful note.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: The film and TV industry in this country is very
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: special because it is one of the few places where
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: we actually have a blueprint for what it looks like
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: to have a level playing field where the small players
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: can survive. Rewind 30, 40 years ago, we had these
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: things called FinCEN rules. We had the paramount decrees that said, hey,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: if you make movies or if you make TV shows,
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: you can't also own the distribution of them, whether it's TV,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: the broadcast channels or the movie theaters. We had limits
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: on how many broadcast affiliates any one of these media
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: conglomerates could own We have done away with all of
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: those things. And in fact, the chief counsel for Paramount
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: undid one of those things, which were the Paramount decrees,
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: and then he went to work for Paramount. But the
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: power here is that we know we can return to
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: that world because we lived in that world. We know
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: we can expand in that world because the blueprint's already there.
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: And so there's sectoral bargaining for film and TV in
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: a way that you actually don't have in almost any
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: other industry in this country. And so my hope is
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: that This is a galvanizing and honestly radicalizing moment because
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: this was one of the rare circumstances where there's a
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: huge outpouring of people in the industry. Usually, whether it's
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: an ag merger or something else, people are terrified. People
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: weren't terrified. They came close to winning this thing, even
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: though DOJ, the politicals basically sidelined it.
• 59:06
  Speaker 11: And they almost got there. And yet they just swept it.
• 59:10
  Speaker 6: And kicked out the legs from under them.
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: So I want to ask you about I want to
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: ask you about Gavin Governor Gavin Newsom's role in all
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: of this. We can put up D5 here where he
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: says we are grateful to Attorney General Bonta and his
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: fellow AGs, as well as the WGA. for engaging in
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: good faith to find a path forward to a resolution
• 59:27
  Speaker 5: that serves all parties and to Governor Newsom for his
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: support throughout this process. And then you can put up D4,
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: which you have Newsom out expressing concerns about this Entry
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: Trust suit. If you're Gavin Newsom, do you really want
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: to be getting thanked for a deal that everybody says
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: is destroying the most important.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: at least culturally, the most important industry in your state?
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: What's going on here?
• 59:57
  Speaker 11: I think this is deeply shameful.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: I think people today want champions who aren't scared of
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: billionaire bullies. And the thing about Gavin Newsom, and frankly,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful that the mask is fully off here because
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: he talks this big game online. He is this culture
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: warrior online with his tweets. And yet when he's going
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: head to head with one of the president's greatest allies
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: in a deal that will eviscerate this industry, he can't
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: handle the heat for more than two minutes. And look,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: I am very critical of AG Rob Bonta, but this
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: thing started with Gavin Newsom. it would not happen, I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: am confident, but for Gavin Newsom throwing in his support
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: and with the Ellisons. But this is something I think
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: everyone needs to watch for. I'm sure you've seen it.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: You saw it with Seth Moulton right before he lost
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: to Ed Markey. Everyone's an economic populist today. Anyone on
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: the left, certainly who's planning on winning, is going to
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: be out there with a song and dance saying, oh yeah,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I'm with the people against the oligarchs.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 11: Is that right?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: All right, let's see if you can handle this heat.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: And Newsom didn't. Neither did Javier Becerra. And they're doing
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: a huge disservice to their people because of it.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: All right. Well, maybe this judge, Martinez Ogun.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 11: Ogun, yeah.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: Ogun. Maybe she'll be the hero this time. If not,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: we've got the mask.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 11: There we go.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: Gavin Newsom's mask is off. A shout out to Last
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: Ditch Bar in Western Massachusetts. Alvaro Bedoya, former FTC commissioner.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: Really helpful. Thanks for walking us through this. Anytime.