Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/19/26: Farmers Shocked By ICE Raids, France Erupts In Protest

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10/19/26: Farmers Shocked By ICE Raids, France Erupts In Protest · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
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0:19
Speaker 2: So the economic fallout from the combination of the tariffs
0:22
Speaker 2: and now most critically from the Iran war appears to
0:26
Speaker 2: have led to a massive breakup in the Trump coalition
0:29
Speaker 2: and put some red states in play that no one
0:32
Speaker 2: would have ever expected. Least of all, Roger Marshall, who
0:36
Speaker 2: is the current senator of Kansas. He definitely did not
0:39
Speaker 2: expect to have anything approaching a competitive election this time around.
0:43
Speaker 2: And yet, if you look at the polling averages, it
0:45
Speaker 2: is basically 50-50 whether it's going to be him or
0:49
Speaker 2: the Democrat Adam Hamilton, who ultimately prevails. CNN went on
0:53
Speaker 2: the road to talk to Roger Marshall and talk to
0:56
Speaker 2: voters in the state about their concerns. This did not
0:58
Speaker 2: go very well for Senator Marshall. Let's go ahead and
1:01
Speaker 2: take a look at this. I don't think I've ever
1:03
Speaker 2: voted for a Democrat senator.
1:05
Speaker 4: You haven't.
1:06
Speaker 1: This will be the first time.
1:07
Speaker 2: First time.
1:07
Speaker 5: Do you think that given the impact that's having on
1:10
Speaker 5: fuel prices that it's time for the president to end
1:12
Speaker 5: the war with Iran? You know, I think what you
1:14
Speaker 5: should be talking about is my opponent, that he's a
1:17
Speaker 5: child sex predator protector, that he's.
1:20
Speaker 3: He denies that.
1:21
Speaker 5: It absolutely happened. Are you worried that Hamilton could actually
1:25
Speaker 5: win this race?
1:26
Speaker 4: Oh, he could, because we have a bad reputation in
1:28
Speaker 4: this state of electing liberal governors.
1:32
Speaker 2: So there you have Manu Raju asking Roger Marshall about
1:35
Speaker 2: the Iran war, and he won't give a single word response.
1:38
Speaker 2: He's just immediately, oh, what you should be asking is
1:40
Speaker 2: about my opponent, blah, blah, blah. So clearly he knows
1:44
Speaker 2: this is a catastrophic issue for him. And something I
1:47
Speaker 2: saw people pointing out is like, you know, a guy
1:49
Speaker 2: like Roger Marshall, first of all, clearly lazy, like not
1:53
Speaker 2: raising money. showing up late to his events. There's a
1:56
Speaker 2: lot of complaints from Republicans who are trying to help
1:58
Speaker 2: him out that this guy doesn't want to be campaigning
2:01
Speaker 2: and is very lackluster in his efforts here on the ground.
2:04
Speaker 2: Adam Hamilton is hitting the ground running and he's everywhere
2:07
Speaker 2: and he's doing everything he can in the state. So
2:09
Speaker 2: you have that laziness. But also, if you're a Susan
2:13
Speaker 2: Collins and you know you're going to have a tough election, well,
2:16
Speaker 2: you're trying to take some votes that show you've got
2:18
Speaker 2: some distance from Trump, show you're kind of independent, show
2:21
Speaker 2: that you're not just going to get on board with
2:23
Speaker 2: the most idiotic and unpopular things that Trump is pushing
2:26
Speaker 2: you to do. A guy like Roger Marshall, on the
2:28
Speaker 2: other hand, you know, he's voting for the January 6th
2:31
Speaker 2: slush fund. He's voting for the Iran war and relentlessly
2:35
Speaker 2: supporting the Iran war. He's voting against releasing the Epstein files.
2:40
Speaker 2: Every disastrously unpopular thing that Donald Trump did, he is
2:45
Speaker 2: on board with and he is on record taking votes
2:47
Speaker 2: to support. So that's part of he's a terrible candidate.
2:51
Speaker 2: He's lazy. And he's taken a bunch of these disastrous
2:54
Speaker 2: votes that have put him completely crosswise with his own
2:57
Speaker 2: base where they can look. And he supported the tariffs, too,
3:00
Speaker 2: by the way, which, you know, in Kansas with the
3:02
Speaker 2: farmers are devastatingly unpopular. So that's part of what has
3:07
Speaker 2: created this vulnerability here is that he has not tried
3:10
Speaker 2: to protect himself. He's not tried to push back on
3:12
Speaker 2: Trump whatsoever. So people are going, OK, well, you care
3:15
Speaker 2: more about this man in D.C. than you do about
3:18
Speaker 2: our livelihoods here in Kansas.
3:19
Speaker 3: Marshall, the bigger problem for a lot of these machine
3:22
Speaker 3: states is that these people just don't run very many
3:25
Speaker 3: competitive elections. And so I'll give you the Marshall. Marshall
3:29
Speaker 3: is an interesting guy. I'll be honest, you know. He
3:31
Speaker 3: is one of those people who is tied at the
3:33
Speaker 3: hip to Trump, but he's.
3:34
Speaker 1: Done some good stuff. We actually even covered it here
3:36
Speaker 1: on the credit card.
3:38
Speaker 3: He's actually one of the only people in the Senate
3:40
Speaker 3: who's been willing to take on the corrupt credit card industry.
3:43
Speaker 3: As I understand it, the credit cards are going all
3:45
Speaker 3: in for Adam Hamilton. Look, I'm not saying it's all
3:48
Speaker 3: that relevant. I'm just trying to tell you the way
3:50
Speaker 3: that most of these machine politicians work is they tie
3:53
Speaker 3: themselves at the hip with Trump. They become interesting on
3:56
Speaker 3: like side projects. This is what safe seat senators do.
4:00
Speaker 3: People like Van Hollen, you know, that's why he gets,
4:02
Speaker 3: Van Hollen is in a machine Democrat state, which is
4:04
Speaker 3: why he gets to care at all about foreign policy, right?
4:07
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think, California, you know, these types of sinecures.
4:11
Speaker 3: But when all of a sudden you're in a competitive race,
4:14
Speaker 3: you don't really know what to do because 90% of competitive, 99%
4:17
Speaker 3: of competitive race is, in machine states is R on R.
4:21
Speaker 3: So it's like they end up fighting intrapartisan battles.
4:24
Speaker 2: Yes, you're protecting your right flank.
4:26
Speaker 6: Exactly.
4:26
Speaker 2: Not trying to appeal to independents.
4:28
Speaker 3: The reason Marshall's taking these votes on 2020 and on
4:30
Speaker 3: Jan 6th is he doesn't need some Trump upstart to
4:33
Speaker 3: come and cause him shit in a primary sometime.
4:35
Speaker 1: Around.
4:35
Speaker 3: Same on immigration, same on any of this. But then
4:38
Speaker 3: that plays different whenever it comes to an actual competitive election.
4:42
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean, from what I've seen, the guy, look,
4:44
Speaker 3: he's only been in office from 2017 on. He did
4:47
Speaker 3: genuinely have an actual competitive primary, but that was, again,
4:50
Speaker 3: a Republican intra-competitive primary back in 2017. And now, all
4:56
Speaker 3: of a sudden, he actually is in a fight for
4:58
Speaker 3: his life. He didn't realize anyone was going to care
5:00
Speaker 3: about his Medicare billing practices or any of.
5:02
Speaker 1: This stuff, right?
5:03
Speaker 3: This is all like, You get to do it and
5:06
Speaker 3: you're in a Republican state, whatever. You know, it's like
5:09
Speaker 3: what's a few dollars between friends. But that's not how
5:12
Speaker 3: it works. And so, you know, and I would also
5:15
Speaker 3: say he's not even particularly good. That credit card thing,
5:18
Speaker 3: he's not even talking about it whenever he's there. Talking
5:21
Speaker 3: about price gouging and others. Even on war prior to Trump, too,
5:25
Speaker 3: he was actually not bad on some of these things
5:28
Speaker 3: on Ukraine. I've been honestly mystified at the races. that
5:31
Speaker 3: the guy has run. He's basically just going all in.
5:33
Speaker 3: The Adam Hamilton thing, I've tried to follow it.
5:37
Speaker 1: I don't fully get it.
5:38
Speaker 3: Something about somebody in his church, you know, was being protected,
5:42
Speaker 3: like there was a scandal.
5:44
Speaker 2: It was some camp that he was, Christian camp he
5:47
Speaker 2: was affiliated with. I don't know all the details, but
5:50
Speaker 2: they're going, they're leaning hard into that. And they're trying
5:53
Speaker 2: to rebut, you were referencing these billing practices from Roger Marshall,
5:58
Speaker 2: who is a doctor, and he's had some of his
6:01
Speaker 2: former patients come out and record campaign ads that are
6:04
Speaker 2: just brutal, where he was coming after them for these
6:09
Speaker 2: minimal charges that they had racked up, and obviously healthcare
6:13
Speaker 2: being a major sore spot for people around the country,
6:17
Speaker 2: but in Kansas and rural areas in particular, the one
6:19
Speaker 2: big beautiful bill closed a bunch of rural hospitals, cut Medicaid,
6:22
Speaker 2: so this is a very sensitive area. And then also,
6:26
Speaker 2: he charges some of the highest rates on any sort
6:30
Speaker 2: of delinquent payments. So I think that has really damaged him.
6:35
Speaker 2: I think those ads have been really devastating. But the
6:38
Speaker 2: fundamentals here are Kansas has been screwed. Kansas is in
6:41
Speaker 2: a dire economic state directly because of Trump policies. So
6:46
Speaker 2: let's go and take a listen to this farmer who
6:49
Speaker 2: was interviewed here by ABC talking about how he's disenchanted
6:56
Speaker 2: with Trump in spite of the fact that he voted
6:58
Speaker 2: for the man three times. Let's listen to that.
7:00
Speaker 4: Farmer Steve Bolin voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
7:06
Speaker 4: Now he's struggling with high prices for diesel and fertilizer
7:10
Speaker 4: and uncertain who he'll vote for for Senate. How much
7:14
Speaker 4: of a factor for you would be who Donald Trump
7:16
Speaker 4: has endorsed?
7:17
Speaker 3: None.
7:19
Speaker 2: Why is that?
7:21
Speaker 6: I don't care who he endorses.
7:24
Speaker 2: Again, I want somebody that is talking.
7:27
Speaker 6: For the American farmer.
7:29
Speaker 2: Someone who is talking for the American farmer, don't care
7:31
Speaker 2: who Trump endorses. Trump is really going out there. trying
7:35
Speaker 2: to energize his base saying, pretend that I'm on the ballot.
7:38
Speaker 2: That was the point of this RNC mini convention that
7:42
Speaker 2: they did down in Texas. And according to the leaked
7:45
Speaker 2: audio from Ken Paxton anyway, and also according to the polls,
7:48
Speaker 2: that convention actually was devastating for them. It caused their
7:52
Speaker 2: polls to erode even further.
7:54
Speaker 1: Why?
7:54
Speaker 2: Because you're putting the focus on this man who is
7:56
Speaker 2: devastatingly unpopular, and he's saying, pretend I'm on the ballot.
8:00
Speaker 2: People are saying, okay, bet. I'm going to vote against
8:02
Speaker 2: you then, because that's the way I'm feeling right now
8:04
Speaker 2: in this economy. Now, the farmers, they're very conservative, by
8:08
Speaker 2: and large, not to, you know, paint the entire farming
8:11
Speaker 2: community with a broad brush here, but by and large,
8:13
Speaker 2: very conservative. Are they going to come out in droves
8:15
Speaker 2: for Democrats? No. Are they just not going to come out?
8:17
Speaker 2: That seems like a big possibility, especially if you think
8:19
Speaker 2: about it. You know, a guy like this probably lives
8:21
Speaker 2: in a rural area, probably has to drive a good
8:23
Speaker 2: ways away to get to his local polling station. Is
8:25
Speaker 2: he going to bother? Is he going to bother? Is
8:27
Speaker 2: there going to be anybody on the ballot that he
8:29
Speaker 2: feels like, OK, this person is going to be really
8:31
Speaker 2: responsive to what I'm looking at? I would say that
8:34
Speaker 2: for many, that will be a doubtful calculation.
8:38
Speaker 1: I completely agree.
8:39
Speaker 3: You know, on the farmer piece, I was telling you
8:41
Speaker 3: before the show, look, I think I think being mad
8:44
Speaker 3: at Trump for doing things he said he wasn't going
8:45
Speaker 3: to do.
8:46
Speaker 1: Is fair.
8:47
Speaker 3: But it's really hard for me whenever you get mad
8:49
Speaker 3: at Trump for saying he's going to do things he did.
8:51
Speaker 1: Like, for example, tariffs.
8:52
Speaker 3: It's like, come on, man. The tariff was literally part
8:56
Speaker 3: of the campaign. And you're upset about that?
8:58
Speaker 1: Now, I get it. Diesel has pushed things over the edge.
9:01
Speaker 3: But the extra tariffs in particular, look, this is separate
9:06
Speaker 3: from what I'm talking about on Canada or even Mexico
9:10
Speaker 3: to a limited regard. The tariffs on China, specifically the
9:13
Speaker 3: tariffs on soybeans and other things that are going to
9:15
Speaker 3: be sold to China, were literally done the first term,
9:18
Speaker 3: done second term around.
9:19
Speaker 1: They hurt you then. You decided that it was okay.
9:21
Speaker 3: Again, I decided it was okay too, but I'm not
9:24
Speaker 3: a farmer.
9:25
Speaker 1: And now people are upset about that. So I'm like, okay,
9:27
Speaker 1: that's number one. That's just where I get annoyed.
9:29
Speaker 2: I got one more for you on that front. If
9:31
Speaker 2: you put the last element, D5, up on the screen
9:34
Speaker 2: here from this blog. So this is New York Times.
9:37
Speaker 2: Across farm country, economic discontent strains Republican coalition. And they
9:41
Speaker 2: talk about a lot of the things we're talking about here.
9:43
Speaker 2: They interview people, blah, blah, blah. They also, though, talk
9:45
Speaker 2: about the pushback to the immigration agenda.
9:47
Speaker 1: No, I know. This is what I mean.
9:49
Speaker 2: So let me read you this. In July, the Political
9:51
Speaker 2: Action Committee of the Kansas Livestock Association declined to endorse
9:54
Speaker 2: Senator Roger Marshall, the incumbent Republican, despite having backed him
9:58
Speaker 2: in 2020. Officials pointed to tariffs, which Marshall supported, and
10:02
Speaker 2: the president's comments about beef prices being too high as
10:05
Speaker 2: having frustrated Kansas ranchers. Then, in late September, the group's
10:09
Speaker 2: members began to complain of something unusual, inconvenient, and expensive.
10:13
Speaker 2: Appointments they'd made to have their cattle slaughtered were suddenly
10:16
Speaker 2: being canceled. The cancellations would stretch on for days and
10:18
Speaker 2: complicated the delicate timing of processing cattle were a direct
10:22
Speaker 2: effect of high-profile immigration enforcement activities, said Matt Tiergarten, the
10:26
Speaker 2: chief executive of the Livestock Association. The raids prompted rare
10:30
Speaker 2: pushback on the administration from ranchers in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma.
10:35
Speaker 2: You have all these people living in limbo or fear
10:37
Speaker 2: of ice, and the feedlots are wondering if anybody's going
10:40
Speaker 2: to come to work, said Tiergarten. Sam Buttram, a feedlot consultant.
10:43
Speaker 2: It's just a bad situation all the way around. So
10:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember, but Marshall actually put
10:49
Speaker 2: out a statement expressing concern about some of the immigration
10:53
Speaker 2: raids in southern Kansas, I think it was, at the time.
10:57
Speaker 2: And now you see why, because this was impacting— farmers
11:01
Speaker 2: and ranchers in the state. And so now suddenly, you know,
11:05
Speaker 2: while you saw the mass deportation now signs, you didn't
11:09
Speaker 2: put two and two together? That your industry, I mean, literally,
11:12
Speaker 2: if you're in the farming industry, you don't know that
11:14
Speaker 2: your industry is dependent on undocumented labor? Like, How stupid
11:18
Speaker 2: are you?
11:18
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
11:19
Speaker 3: I have no sympathy for you. Like, literally zero. What
11:21
Speaker 3: part of it did you not get? Like, we said
11:23
Speaker 3: we were coming after and deporting all illegal immigrants. Did
11:26
Speaker 3: you think that you were somehow exempt from that?
11:29
Speaker 2: They all seem to have thought, like, the Cubans down
11:31
Speaker 2: in Florida or the Venezuelans. Oh, it won't be about us.
11:34
Speaker 2: It'll be about those other bad immigrants.
11:36
Speaker 3: No.
11:36
Speaker 1: This is what makes me mad, too.
11:37
Speaker 3: Like, this is actually what we should have more of,
11:39
Speaker 3: by the way, is that it's actually disgusting that illegal
11:42
Speaker 3: labor is the only reason the U.S.
11:44
Speaker 1: Meat industry or farming can.
11:46
Speaker 3: You know, to the extent that there's been problems with
11:48
Speaker 3: our current immigration enforcements, we don't go after big business
11:51
Speaker 3: or any of these other people who like if you're
11:53
Speaker 3: a liberal, you should be mad. All these people are
11:56
Speaker 3: being exploited basically as slaves. And then no American is
11:59
Speaker 3: being paid. This is all literally under the table. Yes,
12:02
Speaker 3: I understand it. Beef will be more expensive. I mean,
12:05
Speaker 3: if you roll the tape, I said that I said, yeah,
12:07
Speaker 3: shit's going to get more expensive.
12:08
Speaker 1: So be it.
12:09
Speaker 3: That means we have to live. in a better, more order,
12:11
Speaker 3: cohesive society. I'm fine with it. And yet, yeah, not
12:16
Speaker 3: to rant too much, but it's people like this or
12:18
Speaker 3: down in, we covered the South Texas thing, where this
12:22
Speaker 3: lady goes, my brother was deported and I supported you.
12:25
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
12:27
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, ma'am.
12:29
Speaker 3: What part did you not get? Your brother's here illegally.
12:33
Speaker 3: Did you think it was going to be an exemption? Like,
12:36
Speaker 3: what part of it was mass deportation not clear around,
12:40
Speaker 3: you're here illegally, you gotta go? I truly have no
12:45
Speaker 3: sympathy for these people at all on that front. And,
12:49
Speaker 3: you know, I get it, shot and throw, et cetera,
12:51
Speaker 3: and all of that, but.
12:53
Speaker 1: I don't know.
12:54
Speaker 3: I have a lot of difficulty in terms of compassion for,
12:57
Speaker 3: like I said, when things were explicitly, explicitly announced, written,
13:03
Speaker 3: you know, said, like, what the consequences will be, What
13:08
Speaker 3: exactly were you listening to?
13:10
Speaker 1: What were you reading whenever it came down?
13:12
Speaker 2: They all heard what they wanted to hear. We interviewed
13:14
Speaker 2: a candidate on the Friday show who was very impressive.
13:17
Speaker 2: I'd spoken to her before, Nicole Laughlin. She's running for
13:19
Speaker 2: this district in Florida against Mario Diaz-Balart. And it's a 75%
13:23
Speaker 2: Latino district and a lot of Venezuelans in the district.
13:29
Speaker 2: And she was saying, basically, I don't want to put
13:31
Speaker 2: words in here. You guys can go watch the interview
13:33
Speaker 2: to see her specific language. But basically, like, yeah, previously Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans,
13:40
Speaker 2: they were treated differently by the immigration system. And they
13:43
Speaker 2: thought that that would persist. And now you've had temporary
13:47
Speaker 2: protected status taken from Venezuelans, and there's a shock. And
13:50
Speaker 2: so her district— is the one identified by the New
13:53
Speaker 2: York Times and some other analyses as shifting the furthest
13:57
Speaker 2: away from Republicans. This is a district Trump won by
14:00
Speaker 2: like 18 points that now, I mean, it would be
14:03
Speaker 2: a long shot still for her, but she's got a
14:05
Speaker 2: shot at it because of that shift. And so, yeah,
14:08
Speaker 2: I mean, I just, I feel the same thing. Like,
14:10
Speaker 2: I don't know what, I don't know why you thought
14:11
Speaker 2: you were special. I don't know why you thought, Mr. Farmer,
14:14
Speaker 2: that your particular business interest would be protected. Like, I
14:17
Speaker 2: don't know what gave you that impression because you could
14:19
Speaker 2: make an argument about the Iran war. There was a
14:21
Speaker 2: lot of double speak out of both sides of their mouth,
14:23
Speaker 2: et cetera. There was total and complete clarity about the
14:28
Speaker 2: immigration agenda. No doubt about it. Speaking of the Iran war,
14:34
Speaker 2: I do want to get to this piece because This
14:36
Speaker 2: probably more than anything else is driving the midterm results
14:40
Speaker 2: right now. Put D3 up on the screen. The Wall
14:42
Speaker 2: Street Journal crunched the numbers about just how much the
14:46
Speaker 2: war in Iran just so far has cost the average
14:50
Speaker 2: American family. We're talking about $ 2, 000 out of the pockets
14:56
Speaker 2: of every American family so far. And by the way,
15:01
Speaker 2: Brent crude is up well over $ 100 now. I'm sure
15:04
Speaker 2: gas prices are going to be rising commensurately. We previously
15:08
Speaker 2: showed you that chart that tracked Trump's approval rating and
15:12
Speaker 2: gas prices, and they are directly inversely correlated. So the
15:16
Speaker 2: more gas prices go up, the more Trump's approval rating
15:19
Speaker 2: goes down. So this is about the worst possible landscape
15:22
Speaker 2: he could be facing going into the midterm elections. And
15:25
Speaker 2: then this is reflected in the polling data. Put D4
15:29
Speaker 2: up on the screen. You've got just a devastating landscape here.
15:33
Speaker 2: Twenty nine percent only saying the U.S. is on the
15:36
Speaker 2: right track. Seventy one percent say it's the wrong track.
15:39
Speaker 2: Eighty two percent say that their finances are the same
15:42
Speaker 2: or worse than than a year ago. 82%, only 18%
15:48
Speaker 2: say that they are better off under Trump. 67% say
15:51
Speaker 2: the price of gas has caused them issues. Majorities have
15:55
Speaker 2: changed what groceries they're buying and are cutting back on entertainment.
15:58
Speaker 2: So that shows you it is cutting to the bone.
16:01
Speaker 2: People are having to alter their lifestyles, swap out what
16:05
Speaker 2: sort of protein they're buying at the grocery store and
16:07
Speaker 2: things like that at the advice of a number of
16:09
Speaker 2: administration officials and other Republicans. Trump's approval stands at 34%.
16:14
Speaker 2: On issue by issue, his approval on cost of living
16:17
Speaker 2: is 27%. On the Iran war, 29%. On AI, 33%.
16:23
Speaker 2: On border and immigration, where he is comparatively stronger, still
16:27
Speaker 2: underwater at 43%. But the most probably devastating number here
16:33
Speaker 2: is 82% saying, I'm worse off, or I'm the same,
16:36
Speaker 2: or I'm worse off than I was a year ago.
16:39
Speaker 2: And it ties directly into the decisions that Donald Trump
16:42
Speaker 2: has made.
16:42
Speaker 5: Yes.
16:43
Speaker 3: And this is where inflation was. Inflation and immigration are
16:45
Speaker 3: the only two reasons the man is president, right? You
16:48
Speaker 3: disagree with me.
16:49
Speaker 1: That's my basic.
16:49
Speaker 3: I think Inflation, immigration. Those are the two number one issues.
16:54
Speaker 3: It's very hard to say which exactly.
16:57
Speaker 1: Was more impactful.
16:59
Speaker 3: I think that for turnout, it was immigration in terms
17:03
Speaker 3: of getting Republicans to come. For swing voters, it was inflation.
17:07
Speaker 3: How can you argue that you are better off financially.
17:10
Speaker 1: When you look.
17:10
Speaker 3: Because remember, one of the other things that was really
17:13
Speaker 3: on Trump's side was this general idea of blowing up
17:16
Speaker 3: the system. Because mortgages, when Biden left office, were.
17:21
Speaker 1: I mean, what, 6%?
17:22
Speaker 3: It was 5 something like that percent. Inflation had gone up.
17:26
Speaker 3: Food prices had gone up dramatically. I mean, things were horrible. Like,
17:29
Speaker 3: it was really bad. And especially with gas prices. Well, now,
17:32
Speaker 3: as a result of the Iran war, it's exacerbated that
17:34
Speaker 3: by tenfold. So the gas prices now, I don't even
17:37
Speaker 3: know what's, it's, yeah, we said 430. Sorry, I meant
17:39
Speaker 3: the mortgage rate. I believe it's like 7.2 or 7.3%.
17:43
Speaker 3: I mean, that's insane.
17:44
Speaker 1: That's bonkers.
17:45
Speaker 3: And then you add on credit card interest balance, health
17:49
Speaker 3: care premiums.
17:51
Speaker 1: I think mine went up. Did yours as well? Again,
17:54
Speaker 1: it's coming. November is open enrollment. It's gone up. My
17:58
Speaker 1: deductible is $ 18, 000 is my deductible, right? I mean, that's just...
18:03
Speaker 1: Why do I even have insurance?
18:05
Speaker 3: Like paying for the, if I didn't have a kid,
18:07
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have it. I can tell you that right now.
18:09
Speaker 3: And so you add all of that together and you're like,
18:11
Speaker 3: oh my God. I mean, how is anybody like even,
18:15
Speaker 3: how is anybody living on?
18:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:17
Speaker 3: It's like, if you don't make a hundred thousand dollars today,
18:20
Speaker 3: which is not even the median income. So that means
18:22
Speaker 3: like 60% of families are below that level.
18:25
Speaker 1: I actually just don't get it. Like you can't even
18:26
Speaker 1: eat McDonald's every day. Or something like that.
18:29
Speaker 2: And it's so sad. There's not even an expectation in
18:32
Speaker 2: America anymore that you should be able to live off
18:34
Speaker 2: of a minimum wage or just above minimum wage salary.
18:37
Speaker 2: It's just like no one even believes that that That's
18:40
Speaker 2: kind of always been.
18:41
Speaker 1: Fake whenever it comes to minimum wage. And I think
18:43
Speaker 1: that's fine.
18:44
Speaker 6: What do you mean?
18:45
Speaker 3: Well, it's supposed to be minimum for a reason, right?
18:48
Speaker 3: That's supposed to be the bottom quarter of society.
18:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's still $ 7.
18:51
Speaker 7: 25.
18:51
Speaker 2: It hasn't been increased in decades. And so if you
18:58
Speaker 2: had the same minimum wage that you had back, let's say,
19:00
Speaker 2: in the 70s, it'd be something around, I think the
19:02
Speaker 2: number was like $ 25 an hour. And you've had the housing, healthcare,
19:08
Speaker 2: education costs have gone up way far and beyond what
19:12
Speaker 2: other inflation is. So these just like basic building blocks,
19:15
Speaker 2: you used to be able to work a like normal
19:18
Speaker 2: service sector job and live. Now you can't live. Like
19:21
Speaker 2: there is no expectations. People just assume that you're not
19:24
Speaker 2: going to be able to make it on that sort
19:25
Speaker 2: of a salary. But yeah, I mean, it's not surprising
19:29
Speaker 2: then that when you engage in an unpopular war of choice,
19:34
Speaker 2: that dramatically increases one of the primary inputs, primary costs
19:38
Speaker 2: that people deal with every single day and see in
19:40
Speaker 2: their face every single day, that there's gonna be a
19:42
Speaker 2: political backlash. And so, you know, we'll probably talk about
19:47
Speaker 2: this with Logan tomorrow. We talk about maybe the polls
19:49
Speaker 2: are off. It's still certainly possible. But the reason I
19:52
Speaker 2: believe that there is a relatively large scale reckoning more
19:56
Speaker 2: so than what we saw even in 2018 coming is
19:59
Speaker 2: just because it's not even because of the polls. It's
20:01
Speaker 2: because of these fundamental facts.
20:03
Speaker 1: Right.
20:04
Speaker 2: The gas prices, the war. The tariffs, too, by the way,
20:07
Speaker 2: which have specifically hurt some of Trump's core constituencies. And
20:11
Speaker 2: then you layer on that the corruption, the fact that
20:14
Speaker 2: he's obsessed with this ballroom, that he's so obviously enriching
20:19
Speaker 2: himself and his family and is more concerned about that
20:22
Speaker 2: than he is about anything that's going on for you
20:25
Speaker 2: and your family. You know, at a certain point, there
20:27
Speaker 2: is a breaking point there, pun intended.
20:29
Speaker 3: Well, no, I was just looking at the, I talked
20:32
Speaker 3: earlier about that focus group and corruption was one of
20:35
Speaker 3: the number one responses by Republicans as to why things
20:38
Speaker 3: are where they are.
20:39
Speaker 5: Yeah.
20:39
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it's like, Look, the American public, you know,
20:43
Speaker 3: I have my problems, marijuana being chief among them and gambling.
20:49
Speaker 3: But I look at it and I just what I
20:51
Speaker 3: always wonder is like the information environment, like what's getting
20:54
Speaker 3: through and what's not. Because don't forget, you know, the
20:58
Speaker 3: Fox News bubble is still real. And Jesse Waters, like
21:00
Speaker 3: if you watch that every single day, you don't really
21:02
Speaker 3: know anything about corruption. Like you don't really know.
21:04
Speaker 1: That is a slinking shrinking literally because of that.
21:08
Speaker 3: The way that actuarial tables work, amount of our population.
21:11
Speaker 3: But it is still a heavy voting demographic. The question
21:14
Speaker 3: is whether the general, like, how they're living in society,
21:18
Speaker 3: prices and all that, is making them start to question
21:22
Speaker 3: the other stuff that they see on the screen.
21:23
Speaker 1: That's where I'm just, I'm like, I don't know. You know,
21:26
Speaker 1: I still.
21:27
Speaker 3: Somebody sent me a tweet, which is a rundown of
21:30
Speaker 3: the Jesse Waters show.
21:31
Speaker 1: It's like an alternative reality. Yeah.
21:33
Speaker 2: Although, did you see him defending Hassan?
21:35
Speaker 1: I did see that. Well, Jesse is a shit star.
21:38
Speaker 3: So, like, he's not going to fall repeatedly now.
21:40
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm not going to fall for this. What
21:42
Speaker 1: did he say? He's like, look, Trump has said much worse,
21:44
Speaker 1: so whatever. I forget what that was about.
21:47
Speaker 2: Exactly. He was like, oh, he called someone a pig.
21:49
Speaker 1: Like, I've said worse. Yeah, he's like, I've said worse.
21:52
Speaker 1: So I appreciate his honesty. Jesse, you're welcome on the
21:56
Speaker 1: show anytime, man. You know, let us know. We promise
21:59
Speaker 1: that Ryan will not punch you in the face.
22:01
Speaker 2: We'll do it remote just for distance.
22:03
Speaker 1: OK, let's get to the next one.
22:07
Speaker 3: We're very excited now to be joined by Cole Stangler.
22:10
Speaker 3: He is the host of the What Do We Want podcast.
22:13
Speaker 3: He's also a former intern for Ryan Grimm. That might
22:17
Speaker 3: be more of an important.
22:19
Speaker 1: Title there, Cole. He is based in Marseille, France. Cole,
22:22
Speaker 1: it's good to see you, man. Thank you for joining us.
22:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for having me.
22:26
Speaker 3: So, Cole, we obviously were here in the United States.
22:29
Speaker 3: We can only see what's in our social media feeds
22:31
Speaker 3: or in the news. We can put some of this
22:32
Speaker 3: up here on the screen. We saw some Widespread violence
22:36
Speaker 3: and looting take the streets of Paris as well as
22:39
Speaker 3: some other major cities in France.
22:43
Speaker 1: All of this.
22:43
Speaker 3: Appeared to be after a widespread student-led protest movement that
22:49
Speaker 3: broke out initially. As I understand it, the student-led protest
22:54
Speaker 3: movement then morphed broadly into bigger protests around the cost
22:58
Speaker 3: of living, affordability, and especially the price of gasoline. And
23:03
Speaker 3: then from that point forward, It then morphed into criminal
23:07
Speaker 3: and thug elements effectively taking to the streets, straight.
23:11
Speaker 1: Up engaging in violence and looting. And last night, I know.
23:14
Speaker 3: We also saw several areas of the city that were
23:17
Speaker 3: on fire, including residential buildings that were being burglarized. Obviously,
23:22
Speaker 3: this has set off a political earthquake in France. We're curious, Cole,
23:27
Speaker 3: for you to give us some of the history as
23:29
Speaker 3: to why is this happening now? What is the broader
23:33
Speaker 3: societal impact on everything that you've seen? You were telling
23:36
Speaker 3: us before you actually attended some of those initial protests.
23:39
Speaker 3: So how did this start and then how did we
23:42
Speaker 3: get here?
23:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:44
Speaker 6: So, you know, I think we have to go back.
23:46
Speaker 6: We can go back, you know, far ways away.
23:47
Speaker 7: But let's start off at least in mid-September, which is
23:50
Speaker 7: when the student protest movement started. So basically a movement
23:54
Speaker 7: led by high school students talking about the dilapidated conditions
23:57
Speaker 7: of their buildings, talking about staff shortages, criticizing the decline
24:02
Speaker 7: in investment in public education, criticizing the admissions platform for
24:09
Speaker 7: getting into universities.
24:10
Speaker 6: So a very clear list of demands.
24:12
Speaker 7: There's the student unions that represent high school students have
24:16
Speaker 7: made those demands very clear. And we've seen really several
24:20
Speaker 7: days of protests, big protests that were attended by supporters
24:26
Speaker 7: of the movement. We've also seen a lot of blockades
24:28
Speaker 7: outside high schools.
24:29
Speaker 6: And so this movement really started in mid-September.
24:32
Speaker 7: And I think high school students have been waiting for
24:34
Speaker 7: the government to make a concession. The movement itself is
24:37
Speaker 7: broadly popular. That's reflected in the polls. And what happened
24:41
Speaker 7: on Saturday, October 17th, was this was still was the
24:45
Speaker 7: biggest day of protests yet related to this movement. High
24:48
Speaker 7: school student unions backed the protests. So did major labor
24:51
Speaker 7: unions in France. And so did the remnants of the
24:55
Speaker 7: Yellow Vest Movement, which some of your viewers and listeners
24:58
Speaker 7: may recall. The Yellow Vest Movement started in late 2018,
25:01
Speaker 7: really related to the cost of living, and located really
25:05
Speaker 7: in kind of peripheral parts of France, just on the
25:08
Speaker 7: outskirts of urban areas, what we call the périurbans, the
25:12
Speaker 7: peri-urban parts of France. The yellow vests are known also
25:15
Speaker 7: for the very confrontational kinds of protests. So that was
25:18
Speaker 7: what October 17th was about. It was student union protests
25:22
Speaker 7: in favor of the movement, but also supported by the
25:24
Speaker 7: yellow vests and a kind of broader frustrations about the
25:28
Speaker 7: cost of living. Now, as a journalist, I've gone to
25:32
Speaker 7: many of these protests and talked to students.
25:34
Speaker 6: They were very clear about their demands.
25:36
Speaker 7: What happened on the 17th was different because like you said,
25:40
Speaker 7: these peaceful demonstrations, and they were very peaceful. I was
25:43
Speaker 7: at the one in Marseille, were, I would say, punctuated by,
25:47
Speaker 7: in the early morning in Marseille, we had very aggressive individuals,
25:52
Speaker 7: basically hooded, not showing their faces, engaging in basically violent
25:58
Speaker 7: attacks against the police. And then afterwards, and I would
26:02
Speaker 7: say simultaneously to afterwards, the big march, we had essentially looting.
26:07
Speaker 7: I think that's basically the word that describes what we saw.
26:12
Speaker 7: We saw the same thing in Paris. And so right now,
26:15
Speaker 7: the story has shifted from being one about this very
26:18
Speaker 7: broadly popular protest movement that had, by the way, its
26:20
Speaker 7: largest everyday mobilization on Saturday with over 800,000 people, according
26:25
Speaker 7: to unions. The focus has now shifted to this question
26:28
Speaker 7: of the violence. How did the government allow this to happen?
26:32
Speaker 7: I think a lot of French people are wondering that today, really,
26:35
Speaker 7: in fact, I think across the political spectrum.
26:38
Speaker 2: So French President Emmanuel Macron issued a new response yesterday.
26:42
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
26:44
Speaker 5: When we saw the images, we all thought, what was
26:48
Speaker 5: in their heads? How can French people do this to France?
26:51
Speaker 5: Why would the town hall of Libouge be blown down,
26:55
Speaker 5: the tourist office? Why would the town hall in Marseille
26:59
Speaker 5: be invaded or the prefecture in Bordeaux? How can we...
27:02
Speaker 5: have got there. There is nothing that justifies it, nothing
27:05
Speaker 5: that explains it, nothing that excuses it. We are all
27:10
Speaker 5: feeling anger and shame tonight. To see the streets of
27:16
Speaker 5: our cities ransacked like this is unbearable.
27:22
Speaker 2: So, Cole, how much did Macron's actions and governance spark
27:26
Speaker 2: this crisis to begin with? And then what do you
27:29
Speaker 2: make of his response thus far?
27:32
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the government bears an immense amount of
27:34
Speaker 7: responsibility for this crisis. We could just look at the
27:38
Speaker 7: student movement I talked about, where the students have been
27:40
Speaker 7: making very precise demands, asking for the French government, because
27:45
Speaker 7: we have a very centralized country where, unlike the United States,
27:48
Speaker 7: it's really up to the national government to make investments
27:50
Speaker 7: in public education to decide whether it's going to exceed
27:55
Speaker 7: some of these protest demands. So You know, we go
27:58
Speaker 7: back a week or two ago, the government very easily
28:00
Speaker 7: could have calmed down the situation by saying we're going
28:02
Speaker 7: to announce an investment plan in the dilapidated buildings. We
28:05
Speaker 7: are going to hire X number of teachers to help
28:09
Speaker 7: fill the staff shortages. We're going to increase the salaries
28:13
Speaker 7: for teachers, which, by the way, are below the average
28:16
Speaker 7: in the European Union. They're below the average in the OECD,
28:19
Speaker 7: below 2000 euros a month for people starting their careers.
28:24
Speaker 7: And the government has neglected to listen to these demands.
28:27
Speaker 7: And the reality is, if we take a further step back,
28:30
Speaker 7: this frustration, I think, that people have, it goes well
28:33
Speaker 7: beyond just the student protest movement. There's a sense that
28:36
Speaker 7: in France, when you have these big demonstrations, and that,
28:39
Speaker 7: to some extent, is a part of French political culture,
28:41
Speaker 7: there's a sense that at the end of the day,
28:43
Speaker 7: you would expect the government to make at least some
28:45
Speaker 7: type of concession. That's sort of part of French political
28:48
Speaker 7: history and French political culture. You get enough people out
28:51
Speaker 7: in the streets, and at some point, the government will cave,
28:54
Speaker 7: at least at some point. And that's not what's happened.
28:57
Speaker 7: We can go back to the pension reform process that
28:59
Speaker 7: we saw on 2023 over the attempt to hike the
29:03
Speaker 7: retirement eligibility age. Huge protest movement, extremely popular, and the
29:07
Speaker 7: government did not budge. So I think what we're seeing
29:10
Speaker 7: today is this strategy of the government. They are unwilling
29:13
Speaker 7: to make concessions, even modest concessions to protesters. And that's
29:18
Speaker 7: fueling a lot of a lot of unrest. And of course,
29:20
Speaker 7: that doesn't excuse the the violence that we saw. I
29:23
Speaker 7: think a lot of people are wondering who exactly was
29:25
Speaker 7: was responsible for these for these scenes. There's a lot
29:27
Speaker 7: of questions about that. But for a lot of French people,
29:30
Speaker 7: there's this frustration that we have a government that is
29:32
Speaker 7: not willing to make the slightest concession, you would think
29:35
Speaker 7: just to kind of tone down the temperature and have
29:37
Speaker 7: some more stability.
29:38
Speaker 6: But they've been unwilling to do that.
29:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cole, to push you a little bit here, is
29:42
Speaker 3: it really fair to say that any of this violence
29:45
Speaker 3: has anything to do with these, let's say, even legitimate
29:47
Speaker 3: demands of the student protesters and others? You know, there's
29:50
Speaker 3: been a lot of speculation about immigration, also about anarchy,
29:56
Speaker 3: like literal anarchists, like organized anarchists. inside of France. Obviously,
30:00
Speaker 3: I'm not in France. I could be projecting my own
30:04
Speaker 3: American domestic political concerns. But looking at violence or protest
30:09
Speaker 3: movements in the United States, it doesn't seem to me
30:12
Speaker 3: that if they announce anything about school reform tomorrow, that
30:16
Speaker 3: looting Louis Vuitton or some store like that would end.
30:20
Speaker 1: Am I wrong or incorrect? I'm happy for you to
30:22
Speaker 1: challenge me.
30:23
Speaker 7: No, I mean, I think the first thing is just
30:25
Speaker 7: because it is a point that we heard, you know,
30:27
Speaker 7: Donald Trump make this point and others kind of in
30:31
Speaker 7: the far right political orbit made this point about immigration.
30:34
Speaker 7: I think it is just important to emphasize that that is,
30:37
Speaker 7: I think, a really fringe position in France. It doesn't
30:40
Speaker 7: really reflect the reality to saying this is about immigration,
30:43
Speaker 7: I think, is not really, you know, I think grappling
30:47
Speaker 7: with the issue in a serious way.
30:48
Speaker 6: We have Explain why.
30:52
Speaker 2: Right.
30:52
Speaker 3: So the scenes that are coming out, you know, by
30:54
Speaker 3: and large, what most people are looking at are people
30:58
Speaker 3: from the poor suburban areas, children of immigrants, in particular,
31:02
Speaker 3: the people who are engaged in rioting and looting, although
31:05
Speaker 3: it's not entirely fair. There are many images of white
31:08
Speaker 3: people doing it, you know, too. So I just I think,
31:11
Speaker 3: you know, to fully explain to our audience, like, why
31:13
Speaker 3: do you think that's not a fair critique?
31:16
Speaker 7: Because I think if we look at the conditions at
31:18
Speaker 7: which people are living in, for instance, I'll give you
31:22
Speaker 7: just a concrete example here of being, you know, I
31:24
Speaker 7: live in Marseille, which is a city that has a long,
31:27
Speaker 7: long history of immigration that did not start recently. It's been,
31:29
Speaker 7: you know, Marseille is a port on the Mediterranean, waves
31:32
Speaker 7: of immigration. It's also a city that has suffered from disinvestment,
31:36
Speaker 7: from deindustrialization. And so, you know, in addition to those
31:41
Speaker 7: mass marches, you had 14, 15-year-old kids. I saw kids
31:45
Speaker 7: literally fighting over a PlayStation that they had looted from
31:48
Speaker 7: a store. I don't understand the link between immigration here.
31:52
Speaker 7: We're talking about people that have grown up in France
31:55
Speaker 7: who are French citizens who are living in difficult conditions.
31:59
Speaker 7: That's not excusing the violence, of course, not excusing looting,
32:03
Speaker 7: but it's just, I think, putting things in their context.
32:06
Speaker 7: I don't understand the link between trying to tie someone's
32:10
Speaker 7: identity of their parents or grandparents who may have immigrated
32:12
Speaker 7: to France, you know, multiple decades ago to the conditions
32:16
Speaker 7: they're living in today and to their decision to take.
32:18
Speaker 6: Part in looting.
32:20
Speaker 7: And I think, you know, there's also that separate question of,
32:24
Speaker 7: and it's hard to talk about this because we need to,
32:26
Speaker 7: I think, be careful and wait for the investigations to
32:28
Speaker 7: run their course, but who exactly are the kind of ultra-left,
32:33
Speaker 7: you know, types of people that might be engaged in
32:36
Speaker 7: this sort of violence we don't have a good sense
32:39
Speaker 7: of those people either. It's why I think it's important
32:43
Speaker 7: to be careful not to jump to conclusions. I think it's, again,
32:47
Speaker 7: worth stating that the overwhelming majority of French people, I think,
32:50
Speaker 7: were shocked by the violence. And also by an important point,
32:53
Speaker 7: if you don't mind me just saying, is that the
32:55
Speaker 7: strategy of the police here, which has come under scrutiny,
32:58
Speaker 7: I think is another really important point here.
33:00
Speaker 6: We had both.
33:01
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate on that?
33:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure.
33:03
Speaker 7: So at the beginning of the movement, You know, I
33:07
Speaker 7: think we can say this is in part a failure
33:09
Speaker 7: of the French policing strategy. The interior minister himself said
33:12
Speaker 7: that there were errors. He offered his resignation, which was
33:15
Speaker 7: not accepted. But if we go back to the beginning
33:17
Speaker 7: of the protest movement, so from late September to last
33:20
Speaker 7: week before the October 17th, we had around 8,000 arrests.
33:28
Speaker 7: 8,000 people were detained, brought into police custody, 85 percent
33:31
Speaker 7: of whom are minors. So very aggressive policing strategy. That's
33:34
Speaker 7: more than the entire Yellow Vest movement. At the same
33:36
Speaker 7: time as we have that aggressive policing strategy against peaceful protesters,
33:41
Speaker 7: largely peaceful protesters, we saw the police being unable to
33:46
Speaker 7: basically protect businesses from looting. And that's been the critique
33:50
Speaker 7: of the mayor of Marseille, where I am. He said,
33:52
Speaker 7: how is it possible that buildings were not being protected?
33:55
Speaker 7: So at some point, there is a deep failure here
33:57
Speaker 7: of the policing strategy. They spent so much energy on
34:00
Speaker 7: breaking up peaceful protests. And when it came to actually
34:03
Speaker 7: preparing for it, looting, they were not there. So I
34:07
Speaker 7: think it's also a breakdown in the French policing that
34:11
Speaker 7: I think is on display for everyone to see.
34:13
Speaker 1: Interesting.
34:14
Speaker 2: You know, there's not just protests in France right now,
34:16
Speaker 2: although those have been the most explosive. There's protests in Italy.
34:19
Speaker 2: There's protests in Albania.
34:20
Speaker 1: There's protests in Portugal.
34:21
Speaker 2: I was actually just in Spain where there have been
34:23
Speaker 2: huge protests over housing in particular that caused the president
34:27
Speaker 2: there to announce a snap election. So you do look
34:31
Speaker 2: at this, and while the flavor of it all is
34:34
Speaker 2: very different nation to nation, it just causes me to
34:37
Speaker 2: question how much of it is really about the combination
34:40
Speaker 2: of the Ukraine war and now specifically the Iran war
34:43
Speaker 2: and the way that has spiked prices and really put
34:46
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure on people truly around the world,
34:50
Speaker 2: but certainly across Europe.
34:52
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I don't want to speak too much about
34:54
Speaker 7: countries that I'm less familiar with, but I think you're
34:56
Speaker 7: right that there are some commonalities between some of these
34:58
Speaker 7: protest movements. We can look at the underlying economic conditions
35:01
Speaker 7: in France under Macron for the last 10 years. You know,
35:05
Speaker 7: we have this issue of basic broad wage stagnation. So
35:11
Speaker 7: the French talk a lot about purchasing power, which is
35:13
Speaker 7: basically a way of getting at this concept of the
35:16
Speaker 7: cost of living. We've had public services that have not
35:20
Speaker 7: faced radical, deep austerity. I think that that'd be an exaggeration,
35:24
Speaker 7: but have stagnated, have not kept up with people's demands.
35:28
Speaker 7: And then when you add in the problems with inflation,
35:33
Speaker 7: the problems with the Iran war launched by the United
35:36
Speaker 7: States and Israel, that certainly adds to these pressures. And
35:40
Speaker 7: so I think all these causes are also part of it.
35:45
Speaker 7: And some of those we see in other countries as well. So, yeah,
35:48
Speaker 7: I think it's absolutely fair to say that the Iranian
35:51
Speaker 7: war is part of the problem here.
35:52
Speaker 6: Macron himself mentioned it in his speech. He's talked about
35:55
Speaker 6: it before.
35:56
Speaker 2: I was listening to Yanis Varoufakis this morning and his analysis,
36:01
Speaker 2: former Greek finance minister, and his view– and he's a
36:04
Speaker 2: militant supporter– His view is effectively that this isn't really
36:09
Speaker 2: Macron's fault, that there are some fundamental economic dynamics that
36:13
Speaker 2: make the French budget and the French economy fundamentally unsustainable
36:18
Speaker 2: as long as they are part of the euro. And,
36:21
Speaker 2: you know, neighboring Germany, you're going to this is going
36:23
Speaker 2: to lead to. capital outflow and budget deficits. What do
36:28
Speaker 2: you think of that view that there's an underlying structural
36:31
Speaker 2: issue here that no matter what Macron did within the
36:35
Speaker 2: current system, it wouldn't really solve the fundamental issues here
36:39
Speaker 2: without a kind of radical rethink of the economic system?
36:42
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see that interview and
36:44
Speaker 7: maybe talk to Yanis Varoufakis myself. But yeah, I mean,
36:47
Speaker 7: I think, you know, look, I mean, in France, there
36:50
Speaker 7: are very clear political decisions that I think most of
36:53
Speaker 7: the French people political class, most of the French population
36:56
Speaker 7: understands that haven't been taken by Macron. We can go
36:59
Speaker 7: kind of look at his record. For example, today, if
37:03
Speaker 7: Macron wanted to, he could announce, the government wanted to,
37:08
Speaker 7: they could announce more investment in public education. The public
37:12
Speaker 7: spending in education has dropped from over 7.6 GDP in
37:16
Speaker 7: 1997 to 6.8% today. So if you have a drop
37:19
Speaker 7: in spending on public education, the government could also decide
37:22
Speaker 7: if they wanted to to impose higher taxes on the
37:28
Speaker 7: ultra-rich to maybe buttress France's spending or France's budget problems,
37:33
Speaker 7: which are very real, shouldn't neglect them. There's the famous
37:37
Speaker 7: proposal from Gabriel Zucman, the French economist, who I know
37:40
Speaker 7: spends a lot of time in the United.
37:41
Speaker 6: States as well.
37:42
Speaker 7: He's called for a wealth tax targeting the top 2%, sorry,
37:48
Speaker 7: even the smaller portion, excuse me, of the French ultra-rich population.
37:51
Speaker 7: to having them contribute more. But the French government is
37:54
Speaker 7: unwilling to make those kinds of concessions. And there's also
38:02
Speaker 7: a deeper democratic problem. That's one point I'll add that
38:04
Speaker 7: maybe Yanis Varoufakis probably didn't mention, which is we had
38:07
Speaker 7: this deeper democratic crisis in France. And without sort of
38:11
Speaker 7: suggesting that there aren't structural economic problems, I think it's
38:14
Speaker 7: important to recognize just from the French perspective, there's a
38:17
Speaker 7: deeper democratic problem here, which is that Macron was elected
38:20
Speaker 7: twice basically because a majority of people were opposed to
38:25
Speaker 7: the far right winning. He did not have a big
38:27
Speaker 7: popular mandate, and he has refused to make concessions on
38:31
Speaker 7: many of his proposals. I'll give you just one final
38:33
Speaker 7: example really quickly. After the legislative elections that we saw
38:37
Speaker 7: in 2024, so Macron called snap elections, used his power
38:41
Speaker 7: and the French constitution to dissolve the National Assembly. You
38:44
Speaker 7: had elections, you had a left-wing coalition that won a
38:48
Speaker 7: plurality of seats, not a majority, but a plurality, And
38:51
Speaker 7: instead of nominating a prime minister from the camp that
38:54
Speaker 7: won the most seats in the National Assembly, Macron said,
38:57
Speaker 7: I'm going to prefer to have a center-right, right-wing prime
39:01
Speaker 7: minister that I'm going to name. And I think that
39:03
Speaker 7: this is, again, it's part of this just democratic frustration.
39:07
Speaker 7: So yeah, we can talk about the broader economic issues,
39:09
Speaker 7: but there's also a sense that this government has been
39:11
Speaker 7: unwilling to adjust its strategy in face of popular men
39:16
Speaker 7: on issue after issue.
39:18
Speaker 3: Last thing for you, Cole, we just had this piece
39:20
Speaker 3: published by the New York Times. The headline is, France's
39:22
Speaker 3: far right seizes the moment as rioting stuns the country.
39:25
Speaker 3: The national rally already ahead in the polls presented itself
39:28
Speaker 3: as the party best place to restore law and order.
39:31
Speaker 1: So I had seen a lot of takes in the U.S.
39:33
Speaker 1: They said, oh, this is how you get Le Pen elected.
39:35
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, you know, she's been leading in the
39:37
Speaker 3: polls already, so it probably is only more helpful to
39:41
Speaker 3: her candidacy. Why don't you talk through, you know, her
39:45
Speaker 3: chances in the upcoming election? six months from now? What's
39:49
Speaker 3: been her message throughout this? And what are the broader
39:52
Speaker 3: structural reasons as to why she was already popular going
39:55
Speaker 3: into this?
39:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, it's a huge issue. And you're right.
39:59
Speaker 6: She was, I completely agree.
40:00
Speaker 7: She was already popular before this crisis. And it's a
40:04
Speaker 7: huge conversation that it's hard to do in just a
40:06
Speaker 7: few minutes. But I think there's a lot of factors.
40:10
Speaker 7: I mean, let's talk for one. She's done a good job,
40:13
Speaker 7: I think, of You know, they call it demonization. So
40:17
Speaker 7: trying to tone down, I think, the more radical rhetoric
40:21
Speaker 7: of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who's a Holocaust denier
40:24
Speaker 7: convicted in French court as such. Le Pen is surrounded
40:28
Speaker 7: by far right radicals, including Jordan Bardella, who was was
40:32
Speaker 7: found recently to, according to Mediapart, French investigative outlet, to
40:36
Speaker 7: be making anti-Semitic statements.
40:40
Speaker 6: Comments on the internet.
40:41
Speaker 7: But regardless of the reality, they've done a good job
40:44
Speaker 7: of changing the image of the party, of making over
40:46
Speaker 7: the image, adjusting the rhetoric publicly. You know, that's helped.
40:51
Speaker 7: Part of it has been, you know, their obsession with
40:54
Speaker 7: the questions of, right, security. They have security and immigration.
40:59
Speaker 7: They're far-right nativists, which is that, you know, when there
41:01
Speaker 7: are complex social and economic problems. They do what President
41:05
Speaker 7: Trump does and basically link these complex social problems to immigration.
41:10
Speaker 7: It's a very simplified nativist way of thinking about politics,
41:15
Speaker 7: but that's what they do.
41:16
Speaker 6: They do it very well. Part of it also has
41:20
Speaker 6: been the government.
41:22
Speaker 7: And the Maconas camp, I think, legitimizing a lot of
41:25
Speaker 7: their talking points. There was, for instance, on immigration, Macron's
41:31
Speaker 7: own party has passed quite aggressive legislation cracking down on immigration,
41:35
Speaker 7: including a bill that actually was cracking down on birthright
41:38
Speaker 7: citizenship in France. It was partially blocked by the French
41:42
Speaker 7: Constitutional Court. But nevertheless, after that bill, Marine Le Pen
41:45
Speaker 7: said it was an ideological victory for her party. So
41:48
Speaker 7: you have Macronists that have been legitimizing these points. Another
41:51
Speaker 7: huge problem. point if you're in France, is the role
41:55
Speaker 7: of the media. We have a very aggressive conservative media
41:59
Speaker 7: landscape that has really, I think, flourished in the last
42:02
Speaker 7: several years, thanks in large part to Vincent Baudouin, who
42:05
Speaker 7: is a ultra-conservative billionaire who's bought up major media networks.
42:10
Speaker 7: We have CNews Network in France, which is basically the
42:13
Speaker 7: Fox News equivalent. He's bought up radio stations, newspapers. The
42:17
Speaker 7: media discourse has shifted. The Macronists have adopted the talking
42:20
Speaker 7: points And, you know, from my perspective, it's also, I think,
42:23
Speaker 7: a failure of the left to offer a compelling alternative.
42:29
Speaker 7: Some of this might sound familiar to people in the
42:30
Speaker 7: United States. You know, the left in France has struggled to,
42:34
Speaker 7: on one level, unite, but I think almost more importantly,
42:39
Speaker 7: to just offer a clear and coherent counter narrative to this.
42:43
Speaker 7: And they've been struggling a lot in the polls. And
42:44
Speaker 7: that's why that's what we see in those polls. A
42:46
Speaker 7: lot could happen between now and the elections.
42:48
Speaker 6: But you're right.
42:48
Speaker 7: For now, it looks like Marine Le Pen is the
42:51
Speaker 7: favorite at this point as we're talking in October 2026.
42:53
Speaker 2: Well, the new podcast is What Do We Want? You
42:57
Speaker 2: said it's in English and French. And, Cole, we really
43:00
Speaker 2: appreciate you taking the time to break some of these
43:01
Speaker 2: issues down for us this morning.
43:03
Speaker 1: Thanks, Cole.
43:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for having me.
43:04
Speaker 1: I might fight with you a bit more, but it's OK.
43:07
Speaker 1: We appreciate your time, brother.
43:09
Speaker 4: Thank you.
43:10
Speaker 6: Thank you.
43:11
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.
43:13
Speaker 1: We're about to do the AMA, so we'll see you then.