Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/14/26: Mike Rogers Wild Corruption, Trump Raids Ilhan Omar, CPI Report Inflation Surges

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10/14/26: Mike Rogers Wild Corruption, Trump Raids Ilhan Omar, CPI Report Inflation Surges · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: We have a new story over at Dropsite with Michigan
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: journalist Nancy Skinner that looks at the sordid way that
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers and his second wife, Christy Rogers, made their fortune.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So in 2000, Mike Rogers is elected to Congress. Now,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: according to his papers that are filed with the University
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of Oakland, he made seven trips between 2001 and 2005
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: to Iraq. Now, on Codels, I don't actually believe that.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I think that is an exaggeration. In any event, he
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: seems to have traveled to Iraq somewhat frequently. In 2005,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: he's named to the House Intelligence Committee. Now, at the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: time Mike Rogers was married, but the spokesperson then for L.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Paul Bremer, who ran the Coalition Provisional Authority, was a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: woman by the name of Christy Clemons. So in 2007...
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: He gets a Mike Rogers gets a divorce from his
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: wife in 2010. He marries Christy Clemons Christy Rogers. All right,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: we can put up D2 on the screen here. Here
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: is the personal wealth of the Rogers family which and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: what you notice if you look really closely at the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: personal financial disclosures that after his divorce in 2007 Rogers
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: pretty much broke divorce is very expensive and within several
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: years the wealth of the family kind of skyrockets. After
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: he leaves, and we can get into this in a moment,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: in 2015, it surges much further. But you can trace
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the rise of this wealth to the rise of Christy
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Rogers through the world of security contracting, which was extraordinarily
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: lucrative in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya at the time. And
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: so in 2006... When following her role in Iraq, she
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: successfully pitched the major British security contractor Aegis Defense Services
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to launch an American offshoot. Rogers and his wife rose
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: in tandem from there. By her own account in Washington Exec,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Christy Clemons in 2006 made the pitch to start the U.S.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: branch of Aegis Defense Limited to the company's board. The
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: company made her executive vice president, then president in 2008,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: chief executive in 2009, president in 2010, and then added
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: vice chairman in 2011. So Rogers, as I said, divorced
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: his wife of 17 years in 2007 and married her
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: in 2010. So by 2011, when Mike Rogers assumed his chairmanship,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: she was vice chair of Aegis LLC US. So Here
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: are his financial disclosures for 2011 through 2014. You see
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: that he is required to disclose that she's at ages,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: but when it comes to spouse salary, he's allowed to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: put an A there. But the way you can track
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: some of the wealth is by looking at what they
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: call unearned income, because the money has to go somewhere.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: They also added a couple of mortgages throughout this time
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: as well. So in 2010... Aegis was named one of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: only eight private military contractors who were qualified to bid
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: on $ 10 billion worth of contracts for the State Department's
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Worldwide Protection Program. The biggest fish, the Kabul Afghanistan Embassy
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: security contract, first went to another firm, but was re-competed
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and awarded to Aegis. Christy Rogers claimed credit for this
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in a biography later scrubbed from a law firm website,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: which stated that she led, quote, a two-year pursuit and
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: capture strategy to win a five-year, $ 10 billion contract, unquote.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers was appointed chairman on January 3rd, 2011. The
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: contract was awarded to Aegis seven months later, on July 29th, 2011. Now,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: under Aegis' ostensible oversight, Blackwater contractors were involved in the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: 2007 Nisour Square massacre, in which 17 innocent Iraqi civilians
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: were killed. In 2005, Aegis drew international attention, we can
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: put this up, when one of their gunmen posted a
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: video of their vehicle wildly shooting at civilian vehicles en
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: route from the Green Zone to the airport set to
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the Elvis Song mystery train. At least one civilian was
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: reported killed. None of it stopped the company's rise. Aegis
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was awarded the Armed Contractor Oversight Directorate, or ACOD, contract
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: in 2009 for Afghanistan, which oversees contractors. That produced a
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: glaring conflict of interest, overseeing other contractors while also bidding
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: against them. And one former ACOD whistleblower ordered what's called a, quote,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: cure notice, effectively calling out a conflict of interest and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: demanding that it be fixed. A congressional commission set up
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to root out waste and fraud in wartime contracting called
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Christy Rogers to testify, but she begged off, citing her
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: honeymoon in spring 2010. One commissioner at the hearing noted
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that he understood that her board had advised her not
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: to attend. That summer, June 21st, 2010, she did show
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: up and testified as AGES's president and was grilled by
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Commissioner Charles Teefer.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Your personnel currently operate the CONOC in Iraq.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Am I right?
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: We support it, yes.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Ms.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Rogers, much as I recognize that you had many things
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: going on in your life, There were questions that I
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: had time to come up with because you didn't testify
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the first time. One is that an account which recently
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: appeared in the Huffington Post called Aegis' Charm Offensive. Are
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: you smiling because you're familiar with it or just the title?
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Just the title.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: I am vaguely familiar with it, yes, sir.
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: It says that a corrective action request was considered regarding Aegis.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Do you have any knowledge of that?
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: I do believe the individual whose email the author was
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: just reprinting was a U.S. military individual who was actually disgruntled,
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: if I may say so, was part of the ACOD.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: I think it was referring to that and that cure
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: notice that was submitted And the quote was, it was
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: at the convenience of the government. It had nothing to
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: do with Aegis' performance.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: What did the cure notice require of you?
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: The cure notice said that we're going to terminate the
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: ACAD support contract at the convenience of the government. This
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: was last June.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: So despite the scandals, 20 months later, Aegis landed that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: $ 1. 017 billion contract to secure the Kabul Afghanistan embassy. The
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: pursuit of further contracts took Aegis to Libya, where NATO
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: intervention had produced widespread violence with the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Aegis had an intelligence arm called Aegis Advisory Services in Libya,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: with a large team in Tripoli that boasted of top
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: security clearance status and clients which included the world's elite
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: private intelligence group, Stratfor. Now, in September 2012, a U.S.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: compound in Benghazi was sacked.
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: A group of heavily armed militants, approximately two dozen of them,
• 7:25
  Speaker 6: launched an attack firing rocket-propelled grenades.
• 7:28
  Speaker 7: The attack in Libya appears to be a very coordinated
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: military-style attack. This was not a demonstration gone bad.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: This was a clear, targeted, planned event.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Four Americans were killed, two private contractors, the U.S. ambassador
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: to Libya, and a State Department official. Republicans spent years
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: investigating the situation, targeting both Obama and then Secretary of
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: State Hillary Clinton, but many Republicans at the time were
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: frustrated by the man you just saw, Mike Rogers. In 2014,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the conservative group Judicial Watch, relying in part on documents
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: published by WikiLeaks, found that Aegis had been heavily active
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: in Libya since early 2011 and that it had assessed
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Benghazi in the summer before the attack. Judicial Watch's Micah
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Morrison was unsparing in its criticism of Rogers in a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: report headlined, Unraveling Benghazi, is Mike Rogers part of the problem?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: And they write, sussing out the White House's response to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Benghazi is a critical step in clearing the shadows from
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the incident. But there are other players in the drama
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: as well, including Representative Rogers and possibly also including a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: private military contracting firm that until recently was run by
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: his wife, Christy Rogers. Mike and Christy Rogers are quintessential
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Washington insiders. A seven-term Republican from Michigan, Mike Rogers climbed
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the political ladder to become chairman of the Intelligence Committee
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in January 2011. Christie, after years of government service in
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: mid-level administrative positions, moved to the private sector, joining the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: British-based security contractor Aegis Defense Services to help open its U.S. subsidiary.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: The newsletter Intelligence Online noted that thanks to Ms. Rogers' efforts, quote,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Aegis won several major contracts with the U.S. administration. A
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: spokesperson for the House Intelligence Committee noted that, quote, strictly
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: observed and enforced policies required that there should be no
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: interaction with Mrs. Rogers on any matter relating to the
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: official business of the House. End quote. No interaction between
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the committee and any representative of AGES. Now, there is no,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: they write, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Representative
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Rogers or AGES. Indeed, the outlines of the story are
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: more suggestive of right doing Washington style and insiders game.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: covert operations and corporate profits played out in the gray
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: areas of law and policy. So that spring, Rogers announced
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: he would not be running for re-election and his wife
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: left AGES. Rogers went into corporate and cybersecurity work and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: was floated as CIA director in the first Trump administration,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: leading right-wing pollster and operative Dick Morris, who had questioned
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers' oversight of Benghazi, wanted to make sure that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: conservatives never forgot about his work. Rogers had fought the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: formation of a special committee to investigate it, and conservatives
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: believed he was slow-walking the probe to protect his wife's company.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Morris wrote, The first to go, and most deserving, is
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: former Congressman and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers. Slated,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: some say, to be the new director of the CIA,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Rogers was a key force in obstructing and delaying the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Benghazi investigation in order to shield his wife, Christy, from scrutiny.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: This is 2017, when Trump was president. Morris went on,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Aegis had won several major contracts, likely through Mrs. Rogers'
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: influence as the wife of the House Intel Committee. Although
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: not directly responsible for security at Benghazi, her firm had
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: significant responsibilities in the area, unquote. The late Senator Lindsey
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Graham called the Mike Rogers report on Benghazi, quote, full
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: of crap, while former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova went on
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: WMAL radio in D.C. during the hearings in March 2014
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and ripped into Rogers. Let's listen to some of that.
• 11:14
  Speaker 7: The future greatest president in the United States, Hillary Clinton,
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: and Benghazi should be on the agenda. It was barely
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: on the agenda, or did I miss something?
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Well, the problem here is that the Republicans on the Hill,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: who should have been investigating this properly, have not been
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: investigating it properly. And that has seeped into the body politic,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: and Republicans disgracefully have lowered the heat on this. But
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: it's not going to go away no matter what Mike Rogers,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other people think.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Rogers has been an obstructionist. This is one of the
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: most disgraceful performances by a Republican in the last 25 years.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: He has downplayed it. Mike Rogers has actually talked to
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: press people. privately and told them that Benghazi is not
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: a scandal and they should not be reporting it. This
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: is all.
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now, what what?
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: Hold on.
• 12:05
  Speaker 7: The chairman of the committee overseeing the investigation into Benghazi
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: has off the record told people in the press that
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: that this is not a scandal?
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: That is correct, and I have talked to reporters to
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: whom he has spoken. And I'm going to tell you something.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Mike Rogers is a very interesting fellow. He's very smart.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: He's a former FBI agent. You know, he wanted desperately
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: to be the director of the FBI, so he made nuzzle-nose,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: rubby-cheek with the Obama administration. He has tried to kill Benghazi.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: So about two and a half weeks after that savaging,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that's when Rogers announced that he wouldn't be running for reelection. Now,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: after his years spent regulating the surveillance industry as chair
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of the Intelligence Committee, Rogers began working with multiple cybersecurity
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: companies and the couple's net worth surged even higher. So, Emily,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: this hasn't gotten any attention in the in the Michigan
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Senate election yet because somehow that's we covered his work
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: on opioids. Abdul El-Sayed has hammered him for going through
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the revolving door and working for these cyber firms after
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: being Intel chair. But the role he played on the
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Benghazi hearing and the way that his family got super
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: rich while he was chair of the Intel committee and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: his wife was running the U.S. firm, getting the money.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 13:28
  Speaker 8: It's normal Washington stuff.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: But it's on steroids.
• 13:31
  Speaker 8: But it's on steroids. And it's especially crazy that it
• 13:34
  Speaker 8: involves Benghazi. Which you saw Joe DeGeneva and then Larry
• 13:39
  Speaker 8: O'Connor in that interview getting to what the right totally
• 13:45
  Speaker 8: started understanding and then completely gave up on after Trump
• 13:48
  Speaker 8: came back into office. But like the CIA is not
• 13:50
  Speaker 8: your friend. at all, like you seem to be. Or
• 13:54
  Speaker 8: the right has generally been so differential to the CIA
• 13:57
  Speaker 8: because of Cold War fault lines. But like, not your friend. Like,
• 14:01
  Speaker 8: Mike Rogers, probably on the same side as Hillary Clinton
• 14:04
  Speaker 8: when it comes down to something like uniparty behavior. It's
• 14:06
  Speaker 8: just uniparty behavior. Yeah.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Abdul Al-Sayed posted this story, called it stunning, calling him
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: out for deep state corruption.
• 14:16
  Speaker 8: Which, by the way, you remember Tucker and Sager having
• 14:20
  Speaker 8: their conversation about Mike Rogers that went very viral and
• 14:23
  Speaker 8: about Abdu'l-Sayed running what appeared to be more of an
• 14:26
  Speaker 8: America First campaign than what Mike Rogers could ever pull off.
• 14:29
  Speaker 8: This Abdu'l-Sayed tweet about your story very much plays into that.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Now, Mike Rogers' response, Abby Ronson, the spokesperson for the campaign,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: tells me, quote, The accusation that Mike used his position
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: in Congress to protect his family in any way, shape
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: or form is patently false. If you want to talk
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: about families, let's talk about Abdul El-Sayed's father-in-law serving on
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the board of CARE while funding his Senate race. Abdul
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: is alarmingly close to designated terrorist organizations and Michigan must
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: be protected from him at all costs. That last line,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Michigan must be protected from him at all costs, that's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit over the top. How about you can
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: vote against him? You can vote against him, yeah.
• 15:14
  Speaker 8: But they're sort of desperate right now, obviously.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, they have leaned very hard into this. So they're going,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and there's a debate tomorrow. The Rogers campaign is leaning
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: extremely hard into this, accusing his family of being tied
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to the Muslim blood, which... He's from Egypt.
• 15:32
  Speaker 8: And his sister did post on X that her family
• 15:34
  Speaker 8: in Egypt is Muslim. His half-sister posted that their family
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: is Muslim Brotherhood.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And that her mom, she had talked to her mom
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: about her work with the MBs in the 1970s. You know, frankly,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: it's like, it's interesting. It's like, it'd be like, it'd
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: be like, the context matters. Like in Egypt, it was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: an underground illegal opposition to the dictator.
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Um, and it, it spanned a huge political spectrum. Like
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: you could be either in the Muslim brother or supportive
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: of the Muslim brotherhood and you could be all over
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the map on, you know, where you were, what that means,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: what that, what that meant. It'd be sort of like,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and it's like also this, it's an Egyptian thing.
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: This is what I was just going to say. This
• 16:22
  Speaker 8: is really easy to explain. Like it was, it's not
• 16:25
  Speaker 8: easy reporting to connect all of these dots, but the
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: story is really simple. The Muslim Brotherhood connections, I read
• 16:32
  Speaker 8: the long Eric Erickson piece last night trying to track
• 16:35
  Speaker 8: down all of Abdullah Syed's Muslim Brotherhood connections. It is
• 16:40
  Speaker 8: very convoluted and it is not easily packaged whatsoever. So
• 16:45
  Speaker 8: it's going to be really tough for them to counter
• 16:48
  Speaker 8: stuff like this with that.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And what it means in the United States is almost zilch.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: It's like Abdullah is obviously a super American guy. like
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: he's like michigan he's like and it'd be sort of
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: like let's let's say you accuse like laguardia's father of
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: being in the italian communist party all right maybe he
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: was yeah but that's like an italian thing like and
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and what does that mean in the context of italian
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: politics in the 1900s like who knows and what does
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: that have to do with new york in the 1920s
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and 30s Nothing was speaking.
• 17:24
  Speaker 8: I mean, Andrew Cuomo rolled all of this out and
• 17:27
  Speaker 8: thought for sure that it would be enough to take
• 17:28
  Speaker 8: down Zohra Mamdani. He had it in the bag even
• 17:32
  Speaker 8: after the primary because he was drawing all of these
• 17:34
  Speaker 8: kind of convoluted family connections.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Or the imam, the blind sheikh and all this.
• 17:40
  Speaker 8: And his dad and all of that. And it just
• 17:44
  Speaker 8: when especially when gas is four dollars a gallon and
• 17:46
  Speaker 8: you look like you're a representative of the establishment. you
• 17:50
  Speaker 8: really can't be relying on this stuff. It's just not
• 17:52
  Speaker 8: going to be strong enough, especially when it's that convoluted.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: It's 2026. This is like 2004 stuff.
• 17:59
  Speaker 8: Even then, if gas was this expensive. Yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw an amazing chart that had polls for
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Democrats in Congress that just completely mapped gas prices, like
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a one-to-one correlation.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: It's brutal.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: It's brutal. Anyway, can't wait for the debate. It's going
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to be fun.
• 18:19
  Speaker 8: It's going to be another fun one.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: We'll talk about it Friday morning when we're back on.
• 18:23
  Speaker 8: Let's get to the next block. You'll be able to
• 18:27
  Speaker 8: see this on your screen in just a moment. We
• 18:29
  Speaker 8: can put this video feed up. If you haven't seen
• 18:30
  Speaker 8: it yet, this is footage of the Department of Homeland
• 18:33
  Speaker 8: Security raiding Ilhan Omar's Washington, D.C. home earlier this week.
• 18:40
  Speaker 8: This is over alleged immigration fraud. A judge did sign
• 18:43
  Speaker 8: off on the warrant, which some are reading into saying
• 18:47
  Speaker 8: that must mean that it's serious. It's a Democrat judge.
• 18:50
  Speaker 8: It's not a Republican judge. Make of that what you will.
• 18:54
  Speaker 8: Ilhan Omar has responded by saying, I'm OK. Make no mistake.
• 18:57
  Speaker 8: This is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize
• 19:00
  Speaker 8: federal law enforcement and For 10 years, Trump has targeted
• 19:02
  Speaker 8: me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just
• 19:05
  Speaker 8: the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. Donald
• 19:11
  Speaker 8: Trump has said, quote, she comes from Somalia and he
• 19:14
  Speaker 8: always says it's Somalia. She comes into our country and
• 19:16
  Speaker 8: she says my constitution allows me. She's talking about our constitution,
• 19:19
  Speaker 8: what they've done to Minnesota. These people from Somalia, what
• 19:22
  Speaker 8: they've done to Minnesota should never be allowed. And let's
• 19:25
  Speaker 8: see what happens in a true social post. This is E4.
• 19:28
  Speaker 8: He said the once great state of Minnesota is being
• 19:30
  Speaker 8: taken over by Somali immigrants. There is violence, murder and
• 19:32
  Speaker 8: mayhem all over the state. the people of Minnesota must
• 19:37
  Speaker 8: fight back. Now, we're actually still trying to figure out
• 19:40
  Speaker 8: what the raid was precisely about, because all kinds of
• 19:43
  Speaker 8: questions have swirled, as any viewer of this likely knows,
• 19:46
  Speaker 8: around Ilhan Omar for many years. There's the question of
• 19:51
  Speaker 8: at least one of her marriages to Elmi. People say
• 19:54
  Speaker 8: this actually started in Somali blogs back years ago, that
• 19:59
  Speaker 8: he was actually being introduced around town as her brother.
• 20:03
  Speaker 8: They did get divorced, and it's all like a— we can
• 20:07
  Speaker 8: get into that another time because actually.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: What we're learning— And this doesn't have anything to do
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: with that, right?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah.
• 20:10
  Speaker 8: So what we're learning now is this appears to have
• 20:12
  Speaker 8: nothing to do with that. That is probably— I would say, Ryan,
• 20:14
  Speaker 8: I don't know if you agree with this, but I
• 20:15
  Speaker 8: feel like probably the biggest, most consistent attack on Ilhan
• 20:18
  Speaker 8: Omar's background is the marriage question, but this appears to
• 20:21
  Speaker 8: have nothing to do with that. So E5, this is
• 20:24
  Speaker 8: from the New York Post, and— They're now reporting the
• 20:29
  Speaker 8: raid on the home, quote, signifies law enforcement has already
• 20:32
  Speaker 8: amassed compelling evidence of criminal activity and are nearing the
• 20:35
  Speaker 8: end of a long investigation, according to a source to
• 20:38
  Speaker 8: the obviously conservative-leaning New York Post. This is one of
• 20:40
  Speaker 8: Trump's favorite papers. The most likely scenario, multiple people claimed,
• 20:44
  Speaker 8: and this is a report from some of their colleagues,
• 20:48
  Speaker 8: top reporters. So you're looking at the byline here. This is, again,
• 20:52
  Speaker 8: what are Trump's favorite papers? The most likely scenario multiple
• 20:54
  Speaker 8: people claimed is that immigration cops are looking into a
• 20:56
  Speaker 8: long floated rumor that Omar is actually one year older
• 20:59
  Speaker 8: than she has long claimed to be, a tiny detail
• 21:02
  Speaker 8: that may put her citizenship in jeopardy. Officials from DHS
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: raided the controversial Minnesota Congresswoman's Washington D.C. home early Monday morning,
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: removing boxes from the residence. So It doesn't look like
• 21:12
  Speaker 8: they took electronics. It does look like they took boxes. Obviously,
• 21:15
  Speaker 8: there could be electronics in the boxes, but they're fairly
• 21:17
  Speaker 8: small if you were watching the footage. One of the experts,
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: this is former Assistant U.S. Attorney General Fahey, talking in
• 21:24
  Speaker 8: the New York Post, says for a D.C. judge to
• 21:25
  Speaker 8: sign off on something that's 20 years old, you have
• 21:27
  Speaker 8: to say you believe there's current evidence of the crime
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: in her house. A judge must have been very convinced.
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: Going to get to some of these New York Post details.
• 21:35
  Speaker 8: Bear with me. While feds have kept a tight lip
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: on what they're expecting to find at the Omar residence,
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: one source who requested anonymity suggested it might relate to
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: longstanding unverified claims that Omar misrepresented her age to get citizenship.
• 21:49
  Speaker 8: And here are some of the details of why that
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: would matter for legal purposes. Omar claims she received automatic U.S.
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: citizenship in 2000 at age 17. which is granted to
• 21:58
  Speaker 8: minor age children of naturalized parents. So in this case,
• 22:01
  Speaker 8: that would be her father, Noor Saeed Mohammed Elmi, fled
• 22:05
  Speaker 8: the U.S. in 95 from, at that time, war-torn Somalia.
• 22:09
  Speaker 8: In 2019, concerned citizen, this is how they identify this woman, A.J.
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: Kern.
• 22:13
  Speaker 8: I believe A.J. Kern actually ran against Ilhan Omar. So
• 22:16
  Speaker 8: not exactly just a concerned citizen, but she did a
• 22:19
  Speaker 8: video calling attention to Omar actually being 18 or 19
• 22:23
  Speaker 8: in the year 2000, according to state documents at that time.
• 22:27
  Speaker 8: If Omar was actually older than 17 at the time,
• 22:29
  Speaker 8: she would have been ineligible for citizenship via the parent route.
• 22:32
  Speaker 8: So that's why this is particularly important. Now, you may say,
• 22:36
  Speaker 8: what does that matter? That's been that's a long time
• 22:38
  Speaker 8: in the past, could have been from the parents. Well,
• 22:41
  Speaker 8: the working theory is that if Omar herself was misrepresenting
• 22:45
  Speaker 8: her birthday, knowingly misrepresenting her birthday on government documents in
• 22:49
  Speaker 8: the last several years, that's how you could get beyond
• 22:53
  Speaker 8: a statute of limitations. So two days after Kern released
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: a viral video about Omar's alleged real age, Omar's official
• 22:59
  Speaker 8: birth year on the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library's website was
• 23:02
  Speaker 8: revised from 1981 to 1982. We now know that Ilhan
• 23:06
  Speaker 8: Omar's staff said that they were behind that. Quote, one
• 23:09
  Speaker 8: source confirmed to the New York Post that naturalization fraud
• 23:12
  Speaker 8: has a 10-year statute of limitations, but if Omar had
• 23:14
  Speaker 8: continued using the fake birthday on things like passport renewals
• 23:17
  Speaker 8: or bank loan applications... Then the statute of limitations resets. Cops,
• 23:20
  Speaker 8: the source said, could be looking for exactly that sort
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: of documentation. When they raided the rep's home, Omar has
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: never publicly produced a birth certificate claiming such paperwork. And
• 23:28
  Speaker 8: this is a very credible claim, obviously. Claiming such paperwork
• 23:31
  Speaker 8: was destroyed during the turmoil in her native country, which
• 23:34
  Speaker 8: is often the case. Multiple sources agreed that DHS isn't
• 23:37
  Speaker 8: looking into that marriage. That source is talking to New
• 23:41
  Speaker 8: York Post, saying it's probably not about the marriage, but
• 23:44
  Speaker 8: the statute of limitations for marriage fraud ran out five
• 23:47
  Speaker 8: years after the couple divorced in 2017. So that's some
• 23:51
  Speaker 8: details from the New York Post's reporting. They did a follow-up.
• 23:55
  Speaker 8: We can put the next element up on the screen
• 23:57
  Speaker 8: last night that did say her staff got her birthday
• 24:03
  Speaker 8: changed officially after she was elected to Congress. And finally,
• 24:07
  Speaker 8: let's put this up from a conservative attorney who said,
• 24:12
  Speaker 8: his name is David Stockman, who said, no, we have
• 24:15
  Speaker 8: no sympathy in any way, shape, or form for the
• 24:17
  Speaker 8: socialist left-wing nonsense that Representative Ilhan Omar peddles day in
• 24:20
  Speaker 8: and day out on Capitol Hill, but went on to
• 24:23
  Speaker 8: say the pre-dawn raid on her home early this morning
• 24:25
  Speaker 8: represents Trumpian political grandstanding and weaponization of the machinery of
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: justice ever but as despicable as what happened under Joe Biden.
• 24:32
  Speaker 8: So not everybody on the right, Ryan, is convinced that
• 24:35
  Speaker 8: this is a fair investigation into the Ilhan Omar Stockman
• 24:39
  Speaker 8: goes on to say there is no serious public interest
• 24:42
  Speaker 8: justification for a judicially authorized search of a sitting House
• 24:45
  Speaker 8: member's home in October of an election year in order
• 24:46
  Speaker 8: to test whether her mother died in the mid 80s
• 24:48
  Speaker 8: or whether birth year listed in official records is accurate.
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: He's wrong about that being the focus of the investigation.
• 24:55
  Speaker 8: I will say I think the question of whether her
• 24:58
  Speaker 8: staff was directed to change her birth date is going
• 25:02
  Speaker 8: to be a serious problem for her if they have evidence.
• 25:04
  Speaker 8: That's what happened. I would assume that getting a judge
• 25:08
  Speaker 8: to sign off on it, a Democrat judge to sign
• 25:11
  Speaker 8: off on it means they've got something. I don't know
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: what it is, but I actually think his analysis is
• 25:17
  Speaker 8: based on something that this doesn't appear to be about,
• 25:21
  Speaker 8: because if she was in recent years misrepresenting, knowingly misrepresenting
• 25:24
  Speaker 8: her birth date, that's a problem for her. Now, it
• 25:28
  Speaker 8: is a distraction. It is absolutely the weaponization of the
• 25:32
  Speaker 8: federal government. She is completely correct about all of that.
• 25:35
  Speaker 8: And it's definitely not going to convince any voters to
• 25:38
  Speaker 8: come out and show up for Donald Trump. They're trying
• 25:41
  Speaker 8: to mobilize. This is why Trump is doing rallies all
• 25:43
  Speaker 8: over the country. They're trying to mobilize MAGA voters who
• 25:45
  Speaker 8: are disillusioned. That's not going to do it. It's obviously
• 25:49
  Speaker 8: not going to do it. I genuinely think there are
• 25:51
  Speaker 8: serious problems for her.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Although, how would she know? Nobody knows anything. The only
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: way you know when you were born is because you're
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: told by your parents and other people and you have
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: documents that attest to it. Nobody remembers on their own.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I thought that Stockman made a number of decent points.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: If there was a mistake on her birth certificate that
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: was to her citizenship benefit, it was her father that
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: made the mistake. Her father's been dead for 26 years.
• 26:18
  Speaker 8: But if she knew that her father intentionally, if they
• 26:20
  Speaker 8: knew at the time, if they were saying Ilhan, because
• 26:22
  Speaker 8: she wasn't like five, she was 17.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Or 18 or 19. He also made the point that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: if she didn't do that, she still would have been
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: eligible for citizenship.
• 26:31
  Speaker 8: She would have within five years.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: A couple years later.
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: A hundred percent.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's like, what, what's the stink about? And
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: the stink is about they don't like her politics. They
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: don't like that she was elected to Congress. They don't
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: like that she goes after Trump. They don't like her race.
• 26:50
  Speaker 8: I mean, part of it is they don't like that
• 26:52
  Speaker 8: she supported the weaponization of the government against Trump, which
• 26:55
  Speaker 8: not all of it was weaponized. Some of it was.
• 26:58
  Speaker 8: And so they're like, well, taste.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Your own medicine.
• 27:02
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: It's just funny to see the Trump administration try to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: prosecute anybody. Like, it's the most brazenly criminal band of
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: thugs to run an administration in the history. Like, Grant's team,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Nixon's team, like, across the board, they'd be, like, shocked
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: at what the Trump team is trying to get away
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: with criminally. And then they'd be like, oh, yeah, we
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: want to see your dad's immigration paperwork. from 2000. Like, yeah. Okay.
• 27:38
  Speaker 8: I mean, I think part of this is that people, well, yeah.
• 27:43
  Speaker 8: So I think part of it is that the reason
• 27:44
  Speaker 8: MAGA is disillusioned with Trump is in some cases, and
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: not all, obviously there's like a hardened MAGA core that
• 27:50
  Speaker 8: is standing by him a hundred percent, thinks the Iran
• 27:52
  Speaker 8: war is great. They're a tiny minority in the country,
• 27:54
  Speaker 8: but it's a not insignificant chunk of the Republican party. And,
• 27:58
  Speaker 8: but why they've like, some voters have peeled away from
• 28:01
  Speaker 8: them is because of all of the crimes, because of
• 28:04
  Speaker 8: all the corruption. So if this is supposed to mobilize
• 28:07
  Speaker 8: and energize those voters ahead of the election, it's obviously
• 28:12
  Speaker 8: not going to cut it. So I agree on that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 8: We'll probably disagree on the seriousness. Now, I'm not saying
• 28:17
  Speaker 8: that it's the most serious offense against the United States.
• 28:22
  Speaker 8: It's nowhere near what Trump is accused of and what
• 28:24
  Speaker 8: we know that Trump has done with his meme coins
• 28:26
  Speaker 8: and all of that stuff. I think she does have
• 28:28
  Speaker 8: a legal problem if she was part of a conversation
• 28:31
  Speaker 8: with her family that's like, we're going to say you
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: were born in 1981 or 82. You're actually 18 or
• 28:38
  Speaker 8: you're actually 19. We're doing this. It's going to get
• 28:41
  Speaker 8: you citizenship five years faster. And she was knowingly part
• 28:44
  Speaker 8: of that and then was knowingly had her staff change
• 28:46
  Speaker 8: the actual date within the last 10 years and then
• 28:48
  Speaker 8: was knowingly put it in on her own documents just
• 28:50
  Speaker 8: to avoid legal problems. You're right. She would have been
• 28:54
  Speaker 8: a citizen within five years. That's what most people say
• 28:56
  Speaker 8: is the normal path to citizenship when your parents are naturalized.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: The real question is, did her dad ever get her
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: into a Minneapolis movie theater as a child? Tell them
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you're 12.
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: Got the free ticket, the discount ticket.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Got the kid's ticket. This is what we need the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Department of Justice to probe. And they can get to
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the bottom of this.
• 29:16
  Speaker 8: No one's above the law, as she said.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You know who else said that? Speaker Mike Johnson was
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: asked about this. Let's roll this clip.
• 29:24
  Speaker 8: Are you concerned that it looks too political if the
• 29:28
  Speaker 8: Justice Department allows this to happen right before an election?
• 29:32
  Speaker 6: Well, I was informed after it happened. Look, no one
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: is above the law in our system. And apparently this
• 29:37
  Speaker 6: was a long series, a long investigation. They had to
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: go to a grand jury, of course. You had to
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: get an independent federal judge to sign off on that.
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: And they thought that the evidence merited the search warrant.
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: So we have to reserve judgment and let the system
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: play out as it does. Maybe the timing is unfortunate
• 29:53
  Speaker 6: for her or others, but this is the legal system
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: and it operates independently of the political system. So we
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: do our jobs and we let the people decide.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Nobody is above the law, except I would edit that
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to everyone in the Trump administration, except for maybe Kimberly
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Guilfoyle is above the law.
• 30:10
  Speaker 8: But this is why they can't make this argument. And
• 30:11
  Speaker 8: even as we were recording, yeah, like it's utterly ridiculous.
• 30:14
  Speaker 8: It falls on its face. And because the Trump crimes
• 30:17
  Speaker 8: are so high profile, they're pissing off even people on
• 30:19
  Speaker 8: the right. It's just facially ridiculous for them to come
• 30:22
  Speaker 8: out and make this argument. And it doesn't land. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 8: even the politics of this are not going to work
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: out in the way that they think they're going to
• 30:27
  Speaker 8: work out for them. It is Yes, like bloodlust, like
• 30:31
  Speaker 8: political bloodlust. Just they're trying to satisfy that.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: You know what somebody else pointed out to me? They're like,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: did Guilfoyle learn this trick from Kavanaugh? Remember how he
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: got all that stuff paid off?
• 30:43
  Speaker 8: Kavanaugh or was it?
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Or was it Roberts? Who was it? You might be
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: talking about Clarence Thomas. No, I think it was Kavanaugh
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: that had all these like credit card debt and like
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: a bunch of baseball. He said it was baseball tickets. No,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas was flagrantly corrupt. Kavanaugh was doing some things
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: where he claimed he bought a bunch of season tickets
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: or something because people were paying off his credit card debt.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: He's like, no, it's legit.
• 31:08
  Speaker 8: I vaguely remember this. I don't remember which justice it was.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: I don't think you even need to.
• 31:12
  Speaker 8: Be taught, though. If you're Kimberly Guilfoyle, you're probably like,
• 31:14
  Speaker 8: I'll just have him pay off my Amex. It'll be
• 31:16
  Speaker 8: so easy.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I want to know who suggested that to her.
• 31:19
  Speaker 8: She was like, stop papering this. She's yelling at the guy.
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: She's also begging to give her $ 100, 000 after delivering nothing
• 31:24
  Speaker 8: in return. I don't know how we got on Kimberly
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: Guilfoyle here, but yeah.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Because actual corruption. We will see. And criminality.
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: We will see. But yes, this is likely an immigration question,
• 31:37
  Speaker 8: not a marriage question, although that's kind of an immigration
• 31:41
  Speaker 8: question as well, but likely not related to that. And
• 31:44
  Speaker 8: we'll obviously follow the story as it unfolds. The country,
• 31:48
  Speaker 8: I think we can agree, does not have much of
• 31:49
  Speaker 8: an appetite for it, though.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And so we have new CPI numbers. We're going to
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: talk about that next in our conversation with Democratic nominee
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: for governor, Amanda Janou in Vermont. This morning, the CPI
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: is out with new inflation numbers. We can put the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: first element up on the screen. To nobody's surprise, things
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: are getting significantly worse for everybody. Consumer prices rising at
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: a 3.7% annual rate, driven primarily, again, unsurprisingly, by energy costs.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Gasoline rising at 9.1%. That accounted, according to the analysis,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: for half of the increase. Obviously, this is the main
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: driver of the kind of political earthquake that is hitting
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Republicans all over the country. And for people who don't
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: follow Vermont politics, they might be surprised to know that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: for many years they have had a quite popular Republican
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: governor named Phil Scott. He cruises to reelection every two years.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: They have the elections quite frequently. This time, though, he's
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: actually struggling. A super PAC that backed Phil Scott when
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: he first ran has, I think for the first time
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: in many years, had to surge its way back into Vermont.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: The Republican Governors Association is pouring money into this Phil
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Scott super PAC because manage a new populist Democrat won
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the Democratic primary. And and we put up this next
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: element is, according to polls, giving Democrats. Phil Scott, a
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: real run for his money. If Phil Scott is in danger,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: there is almost no Republican out there who is safe.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: And so joining us now from Vermont is Amanda Janou,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Democratic nominee for governor. Amanda, thank you so much for
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: being here.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And so I wanted to get your reaction to the
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: latest CPI numbers this morning and also get your take
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: on how how it's affecting people in Vermont, especially as
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: we're heading into the winter and the time that people
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: are trying to stock up on heating oil, which is
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: effectively a version of diesel.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:15
  Speaker 9: Well, first of all, I'm not surprised to see the
• 34:18
  Speaker 9: rise in inflationary numbers. I think, you know, obviously the
• 34:22
  Speaker 9: spike in the price of oil and gas like that
• 34:25
  Speaker 9: has ripple effects throughout the entire economy as it is
• 34:29
  Speaker 9: the energy, right? That drives that as well. I'm worried
• 34:32
  Speaker 9: about food. I'm worried about people heating their homes. And
• 34:35
  Speaker 9: I think when we look at inflationary numbers also, we
• 34:38
  Speaker 9: can't ever forget about the large section that housing accounts for.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: And so in Vermont, we're definitely experiencing this.
• 34:46
  Speaker 9: We have a major cost of living crisis and it's,
• 34:50
  Speaker 9: you know, it's around the basic needs, healthcare, housing, food, energy,
• 34:55
  Speaker 9: And when the basic needs are unaffordable, that's why you
• 34:59
  Speaker 9: need government intervention, because you have a scenario where they
• 35:03
  Speaker 9: can charge as much as they want until people reach
• 35:07
  Speaker 9: their breaking point. And I think we're at that breaking
• 35:09
  Speaker 9: point now.
• 35:10
  Speaker 8: And genuinely curious, because I know one of your opponents
• 35:12
  Speaker 8: attacks is about tax hikes. And so I'm curious, like
• 35:15
  Speaker 8: when you're talking to people, how they balance that question
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: of are you going to make me pay more in
• 35:20
  Speaker 8: taxes or are you going to make my life more
• 35:22
  Speaker 8: affordable in general? How do you have those conversations with folks? Yeah.
• 35:26
  Speaker 9: Well, it's fascinating because I think in some ways, Phil Scott,
• 35:30
  Speaker 9: his argument has been that affordability means tax cuts. And
• 35:35
  Speaker 9: I think there is a certain amount to which people
• 35:37
  Speaker 9: have accepted that argument because I think they've lost faith
• 35:40
  Speaker 9: that the government can make anything else more affordable. And
• 35:44
  Speaker 9: so at least they feel confident that the government could
• 35:47
  Speaker 9: reduce that price pressure.
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: And it's true.
• 35:50
  Speaker 9: We've had really large increases in property taxes in recent years.
• 35:55
  Speaker 9: And when we look at the impacts that are going
• 35:57
  Speaker 9: to come from the big, beautiful bill, like states are
• 36:00
  Speaker 9: going to be in a really tough situation. And so
• 36:02
  Speaker 9: this is a moment when we really need to be
• 36:04
  Speaker 9: thinking a lot more upstream, like starting to move, for example,
• 36:08
  Speaker 9: towards universal health care. Like I think it's we've reached
• 36:12
  Speaker 9: a point where we recognize a profit oriented health care
• 36:14
  Speaker 9: system is a terrible idea. We need to really focus
• 36:17
  Speaker 9: on more permanently affordable housing, not just subsidizing the insanely
• 36:21
  Speaker 9: unaffordable housing we already have, and really thinking about how
• 36:25
  Speaker 9: do we increase the production of renewable energy, increase more
• 36:28
  Speaker 9: food production, et cetera. So we are ensuring no matter what,
• 36:33
  Speaker 9: everybody's basic sort of needs are safe and secure.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: And to ask a kind of out of left field
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Vermont question, and viewers know I lived up there during
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: the pandemic, love that state. I've always wondered though, like why,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: why aren't the mountains responsible, the ski mountains in Vermont
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: responsible for creating housing for their staff? And why isn't
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the state kind of working with them to provide that?
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: You know, most of the people that work on the
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: mountains are in their 20s. And our seasonal workers like
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: would be happy with really like a dorm type situation.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Vermont does not lack for water, does not lack for land. Like,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: it seems to me that would just make sense to
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: just basically the state and the mountains to get together,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: build some dorms basically for these kids. Instead, you've got them,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: kids that are in their 20s, you've got them competing
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: with locals who are there year-round and massively driving up
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: housing prices. So is there any outside-the-box thinking going on
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: kind of in that direction? Or what can you do
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to alleviate this housing crisis?
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:44
  Speaker 9: I really love that question because I do think in
• 37:48
  Speaker 9: some ways it gets to the heart of a lot
• 37:51
  Speaker 9: of the reason I'm running. And also, I think the
• 37:52
  Speaker 9: heart of our affordability crisis, because I do believe like
• 37:56
  Speaker 9: it's not just Phil Scott.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: I would say the.
• 38:00
  Speaker 9: Dominant economic playbook that we've been using for decades now.
• 38:04
  Speaker 9: I will, the way I'll describe it is often starting
• 38:06
  Speaker 9: from this deficit mindset of assuming that we're poor, we're
• 38:09
  Speaker 9: struggling because we lack something. We lack the right businesses.
• 38:12
  Speaker 9: We lack the right people. We lack the right investment.
• 38:14
  Speaker 9: And so we orient a lot of our incentives and
• 38:17
  Speaker 9: policies towards attracting those businesses, investors, people from the outside,
• 38:22
  Speaker 9: rather than starting with what do we have?
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: What are our strengths, innovations, businesses, resources, et cetera.
• 38:29
  Speaker 9: Um, that we can invest in as the starting point.
• 38:32
  Speaker 9: And so as a result, we have become way too
• 38:34
  Speaker 9: dependent on tourism. We've focused a lot on, you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 9: attracting folks to come move here rather than really making
• 38:42
  Speaker 9: sure the folks who are here are good to begin with.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: And so some of the proposal is both.
• 38:48
  Speaker 9: About, yes, how do we ensure we're building more permanently
• 38:51
  Speaker 9: affordable housing? Like we have a great tradition in Vermont
• 38:54
  Speaker 9: around like community land trusts and, you know, co-ops and
• 38:58
  Speaker 9: nonprofit housing, but also How do we increase taxation on
• 39:02
  Speaker 9: private equity, short-term rentals, luxury second homes that have become
• 39:08
  Speaker 9: so dominant in our housing market so that we can
• 39:11
  Speaker 9: reduce the burden on residential Vermonters and hopefully free up
• 39:15
  Speaker 9: some of the existing housing stock for folks who live
• 39:17
  Speaker 9: here all year round?
• 39:19
  Speaker 8: And what do you hear? I mean, Ryan and I
• 39:21
  Speaker 8: were talking earlier in the show about how some of
• 39:23
  Speaker 8: the polling in Maine back in 2020, was... It ended
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: up being really skewed, and it had Susan Collins losing
• 39:30
  Speaker 8: by a significant margin. She ends up winning by a
• 39:31
  Speaker 8: significant margin, and a lot of pollsters looked back on
• 39:33
  Speaker 8: that and said, we were undercounting rural voters. And so
• 39:37
  Speaker 8: I just wanted to hear your experience right now talking
• 39:40
  Speaker 8: to rural people on the campaign trail, what their concerns are,
• 39:44
  Speaker 8: and how those conversations are playing out. Yeah, I mean.
• 39:49
  Speaker 9: It's been really cool, I guess, within this whole campaign because,
• 39:54
  Speaker 9: you know, my background has always been in policy and advocacy.
• 39:56
  Speaker 9: Like I'm an economic policy sort of nerd. And so
• 40:01
  Speaker 9: politics is a newer dimension to me. And so a
• 40:04
  Speaker 9: lot of the standard political maybe approaches of just going
• 40:08
  Speaker 9: to the high density voting areas wasn't my approach. And
• 40:11
  Speaker 9: so I've gone all over the state talking to folks.
• 40:15
  Speaker 9: And the first question I always ask is like, what
• 40:17
  Speaker 9: are the things you're most proud of?
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: In your community.
• 40:19
  Speaker 9: Um, cause I do believe the solutions are here. They're
• 40:22
  Speaker 9: being practiced and the role of the state should be
• 40:24
  Speaker 9: to like nurture and support them. And what I hear
• 40:27
  Speaker 9: over and over again, I think is that people want
• 40:30
  Speaker 9: to protect the things that they love here. Like our
• 40:34
  Speaker 9: strong communities, our small schools, our general stores, our natural beauty,
• 40:38
  Speaker 9: and they want to ensure that they have access to
• 40:42
  Speaker 9: the kind of, you know, small businesses and, you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 9: healthcare and affordable housing, et cetera, that they need locally.
• 40:51
  Speaker 9: And so there's a desire for doing things a little
• 40:54
  Speaker 9: bit differently and the sense that they want to have
• 40:57
  Speaker 9: a voice in this moment to feel agency and power
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: over the future, because everything feels a little overwhelming, like
• 41:03
  Speaker 9: the compounding crises we're facing. And so feeling like we
• 41:06
  Speaker 9: all have something to give in this moment and that
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: together we're going to be okay.
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: I think that's the major thing.
• 41:13
  Speaker 8: I'm curious, my sense is that pollsters may not fully
• 41:17
  Speaker 8: understand how much rural voters who perhaps swung for Trump
• 41:21
  Speaker 8: at one point or another have swung against Trump for
• 41:25
  Speaker 8: some of the same reasons they liked him in the
• 41:26
  Speaker 8: first place.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely. And I don't know.
• 41:31
  Speaker 9: I mean, I think that in some ways also people
• 41:33
  Speaker 9: are a little bit tired of the partisan politics. So
• 41:36
  Speaker 9: I think a lot of folks don't even necessarily identify
• 41:38
  Speaker 9: as much with party as with this sense that politics
• 41:44
  Speaker 9: has become really divorced from live reality. And so at
• 41:47
  Speaker 9: least in Vermont, I think the major thing is that
• 41:51
  Speaker 9: people just don't want these top down directives. They want
• 41:54
  Speaker 9: to feel like there is some bottom up decision making,
• 41:58
  Speaker 9: that the decisions that are being made are on the
• 42:00
  Speaker 9: basis of the priorities for people and that they have
• 42:04
  Speaker 9: more resources and control to advance the types of solutions
• 42:07
  Speaker 9: that work for their towns and their communities, because there
• 42:11
  Speaker 9: are unique differences across. But I also think there's some
• 42:15
  Speaker 9: shared values that can orient us as a state.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And I also wanted to ask about kind of the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: future of the state. When I lived up there, my
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: kids went to Dover Elementary School, which had pre-K through six,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: and I think it had 85 kids in it.
• 42:29
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: My fourth grader had four students in her entire class,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, that's very nice, I guess, for
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: parent-teacher ratio, but it's also like insane and unsustainable. And
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: schools are closing constantly. There are a decent number of,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: you know, families that don't have any elementary school at all.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: And so long-term, what does Vermont do? Because I think
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Vermont's kind of on the leading edge of this kind
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: of population collapse that we're going to be seeing over
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the next 10, 20, 30 years. So what what is
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: what what is the state going to do basically to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: not die?
• 43:09
  Speaker 9: Well, I am a bit strong, you know, but I mean,
• 43:15
  Speaker 9: I think that the when we talk about education, first
• 43:17
  Speaker 9: of all, because that has been probably the focus this
• 43:21
  Speaker 9: whole past year. And a lot of it, honestly, this
• 43:25
  Speaker 9: proposal to close a lot of these rural schools is
• 43:27
  Speaker 9: not popular. And I would honestly just say is a
• 43:30
  Speaker 9: thinly veiled attack on public education. And people really value
• 43:35
  Speaker 9: these schools, not just for their kids' education, but as the.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Center of community life.
• 43:40
  Speaker 9: And so we piloted, and you'll probably be familiar with
• 43:43
  Speaker 9: some of the great examples across the country of community schools.
• 43:47
  Speaker 9: where you actually integrate a wider range of nonprofit or
• 43:50
  Speaker 9: social services like childcare or afterschool programs, continuing adult education,
• 43:54
  Speaker 9: food banks, et cetera, so that you are providing a
• 43:58
  Speaker 9: more holistic sort of wraparound services that the kids need
• 44:01
  Speaker 9: to thrive, but also the families and community need in
• 44:04
  Speaker 9: order to thrive. Because I think the reality is more
• 44:07
  Speaker 9: people will come here. People keep coming here and it's
• 44:10
  Speaker 9: because Vermont's great, right? And I think the important thing
• 44:14
  Speaker 9: is for us to be able to be ready for
• 44:16
  Speaker 9: folks to come. We need to make sure that the
• 44:18
  Speaker 9: people who live here are good. And so that's where,
• 44:21
  Speaker 9: you know, the housing crisis, the healthcare crisis, you know,
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: I've proposed, again, doing things the Vermont way, like bringing
• 44:28
  Speaker 9: back small town doctors and nurses and mental health providers
• 44:31
  Speaker 9: and having them as just public employees and starting to
• 44:34
  Speaker 9: lay that foundation towards universal healthcare.
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: Like people will come for that.
• 44:38
  Speaker 9: And if we, you know what I mean, really advance
• 44:41
  Speaker 9: some pretty, you know, I would say, Yeah, strong housing reform.
• 44:48
  Speaker 9: We can get to the root of our housing crisis,
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: which is actually the financialization of housing. We're treating houses
• 44:54
  Speaker 9: like investments and not like homes. And that has to
• 44:57
  Speaker 9: be the starting point of our goal not being the
• 45:00
  Speaker 9: number of units we build, but that everybody in Vermont
• 45:03
  Speaker 9: has housing.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: So last question for me. So what's your kind of
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: elevator pitch that you're making in your campaign? What does
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: manage anew for government mean?
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 45:16
  Speaker 9: So my elevator pitch to folks has really been, you know,
• 45:19
  Speaker 9: I'm Amanda Janu. I'm running for governor because I refuse
• 45:23
  Speaker 9: to accept that collapse is inevitable or that the best
• 45:26
  Speaker 9: a governor can do is just manage decline. And so
• 45:29
  Speaker 9: I believe that we can protect what we love and
• 45:32
  Speaker 9: produce what we need in this moment to bring each
• 45:36
  Speaker 9: of our unique gifts, energies, creativities to this, you know,
• 45:41
  Speaker 9: the state and our vision for a better future and
• 45:43
  Speaker 9: make sure that we not only weather the storms ahead,
• 45:45
  Speaker 9: but actually inspire.
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: A different way forward. All right.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Well, Amanda Jeneau, thanks so much for joining us. Democratic
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: candidate for governor of Vermont. Really appreciate it.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: You got it.
• 45:57
  Speaker 8: That'll do it for us on today's edition of Breaking Points.
• 46:00
  Speaker 8: Great Vermont interview, Ryan. Interesting race. Not a lot of
• 46:02
  Speaker 8: people paying attention to it. I think people just think
• 46:04
  Speaker 8: he's coasting, but.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I think he's probably still going to win. But it's
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: going to be, it's going to be interestingly close. Democratic establishment,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: not happy that she won the, The nomination.
• 46:17
  Speaker 8: They don't seem to be.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: But, you know, they don't like to win anyway, as
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: evidenced by the fact it's either Bernie or Republicans up there.
• 46:25
  Speaker 8: Say the masochists.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:27
  Speaker 8: The DGA.
• 46:29
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 46:29
  Speaker 8: Well, Saga Crystal in tomorrow and we'll see you all later. Reminder,
• 46:34
  Speaker 8: you do. You can send producer Mac.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: If you want to support the show, just go right
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: to BruiserMax.
• 46:41
  Speaker 8: He says Zeller or Venmo.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: No, no, that leaves a paper trail.
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: Gotta stop papering it.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Go right to the Amex.
• 46:47
  Speaker 8: We'll see you soon.