Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 9/30/26: Dems Surge Ahead Of Midterms, MAGA Abandons Trump, Jack Smith Chaotic Testimony

Transcript

9/30/26: Dems Surge Ahead Of Midterms, MAGA Abandons Trump, Jack Smith Chaotic Testimony · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: can up our game for this critical election.
• 0:08
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• 0:17
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• 0:19
  Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Well, Donald Trump was asked yesterday after the big AI
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: meeting we covered earlier in the show if he thinks
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: all this data center support, bear-hugging, will hurt Republicans in
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: the midterm elections.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: Here's how he replied.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Mr. President, are you concerned at all that your continued
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: support of data centers could hurt Republicans in the midterms?
• 0:41
  Speaker 5: I just have to do what's right. All I can
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: tell you is that these big, powerful, very rich, very
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities.
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: individual people within the community. And it's going to be
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: really partnership. We talked about it. They're going to be
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: forming partnerships with communities. They're going to have they're going
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: to take something that people don't understand and they're going
• 1:03
  Speaker 5: to let them understand it. But they're going to form
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: partnerships within the communities. That's going to be so good.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: For the people.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: Okay. Well, meanwhile, it's looking bleak, obviously. We've covered that
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: many times here in the midterm. Maybe that's why it's
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: looking bleak. I don't know. Actually, I sat down for, well,
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: I didn't sit down. It was over the phone.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: But I sat down, at least metaphorically, with Dan Osborne
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: for a profile in Unheard that ran yesterday. And one
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: of the interesting things he told me is that He
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: thinks things are changing in rural Nebraska, particularly related to
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: any ag-adjacent communities that are really, really upset about the
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Argentinian beef imports. And obviously that's just part of the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: cauldron of things that's making people.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: Annoyed with all of this.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: But Trump seems to be picking up on exactly what
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Osborne is picking up on because he's heading to Nebraska. Nebraska,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: we're talking about practice? No, we're talking about Nebraska in
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: late September.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: It's almost October.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: The tear sheet we can put up from the Omaha
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: World-Herald is Trump coming to Nebraska next week to rally
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Republicans for Pete Ricketts. I believe Trump won Nebraska in
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: 2024 by some 20 points, something like that. So this
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: is absolutely devastating for Republicans that you have to be
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: competing in Nebraska against an independent candidate who, by the way,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: as Osborne pointed out to me in our conversation, has
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: a there's a massive fundraising discrepancy between him and John Ossoff.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Like he's not getting Ossoff levels of money. He's not
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: getting Tallarico levels of money because he's running as and independent.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: And yes, Ossoff voted for the Lake and Riley Act,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: as Julian over at Dropsite got him to comment on recently.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: So Tallarico's obviously tried to walk back some of his
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: cultural positions. They're not like Bernie Sanders, obviously. But at
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: the same time, Osborne's saying, I'm out here not running
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: as a Democrat, and I'm not getting the money that
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Democrats would get. And even then, the president is having
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: to go to Nebraska, Ryan.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, polls show that Osborne remains independent. either competitive or
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: ahead of Pete Ricketts. And Trump is going to a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: very Trump-friendly part of Nebraska. But as you saw, the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: article ran in the Omaha World-Herald, the whole state's going
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to know that he's there. You can't just sneak in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the super red part of Nebraska and nobody else know.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: And it shows... That Osborne's argument that Ricketts is tied
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: at the hip to Trump remains true, that Ricketts is
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: unable to run away from that. I wanted to get
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: your quick take on Osborne after talking to him. And
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you've talked to a bunch on this show as well.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: But I like the kind of opening anecdote from Emily's
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: piece she writes about. She asked him about gender identity
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and Title IX and how it applies to universities. And
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: he's like, what on earth are you talking about?
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: I have no idea what you're talking about.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, what what how do you feel like he
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: kind of meets the kind of cultural moment politically?
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: That moment I thought was interesting from a cultural perspective,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: but also really from a media perspective in that, you know,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: better than I do. It was a pretty basic question
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: about if you're a senator, would you vote to confirm
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: an education secretary that rolled back all of the Trump
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: rollbacks of the Obama era?
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Dear colleague letter that said, you know.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Already you've lost like 99% of people.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: But we all here know the story, right?
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Only because I've been on this show do I know.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: But it is.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: So the education department under Obama, a lot of the
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: bathroom and locker room stuff came because they changed it
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: with a dear colleague letter. And so every time there's
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: an education secretary confirmation over the last 10 years, it's
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: a big question as to whether they say that Title IX,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: when it says on the basis of sex in Title IX,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: does it mean sex or does it mean sex plus
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: gender identity? Do you have to read gender identity into
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: sex in Title IX, and that's always a huge thing
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: with education secretary confirmations.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: And he just flat out was like, I have no
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: idea what you're talking about.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And I think it's interesting from a media perspective, because again,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: you and I both know candidates used to be trained
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: to the point where you would never, ever respond.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: To a question like that.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: They had like the little fact sheets that they'd memorized
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: and they were on a script. And even if they
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: were not aware of like the answer to a question,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: they would never say like, what the hell are you
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: talking about?
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: Especially on something like that.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: And he then pivoted to saying, I don't really like,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: that's not what I think most people care about in
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: my state. He was like, I think he said, it
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: doesn't sound like something I would support. He said, on
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: the other hand, we have all of these people who
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: can't pass basic math tests for plumbing apprenticeships in Omaha.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: I think it was what he was talking about. And
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: he was like, the quality of education is what's important
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: to me. I don't think I would support that, but
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I also feel like we have a massive quality problem
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: that we should be focusing on more. So I even
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: think from a media perspective, You can see how he's
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: just a totally different breed of candidate that we're much
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: more likely to have, I think, be common over the
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: next 10 years. And it's kind of refreshing, to be honest,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: that he didn't pretend to know the answer and that
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: he wasn't reading off of a script.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: He just kind of said what he thought.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, CNN's Manu Raju caught up with his opponent,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Pete Ricketts, whose dad founded Ameritrade, and asked him about his...
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: support for the Iran war and what it's doing to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: people back in Nebraska. Osborne kind of mocked his answers here.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: We can roll some of that.
• 6:38
  Speaker 6: Is it time for the president to bring the Iran
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: war to an end? A country that chants death to
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: America cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. What
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: about all the impact on your constituents, higher gas prices.
• 6:54
  Speaker 7: And all the rest?
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: There is no doubt that higher gas prices and higher
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: diesel prices are having a big impact on Nebraska families.
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: It's bringing a squeeze on everybody's budget. Certainly our farmers
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: and ranchers are feeling it. A country that chanced death
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: to America cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So, Emily, I think Pete Ricketts is going to need
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: to do a little bit better than that. Like the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: rest of the Republican Senate class or the wannabe Senate
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: class like Ashley Hinson in Iowa, Mike Rogers in Michigan,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: they're all making noises about how the war needs to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: come to an immediate end. Whereas Ricketts seems a little
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: bit more comfortable than you'd expect from somebody facing such
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a formidable challenge and such intense headwinds.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Have you noticed– so he also has the companion bill
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: to the House bill that bans stock trades from congressional members.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: The Ameritrade guy.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Ameritrade guy, which is hilarious because he's the
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: Ameritrade guy.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: But from the Nebraska Examiner here, they report his proposal
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: would ban stock purchases by representatives and senators, spouses, and
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: dependent children while the member is in office and requires
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: 7 to 14 days notice before a stock sale. But,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: and it creates a financial penalty, quote, tied to any
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: transaction that violates the law, fining the member $ 2, 000 or 10%
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: of the stock transaction's value, whichever is greater, as well
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: as any.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Profit from the sale.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: It's not the strongest bill because I think it allows
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: you to keep things in a blind trust, quote unquote
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: blind trust, which is not always the best arrangement. I mean,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: it's a bare minimum, but It looks like Dems are
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: going to block that. It passed in the House, and
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: it looks like Dems are going to block it today.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: It looks like it's their last day. It's going to
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: be their last day in the Senate before the midterms
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: in all likelihood, and they're probably going to block that
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: along with Husted's data center bill, which both are weaker
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: bills than they should be, but that's the nature of
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: the Senate. And so it's interesting because you have these
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Republicans who are catching up and realizing that maybe being
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: the Ameritrade guy isn't great in a re-election year in
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: an economy like this.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: And it's not even– what are you going to do?
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: There's nothing you can do if you're Pete Ricketts to shift.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: Away now on Iran.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: Probably something he could do because he's not the former
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: general of the military or anything like that. He probably
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: could do a Mike Rogers on that.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: He could try. He could try. He could try.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: And so you see a willingness to try on one
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: populist thing but not on another thing.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: To me that just says– Probably loves the war. I
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: don't know. That's my guess. My wild guess.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: He seems to actually like it. Meanwhile, there was a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: poll that really shook up Washington yesterday that came out.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: We put up D7s from the firm Angus Reid, which
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, Republicans were pointing to the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: fact that Democrats were only favored in the generic ballot
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: by two or three points. This poll has them favored
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: by 16 points. Maybe it's an outlier. Maybe directionally, this
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: is where the headwinds are blowing everything. 16 points is unprecedented.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: 16 points is Angie Nixon is a senator.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: For life. Because also she's dope. So if she wins,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: she's winning re-election too. Senator for life. Or president. Or
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: maybe she's president. She can win Florida.
• 10:13
  Speaker 8: So if.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: If they're catching this accurately... Now, they're also finding that
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: people who voted for Trump in 2024 are telling pollsters
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that they did not, which is a very common... Actually,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not just making fun of Trump people here. It's
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: fairly common that when you vote for somebody and then
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: they suck, when you're asked about that a couple years
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: later and you believe they suck, significant numbers of people
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: will say they did not vote.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: There's also a winner thing. Like, people will... It's less
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: now in a polarized environment, but people, pollsters would have
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a real problem because people would say they voted for
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the winner. And they would have all these polls and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: be like, this is impossible. Because the person won by
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: two points, yet our polls all find that they won
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: by seven. Because some people just like to be with
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a winner and they don't like to be with a loser.
• 11:07
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: You know who would do that?
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump absolutely would do that. I didn't vote for myself.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: And so what that does is it might actually mess
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: up the weighting of the polls a little bit and
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: kind of overweight Trump support in a sense, because you're
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: looking for, you want to match people who voted for
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Harris and people who voted for Trump and get them
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: in the right balance. But if people are lying to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you and saying they voted for Harris, but they actually
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: voted for Trump, you're going to wind up with a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: lot more Trump supporters in your poll, which actually should
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: make the poll more favorable to Republicans. So there's an
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: argument that in some ways, these numbers are even undercounting
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: how bad things are.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: Well, let's stick on this point.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: And in just one second, we can move to the
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: econ block because there have been a ton of people
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: who are openly identifying as Trump voters calling into that.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: I say a ton, but a handful every day of
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: people who are openly identifying as Trump voters calling into
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: the Sirius XM show that I do. But before we
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: go to that, I do just want to say, RealCripHolics
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: has this cool tool where they have bar graphs for
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: generic congressional ballot, as we were just looking at their
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: average of the congressional, the generic ballot in the last,
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: since 2010, basically. And if you look at this day,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: in 2010, 2014, 2022, and 2018, 2026. Right now, RCP
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: has Dems at an 8.4 lead. So that's the highest
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: for Democrats in modern history. It is similar to where
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: they were in 2018, but it's actually a point higher.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: So not insignificant at all when you're doing averages of
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: the generic ballot.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: And on top of that, what.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: It actually looks like is it's right around the same place.
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: Republicans had about that same lead In 2010, when they
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: took 63 seats, 63 seats, nobody is prepared for Democrats
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: to do that kind of damage. And if they do
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: right now, that means they would be eating into the
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: safe Republican seats.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: If you look at the Cook Political Report.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: And you do that math, what that does, I mean,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: if you give them all the toss ups, likelies and
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: liens and add in a couple safes. I think what
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: they're probably looking at is a 15 vote margin overall.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: But if you start saying that this is like 2010
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: territory because they have a similar generic ballot lead, nobody's
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: prepared for what the House.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: Looks like after that.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: We have a lot of homework to do between now
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and election night because we don't want to be constantly
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: being like, wait, who? Who just lost? We didn't even
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: know this race was like on the map. We don't
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: want to look dumb in front of you guys. We
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: have a lot of respect for you guys. You're doing
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the month three and then you're going to forget and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: start paying. So we're going to do our homework. We're
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: going to try to find all the races that might
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: surprise you. They shouldn't surprise us. We're the pros at this.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: We're still going to be surprised on election night by
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: some Republicans who lose and some Democrats who win. Meanwhile, Trump...
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: The only.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Person who seems to be right now... fighting that trend
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: is Michelle Tafoya. It's very interesting in Minnesota, a very
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: tight race in Minnesota. Now, again, what we're hearing behind
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: closed doors is Republicans believe if you're in a close race,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: you're losing.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: Even if you're winning that little bit, you're losing.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: So it would be very surprising if Michelle Tafoya won that,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: but she's not been bear-hugging Trump by any means whatsoever.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: And so Susan Collins, Michelle Tafoya, it looks like Susan
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Collins is, if the weighting in the last, in recent
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: polling in her races is with the Sarah Gideon one
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: in particular as any example, she might be doing okay.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: But if it's the opposite and that we're totally missing
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: the picture, that's another story.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: We have news on that front. Bernie Sanders has a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: pretty significant fund of cash and he's dipping into it
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to back Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, Keith Ellison also in Minnesota,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and Angie Nixon in Florida. We'll see how substantially he spends,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: but it is interesting that he feels that it is
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: important to spend for Flanagan, um, and, uh, and also,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: also Ellison. Um, meanwhile, Trump is using your money to
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: run a bunch more ads and put up D8. Uh,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Axios is reporting that, that Trump's use of taxpayer funded advertising,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: completely illegal. Like you cannot run campaign ads with taxpayer money.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: It's completely insane. Uh, it's about to ramp up now.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: My guess is that these ads make people are a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: net negative for Trump. Like, I feel like apparently Trump
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is handpicking these. I feel like Trump has lost his touch.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like people are so mad when they see
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: that paid for by the U.S. government following just obvious
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Trump propaganda slop.
• 15:52
  Speaker 9: Mm-hmm.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And they're going to hear about it, too. We're going
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: to talk about it on the news. Other people are
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: going to talk about it on their programs. So they're
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: going to know that while you're suffering, Trump is spending
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: your money to run propaganda ads on his behalf. And
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: that's going to make people even angrier.
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: And the propaganda ads about how he's fixing the economy.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: He's stamping out the warmongers. It's insane, baby.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: He said he's going to drive... He's going to drive
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the warmongers out of Washington, which is absolutely incredible. Last
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: last thing, you know, Todd Achilles, I think he's coming
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: on the program next week. Maybe producer Griffin said he's
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the independent candidate running in Idaho against Jim Risch. Now,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Julian dropped sites. Julian Andreoni caught up with Jim Risch
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: in the Senate asking him. We'll actually roll this interesting
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: kind of back and forth between the incumbent Idaho senator,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: who was former governor, has been in Idaho people's lives,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: basically their entire lives, and his job is now on
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the line.
• 17:00
  Speaker 10: There is no such thing as an independent.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: Go ahead.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 17:04
  Speaker 11: Independent meaning we don't take any of the conglomerate money
• 17:07
  Speaker 11: or have corporate advertisers.
• 17:09
  Speaker 7: So you don't get paid very well then, I guess.
• 17:12
  Speaker 11: Julian Andreoni with Dropsite News.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: With who? Dropsite News.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: What? Who is that?
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You don't know Dropsite News?
• 17:18
  Speaker 11: It's a new independent media organization started two years ago.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: 50,000 individual donors. That's how we make it. Small dollar donations.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: We'll have to get a couple from each one.
• 17:26
  Speaker 11: I wanted to ask you about mortgage rates with relation
• 17:29
  Speaker 11: to the war. The mortgage rates are up to 7%.
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: You think I want to do this walking down the hallway?
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: I don't do this.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: You don't do hallway interviews?
• 17:36
  Speaker 10: No.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: No. Not especially on a subject like that. We've done
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a hallway interview before in this exact hallway.
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: Oh, yeah.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: With you. What was the issue?
• 17:44
  Speaker 11: It was months and months ago that I caught you
• 17:47
  Speaker 11: right around that elevator. But let me ask you really
• 17:49
  Speaker 11: quickly about Iran. I mean, the Trump administration and a
• 17:53
  Speaker 11: number of the different key congressional allies have basically been
• 17:58
  Speaker 11: signaling that this was a preemptive attack before Iran could
• 18:04
  Speaker 11: hit Israel.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm wondering whether you're comfortable with that.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: Not only am I comfortable with it, I know the
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: intelligence behind it, and I agree 100%.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Must have been a memorable event. Anyway, I'm not going to,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: I don't want to.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Not here. Not now. Okay. Well, the League of Conservation
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Voters has scheduled two debates coming up. I believe actually
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: one is supposed to be tonight and then another in
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: early October. Rish has not agreed yet, as far as
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I know, to participate in either of them.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Great questions from Julian. Great questions from Julian.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: As usual.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about the economy. Some news on the economic front.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: This is from yesterday. The Kobisi letter said breaking the U.S.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: 30-year note yield rises above 5.6% for the first time
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: since June 2002. That's another plus 36 basis points this
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: month alone. 8% mortgages will arrive next week. And actually,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: let's put the next tariff sheet up on the screen
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: as well. This is from the Wall Street Journal. A
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: new report found U.S. consumer confidence fell in September amid
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: elevated oil prices, inflation worries, According to the conference board,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: that survey was released yesterday. The research group, according to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: the journal, said its consumer confidence index fell by 6.7
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: points to 81.9% in September from 88.6 in August. But
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: you don't actually just have to go by the numbers.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: You can listen to people themselves.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Some people know this.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I host a radio show on SiriusXM every day where
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: I take callers who are listening to Megan's show.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: And wanted to call in and talk about some of it.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: And over the last couple of weeks, been getting what
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: seems like a handful of callers every single day who
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: are totally disillusioned by someone, in many cases they say
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: they voted for, Donald Trump. And they're up in the
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: air about how they're going to vote this November. But
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: let's take a listen here to a couple of them.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: These are from just the last couple of days. Rob
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: in Michigan, E1. Let's start with him.
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: I'm so disillusioned with the Republicans right now. I'm just,
• 20:08
  Speaker 7: I'm sick of it. It's costing me $ 1, 300 every other
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: day to pull off my truck to do my job.
• 20:17
  Speaker 9: Diesel?
• 20:19
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. That's a killer.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Kidding.
• 20:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's hurting my bottom line big time.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: And is that what is most disillusioning to you, the
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: economic effects?
• 20:34
  Speaker 7: Yeah, it costs me more when I go to the
• 20:36
  Speaker 7: grocery store. I feel like it's even costing me more
• 20:40
  Speaker 7: now than it did during Biden.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: According to the inflation data, that is correct.
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: I bought two packs of paper towels yesterday for the
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: truck so I could clean my windows. Six months ago,
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: those paper towels were like $ 1. 35 a pack. When I
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: bought them yesterday, they were almost $ 4 a pack.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 21:03
  Speaker 7: This is for a single roll.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: That's the type of thing people notice.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: This is hurting my bottom line.
• 21:16
  Speaker 9: And you're in Michigan, Rob.
• 21:18
  Speaker 7: Yes, I am almost ready to park this truck because
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: I'm getting to the point where I cannot afford to drive.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: All right, let's now go to Peter in Pennsylvania.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: You too.
• 21:28
  Speaker 10: Hi, Emily. You know, I'm a registered Republican, but I
• 21:35
  Speaker 10: really don't consider myself a Republican. as much as I
• 21:39
  Speaker 10: do a conservative. And, you know, I'm, I'm totally over Trump,
• 21:45
  Speaker 10: to be frank with you. He just, he, he just
• 21:49
  Speaker 10: ruins any credibility he has by, you know, all of
• 21:53
  Speaker 10: these issues, kind of distracting issues like the Gulf of
• 21:58
  Speaker 10: America and Lake America, all that kind of stuff. So
• 22:02
  Speaker 10: that when, you know, there's an important issue and he,
• 22:06
  Speaker 10: you know, he's not convincing anybody relative to the importance
• 22:12
  Speaker 10: of getting rid of the nuclear weapons in Iran because
• 22:15
  Speaker 10: he's so buffoonish on these other, you know, insignificant things
• 22:22
  Speaker 10: that really, I don't even begin to understand why he,
• 22:26
  Speaker 10: you know, is that supposed to be some kind of
• 22:29
  Speaker 10: political strategy, you know, to, to distract the public? I
• 22:34
  Speaker 10: don't know. All I know is that, you know, I
• 22:37
  Speaker 10: didn't hear Halperin's interview, but if he said that there's
• 22:41
  Speaker 10: going to be a bloodbath this election, I don't see
• 22:48
  Speaker 10: any way that it isn't going to be. I don't
• 22:51
  Speaker 10: want it to be. I don't gravitate to Democratic candidates
• 22:56
  Speaker 10: because of how liberal they typically are, but what is
• 23:01
  Speaker 10: our choice at this point?
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: And finally, let's go to Mike in Connecticut.
• 23:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah, thanks for taking my call. I voted for Donald Trump,
• 23:13
  Speaker 8: and I got to be honest with you and tell you,
• 23:16
  Speaker 8: you know, we didn't get a wall. We didn't get
• 23:19
  Speaker 8: the lockup Hillary. We didn't get to drain the swamp.
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: We didn't get affordable health care. We didn't get to
• 23:25
  Speaker 8: eliminate the national debt with Doge. Remember, we were looking,
• 23:28
  Speaker 8: and they only raised it from $ 36 trillion to $ 40 trillion, okay?
• 23:33
  Speaker 8: We didn't get the Epstein-Files accountability. I think Pam Bondi
• 23:36
  Speaker 8: probably got fired because she released some of them and
• 23:39
  Speaker 8: wasn't supposed to. We didn't get a Doge check of
• 23:41
  Speaker 8: five grand. We didn't get a $ 2, 000 tariff check. OK,
• 23:46
  Speaker 8: we didn't get lower interest rates. We didn't get nothing
• 23:49
  Speaker 8: but lied to. And like I said, I voted for
• 23:52
  Speaker 8: the guy. But this guy is the big, he should
• 23:55
  Speaker 8: be selling used 67 Cadillac Coupe de Ville at some
• 24:00
  Speaker 8: used car lot because all we've gotten is garbage. Iran, Iran, Iran. OK,
• 24:06
  Speaker 8: the price of oil comes down. His big buddies are
• 24:09
  Speaker 8: the rich buy. Price of oil goes up because we
• 24:12
  Speaker 8: buy them. They sell, sell, sell. The whole thing is
• 24:15
  Speaker 8: a sham. Well, he's selling watch. Could you imagine if
• 24:18
  Speaker 8: Barack Obama was selling watches, sneakers and all kinds of stuff?
• 24:22
  Speaker 8: We'd be going nuts.
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: I'm sorry.
• 24:25
  Speaker 8: I would never vote for this man again. And you
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: know what? Sometimes things got to get worse before they
• 24:30
  Speaker 8: get better, but there is no America first with president Trump.
• 24:35
  Speaker 8: I'm sorry. Thanks for the call. Thanks for taking my call.
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: It was just raw.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yes.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And I think that sentiment right there, that, that things
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: have to get worse before they get better. So from
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: his perspective, voting for Democrats is going to make things worse.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: Hmm.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: But he's going to do it anyway because he's so
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: angry at Trump and he feels like Trump has to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: feel some pain.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Another woman called in recently and said the exact same thing.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that that is you're seeing 50 to 55 percent
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: of people strongly, quote unquote, strongly disapprove. That is euphemistic
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: for how those people feel about him. Strongly disapprove is
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: being generous. They hate this MFR and they are OK with.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: if in their minds that we suffer a little bit
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: more because we put Democrats in office, if it brings
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: some pain to Trump because they hope that Trump feels
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the pain and reverses some of his policies. Now, paper towels,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: by the way, tariffs on Canadian wood and the pulp
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: that comes out of that wood are a central factor.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: But also think about how expensive it is to ship
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: paper towels. They're not heavy, but they're very bulky. So
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: you need an enormous amount of space to ship them around.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And so energy costs play a huge part in the,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: in the price that you're going to pay. Plus, you know,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the petroleum wrapper, the plastic wrapper going on, those costs
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: straight up hormones, you're getting out a lot of the crude,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: but you're not getting all the refined products and the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: cost of these refined products, like, like the, the wrapper
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: around the paper towel. So those three elements, the tariffs,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the energy and the, plastic that's why you're paying so
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: much for paper towels and paper towels have gotten like
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: insanely expensive and what would be nice if we used
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: fewer paper towels more rags you need to go back
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: um but.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: You can get those big packs of microfibers like costco
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: just throw them in the wash.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah do that this is that's the the equivalent of
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: um the agriculture secretary's telling people, you know what? Beef.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Who needs beef anyway?
• 26:45
  Speaker 10: We've got tofu.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: We're doing the Brooke Rollins here.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we have tofu. We have salmon, she said. I
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: was like, bro, salmon? You think salmon's cheaper than beef?
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: If you can't afford beef, treat yourself to some salmon.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Have some tuna steaks.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: Amazing.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Well, right, before we wrap, should we dig into the
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: wild Jack Smith hearing yesterday? Yes.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Oh, and also, so I'm not being biased here, Inflation
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: data came out this morning. It was cooler than expected.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Economy is going to like that. That makes it less
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: likely we'll get as many interest rate hikes. Of course,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: wait until they're revised down the road because, you know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Doge really did a number on our government's ability to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: get these things right. And it was never that great
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: to begin with.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And the response rates are apparently higher. bottoming out according
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to people i talked to in the bureau of labor
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: statistics it's very hard to get businesses to respond to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: them nowadays.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: I also should mention it's not like a representative sample
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: or anything it's just broadly right of center slash independent
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: audience like half truckers half like kind of affluent suburban
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: people right these are republicans but mostly mostly right of
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: center yeah yeah all right let's talk about jack smith Well,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Special Counsel Jack Smith, former Special Counsel Jack Smith, testified
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, and Missouri
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Republican Senator Eric Schmidt thought he had Smith in a
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: perjury trap, thought he had him dead to rights. There
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: was a very viral moment where he thought he was catching,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: as I was just saying, Smith in a perjury trap
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: about potentially colluding with Fannie Willis, who was obviously The
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: person who brought the RICO case against Trump in Georgia
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: is a similar case to the one Jack Smith ultimately
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: brought about the days leading.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Up to January 6th.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Trump's effort to allegedly subvert the election results or to
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: interfere to obstruct the certification of the electors. And it
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: did not go as Eric Schmidt seemed to think.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: That it would. Let's take a look.
• 28:55
  Speaker 12: Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden
• 28:58
  Speaker 12: State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Could you say that again?
• 29:07
  Speaker 12: Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden
• 29:09
  Speaker 12: State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: What city would that be in?
• 29:16
  Speaker 12: Atlanta.
• 29:17
  Speaker 13: No.
• 29:17
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 29:21
  Speaker 12: So your testimony today is that you did not go
• 29:24
  Speaker 12: to a Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024. Is that correct?
• 29:29
  Speaker 13: I have no recollection of that. Okay.
• 29:30
  Speaker 12: Is it your testimony that you were.
• 29:34
  Speaker 8: Not in Atlanta on February 3rd, 2024?
• 29:37
  Speaker 12: Let me let me just give you a little context
• 29:39
  Speaker 12: the day before fannie willis came clean with her affair
• 29:42
  Speaker 12: with the prosecutor you know the atlanta prosecutor that was
• 29:45
  Speaker 12: also trying to get trump the next day were you
• 29:47
  Speaker 12: in atlanta i do not believe so okay did you
• 29:51
  Speaker 12: ever go to atlanta during your time as special counsel.
• 29:58
  Speaker 13: I really don't think so. It's possible I flew through
• 30:02
  Speaker 13: the Atlanta airport on the way to Florida, but I
• 30:04
  Speaker 13: do not have a recollection of going to Atlanta. I
• 30:09
  Speaker 13: definitely did not go to a Hawks game.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure of that.
• 30:12
  Speaker 12: Did you ever meet Nathan Wade or Fannie Willis in
• 30:15
  Speaker 12: your time at special counsel?
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: No.
• 30:18
  Speaker 12: What would you say if I had a series of
• 30:20
  Speaker 12: text messages from your team that said you were in
• 30:22
  Speaker 12: Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game, On February 3rd, 2024,
• 30:26
  Speaker 12: the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair. I
• 30:36
  Speaker 12: don't think you know that we have this stuff. So
• 30:38
  Speaker 12: I'll give you a second to process it so you don't,
• 30:40
  Speaker 12: you know, perjure yourself.
• 30:42
  Speaker 13: You just took it down really quick.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: If I could look at that again. Okay. Mr. Chairman,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: can we give the witness a copy so he can
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: see what's being read to him?
• 30:52
  Speaker 12: Well, I think you've already sufficiently answered.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: I want to run through.
• 30:55
  Speaker 12: We'll put it in a follow-up. You can respond. I
• 30:58
  Speaker 12: think you've already perjured yourself in the famous words of
• 31:01
  Speaker 12: the chief of the secret police under Stalin of show
• 31:05
  Speaker 12: me the man, I'll show you the crime. You may
• 31:08
  Speaker 12: think you're a hero in this story, but let me
• 31:11
  Speaker 12: tell you something. You're the villain. You've done so much damage.
• 31:15
  Speaker 12: As a former prosecutor, I can say there's so much
• 31:17
  Speaker 12: damage to the trust and faith people have in our system.
• 31:19
  Speaker 12: You have weaponized the Department of Justice. against political enemies
• 31:23
  Speaker 12: to an extent that has never happened in the history
• 31:25
  Speaker 12: of this country, you will go down as a total
• 31:28
  Speaker 12: dirt bag. I yield my time.
• 31:31
  Speaker 9: You're going to be able to allow the witness to
• 31:34
  Speaker 9: see this fast poster board that we saw? Is that
• 31:38
  Speaker 9: going to be included then in the, so the witness
• 31:41
  Speaker 9: can look at that at some point here before the
• 31:44
  Speaker 9: hearing's over? Because we couldn't see what it said. And
• 31:47
  Speaker 9: I'm a former prosecutor too, and I have never seen
• 31:50
  Speaker 9: anyone just say, what do you think of this? And
• 31:52
  Speaker 9: put it down. We need a copy of the actual text.
• 32:02
  Speaker 9: Can you give the witness the courtesy of giving him
• 32:06
  Speaker 9: a copy of that?
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: And for some extra fun, check out this cut of
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: the slow zoom on Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt's face
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: as Eric Schmidt's case crumbles.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: In front of him.
• 32:20
  Speaker 13: I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game
• 32:23
  Speaker 13: where Caitlin Clark was playing right around that time, and
• 32:29
  Speaker 13: the Marshal Service was there with me. You could check
• 32:31
  Speaker 13: if that was the exact date. It was Maryland playing Iowa,
• 32:35
  Speaker 13: I think, February of 2024. But again, you could check
• 32:39
  Speaker 13: that out if that's what we're talking about.
• 32:42
  Speaker 12: Is it the Hawkeyes?
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Could.
• 32:47
  Speaker 9: Could it then be that the University of Iowa is
• 32:49
  Speaker 9: the Hawkeyes? Could that be it? And maybe before we
• 32:53
  Speaker 9: show this kind of thing?
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: Well, it's probably fair for Republicans to be a little
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: pissed at Eric Schmidt because the Jack Smith debate is
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: a much more serious one than I think it gets
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: credit for being, to be honest. Something we learned yesterday,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: documents that were released by Senate Judiciary, the majority, the
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Republican majority, Let's put this next hair sheet up on
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: the screen from The Washington Times. Jack Smith's Trump investigation
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: scooped up communications from major media.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: And it's true.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: According to these documents that were released, communications between the
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: White House, the Associated Press, 60 Minutes, Washington Times, Wall
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Street Journal, and actually The Federalist, where I worked at
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: the time, were swept up when the National Archives reported
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: got subpoenaed by Jack Smith, and released these White House
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: communications that included media communications straight to Jack Smith's team.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Part of what is a problem here for Jack Smith
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: is that he said, now there's a lot of parsing
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: to do here, but he said basically that at one point,
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: pulling up the exact wording in questions, this was earlier
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: this summer, he said, he was asked, did you seek
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: warrants for the content of any of the telephone calls
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: The content relates mostly to text message. Did you seek
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: a search warrant for the content of any text messages
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: from members?
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Smith asked for members.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Whoever was asking this question said, yes, this was in
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: the house. And he said, no, I don't recall that.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Then the person said it was just toll records. So
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: the response could be, was Jack Smith just saying he
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: didn't get a warrant for the content of the toll records?
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: Or because the question said the content of any text
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: messages from members, does that then mean he was asked
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: about cover something much more broadly? He did not get
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: a warrant to sweep up those congressional documents. communications with
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: the White House. He didn't have a warrant for the
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: media communications. Whether it's technically illegal is an open question. But, Ryan,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: we might disagree on the entire Jack Smith thing. But
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: just as a basic principle, I find it a little
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: bit disturbing that journalists are more freaked out by the
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: fact that he issued direct subpoenas for media communications with
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Jamestown associates. I mean, the breadth of his investigation, which
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: I think he had a case in a narrow sense.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Like when you read through the indictment, what you see
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: are examples of Trump being told something by people who
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: would know and then doing things as though he had
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: not just been told that his facts were incorrect, meaning
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: he had knowledge that something he was.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: Then pursuing was not true.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: On the other hand, Members of Congress, for example, should
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: be protected to be wrong about whether they're certifying electors.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: This is something that's happened in recent years, 2016. Democrats
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: did it. If you are pursuing your lawmaking duties, the
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: speech and debate clause totally covers that. And you should
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: not be getting warrantless taps of your records, period, because Jack.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Smith— Although if there's a subpoena, that's a warrant, right?
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: It's technically different. It's technically different. It's authority.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: And that's a question then for the National Archives as
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: to whether they should have complied with a subpoena.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: But they were supposed to have a filter team in place.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Doesn't the judge have to approve the subpoena?
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: And the DOJ did have a filter team in place.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: And the subpoena may have been based on having a
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: filter team. That's a good question. But you can see
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: in the email records that Grassley released yesterday that They
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: just dump the documents and then it's forwarded straight from
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: Smith's assistant to the broader team with no filter to
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: see if there was attorney client privilege in question or
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: speech and debate clause in question. But certainly, again, in principle,
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: he issued subpoenas to Jamestown and other groups for media communications,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: CBS media, like it wasn't just conservative media and swept
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: all of that up in this probe.
• 36:48
  Speaker 9: So.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in general, I want government officials to keep their
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: noses out of the media communications. None of your business.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: First Amendment's very clear. Jefferson was clear. Better to have
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: newspapers and no government than government without newspapers. So, F off.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: It's source communications with the White House.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: It's like, then the FBI had information about who these
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: reporters were in contact with at the White.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: House and what they were saying. Yeah, you shouldn't need
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: that to make your case. Also, this guy was handed
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: an open and shut case and just flubbed it, so.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: I think it's, yeah.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Speaking of, Eric Schmidt.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: And but just to put a fine point on that,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: it also was revealed yesterday he got tons of these
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: small dollar donor checks. If you go through it, like
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: you can literally see the scans of the small dollar
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: donor checks, none of which ended up being mentioned in
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: the case, all of which had personal details of people
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: who gave Trump like 100 bucks. And it's like 5000
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: of them to say that was necessary. But I think
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: it is an enormous stretch. to say that was necessary
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: to build this case against Trump. And it's a good
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: example of how sometimes the case has been right there,
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: especially pre-2024 for Democrats, like the case is right there
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: or for anti-Trump folks. And then it gets broadened to
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: something that's too sloppy and Trump slips through, evades and
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: ends up becoming president again because there was no way
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: to secure conviction.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: With all of this. So I feel like Dems, I
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: don't know what you think of it.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: I feel like Dems have kind of learned from some
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: of those lawfare misses, not that Trump.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. Meanwhile, we can't leave this thing without,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I think it was Benny Johnson and some other influencers.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Did you see this?
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: They put up dunk tweets.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: They had pre-written dunk tweets, so clearly they are coordinating
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: ahead of time with Eric Schmidt. And so they have
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: these dunk tweets written that are like, oh my god,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt just caught Jack Smith in this incredible perjury.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: He claimed he wasn't at the Atlanta Hawks game, but
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Eric Schmidt just proved he was. Didn't wait for the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: entire exchange to play out. They just posted the slot
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: that they'd been given from the Republicans and then had
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: to later delete it when it turned out that the
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Hawks are not the Iowa Hawkeyes. Horrifyingly embarrassing for everybody involved,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: but it also is a window into just how much
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: coordination there is between these nominally independent Republicans Journalistic figures,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: you could call them like they're supposed to be, but
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: who are in fact operating as operatives in coordination with
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Republican senators. Guys, just wait till the exchange is over
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: before you post.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Don't even schedule it. Don't schedule it. It's dangerous to schedule.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Don't do it. RIP.
• 39:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Couldn't leave without bringing those videos to the audience. But anyway,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: that does it for us on today's super long edition
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: of Breaking Points. Appreciate everybody for tuning in. Make sure, Ryan,
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: to subscribe on Orion Day.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: It's very important.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Which I think is me and Sagar tomorrow.
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: It's a bro show.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to say.
• 39:58
  Speaker 8: Wow.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: About whether to subscribe or not.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: You're going to spend the next 24 hours thinking about.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: It, though.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: I guarantee.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Good question. Anyway, I'll see you guys tomorrow.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: Sounds good.
• 40:06
  Speaker 9: See you then.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Bye.