Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 8/13/26: Dem Talarico Leads Texas, Ecuador Fishermen Hunted, Kushner Buys Lakers

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8/13/26: Dem Talarico Leads Texas, Ecuador Fishermen Hunted, Kushner Buys Lakers · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
0:01
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0:33
Speaker 2: All right, so, now that we've established not to look
0:35
Speaker 2: at the prediction markets, let's take a look at a
0:38
Speaker 2: model by Nate Silver, who knows a lot about these things.
0:41
Speaker 2: Not that this is perfect either, but at what is
0:44
Speaker 2: most likely to happen this fall. Some pretty interesting nuggets
0:47
Speaker 2: here from Nate. I'd actually be very curious for his
0:50
Speaker 2: view of the calshy polymarket.
0:52
Speaker 1: Well, I'm pretty sure he's funded by polymark it or
0:55
Speaker 1: he's an investor or something like that. No, he's an advisor.
0:57
Speaker 1: He's an advisor.
0:58
Speaker 3: He's an advisor.
0:59
Speaker 2: All right, anyway, I'd love to hear his unvarnished, unpaid
1:02
Speaker 2: thoughts on the both Calshi and polymarket. In any case,
1:06
Speaker 2: Here is his model, which he you know, uses pulling
1:09
Speaker 2: data and then factors in a variety of things, including
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Speaker 2: some sort of like fundamental calculations of the national mood,
1:15
Speaker 2: et cetera. He's got Senate fifty six point three percent
1:18
Speaker 2: chance of democratic control. He on average, when he runs
1:22
Speaker 2: his model, he ends up with fifty one seats for
1:25
Speaker 2: the Democrats and forty nine for the Republicans, so about
1:27
Speaker 2: as close as it could be the House. He sees
1:30
Speaker 2: more confidence that it is likely Democrats take control eighty
1:34
Speaker 2: six point two percent chance was come and put C
1:37
Speaker 2: two up on the screen. Here This is a closer
1:39
Speaker 2: look at the Senate. He has this chart of the
1:41
Speaker 2: most competitive Senate races, so from the ones that are
1:45
Speaker 2: closest to the ones that are much less likely to
1:49
Speaker 2: go in an unexpected direction. So he's got actually the
1:52
Speaker 2: closest Senate race is Iowa, which is very interesting. Obviously,
1:57
Speaker 2: you know that's a reach for Democrats, but there has
1:59
Speaker 2: been some showing that they've got a shot. He does
2:01
Speaker 2: have Republicans taking it, but he's got the odds split
2:04
Speaker 2: very evenly here. Next he's got Ohio, where Shared Brown
2:08
Speaker 2: is running again, and he does have Sharf Brown with
2:11
Speaker 2: a narrow edge in that race.
2:13
Speaker 3: Then comes Texas. More on that in a moment.
2:16
Speaker 2: Next closest is Alaska, then Michigan, than Maine, then Florida, Kansas, Nebraska,
2:23
Speaker 2: North Carolina, I think is likely seen as a blowout
2:26
Speaker 2: for the Democrats. South Carolina very unlikely to flip Darlene
2:31
Speaker 2: Graham or whoever it's going to be likely to win
2:33
Speaker 2: that one. And then you go from there another I
2:36
Speaker 2: guess interesting one here or interesting too, Georgia, which should
2:40
Speaker 2: be a top pick up opportunity for Republicans, but John
2:42
Speaker 2: Ossoff has just been consistently dominating the polls there. And
2:46
Speaker 2: then Minnesota, where Peggy Flanagan just won the Democratic nomination
2:51
Speaker 2: that when similarly in a different year, may be seen
2:54
Speaker 2: as competitive. Republicans got a candidate that they feel pretty
2:57
Speaker 2: good about there, but seen as fairly unlikely to shift
3:02
Speaker 2: away from the Democrats.
3:04
Speaker 3: Let's go and take a look at.
3:05
Speaker 2: Texas because there's obviously a lot of interest in this
3:09
Speaker 2: race between tell Rico and Paxton. Nate does have taal
3:13
Speaker 2: Rico narrowly ahead by two point six points here in
3:18
Speaker 2: his overall average of poles. I will say, I just
3:22
Speaker 2: saw a pole that came out this morning that has
3:24
Speaker 2: Paxton leading by one point. But Saria, I'm curious as
3:28
Speaker 2: a native Texan, I'm curious for your yeah, your view
3:32
Speaker 2: year because you know, Beto Aroor came very close against
3:36
Speaker 2: Ted Cruz.
3:37
Speaker 3: It was two points.
3:38
Speaker 2: He had a lot of momentum and Democrats really in
3:40
Speaker 2: love with this guy, and he did very well for Texas,
3:44
Speaker 2: coming within two points. No one else in recent memory
3:47
Speaker 2: has reached that high watermark. However, if you go back
3:49
Speaker 2: and look at the polling, Bato never led. He was
3:53
Speaker 2: consistently behind Ted Cruz. Now, I think Ted Cruz is
3:57
Speaker 2: an extremely odious character, and many Americans agree with me. However,
4:00
Speaker 2: Ken Paxton, I think is an even more odious character,
4:03
Speaker 2: and Texans in particular have a lot of distaste for him,
4:06
Speaker 2: not only because of his personal issues, but the corruption
4:10
Speaker 2: connected to those personal issues. He was impeached in the
4:13
Speaker 2: Texas House by his own Republican colleagues, then the Senate
4:18
Speaker 2: failed to convict. But it shows you what a controversial
4:20
Speaker 2: figure he is. He had a bruising primary against John Cornyn, etc.
4:24
Speaker 2: So he is a very very very imperfect candidate to
4:27
Speaker 2: say the least. And taller Ico seems to have sort
4:31
Speaker 2: of hit this sweet spot where his rhetoric is very populist,
4:36
Speaker 2: the actual issue positions are relatively moderi. He's like a
4:39
Speaker 2: public option guy. That's kind of where he's landed. But
4:43
Speaker 2: he's very much I think excited Democrats in a way
4:46
Speaker 2: that's similar to Beto. And then you have this ability
4:49
Speaker 2: to potentially win over Latinos, maybe pull some of them
4:52
Speaker 2: back from the right, and then you've got Paxton.
4:55
Speaker 3: So I don't know. I do think tall Rico has
4:57
Speaker 3: a shot here.
4:58
Speaker 1: I still don't know. I mean so, first of all,
5:01
Speaker 1: big picture from the polls conversation that we just had,
5:05
Speaker 1: do you not so I think Democrats will do well.
5:08
Speaker 1: But does this make your doubt your generic ballot stuff
5:10
Speaker 1: when I see D plus fourteen considering now that multiple
5:15
Speaker 1: of these races have been much closer. So two things.
5:18
Speaker 1: The races have been closer, but remember these are democratic primaries, right.
5:20
Speaker 1: If both Hong and Abdul had just gotten those number
5:23
Speaker 1: of votes, it would been like the most historic showing
5:25
Speaker 1: in the history of those democratic primaries, which shows you
5:28
Speaker 1: a ton of Democrats are votre voting. So that's important.
5:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, And assuming that even most Obduel had gotten a
5:34
Speaker 2: number of votes he did for the Senate in his
5:36
Speaker 2: governor's race, he would have won by like twenty points.
5:38
Speaker 3: No, exactly, it's huge numbers that are coming out.
5:41
Speaker 1: That's what we're trying to say. So just the number
5:43
Speaker 1: of people voting in a Democratic primary is indicative of
5:46
Speaker 1: deep democratic enthusiasm. However, what we know is that because
5:50
Speaker 1: they're currently heavily favoring these DSA candidates, is that this
5:53
Speaker 1: is most likely to be white, college educated liberal and
5:56
Speaker 1: those are the people that are most likely to answer
5:58
Speaker 1: a poll. So if that's the truth, and as he
6:00
Speaker 1: sees in his Democratic ballot, if we want to correct
6:03
Speaker 1: for that, let's say it's D plus four, which is
6:06
Speaker 1: still crazy. That's still very very high. Republicans are going
6:09
Speaker 1: to keep the Senate in that scenario. Now with Texas,
6:12
Speaker 1: let's say very specific. I just want to note that
6:14
Speaker 1: his analysis bakes in the polls. But if the polls
6:17
Speaker 1: are going to be as off as they have been
6:18
Speaker 1: in these races, then you still will see democratic performance,
6:22
Speaker 1: but it may end up being a narrative of underperformance
6:25
Speaker 1: relative to polls because of the error that we're currently seeing.
6:28
Speaker 1: But we still obviously we're not going to know that
6:29
Speaker 1: till election day now. In Texas, so a couple of things.
6:33
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz won fifty point nine percent of the vote,
6:36
Speaker 1: Beto won forty eight point three, So, as I said,
6:38
Speaker 1: it's roughly within two. The thing this does not factor
6:40
Speaker 1: in are two changing actual like big what if questions.
6:44
Speaker 1: This was while Beto actually did win all of those
6:48
Speaker 1: Latino Canada counties that were in South Texas, those people
6:52
Speaker 1: all then two years later dramatically voted for Donald Trump,
6:56
Speaker 1: and then in twenty twenty four went even more so
6:59
Speaker 1: for Trump. So so the question is will that hold whatsoever?
7:03
Speaker 1: We have no idea polling indicates differently, will who the
7:07
Speaker 1: fuck knows, because as we saw both in twenty twenty
7:09
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty four, wasn't caught in the analysis, wasn't predicted.
7:12
Speaker 3: I think it's a hard group to.
7:13
Speaker 1: Poll, extremely difficult. It's just a crazy ass region of
7:17
Speaker 1: the country. But that's a whole other discussion. The second thing, though,
7:20
Speaker 1: and this is very much in Talleryico's favor. The demographics
7:24
Speaker 1: of Texas have changed dramatically since twenty eighteen post COVID.
7:29
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've been to the city of Austin,
7:31
Speaker 1: the skyline looks very different from whenever I was a child.
7:34
Speaker 1: The number of these white college educated Libs that have
7:38
Speaker 1: moved into the state, both Dallas to Austin and Houston
7:42
Speaker 1: is crazy. I mean, we don't have the exact numbers,
7:45
Speaker 1: but in group migration has been hundreds of thousands of
7:47
Speaker 1: people into the state and exactly the demo that loves
7:52
Speaker 1: to vote very politically engage and so to get those
7:55
Speaker 1: people if you drive them out along with the traditional
7:59
Speaker 1: Texas Democratic costituency, which is older blacks in the inner
8:02
Speaker 1: cities like Houston and in Dallas, and at least some
8:05
Speaker 1: of these Latinos, tall Rico has a shot, that's for sure.
8:09
Speaker 1: The big picture kind of answer around Texas is whether
8:13
Speaker 1: the Latino demographic will switch back to twenty eighteen levels,
8:17
Speaker 1: because if they just do that, he wins. There's no question. Yeah,
8:19
Speaker 1: tall Rico would win. But I just don't know, and
8:22
Speaker 1: I'm getting some jitters about the polling errors that are happening.
8:25
Speaker 1: I will say Paxon is running as if he has
8:27
Speaker 1: a problem, and so that actually because you know, Cruse
8:30
Speaker 1: never really ran as if he had a problem. He
8:32
Speaker 1: actually kind of ran a bit of an arrogant race,
8:34
Speaker 1: and that's part of the reason why a lot of
8:36
Speaker 1: Republicans think he beclowned himself in that race. But Paxon,
8:39
Speaker 1: for example, he's got his personal problems. CE four, we
8:42
Speaker 1: have here a town hall caller confront Ken Paxon says, hey,
8:47
Speaker 1: why did you cheat on your wife? Let's take a listen.
8:49
Speaker 1: I've a been as nice to meet you.
8:51
Speaker 4: I'm just wondering why did heet on your wife. I'm
8:58
Speaker 4: not gonna talk about personal issues that relate to my family.
9:02
Speaker 4: It's like, I don't think you would want to discuss
9:05
Speaker 4: your marriage on a call one thousands of people. All
9:08
Speaker 4: I can tell you is that I'm proud of my kids.
9:10
Speaker 4: Got poor, wonderful kids.
9:12
Speaker 5: I got.
9:14
Speaker 4: Kevin Green told them, well take the one on the way,
9:16
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of mistake. And so while I
9:20
Speaker 4: care about this country, I'm not going to talk about
9:23
Speaker 4: things that would affect them. So thank you mentioned your question.
9:27
Speaker 1: Not great, definitely not great. Another reason you know this
9:29
Speaker 1: was very undercovered but I paid attention to this because
9:32
Speaker 1: this was where I was like, oh shit, he really
9:34
Speaker 1: does want to win. Let's put C five up here
9:36
Speaker 1: on the screen. This is from the Houston Chronicle, and
9:39
Speaker 1: so they write up Ken Paxton unveils economic plan focused
9:43
Speaker 1: on granting new tax breaks. All right, so let's actually
9:46
Speaker 1: go through and read some of these. Ken Paxon is proposing,
9:50
Speaker 1: in his quote agenda, one of the most extraordinary Republican
9:54
Speaker 1: expansions of social welfare that has ever happened. Now, it's
9:57
Speaker 1: gotten no coverage because nobody believes that any but would
10:00
Speaker 1: actually happen, but it is indicative that he finds the
10:03
Speaker 1: affordability problem serious. So, for example, he is proposing a
10:06
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars tax deduction for all out of
10:10
Speaker 1: pocket medical expenses, an additional twenty five thousand for all dependents,
10:14
Speaker 1: so up to fifty thousand dollars. A five thousand dollars
10:17
Speaker 1: tax deduction for healthy lifestyle expenses including gym related costs,
10:23
Speaker 1: GOLP one medication and nutrition plants, I mean five grand
10:27
Speaker 1: a year tax deduction. He's basically proposing making gop one
10:30
Speaker 1: drugs free for the entire nation for family. He has
10:33
Speaker 1: proposed making the Trump savings accounts permanent, the accounts created
10:37
Speaker 1: by Trump. He also said he would double the child
10:40
Speaker 1: tax credit, which would increase the maximum to forty four
10:43
Speaker 1: hundred dollars per child, and on housing, suggested a fifty
10:47
Speaker 1: thousand dollars tax deduction for the first time home buyer,
10:50
Speaker 1: which I believe is a Kamala Harris proposal from twenty
10:52
Speaker 1: twenty four, just to show you all what how much
10:55
Speaker 1: the Overton window has dramatically shifted. I also would say
10:58
Speaker 1: it gets zero coverage because not a lot of pe
11:00
Speaker 1: but believe that the Republicans would pass such a thing. However,
11:03
Speaker 1: you don't. A Texas politician does not run on handing
11:07
Speaker 1: out cash to child to children unless they're in bad straight,
11:11
Speaker 1: bad straight. Most of the time, they're just talking about
11:14
Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments in schools and some other bullshit about
11:17
Speaker 1: deregulation and oil like I've lived my whole life, and
11:21
Speaker 1: then throw a rock in there as well about protecting
11:23
Speaker 1: the troops. Those are the top three. You can always
11:26
Speaker 1: count on them to do something. To see something like this,
11:29
Speaker 1: I was like, oh boy. I was like, my man
11:31
Speaker 1: wants to win apparently. Yeah, And so with the polling
11:36
Speaker 1: that and this economic thing that convinced me more than
11:39
Speaker 1: anything that I'm like, he's actually in a tough fight.
11:41
Speaker 1: I still think that the demographic change that I outlined
11:44
Speaker 1: post COVID will be the big X factor in Texas.
11:47
Speaker 6: Well.
11:47
Speaker 2: Let me respond to a couple of things. So, first
11:49
Speaker 2: of all, on the polling era, I think you have
11:51
Speaker 2: to look at that, and even though look it's very
11:54
Speaker 2: different inside a democratic primary versus the general election and
11:56
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, you still have to look at and
11:58
Speaker 2: go on lest people get things wrong, and they get
12:00
Speaker 2: wrong like why a lot, So you have to factor that.
12:03
Speaker 2: And of course, now what I will say is what
12:05
Speaker 2: we've seen in special election after special election is if anything,
12:09
Speaker 2: the Democratic support has been understated, and you've seen landslide
12:14
Speaker 2: victories for Democrats. You've seen unexpected victories for Democrats who
12:19
Speaker 2: came out of nowhere. You've seen cities that have long
12:22
Speaker 2: had Republican mayors that are flipping hands. So that when
12:26
Speaker 2: I facture that in together with some of the generic
12:29
Speaker 2: ballot polling, I say, and just the overall landscape, like
12:32
Speaker 2: people hate the Iron War, Trump's popularities in the toilet,
12:35
Speaker 2: economic conditions, the fundamentals and the polling seem to align
12:39
Speaker 2: versus being at odds, so that you know, I'm honestly
12:43
Speaker 2: looking more at those fundamentals than I am the specifics
12:46
Speaker 2: of what the polling ultimately says. With regard to Tallarico
12:50
Speaker 2: and Paxton specifically, you know, I was skeptical that tall
12:56
Speaker 2: Rico's you know, he's very religious. He frames a lot
12:59
Speaker 2: of his arguments Christian terms. It was kind of skeptical
13:01
Speaker 2: of this, and Emily is skeptical of this, and she's
13:04
Speaker 2: an actual.
13:04
Speaker 1: CRITI described him very religious, which my religious friends are like,
13:07
Speaker 1: he's not anyway, right.
13:09
Speaker 3: But so I was kind of skeptical.
13:10
Speaker 2: I will say, based on the polling and the reception,
13:13
Speaker 2: it does seem to be working and is kind of
13:15
Speaker 2: a good contrast with Ken Paxton, who is also supposedly
13:18
Speaker 2: very religious, but then has comported himself in this deeply
13:22
Speaker 2: irreligious and immoral way, and so you know, he answers
13:27
Speaker 2: that caller, he's like, oh, well, this is just my
13:28
Speaker 2: personal life. First of all, it's really not, because he
13:31
Speaker 2: then used you know, his political position to get his
13:35
Speaker 2: girlfriend a job with some big donor to his campaign.
13:38
Speaker 2: So there is a direct nexus between the personal life
13:43
Speaker 2: and the corrupt dealings of the way he comported himself
13:47
Speaker 2: in office. So that's number one and number two, like
13:50
Speaker 2: you probably have a lot of people, you know, chated
13:53
Speaker 2: his wife.
13:53
Speaker 3: Not great. It is what it is.
13:54
Speaker 2: That's not really what I care about in terms of
13:56
Speaker 2: how I'm voting. But with someone like that, there is
13:58
Speaker 2: a big hypocrisy angle where it's like, you hold yourself
14:01
Speaker 2: out as mister family values, blah blah blah, traditional family,
14:05
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, and here's how you're actually living
14:08
Speaker 2: your life.
14:09
Speaker 3: You're a fraud, you're a liar when you can trast that.
14:12
Speaker 2: With Tallarico, who doesn't have any significant personal scandals, seems
14:18
Speaker 2: to be, you know, genuinely living the life that he
14:20
Speaker 2: portrays himself to be living. I think that's a tough
14:23
Speaker 2: contrast for him. They've been trying a lot of the uh,
14:26
Speaker 2: it's just predictable. They're trying a lot of the like,
14:28
Speaker 2: you know, let's find tall Rico's most cringe tweets, and
14:31
Speaker 2: there were a lot, by the way, from one point zero,
14:33
Speaker 2: there were some things he said that I'm sure he
14:34
Speaker 2: would love to take back. They've been trying they call
14:37
Speaker 2: him like Talafrico, They've been really trying to work that
14:40
Speaker 2: culture war angle very hard, and it may bear fruit,
14:44
Speaker 2: it may be successful. What I see in Paxton coming
14:47
Speaker 2: out with this whole economic agenda is that that is
14:51
Speaker 2: apparent to them that that is not enough in a
14:53
Speaker 2: moment when if you ask voters what their number one
14:55
Speaker 2: concern is, overwhelmingly it's going to be economic overwhelmingly, so
15:00
Speaker 2: they're feeling like, Okay, just tarring him with like he's
15:03
Speaker 2: too far left on these cultural issues is not going
15:05
Speaker 2: to get the job done. We've actually got to move
15:08
Speaker 2: towards his positions and muddy the waters on the economic
15:11
Speaker 2: piece as well. And I do think that that, to
15:13
Speaker 2: your point, is very revealing. One other thing I just
15:16
Speaker 2: want to throw into this is we've seen Hailey Stevens
15:19
Speaker 2: has been so magnanimous after a bruising primary with Abdulla
15:22
Speaker 2: Side going out as a surrogate on different TV shows
15:25
Speaker 2: to make the case for him. We already see Francesca
15:28
Speaker 2: hang is going to campaign with David Crowley. There's been
15:30
Speaker 2: a real effort for most of the Democratic candidates in
15:33
Speaker 2: these bruising primaries to try to link arms and bring
15:38
Speaker 2: the whole party together in service of defeating the Republicans
15:40
Speaker 2: in November. Not so in Texas, where Jasmine Crockett has
15:44
Speaker 2: really been something. You know, she technically endorsed Tall Rico,
15:48
Speaker 2: she has no plans to campaign with him. It's kind
15:51
Speaker 2: of down talking him, saying she doesn't know if he
15:52
Speaker 2: can win, and.
15:54
Speaker 1: She's even doing like stop the steal stuff about She's like, oh,
15:56
Speaker 1: it wasn't even really you know, it was rigged against me.
16:00
Speaker 2: Big contrasts, big kind, yes, big contrast between how the
16:03
Speaker 2: other candidates that we've seen have comported themselves.
16:06
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't matter. I don't know.
16:08
Speaker 2: But to your point, he needs a large showing from
16:12
Speaker 2: black voters in Texas and she I don't know that
16:17
Speaker 2: it matters that she's not like full throated endorsing him,
16:20
Speaker 2: but it certainly doesn't help.
16:21
Speaker 1: So I didn't realize this. He actually she won a
16:23
Speaker 1: million votes in that primary. That's so. Yeah. I do
16:26
Speaker 1: think it is a problem.
16:27
Speaker 2: And she she had huge margins with black voters. That
16:30
Speaker 2: was overwhelmingly her base of support, and she won. I
16:33
Speaker 2: mean it was very high percentage of actually won.
16:36
Speaker 1: It's a big problem because Houston and doubt that is
16:38
Speaker 1: the core the Texas Democratic Party and these people, I'm
16:42
Speaker 1: sure hate all of these white Libs who've just moved
16:44
Speaker 1: to the state because they're like, hey, we've been here
16:46
Speaker 1: for fifty years. You know, this is our Democratic prayer.
16:49
Speaker 1: The traditional Texas dem primary is our party is very
16:54
Speaker 1: heavily constituted of urban blacks in Dallas and in Houston,
16:57
Speaker 1: and so those people they dramatically voted for Jasmine Crockett,
17:02
Speaker 1: and she's out there kind of down talking him, especially
17:04
Speaker 1: if they were to see Tallarico. He himself, I mean,
17:07
Speaker 1: he's a I think fifth generation something Texan. But if
17:10
Speaker 1: they see his movement as kind of an outsider movement,
17:13
Speaker 1: I could see that being depressing. I mean, I don't
17:15
Speaker 1: know though.
17:16
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, there's just such a motivating
17:19
Speaker 2: fast for all Democrats that That's why I don't know
17:22
Speaker 2: that it will be that significant, because there's so much
17:25
Speaker 2: motivation just to beat the Republicans and to take back
17:27
Speaker 2: power from Trump that that is highly energizing in and
17:30
Speaker 2: of itself, even if you didn't get the candidate that
17:32
Speaker 2: you wanted last flag.
17:33
Speaker 1: Here one thing on the economic situation. Remember Texas is different,
17:36
Speaker 1: so the national gas or the gas price statewide, there
17:39
Speaker 1: is only three sixty. Now that's very high for Texas,
17:41
Speaker 1: but it's not four fifty or five dollars a gallon. Also,
17:44
Speaker 1: don't forget that while oil profits are bad for America,
17:47
Speaker 1: it's very good for Houston. So you know, there actually
17:50
Speaker 1: are I can't even tell you the number of multi
17:53
Speaker 1: millionaires that are being minted in Houston and in Midland
17:57
Speaker 1: and the Gulf of Houston. All these these people are
18:00
Speaker 1: rinting money, so it could be a little bit different.
18:03
Speaker 1: While the average Texan themselves is probably struggling with grocery
18:06
Speaker 1: prices in the national average, the gas is still cheaper.
18:09
Speaker 1: And if especially if you live in Houston or if
18:12
Speaker 1: you're involved in oil and gas, which is significant portion
18:15
Speaker 1: of the industry, is these people are making absolute shit
18:17
Speaker 1: pots of money. So economically it might be a little
18:20
Speaker 1: bit of a different story. That's my last, you know,
18:22
Speaker 1: kind of flag on the situation. I will be fascinating
18:25
Speaker 1: to see, I really will. Yeah. All right, let's get
18:27
Speaker 1: to Econ.
18:30
Speaker 2: So you all will recall a while back we covered
18:33
Speaker 2: a wild story out of Ecuador. Let's put this up
18:36
Speaker 2: on the screen, where a prosecutor investigating some US linked
18:41
Speaker 2: boat strikes in the region, including claims of torture after
18:45
Speaker 2: those strikes. That prosecutor was murdered in Ecuador. Circumstances are
18:50
Speaker 2: absolutely horrifying. There's a lot of broader context here to
18:53
Speaker 2: get into. But there's also a new report from the
18:56
Speaker 2: New York Times that adds some additional information to what
19:00
Speaker 2: is going on with these boat strikes. Let's put E
19:02
Speaker 2: one up on the screen. So here is the New
19:05
Speaker 2: York Times report. They say they spoke English, were US
19:08
Speaker 2: flags and attacked fishermen who were they? Ecuadorian cruz applying
19:13
Speaker 2: the waters with the specific have been targeted by a
19:14
Speaker 2: mysterious outfit equipped with drones. Some sailors appear to have
19:19
Speaker 2: lost their lives. This report strongly suggests it may actually
19:23
Speaker 2: be private mercenaries hired by the US that are behind
19:27
Speaker 2: these boat strikes, although we don't have definitive conclusions at
19:30
Speaker 2: this point. Join us now to break down what we
19:33
Speaker 2: know and explore the broader context here as well as
19:35
Speaker 2: Kamila Lordes golarzas she is the reporter on that drop
19:39
Speaker 2: site report. Incredible investigative journalist, and she is joining us
19:42
Speaker 2: just by audio from an undisclosed location because of fears
19:45
Speaker 2: out of her own life and safety.
19:48
Speaker 3: So Kmilla, welcome, great to have you.
19:50
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me.
19:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So let's start with this New York
19:54
Speaker 2: Times report. Talk to us about how it fits with
19:58
Speaker 2: the reporting that you've been doing in Ecuador, and if
20:01
Speaker 2: this provided you with some additional pieces of the puzzle
20:04
Speaker 2: of what exactly is going on here?
20:06
Speaker 5: Definitely, So to quickly recap, between January and March, three
20:10
Speaker 5: equatory and fishing crews reported attacks with the same chilling pattern,
20:13
Speaker 5: American drones circling overhead, a blue patrol ship closing in,
20:17
Speaker 5: then drones striking their boats. Two of the boat's crews
20:20
Speaker 5: returned home with their feet torn to flesh and bone
20:23
Speaker 5: and told me first hand accounts of being abducted, hooded, beaten,
20:26
Speaker 5: and starved for up to eight days by American gunmen
20:29
Speaker 5: in US military uniforms aboard a US flagged patrol ship
20:33
Speaker 5: before being taken an abandoned in El Salvador. This is
20:35
Speaker 5: key to understanding the New York Times details that have
20:38
Speaker 5: now come out. The third boat never returned. The eight
20:41
Speaker 5: men aboard remained missing. Two of their crew members who
20:44
Speaker 5: survived by chance because they were out on a nearby
20:46
Speaker 5: raft at the time of the attack later told police
20:50
Speaker 5: and I that they witnessed multiple gray American drones with
20:53
Speaker 5: that same US flag patrol ship circling them. So, with
20:57
Speaker 5: the help of air Wars analyst Tommy McCluskey, I uncovered
21:00
Speaker 5: and published NASA thermal images consistent with the negative Francisca
21:04
Speaker 5: bombing and vessel tracking data that shows a US Coast
21:07
Speaker 5: Guard boat leaving a nearby Ecuadorian military base hours before
21:12
Speaker 5: the bombing, despite the DoD saying it was only deployed
21:15
Speaker 5: as a surge and rescue operation and turning its signal
21:18
Speaker 5: off shortly before the bombing, only to reappear in Costa
21:22
Speaker 5: Rican waters a day before the fishermen were transferred to
21:25
Speaker 5: El Salvador's navy, and then leaving Central American waters again
21:29
Speaker 5: the day after El Salvador it has said it had
21:32
Speaker 5: the fishermen in custody and then I also obtained exclusive
21:36
Speaker 5: eyewitness videos of a US Coast Guard boat patrolling in
21:39
Speaker 5: the bombing in the aftermath of the strike, and these
21:42
Speaker 5: eyewitnesses say that the Coast Guard boarded their boat and
21:45
Speaker 5: told them that they had been at the scene of
21:46
Speaker 5: the Negata Francisca bombing, but that they didn't divulge further details.
21:50
Speaker 5: So now the New York Times is reporting that a
21:52
Speaker 5: maritime patrol plane registered to a Virginia PO box and
21:56
Speaker 5: frequently operating from a military base in El Salvador where
22:00
Speaker 5: the fishermen were taken, flew towards all three boats that
22:03
Speaker 5: in the days before they were attacked, including the day
22:06
Speaker 5: that the Fiorella, the boat that went missing in January disappeared.
22:10
Speaker 5: So what this does is it reinforces the link to
22:13
Speaker 5: El Salvador. We know that El Salvador Bukele's administration, which
22:17
Speaker 5: has faced several allegations of human rights abuses, is a
22:21
Speaker 5: close partner of the of the Trump administration along with
22:25
Speaker 5: Ikualor's government, and that Al Salveld has been using and
22:30
Speaker 5: deploying ghost writers as part of Operation Southern Spear, which
22:34
Speaker 5: are these big giant planes that carry weapons. I believe
22:37
Speaker 5: they carry hell fire missiles. They have the capacity to
22:40
Speaker 5: carry out some kind of operation similar to this, right,
22:43
Speaker 5: and Al sal has been operating deep in Pacific waters,
22:47
Speaker 5: and Bukele himself is publicly bragged about intercepting ecdoring fishermen.
22:52
Speaker 5: And so now this new York Times article suggests that
22:55
Speaker 5: there may have been an off the book's plane that
22:58
Speaker 5: has been stationed in before and now look osen analysts
23:03
Speaker 5: who reviewed the flight data as well told me it
23:06
Speaker 5: was not notably close to the Fiorilla at the time
23:09
Speaker 5: of the disappearance. It didn't seem so, and the Times
23:12
Speaker 5: did not publish the full tracking data or comparable flight
23:17
Speaker 5: data for the other boats besides the Fiorilla. But when
23:20
Speaker 5: you pair it with the evidence I uncovered and the
23:22
Speaker 5: fishermen's descriptions of aircraft and uniform which matches those of
23:25
Speaker 5: US Southern Command, it becomes increasingly difficult to, you know,
23:30
Speaker 5: to really defend that the US did not have some
23:33
Speaker 5: sort of involvement in these And then in the coming days,
23:37
Speaker 5: I'll be I've made some discoveries and I'll be publishing
23:40
Speaker 5: further evidence that directly establishes American presence and knowledge surrounding
23:46
Speaker 5: these incidents. Folks can follow those updates on my Twitter
23:49
Speaker 5: Camilla Lolarsa. In the meantime, I just like to quickly
23:53
Speaker 5: highlight that all three boats were searched and cleared by
23:56
Speaker 5: the Ecuadorian Coast Guard and found not to be carrying drugs.
23:59
Speaker 1: Prior to the so coming. I know you provided us
24:02
Speaker 1: with some video. We can put that up here on
24:04
Speaker 1: the screen. Can you explain what the audience and I
24:07
Speaker 1: are looking at while while you go ahead and talk?
24:09
Speaker 1: Go ahead, absolutely, yeah.
24:11
Speaker 5: So what you're seeing here is an eyewitness recording taken
24:16
Speaker 5: by Darwin Flores Pico, who is the nephew of the
24:19
Speaker 5: Negro Francisque captain Ernand Flores, who was impacted by the
24:23
Speaker 5: drone strike. He actually witnessed the bombing. He was far
24:29
Speaker 5: away but had seen the smoke and the aftermath of it.
24:33
Speaker 5: He approached his boat, hoping to you know, help out
24:36
Speaker 5: his family because he was aware that this was in
24:39
Speaker 5: the vicinity where his uncle was fishing, and upon arriving
24:43
Speaker 5: at the scene he saw He took photos which we
24:46
Speaker 5: then published, of the boat bombed and was recording this
24:52
Speaker 5: scene when red and green lights descended upon the scene.
24:56
Speaker 5: He claims so with fear that this may be another
24:59
Speaker 5: attack given the the pattern of extra judicial killings in
25:02
Speaker 5: the region by the Trump administration. He quickly left the scene,
25:05
Speaker 5: and hours later is when he records this video of
25:08
Speaker 5: the US Coast Guard patrolling the area and later detaining
25:12
Speaker 5: him for up to twelve hours where they interrogated if
25:15
Speaker 5: he had witnessed anything and yet and confirmed that they
25:19
Speaker 5: had been at the scene that but they wouldn't have
25:23
Speaker 5: divulge any other information regarding their involvement or activity got it.
25:28
Speaker 2: So one of the new revelations in this New York
25:30
Speaker 2: Times report, and this part of your reporting as well,
25:34
Speaker 2: is that there was this plane that was following these
25:37
Speaker 2: boats that end up getting bombed, and they were able
25:40
Speaker 2: to track use flight data to track this plane that
25:43
Speaker 2: flew towards one of the boats that went the one
25:46
Speaker 2: that went missing the Fiorilla on four different days. The
25:49
Speaker 2: plane doesn't appear, they say, on the Pentagon's list of
25:51
Speaker 2: active aircraft. Instead, it was registered last October to a
25:56
Speaker 2: company that lists its address as a private mailbox in
25:59
Speaker 2: a ups store in Richmond, Virginia.
26:03
Speaker 3: According to the FAA.
26:05
Speaker 2: So this seems like an important piece of the puzzle
26:09
Speaker 2: and nothing definitive, but seems to indicate these could be
26:14
Speaker 2: private mercenaries who are involved here, and you reported Times
26:18
Speaker 2: reported there's also I believe in New Yorker report human
26:22
Speaker 2: Rights Watch report that says that the men who were
26:26
Speaker 2: you know, involved in these strikes and then allegedly abducting
26:29
Speaker 2: and torturing these fishermen, that they were American accented, that
26:34
Speaker 2: they had some sort of uniform on with an American
26:36
Speaker 2: flag patch, but that it didn't carry any insigniat insignia
26:40
Speaker 2: of a specific military branch. And you know, and you know,
26:44
Speaker 2: they didn't identify themselves as being part of any military branch.
26:48
Speaker 2: So are you looking at these signs and taking this
26:50
Speaker 2: points to some sort of a private mercenary operation. I
26:53
Speaker 2: know the New York Times went to Eric Prince, formerly
26:56
Speaker 2: a Blackwater and said, hey, are you involved in this?
26:58
Speaker 2: Because he is involved in some similar operations throughout the region.
27:02
Speaker 2: They deny any involvement. What are you making of these
27:05
Speaker 2: different pieces of the puzzle.
27:07
Speaker 5: Certainly, I do think that some of the evidence raises
27:10
Speaker 5: questions around former Blackwater mercenaries and princes involvement in this,
27:15
Speaker 5: especially given that Prince has such a close relationship with
27:20
Speaker 5: the Equadorian administration, which many analysts have called a US proxy.
27:26
Speaker 5: Eric Prince was on the ground during our last presidential
27:29
Speaker 5: election patrolling voting sites at gunpoint, particularly in working class
27:34
Speaker 5: regions that tend to support the left wing candidates, and
27:37
Speaker 5: so he has been closing up to the noble administration,
27:41
Speaker 5: of course, at the behest of US interests. And actually
27:44
Speaker 5: recently there were several school administrations across Ecuador who were
27:49
Speaker 5: video recorded praying and having their students pledge allegiance to
27:54
Speaker 5: Eric Prince and Noboa and Blackwater itself. So there is
27:57
Speaker 5: a huge involvement of Blackwater. They been deployed to Manta.
28:01
Speaker 5: You know, the Ecuadorian president recently released a executive decree
28:07
Speaker 5: that is essentially a martial law decree in which US
28:10
Speaker 5: troops but also private contractors for the d D and
28:14
Speaker 5: all d D personnel are granted total immunity, completely shielded
28:18
Speaker 5: from any accountability to Ecuadorian and civil law where they
28:22
Speaker 5: are patrolling right in these regions. And so I think
28:26
Speaker 5: that there is extensive precedence in you know, including in
28:30
Speaker 5: these in strikes and involvement and aggression towards Haiti to
28:35
Speaker 5: say that certainly this could be a possibility. Again, they've
28:39
Speaker 5: denied it, and we don't have any smoking gun, but
28:42
Speaker 5: you know, it's we're still early and we're continuing to
28:44
Speaker 5: pursue all leads.
28:48
Speaker 1: Could you give us an update and well in this
28:50
Speaker 1: prosecutor situation which you had written about previously, e two,
28:55
Speaker 1: this story about the prosecutor investigating US boat strikes was
28:59
Speaker 1: murdered in Ecuador. I know that you did this investigation.
29:02
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit more or any
29:04
Speaker 1: update on the situation?
29:07
Speaker 5: Absolutely so yes. In June, Alexandra Bravo, the prosecutor designed
29:11
Speaker 5: to investigate these US strikes on the three Ecuadorian votes,
29:15
Speaker 5: was shot dead in the coastal city of Manta, where
29:17
Speaker 5: again US troops have been operating with total diplomatic community
29:21
Speaker 5: since December, despite a constitutional ban on US military basis
29:25
Speaker 5: in the region. And so Bravo is the twenty sixth
29:28
Speaker 5: member of Ecuador's justice system to be assassinated, and she
29:31
Speaker 5: is the second individual investigating straight crimes murdered that week.
29:34
Speaker 5: The first was Monica Silva, a European activist who has
29:38
Speaker 5: been living and working in Eguavod for decades, who was
29:42
Speaker 5: found murdered in her home after having reported to the
29:47
Speaker 5: DA and FBI delivering evidence of Noboa's president Noboa's links
29:52
Speaker 5: to drug trafficking because his family corporation has found cocaine
29:58
Speaker 5: on their shipping boats. And so she was murdered. And
30:01
Speaker 5: then that same week, Alexandra Bravo was murdered, and a
30:04
Speaker 5: source inside the months of Police Department who I verified
30:07
Speaker 5: new Bravo, personally told me that she was facing immense
30:10
Speaker 5: pressure from her superiors at the Attorney General's Office to
30:13
Speaker 5: treat the US attacks as exclusively cases of disappearance, and
30:17
Speaker 5: being told to close all lines of inquiry after only
30:19
Speaker 5: thirty six of the forty four men were found, despite
30:22
Speaker 5: them arriving with severe injuries, including seventy percent vision loss.
30:26
Speaker 5: So in the days leading up to her assassination, she
30:29
Speaker 5: was relocated to a different municipality, her caseload was changed
30:33
Speaker 5: and she was no longer responsible for overseeing these cases.
30:36
Speaker 5: And then a hitman aboard a black motorcycle fired five
30:40
Speaker 5: rounds into her and her sister, unfortunately stealing both of
30:44
Speaker 5: their lives. This missing police detail that was assigned to
30:48
Speaker 5: protect her resembles the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando je
30:53
Speaker 5: Viri Cencio, who we now know due to a drop
30:56
Speaker 5: site investigation, was a US informant running on a strong,
31:01
Speaker 5: you know, tough on crime campaign. Received was a popular
31:05
Speaker 5: front runner, and after his assassination, President Danielle Nobola, who
31:09
Speaker 5: was previously pulling at three percent searched to top and
31:12
Speaker 5: eventually became the victorious winner.
31:15
Speaker 3: Wow Camilla.
31:16
Speaker 2: One thing that is very perplexing about this is the
31:19
Speaker 2: US is denying any involvement here. They have not been
31:22
Speaker 2: shy about taking credit and bragging about other boat strikes
31:27
Speaker 2: in the region, including ones where you know, after the fact,
31:30
Speaker 2: where they didn't go well, where there were survivors that
31:33
Speaker 2: had to be returned, where after the fact we learned, okay,
31:36
Speaker 2: they weren't drug runners, they were just random fishermen like
31:39
Speaker 2: these Ecuadorians were appear to have been as well. Why
31:43
Speaker 2: in this instance do you have any theories about they
31:46
Speaker 2: would be so you know, hands off and maybe organnouncers
31:49
Speaker 2: to mercenaries, and those mercenaries are also denying any involvement.
31:52
Speaker 2: What do you think could be going on with that?
31:55
Speaker 5: Certainly so, all three boats were searched and cleared by
31:59
Speaker 5: the Ecuadori Coastguard and found not to be carrying drugs
32:02
Speaker 5: in the hours prior to the bombing.
32:04
Speaker 3: I believe this is a.
32:04
Speaker 5: Key detail that could explain their different approach right. The
32:08
Speaker 5: Human Rights Watch also reviewed the criminal records of all
32:11
Speaker 5: forty six fishermen and found that none had a history
32:15
Speaker 5: of drug related offenses or violent felonies, And unlike many
32:19
Speaker 5: of the boat's targeted and Operation Southern Spear, these were
32:23
Speaker 5: commercial fishing vessels operating with valid licenses and documentation. So
32:27
Speaker 5: that could explain why the US has been unwilling to
32:30
Speaker 5: claim responsibility as opposed to their usual bragging of carrying
32:33
Speaker 5: out a traditional killing spreeze against fishermen, because the legal
32:36
Speaker 5: consequences here could be far more serious. And I think
32:39
Speaker 5: it exposes what working class Latin Americans have known all along,
32:42
Speaker 5: that the Trump administration is not fighting drug trafficking. If
32:45
Speaker 5: they were, they wouldn't have pardoned convicted drug trafficker and
32:48
Speaker 5: former US back President Juan D. Landlordnandez. And they wouldn't
32:51
Speaker 5: be partnering with President Nobola, who himself has documented ties
32:54
Speaker 5: to drug trafficking. Right, this is showing. It really opens
32:58
Speaker 5: far more questions to the legiti a mis seed of
33:01
Speaker 5: Operation Southern Spear. And you know, I just want to
33:03
Speaker 5: say that as an Ecuadorian, it feels like my obligation
33:06
Speaker 5: to point out that even when fishermen, often many times
33:09
Speaker 5: at gunpoint, are forced by cartels to traffic drugs, they
33:13
Speaker 5: are still you know, deserve and entitled to do process
33:17
Speaker 5: and simply massacring them at sea is not that. And
33:20
Speaker 5: I think it's also our obligation to point out that
33:24
Speaker 5: from the Iran contra to the CIA created crack epidemic
33:28
Speaker 5: to Ondura's Gate, the drug trade has repeatedly functioned as
33:31
Speaker 5: an instrument of Western imperialism and class oppression, you know,
33:35
Speaker 5: destabilizing and creating consent to justify military occupation. And so
33:41
Speaker 5: I think that it's really important to point out not
33:44
Speaker 5: only that this Operation Southern Spear has real serious moral questions,
33:50
Speaker 5: but that also this may be why they are unwilling
33:53
Speaker 5: to claim this, because it puts it in another light.
33:56
Speaker 5: And that's also maybe why they brought them to Al Salvador.
33:58
Speaker 5: Our Osan analysts, you know, questioned who else would be
34:02
Speaker 5: interested in bringing them all the way to La Salvador
34:05
Speaker 5: in in the time the budget, and that that requires
34:09
Speaker 5: the resources it requires to transport them all the way there.
34:12
Speaker 5: If it was cartels, if it was other regional powers,
34:14
Speaker 5: they really don't have the interest right in saving them.
34:17
Speaker 5: They also don't really have the budget or capacity. This
34:20
Speaker 5: I think says, hey, we were trying to avoid international
34:23
Speaker 5: legal ramifications.
34:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I can't remember if it was your reporting
34:26
Speaker 2: forgive Me or one of the other reports that said
34:29
Speaker 2: that some of the fishermen, you know, they didn't understand
34:32
Speaker 2: the American English that was being spoken, but when they explained,
34:36
Speaker 2: we just got cleared by the Ecuadorian authorities, like we're
34:39
Speaker 2: not drug ra We're just fishermen. That there was an
34:42
Speaker 2: argument that that broke out, that they seemed to be
34:45
Speaker 2: angry with each other, which I think fits with your
34:47
Speaker 2: explanation here that whether this was private mercenaries or whoever
34:51
Speaker 2: was involved back by the Americans that they felt like, oh,
34:54
Speaker 2: we kind of screwed up with this. So it does
34:57
Speaker 2: provide a plausible explanation for why they would not want
35:00
Speaker 2: to take credit. Camilla, thank you so much for breaking
35:03
Speaker 2: down the story. I know our audience was really shocked
35:07
Speaker 2: and horrified by the reporting that you provided for dropsite
35:11
Speaker 2: earlier and have been very interested in the story. Tell
35:13
Speaker 2: people where they can follow you, specifically so that as
35:17
Speaker 2: you report out new developments that you've been able to
35:19
Speaker 2: break this week, they'll be able to access those new
35:23
Speaker 2: that new information as well.
35:25
Speaker 5: Absolutely, my substack is Camilla Lalasa. Folks can also follow
35:29
Speaker 5: me on Twitter Camilla handle Soviet with Sesson and I
35:34
Speaker 5: have appeared on Democracy Now and so they can follow
35:36
Speaker 5: some of my interviews there as well. Thank you so
35:39
Speaker 5: much for having me.
35:40
Speaker 2: It's our pleasure. We hope you'll come back very interestated.
35:42
Speaker 1: And a really good story. Please stay safe down there.
35:45
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you, take care.
35:49
Speaker 1: Joining us now is a great friend of the show.
35:51
Speaker 1: Pablo Tore, host of Pablo Tori, finds out. Good to
35:54
Speaker 1: see you man, Thank you for joining us.
35:56
Speaker 7: There's so much going on, guys, I feel like the
35:58
Speaker 7: bad signal has and raised to this guy.
36:00
Speaker 6: I'll do my best.
36:02
Speaker 1: Well, you're the expert here, so let's gohe and put
36:04
Speaker 1: it up here on the screen. We're covering the Los
36:06
Speaker 1: Angeles Lakers. Very strange situation. It appears now that the
36:10
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Lakers will be sold to Bob Iiger and
36:13
Speaker 1: Joshua Kushner, who is Jared Kushner's brother, some one year
36:17
Speaker 1: after Mark Walter bought the team. This comes amid Mark
36:22
Speaker 1: Walter's own personal problems whenever it relates to a federal
36:26
Speaker 1: investigation and I believe alleged financial crimes. So Pablo, can
36:31
Speaker 1: you put this together? How extraordinary is it? Doesn't seem
36:34
Speaker 1: very often that these major sports franchises are sold under
36:37
Speaker 1: these circumstances. To Kushner's brother, what angles are you seeing here?
36:41
Speaker 7: I've never seen a story like this where the guy
36:44
Speaker 7: who bought the team, the Lakers, the most iconic franchise
36:46
Speaker 7: maybe in the NBA.
36:49
Speaker 6: Sells it after nine months.
36:50
Speaker 7: That alone, the timeline is frankly inexplicable, absent other fascinating reasons.
36:56
Speaker 7: At the same time, keep in mind that Mark Walter,
36:58
Speaker 7: who has one of my favorite superlatives, he is famously private.
37:03
Speaker 7: He was not a guy that people understood to have
37:05
Speaker 7: enough money to valuate and purchase the Lakers at ten
37:09
Speaker 7: billion dollars when.
37:10
Speaker 6: He bought them in the first place. And so I
37:12
Speaker 6: was tracking that.
37:13
Speaker 7: And then you get the federal investigation thanks to whistleblower
37:16
Speaker 7: inside one of his companies. And I'll just summarize the
37:19
Speaker 7: alleged scandal there briefly, which is that there's a thing
37:23
Speaker 7: in securities law called related party transactions where if you
37:26
Speaker 7: have a material relationship, a substantial relationship with another company,
37:31
Speaker 7: like say you also own that, you got to disclose it.
37:34
Speaker 7: And apparently, according to this whistleblower, there was an undisclosed
37:38
Speaker 7: related party relationship, and Mark Walter had said it was
37:41
Speaker 7: about two billion dollars in revenue. Allegedly we're looking at
37:44
Speaker 7: sixteen to seventeen billion dollars. So this is a massive
37:48
Speaker 7: story that broke in mid July in the financial press,
37:51
Speaker 7: and days after one of the great symbolic and fascinating
37:56
Speaker 7: things happens, which is that Mark Walter, who also owns
37:59
Speaker 7: the Dodgers, right the World Series winning Dodgers, goes to visit.
38:04
Speaker 6: The White House.
38:05
Speaker 7: And the thing that I saw that I was tracking
38:08
Speaker 7: as soon as I saw this was he gave Donald Trump,
38:12
Speaker 7: not just a jersey with his name on it, which
38:14
Speaker 7: is standard practice, he gives him a World Series ring.
38:19
Speaker 6: He put a ring on it. Like what I asked around.
38:23
Speaker 7: I asked other owners of sports teams, have you guys
38:26
Speaker 7: ever seen the president getting a ring, a championship ring
38:31
Speaker 7: at the White House visit? And no one can recall
38:34
Speaker 7: this happening. And so you just have in the context
38:37
Speaker 7: of all of this at the highest level the Trump
38:39
Speaker 7: administration and the power, let's just say it out loud,
38:42
Speaker 7: the power of the pardon, which is looming in the
38:45
Speaker 7: background around all of this.
38:47
Speaker 6: And so that's the one story.
38:49
Speaker 7: But then guys Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, and again
38:52
Speaker 7: I worked for Bob Iger when he owned when he
38:55
Speaker 7: ran Disney and Disney owned ESPN. Bob Iger I know
38:58
Speaker 7: to be a long time sports fan. He has recently
39:00
Speaker 7: been advising Josh Kushner with Thrive Eternal, and Josh is
39:05
Speaker 7: the quote unquote good Kushner. So we'll just leave that
39:08
Speaker 7: as the perlative of its own hanging in the air
39:11
Speaker 7: there for a second. But their whole thesis here is
39:13
Speaker 7: that we're going to invest in sports teams, and they've
39:16
Speaker 7: done so.
39:16
Speaker 6: They bought a share of the Giant in Major League Baseball.
39:19
Speaker 7: But the most recent thing that was happening concurrent with
39:22
Speaker 7: the Mark Walters story in the same timeline was their
39:26
Speaker 7: attempt to private equity, let's make it a vert private
39:30
Speaker 7: equity of FI the World Cup, and that whole thing
39:34
Speaker 7: kicked off a whole scandal in which they were basically defenestrated.
39:38
Speaker 6: Johnny and Fantino, Donald Trump's.
39:39
Speaker 7: Good friends and ally he was in this proposal to
39:44
Speaker 7: sell shares of a new spinoff company that FIFA would make,
39:48
Speaker 7: in which Josh Kushner and Bob Bagger would be his
39:50
Speaker 7: partners in this giant deal, and so that falls apart
39:54
Speaker 7: because Europe revolts.
39:57
Speaker 6: They do the thing.
39:57
Speaker 7: We've talked about this before, but the private equity of
39:59
Speaker 7: the case of all of sports, your appetite for this,
40:03
Speaker 7: your mileage varies, and in Europe there are like the
40:05
Speaker 7: World Cup. Well, well that's a bridge too far, and
40:08
Speaker 7: so that deal is killed. But now you have these
40:11
Speaker 7: two parallel tracks happening in which Kushner and Aiger are like, okay,
40:16
Speaker 7: so what do we pivot to.
40:17
Speaker 6: They were looking to buy the last.
40:19
Speaker 7: Vegas NBA expansion team, but okay, that wasn't happening as
40:22
Speaker 7: quickly as they wanted. Over here, Mark Walter is like, okay,
40:26
Speaker 7: I'm dealing with the federal investigation in which billions of
40:29
Speaker 7: dollars of my money is now at stake. And in
40:32
Speaker 7: the middle of this ven diagram emerges the commissioner of
40:36
Speaker 7: the NBA, Adam Silver, and the Los Angeles Lakers. And
40:40
Speaker 7: this happens over seventy two hours, which is also an
40:44
Speaker 7: unprecedented timeline.
40:45
Speaker 2: To be very clear, when did the investigation of Mark
40:47
Speaker 2: Walter start?
40:48
Speaker 3: Was it under the Trump administration?
40:50
Speaker 6: Yeah?
40:50
Speaker 7: I mean, so this was, according to reporting and Bloomberg.
40:53
Speaker 7: The Financial Times have done great work on this. Reportedly
40:58
Speaker 7: this has been going on since last year, and a
41:00
Speaker 7: whistleblower is the one who identified this, kicking off what
41:04
Speaker 7: seems to be a I'll put it this way, for
41:08
Speaker 7: the sake of just discretion, an ongoing and deepening story
41:14
Speaker 7: about how much money does this guy have? When I
41:16
Speaker 7: say that he didn't obviously have enough money to buy
41:19
Speaker 7: the Lakers in the first place, I will tell you
41:22
Speaker 7: that he went around Mark Walter did and was talking
41:25
Speaker 7: to everybody he could on background, saying no, no, no, I
41:29
Speaker 7: got it. But there's another player when it comes to
41:32
Speaker 7: that story that is very interesting when it comes to
41:34
Speaker 7: the federal investigation and when it comes to the question
41:37
Speaker 7: of how he afforded it, which is Abu Dhabi and
41:40
Speaker 7: so not to make this now like a Marvel cinematic
41:43
Speaker 7: universe thing where all of these sort of like big
41:45
Speaker 7: characters like emerging through portals. But the story of Abu
41:48
Speaker 7: Dhabi is quite relevant here because billions of dollars from Mubadala,
41:53
Speaker 7: which is the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, came
41:55
Speaker 7: in and backed Mark Walter and Mark Walter was asked,
41:59
Speaker 7: you know, do you have the money to buy the
42:01
Speaker 7: Laker and he said no, no, no, I got it.
42:03
Speaker 6: But in the.
42:03
Speaker 7: Background, the question had always been how much is Abu
42:06
Speaker 7: Dhabi responsible for the ability of Mark Walter to buy
42:10
Speaker 7: this team? And so the reason I say sovereign wealth
42:13
Speaker 7: funds are here in the story alongside private equity is
42:16
Speaker 7: that these are two forces that are even absent this
42:19
Speaker 7: Van diagram actively reshaping.
42:21
Speaker 6: Who can afford to buy these teams?
42:24
Speaker 7: Yes, because when a team is valuated at twelve point
42:27
Speaker 7: five billion dollars, that's not only the highest price you've
42:30
Speaker 7: ever seen in professional sports, it's also so rich that
42:34
Speaker 7: individuals alone cannot afford it. And so how do you
42:39
Speaker 7: support a price structure like that? And so the question
42:43
Speaker 7: that I have looking ahead is who else is in
42:46
Speaker 7: this ownership group? Is Abu Dhabi going to exit? Are
42:49
Speaker 7: they going to stay? How do they figure into all
42:52
Speaker 7: of this. It's another thing that I am actively very
42:54
Speaker 7: curious about.
42:55
Speaker 1: You know, you make an interesting point there. I'm sure
42:57
Speaker 1: you saw. I think it was like Sportico's list came
42:59
Speaker 1: out yesterday valuable NFL franchises. They have the Cowboys now
43:03
Speaker 1: valued fifteen billion I know the Seahawks just closed their
43:08
Speaker 1: valuation and they sold after they won the Super Bowl.
43:12
Speaker 1: It looks like big tech COSLA was one of the
43:15
Speaker 1: major funders behind that one. So what do you think
43:19
Speaker 1: that means for the future of the franchises and potentially
43:22
Speaker 1: the sports themselves. Are we just going to see more
43:24
Speaker 1: of this big money coming in with evaluation than milking
43:28
Speaker 1: the fan for everything that they're worth, turning it into
43:30
Speaker 1: an ultra luxury experience for fans, and the normal fans
43:34
Speaker 1: can party in the parking lot and potentially even have
43:36
Speaker 1: to pay to do so.
43:37
Speaker 7: Yeah, but that's a literal scene by the way, Right,
43:39
Speaker 7: we saw that with the Knixt winning the championship, where
43:41
Speaker 7: the fans could not even be outside anymore. Right, there's
43:44
Speaker 7: this whole hubbub with Jim Dolan and like, who's allowed
43:47
Speaker 7: to party outside?
43:49
Speaker 6: It's too cliche to just.
43:50
Speaker 7: Call everything the affordability crisis, but I don't think you'll
43:53
Speaker 7: find a better case study for the alienation of the
43:56
Speaker 7: consumer from their favorite thing than professional sports. And when
44:00
Speaker 7: all of these questions are swirling around, do these people
44:03
Speaker 7: care about this in the way that we do, which
44:06
Speaker 7: is to say we care about I'm speaking now as
44:08
Speaker 7: the fan, we care about sports in a way that
44:11
Speaker 7: we care about few other things.
44:13
Speaker 6: It is an heir loom that we inherit from our parents.
44:16
Speaker 7: It is the thing that we will invest money on,
44:19
Speaker 7: bet money on.
44:21
Speaker 6: We will be here for the long run.
44:24
Speaker 7: And so when Mark Walter flips a team like it's
44:27
Speaker 7: a house, the question is immediately raised, Okay, why is
44:32
Speaker 7: sports now behaving in a way that it never used to?
44:35
Speaker 7: And then the question of who are the buyers? Who
44:37
Speaker 7: are the leagues letting in? What you're getting to is
44:41
Speaker 7: this world in which it's really hard to imagine that
44:46
Speaker 7: as prices go up to twelve plus billion dollars fifteen right,
44:49
Speaker 7: fifteen is now a realistic number in the NFL, fifteen
44:52
Speaker 7: billion dollars. The question is how do you sustain? How
44:57
Speaker 7: do you sustain those prices? And so you're going to extract, right, Like,
45:02
Speaker 7: I think it's really important to point out that sports
45:04
Speaker 7: is not a it's not a super complicated business in
45:07
Speaker 7: the end, Like the actual bulk of revenue of profit
45:11
Speaker 7: that teams make is on their media rights deals. There
45:14
Speaker 7: are lots of other ways, lots of other products, and
45:16
Speaker 7: they would love to sell you jerseys and they'd love
45:18
Speaker 7: to sell you trading cards. I'd love for you to gamble,
45:20
Speaker 7: and that will accrue to the bottom line. But really,
45:23
Speaker 7: this is the story of an economy bolstered by media rights,
45:27
Speaker 7: and we are going to get to a point where
45:30
Speaker 7: the TV networks that will pay through the nose for
45:34
Speaker 7: live programming, which supports commercials and marketing in a.
45:38
Speaker 6: Way that is truly unique in the media environment.
45:40
Speaker 7: As you guys know, right, there are no big tents left,
45:42
Speaker 7: there are no monoculture left. Sports is it, Yeah, it's
45:45
Speaker 7: the last one TV networks desperately needed. It's why the
45:48
Speaker 7: NBA just tripled its rights package, which gives rise to
45:51
Speaker 7: these valuations.
45:52
Speaker 6: It's this constant green arrow up into the right.
45:55
Speaker 7: The question of how you keep that green arrow going
45:57
Speaker 7: up into the right while your owners are now institutional
46:00
Speaker 7: investors who only care about the arrow going up into
46:02
Speaker 7: the right. Right, You're going to see this divergence between
46:06
Speaker 7: the incentive, the prime directive being we want to win
46:08
Speaker 7: a championship, which with the fans want, and we want
46:12
Speaker 7: to keep making more money, which is what the owners
46:15
Speaker 7: will want. And the question of how you keep making
46:18
Speaker 7: more money without extracting, without fracking sports, right, And I
46:22
Speaker 7: want to use that just briefly here, meaningfully, meaning that
46:25
Speaker 7: they can smell that there's still more money under the
46:28
Speaker 7: surface here. The question is whether the leagues and owners
46:32
Speaker 7: realize that when you drill down and you get that oil,
46:35
Speaker 7: so to speak, you also run the risk of poisoning
46:39
Speaker 7: the whole environment in which fans feel like we it's
46:42
Speaker 7: not safe for us to be here anymore. Yeah, and
46:44
Speaker 7: then the whole thing can explode really well.
46:47
Speaker 2: And to bring them back to the Lakers, I mean,
46:49
Speaker 2: first of all, I guess we'll figure out whether this
46:51
Speaker 2: is a skezy and corrupt as it looks on the surface,
46:54
Speaker 2: if Mark Walters either investigation goes away or there's a
46:57
Speaker 2: pardon on off or or something.
46:58
Speaker 3: Like that at the end of the day.
47:01
Speaker 2: But to your point about the changing nature of these
47:04
Speaker 2: relationships between the team and the fans in LA, the
47:07
Speaker 2: Lakers have been owned by this one family the buses
47:10
Speaker 2: for four decades. Then Walter has it for what you say,
47:14
Speaker 2: nine months, and now it's being flipped to Iiger and Kushner.
47:18
Speaker 2: What is the reaction from the family, What is the
47:20
Speaker 2: reaction from LA fans? What does that look like right now?
47:24
Speaker 6: Yeah?
47:25
Speaker 7: We're watching the death of the family business owning these
47:28
Speaker 7: teams in real time. And Genie Buss, who's who was
47:32
Speaker 7: the owner of the team. It's funny she worked out
47:34
Speaker 7: a deal with Mark Walton recognition of that concern in
47:37
Speaker 7: which she would be still heavily involved in basketball operations.
47:41
Speaker 6: So as if the.
47:41
Speaker 7: Fans could trust the money guy is going to be different,
47:44
Speaker 7: but the way the team.
47:45
Speaker 6: Operates is going to be the same.
47:47
Speaker 7: Well, Bob Bieger was just asked yesterday, are you going
47:50
Speaker 7: to honor that agreement that Mark Walter had with Genie Buss?
47:53
Speaker 7: And the quote i'll paraphrase it was, we have every
47:56
Speaker 7: intention to do so, but if things change, they change.
48:00
Speaker 7: And now, guys, we're in the world of private equity, right,
48:04
Speaker 7: and so I ask you, have you seen a case
48:06
Speaker 7: study with private equity says you know what, I know
48:10
Speaker 7: that we could make money by optimizing in the way
48:13
Speaker 7: that we think would keep that green arrow go get
48:16
Speaker 7: into the right.
48:17
Speaker 6: But you customers really seem to care about this, so
48:20
Speaker 6: we're gonna do what you want.
48:21
Speaker 1: You're right, It's it's.
48:23
Speaker 7: Not again, terribly complicated if those are the people actually
48:27
Speaker 7: calling the shots.
48:28
Speaker 1: In my view, really good point Pablo as always, man
48:31
Speaker 1: so enlightening. Thank you so much for joining us. You
48:33
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
48:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, ever, ready to go subscribe to the channel because
48:35
Speaker 2: you probably have something to drop it on this soon.
48:38
Speaker 3: Correct, here we go.
48:39
Speaker 7: Pablo Torri finds out as the show, I am cursed
48:42
Speaker 7: to live in interesting times.
48:43
Speaker 3: Well we are all are, my friend, great.
48:47
Speaker 1: Bless listen to thanks man like wise, thank you guys
48:50
Speaker 1: so much for watching. We appreciate it. We went a
48:52
Speaker 1: little over time with the gas, so we just had
48:55
Speaker 1: to make sure that the show out on time. So
48:57
Speaker 1: we're gonna have the econ block. We're gonna do it
48:58
Speaker 1: on Monday, Okay, so if you miss that, that's why.
49:01
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for watching. Appreciate it. Friday
49:03
Speaker 1: show for everybody tomorrow. See you then,