Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 9/23/26: Beef Prices Skyrocket, Susan Collins Corruption, Troy Jackson Hijacked By Dem Elites

Transcript

9/23/26: Beef Prices Skyrocket, Susan Collins Corruption, Troy Jackson Hijacked By Dem Elites · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we
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• 0:19
  Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Well, some very bad news. Wendy's looks like it's about
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: to face 300 closures. You can put this first headline
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: up on the screen. This is from the Associated Press.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Wendy's faces 300 closures across 15 states due to crippling
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: beef prices. The report here says one of the largest U.S.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: franchisees for Wendy's has filed for bankruptcy protection after the
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: restaurant chain tried to terminate its franchise agreement. Meritage Hospitality Group,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: which operates 314 Wendy's restaurants in 15 states, said in
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: a statement last week it intends to keep operating its
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: restaurants and paying its 9,000 employees during the bankruptcy process.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: So this is a franchise based in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: and they are now facing, according to court documents, a
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: notice of termination. from Wendy's from Wendy's of that company's
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: agreement for the franchising. And that was effective immediately on
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: September 16th. Wendy's is claiming that this franchise owes almost
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: $ 30 million in royalties and fees. So looking pretty brutal,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: but coming of course, as beef prices are very high,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: this franchise has 54 Wendy's locations in Michigan. Uh, but
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: they also run Wendy's in Georgia, Florida. Uh, they have
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: a lot of Wendy's in Connecticut, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and then
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: less than 20 Wendy's in Arkansas, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. All that is to say,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: this is a huge, a huge franchisee of Wendy's that
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: is now coming under court filings from the parent company.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to talk for a minute about how
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Wendy's got to this situation.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: But first, the good news, if you can't afford beef,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: there are other things that you can eat. Let's roll
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: But if it is too expensive, unlike fuel, Benny, you
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: can eat chicken, pork, salmon, eggs. There are other sources
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: of really good protein. And all of those prices are
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: coming down as well. So it isn't necessarily breaking out there.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: And listen, I'm a mom of four. I'm still feeding
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: a whole bunch of kids, very hungry kids. We realize
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: the price of groceries are too high. We're doing everything
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: we can to bring them down after the Biden years
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: of crazy, crazy inflation. I would argue as a farm girl,
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: as a cattle girl, and as a maha mom of
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: four teenagers, that $ 6. 50 for a pound of ground beef
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: probably isn't that bad.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Two different quotes there.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: So first she's saying you can get salmon instead, and
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: second she's saying that price is not that bad.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and things got pretty bad for Joe Biden during
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: COVID and inflation, but it never got to a place
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: where he was telling people that they can eat eggs.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: or veggie burgers, as I've seen some people on the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: right kind of circulating, like some people saying like, Hey,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: you know, if you really pile that veggie burger up
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: with a whole bunch of other stuff, it's basically the same, uh,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: just an incredible level of cope. Um, but the Wendy's
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: hit here is, and it's not fair to blame all
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: of this on Trump. Uh, Wendy's has been a struggling
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: company for a very long time, but this is kind of, uh,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the straw that broke the camel's back. It's like, a
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: patient who is unwell and gets a cold, and the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: cold is the thing that takes them out. This was
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: kind of the cold that took out this franchisee, but
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: may end up taking the entire thing down. But Emily,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: let's roll through some Wendy's history here, because I think
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: it is kind of instructive about how things have unfolded
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: in our political and corporate economy over the last couple
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of decades. When Wendy's came in, they did the always fresh,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: never frozen, quality is the thing that was going to
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: differentiate them.
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  Speaker 1: And it was.
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  Speaker 2: It was compared to McDonald's and other fast food companies.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: It was a little bit better.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: It then gets bought by basically private equity in the 2000s.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Nelson Peltz, who's this activist private equity investor, and also
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Bill Ackman. Bill Ackman came in and Bill Ackman had
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: a bunch of ideas for how they were going to
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  Speaker 2: make Wendy's better.
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  Speaker 3: One big, beautiful bill.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: One big, beautiful bill, Ackman.
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  Speaker 2: And then a lot went wrong, but Stavros actually had,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: you know, said this well recently on Pablo's show.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Let's roll a little bit of E4.
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  Speaker 5: I think it's clear that what's f * * *
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: ing us up is like private equity and... and money
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: taking over these things that are all, products that are awesome, right? Let's,
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: sports is the easiest one, but the one I've actually
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: latched onto recently that I think goes hand in hand
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: with sports is fast food. Because everybody understands that Wendy's
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: has gotten here. The spicy chicken sandwich now uses shredded lettuce.
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: Exactly right there, that is private equity. That is someone saying,
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: we don't want a fresh head of lettuce, that costs
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: more money, so we're gonna get you bagged lettuce, And
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: I know that in the grand scheme of things, it's
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: not a big deal, but people will notice Jersey Mike's
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: was bought, I think two years ago, it started to get.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: It was one of the, it was the best sandwich chain.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: It's getting here because some head who's never spread mayo
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: in his life decided, oh no, actually, instead of a sandwich,
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: this is now a commodity, right? And what's important is
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: that by turning the buyer experience, the consumer experience shittier, I,
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: some dickhead that's never made a sandwich, gets.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: A billion extra dollars, right? I was just looking up. So, Blackstone.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Blackstone.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Of course, acquired a controlling majority stake in Jersey Mike's
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: subs in early 2025 for approximately $ 8 billion.
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  Speaker 1: Insane.
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  Speaker 3: Insane.
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  Speaker 1: Those people don't give a f * * * about sandwiches.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: The before and after. I mean, you're right. There are
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: only so many active, active fan communities. Totally. It'll be like,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: This is what it used to be like. This is
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: how much salami I was getting. And now look at this. Emily,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: when was the last time you were at Jersey Mike's
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: or Wendy's?
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Not that long ago. I like both of those restaurants.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I completely agree on Jersey Mike's. I hadn't noticed Wendy's
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: so much. But Jersey Mike's, I feel like, is the
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: most obvious.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: What about you? Noticeably boring.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It's just like, you get it and you're like, what
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: happened to Jersey Mike's?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: And low quality, too.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't realize.
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  Speaker 2: They'd been bought by private equity when I went and
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: this is not at all how I remembered it.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: What is going on here?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And so it's not just private equity. You hear people
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: talk about the K-shaped economy, which kind of means things
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: are doing well on the top and the bottom, but
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: not in the middle. And Wendy's got hit with this
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: because they were somewhere in the middle. They were better
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: than McDonald's, but they weren't that good. And then along
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: comes stuff like Shake Shack, where it's a couple bucks
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: more than Wendy's, but it's way, way better. And so
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: people who can afford it are going to Shake Shack.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: And then stuff like Chick-fil-A comes along and blows up,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: which is a little bit cheaper, but probably arguably better.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: But regardless, it's giving people options underneath there. But then
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: within that private equity just spent 20 years doing its
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: financial engineering, one of the craziest things they did was,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: so the way that these companies work is they get
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: royalties from from all of the franchises. So you buy
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: a franchise, you make a profit, you have to send
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: it back to headquarters. What Wendy's did is they securitized
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: those future royalties.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: So basically, it'd be like you're due a salary over
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the next two years, and you will go to a
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: payday lender and say, I want all of that right.
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  Speaker 2: I want all of that up front. So they borrowed
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: money from these private credit folks, out of the private
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: equity world, they securitize the future flow of these royalty
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  Speaker 2: fees and give it all to private equity.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: They give all that away to themselves, basically.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And then when royalty fees are not coming in anymore,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: like they used to, then the stockholders are left holding
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: the bag. And then it just crashes. So kind of
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: the people who own it in their 401ks and their
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: pensions and such. That was one of the kind of
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: like different financial engineering moves they made.
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  Speaker 1: I've talked about this before. One thing they do is
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: they sell the land out from underneath.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: It's a huge thing with the franchise. It's like one
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: of the biggest parts is just owning the land. It's
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: an enormous part of the business is land ownership.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: And they'll sell what they also will sell the franchise
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: to the franchisee.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: So you're not just like a franchise anymore. Now you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: straight up own the thing.
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  Speaker 2: And so then the private equity goon is getting like
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: a big lump sum payment right there. They're basically trying
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: to extract as much wealth as possible from it before
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: the party ends and they file for bankruptcy and everybody's
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: screwed as a result. The thing that might have actually
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: destroyed them was, you remember in 2024, their CEO came
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: out and said they were rolling out all this new
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: software and they were going to start doing dynamic pricing
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: where if it was busy, then you were going to
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: get charged more. And people lost it over that. They're like, no,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I'm going to pay what I'm going to pay. You
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: can't change the price just based on how long the
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: line is. And the free market folks are like, why not?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Supply and demand. You don't like that?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: And it really does show you how anathema, the kind
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: of quote unquote free market is to the human spirit.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Like we don't actually like pure unfettered supply and demand. Like,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: we think that that is gross. And I was telling Sagar,
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: I'm reading this book on the history of capitalism. We
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: have always thought that's gross. Like the people think that
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: price gougers are gross, that they are, that they run
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: contrary to the human spirit, which is, which is really
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: one of community. And so to exploit people like that,
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: People just find it to be wrong. And so people
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: reacted extraordinarily harshly to that.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Globalism has totally changed the bargain that was the engine
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: of free markets, which is that you're trading as it's
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: gotten easier to travel. It's totally changed the bargain. You
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: started and you still hear hardcore capitalists speaking reverently about
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: the earliest days of the free market where people were
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: trading goods. But what made that possible is that you
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: had a physical in-person relationship where you were trusting and
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: haggling over what was fair. And that bargain is almost impossible,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: almost impossible on a global level where there's such consolidation.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I mean, we haven't even talked about that with beef prices.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: It's not, I don't think it's just private equity. I
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: think it's also that there's so much consolidation, the U.S.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: cattle herd, it's a nightmare right now. There are all
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: kinds of factors that explain why these prices keep going up.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: It's not necessarily just a Trump or a Biden thing.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Stoller would tell us it's an antitrust thing. And I
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: think he's correct about that. I'm sure he would agree
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: on the private equity level too. But that's how gummed
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: up the works are of this quote unquote free market.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: And for anybody to look at this and say, well,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: that's just capitalism, baby. It's damaging to their own cause,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: but also doesn't make any sense whatsoever because this is,
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, sure, it's unfettered. You could say it's unfettered.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: It's Randian capitalism, perhaps. But it's certainly not free and
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: fair markets. Yeah.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: And what Wendy's couldn't, and I don't think we'll be
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: able to withstand, is this beef price explosion. Because their
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: whole thing is fresh beef, never frozen. And McDonald's recently
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: invested in their supply chain so that their quarter pounders
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: are not frozen, so they can.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Compete with them on that.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: But now, they just don't have the cushion, I think,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: to withstand this blow, or at least this $ 300 Plus,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: franchises didn't. We'll see how the rest of them end
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: up doing.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I did want to talk real briefly before we move
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: on to the next segment about this Trump administration announcement
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: that they were kicking 750,000, I'm going to put people
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: in quotes, off of the Affordable Care Act. And they're
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: saying that they're investigating another 400,000 plus for potential fraud. So,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: But I did want to zag on this a little bit.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I like everything the Trump administration does. It's like totally
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: chaotic and will probably blow up in their face because
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: it's for some reason they just don't do things effectively.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: But the principle of it is, I actually think, sound.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: So basically, over the last several years and really fueling,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: firing up during covid, it became a lot easier to.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: to sign up for the ACA, but in particular to
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: have brokers get paid to sign people up for the ACA.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: And so when you introduce something like that into a system,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: what you're then going to get is scammers who come
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: in and set up a healthcare brokerage company and then
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: basically make up people and claim that they have signed
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: people up for the ACA and then go to the
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: federal government and say, look, we signed up 10,000 people
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: to the ACA, to these gold, platinum, copper plans, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: so here's an invoice for our brokerage fee for setting
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: them up. But the people don't exist, or they're stolen
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: social security numbers, the people don't know that they've ever
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: been signed up, or they're going around to people who
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: are kind of mentally incapacitated, and just giving them $ 100
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: to sign a piece of paper. And then the person
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: has no idea that they're even signed up, so they
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: can't use it. So one positive development of AI is
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: that it's much easier to put in major data sets
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: into these systems and have them do some pattern recognition
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: and find us hundreds of thousands of people who are
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: enrolled in the ACA but have never once used it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And then that.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Or who didn't put a social security number in. That's
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: one of the things that they caught. And this is
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: less than a million of 20 million plus. So it's, yeah,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: to your point, I think that's probably what they did.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: It probably was AI being like, why are all these
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: accounts without a social security number and not using the plans?
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: And you're able to identify brokers. Yeah.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: And so I think for some on the left, the
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: initial response was to say, this is outrageous and you're
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: kicking people off of healthcare, but I would just encourage
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: people on the left to pause on that and to say, well,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: hold on. We do want the ACA to work. We
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: want public healthcare to work. And for public healthcare to work,
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: people have to have faith in it. And so then
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: we have to crack down on scammers. And nobody's getting
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: healthcare by some mentally disabled person getting tricked into signing
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: up for something that they don't know how to use
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: and haven't used. So I think this is actually a
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: step in the right direction. Will they do it accurately
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: or effectively?
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: We'll see.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: I hope they do because I do want there to
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: be faith in the government's ability to implement these programs
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: without fraud.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: I didn't know where you were going to go with this,
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: and that was sort of my thoughts on the whole thing.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Nothing to argue about.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: No, nothing to argue about at all because the headlines
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: were kind of scary. Like, oh, people... I know.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I was angry, too, when I first saw the headline. Like, oh,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: I see what's going on here. This has actually been
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: a problem for a while.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Right. Maybe the administration wanted the headlines to be scary,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: but also, you know, 750,000 on millions and millions and millions,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: not necessarily even the huge fraud number, still a ridiculous
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: number if.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: It's... It's billions. selecting fraud, but yeah. It's billions of dollars,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: for sure. So, all right. Anyway, a little zag at
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the end there for you.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Perfect. Let's go to Maine. ProPublica dropped a massive investigation
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: into Susan Collins, Senator Susan Collins, who's obviously up for
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: reelection in Maine. The headline was, the FBI anti-corruption squad
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: was circling Susan Collins until Trump got in the way.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: So the story really has two parts. Some of this
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: is new reporting on Susan Collins' super PAC. So that
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: technically should be a distinction between Senator Susan Collins and
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the super PAC, of course. dating back to the 2020
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: election cycle, particularly, and a defense firm that was spending
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: money through a shell group to the Collins super PAC,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: expecting to get defense contracts in return. Now, the second
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: part of the story, so some new reporting on that front,
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of this was already known. The Collins campaign
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: said they returned the money, they cooperated with the FBI
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: back when this investigation first sprang forth. But ProPublica is
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: now reporting that Trump's FBI has squashed the investigation when
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: it could have produced more fruit. So that's the claim
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: of the ProPublica story. And Ryan has been digging into this.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: I'll be in Maine later today, actually, not related to
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: this story, but going to be checking things out with
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: obviously this big election cycle. And, uh, Ryan, curious for
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: your take as you've gone through the story basically line
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: by line to try and understand what exactly the Trump
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: administration might have been squashing with the investigation. What are
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: you looking at here?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we might disagree on how big of a
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: scandal this is. So I think it'd be helpful to
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: go through a bunch of it because people don't read anymore,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: including me. It's a thing.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: That it's a lost art form. But I actually read
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: this one, and let's.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Share some of the key details of it, because if
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: you're just following this on Instagram or on Twitter, you're
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: seeing Republicans push back and say, you're taking the word
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: of a fraud, liar, and a criminal and just running this.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: When there's a lot more evidence that they're going with.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: But let's roll through.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that is the Collins campaign, just to download that.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the Collins.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: The Collins campaign is saying that you're going to meet
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: him in just one moment, but that he has motivation, basically,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: to lie because he's trying to get a lighter sentence.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: He was sentenced in bribery, and so he's now trying
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: to get a lighter sentence. And I'll say, honestly, I
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: don't doubt the... back and forth between this guy and
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: the campaign being shady and corrupt at all. I mean,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: there's just naked corruption on display. I doubt ProPublica's, I guess,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: context giving. But anyway, let's get into it.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: So the basic thing that people need to understand is
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: that there is a law on the books that bars
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: defense contractors from contributing to campaigns. And there's hilarious first
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: of all right but it great work it's an obvious
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: reason why that should be the case you don't want
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: uh corruption to seep into the military industrial complex that's
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: so cute we cannot we cannot have that and so
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: it is one of the few like red lines that
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: we have you absolutely cannot do that and so this
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: guy and allegedly Scott Reed, who is a kind of
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: legendary fundraiser and D.C. operative, he was a Chamber of
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Commerce operative for many years. He's very close to to
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins. He is currently, as we speak, running the
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: super PAC that is supporting Susan Collins. So he's still
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: not in prison, is still in the game. In order
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: to get around this law against defense contractors giving money
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to campaigns, candidates or super PACs, they came up with
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: the idea of creating a shell company. So the defense
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: contractor would move the money to a shell company and
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: the shell company then would make the contribution. And so
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: let's put up this first element here. They write, to
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Navitek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where the
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: money came from, as you would. You don't want to
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: blow $ 150, 000.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: And they don't know that you bribed them. Reid confirmed
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that she would, the executive said, and that Navitek would
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: get its government contracts. After the corner bakery meeting.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Navitek's CEO, Martin Kao, sent an initial $ 150, 000 to the
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Collins SuperPak using the shell company. Two months later, he
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: told Navitek executives that Collins committed... to getting the company
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: $ 32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: email reviewed by ProPublica. They ended up that year getting
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: at least $ 10 million. And ProPublica has the image of
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the check that they cut. Now, one delightful piece of this, Emily,
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: is the name of the company. It's just so perfectly
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: kind of woke one.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: The name of the company they came up with was Society.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: of scientists and engineers society of young women scientists and
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: engineers and maybe they only had one scientist but but
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: because they didn't put the s on it i think
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: that's one of the things that got them caught it's.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Like a quality leering situation.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: There was like a watchdog going through and was like
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: what is this It's the.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Quality Learing Center of Nonprofits for Girl Scientists.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: And so they filed a, this is back in 2020,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: they filed a FEC complaint, and then they were able
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to dig up the LLC paperwork. And also, a society
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: of young scientists giving $ 150, 000 out of nowhere to a
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Collins Super PAC? That's not normal behavior. So what's happening here?
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: So they look up the paperwork, and the LLC is
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: his wife. It's like registered to his wife. And so
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: people are very quickly like, oh, this is clearly a
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: shell company that's using this here. So let's roll the
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: next quote up here. So after the budgets became law, Collins'
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: office pushed the Navy to award specific contracts to Navitek,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: emails seen by ProPublica show, even though awards are supposed
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: to be competitive.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Quote, I spoke with Senator Collins' office.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Regarding the $ 8 million a naval official wrote in an
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: email on February 6, 2019.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: The interested company is Navitek.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: In a meeting with Collins and two campaign officials, Cowell said,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: the officials told him the senator expected his ongoing support.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Collins told him, you've seen me deliver, Cowell said. Reed
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: knew cow was behind the $ 150, 000 anonymous donation emails showed
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: because cow told Reed, he planned to donate through a
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: shell company.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Very smart.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Reed replied in an email, uh, viewed by pro public.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: And so that's, that's pretty bad.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: That's bad.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: And so the, the, the, the more extensive back and forth, um,
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: shows him laying out.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I just spoke to my lawyer.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: He said, do this shell company LLCs are very well protected.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, Reed tells him this is very
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: smart and blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, So then the
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: question is, what did Collins know about this? Did she
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: actually know anything about this? So let's put this next
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: element up. And so this is the Collins campaign saying
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: they have no idea what's going on here. But then
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: ProPublica writes, but an email seen by ProPublica suggests that
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: someone must have relayed the news of Cow's donation to Collins,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: just like Reed promised to do in Cow's recounting of
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: the corner bakery meeting. Seven days after the super PAC
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: cashed a check from Cal's shell company, one of Reed's
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: subordinates emailed a Navitek lobbyist asking for Cal's phone number.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Senator Collins would like to call Martin to thank him. Now,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: last night, the Collins campaign said that there's nothing to
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: see here because this is actually very normal stuff, that
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: you don't have to know why somebody gave.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: You the donation.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: You see a donation, you call them, and you thank
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: them for it. However, notice the timeline here. This is
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: seven days after the super PAC cashed the check. Super
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: PACs don't disclose their fundraising until oftentimes months later. So
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: it raises the question, how did they know that the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: check had been written to the super PAC if the
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: super PAC did not tell the campaign?
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, I was going to say, I'm glad you picked
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: up on this exact line because this was the one
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: that jumped out to me as well, not just because
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: of the potential transactionality of it, because some of that
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: is perfectly normal. And a lot of this piece or
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of my sort of eye rolling with the
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: piece is that ProPublica is describing as shocking novel information,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the most normal things ever. And they're bad normal things,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: to be clear, but entirely normal, unfortunately. But this one
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: is significant because it's not just... The timeline, but also
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: the fact that you have someone from Colin's staff, not
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: from the Super PAC staff, but from Colin's staff would
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: have had to convey that information to her. And previously,
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: as you're reading the entire story, it's possible to say
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: that Reed was freelancing. So there's there's plausible deniability, which
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: is exactly why Super PACs kind of function the way
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: that they do between. saying, well, Reid was dealing with
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: Cal in the way that Reid was dealing with Cal.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: When you have that email you previously mentioned, Ryan, where
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: it says, quote unquote, very smart, as Cal indicates he's
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: planning to give through a shell group. That, again, can
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: stop with Reid. It can be, well, maybe Susan Collins
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have somebody who's willing to engage in this kind
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: of wink-wink behavior leading her super PAC. But when you
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: actually see this happening, that does implicate the Collins operation,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I think, overall, because now you have super PAC coordination
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: on the table.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Now, less people think I'm just being a partisan hack here.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Let's let's drag the good Brian Schatz, who's also an
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Appropriations Committee member, a Democrat who is being pushed. He's
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: sort of like understood to be one of kind of
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Schumer's choices to replace him. If if Schumer departs the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Senate world, put up the next element here in another message.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Andy Weiner, who former executives said was Navitek's chief strategist.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: reminded Cow to budget money for political contributions based on
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: how much the company wanted in congressional funding the following year.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: That would be criminal in the defense world. Weiner was
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: his guide to the political underbelly, Cow said. A consummate insider,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Weiner had parlayed six years as chief of staff to
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii into a lucrative lobbying
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: career with a firm called Strategies 360. one of Weiner's
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: former colleagues, compared him to the slick lobbyist on the
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Netflix show House of Cards who toggles between the political
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: and corporate worlds. And again, to point out how bipartisan
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: this is, the entire reason this company exists is former
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Senator Daniel Inouye, legendary, they called him what, the Prince
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: of Pork or the King of Pork. He passed away
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: in the 2010s and left a lot of defense companies
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: in Hawaii hanging because they were all getting their taxpayer
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: money through Inouye and this company was among them. And
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: so they had to then, they changed their name and
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: redeveloped relationships. And that's why they became so tight with
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: So let's roll this next one here. So less than
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: one month after the event, the Senate released a draft
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: of the defense budget containing $ 21. 5 million dollars.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Of Navitek's pet projects in Maine, Cow emailed a Collins
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: campaign fundraiser, who would in theory have nothing to do
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: with a government contract, four days later saying, thanks again
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: for all the support from Senator Collins. I've been involved
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: in many tight races in the past and understand that
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: last minute needs come.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Up, he continued.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: We are here to help any way we can, financially
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: or whatever. Cow's desire to donate even more money led
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: to the fateful corner bakery meeting with the head of
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: the Collins Super PAC, called the 1820 PAC, Cow told
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: the FBI. Unlike Collins' campaign, which could accept only $ 5, 600
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: per election from individuals, the Super PAC could accept unlimited contributions.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: The Super PAC emailed Cow a memo before the meeting,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: stressing the need to raise money with, quote, urgency. At
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: the meeting, Cow and Reed, the Super PAC's chair, hammered
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: out a deal for a six-figure donation, Cow told the FBI,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: over email. Cal informed Reed of his shell company scheme,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: saying he had cleared it with his lawyer. They are
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: super vague and very difficult to get any background info on.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Cal reassured him, talking about LLCs. Thanks for doing this,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Reed replied. So notice the timeline here. Collins gets this
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: company a contract after they give some money. He reaches
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: out to the Collins campaign. The Collins campaign, we're not
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: talking about the super PAC here, reaches out to the
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Collins campaign and says, thank you for getting me this
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: government money.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Let me know if you need more money.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Then Scott Reed reaches out to him saying, we do
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: need a lot more money and asks for this extraordinary
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: amount of money. That again suggests that the campaign and
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Scott Reed are working directly together on that.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: And what was kind of frustrating to me about this
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: story is that ProPublica, I don't know if you picked
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: up on this, I thought it was weird that ProPublica's
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: reporting nowhere really made the connection with the Super PAC
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: and the campaign coordination. It was mostly focused on the transactionality,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: potentially a transactionality of Cow and Reed, which again, it's
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: an unfortunate reality. Reid sounded like he was being fairly
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: careful in how he was couching Kao to talk and
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: what to put in print and otherwise, according to the
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: emails that What it looks like is somebody who was
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: let go by the DOJ because Trump was getting rid
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: of people who went after 2020 election stuff then leaked
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: to ProPublica. I think that's pretty clearly the sourcing chain
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: here because they have all of the documents that apparently
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: the DOJ had and the FBI had. And so those
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: documents show pretty normal soft corruption, which is coaching you
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: on what to say, what not to say, knowing full
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: well that there's a transactionality happening and you just don't
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: want it in print precisely for these reasons. So I
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: was sort of frustrated that ProPublica, again, wasn't, you know,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: normally if you're reporting on this, you would say, well,
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: the law about coordination between super PACs in the campaign,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: like there's literally none of that in the ProPublica story.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: It's as though they thought the real story was just
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: that the FBI squashed this investigation into transactionality rather than
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: the FBI squashing an investigation into potential super PAC coordination.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: And I honestly found that weird.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Well, to me, not so much. Maybe they could have
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: included a little bit more about it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: But to me, the coordination between super PACs and campaigns
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: is an inside baseball kind of ticky-tack paperwork violation.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: But it seems to me like there's much more evidence
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: of that here than there is of violating the sort
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: of corruption transactionality thing.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Well, and to your point, I think if they more
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: tightly linked the.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Campaign to the Super PAC, then you can more tightly
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: show the relationship between Collins and the bribe. On the
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: other hand, everything I'm telling you here is from the article.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: So it was all in there. So I want to
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: give them that credit. This is the last one that
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: we'll read for now. A few weeks after the $ 150, 000
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: check to the Collins Super PAC cleared in February 2020,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Cao and his team met with Collins' office and secured
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: a new round of funding. We were very warmly received,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Cal reported to his colleagues in an email obtained by
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: the FBI. So this is not taking his word for stuff.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: These are emails from the time. Excellent meeting. Total of
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: $ 32 million will be supported. Records show the Senate allocated
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: at least $ 10 million that year based on Navitek's proposals. Now,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: what Cal also says, and you can back this up too,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: is that it was junk.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: What they were selling was junk.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: They were selling nothing. They were selling, like, research.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Like, and 3D printed boats that the Navy didn't want. Like,
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: just total garbage. And the scam is even worse. What
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: he would do is he would find, his idea was
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: let's find a university that we can then funnel the
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: money through. So the University of Maine, which did not
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: respond to requests for comment from ProPublica, is part of
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: this scheme where he tells Collins, basically, we're going to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: do the research through the University of Maine. So he's
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: going to then give University of Maine a little cut
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And then they're going to take the rest of it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: And then it operates underneath the rubric of the University of.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Maine, which is offensive across the board.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And we end up as a public with nothing, like
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: nothing that they made. Take his word for it or not,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: nothing that nothing that they made for many, many, many
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: million dollars over the years is used by the military
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: to at all. It's just money that was burned up.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: He was driving a Ferrari to work every day and
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: living this lavish life, $ 5 million home in Hawaii. Like that's,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: that's what the taxpayers got out of it is this
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: guy getting fantastically rich, but we didn't, we didn't even
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: get anything out of it. Meanwhile, service members, um, you know, are,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: you know, lacking, you know, decent food, like supplies, like they're,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: they're like undies are catching fire on the aircraft carrier.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: You know, they're the ones who are like putting themselves
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: out there are getting stiffed while people like this are
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: getting enormously rich, enabled directly by Susan Collins in a
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: flagrantly and directly illegal way. Like there aren't many laws
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: left on corruption, but you can't take money from a
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: defense contractor for contracts. It's like the last law that's
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: left on the books. And she had to go out
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: there and break it.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, my strong assumption is that this is happening
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: every day with everyone. It doesn't make it any better.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: But I just get frustrated with ProPublica, which I think
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: traffics really heavily in innuendo. And there's a bigger picture
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: story than the Susan Collins.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Although there's more coming.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: And yeah, so they identified a whole bunch of people.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: And apparently there are more stories coming. Well, next one,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Lindsey Graham, apparently.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: There has to be because there's, again, this is... It's
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: all bad. Like, don't get me wrong. I just got
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: frustrated with the story, but it's all bad. And there's
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: this part where they say, this one drove me crazy.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: In one back and forth, a lobbyist and a company
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: executive described another senator as quote unquote, fundamentally transactional and
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: having a reputation as a pay to play office. please
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: name for me the lobbyist and the senator, rather than
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: just putting that in the story. Maybe it's because this
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: is going to be a series and there's more to come,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: but there were a couple of notes like that. It's
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: like dragging me insane. Tell me who it is. You
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: have the records. I want to know who it is.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: If that's the case, tell me. If lobbyists are walking
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: around saying that, which they are all of the time,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: and you have it in your possession, I want to know.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Ask them for comment, of course, but tell me who
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: So we can put this New York Magazine element up
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: on the screen.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: It's a kind of a 7,000-word investigation into the Troy
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Jackson campaign, and particularly the way that Washington consultants, after
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: kind of Graham Plattner volunteers, pushed him through the kind
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: of rapid-fire nomination contest that came right after Plattner withdrew
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: from the race. They were all pushed aside, and in
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: came pollsters and campaign managers and consultants, from the Dan
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Goldman campaign, from the Colin Allred campaign, from the Mallory
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: McMorrow campaign, effectively also from kind of Schumer world in Washington, D.C.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And it gets into some detail about the ways that
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: they're telling him to stop being an interesting candidate. He's
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: a genuinely working class candidate from far northern Maine, would
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: be the only senator with just an associate's degree The
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: logger his entire life, very clearly a regular person. They
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: told him basically, you know, stop taking questions from people
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: like you're killing us.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Stop telling people what you honestly think.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: They have given him new talking points around Medicare for all.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: He can't back off of Medicare for all. But if
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: you hear him talk about it. now it sounds much
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: more like a public option and he wants to be
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: very assuring to people that don't worry, he's not actually
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: going to do anything too radical. The biggest kind of
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: push from them seems to be over his calling what's
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: going on in Gaza from Israel a genocide. And they
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: tell him, you can't walk back to your previous position.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: You said it and You can't unsay it, but we
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: want you to kind.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Of basically stop saying it again.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I spoke to some people familiar with the campaign and
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: obtained some of the same documents that Rebecca Tracer did
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: and confirmed and kind of advanced some of the reporting.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: If we could put up F5, no, F6 here, put
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: F6 up on the screen. So I obtained this campaign
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: document and and the document tells Troy Jackson to say, quote,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I think this is when asked about Israel and Palestine
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: and the genocide.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Quote, this is what he's supposed to say.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: I think what's happening in Israel and Palestine is horrific,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: senseless violence. I think Israel has the right to defend itself,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: but I do not support the United States sending offensive
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: weapons that enable more killing. It also goes on to
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: say that he should call for, quote, the release of
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the hostages. And so a couple of things on that.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: This banning offensive weapons, this is over. Like this is
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: a position that is way more to the right. I
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: don't want to say to the right because there are
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: people on the right that are against this also. It's
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: just behind the times like like J Street, others like
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: they're all abandoning this distinction between offensive.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: What Rahm Emanuel has.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Done with it, like Netanyahu has said he doesn't want
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Americans supporting more, except, of course, he does. But they're
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: bringing in this anachronistic offensive weapons thing for him to
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: try to say that he's opposed to. The release of
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: the hostages is utterly bizarre, right? There are no hostages,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: unless you're talking about the thousands of Palestinian detainees who
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: are in without charge, which I'm sure he's not talking about.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: In all of his talking points that we've obtained, he's
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: instructed to call for the release of the hostages.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Are they copying and pasting from 2024, actually? I don't know.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: What are you doing? I don't know. What on earth
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: are you doing? He won in, what, July of this year.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: There are no hostages. What on earth is going on?
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: And so then, if he is asked about the previous
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: position on the genocide, the document instructs him to.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Say, quote, start with, I've said what I've said. It
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: was perfect circular Washington statement. talking point. Start with, I've
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: said what I've said.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Do not sound like you're walking back the previous position,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: and do not invite an argument over semantics.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Do not sound like you're walking it back, but walk
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: it back.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: It's so bad.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Now, what we've been told is that, and we've obtained
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different invites and calendar records that show
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: that he has, over the last several weeks, been doing
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: a huge number of high-dollar fundraisers with a lot of
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: corporate CEOs, very wealthy people, and also people with strong
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: pro-Israel bona fides, one of them being Suzy Levine, who
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: was a former ambassador to Switzerland, who in the spring
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: of 2024 was one of the signatories of a letter
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: to President Biden saying effectively, keep doing what you're doing.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Thank you for standing up for us. She's in the
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: liberal Zionist camp, you know, two-state solution. Let's hope that
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: we can get in aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But fundamentally,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: the thrust of the letter was, thank you for standing
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: strong in support of Israel. This is while Israel was
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: killing tens of thousands of Palestinians. And Biden was overseeing
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: this absolutely horrific policy. And so he's meeting privately with
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: with people like her who are then conveying their sense
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: of the situation. And because he's working class from northern Maine,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: you can imagine this is not an issue that he
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: has spent his life. It would be weird if it
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: was an issue that he'd spent his life kind of
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: steeped in. And so what he's hearing from people is
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: this word, genocide, is deeply offensive to us. So please
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: stop saying it. And so some of this is very
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: clever on the part of his campaign operatives. They'll give
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: him the talking points, but then they'll also surround him
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: with people who are going to very earnestly and emotionally
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: tell him how impactful it is to them to hear
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: words like genocide. And without having a grounding in the
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: issue to begin with, and then also by cutting him
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: off from the grassroots supporters around Maine who propelled Graham
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Plattner to the nomination, he then doesn't hear the other side.
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: Of, of this.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And so he doesn't even get a both sides. He
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: just gets the one.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Side and that's, and, uh, Tracer talks in her article
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: about being in a, a room where he's giving his,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: his speech. And then someone asks him about his Israel, Palestine,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: and he does this, Israel has the right to defend itself.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: And they're like, does this like, mealy-mouthed, incoherent, both sides-ism.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: And she said, you could just feel all the energy
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: in the room just evaporate. And she said somebody gave
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: him like a visible thumbs down. And it was a
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: metaphor for the kind of sucking out of the energy
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: of the entire campaign.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, midterm elections are about turnout. And
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: what you are going to succeed with in a state
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: like Maine is if you turn out just about every
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: single member of the grassroots. that would be excited about
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: a position someone like Graham Plattner would take on this
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: particular foreign policy issue. And so you're already sucking the
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: energy and the enthusiasm out that you need to support
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: the enthusiasm gap. And on the other hand, independent voters
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: are going to, they don't agree, actually, with the kind
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: of liberal Democrat position on this anymore. That's pretty clear
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: at this point if you look across polling. People are
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: closer to the original Troy Jackson position on this than
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: they are otherwise. And so even if you take the
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: kind of enthusiasm question away and you talk just about
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: swing voters, they want to believe that you believe what
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: you're saying. And they're more likely to agree at this
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: point with the Troy Jackson anyways. Like the math doesn't
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: make sense. The politics of it don't make sense. It's
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: so backwards.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Now, maybe the Collins campaign And it's this corruption story
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: coming out of ProPublica and the environment that we're in,
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: the trade war with Canada, which is really hurting Maine.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Fuel oil is absolutely crushing families in Maine right now
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: because fuel oil is basically diesel. And so people are
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: paying extraordinary amounts for it. There's reporting that I've done
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: that shows that people who are trying to lock in
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: their fuel oil for the winter... are being told by
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: the companies, it's just not possible this year. You can't
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: lock in a price. They're going to get absolutely murdered.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: New England, for people who don't know it, in the
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: winter basically relies almost exclusively on home heating oil for
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: heating for these.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Very long and cold winters.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: So maybe the combination of all the misery, plus it's like, okay, well,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I've got a wood stove.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I don't need the heating oil. Oh yeah, well, guess
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: what wood costs now?
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Uh, Trump's in a trade war with Canada and he's, uh,
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: driven up a cord of wood is, is also going
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: to set you back, uh, insanely.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, so yeah. Um, the other.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Thing I was going to say is trying to do
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: both at the same time, like Tallarico on some of
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: the like quote unquote woke one stuff who's winning by
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: the way in Texas has flat out said, I was wrong.
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: He said, I spoke, I got that wrong. What you
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: can't do is straddle both lines. You either have to
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: stand by yourself completely and say, like, go, and this
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: is just on a political level. We're not even talking
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: about morally. Obviously, morally, it's correct to own what you believe.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: But even politically, it's not helpful to play both camps.
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: You either have to say, I was wrong or hell no,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: I was right. I'm standing firm on this despite what
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Washington wants me to say. But to try to do
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: the both ways thing is a disaster. It's like the
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: worst thing you can do because it makes you look
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: like you don't believe in anything. Yep.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: All right, well, that'll do it for us.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: When are you back in D.C., Emily?
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: I'll be back Thursday, so it's a quick one, but
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: I'm eager to check out the vibes in Maine. Excellent.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Good election cycle. I'm speaking up at Colby, so if
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: folks are around, I'll be there this evening.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Excellent. Yeah, check in on our Maine reporter, Nathan. He's
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: up there. Amazing.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: What a life.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: He and I should have a piece, I hope, out soon,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: more on this Troy Jackson campaign. I'll be on tomorrow,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: I believe, with Crystal. Is that something like that?
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: But, you know, have a great time in Maine and
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: I will see everybody tomorrow.