Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 7/28/26: Data Center Blackouts, McConnell Wild Proof Of Life Picture, Centrists In Shambles Amid Socialist Rise & MORE!

Transcript

7/28/26: Data Center Blackouts, McConnell Wild Proof Of Life Picture, Centrists In Shambles Amid Socialist Rise & MORE! · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:34
Speaker 3: Well.
0:34
Speaker 4: Jim Clyburn, obviously one of the more high profile Democrats
0:38
Speaker 4: in the House of Representatives, stopped by the podcast of
0:41
Speaker 4: Asteed Herndon last week and got a question about AI.
0:46
Speaker 4: Gave an answer that I want to say is surprising. Unfortunately,
0:49
Speaker 4: it's not surprising, but it is astounding.
0:52
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, let's take a look.
0:53
Speaker 5: I want to ask you about AI. There's so much
0:55
Speaker 5: that it's changing in terms of the future of work
0:58
Speaker 5: and our economy.
0:59
Speaker 6: Have you do you use AI?
1:00
Speaker 3: Have you ever used an lollll No?
1:02
Speaker 7: Somebody was telling me. I ought to, but I.
1:05
Speaker 5: Never have no chatch e p T, no clause for you, believe.
1:09
Speaker 8: It or not.
1:09
Speaker 7: I didn't know what that was until about a week ago.
1:12
Speaker 7: Which one chat GPT or whatever it is.
1:16
Speaker 5: You didn't know until a week ago. Wow, I'm jealous.
1:19
Speaker 5: You've got there something in a bubble.
1:20
Speaker 7: That sounds stranger.
1:22
Speaker 6: I don't know.
1:23
Speaker 7: I didn't know what that was was.
1:25
Speaker 5: Okay, have you been to a data center or anything
1:27
Speaker 5: like that or no?
1:29
Speaker 3: Okay?
1:30
Speaker 5: I guess I'm wondering, like, with the speed of technological
1:32
Speaker 5: changes right now, with how much people are anxious about
1:35
Speaker 5: the ways AI and work might change because of it,
1:39
Speaker 5: how do you effectively legislate as a member who is
1:43
Speaker 5: distant from some of those technological shifts that are affecting
1:46
Speaker 5: folks lives right now.
1:47
Speaker 7: I have a great staff, you know. I wish I
1:51
Speaker 7: could know everything. I don't know everything, and I don't
1:56
Speaker 7: spend my time trying to learn everything. My time, they're
2:00
Speaker 7: trying to surround myself with people who do no stuff.
2:06
Speaker 3: Crystal. This is somehow worse.
2:08
Speaker 4: I think I don't need to get into too much
2:09
Speaker 4: tip for tat, but worse than ted Cer's not knowing
2:12
Speaker 4: there the population of Iran, as he was like agitating
2:15
Speaker 4: for war in Iran. Given how central data centers are
2:19
Speaker 4: right now to the American economy, how companies like open AI, Chat, GPT,
2:25
Speaker 4: how central they are to the American economy, to national security,
2:28
Speaker 4: to people's daily lives.
2:30
Speaker 3: That is insane.
2:32
Speaker 4: And it's not just like saying my staff knows the
2:35
Speaker 4: ins and outs of the building code policy to get
2:40
Speaker 4: this thing up and running, like he literally said, he's
2:42
Speaker 4: outsourcing all of his knowledge of AI to his staff basically.
2:46
Speaker 2: And I want people to understand this is not an outliar.
2:49
Speaker 2: You have members of Congress who approach their jobs very differently.
2:53
Speaker 2: Some of them are really involved in being through policy
2:56
Speaker 2: and educating themselves. They have a worldview, they're pushing that
2:58
Speaker 2: worldview forward. Some of them are like Jim Clyburn, who
3:02
Speaker 2: are happy to you know, he's what eighty some years old,
3:04
Speaker 2: he's happy to outsource all of his work in thinking
3:07
Speaker 2: to his staff. So you're really not electing this person.
3:09
Speaker 2: You're electing whoever there's staffers are who are actually going
3:13
Speaker 2: to be doing the research and telling this man how
3:15
Speaker 2: he should vote. And you're also electing a whole host
3:18
Speaker 2: of like lobbyists and special interests who will also be
3:20
Speaker 2: coming to him and telling him how he should vote
3:23
Speaker 2: on various issues. I just looked it up quickly. South
3:25
Speaker 2: Carolina has been a hotspot for data center construction. There's
3:29
Speaker 2: some roughly thirty projects in existence, more in the pipeline,
3:33
Speaker 2: so this is a very relevant issue for his constituents.
3:37
Speaker 2: And he says, I've never visited a data center. I
3:40
Speaker 2: don't even know what I barely know what chat GPD is.
3:42
Speaker 2: I've never used any of these products. So pretty stunning
3:45
Speaker 2: revelation there. At the same time we were struck by
3:49
Speaker 2: this was pulled by a more perfect union highlighted this
3:52
Speaker 2: local news report about the strain that data centers here
3:56
Speaker 2: in Virginia, which is perhaps the data center capital of
3:59
Speaker 2: the new maybe the world, are putting on the grid
4:03
Speaker 2: right now here in the present, while obviously they have
4:07
Speaker 2: massive plans to expand the data center load across the country.
4:12
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little
4:13
Speaker 2: bit of this local news report.
4:15
Speaker 9: Something happened on Wednesday morning that you might have noticed
4:18
Speaker 9: but didn't bat deniye, it happened inside thousands of your
4:22
Speaker 9: homes and businesses and experts say it's a sign the
4:26
Speaker 9: cracks are starting to show in our power infrastructure.
4:30
Speaker 1: Just before eight am, the electricity flickered on and off
4:33
Speaker 1: for about ten minutes.
4:34
Speaker 8: It was the result of data centers in Louden County, Virginia.
4:38
Speaker 10: Experts say the cracks in our infrastructure grid are starting
4:40
Speaker 10: to show as the data center industry consumes electricity at
4:43
Speaker 10: a rate the world has never experienced. Wednesday morning, that
4:47
Speaker 10: crack became visible to millions of Americans inside their own
4:51
Speaker 10: homes in a seemingly small way.
4:53
Speaker 11: This is what experts you're worried about.
4:54
Speaker 12: Right.
4:55
Speaker 11: The data centers are such a big load on the
4:58
Speaker 11: grid that they can have true metal impact on the
5:02
Speaker 11: surrounding grid.
5:04
Speaker 10: Dominion Energy tells News for a transmission line servicing a
5:07
Speaker 10: data center failed, so the data centers switched to their
5:10
Speaker 10: own power supply, temporarily leaving the grid. In a statement
5:14
Speaker 10: to News for, a Dominion Energy spokesperson said, quote, Dominion
5:17
Speaker 10: Energy did not disconnect area data centers from the grid.
5:19
Speaker 10: The data center's own control systems transferred them to back
5:22
Speaker 10: up power for a very short period of time. Think
5:25
Speaker 10: of it like ripples and water. The data centers switching
5:28
Speaker 10: their power sources the rock and when that change impacts
5:31
Speaker 10: the water or the power grid. In this analogy, the
5:34
Speaker 10: massive shift in electricity load sent ripples through the electric
5:38
Speaker 10: current across half the country. Ting Labs provided News for
5:41
Speaker 10: with this graphic that shows the scale of the service disruption.
5:44
Speaker 10: The company says the colors on this map should all
5:46
Speaker 10: stay the same. The big changes in colors means there's
5:49
Speaker 10: a change in electric frequency. It covers more than half
5:51
Speaker 10: of the United States.
5:52
Speaker 11: People working on regulations around this is their concerned that
5:56
Speaker 11: one of these events in the future could cause the
5:59
Speaker 11: grid become unstable and it does not come back to
6:03
Speaker 11: normal in a few minutes or ten minutes, and we're
6:07
Speaker 11: dealing with a real big problem.
6:10
Speaker 2: So Emily, this seems like something our elected leaders should
6:13
Speaker 2: maybe be looking into and care about, and you know,
6:15
Speaker 2: thinking about themselves, not just outsourcing to their staffers. But
6:20
Speaker 2: you know, this is something that we've been warning about
6:22
Speaker 2: and many others besides. The strain on the grid is
6:26
Speaker 2: really a major issue. It's not being resolved and it's
6:29
Speaker 2: only going to get worse over time. So this is
6:31
Speaker 2: a bit of a warning shot here.
6:33
Speaker 4: Well, I was going to say, this is about the
6:35
Speaker 4: concentration of power.
6:36
Speaker 3: But in this case is like literally about the.
6:38
Speaker 4: Concentration of power, and this is all being traced to
6:41
Speaker 4: literally to Loudon County, Virginia Data Center ALLI. And I'm
6:46
Speaker 4: curious how many times Jim Clyburn voted on something in
6:49
Speaker 4: one direction or the other that set up our economy
6:53
Speaker 4: to look like this in a way that enables the
6:57
Speaker 4: concentration of actual power in a sense where it's so
7:01
Speaker 4: so clustered that it can affect the entire East Coast
7:05
Speaker 4: in one fell swoop like that. I'm sure you could
7:08
Speaker 4: go and find votes that you know, indirectly enabled the
7:11
Speaker 4: economy to look the way. Maybe you even find ways
7:14
Speaker 4: that directly enabled the economy to look that the way
7:16
Speaker 4: to look the way that it does. But astounding, he's
7:20
Speaker 4: so comfortable outsourcing the staff. He didn't learn what chat
7:23
Speaker 4: GPT was until a week ago. And meanwhile we're already
7:28
Speaker 4: seeing these ripples from loud and County across the East coast.
7:31
Speaker 3: That's how dramatic the gap and knowledge is.
7:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just extue. I mean, are you living under
7:38
Speaker 2: a rock? Like how do you not even know what
7:41
Speaker 2: this is? Who were you talking to?
7:43
Speaker 6: Where are you.
7:43
Speaker 2: Getting your news from it's just on every level. How
7:47
Speaker 2: did you manage to avoid this particular knowledge and what
7:50
Speaker 2: other pieces of knowledge are you somehow managing to avoid
7:55
Speaker 2: raises a lot of questions. I got a bit of
7:57
Speaker 2: a one two punch for you here in terms of
7:59
Speaker 2: the progress of the tech industry pushing forward with these
8:03
Speaker 2: data centers over the objections of the public. We can
8:05
Speaker 2: put this up on the screen. You've got three hundred
8:08
Speaker 2: bands now and moratoriums that the information is tracking that
8:12
Speaker 2: say they threaten the US data center boom. This has
8:15
Speaker 2: increasingly become a hot political issue, both at the local,
8:19
Speaker 2: the state.
8:19
Speaker 6: And the federal level.
8:21
Speaker 2: It's something I'm going to ask Francesca hung about in
8:24
Speaker 2: our interview with her, because it's something she's certainly even
8:26
Speaker 2: campaigning on. We talked to Will Lawrence, who's a congressional
8:30
Speaker 2: candidate in Michigan who also has been talking a lot
8:33
Speaker 2: about data centers and making sure that there is a
8:37
Speaker 2: slowdown at least, if not a moratorium on the building
8:40
Speaker 2: of these data centers. At the same time, put D
8:42
Speaker 2: four up on the screen. They're going to instead of
8:45
Speaker 2: going through any sort of public process, what they're going
8:48
Speaker 2: to do is something very similar to what happened in Louisiana,
8:52
Speaker 2: where they work behind the scenes with politicians. This has
8:55
Speaker 2: met us specifically with politicians who signed not disclosure agreements,
9:01
Speaker 2: which is incredible. I mean, this should be illegal in
9:04
Speaker 2: my opinion, it's technically not, but I certainly think it's
9:06
Speaker 2: unethical for politicians doing public policy to sign non disclosure
9:10
Speaker 2: agreements with the companies they're negotiating with. They rush through
9:14
Speaker 2: the approvals to get this data center, massive data center
9:18
Speaker 2: built in a very rural and very impoverished part of Louisiana,
9:22
Speaker 2: with very little, really next to no ability for local
9:26
Speaker 2: residents to be able to weigh in on whether they
9:28
Speaker 2: thought this was a good or a bad thing. Now,
9:30
Speaker 2: let me be clear, and I think, well, we're going
9:32
Speaker 2: to see this dynamic develop as well. This was an area,
9:34
Speaker 2: as I mentioned before, it is really rural, impoverished community,
9:38
Speaker 2: and so the promise here was we're going to build
9:40
Speaker 2: this data center. There's going to be tons of job creation,
9:44
Speaker 2: it's going to revitalize this community. And in some senses
9:47
Speaker 2: that has happened. During the construction phase. They've had huge
9:50
Speaker 2: number of construction workers coming into the area. Some of
9:54
Speaker 2: the local people have been able to get construction jobs
9:57
Speaker 2: working on the data center, so it's been good for them.
10:00
Speaker 2: But they also talked to some of the residents who
10:02
Speaker 2: had been living in trailer parks, which are very common there,
10:06
Speaker 2: who had their rent for their lot escalate so dramatically
10:10
Speaker 2: that they had to move out of the town entirely.
10:12
Speaker 2: One woman who has I think four kids, three or
10:16
Speaker 2: four kids, was living there. She was paying two hundred
10:18
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars a month in rent. She owned her trailer,
10:22
Speaker 2: but you have to rent the lot that it sits on.
10:24
Speaker 2: They jacked her rent up in a single month to
10:27
Speaker 2: twelve hundred dollars, so more than one thousand dollars increase
10:31
Speaker 2: that she was just supposed to swallow.
10:34
Speaker 6: She couldn't do it.
10:35
Speaker 2: Oftentimes, you either it's expensive to move the trailer or
10:39
Speaker 2: they're just not really constructed in a way to be
10:41
Speaker 2: sturdy enough to be able to move them. She had
10:42
Speaker 2: to sit there and watch as they cut her trailer
10:45
Speaker 2: down into pieces. Her kids and her had to live
10:47
Speaker 2: for a time out of her car. So this sort
10:50
Speaker 2: of disruption is taking place as well. And then the
10:53
Speaker 2: mayor of the town said, you know, it's okay for now,
10:56
Speaker 2: you've got a lot of people coming in after it's built.
10:59
Speaker 2: Our longtime resident are being pushed out of the area.
11:01
Speaker 2: Who and what is going to be left here after
11:03
Speaker 2: this thing is ultimately built. So, but the important piece
11:07
Speaker 2: I wanted to highlight is that number one, it's going
11:10
Speaker 2: to be a lot of poor communities that these things
11:12
Speaker 2: are foisted upon because they are desperate and they need
11:15
Speaker 2: the tax revenue, and they'll grab onto anything that looks
11:18
Speaker 2: like jobs and opportunity. And number two, that legislators will
11:22
Speaker 2: increasingly find ways, given that there their campaign conferences are
11:27
Speaker 2: being flooded with cash from these companies and with the
11:29
Speaker 2: promise of future board seats or lobbying gigs, et cetera,
11:32
Speaker 2: that they will find ways to circumvent a democratic public
11:35
Speaker 2: process and do this behind the scenes so they can
11:38
Speaker 2: continue to push this forward over the objections of the public.
11:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, and meanwhile DC is being flooded with lobbying cash
11:45
Speaker 4: from these companies, and like you said, the revolving door.
11:49
Speaker 3: Politicians know it'll be wide open.
11:51
Speaker 4: Maybe not for Jim Cliburn, who would probably have to
11:55
Speaker 4: brush up on chat GPT and fully intense to remain
11:58
Speaker 4: in that seat till he McConnell's, which we'll be talking
12:01
Speaker 4: about in Just My Crystal.
12:03
Speaker 2: But uh, why Reid calls him glitchy Mitchie, which I
12:07
Speaker 2: kind of like glitch McConnell.
12:09
Speaker 4: Man, He's and this has been going on for years
12:11
Speaker 4: with Glitch, Senator glitch.
12:13
Speaker 3: And so it's just like that, like you said, it's
12:17
Speaker 3: not isolated.
12:17
Speaker 4: The fact that he came out and said this aloud
12:19
Speaker 4: and seemed to have zero shame about it and just said, well,
12:22
Speaker 4: it may sound strange to you, it's like no, no, no,
12:25
Speaker 4: it's note to literally everyone.
12:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, my man, Like that's that's brutal.
12:31
Speaker 6: Yeah.
12:32
Speaker 4: And again they're all getting his staff is getting lobbied. Uh,
12:35
Speaker 4: they're all getting lobbied enormously. So that tells you, to
12:38
Speaker 4: your point, Crystal, about who's making the decisions. If you
12:40
Speaker 4: are offloading a lot of these big decisions to your
12:43
Speaker 4: staff and you're doing it so comfortably, well, they're getting
12:45
Speaker 4: a lobbied. They're going to junkets happy hours like they
12:49
Speaker 4: have these people in their ear and they're not the
12:52
Speaker 4: elected representative.
12:53
Speaker 6: That's exactly right.
12:55
Speaker 2: We've got a couple of stories here too that speak
12:57
Speaker 2: to this sort of more I guess existential nature of
13:00
Speaker 2: the AI threat. This is really disturbing. Put D five
13:03
Speaker 2: up on the screen. AI companies have been bulk buying
13:06
Speaker 2: rare books, scanning them through high speed machines that cut
13:11
Speaker 2: the spines off and then shred the originals they you
13:16
Speaker 2: know this This has been tracked by number of news outlets.
13:19
Speaker 2: This particular account is called hedge markets. In any case,
13:24
Speaker 2: this is really disturbing because you're talking about the entire
13:27
Speaker 2: corpus of human knowledge. You're talking about books that there
13:31
Speaker 2: may only be one remaining in existence, or only a
13:33
Speaker 2: handful remaining in existence, that are not have not been
13:37
Speaker 2: you know, scanned into the Internet so you can just
13:38
Speaker 2: access them at some later time. This is the only
13:41
Speaker 2: proof of their existence, and they're just being chopped up
13:45
Speaker 2: and fed into this AI beast. I think this really
13:48
Speaker 2: struck a nerve with people Emily, because it does feel
13:51
Speaker 2: like a direct assault on our humanity, on our creativity,
13:55
Speaker 2: on our you know, the bank of knowledge that we've
13:58
Speaker 2: built up over man and here you have, you know,
14:01
Speaker 2: what is this sort of like a virtual or modern
14:04
Speaker 2: day mass book burning that has been occurring in the
14:07
Speaker 2: background that we didn't even know about.
14:11
Speaker 4: A man named Charlie Becker posted a really interesting post
14:16
Speaker 4: on x about this. He his family runs Houston's largest
14:19
Speaker 4: used and rare bookstore, according to his post, and he's
14:22
Speaker 4: been working to build an AI tool for bookstores like his.
14:26
Speaker 4: He says, every ingredient of the viral story is true.
14:29
Speaker 4: Booksellers really are getting bizarre book orders, but quote rare
14:32
Speaker 4: here is and what you're picturing it's the Insider's Guide
14:34
Speaker 4: to Metro Denver from nineteen ninety five and how to
14:36
Speaker 4: Use Word Perfect nineteen ninety one manuals obscure but often
14:40
Speaker 4: not precious. And he goes on to say, though that
14:44
Speaker 4: this is more mundane than the shredder story. The actual
14:46
Speaker 4: risk is worse because it's quieter. Books that don't sell
14:51
Speaker 4: eventually get liquidated. So if they don't sell via FBA,
14:55
Speaker 4: they end up getting liquidated. And he says, if we
15:00
Speaker 4: really hold the last copies of some of these, we're
15:03
Speaker 4: feeding them into a portal they may not come back from.
15:07
Speaker 3: No AI company required.
15:09
Speaker 4: So basically he's saying he thinks that these are bulk
15:12
Speaker 4: orders done by an AI to mark up and resell
15:16
Speaker 4: things on Amazon. But because when you do that, most
15:19
Speaker 4: of the books don't sell, they end up getting shredded anyway,
15:23
Speaker 4: and so it's like a mess no matter how you
15:26
Speaker 4: slice it. And one that is doing exactly what you
15:29
Speaker 4: just said is going to do in the name of
15:32
Speaker 4: like turning around profits with this technology that allows you
15:36
Speaker 4: to spread the cost out in mass mass mass around
15:40
Speaker 4: the world.
15:40
Speaker 2: And then, Emily, I wonder what do you think about this?
15:42
Speaker 2: We talk a lot, I think understandably because people are
15:45
Speaker 2: concerned about it, about the way AI is already and
15:47
Speaker 2: is promising to displace a lot of human beings. But
15:51
Speaker 2: there's also a real existential layer to this as well,
15:55
Speaker 2: of like what is our purpose and what are we
15:57
Speaker 2: passionate about? And you know, what gives our lives meaning?
16:00
Speaker 2: And there is this extraordinary substack. We can put this
16:03
Speaker 2: up on the screen from this man, Kirwin Hampshire, who
16:07
Speaker 2: was a mathematician, and he's describing the way that he
16:11
Speaker 2: is experiencing this crisis of identity. Because the headline here
16:15
Speaker 2: is the Dark Knight of mathematics. What are we really doing?
16:18
Speaker 2: Because you've had AI now be able to solve some
16:24
Speaker 2: longstanding what are called conjectures these you know, math like
16:28
Speaker 2: math problems.
16:29
Speaker 6: I don't know what I'm talking about. Here, guys.
16:30
Speaker 2: Sorry, but in any case been able to solve these
16:33
Speaker 2: problems that have existed for years, in you know, or decades,
16:38
Speaker 2: that mathematicians and math enthusiasts have been puzzling over for
16:42
Speaker 2: years and years and years. And now you have AI
16:44
Speaker 2: just basically come in and like, oh, here's the answer done,
16:48
Speaker 2: And so he says, I'm going insane. During the last
16:50
Speaker 2: week or so, lms have produced a number of counter
16:52
Speaker 2: examples to significant, long standing conjectures. I won't recount these
16:55
Speaker 2: happenings here. There are many places where you can find
16:57
Speaker 2: the details. Mathematicians, math, and zest and curiously, people are
17:01
Speaker 2: responding these developments in ways that I believe obscure what
17:03
Speaker 2: is for me the true heart of the problem. I
17:05
Speaker 2: don't speak for everyone in the math community in my response,
17:08
Speaker 2: but I suspect I'm not alone. I'm suffering a profound
17:11
Speaker 2: spiritual crisis due to these developments. I've been screaming internally
17:15
Speaker 2: for days. It feels as though I'm living inside of
17:17
Speaker 2: a nightmare.
17:19
Speaker 6: He says.
17:19
Speaker 2: The recent lead in declaration on AI and mathematics is
17:23
Speaker 2: to me a well muffled screen, a sacraine may lounge
17:25
Speaker 2: of self serving or which illums a painfully obvious absence
17:30
Speaker 2: and effectively. He says, Okay, so if mathematical discovery, if
17:35
Speaker 2: that's just over now, like the lms are just better
17:38
Speaker 2: than us, Now, what's left for us? And he goes
17:40
Speaker 2: on to say, look, even if you were to ban
17:42
Speaker 2: all of the AI and put it back, this discovery
17:45
Speaker 2: process back in the hands of humans, we would always
17:48
Speaker 2: know it was a sort of lie that we had
17:51
Speaker 2: rigged it so that we could be the ones that
17:53
Speaker 2: discover the answer. When you have this technology out there
17:56
Speaker 2: that would have reached you know, would have been able
17:59
Speaker 2: to solve these problems much more rapidly. And so, you know,
18:03
Speaker 2: I thought it was pretty profound to think about. And
18:06
Speaker 2: he's experiencing this in math. He says, I don't know
18:10
Speaker 2: what to do. There may be nothing you can do.
18:12
Speaker 2: I have no prescriptions, policy recommendations, or coherent calls to action.
18:17
Speaker 2: I just want to be honest and open about my
18:18
Speaker 2: emotional and spiritual response. I want to feel seen. I
18:21
Speaker 2: want folks like me to feel seen. I feel need
18:23
Speaker 2: the architects of our new mathematical paradigm to look me
18:25
Speaker 2: in the eye, acknowledge our shared humanity and soul before
18:28
Speaker 2: they deliver the Kuda. Gross I need most of all
18:30
Speaker 2: for us to understand what we are really doing. So
18:33
Speaker 2: I don't know, what do you think about that.
18:35
Speaker 4: I mean, we are layering computer on top of computer
18:40
Speaker 4: on top of computer. Everything is computer, as Trump would say,
18:43
Speaker 4: but that might be the truest thing that he's ever said.
18:46
Speaker 4: Math is the infrastructure around us, Like, that's what builds
18:50
Speaker 4: the infrastructure around us. So think of when you have
18:54
Speaker 4: a further reduction of the human element. Of course, some
18:57
Speaker 4: of this has already been offloaded to computers, and you
19:01
Speaker 4: take the human element almost completely out of it, and
19:03
Speaker 4: then you have computer solving problem on top of computer
19:06
Speaker 4: solving problem on top of computer solving problem. Obviously, there
19:10
Speaker 4: are things that can get baked into that that are
19:12
Speaker 4: enormously problematic. And also high level math is art. It
19:16
Speaker 4: is It is literally art. It's like culturane, it's music.
19:19
Speaker 4: It's not just you know these like abstract goodwill hunting
19:24
Speaker 4: chalkboard problems. They're really meaningful problems, human problems. And it's
19:30
Speaker 4: great that we can progress. If we can, if it's
19:35
Speaker 4: used for genuine progress, it's great that we can. We
19:37
Speaker 4: can do it more more quickly and perhaps more efficiently
19:40
Speaker 4: and with more sense of accuracy.
19:43
Speaker 3: Maybe that's that's great in.
19:45
Speaker 4: Theory, but I don't know that anybody trusts that this
19:48
Speaker 4: is actually happening in a way that's good for humanity
19:52
Speaker 4: and not actually unsafe uh and less human and in
19:56
Speaker 4: a less safe way.
19:57
Speaker 3: I don't have that trust.
19:58
Speaker 4: And it just scares me that those processes happening all
20:01
Speaker 4: around us so quickly. It is not like the transition
20:04
Speaker 4: from horses to automobiles. It is not like the transition
20:09
Speaker 4: from or to air travel, right like this is happening.
20:12
Speaker 4: Those all happen actually pretty quickly. This is happening even faster,
20:16
Speaker 4: and it's building on itself, and there's just no trust.
20:22
Speaker 6: It reminds me.
20:23
Speaker 2: It makes me think about the rapid transition that was
20:26
Speaker 2: experiencing the industrial Midwest where all of these factories closed.
20:29
Speaker 2: You know, towns that were built around the factories just
20:32
Speaker 2: completely collapsed. You had men who had previously mostly men
20:35
Speaker 2: who had previously been able to earn a good living
20:37
Speaker 2: and support a family and buy house, etc.
20:40
Speaker 6: Who lose all of that.
20:41
Speaker 2: And a lot of that is we tend to focus
20:44
Speaker 2: on what's measurable, that's the material loss, but it's also
20:46
Speaker 2: profound psychological blow. And I think our politics today really
20:51
Speaker 2: reflects the lack of recovery and tending to that psychological
20:54
Speaker 2: blow of now you have no skill that's relevant to people.
20:58
Speaker 2: Now you were unable to provide for yourself and for
21:01
Speaker 2: your family, and you aspire for better things for your kids.
21:05
Speaker 2: And I think we aren't really grappling with what the
21:08
Speaker 2: psychological toll of AI will be, because in a sense,
21:10
Speaker 2: how can we We don't really know what it's going
21:12
Speaker 2: to be. But it did remind me. And I'll just
21:15
Speaker 2: end with this because we have a guest standing by.
21:17
Speaker 2: But I read these the Three Body Problem trilogy and
21:21
Speaker 2: in the first book, and I'm not really giving away
21:23
Speaker 2: anything here, but everybody should read them because they're fantastic books.
21:26
Speaker 2: But anyway, there's a spate of scientists who are committing suicide,
21:30
Speaker 2: and it starts with this sort of mystery of like,
21:32
Speaker 2: what is going on with these scientists?
21:34
Speaker 6: Why do they keep killing themselves?
21:36
Speaker 2: And come to find out, Okay, I'm giving away a
21:38
Speaker 2: little bit, but basically they've been thwarted and their experiments
21:42
Speaker 2: are coming out in these crazy ways where they're sort
21:44
Speaker 2: of becoming convinced that the science that they expect accepted
21:47
Speaker 2: wasn't real, and that there's no way for them to
21:49
Speaker 2: progress in science and specifically in quantum physics. And for
21:53
Speaker 2: reasons that I won't divulge, because that does give them away.
21:56
Speaker 2: It comes to be realized that they have in fact
21:58
Speaker 2: been thwarted and they are are being prevented from making
22:01
Speaker 2: any further progress in this particular discipline and others as well.
22:05
Speaker 6: And so it's sort of reminded of that reading his.
22:10
Speaker 2: Reading his explanation of what he describes as the spiritual crisis.
22:13
Speaker 6: That he's going through.
22:14
Speaker 2: So anyway, one more impact of AI that we're all
22:16
Speaker 2: going to have to grapple with.
22:18
Speaker 4: No. I mean, my mom grew up in one of
22:19
Speaker 4: those towns, and a bunch of my family is still there,
22:21
Speaker 4: and we all have seen what happens.
22:24
Speaker 3: That was in Wisconsin.
22:25
Speaker 4: We've all seen what happens where opioids filled the gap.
22:29
Speaker 6: That's right.
22:31
Speaker 4: I remember David Obie represented that district for a long
22:33
Speaker 4: time and he said he regretted how ineffective the job
22:37
Speaker 4: training programs that they were promised. After I forget whether
22:40
Speaker 4: it was an after a WTO came in. He ended
22:42
Speaker 4: up losing his seat by the way, to Sean Duffy
22:44
Speaker 4: in twenty ten, before really the Maga Revolution it flipped.
22:49
Speaker 4: That was a demn district for forty years. So people
22:52
Speaker 4: get really, really, really profoundly psychologically unsettled. And then, of
22:58
Speaker 4: course our special interest feel the economy sweeps in with
23:01
Speaker 4: something awful to fill the gap often and that breeds
23:04
Speaker 4: more and more resentment and division and suffering, and it
23:08
Speaker 4: seems like we're heading straight down that road once again.
23:11
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about one of the architects of that
23:14
Speaker 2: world that we live in now, Mitch McConnell.
23:18
Speaker 4: We're joined now by Desiree Townsend, journalist who has been
23:22
Speaker 4: doing the Lord's work tracking down what on earth is
23:25
Speaker 4: going on with Mitch McConnell's Senator, Mitch McConnell. Desiray, thank
23:28
Speaker 4: you so much for being here.
23:30
Speaker 13: Of course, thank you for having me so, as you know,
23:33
Speaker 13: the Senator, at least from yesterday, I'm going to head
23:36
Speaker 13: over there shortly soon again is still hospitalized.
23:40
Speaker 14: So if you look closely at.
23:41
Speaker 13: The statement his office had made, they said that he's
23:45
Speaker 13: been discharged, and the way they sort of framed it
23:50
Speaker 13: is they made it sound like he's being discharged from
23:53
Speaker 13: the hospital, but he's really not. He's just apparently being
23:57
Speaker 13: being moved or currently in the rehabilitation facility of the hospital.
24:02
Speaker 13: Now this is interesting because there was a viral video
24:06
Speaker 13: from yesterday that I think may have actually triggered this
24:09
Speaker 13: statement where a rapid CPR girl apparently walked through the hospital,
24:15
Speaker 13: walked through the public areas of the hospital on a
24:17
Speaker 13: different sort of business there, and she went to the
24:21
Speaker 13: rehabilitation floor and wing on the fourth on the fourth floor,
24:25
Speaker 13: George Washington Hospital, and she didn't see his Capitol Police
24:28
Speaker 13: detail or him. So it's it's interesting as well because
24:32
Speaker 13: if he's actually in rehabilitation and he's capable of being moved,
24:36
Speaker 13: you would almost immediately move him out of that hospital.
24:39
Speaker 13: There's Paparotski everywhere. It's also a teaching university. It's at
24:45
Speaker 13: a university, so there are you know, twenty year olds everywhere.
24:49
Speaker 14: Following this story, you would want to.
24:52
Speaker 13: Move him out of that hospital and put him somewhere
24:55
Speaker 13: like Walter Reed. Senators have access to Walter Reed. I
24:58
Speaker 13: think John Fetterman had gone to Well to Read not
25:02
Speaker 13: too long ago, so they have access to Congress has
25:05
Speaker 13: access to Well to Read. They have access to better facilities.
25:09
Speaker 13: If he's actually capable of being moved, why is he
25:12
Speaker 13: still there? So that's leading me to believe after we're
25:16
Speaker 13: coming in on seven weeks now, it's leading me to
25:18
Speaker 13: believe that he cannot be moved.
25:20
Speaker 6: Desire.
25:20
Speaker 2: I have so many questions for you, for him for
25:25
Speaker 2: a stab, I mean, because there's so many pieces of
25:28
Speaker 2: this that don't make sense to me. Right, first, we
25:31
Speaker 2: find out he's in the hospital. We hear that the
25:35
Speaker 2: EMS was called because of a heart attack. We get
25:38
Speaker 2: some images of him looking very bad being taken out
25:40
Speaker 2: of his home on a stretcher. We don't hear anything
25:43
Speaker 2: then for weeks. Then we get this message from him saying, oh,
25:48
Speaker 2: I suffered a minor fall, no stroke, no concussion. I'm good,
25:53
Speaker 2: but they want to keep me here indefinitely. Okay, Well,
25:56
Speaker 2: that doesn't really pair with what you're saying about how
25:59
Speaker 2: this is a small injury, no big deal. We've gone
26:01
Speaker 2: a couple of proof of life photos. We have a
26:04
Speaker 2: few Republicans who have claimed that they've spoken on the phone,
26:07
Speaker 2: and he's sharp with the never and he's good to go,
26:09
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. We have not gotten any statement.
26:13
Speaker 2: You can correct me if I'm wrong about Lindsey Graham.
26:15
Speaker 2: You know, someone who's known for a very long time dying.
26:19
Speaker 13: He put out something after the fact on I believe
26:22
Speaker 13: it was on July twelveth, through the day after he
26:24
Speaker 13: finally puts something out, but to your point, he didn't
26:27
Speaker 13: address it.
26:28
Speaker 14: There's a funeral today in Washington, Yes, is he going
26:31
Speaker 14: to show up?
26:32
Speaker 6: Right?
26:32
Speaker 2: And so he puts on this statement and you pointed
26:34
Speaker 2: this out, saying, oh, I won't be at Fancy Farm
26:37
Speaker 2: this week, and I've been to Fancy Farm is a
26:38
Speaker 2: big deal in Kentucky, But it seems like Lindsay Graham's
26:41
Speaker 2: funeral is maybe a bigger deal, and we're not talking
26:44
Speaker 2: about that. I don't know what are what are you
26:47
Speaker 2: gleaning from all of this, and what are some of
26:49
Speaker 2: the big questions that you have since you've been covering
26:51
Speaker 2: this so intently.
26:54
Speaker 13: So what I am kind of taking from these statements
26:58
Speaker 13: is I think I think somebody, most likely his staff
27:01
Speaker 13: or his wife, because a wife would largely be the
27:04
Speaker 13: one in charge of an advanced directive in a living will.
27:07
Speaker 13: I believe they are haphazardly putting these statements together and
27:11
Speaker 13: putting them out without fully thinking them through.
27:14
Speaker 14: To me, it smells more of trying to buy more.
27:17
Speaker 13: Time and using every mechanism possible to do that. The
27:22
Speaker 13: other thing you have to keep in mind. I think
27:23
Speaker 13: this is kind of worried a lot of people in Washington.
27:26
Speaker 6: D c.
27:27
Speaker 13: Elaine Chow is very well connected to China. She met
27:30
Speaker 13: with the vice president of the CCP three days after
27:34
Speaker 13: he was had this event cardiac arrest.
27:38
Speaker 14: And China has access to a lot.
27:41
Speaker 13: Of AI technology and the ability to make photos, and
27:45
Speaker 13: I think that's why maybe we haven't seen a video yet.
27:48
Speaker 13: So I think the question is so I work in
27:52
Speaker 13: litigation as well, and I think you kind of have
27:54
Speaker 13: to look at what is the motive here. So originally
27:58
Speaker 13: I thought the motive was to shut the US government
28:02
Speaker 13: down because without Senator McConnell's vote, they almost certainly cannot
28:05
Speaker 13: move forward appropriations. But Speaker Mike Johnson has before they
28:10
Speaker 13: left for recess in the House, they've already started the
28:13
Speaker 13: process of reconciliation. So at least we ensure the military
28:17
Speaker 13: is funded. So if for some reason, this warranty we're
28:20
Speaker 13: on goes on for long a longer amount of time,
28:23
Speaker 13: we at least have the resources to defend the country
28:27
Speaker 13: with the troops, so that takes that takes China out
28:30
Speaker 13: of the equation in any foreign government that would want
28:34
Speaker 13: to see the government shut down for sort of a
28:36
Speaker 13: national security reason.
28:38
Speaker 14: So that motive's gone.
28:39
Speaker 13: So now we have this election, right, so we have
28:43
Speaker 13: this August third date. That August third date, I think
28:47
Speaker 13: it's it's really going to end up being nothing because
28:51
Speaker 13: the August third refers to two different statutes of election
28:55
Speaker 13: laws in the state of Kentucky. Those two statutes aren't
28:59
Speaker 13: really reconciled right now, but it's something a court can
29:02
Speaker 13: easily reconcile, and it wouldn't really in my opinion, it
29:07
Speaker 13: shouldn't harm a special election. We could still move forward
29:10
Speaker 13: with a special election. So that motive's gone. So the
29:13
Speaker 13: only motive left that I can really point to is
29:17
Speaker 13: keeping the staff paid. So the staff makes a lot
29:21
Speaker 13: of money, and the staff I think also has maybe
29:26
Speaker 13: potentially some of elaying Chill's friends or family.
29:30
Speaker 14: I know there's a driver.
29:31
Speaker 13: I don't know if the driver is a friend of
29:33
Speaker 13: the family, but is paid by the Senator's office. So
29:37
Speaker 13: at this point, the only motive I can point to
29:41
Speaker 13: is to keep the staff paid.
29:42
Speaker 6: You know, it does a right one thing.
29:43
Speaker 2: I' s offloaded and let's just be clear, like they've
29:46
Speaker 2: given us no information, so we can't do anything but speculate, right,
29:49
Speaker 2: So just for people who we're going through, what is
29:53
Speaker 2: possible because the things they put out don't make sense,
29:56
Speaker 2: there are big questions. It would be very if he's
29:58
Speaker 2: doing so great looking a as good as he looks
30:00
Speaker 2: in these photos, shouldn't be hard to call into a
30:03
Speaker 2: news organ to talk to you like anyone, Right, so
30:07
Speaker 2: we could get.
30:07
Speaker 14: To show up to Lindsay Graham's funeral or.
30:10
Speaker 2: I mean something, right, get something beyond what could be
30:13
Speaker 2: an easily generated AI photo given the tools that we
30:16
Speaker 2: have at our disposal these days. So one theory that
30:18
Speaker 2: I saw tasire is that let's say he's in he's live,
30:22
Speaker 2: but he's in like a vegetative state, where it's then
30:25
Speaker 2: on the family to decide are you going to you know,
30:28
Speaker 2: continue this care or are you going to effectively, sorry
30:31
Speaker 2: to be.
30:31
Speaker 6: Crude, but pull the block.
30:32
Speaker 2: And if that becomes public, then suddenly you have every
30:36
Speaker 2: you know one in the world with an opinion for
30:39
Speaker 2: the family about what they should do in the circumstance
30:42
Speaker 2: given the political ramifications, and maybe they just don't want
30:45
Speaker 2: all of that public pressure on them at what is
30:47
Speaker 2: a very sensitive moment in their lives. What do you
30:51
Speaker 2: make of that potential theory.
30:53
Speaker 13: I flirted with that idea, and I do think that
30:56
Speaker 13: is a possibility, but it kind of would child didn't
31:00
Speaker 13: immediately return from China kind of throws that argument completely
31:05
Speaker 13: out the door because she was in China prior to
31:10
Speaker 13: his hospitalization.
31:12
Speaker 14: She then met with.
31:13
Speaker 13: The Vice President of China three days later, but she
31:16
Speaker 13: didn't actually return to the United States until closer to
31:19
Speaker 13: July sixth, and then issue these statements that it didn't
31:22
Speaker 13: warrant her return to the to the United States. So
31:25
Speaker 13: if she is in fact in love with her husband,
31:28
Speaker 13: cares about his life well, and advanced directive, you would
31:33
Speaker 13: you would think that, you know, I don't know, you
31:36
Speaker 13: would return sooner. So that to me, it just doesn't
31:41
Speaker 13: point to somebody who's struggling with with what do we
31:44
Speaker 13: do end of life?
31:46
Speaker 14: Do we pull the plug?
31:47
Speaker 13: And also I don't know how close he was with
31:50
Speaker 13: his children, because no one's seen them at the hospital,
31:53
Speaker 13: and there are a lot of us there. I'm not
31:56
Speaker 13: the only one there. There's there's other paparazzis that are
31:59
Speaker 13: staking out the hospital. No one's seen as kids, So
32:03
Speaker 13: I don't know if that's really the struggle.
32:05
Speaker 4: Sure, go ahead, Well no, Actually that's so interesting because
32:09
Speaker 4: I was going to ask next. I don't know that
32:11
Speaker 4: anybody has spent more time sticking out the house or
32:14
Speaker 4: the hospital than you have.
32:15
Speaker 3: And this is such a bizarre story.
32:18
Speaker 4: Just that anecdote about people not seeing the kids is
32:21
Speaker 4: a really interesting aspect of this. And I feel like
32:24
Speaker 4: we're doing a true crime documentary here and it's endlessly fascinating.
32:27
Speaker 4: But what have you picked up on just atmospherically, what
32:33
Speaker 4: oddities have you observed from your position watching both the
32:38
Speaker 4: house and the hospital.
32:40
Speaker 3: What's it been like?
32:43
Speaker 13: It's all very very odd. It's so tight lipped. There's
32:48
Speaker 13: really no movement or no appearances from family, and no
32:53
Speaker 13: one can really seem to find Elaine Chaw of mainstream media.
32:57
Speaker 13: Even that photo where they some paparazzi found her outside
33:02
Speaker 13: of George Washington Hospital, it all looked stage to me,
33:06
Speaker 13: because what paparazzi wouldn't take a video and.
33:11
Speaker 14: Ask her questions?
33:13
Speaker 13: And so what was really interesting about all of that
33:16
Speaker 13: is I found another person at George Washington Hospital. He
33:19
Speaker 13: actually went and talked to that paparazzi. He's like, why
33:22
Speaker 13: didn't you take a video? Like what's wrong with you?
33:24
Speaker 13: Why weren't you asking questions? And I guess the paparazzi
33:29
Speaker 13: was like, oh, I made a mistake. I hit the
33:31
Speaker 13: wrong button. That's you don't make mistakes like that. I'm sorry.
33:36
Speaker 14: I'm new to.
33:36
Speaker 13: This and I've only been doing journalism and filming and
33:40
Speaker 13: doing all of this for a year. You don't screw
33:42
Speaker 13: up like that, and you have enough time to fix it,
33:44
Speaker 13: which leads me to believe that paparazzi was not there
33:48
Speaker 13: to take video. He was there to take a photo.
33:50
Speaker 13: Could have been tipped off by Elaine Chow.
33:53
Speaker 14: But she's missing. We can't find the kids.
33:56
Speaker 13: It's just very, very odd because usually you would have
33:59
Speaker 13: a family member to a statement saying, please give us
34:01
Speaker 13: our privacy, we want to figure out what we're doing
34:04
Speaker 13: with my father or my husband.
34:07
Speaker 14: Nothing. There's been nothing from the family.
34:09
Speaker 13: In fact, I believe it was porter McConnell deleted her
34:12
Speaker 13: ex account, So this is all very odd.
34:16
Speaker 2: Well, Desire, thank you so much for doing this work.
34:19
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm going insane that there's not more
34:23
Speaker 2: coverage of what is an incredibly consequential story, both in
34:27
Speaker 2: terms of is there a cover up, what it means
34:28
Speaker 2: for our politics, and moving forward all of those questions,
34:31
Speaker 2: and there seems to be very little curiosity in the
34:34
Speaker 2: mainstream press. And that is one other point I want
34:37
Speaker 2: to make here is people may be under the impression
34:39
Speaker 2: this is all unfolding in Kentucky. No, this is unfolding
34:42
Speaker 2: here in Washington, DC. It is undoubtedly the case. Just
34:45
Speaker 2: as there were many people who know about Joe Biden's decline,
34:48
Speaker 2: there are many people, many of them probably in the
34:50
Speaker 2: Washington press corps, who know exactly what is going on
34:52
Speaker 2: with Mitch McConnell and are keeping their lips sealed. So
34:55
Speaker 2: I think it's important for people to understand that as well.
34:58
Speaker 2: Tell people where they can follow you and where they
35:00
Speaker 2: can find your work, and I hope you'll come back
35:02
Speaker 2: and keep us updated as well.
35:04
Speaker 13: So real quickly to address that, I want to let
35:06
Speaker 13: all of you know. So I put out videos back
35:08
Speaker 13: in February of the state of Senator Mitch McConnell, and
35:11
Speaker 13: I ask them questions as I'm walking past the press
35:15
Speaker 13: gaggle they knew the condition he was in, they have
35:18
Speaker 13: never covered it, and to this day, I still find
35:20
Speaker 13: it incredibly odd that they're ignoring this story.
35:24
Speaker 14: So you can.
35:25
Speaker 13: Find me Desra Townsend. I'm on all the platforms except
35:29
Speaker 13: for Facebook. I'm sorry, it's a lot of work to
35:31
Speaker 13: have all these things up. So you can find me
35:33
Speaker 13: on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
35:37
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your work and thank you
35:39
Speaker 2: for your time today. Dosre good to meet you.
35:41
Speaker 14: Thank you both. Have a great day, you two.
35:46
Speaker 2: There is a very consequential governor's race unfolding in Emily's
35:49
Speaker 2: home state of Wisconsin, and we are joined now by
35:52
Speaker 2: one of the leading candidates, Francesca Hang, is a state
35:55
Speaker 2: representative there.
35:56
Speaker 6: She is also a socialist.
35:58
Speaker 2: And is running to be the first socialist governor of
36:03
Speaker 2: any state in the country.
36:04
Speaker 6: Welcome, It's great to have you.
36:06
Speaker 3: Happy to be here.
36:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, polls have you up, so looks like
36:09
Speaker 2: things are going pretty well for you. What do you
36:12
Speaker 2: see on the campaign trail? What do you think are
36:13
Speaker 2: the core issues that voters are considering right now in
36:15
Speaker 2: the Democratic primary?
36:17
Speaker 15: Grappling with rising costs, public schools that have been defunded
36:21
Speaker 15: for over sixteen years, the construction of ad data centers
36:25
Speaker 15: and affordable healthcare.
36:27
Speaker 4: Tell us a little bit more when you're on the
36:29
Speaker 4: campaign trail, how people Wisconsin has a very interesting particular
36:33
Speaker 4: history actually in America with socialism, So talk to us
36:37
Speaker 4: a bit about how that label is playing on a
36:39
Speaker 4: campaign tral. Obviously you're in a primary right now. Do
36:42
Speaker 4: you get questions about electability? What have those discussions looked like?
36:46
Speaker 15: Almost every day I have to remind folks that the
36:50
Speaker 15: person who is most electable is the person who wins
36:53
Speaker 15: the most votes. But Wisconsin has a strong progressive history. Milwaukee,
36:58
Speaker 15: Wisconsin is where sewer socialism was born. This is the
37:01
Speaker 15: state of kindergarten, environmentalism, social security and unemployment insurance. We've
37:08
Speaker 15: had trailblazers like Fighting Bob la Follett, Bel Phillips, and
37:12
Speaker 15: gay Lord Nelson. I get asked every day, you know
37:15
Speaker 15: why run as a Democratic socialist, And I remind folks
37:19
Speaker 15: that I'm a Democratic socialist running on the Democratic ticket.
37:22
Speaker 15: But being a Democratic socialist means that I am committed
37:25
Speaker 15: to the work and workers first, in ensuring that we
37:29
Speaker 15: are fixing a rigged system that is designed to uphold
37:33
Speaker 15: the billionaire class and the elite. When we focus on
37:36
Speaker 15: making sure that working class people across the state have
37:39
Speaker 15: what they need to live a life of dignity, the
37:42
Speaker 15: entire state will thrive.
37:44
Speaker 2: Representative of hang As, I'm sure you're well aware. There's
37:46
Speaker 2: been a bit of a centrist establishment freacount happening in
37:49
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party about the rise of candidates such as yourself,
37:52
Speaker 2: or Zara Mundani or dary Liza Vila Chevalier or Claire
37:56
Speaker 2: Valdez in New York City. One entrance in this freak
38:00
Speaker 2: out husband Van Jones, of course, prominent commentator on CNN.
38:04
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to a video that
38:06
Speaker 2: he put out recently about how he sees this kind
38:10
Speaker 2: of intra party fight.
38:17
Speaker 8: All right, A quick message to my friends on the
38:19
Speaker 8: far left. Quit pooping in the kool aid bowl and
38:22
Speaker 8: telling us that the thurds are ice cubes. They're not
38:25
Speaker 8: ice cubes.
38:25
Speaker 3: And I want to talk about Van Jones.
38:28
Speaker 8: Everything that's good in our party I believe in have
38:31
Speaker 8: been leaved in for a long time. Do I want
38:34
Speaker 8: universal health care, Medicare for all, whatever you want to
38:36
Speaker 8: call it. Absolutely, if you are sick, you should be
38:39
Speaker 8: able to go see a doctor, that's a good idea.
38:41
Speaker 8: I want free education for everybody as long as they
38:44
Speaker 8: want to keep learning. I think I say, good idea,
38:47
Speaker 8: the Green New Deal. I'm the author of the Green
38:50
Speaker 8: New Deal. The Green New Deal is my phrase from
38:53
Speaker 8: my first book in two thousand and eight. There's nobody
38:56
Speaker 8: more committed to criminal justice reform them than me, Equal
38:59
Speaker 8: out solutions, the whole deal. These are our ideals as progressives.
39:05
Speaker 8: We should fight for them. We need them now more
39:07
Speaker 8: than ever. But what does that have to do with
39:10
Speaker 8: supporting hamas? What does it have to do with putting
39:13
Speaker 8: up candidates who say we should have no police, no prisons,
39:18
Speaker 8: we can't deport anybody even if they commit rape or murder.
39:22
Speaker 8: Israel shouldn't exist. These aren't terrible ideas, these are awful ideas.
39:28
Speaker 8: Where did these ideas even come from? If we want
39:31
Speaker 8: people to join this party, When people come to the party,
39:33
Speaker 8: you want to give them a wonderful punch bowl of
39:35
Speaker 8: wonderful ideas like this.
39:38
Speaker 3: Who is putting the poop in the punch bowl?
39:41
Speaker 8: Why these ideas in are punch bowl?
39:44
Speaker 2: Interesting stylistic choices being made there? But respond to his
39:48
Speaker 2: concerns here and his critiques He says that bad, regressive
39:52
Speaker 2: ideas are being snuck into the party by candidates such
39:55
Speaker 2: as yourself.
39:56
Speaker 12: What is your response to that we need to build
39:59
Speaker 12: the broad, big time coalition that we can to fight
40:02
Speaker 12: fascism and rising authoritarium and the Trump regime together.
40:07
Speaker 15: I think that if we alienate voters, especially those who
40:10
Speaker 15: are committed to human rights with what's happening in Gaza
40:14
Speaker 15: is a genocide, that you know, fighting to ensure that
40:17
Speaker 15: we actually fix the systemic issues around criminal legal reform
40:22
Speaker 15: and make sure that we're investing in systems of care first.
40:25
Speaker 15: I think it's disappointing that we would continue to be
40:28
Speaker 15: divisive when our campaign is focused on building this really wonderful,
40:34
Speaker 15: multi racial, multi geographic, multi faith coalition with voters in
40:39
Speaker 15: every corner of the state, including Republicans and independents. And
40:44
Speaker 15: I think that if we are to be stronger as
40:47
Speaker 15: a democratic party, if we are going to build durable
40:50
Speaker 15: power as a democratic party, we cannot alienate those on
40:54
Speaker 15: the left. And I think that, you know, I welcome
40:57
Speaker 15: some of Van Jones's commitments to universal policies. I think
41:01
Speaker 15: they're the only ones that will make sure that we
41:04
Speaker 15: don't come back to these moments that we ensure human
41:07
Speaker 15: rights for folks. But to make this about the human
41:14
Speaker 15: rights violations of Israel and making this about the left.
41:18
Speaker 15: Focusing on these slogans, I think is a disservice to
41:22
Speaker 15: building this coalition that we need to build together.
41:26
Speaker 4: Senator Bernie Sanders famously once called open borders a Koch
41:29
Speaker 4: Brothers proposal. And I'm curious if you think the Biden
41:32
Speaker 4: immigration surge, which according to New York Times was eight
41:36
Speaker 4: million not a citizens coming in over the course about
41:39
Speaker 4: three years, do you think that put downward pressure on
41:42
Speaker 4: Wisconsin workers wages? And is there any room then for
41:46
Speaker 4: deportation of people who are non criminals, whether it's through
41:50
Speaker 4: ICE or another law enforcement agency, in the name of
41:53
Speaker 4: controlling wages and putting American workers first.
41:57
Speaker 15: Right now, our dairy farms are agricultural center, meet packing, education,
42:03
Speaker 15: every single sector across the state relies on the leadership
42:07
Speaker 15: and the contributions of immigrants. And I think that right now,
42:12
Speaker 15: when it comes to suppression of wages or those conversations
42:16
Speaker 15: around potential deportation or impact in the workforce, we are
42:21
Speaker 15: struggling to make sure that all of our communities feel
42:24
Speaker 15: safe to be able to go to work, and you know,
42:27
Speaker 15: policies like driver's license for all and in state tuition
42:31
Speaker 15: for doctor recipients. These are incredibly popular positions that you know,
42:37
Speaker 15: we have the Farm Bureau supporting driver's licenses for all
42:40
Speaker 15: here in Wisconsin.
42:42
Speaker 14: So I think that this.
42:45
Speaker 15: Manufactured crisis at times and fear mongering, especially in the
42:49
Speaker 15: aid of growing late from the era of AI. It's
42:55
Speaker 15: important to recognize that we have to be fighting for
42:57
Speaker 15: our neighbors.
42:59
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you get a lot of questions about
43:01
Speaker 2: why identify as a socialist and are you electable in
43:04
Speaker 2: a general election. There was a Marquette poll recently was
43:07
Speaker 2: featured on the Wisconsin Public Radio site that had all
43:11
Speaker 2: of the candidates and everybody was within you know, was
43:15
Speaker 2: within target distance of the Republican candidate. But they did
43:19
Speaker 2: have Mendela Barnes outperforming and winning, and you were somewhat
43:23
Speaker 2: behind the Republican candidate, Tiffany. So I'm curious, you know,
43:27
Speaker 2: how do you view that poll, What do you make
43:30
Speaker 2: of how you will sell you know, a socialist candidate
43:34
Speaker 2: and a socialist ideology to a broader Wisconsin electorate.
43:38
Speaker 15: It's important to remember that we still have about forty
43:41
Speaker 15: forty five percent of voters in that last Marquette pole
43:44
Speaker 15: who were undecided. That will have another market poll coming
43:48
Speaker 15: out on Wednesday, because we had some shifts in the
43:52
Speaker 15: Democratic primary candidates with the county executive coming back in
43:55
Speaker 15: with the governor's endorsement. I think one of the advantages
43:59
Speaker 15: that the form lieutenant governor has is that there is
44:02
Speaker 15: a broader name recognition, and so in a head to
44:05
Speaker 15: head oftentimes you'll find the person who has the broadest
44:07
Speaker 15: name recognition in a better position. But I think that
44:12
Speaker 15: our movement is growing. We have new donors every day.
44:16
Speaker 15: We're already beating Tom Tiffany, who is a trader, an
44:20
Speaker 15: election denier, somebody who supports a national abortion ban and
44:24
Speaker 15: has voted to gut healthcare and food share away from
44:28
Speaker 15: our kids. The more people see that who he is
44:31
Speaker 15: and what his voting record is, because right now they're
44:33
Speaker 15: out here trying to make him out to be this
44:36
Speaker 15: you know, grew up on the dairy farm and is
44:39
Speaker 15: this nice, average guy. But who he is is truly
44:42
Speaker 15: somebody who's going to put Trump ahead of every single wisconsinight.
44:46
Speaker 15: So we're excited to have more individual donors than tiffany
44:49
Speaker 15: more individual donations over twenty two thousand donations in fact,
44:54
Speaker 15: from every county here in this state. I think having
44:57
Speaker 15: led in every market poll and growing our lead shows
45:01
Speaker 15: that the coalition is growing, that we are an organizing
45:04
Speaker 15: first campaign. That over the weekend our volunteers hit over
45:08
Speaker 15: thirty five thousand doors across the state, and we are
45:12
Speaker 15: growing momentum in rural, more purple or red areas.
45:16
Speaker 3: And it's a multi generational coalition.
45:18
Speaker 15: And I think this sort of excitement and joy belongs
45:21
Speaker 15: in a new type of politics and is part of
45:24
Speaker 15: resistance building as well. We get to have fun when
45:27
Speaker 15: it comes to campaigns and be serious about the issue too.
45:31
Speaker 2: Abdola Saieto over in Michigan, We've covered his race a lot.
45:34
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're following it closely as well. He has
45:37
Speaker 2: a similar worldview, but he does not describe himself as
45:40
Speaker 2: a socialist. Who was asking in a debate last night
45:42
Speaker 2: he says, no, I'm a capitalist. And I'm wondering if
45:45
Speaker 2: you think that the socialist label is still scary for voters,
45:50
Speaker 2: and how you put them at ease, how you explain
45:53
Speaker 2: your view of what socialism or democratic socialism is.
45:58
Speaker 15: I am a former small business owner. I owned a
46:01
Speaker 15: small restaurant in downtown Madison close to my legislative office
46:05
Speaker 15: for almost seven years. I support union rights and making
46:10
Speaker 15: sure that we have living wages, health care for all,
46:14
Speaker 15: universal childcare, fully funded public schools, and followy funding our
46:19
Speaker 15: local governments. Democratic socialism to me means that we are
46:23
Speaker 15: a government that puts working class people first, ahead of corporations.
46:28
Speaker 14: And the elite and the ultra wealthy.
46:31
Speaker 15: And so when I explain democratic socialism in a way
46:35
Speaker 15: through the Green Bay packers filling potholes, making sure that
46:39
Speaker 15: we're funding public schools, you know, the pride and the
46:43
Speaker 15: collective joy that comes with our only publicly owned NFL team,
46:48
Speaker 15: it helps folks to realize this is so much more
46:51
Speaker 15: about the economic populist issues that are growing in popularity.
46:55
Speaker 15: I think democratic socialism is sensible. What is radical is
46:58
Speaker 15: the fact that we still have a seven to twenty
47:00
Speaker 15: five minimum wage in our state two thirty three hour
47:03
Speaker 15: for a tipped minimum wage. So these sort of working
47:07
Speaker 15: class people first policies are are what is popular with
47:12
Speaker 15: folks across our state, and democratic socialism holds me accountable
47:16
Speaker 15: to my principles of human rights democracy and fairness. It's
47:20
Speaker 15: why we need to tax the rich and so. And
47:23
Speaker 15: I think with growing momentum organizations like DSA, the political
47:30
Speaker 15: home they're providing, even though they're not a party, the
47:33
Speaker 15: organizing skills and tools, you know, we reflect a lot
47:37
Speaker 15: of that too. We want communities across the state to
47:40
Speaker 15: have the organizing tools and knowledge to be able to
47:42
Speaker 15: continue to build local community power, community safety, community care,
47:47
Speaker 15: and that should grow out and be across the state.
47:51
Speaker 15: And so for me, democratic socialism is also an accountability
47:54
Speaker 15: measure to make sure I'm holding true to my principles.
47:58
Speaker 4: My last question is on this I was just going
48:01
Speaker 4: to say, crysal on the taxation issue, it's pretty well
48:03
Speaker 4: documented that Wisconsin has benefited from people and businesses coming
48:06
Speaker 4: up from Illinois in the sense that Wisconsin has the
48:10
Speaker 4: scene as having a more competitive business climate. So is
48:13
Speaker 4: there are you sensitive to the issue of perhaps losing
48:18
Speaker 4: some of that competitive edge if taxes go up. How
48:21
Speaker 4: do we increase taxes in the state of Wisconsin in
48:24
Speaker 4: a way that also ensures we're still working, you said,
48:27
Speaker 4: your small business owner working with the business community to
48:29
Speaker 4: make sure that people aren't going to other nearby states
48:33
Speaker 4: that maybe border in the southeastern part or in different
48:36
Speaker 4: parts of the state. And at the same time, though,
48:38
Speaker 4: make sure that the system is fair.
48:41
Speaker 15: Percent of the businesses in Wisconsin are small businesses, which
48:45
Speaker 15: means they either make up to or less than five
48:48
Speaker 15: million dollars in revenue or they have twenty or fewer
48:52
Speaker 15: full time employees. Right now, we have manufacturing, agricultural large
48:57
Speaker 15: business tax credits where some of the largest corporations are
49:00
Speaker 15: paying point nine percent or less of corporate tax rates.
49:04
Speaker 15: We have a very regressive income tax structure where some
49:08
Speaker 15: of our lowest income earners are paying a higher tax
49:11
Speaker 15: rate some some of our highest tax bracket earners. And
49:14
Speaker 15: so when we have, you know, a millionaire tax, and
49:18
Speaker 15: we add a one percent tax to billionaires, we're looking
49:21
Speaker 15: at actually lowering property taxes, putting them by up to
49:24
Speaker 15: forty four percent for folks across the state, and putting
49:28
Speaker 15: that funding into public education because we have a very
49:30
Speaker 15: antiquated public school funding formula that ties property taxes to
49:37
Speaker 15: school funding. So in addition to changing this formula, you know,
49:41
Speaker 15: fair taxation is actually good for growing local and state economies.
49:46
Speaker 15: Policies like universal childcare and funding schools and paidly for
49:50
Speaker 15: all is good for strengthening workforce and expanding our tax
49:54
Speaker 15: revenue bank. We've had very minimal net migration. We have
49:58
Speaker 15: to make Wisconsin a place where all working class folks
50:02
Speaker 15: can thrive and grow families. I think that as a
50:04
Speaker 15: small business owner, I understand the cost of trans of
50:11
Speaker 15: workers where it's there's more turnover. I understand the costs
50:15
Speaker 15: that come with closing and reopening a business. And I
50:17
Speaker 15: think that you know, in the Scott Walker era and
50:20
Speaker 15: even into these last eight years under Governor Evers, we
50:24
Speaker 15: haven't seen the growth of manufacturing jobs. In fact, we've
50:28
Speaker 15: actually seen manufacturers leave our state and so reinvesting in
50:32
Speaker 15: green new jobs and renewable energy companies, manufacturing jobs in
50:38
Speaker 15: you know, in the tech sector. I think that we're
50:41
Speaker 15: we're going to be able to invest in the local
50:44
Speaker 15: and state economies in a way that's much more durable
50:47
Speaker 15: and sustainable than the tax credits we're giving to the
50:50
Speaker 15: business businesses, some which aren't even headquartered in Wisconsin.
50:54
Speaker 3: They're in Florida.
50:55
Speaker 15: Fox I don't want to get Fox cond again. Yeah,
51:00
Speaker 15: they're putting a data center where Foxcom was supposed to go. Wow,
51:04
Speaker 15: you know, I think that speaks to the absurdity of
51:07
Speaker 15: where we are in large corporations coming in taking over
51:10
Speaker 15: a community.
51:11
Speaker 2: Wow, Francesca hon tell people where they can find more
51:14
Speaker 2: information about your campaign and support you if they're interested.
51:19
Speaker 15: Yes, you can go to www dot franchusca hog dot
51:22
Speaker 15: com or follow us on socials at Francesca Hong Wi.
51:27
Speaker 6: Well, thank you so much.
51:28
Speaker 2: I know you have a very busy life between campaign
51:30
Speaker 2: and family and all of the things that come in between.
51:32
Speaker 6: We really appreciate you making time for us.
51:35
Speaker 15: Happy to be here, and folks, if you're in Wisconsin,
51:37
Speaker 15: don't forget to make your plan to vote on or
51:39
Speaker 15: before August eleventh.
51:41
Speaker 2: So, Emily, did she convert you to socialism with that
51:43
Speaker 2: Green Bay Packers pitch?
51:46
Speaker 4: It's all over according to our right wing commenters. I've
51:49
Speaker 4: been converted to socialism for years now though, so she
51:52
Speaker 4: didn't have to do much. But now it's good to
51:56
Speaker 4: have these conversations, especially during I think the primaries, where
52:00
Speaker 4: you're often getting questions that are understandably from the left,
52:04
Speaker 4: so like from the right. Sometimes it's fun to pop
52:06
Speaker 4: in and be like, here's a question that you might
52:09
Speaker 4: get later down the road too.
52:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and I mean, she is getting some of
52:13
Speaker 2: those questions from the centrists and the party right now.
52:15
Speaker 2: This is a I think increasingly common instance of centrist
52:20
Speaker 2: and disarray in this race because there are two more
52:23
Speaker 2: established ci Yes, there are two more establishment candidates in
52:28
Speaker 2: the race who are dividing some of that vote, and
52:31
Speaker 2: so there's been all this pressure of like, okay, one
52:33
Speaker 2: of y'all got to drop out, and now we're coming
52:36
Speaker 2: down to election pain. No one's dropping out, and that
52:38
Speaker 2: is helping to pave the path. Not to say she
52:40
Speaker 2: couldn't win if it was her versus one or the
52:42
Speaker 2: other of them, but that is certainly making her task easier,
52:45
Speaker 2: which is why at this point I think she's you know,
52:47
Speaker 2: I hate to use the betting market odds, but she's
52:49
Speaker 2: like eighty percent favored to win the Democratic primary, and
52:53
Speaker 2: in a year that looks like it's a very good
52:55
Speaker 2: one for Democrats, she's going to have a good shot
52:58
Speaker 2: to win the governor's mansion, which would be you know,
53:00
Speaker 2: it would genuinely be a historic, historic victory. First time
53:05
Speaker 2: socialists would win a state wide race, and in a
53:07
Speaker 2: swing state like Wisconsin, and obviously people watch very closely,
53:10
Speaker 2: so very important and interesting race that people are going
53:12
Speaker 2: to be following very closely.
53:14
Speaker 4: Tom Tiffany is probably a stronger candidate than Republicans have
53:18
Speaker 4: put up in a while.
53:19
Speaker 3: Kind of is sort of because of the lack of RIZ.
53:21
Speaker 6: So we'll see you. I don't know anything about him.
53:24
Speaker 4: He's from the northern part of the state, as Francesca
53:27
Speaker 4: Hung was saying, his background as a dairy farmer, very
53:30
Speaker 4: normy Republican who is like kind of Maga Freedom Caucus
53:36
Speaker 4: coded as he was in Congress, but is also just
53:40
Speaker 4: doesn't have the like Maga riz that some of the
53:43
Speaker 4: hardcore people do. So just from like a political standpoint,
53:47
Speaker 4: he's a little bit I think, more difficult to paint
53:50
Speaker 4: in one direction or the other.
53:51
Speaker 3: A little maybe slippery is the word.
53:53
Speaker 6: Gotcha?
53:54
Speaker 2: All right, well we will watch this one closely. Emily,
53:57
Speaker 2: thank you so much. It'll be us again tomorrow, but
54:00
Speaker 2: we're in switch places. Emily will be in the studio,
54:01
Speaker 2: I'll be at home, Chris will.
54:03
Speaker 3: Be at my home.
54:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, just swatch, just swap this out anyway. If
54:08
Speaker 2: you guys, have a great day, and we will both
54:10
Speaker 2: see you back here tomorrow.