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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. Good morning,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Counterpoints Friday. I'm Ryan Grahama here with
Speaker 1: Emily Jushinsky. Emily, how you doing. I'm good. I forgot
Speaker 1: my glasses once again. Lest you think that I would
Speaker 1: only do it one time, I have done it again,
Speaker 1: So please excuse any squinting if you're watching this on YouTube.
Speaker 1: I'm serious. I've got my glasses here so I'll be
Speaker 1: able to read everything that you need. I learned that
Speaker 1: Ryan actually has great eyesight, which he wears glasses a lot,
Speaker 1: but I guess it's for like when the teleprompters are
Speaker 1: really small, yeah right, otherwise I otherwise I stay away
Speaker 1: from them. That's why I don't even have contexts reading
Speaker 1: a teleprompter, Like, forget it. I can't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not easy, all right. So there was some really
Speaker 1: good news for the economy and also some good news
Speaker 1: this week for Democrats. There's the narrative since mid October
Speaker 1: fairly because you started seeing like a polling collapse, was
Speaker 1: that the red tsunami was back, the red wave was back.
Speaker 1: This week, you haven't seen a counter narrative develop in
Speaker 1: the press yet. If the press wanted to concoct one,
Speaker 1: the numbers were all there. So Tom tom Bonnier, so
Speaker 1: democratic strategist, compiled these. Let's put that up a one.
Speaker 1: He pulled up a bunch of different generic generic poll
Speaker 1: congressional generic polling, generic ballot. That's what it is. Which
Speaker 1: is which is one of the most reliable sources so
Speaker 1: far that we've had. This This one has not fallen apart.
Speaker 1: So I can put my glasses on here and read
Speaker 1: this where you guys can read it for yourself. And
Speaker 1: this since he tweeted this, another one has come out
Speaker 1: that has UH that came out from Echelon Insights, which
Speaker 1: has UH, which has Democrats up like plus two plus three.
Speaker 1: Recently you've got Democrats off, you know, just across the board.
Speaker 1: You can see it plus four plus four plus four
Speaker 1: plus five plus three plus five depending on likely voter,
Speaker 1: registered voter. It moves it in some polls, doesn't move
Speaker 1: it in other polls. This is a this is this
Speaker 1: is movement like you're when when when it's starting to
Speaker 1: get aggregated together like this, some you're catching something. Do
Speaker 1: you think that this is just noise or do you
Speaker 1: think that something about gas prices collapsing the stock market? Again,
Speaker 1: like most people don't have money in the stock market,
Speaker 1: but it it signals to people kind of like people
Speaker 1: take it as a proxy for the future, for the
Speaker 1: for employment, for confidence, for future that you know, that's
Speaker 1: it's been rallying the last week or so, coinciding with
Speaker 1: these numbers coming out. What's or is this just all nonsense?
Speaker 1: I think it's actually all nonsense. And I do appreciate
Speaker 1: what Tom is doing there because I think it's always
Speaker 1: helpful to challenge priors, especially with polling. When polling starts
Speaker 1: to congeal in one direction, I actually get nervous because,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about this in this very segment,
Speaker 1: I'm very nervous about the competence of the polling industry,
Speaker 1: as the polling industry itself is very nervous about its
Speaker 1: own competence per New York Times support this week. So
Speaker 1: I think, actually, if you dig into some of those polls,
Speaker 1: one of them was an economist you Go, or an
Speaker 1: economist IPSOS and a politico you Go poll those polls
Speaker 1: have had Democrats that head by healthy margins with like
Speaker 1: one exception for months, and that to me, where you're
Speaker 1: showing no movement is quite interesting and not necessarily a
Speaker 1: signal that there's there's a tick up towards four Democrats.
Speaker 1: And also, if you look at the generic ballot aggregates,
Speaker 1: so real clear politics, generic ballot aggregate shows a little
Speaker 1: bit of movement over the last several days. Like over
Speaker 1: the last few days, it does show Democrats doing better
Speaker 1: on the congressional ballot. It's still though it has them
Speaker 1: down by a decent margin or respectable margin. If you're
Speaker 1: republican's looking at and thinking what it indicates, and five
Speaker 1: point thirty eight also shows it sort of tightening over
Speaker 1: the summer until about A three just about a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and it's still a pretty wide gap. So
Speaker 1: I think when you're looking at the aggregates, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: But to the question that I think Tom was kind
Speaker 1: of raising here, it's like, what does go into the
Speaker 1: creation of a narrative? What is the media looking at? Right?
Speaker 1: So if X creates narrative, why, then why doesn't Z
Speaker 1: also create narrative? Why? And that I think is worth
Speaker 1: a question worth asking, right, And the polling industry, like
Speaker 1: you said, is getting very nervous, and you can tell
Speaker 1: that by and put the second one up. Story after
Speaker 1: story after story is coming out. That is basically like
Speaker 1: blaring to readers and voters do not trust us. Yeah
Speaker 1: we have we have no idea what's going on here.
Speaker 1: But if you are going to put faith in any polls,
Speaker 1: and faith is the wrong word, but if you're going
Speaker 1: to put any stock in any polls, the national polls
Speaker 1: aren't that bad and haven't been that bad. So if
Speaker 1: you take twenty twenty and twenty sixteen in general, the
Speaker 1: national polls on both you know, Hillary Trump and also
Speaker 1: Biden Trump were pretty close. Hillary Trump was pretty bad. Well,
Speaker 1: she won by three million votes and the polls had
Speaker 1: her up by you know, a couple of points. But
Speaker 1: you know they were saying, like I guess you read
Speaker 1: the electoral map was where they were getting led. They
Speaker 1: got all the state they got this, they got key
Speaker 1: states wrong. So it's when you drill down. But if
Speaker 1: you looked at the popular vote, they like nailed the
Speaker 1: popular vote both twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, and they
Speaker 1: have nailed the generic congressional ballot, yes, pretty consistently. So
Speaker 1: if now they the aggregate does because obviously they're all
Speaker 1: over the map here. Democrats need to be like what
Speaker 1: plus plus two or so you need to be to
Speaker 1: win good? Yeah, Like they don't if it's even because
Speaker 1: of the structural advantage that Republicans have, Republicans will control
Speaker 1: the House. And that's why five point thirty eight to keep.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons five thirty eight still has Republicans.
Speaker 1: It's something like an eighty one eighty two percent chance
Speaker 1: of holding the House, but a very close margin. And
Speaker 1: so movements in that generic poll I think are a
Speaker 1: lot more interesting than new polls coming out of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: or Pennsylvania or Nevada or even Florida or Ohio like
Speaker 1: those might be wildly off. We might find out they
Speaker 1: were off by ten in like Ohio or something like that. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember a wash I think it was a Washington
Speaker 1: Post poll in twenty twenty that said, what was it,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was going to win by like seventeen points
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin, right in Wisconsin. And so the state level polls,
Speaker 1: it can be shocking. And we saw a huge swing
Speaker 1: just in Wisconsin with a Marquette poll for Johnson and
Speaker 1: the Mandela Barnes race over the course of a couple
Speaker 1: that again it did it seemed to me like that
Speaker 1: was organically just wherepublic opinion had moved, but that there
Speaker 1: was some error in the polling that was showing up
Speaker 1: in its in itself. But that is the state level races, though,
Speaker 1: like the fact that we can't gauge them well is
Speaker 1: kind of insane, and from the pollster's perspective, it's insane
Speaker 1: that we would expect them to maintain the same level
Speaker 1: of accuracy when if you look at some of the
Speaker 1: articles that we just put up on the board from
Speaker 1: the New York Times in five point thirty eight. They're
Speaker 1: talking about some really huge, like tectonic shifts in what
Speaker 1: they have to tackle. So they have all of this
Speaker 1: technology upheaval. They have the question of Trump people being
Speaker 1: like our politics getting so bitter and divisive that people
Speaker 1: are afraid of saying who they're voting for, or they
Speaker 1: have seen posters get it so wrong they flat out
Speaker 1: don't want to be involved in their operation. But here's
Speaker 1: a quote from this massive sort of New York Times
Speaker 1: dive into polling just this week, It said, quote, spend
Speaker 1: several hours talk to them polsters, and there's only one
Speaker 1: conclusion you can reach. The same cross currents of mistrust,
Speaker 1: misinformation and polarization that divide our nation are also weakening
Speaker 1: our ability to see it for what it is. The
Speaker 1: stronger those forces grow, the worse are polling gets. There's
Speaker 1: a five thirty eight article ran that you sent. Here's
Speaker 1: a quote from that. One big concern is that we
Speaker 1: have fewer surveys of individual contests in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: than in previous mid terms, and a larger share of
Speaker 1: that smaller pie has been conducted by partisan polsters and
Speaker 1: or sponsored by partisan organizations and they did a big
Speaker 1: analysis to make that determination. So that leaves us, I think,
Speaker 1: in like, that's to your point about the congressional ballot
Speaker 1: being sort of what we have to go off right,
Speaker 1: that's what we have to go off with until right right,
Speaker 1: right right. And that's not a perfect metric. But when
Speaker 1: you're looking at people saying, you know, they know what's
Speaker 1: happening in Pennsylvania and Ohio and Arizona, well, a lot
Speaker 1: of what they think is happening is based on polls
Speaker 1: that even polsters are worried or flawed r because they're
Speaker 1: going to get turn out wrong a lot the more
Speaker 1: local you get. And so that's why when you do
Speaker 1: am a national poll, a lot of the mistakes you
Speaker 1: make wash themselves out on each side. And so five
Speaker 1: point thirty eight had this fascinating look at and we
Speaker 1: included in that earlier when this fascinting look at people
Speaker 1: who aren't doing poles, and you start to read that
Speaker 1: story and you're like, well, this is an impossible story
Speaker 1: to do. How on earth can you do a story
Speaker 1: based on people who don't answer poles? How do you
Speaker 1: know who they are because they don't answer you? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer is so they started out with this gigantic
Speaker 1: sample of people and then conducted a longitudinal study, which
Speaker 1: means they came back and they hit them every month
Speaker 1: or so to check in where they were, and so
Speaker 1: it's easy to get somebody in this first time they
Speaker 1: get So they got like thousands of people in for
Speaker 1: the first time. Then a bunch of people didn't show
Speaker 1: up for the second round, some more people didn't show
Speaker 1: up for the third round, but then it plateaued like
Speaker 1: once you did the first two, like you were in.
Speaker 1: So you think, so that gives you a characteristic of
Speaker 1: people who do polls and the characteristics of people who
Speaker 1: dropped off out of polls. One of the conventional things
Speaker 1: that people think they understand is that Trump supporters aren't gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, are going to be less likely to take
Speaker 1: this poll. And they sort of did find that Republicans
Speaker 1: in general. Republican Republicans in general were more likely to
Speaker 1: drop out. Weirdly, Fox News viewers were more likely to
Speaker 1: participate in the poll. It was Trump supporters who are
Speaker 1: primarily supportive of Trump and not the party and who
Speaker 1: get their news from social media, those were the ones
Speaker 1: that were, you know, the most likely to drop out
Speaker 1: in a disproportionate way to other ones, but the real
Speaker 1: people who dropped out And this is a sad statement
Speaker 1: about our democracy, but one that everybody I think watching
Speaker 1: this will understand people who just aren't going to vote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's not like the people, the main people who
Speaker 1: aren't taking political polls turn out to be were like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not voting, Get away from me. Yeah, like that,
Speaker 1: don't bother me with this. I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about those Yeah, And they're like, why would I waste
Speaker 1: your time or my time? Yeah, Like I know I'm
Speaker 1: not going to vote, right, But then again, like that's
Speaker 1: so that metric aside whether or not somebody is going
Speaker 1: to vote, is also becoming harder for polsters to gauge
Speaker 1: unless you have a huge difference between polls that just
Speaker 1: go with registered voters and pulls that go with likely voters.
Speaker 1: And it's just like this huge nerdy, somewhat nerdy distinction
Speaker 1: that has a just gargantuan effect on the quality of
Speaker 1: those polls. And I mean, it's just one thing that
Speaker 1: people forget or I guess maybe sort of want to
Speaker 1: not talk about in Washington, is that when five point
Speaker 1: thirty eight is talking about those those partisan polls, those parts.
Speaker 1: The more we're relying on partisan polls, the more we're
Speaker 1: allowing them to do what they're intended to do, which
Speaker 1: is influence these elections. Partisan polling is not just for
Speaker 1: personal information. There is a sort of influence ambition involved
Speaker 1: in all of that too, And so the more we're
Speaker 1: relying on things like that, the less well off all
Speaker 1: of us are there. But I think what's really really
Speaker 1: noteworthy is that from all of those articles that polsters
Speaker 1: are very nervous about polls. And this is after half
Speaker 1: a decade of looking at dramatically big misses in some
Speaker 1: of those states, as you mentioned Ran and Yeah, And
Speaker 1: what the polsters have been trying to figure out is,
Speaker 1: are the people you know who we can't get to
Speaker 1: these which let's say it's the Trump supporting social media
Speaker 1: users as they describe them. Are those people similar enough
Speaker 1: to other Republicans Fox News watching main sources Fox News
Speaker 1: Republicans that if we increase the weight that we give
Speaker 1: in a poll to the Republicans that we did talk to,
Speaker 1: are we going to be able to make up for
Speaker 1: the fact that we didn't talk to all these other Republicans.
Speaker 1: That's the big question because if they're roughly the same
Speaker 1: category of people, then your numbers are going to be accurate,
Speaker 1: whether whether those people talk to you or not, because
Speaker 1: you know generally what they think, but they're not. I
Speaker 1: don't think like I think there are different type you know,
Speaker 1: people are getting people who get their news from different
Speaker 1: sources are going to end up voting differently. And so
Speaker 1: I think one of the key questions that hasn't gotten
Speaker 1: is it was getting a lot of attention like a
Speaker 1: year ago, but it's kind of dropped off. Is the
Speaker 1: question of whether those voters, these Trump supporters who like
Speaker 1: Trump more than they like the Republican Party and who
Speaker 1: are mostly just online tend to be younger, itinerant voters.
Speaker 1: Are they going to show up for the midterms and
Speaker 1: for Republicans right? And is it? And that's a huge question,
Speaker 1: by the way, because we know that there's a good
Speaker 1: handful of people who support Trump more than the Republican
Speaker 1: Party who had previously voted for Barack Obama and these
Speaker 1: people are in swing states. What do you think you
Speaker 1: know these people better than may for do you think
Speaker 1: they're showing up? Well? I think I would have really
Speaker 1: been skeptical of that if weren't for COVID, which I
Speaker 1: think changed the conversation and made a lot of people
Speaker 1: on the right feel like we're in a sort of
Speaker 1: political emergency and that demands basically voting for Republicans from
Speaker 1: that perspective, because of things like CRT, because of things
Speaker 1: like transiitiology and schools like people have seen what they
Speaker 1: see or they have been exposed to what they see
Speaker 1: as a sort of apocalyptic level threat. There is Republicans
Speaker 1: have moved them enough away from just Trump. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so. And that's the question with Fetterman. I have
Speaker 1: going back months. You can find us on the record
Speaker 1: pretty much talking about that Fetterman is a decent foil
Speaker 1: to oz like he's I would not take back that.
Speaker 1: I think John Fetterman is a good candidate. I think
Speaker 1: a healthy John Fetterman exactly, it's up by eight points.
Speaker 1: A healthy John Fetterman, I think is wildly underestimated by Republicans.
Speaker 1: That's not what ended up happening, and so the race
Speaker 1: turned out differently. But I do think a healthy John
Speaker 1: Fetterman would have been a super interesting test. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing a little bit of a test of that with
Speaker 1: Tim Ryan, but I think it's not panning out to
Speaker 1: all see would have hoped You're right, he's not tall enough.
Speaker 1: Does of wear shorts? That's right, Well, Ryan, part of
Speaker 1: the way we started this conversation is that you said
Speaker 1: there is a little bit of good news. But in
Speaker 1: all of that news, there's economic news that came out
Speaker 1: on that front on Thursday. But buried in all of
Speaker 1: that news, literally buried in a BA pdf that you
Speaker 1: sent our way, is some news about the housing market. Right,
Speaker 1: So this is coming from the GDP report that you
Speaker 1: saw yesterday, the headline being that after two quarters of
Speaker 1: negative growth of the economy shrinking, it's back to growing
Speaker 1: at a two point six percent. Right. We'll see if
Speaker 1: that gets adjusted in the future. But the biggest or
Speaker 1: one of the biggest drags on the economy wasn't housing.
Speaker 1: And now this is to be expected from you know,
Speaker 1: not just expected, but kind of done on purpose, from
Speaker 1: what the Federal Reserve has been doing by tightening monetary policy.
Speaker 1: Matt Stoller would be very happy, I think, in some
Speaker 1: ways sort of to see this, but not what Matt
Speaker 1: wants to see is rents go down, rather than a
Speaker 1: complete housing crash, and I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: get both. But so let's let's put up this from this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gre of economic Now within residential fixed investment,
Speaker 1: the leading contributors to the decrease where new single family
Speaker 1: construction and broker's commissions, and so broker's commissions is obvious.
Speaker 1: That means people aren't buying and selling houses, which is
Speaker 1: going to push the prices of houses down. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, less demand, Yeah, you know that pushes prices down.
Speaker 1: That's that's and you're already seeing rents start to come down.
Speaker 1: The other part is wild. So we're in other words,
Speaker 1: with mortgage rates at over seven percent at this point,
Speaker 1: home builders are like, well, we're not We're not building
Speaker 1: homes right now. There's because you just crushed all the demand.
Speaker 1: And so if you are trying to get prices down
Speaker 1: and you believe in supply and demand, basic supply and demand,
Speaker 1: there's two ways you can do that. Reduce demand so
Speaker 1: fewer people can buy homes, or reduce or shrink the economy,
Speaker 1: which then reduces a supply. The other way to get
Speaker 1: prices down would be to increase the supply so that
Speaker 1: now instead of ten houses in an area, there are
Speaker 1: fifty houses in an area, so all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: now those become more affordable. That with a growing population
Speaker 1: would seem to be like the way that a sensible
Speaker 1: society would want to bring prices down because we're not
Speaker 1: going to have fewer people. Well, yeah, that's I see
Speaker 1: housing as one of the weird, like sneaky and quiet
Speaker 1: things that affects a million other things in our politics,
Speaker 1: but that we absolutely never talk about, Like we're just
Speaker 1: not talking about anyway, even like culture warriors who want
Speaker 1: to talk about the fertility rate and want to talk
Speaker 1: about them marriage, right, Like, housing is a huge aspect
Speaker 1: of that. And this is coming on the heels of
Speaker 1: something you hear very little about, at least in conservative circles.
Speaker 1: Do you hear a good amount about it on the left,
Speaker 1: although I would argue it's still too little housing shortage
Speaker 1: that is like creating this totally out of touch aspect
Speaker 1: of what people considered the American dream, right, young home ownership,
Speaker 1: that's your investment, that's your property, that's stability, and that's
Speaker 1: the sort of place that you build The rest from
Speaker 1: that was already out of reach for a host of reasons.
Speaker 1: But one huge one of those reasons is that there's
Speaker 1: not enough housing, and there's specifically not enough what people
Speaker 1: consider starter homes, which is like under two thousand square
Speaker 1: feet and I forget the price metric there, but like
Speaker 1: this is taking a really really bad situation not just
Speaker 1: for our politics but also for our culture and making
Speaker 1: it way worse. And there's an argument that and then
Speaker 1: playing people on the left would say this that fewer
Speaker 1: single family homes is good. And if you look at Europe,
Speaker 1: they're like, what are you what's going on over? What
Speaker 1: are you guys doing all these singles just endless homes?
Speaker 1: Like why don't you guys live in row homes or
Speaker 1: in apartments or in you know, multi family housing, Like
Speaker 1: like where do you get all this space? Uh? And
Speaker 1: so it's not a given that you're that everybody you
Speaker 1: know is going to have a starter home, is going
Speaker 1: to have their their own home. Like that was that
Speaker 1: was kind of the American bargain, Like that was the
Speaker 1: American dream that was sold to people like, Okay, we
Speaker 1: got a lot of problems here. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of upward social mobility and a lot of
Speaker 1: downward social social mobility, But we do have a contract
Speaker 1: here that if you basically if you work hard, uh,
Speaker 1: you can you can own your own home and your
Speaker 1: and your children have a chance of doing better than
Speaker 1: you did. Like, that's the that's the basic bargain. Now
Speaker 1: that we're pulling that bargain out, we're saying, actually, you know,
Speaker 1: not so much. And and the FED by turning this around,
Speaker 1: could create a kind of structural funded shift in construction
Speaker 1: that just says, you know what, the single family homes
Speaker 1: we've got, that's what we're going to go with from
Speaker 1: now on. We're doing multi family homes, apartments, condos. Well,
Speaker 1: it so could lawmakers on the local level, like across
Speaker 1: the board, and obviously they are deeply involved in Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so The New York Times actually had a super
Speaker 1: interesting dive into basically the death of the starter home
Speaker 1: that they published last month, and here's a paragraph from it.
Speaker 1: They wrote, from a builder's view, there's nothing particularly prefable
Speaker 1: preferable about higher end homes. The profit margins aren't generally higher,
Speaker 1: they demand more customization, the riskier to build in economic downtimes.
Speaker 1: Entry level housing, on the other hand, is invariably in
Speaker 1: deep demand. So where did it go? But The demand
Speaker 1: question I think is interesting too, because there are I
Speaker 1: actually would totally believe that demand has gone down just
Speaker 1: because a lot of people have people my age have
Speaker 1: been conditioned to see this as something that is out
Speaker 1: of reach, right, Like since the Great Recession, it was
Speaker 1: the talking borders that this is out of reach, And
Speaker 1: that's true for a lot of reasons. But I think
Speaker 1: it's also sort of a self fulfilling prophecy to that extent,
Speaker 1: because people don't even look. I mean, I know there
Speaker 1: are jokes about Zillo now, like SNL did a great
Speaker 1: sketch about like people scrolling Zillo and listen, we've all
Speaker 1: done that, But the idea that you would actually sort
Speaker 1: of make a move on it is a totally different question.
Speaker 1: And I feel like a lot of people just genuinely
Speaker 1: see that as out of reach. So I think maybe
Speaker 1: there's a chunk of demand that probably isn't there where
Speaker 1: it used to be. But at the same time, the
Speaker 1: demand in general is absolutely there, right, But demand, like
Speaker 1: from your heart, is different than demand coupled with the
Speaker 1: ability to pay. Yeah, And so if you're slowing down
Speaker 1: the economy, what that means is that people have less money,
Speaker 1: people have unemployment goes up, people are in deeper debt.
Speaker 1: So demand isn't just like that would be nice, It's
Speaker 1: like that would be nice, but I can also afforded, right,
Speaker 1: And did the time say it was mostly about affordability
Speaker 1: or what was there? What was their takeaway that it
Speaker 1: just is zoning reforms basically, like zoning law is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that a lot of this hasn't happened,
Speaker 1: and that it's just kind of a market what's the
Speaker 1: best way to describe it, Maybe a mean land market
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah, it's just like falling through the
Speaker 1: cracks of the market, the idea of the starter home.
Speaker 1: And I thought it's particularly interesting that they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: it's not like it's worse for developers. It's not like
Speaker 1: developers are doing this because of you know, the invisible hand,
Speaker 1: Like there actually is a market incentive for that, including demand,
Speaker 1: as they say, there's invariably deep demand for affordable starter homes.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a really serious problem. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing like just coming to the respective on the right,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with student loans, right, Like we
Speaker 1: cannot be talking about marriage and children and not paying
Speaker 1: attention to the fact that people are drowning in student
Speaker 1: loan debt. You and I disagree on what the solution
Speaker 1: should be to that, but the fact that, like it's
Speaker 1: the same thing with housing student loans. There are all
Speaker 1: of these kind of financial issues that the right has
Speaker 1: for a really long time sort of shrugged and left
Speaker 1: to the market and said the market will sort of
Speaker 1: work this out, that the invisible hand will sort of
Speaker 1: guide us to fitting all of these puzzle pieces together.
Speaker 1: But that has wreaked havoc on the culture to redab
Speaker 1: it on things that Republicans really purport to care about
Speaker 1: right now. And again, like a lot of people probably
Speaker 1: disagree on what the solutions are. I'm just saying they
Speaker 1: don't even talk about these things. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is going on
Speaker 1: is because they have kinked so much multi family housing
Speaker 1: and so many apartments by you know, the nimbi yes
Speaker 1: limmy blockages, that there are a lot of single family
Speaker 1: homes that are now occupied by multiple lots of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like say you got a group house with like four
Speaker 1: people in their twenties living in it, who are all
Speaker 1: you know, professionals or they're all or they're all you know,
Speaker 1: they're yeah, exactly, you know, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: So yep. If then you build more multi family housing,
Speaker 1: you build more apartments like that, those people might prefer
Speaker 1: a living because then they get their own space. Then
Speaker 1: you free up all of this other housing for then
Speaker 1: for actual families, single family housing for single families. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's not necessarily an either or. If you're saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: we need more single family homes, well, one way to
Speaker 1: free up more single family homes is to make it
Speaker 1: so that you're not packing so many people into so
Speaker 1: many of them. Give those people a place. And I
Speaker 1: think the broader point is that you know this indication
Speaker 1: that you pulled from the BEEA. I think I have
Speaker 1: the exact sentence in front of me. Yeah. Real GDP
Speaker 1: turned up in the third quarter, increasing two point six
Speaker 1: percent after decreasing point six percent in the second quarter.
Speaker 1: The upturn primarily reflected a smaller decrease in private inventory investment,
Speaker 1: in acceleration in non residential fixed investment, and an upturn
Speaker 1: in federal government spending that were partly offset by a
Speaker 1: larger decrease in residential fixed investment and a deceleration and
Speaker 1: consumer spending import turned down. That's the paragraph that you
Speaker 1: pulled out, and you can see how all of these
Speaker 1: things are happening on the surface, and then beneath that
Speaker 1: is lurking. I think something pretty troubling. And this is
Speaker 1: going to this is this is throwing gasoline on that fire.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't mean that with the sense of
Speaker 1: like intentionality, but it's making a bad situation worse, So
Speaker 1: it is kind of intentional. Well, yeah, it's not like
Speaker 1: they don't know that that's going about it. If the
Speaker 1: reduction in broker's fees can warrant a mention in the
Speaker 1: overall GDP, it's impact on overall GDP, that is a
Speaker 1: massive reduction. Suck to be a real estate broker right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're watching this, I feel for you. This must
Speaker 1: have been a rough couple months and again taking a
Speaker 1: bad situation and making it worse in ways that will
Speaker 1: ripple out. So we'll continue to pay attention to that.
Speaker 1: Should we move on to the Chip's news. Let's do
Speaker 1: that all right? Well, the CHIPS legislation has seemed to
Speaker 1: our already been yielding fruit, and I'm sure you remember
Speaker 1: what was passed to just the summer a pretty bipartisan
Speaker 1: basis to incentivize chips manufacturers to reshore to come back
Speaker 1: to the United States a shockingly huge portion of semiconductors,
Speaker 1: which sounds again like I was not paying attention at
Speaker 1: all to the semiconductor discourse until a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: And when you like look at exactly how desperately we
Speaker 1: need semiconductors for our entire economy, let alone our military.
Speaker 1: That's not even getting into the national security implications, you
Speaker 1: realize how these these chips are crucial to the health
Speaker 1: of the United States, and a huge swath of them
Speaker 1: are manufactured in Taiwan. Last week, as the Congress convened
Speaker 1: over in China, Hu Jinping got his third term and
Speaker 1: basically signaled that he thinks he should be moving up
Speaker 1: that timeline on potentially moving in on Taiwan at LEAs
Speaker 1: that's the way a lot of China experts read his
Speaker 1: comments in regard to Taiwan last week, which I think
Speaker 1: we're you know, they're sort of characteristically and predictably vague.
Speaker 1: But the China watchers who saw that, you know, so
Speaker 1: this is an indication that he seems itchy even more
Speaker 1: itchy to move in on Taiwan. So the restoring efforts
Speaker 1: in the United States need to happen a whole lot faster.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, we don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are qualified to work in the industry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we could put this put this element up reporting
Speaker 1: here from Computer World, which dives dives into the labor
Speaker 1: shortage all across the board. The CEOs and the other
Speaker 1: and the hiring managers interviewed in the story like we
Speaker 1: can't find people for anything. Yep, Like we're getting killed.
Speaker 1: One guy's like, you know, it took me a year
Speaker 1: searching the world to find this what engineer for this position,
Speaker 1: and then it took nine months to get the visa approved.
Speaker 1: Nine months is fast? Like that guy's lucky that they
Speaker 1: got that through in nine months. Our immigration policy around
Speaker 1: this hasn't been updated in thirty years. There's there are
Speaker 1: there are quotas that we have that are capped that
Speaker 1: once you've gotten a certain number of people in on
Speaker 1: these on these particular visas, that's it. You're you're done.
Speaker 1: Nobody else can get through the backlog because of you know,
Speaker 1: inadequate funding, plus trying to trying to manage like a
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties law in a twenty twenties economy. Plus and
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, it actually matters. No government
Speaker 1: has ever wanted to invest in like tech upkeep. So
Speaker 1: they're all running on like should see these like computer
Speaker 1: like you think you're walking into the set of like
Speaker 1: a nineteen eighties like movie about like like halt catch
Speaker 1: fire or something. But the technology is developed here. That's
Speaker 1: what's super frustrating. Government can't buy it because they're like
Speaker 1: afraid that the washing post is going to catch them
Speaker 1: like spending money on computers or something. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the research just used Microsoft word one. It's fine.
Speaker 1: The research that people are using in Taiwan to manufacture
Speaker 1: these chips that are used in the United States are
Speaker 1: imported in the United States is American research for the
Speaker 1: most part. And that's per Computer World's reporting, which is
Speaker 1: like done largely by immigrants here at American universities. And
Speaker 1: it's just like an amazing, amazing, like cycle of just stupidity.
Speaker 1: It's just so dumb. And this is what computer World
Speaker 1: wrote in July, as Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and others move
Speaker 1: ahead with plans for new computer chip development. And manufacturing
Speaker 1: plants in the US. Those efforts are running into a
Speaker 1: new headwind. There aren't enough people with the skills needed
Speaker 1: to run facilities, as you mentioned. Brian Computer World followed
Speaker 1: up this month in a report exactly about that and
Speaker 1: said recent initiatives to bring tech manufacturing back to America
Speaker 1: are working, according to the Restoring Initiative. In its report,
Speaker 1: the group predicted twenty twenty two, we'll see a record
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand new jobs directly related to
Speaker 1: domestic companies bringing work back stateside and offshore companies committing
Speaker 1: foreign direct investment to their US based divisions and facilities.
Speaker 1: All right, so three hundred and fifty thousand new jobs
Speaker 1: is fantastic. We need people to work in those jobs
Speaker 1: and then to contribute to the American economy for that
Speaker 1: number to really be positive. Because if you have three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty k new jobs and you can't fill them, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what we're going to do. Because the
Speaker 1: Washington Post also just this week said and the engineering
Speaker 1: shortage in the US is frustrating the chips industry. Harvard
Speaker 1: Business Review here's where it's also terrifying. In a new
Speaker 1: review said We found that the time it would take
Speaker 1: the supply chain to recover or return to normal operations
Speaker 1: from a ten day disruption of production at one fab
Speaker 1: would be nearly twelve months and would create significant financial
Speaker 1: losses across all supply chain partners just a ten day disruption.
Speaker 1: So imagine Hi Jinping moves in on Taiwan and manufacturings
Speaker 1: that they're saying right now twelve months, twelve months. We
Speaker 1: are not remotely equipped for that. We have been just
Speaker 1: pretending this problem isn't happening for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and now we're in a situation where we're sending billions
Speaker 1: of money, billions of dollars to Ukraine and fixated either
Speaker 1: whether you think it's rightfully or wrongfully on that front,
Speaker 1: and Xi Jinping knows that. So this whole thing reminded
Speaker 1: me of this fascinating exchange between and I was able
Speaker 1: to find it just now between Trump and Bannon back
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen. You might remember this interview. Trump was
Speaker 1: on his Bannon's Bright Bart radio program and they had
Speaker 1: a disagreement over immigration policy. And I'm curious how you
Speaker 1: think this has shaken out in the seven years since then.
Speaker 1: So it starts with Trump saying it's a shame that
Speaker 1: so many kind of foreign born Ivy League graduates aren't
Speaker 1: allowed to stay in America after they graduate because they
Speaker 1: would be keep what he called they would be job creators,
Speaker 1: as he says it, which sounds like a common sense
Speaker 1: thing anyway, like why did you spend all this money
Speaker 1: training somebody and then kick them out of the country
Speaker 1: so they can go take their talent elsewhere, although they
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money getting trained here as well.
Speaker 1: It's a huge incentive. Yeah, it's great. We went on
Speaker 1: every which way. And so then Trump sees Bannon like
Speaker 1: kind of being skeptical, and Trump's like, we have to
Speaker 1: keep our talented people in this country. And Bannon says,
Speaker 1: I'm good to transfer there, and Trump says, I think
Speaker 1: you agree with that? Do you agree with that? And
Speaker 1: then Bannon says, well, I got a tougher you know,
Speaker 1: when two thirds or three quarters of the CEOs in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia. I
Speaker 1: think my point is a country's more like a country's
Speaker 1: more than an economy. We're a civic society. So Bannon's like, no,
Speaker 1: go home. So what that perspective misses is that you
Speaker 1: can walk into your gum at the same time, meaning
Speaker 1: and that would mean basically that if you want one
Speaker 1: part of it, you have to have the other part
Speaker 1: of it. So we should have a strong civic culture
Speaker 1: and we should do things to make that more robust,
Speaker 1: there's no question about it. But we don't have a choice.
Speaker 1: We really do not have a choice at this point.
Speaker 1: If we are at a situation right now, at this
Speaker 1: very moment where if something were to disrupt for ten days,
Speaker 1: just manufacturing of semiconductors. They are so they're like, what's
Speaker 1: a good example. I mean, it's like a domino, right,
Speaker 1: or just something that you pull that one thread out
Speaker 1: of the fabric and it all starts to unravel. That's
Speaker 1: what they are to our supply chain. Even though they
Speaker 1: sound like this, you know abstruse concept that tech people
Speaker 1: only care about these things are crucial. They'll be a
Speaker 1: metaphor in the future. Yeah, it'll feel like it'd be
Speaker 1: like taking the chip out. I don't want that to happen,
Speaker 1: but I think it's going to do. So that's the
Speaker 1: point that you have to make to people who and
Speaker 1: I think again, there's like sort of reasons for skepticism
Speaker 1: about contributing to the American project, the American economy, if
Speaker 1: you don't really care that much about America, if it's
Speaker 1: just all about money, and that maybe what steep In
Speaker 1: and thinks the situation is the bottom line is we
Speaker 1: don't have a choice, and you can do more to
Speaker 1: cultivate that sense of sort of patriotism anyway. And so
Speaker 1: the chips legislation is throwing money at it, and we'll
Speaker 1: see whether the multinational corporations involved here just keep the
Speaker 1: money or actually invested here. There's that something. There's some
Speaker 1: evidence that they're already sending it off shore. The second
Speaker 1: question is immigration. Can we get people here you know
Speaker 1: to be would be can we actually create more of
Speaker 1: a domestic supply of these workers, like can we can
Speaker 1: we actually start doing stem education better? Can we can
Speaker 1: we make our own pipelines? But the third part is
Speaker 1: this rather radical move that Biden made just before she's speech.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about Chrysln Sager have talked about this here,
Speaker 1: but this is his export control ban on chip on
Speaker 1: chip technology. People like people follow who followed this industry
Speaker 1: just completely shocked to see such an aggressive move. It's
Speaker 1: saying these high tech chips which China does not have
Speaker 1: yet have the tech capacity to produce, but is trying
Speaker 1: to You cannot export these anymore. Like it was, it's
Speaker 1: a huge dramatic ratching up. Did we do that first
Speaker 1: to them? Well, yeah, yes they have. I mean they've
Speaker 1: they mess around with us all the time. They messed
Speaker 1: around with our solar panel stuff, but we have never
Speaker 1: done anything this severe around around export controls. And it's
Speaker 1: it's giving you know, people say, well, this might make
Speaker 1: him invage Taiwan earlier. Other people say that that the
Speaker 1: fact that he's going to do it anyway means that
Speaker 1: you cannot you cannot be exporting this technology that will
Speaker 1: give them a quantum leap in their in their military
Speaker 1: and other economic capacity. Uh. Quick story, and then we've
Speaker 1: got to move on to the next one. So there's
Speaker 1: this book that I think is like every everybody should
Speaker 1: read if they're if they're curious about this called The
Speaker 1: Long Game by this guy rush Doshi, that that sketches
Speaker 1: out Yeah, that's that's that's kind of takes a pretty
Speaker 1: hawkish It gives a hawkish lens to the US China
Speaker 1: relationship and really examines what it is that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: is the Chinese government's long term strategy. And he's kind
Speaker 1: of so hard edged and clear eyed about it that
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago I was like, I got
Speaker 1: to have this guy. After I finished book, I was like,
Speaker 1: I got to have this guy on my podcast. I
Speaker 1: want to hear from it. So I reach out to
Speaker 1: somebody who actually to a stoler who knows him, and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, he's at the NSC now, So he
Speaker 1: now is the director of China. That's the National Security
Speaker 1: Council for Biden. And having read that book, it is
Speaker 1: a remarkable fact that that the US, which has been
Speaker 1: so dubvish on from both parties for so long toward
Speaker 1: kind of cooperation with China, permanent trade relations, et cetera,
Speaker 1: has somebody with this kind of perspective on them. And
Speaker 1: so when when this was announced, when Jake Sullivan announced this,
Speaker 1: this chip export ban, he said, this is one national
Speaker 1: security decision. This is not about an economic decision. So
Speaker 1: we'll see if this becomes bipartisan. But this like this
Speaker 1: is a new kind of era in US China relations. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's what's pathetic is that it took essentially an emergency,
Speaker 1: you know, to wake the United States up and to
Speaker 1: reshoring should hopefully bring with it a host of economic
Speaker 1: and national security benefits and cultural benefits along with those
Speaker 1: noomic benefits, meaning you can have more company towns organized
Speaker 1: around these these areas that have really good jobs and
Speaker 1: that sort of have the ripple effect going out from there.
Speaker 1: But again, these things did not just go to China
Speaker 1: in like the case of happenstance, like this was an
Speaker 1: intentional thing, like moving manufacturing of these to Taiwan, moving
Speaker 1: manufacturing or letting so much manufacturing go to China. This
Speaker 1: stuff happened as you know, launch on Taiwan. What what
Speaker 1: are you thinking when you know, like where this is headed? Well,
Speaker 1: they did it. Nobody, nobody thirty years ago was like, uh,
Speaker 1: are we sure? No? I led right off China's mainland
Speaker 1: that they claim with some legitimacy. I went back in
Speaker 1: the place to put this semiconductor industry. I went back
Speaker 1: and read Bill Clinton a New York Times article about
Speaker 1: what Bill Clinton was saying around the time of the
Speaker 1: WTO And it is shocking what level of just incompetence
Speaker 1: informed that decision. And nobody wants to, you know, make
Speaker 1: their own country. They live in that country, their grandchildren
Speaker 1: live in that country, and yeah, if they have a
Speaker 1: bunch of money, they know they'll be fine. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, they want to have a good historical legacy,
Speaker 1: like there's incentive to do a good job as president.
Speaker 1: And they really thought that was a good decision. Truly
Speaker 1: thought that was a good decision. And that's because you
Speaker 1: have people tripping in your ear, for whom it will
Speaker 1: immediately be a great decision. And it's good for some
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, it's good for some of them. And
Speaker 1: just right before it's just a terrifying fact. To end
Speaker 1: this on a ren An analysis this week that if
Speaker 1: you get a new chip company in the United States
Speaker 1: from point A to point B, so starting construction, opening
Speaker 1: up the doors for years. Think about that and think
Speaker 1: about that in Chijin Pang's mind, because that doesn't leave
Speaker 1: us any room. One thing I learned from Doschei's book.
Speaker 1: Back when Clinton was doing that, there's there's strategy had
Speaker 1: a name. It was called Hide Capabilities and bide Time's
Speaker 1: that's what they named it up through two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight and after the two thousand and eight financial crisis,
Speaker 1: like all right, let's roll. Yeah, we did. We did
Speaker 1: great on that. He's really red. We've we've hidden ca
Speaker 1: abilities enough, so we saw right through that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the World Cup. Actually, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I've ever asked her. You a soccer fan. I
Speaker 1: played soccer in high school? Does that count? No? Really,
Speaker 1: I'm not really a soccer for your football guy. American foot,
Speaker 1: American football, right, I mean, soccer is fine. Like, I
Speaker 1: don't hate it, like, no watching it as much as
Speaker 1: some people do. No, I like soccer. But that said,
Speaker 1: this is not a happy soccer story at all. This
Speaker 1: is a sort of crazy story that will surely develop
Speaker 1: over the next few months. This from the Associated Press.
Speaker 1: A former CIA officer who spied on Cutter's rivals to
Speaker 1: help the tiny Arab country land this year's World Cup
Speaker 1: is now under FBI scrutiny, and newly obtained document show
Speaker 1: he offered clandestine services that went beyond soccer to try
Speaker 1: to influence US policy. That's according to their own investigation.
Speaker 1: They added. The month's long FBI probe focuses on whether
Speaker 1: Kevin Chalker's work for Cutter broke laws related to foreign lobbying, surveillance,
Speaker 1: and exporting sensitive technology and trade cap tradecraft said two
Speaker 1: people with knowledge of the investigation. All right, so the
Speaker 1: FBI would not confirm or deny whether that investigation existed
Speaker 1: to the Associated Press. And there are all kinds of
Speaker 1: different parties wrapped up in this crazy story. You come
Speaker 1: back to Tom Barrack and the United Arab Emirates lobbying,
Speaker 1: which Elliott Broydy is saying has something to do with
Speaker 1: us because UAE and Cutter and it's just a mess.
Speaker 1: What did you make of it as it broke on Thursday?
Speaker 1: I wonder how much more of this we're going to
Speaker 1: find because the World Cup, the competition for the World Cup,
Speaker 1: is one of the most corrupt things on the planet. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think when it's a competition among golf countries,
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's going to take the corruption level, you know,
Speaker 1: up up several notches. I did a story We're involved
Speaker 1: in it, Like that's the best part of the story,
Speaker 1: Like this is American lobbyists. I mean, we have the
Speaker 1: best buys. Yeah, so if you're gonna if you're gonna
Speaker 1: hire one who better. I did a story a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago about the most audacious financial sabotage effort
Speaker 1: I've ever come across. It was. I got documents, I
Speaker 1: got the entire presentation that was put together by a
Speaker 1: consulting firm and in a particular bank in Europe for
Speaker 1: the United Arab Emirates on behalf of the United Arab Emirates,
Speaker 1: which was livid that Cutter had gotten the World Cup.
Speaker 1: This is like such a huge deal, you know, for
Speaker 1: for Cutter, and the Amoradis wanted a piece of it,
Speaker 1: and so they concocted this scheme where they were going
Speaker 1: to corner and there is evidence that they actually carried
Speaker 1: this out or carried pieces of it out. So they
Speaker 1: were going to corner the Qatari currency using these various
Speaker 1: brokerage houses and transactions, and then they spell all this out.
Speaker 1: You can just google the main words I'm saying here,
Speaker 1: you can go find the story. It's completely unbelievable. And
Speaker 1: then they were going to use that to say like
Speaker 1: look what a look what a mess Cutter is. Their
Speaker 1: currency is like flying out of control. And then they
Speaker 1: were going to go to Cutter and then they were
Speaker 1: going to also they were going to sell it shorts.
Speaker 1: They're going to make money on the side of it,
Speaker 1: just leave it on the table. And then they're going
Speaker 1: to go to Cutter and say, look, you want your
Speaker 1: currency back, you have to have some of the games
Speaker 1: here in the UAE. That's what they want. They just
Speaker 1: wanted some games in this just like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let them have a game. Who cares? Come on, man,
Speaker 1: give a game. Like I feel bad for them that
Speaker 1: they're willing to go to these extraordinary lengths to destroy
Speaker 1: like the entire economy. Then outing the UA very nearly
Speaker 1: invaded Cutter during the Trump administration. Tillerson stopped him at
Speaker 1: the last minute. Uh. The Kushner was I think quite
Speaker 1: annoyed that he's that he stopped them. Kushner was siding
Speaker 1: with them all the time. But they were like within
Speaker 1: hours of like launching an actual invasion. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: just that wasn't just about the World Cup, but the
Speaker 1: fact that Cutter had gotten the World Cup had them
Speaker 1: so worked up. Well, and this, I mean, this gets
Speaker 1: into here's another quote from the AP Global Risk Advisor.
Speaker 1: So that's the firm that Kevin Chalker works for and founded.
Speaker 1: Also created a detailed security plan in twenty fourteen to
Speaker 1: install a surveillance system in cutter that could track mobile
Speaker 1: phones in the country with extreme accuracy and allow analysts
Speaker 1: to isolate individual conversations and listen in real time. According
Speaker 1: to internal company records that include a draft contract, and
Speaker 1: so Kevin Chalker is accused based on the Associated Press report,
Speaker 1: which is based on documents. The AP says that it
Speaker 1: has of just selling his soul basically, like what more
Speaker 1: I should say, what a lot of people would consider
Speaker 1: to be pieces of your soul, you know, in being
Speaker 1: involved in that level of surveillance, being involved in that
Speaker 1: level of corruption and selling it as a service for
Speaker 1: personal profit to a foreign country is like really really
Speaker 1: a remarkable thing to be accused of. And again, like
Speaker 1: these are allegations right now, but it just speaks to
Speaker 1: how much money is on the table. It's not just
Speaker 1: money on the table. Is not just people know about
Speaker 1: the World Cup correction corruption. It's been a storyline for
Speaker 1: a while, but it's not just like what you see
Speaker 1: in the headlines. There's also all these lobbyists like working
Speaker 1: under the surface for themselves and this is a great
Speaker 1: example of one of those. And Elliott Broydy, the Republic
Speaker 1: RNC fundraiser who was pardoned by Trump is actually suing
Speaker 1: Global Risk Advisors. Yes, he accuses them of basically hacking
Speaker 1: his I think his wife's emails, getting it and then
Speaker 1: getting into his own emails, and that's what led to Barrick, right,
Speaker 1: That's what led to There was some I think there
Speaker 1: was some evidence there about Barrack's roll that helped come out.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the people that reported on
Speaker 1: that was me. Actually, uh, and I've been subpoenaed as
Speaker 1: part of this oh yeah yeah, part of this Broidy verse,
Speaker 1: part of the Broider story of your subpoena. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: gotta I got a subpoena which we're not responding to
Speaker 1: and we're not because stop and which goes back to like,
Speaker 1: look was that under the Trump administration? Yes, and then
Speaker 1: he and then he got indicted, and I think the
Speaker 1: case went away. But maybe now he's gotten part and
Speaker 1: maybe the case will come back. But in general, like
Speaker 1: reporters are just not going to talk about sources journalists, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're and because also I don't know, like somebody like
Speaker 1: an anonymous source gave gave us documents, we confirmed whether
Speaker 1: the documents were authentic or not, we reported on the documents.
Speaker 1: I don't know anymore. So even if they did drag
Speaker 1: me in to the court, which I wouldn't appear, but
Speaker 1: if they did, like I can't help you. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, all this stuff becomes a question. With the
Speaker 1: Associated Press report too, It's like, how are they getting
Speaker 1: these documents right now? When there's this really bitter battle
Speaker 1: between of those parties. It raises the question of what
Speaker 1: is going on here? What kind of sort of warfare
Speaker 1: is this? Right? And Broidy has wanted to take these
Speaker 1: people down, you know, I think he's got a vendetta.
Speaker 1: I mean, he blames them for ruining his life, so
Speaker 1: not surprising he would have a vendetta, but it looks
Speaker 1: like he may have gotten one. I mean, just a
Speaker 1: really basic tip, don't violet Pharah and don't act unethically.
Speaker 1: But it's just too much, there's more money, too much
Speaker 1: to ask. But they also always have the ethical calculus
Speaker 1: of like, well this money is is you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's for my children, that's for comforts, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Don't sell out your country. Just pro tip. Yeah, just stop,
Speaker 1: all right, Ryan? Next next to the points, put those
Speaker 1: glasses on and uh have some water. The whole routine. Right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if people notice this when the show
Speaker 1: ends Texas, he's still doing just a reflex. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: what's your point to that? So my point today is
Speaker 1: this one. So if you needed a sign of just
Speaker 1: how flipped upside down our politics, I've gotten. This week
Speaker 1: saw the cause of peace and diplomacy championed by the
Speaker 1: most watched host on Fox News, as well as the
Speaker 1: crew over at Podsave America, while the Congressional Progressive Caucus
Speaker 1: beat such a quick retreat from it, beat such a
Speaker 1: quick retreat from a call for diplomacy that now seems
Speaker 1: like there's practically no room inside the Democratic Party for
Speaker 1: anybody concerned about the rapidly escalating war in Ukraine. So
Speaker 1: on Monday, the CPC, that's the Congressional Progressive Caucus, had
Speaker 1: sent a cautiously worded letter to the White House urging
Speaker 1: Biden to engage Russia directly in diplomacy to stave off
Speaker 1: a nuclear catastrophe and bring an end to the war,
Speaker 1: but only on terms acceptable to the Ukrainians. That moderate
Speaker 1: effort was intended to start a conversation, and it certainly did,
Speaker 1: though not the one that they were looking for amid criticism,
Speaker 1: CPC chair per Milagejiapaul first quote clarified the letter, saying
Speaker 1: the progressive still unequivocally supported military aid to Ukraine, and
Speaker 1: the next day she then fully withdrew the letter, blaming
Speaker 1: staff for sending it out unvetted and promising they would
Speaker 1: only support negotiations quote after Ukrainian victory unquote. So that
Speaker 1: allowed Tucker Carlson and Tulsey Gabbard to say that Democrats
Speaker 1: had now become a home exclusively for warhawks, progressives in
Speaker 1: the party, the liberals acting like liberals have acted for
Speaker 1: like one hundred years, and saying maybe we should and
Speaker 1: I want to say I agree with him completely. We
Speaker 1: should try to get a peace forged before we all die.
Speaker 1: And then they have to retract it. Why here at
Speaker 1: home and how it's negatively impacting gas prices, increasing inflation
Speaker 1: and so on. These progressives in the letter, they didn't
Speaker 1: say stop sending aid to Ukraine. Now. All they said was, hey,
Speaker 1: President Biden, engage in diplomacy. And the response they got,
Speaker 1: of course from the warmongers who controlled the Democrat Party
Speaker 1: in Washington, was to immediately be smashed to pieces. So
Speaker 1: much so that these Democrat members of Congress cowered in
Speaker 1: the corner with fear and now have gone so far
Speaker 1: out of their way apologizing profusely for having the audacity
Speaker 1: to call for diplomacy in this war that's putting us
Speaker 1: all at risk. But now everyone in the Democrat Party
Speaker 1: and the leadership in Washington is walking in lockstep as warhawks,
Speaker 1: no one daring to even step outside the line and say, hey, diplomacy,
Speaker 1: let's exercise diplomacy. So this kind of segment, which allows
Speaker 1: Tucker to be the voice of anybody skeptical of war,
Speaker 1: is exactly what the podsave boys had warned about earlier
Speaker 1: that day. So here's Ben Rhoades, a top Obama national
Speaker 1: Security aid and incidentally the guy who coined the term
Speaker 1: the blob to describe the reflexively hawkish DC foreign policy establishment.
Speaker 1: You make the right point that what Biden's saying is
Speaker 1: I won't negotiate around the settlement that Ukraine has to
Speaker 1: accept without them. Doesn't mean we don't have things to
Speaker 1: talk to the Russians about. Means Biden's not gonna sit
Speaker 1: there and say, well, maybe you can keep this part
Speaker 1: of Ukraine and not that part of Ukraine, that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen. But to your point, if you don't
Speaker 1: create any space for kind of debate in the center
Speaker 1: here around this policy, you know where all the concerns
Speaker 1: about the war are going to go. They're going to
Speaker 1: go to where Kevin McCarthy took it right, which is like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm getting comfortable here. There's nuclear threats. Let's cut off
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians, right, a lot of money. So you know,
Speaker 1: to some of you, like some of the Ukraine stands
Speaker 1: on Twitter or whatever, who like just you know, pile
Speaker 1: on this stuff, you may might be creating the outcome
Speaker 1: you don't want because by punishing anybody who says, let's
Speaker 1: have diplomacy, the only alternative to your position, you know,
Speaker 1: is where Ken McCarthy's going, which is like, hey, let's
Speaker 1: cut these where Tucker Carlson is or yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's clearly a void of his avoid of and like
Speaker 1: just Ewan Musk is feeling it, or like David Sachs,
Speaker 1: some like idiot tech investor, right wing goober is filling it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, yeah, why don't we have the CPC,
Speaker 1: the Congression, the progressive in the house fill it? You'll
Speaker 1: at least try well, that would be a very healthy
Speaker 1: place to fill. So Giapaul's claim of a staff error
Speaker 1: was a terrible look, but it wasn't necessarily one hundred
Speaker 1: percent wrong. The staff apparently didn't give the other offices
Speaker 1: a heads up that they would be sending this letter
Speaker 1: out after several months have been spent collecting signatures, but
Speaker 1: blaming her staff for that doesn't make much sense because
Speaker 1: Giapaul routinely sends out CPC statements without letting the rest
Speaker 1: of the CPC know that they're coming. In fact, her
Speaker 1: statement withdrawing the letter itself was not run by the
Speaker 1: other twenty nine members on whose behalf she was withdrawing it.
Speaker 1: The biggest error wasn't in the rollout. The mistake was
Speaker 1: in retreating. If she'd have stood her ground, the blowback
Speaker 1: would have died out by the end of the day.
Speaker 1: And there are a ton of unlikely places she can
Speaker 1: point to say, Look, what we're saying is just common sense. Hell,
Speaker 1: here's Henry Kissinger. He said, quote, negotiations need to begin.
Speaker 1: Can you do? How's your Henry Kissinger? Negotiations need to
Speaker 1: begin the next two months before there it's upheavals intentions
Speaker 1: that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line
Speaker 1: should be a return to the status quo ante pursuing
Speaker 1: the war beyond the point would not be about the
Speaker 1: freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself. Anyway,
Speaker 1: here's retired Rear Admiral Mike Mullen, who's former chairman of
Speaker 1: the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We've been talking about since
Speaker 1: before this crisis started. An offer him for him. I
Speaker 1: suspect it's in the east, if you will, with those
Speaker 1: four provinces or some combination of them. With respect to
Speaker 1: how it all ends, and that really is up to
Speaker 1: I think Tony Blink and other diplomats to figure out
Speaker 1: a way to get both Zelenski and Putin to the table.
Speaker 1: And is typical in any war, it's got to end,
Speaker 1: and usually there are negotiations associated with that. The sooner
Speaker 1: the better. And here's Secretary of State Tony blink In
Speaker 1: just one week ago, and we've reaffirmed documented to meaningful
Speaker 1: diplomacy that can bring an end to the war. As
Speaker 1: Moscow continues to demonstrate through its exclatory actions that it's
Speaker 1: claim to be open to diplomacy is as hollow as
Speaker 1: it's been since Clersman Putin lost launched his invasion in February.
Speaker 1: And that's not surprising, given that the White House was
Speaker 1: actually fine with the letter that was later withdrawn. The
Speaker 1: Washington Post even reported quote the White House did not
Speaker 1: think the letter was a big deal when officials first
Speaker 1: received it, a White House aide said, noting that the
Speaker 1: lawmakers went to great pains to praise BID's approach to
Speaker 1: Ukraine and express support for economic and military packages unquote.
Speaker 1: Progressives could even also have found backup from the Pope,
Speaker 1: who said this last month quote, after seven months of hostilities,
Speaker 1: let us use all diplomatic means, even those that may
Speaker 1: not have been used so far, to bring an end
Speaker 1: to this terrible tragedy. War in itself is an error
Speaker 1: and a horror. So Emily, you got Kissinger, you got
Speaker 1: the Pope, you got Mike Mullin Obama on the pod
Speaker 1: save Well. I am going to be squinting a little bit,
Speaker 1: so bear with me. Just this week, Disney's new plus
Speaker 1: size Protagonists went viral. The Internet debated one of Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift's new music videos and questioned whether it was fat phobic.
Speaker 1: So why are we arguing so much about weight? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer is pretty simple, because it affects most Americans.
Speaker 1: Nearly three in four adults are overweight, some forty percent
Speaker 1: are obese. As of this year, fifty six percent of
Speaker 1: Americans say they're trying to lose weight actively. Now there's
Speaker 1: a critical class element to this as well that gets
Speaker 1: missed in a lot of the discussion, As the CDC notes, overall,
Speaker 1: men and women with college degrees had lower obesity prevalence
Speaker 1: compared with those with less education. Among women, a twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen study found from the CDC overall obesity prevalence decreased
Speaker 1: with increased levels of income and educational attainment. So while
Speaker 1: food executives get rich off of questionable marketing practices, at best,
Speaker 1: they lobby to get away with those. By the way,
Speaker 1: the magazine writers will cast fat phobia as a social
Speaker 1: justice issue between their spin classes. People who work three shifts,
Speaker 1: can't afford pelotons, and live paycheck to paycheck are being told, well,
Speaker 1: it's not actually that important to prioritize diet and exercise.
Speaker 1: Those writers are putting up virtual virtue signal points on
Speaker 1: their own boards at the expense of people who look
Speaker 1: to them for accurate information. Remember Cosmo's This is Healthy
Speaker 1: addition from the middle of the pandemic, a pandemic by
Speaker 1: the way, that was targeting people who were dealing with obesity.
Speaker 1: The magazine, which is owned by Hurst QK, profiled women
Speaker 1: who wanted to quote open up about their personal journeys
Speaker 1: to reclaim healthy as their own, and Cosmo wasn't alone.
Speaker 1: The quote fat but fit debate has really raged over
Speaker 1: the last decade, and many publications, eager to score clicks
Speaker 1: in social justice points went out at the healthy at
Speaker 1: any size limb. Now. To be fair, many outlets have
Speaker 1: done good coverage of research that suggests fat butt fit
Speaker 1: is generally a myth, and some people are absolutely part
Speaker 1: of a well intentioned effort to help everyone struggling with
Speaker 1: their weight feel confident in their dignity as a human being.
Speaker 1: As more people struggle with weight, more people need to
Speaker 1: hear that message, of course, but it cannot be conflated
Speaker 1: with deadly and misleading body positivity messaging either. And here's
Speaker 1: where we get to the big news. In early September,
Speaker 1: the journal Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology published a study tile
Speaker 1: titled is early onset cancer in emerging global epidemic, current
Speaker 1: evidence and future implications. In that survey, researchers from Harvard
Speaker 1: reviewed global cancer data defined as CNN reported, quote that
Speaker 1: the incidence of early onset cancers is rising rapidly for
Speaker 1: coorectal and thirteen other types of cancers, many of which
Speaker 1: affect the digestive system, and this increases happening across many
Speaker 1: middle and high income nations. All Right, so is this
Speaker 1: because of increased screening? That's a question a lot of
Speaker 1: people might wonder. The researchers actually address it. Quote. Increased
Speaker 1: use of screening programs has contributed to this phenomenon to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, although a genuine increase in the incidence
Speaker 1: of early onset forms of several cancer types also seems
Speaker 1: to have emerged, they wrote. One of the researchers told CNN, quote,
Speaker 1: the spike is due to an unhealthy stew of risk
Speaker 1: factors that are probably working together, some of which are
Speaker 1: known and others that need to be investigated, saying quote,
Speaker 1: many of these risks have established links to cancer, like obesity, inactivity, diabetes, alcohol, smoking,
Speaker 1: environmental pollution, and Western diets high in red meat and
Speaker 1: added sugars not to mention shift work and lack of sleep,
Speaker 1: and the researcher added there are many unknown risk factors
Speaker 1: as well, like a pollutant or food additives. Nobody knows.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows, Let's just focus on that point. CNN picked
Speaker 1: the study up in October, but few other media outlets
Speaker 1: focused on it at all. Regarding obesity, CNN wrote in
Speaker 1: its report on the study, quote, not only has it
Speaker 1: become more to have a dangerously high body mass index,
Speaker 1: but people are becoming obese earlier in life, even in childhood.
Speaker 1: So these cancer risks are building decades earlier than they
Speaker 1: did for previous generations. So forty percent of the adult
Speaker 1: population is obese. That number is rising. Obesity is now
Speaker 1: causing suffering at a higher rate like cancer and death.
Speaker 1: The causes are likely all around us and the food
Speaker 1: we eat, the air we breathe, the chemicals we consume
Speaker 1: and wear and use in our houses and offices. But
Speaker 1: just CNN is going to focus on the study from
Speaker 1: Harvard researchers. We talked last week about what Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: plans to do if Republicans win the House, which will
Speaker 1: heavily be focused on quote oversight, because that's pretty much
Speaker 1: what you can do in a divided government. Republicans plan
Speaker 1: to investigate some good stuff, the Biden family lobbying grift,
Speaker 1: the origins of COVID. Just this week, though, the FDA
Speaker 1: issued yet another benzing recall, this time related to a
Speaker 1: dry shampoop products. Benzing is a carcone. One expert said.
Speaker 1: It is possible to refine the propane buttane and ice
Speaker 1: ice abbutane, any of these propellants to not contain detectable
Speaker 1: levels of benzene, So why can't corporations do that or
Speaker 1: why aren't they? There have been six benzene recalls this year,
Speaker 1: and this is just an example from one chemical. As
Speaker 1: we've emerged from the pandemic with a new awareness of
Speaker 1: how obesity interacts with health outcomes. More generally, I'd love
Speaker 1: to know what evidence major food companies have about their products.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of Democrats would love to know
Speaker 1: that too, and a lot of independence. Now that Republicans
Speaker 1: are boasting a little bit about their broken relationship with
Speaker 1: the Chamber of Commerce, they can, at least in theory,
Speaker 1: just take the gloves off in every arena of corporate corruption,
Speaker 1: even once that they've never touched before. So what better
Speaker 1: place to start than the one that is directly killing
Speaker 1: millions of us and making life significantly worse for millions
Speaker 1: of people on a daily basis. Technology is new in
Speaker 1: a lot of these areas, is we don't think of
Speaker 1: technology with food as being new technology of food. Big
Speaker 1: news out Thursday on the investigation of the origin of COVID.
Speaker 1: The Help Committee was a Health, Education, Labor Pensions committee
Speaker 1: put out an interim minority report that lays out much
Speaker 1: of what they've found so far in their investigation into
Speaker 1: what sparked the pandemic. If you can put up this
Speaker 1: element here. This is doctor Richard Ebright, micro biologist who
Speaker 1: has been skeptical of the zoonotic origin claim. He posts
Speaker 1: this quote from the report quote. Based on the analysis
Speaker 1: of the publicly available information, it appears reasonable to conclude
Speaker 1: that the COVID nineteen pandemic was more likely than not
Speaker 1: the result of a research related incident. Okay, so we're
Speaker 1: joined now by Justin Goodman, who's senior vice president over
Speaker 1: at the Whitecoat Waste Project, and so Justin, this was
Speaker 1: a fairly sober report. It did not kind of jump
Speaker 1: to any firm conclusions one way or another. What it does,
Speaker 1: it lays out the evidence behind the natural origin. It
Speaker 1: lays out the evidence against the natural origin, lays out
Speaker 1: the evidence for the for the lab hypothesism, what they
Speaker 1: call a research related incident. The evidence against that relies
Speaker 1: on public on what has been made public so far.
Speaker 1: They also say that this is part of an ongoing
Speaker 1: bipartisan investigation, the results of which will be out at
Speaker 1: some point in the future, where they want to get
Speaker 1: this interim report out. So, as somebody who's been tracking
Speaker 1: this for a long time, what did you make of
Speaker 1: this report? Well, I think this is the second authoritative
Speaker 1: report that's come out of Congress, the first coming out
Speaker 1: of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, documenting the evidence we
Speaker 1: have no direct evidence, but the evidence we have for
Speaker 1: both hypotheses of the evidence the origins of COVID, and
Speaker 1: I join the FBI and the majority of taxpayers according
Speaker 1: to Politico and Harvard polls, the majority of taxpayers Republicans
Speaker 1: and Democrats, and Richard you Bright another scientists and firmly
Speaker 1: believing at this point that the evidence we do have
Speaker 1: points to a lab leak, which is what Richard Burr
Speaker 1: found in this report that was released today. I think
Speaker 1: that at this point the best thing that any of
Speaker 1: us can be doing is looking forward and not looking backwards,
Speaker 1: because basically, Anthony Fauci, Peter Dashchik, and others have given
Speaker 1: China a three year head start on making sure that
Speaker 1: we never find out exactly what happened. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And the reason that we know so much shady stuff
Speaker 1: was going on actually is because a lot of the
Speaker 1: work that your group, the White Coat Waste Project in yourself,
Speaker 1: Justin has been doing over the course of the last
Speaker 1: several years to hold members of our government accountable for
Speaker 1: the research that they have been doing in terms of
Speaker 1: gain of function. And on that note, there was a
Speaker 1: story we covered here last week and that you've been
Speaker 1: falling really closely out of Boston University the research that
Speaker 1: there was something again we're getting into the sort of
Speaker 1: semantics about what is gain of function, but that there
Speaker 1: was what was it, a strain of omicron that was
Speaker 1: basically being grafted onto what the Washington State virus, and
Speaker 1: justin there was some evidence that again there was a
Speaker 1: government grant involved, and again the government didn't know that
Speaker 1: this is what was happening. With the grant. What did
Speaker 1: you make of that reporting? So, first of all, there
Speaker 1: wasn't one government grant involved. I think there were five
Speaker 1: government grants involved, several coming from Anthony Falluci's division at
Speaker 1: the NIH, and some core grants coming out of other
Speaker 1: divisions of the NIH. I mean, I think it just
Speaker 1: highlights what a joke the current oversight of gain of
Speaker 1: function is. I mean, it's basically an honor system, and
Speaker 1: you simply cannot trust dishonest mad scientists who are souping
Speaker 1: up coronaviruses and other dangerous virus lamps to chase tax money.
Speaker 1: We can't trust them to abide by the honor system,
Speaker 1: and they prove in time and again that they can't.
Speaker 1: Boston University is a great example. They took the omicron
Speaker 1: strain which had a zero percent lethality in mice, they
Speaker 1: combined it with the Washington or the original strain that
Speaker 1: came out of Wuhan, which had one hundred percent lethality,
Speaker 1: and they created a new strain of the virus that
Speaker 1: had eighty percent lethality in mice. So they took a
Speaker 1: zero percent omicron strain souped up to be eighty percent.
Speaker 1: That is the definition of gain to function. Yet the
Speaker 1: NIH says they had no idea what was going on there,
Speaker 1: and BU insists that they didn't need any oversight of this,
Speaker 1: not gain to function. What's interesting about all of this is,
Speaker 1: while this is unfolding quietly, the Biden administration a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago released its biodefense strategy for the next
Speaker 1: few years, and repeatedly in this report indicate that a
Speaker 1: lab accident or an intentional release of a bioweapon from
Speaker 1: a lab like this could cause another pandemic. So, while
Speaker 1: the administration has been loath to really invest in the
Speaker 1: lab leak theory and Democrats have been, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of gunshy about embracing it, certainly the administration thinks there's
Speaker 1: enough evidence that this pandemic was potentially caused by a
Speaker 1: lab leak, and there might be another one that maybe
Speaker 1: you should you reason visiting how we oversee this research
Speaker 1: and whether it should be funded at all. Yeah, justin
Speaker 1: what did you make of that Biden report? Because a
Speaker 1: lot of people who, as you know, are are very
Speaker 1: concerned about lab safety have become more concerned about lab
Speaker 1: safety in the wake of the pandemic. We're really heartened
Speaker 1: by that report, like found it to be surprisingly strong.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, you know, there are people pushing to
Speaker 1: make it, you know, significantly stronger. But it wasn't a
Speaker 1: total whitewash. What where where do you think that came from?
Speaker 1: And how does that clash with continuing to give these
Speaker 1: grants continuing to if you saw this one, there's a
Speaker 1: monkey pox gain a function project being done straight out
Speaker 1: of the NIH, now straight out like any Fauci's lab
Speaker 1: at the NIH. Yeah, So what do you make of that?
Speaker 1: That contrast? But the Biden administration itself seems to be
Speaker 1: at least waking up to some of these risks while
Speaker 1: the NIH isn't, and which seems kind of more important
Speaker 1: that the NIH wake up to it. Well, I think
Speaker 1: they could look at the history of this issue. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, in the bio in the Obama Biden administration
Speaker 1: back in twenty fourteen, they essentially banned funding for gain
Speaker 1: of function experiments on coronaviruses because they were too dangerous.
Speaker 1: And that is so you know, a Democrat led White
Speaker 1: House took action on that issue, and then that was
Speaker 1: quietly lifted in twenty seventeen. Early in the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: apparently with very little knowledge of the White House at
Speaker 1: the urging of Anthony Fauci. I think there's a culture
Speaker 1: that someone like Anthony Fauci specifically, and listen, I don't
Speaker 1: have any bee for Anthony Fauci outside of his position
Speaker 1: and involvement in animal testing. You know, I think you
Speaker 1: could stand shoulders should of la Fauci on other coronavirus
Speaker 1: response issues and go toe to toe with him on
Speaker 1: gain of function and other horrible animal experiments on dogs
Speaker 1: and other things that we've revealed to the last few years.
Speaker 1: So I don't have a problem with him outside of that.
Speaker 1: I want to make that clear. But I think he's
Speaker 1: created a culture at the NIH where this type of
Speaker 1: dangerous experimentation is encouraged and oversight of it is diminished
Speaker 1: to the highest degree possible, where there's basically free reign
Speaker 1: to do whatever you want and maybe report it and
Speaker 1: maybe not and hope for the best. But that's been
Speaker 1: happening since two thousand and one and the War on Terror,
Speaker 1: and there were billions of dollars dumped into Fauci's division
Speaker 1: at the NIH for bioweapons Defense and Research, and a
Speaker 1: lot of it has turned into this crazy game of
Speaker 1: function experimentation that likely caused this pandemic? Is I promise
Speaker 1: you going to cause another one if we don't do
Speaker 1: something about it? Justin Republicans say, and Kevin McCarthy told
Speaker 1: me in fact, that one of the things they plan
Speaker 1: to investigate if they win the House of Representatives and
Speaker 1: have a new Congress is the origins of COVID and
Speaker 1: the origins of the pandemic. And they're saying that's one
Speaker 1: of the big agenda items come January if they win
Speaker 1: the House. My question you be, who's the first person
Speaker 1: that you would call to testify and what are some
Speaker 1: of the questions that you think absolutely need to be asked.
Speaker 1: Peter Dashchik probably would be number one. I mean he
Speaker 1: was on boots on the ground in Wuhan. I mean
Speaker 1: he was out there collecting that samples, working with bat Woman,
Speaker 1: working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. You know, had
Speaker 1: a very close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party for
Speaker 1: a long time, spent a lot of time there and
Speaker 1: did a lot of their bidding in terms of obstructing
Speaker 1: investigations into the virus. Continues to until this day. And
Speaker 1: despite all that continues to get funding. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, he's witnessed number one. Number two
Speaker 1: is Fauci and finding out exactly what was happening in
Speaker 1: those early conversations and how early he really knew about
Speaker 1: the you know, the potential lab leak, because we now
Speaker 1: know through investigations through Foya's released to white Coat Waste
Speaker 1: Project and others that basically January of twenty twenty, there
Speaker 1: were conversations happening about this thing looks suspicious. Scientists who
Speaker 1: since that it probably came from the web market. We're
Speaker 1: saying back men that it looked like a lab leak.
Speaker 1: It was very it was a very suspicious virus, the
Speaker 1: spite protein was suspicious. Yet somehow they all did it
Speaker 1: about face and guess what a lot of them have
Speaker 1: been rewarded for doing that with increased funding. Peter Dashik
Speaker 1: has received over twenty million dollars a new taxpayer funding
Speaker 1: just since the pandemic began, including from NIH, including from USAID,
Speaker 1: including from the DoD. So there's been absolutely no accountability
Speaker 1: in transparency. I would love to see people who were
Speaker 1: involved in funding this research and obstructing investigations into the
Speaker 1: pandemic that killed six million people held accountable. I think
Speaker 1: what we need to do at this point, and everyone,
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans should agree about this. This is what
Speaker 1: taxpayers want. Polls have repeatedly shown this pause gain a
Speaker 1: function again for another five years. There's a bipartisan bill
Speaker 1: introduced by Henry quay Or, Buddy Carter and Mike Gallabert,
Speaker 1: the pause gain of Function research for five years while
Speaker 1: we get our hands around how and if we can
Speaker 1: conduct this type of experimentation in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: risk causing a pandemic. So ban gain a function and
Speaker 1: funding for animal lads and countries that are literally our
Speaker 1: enemies and don't have our best interests in mind, like
Speaker 1: China and like Russia, where we've been sending tax money
Speaker 1: to animal labs with virtually oversight about what's happening. So
Speaker 1: Richard Burrow, the top Republican on the Help Committee who
Speaker 1: signed this minority report, also interestingly used to be chare
Speaker 1: of the Intelligence Committee and so presumably has some insight
Speaker 1: into this from that perspective. But I'm curious what your
Speaker 1: senses of where the Democrats are. I'm wondering the fact
Speaker 1: that he said that they're still working in a bipartisan
Speaker 1: fashion with the help Committee Democrats was at least heartening
Speaker 1: because I haven't seen any much other public evidence that
Speaker 1: Democrats are even remotely interested in this. Have you gotten
Speaker 1: anywhere with Democrats on the Hill on this issue? So
Speaker 1: in terms of someone signing their name on the dotted
Speaker 1: line and actually doing something, HENR. Quayar is the only
Speaker 1: one who's actually done anything, introducing legislation to put a
Speaker 1: pause on gain and function experience means for five years.
Speaker 1: And did he get did he get? Did he did
Speaker 1: he get? Protect our future money? In his campaign? Protect
Speaker 1: our futures? This is the bankman freed uh super pac
Speaker 1: which is which actually is concerned like like that They're
Speaker 1: big thing is like pandemic prevention. So I wonder what
Speaker 1: that might That would be my explanation. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: why Henry Quaar woke up one day and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden looking into voters probably are interested, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, they probably should be. I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, so that's possible. I mean I've had conversations
Speaker 1: with committee staff, Republicans and Democrats, including on the Energy
Speaker 1: and Commerce Committee, saying that there has been interest in
Speaker 1: majority leadership on the Energy and Commerce Committee except from
Speaker 1: Frank Polone, and he's been the one standing in the
Speaker 1: way of investigations on the House side, on the Senate side.
Speaker 1: According to the reports I saw at least in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, in the Wall Street Journal that broke
Speaker 1: later in the Day to day about the Center report,
Speaker 1: Patty Murray did seem to indicate that there is bipartisan
Speaker 1: communication and cooperation happening and they're still looking at finding
Speaker 1: common ground on investigating COVID origin. So I'm a little
Speaker 1: encouraged by that. I you know, it's frustrating because this is,
Speaker 1: you know, again, this is Pulled's show that people believe
Speaker 1: this is a lab leak. I mean, it's not some
Speaker 1: far fetched conspiracy theory like we were being you know,
Speaker 1: we were being labeled two years ago or two and
Speaker 1: a half years ago. I mean, the evidence is overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that this came out of a lab.
Speaker 1: There's literally no evidence that came out of a wet mark,
Speaker 1: and even the papers saying that it came out of
Speaker 1: a web marker also saying that there's actually no evidence
Speaker 1: that started here, maybe it amplified here. Yet we have
Speaker 1: a virus that's eerily similar in construction to what caused
Speaker 1: the pandemic sitting in the Wuhan lab. Maybe brought there
Speaker 1: from Laos, maybe brought there from southern China by Peter
Speaker 1: Dashik and that lady. But I mean, I think you know.
Speaker 1: The report that was released by the Senate today is
Speaker 1: pretty comprehensive in recapping what we know as of today
Speaker 1: and led them to the conclusion that it looks most
Speaker 1: likely that it came out of a lab. So whether
Speaker 1: or not it did, the fact that the White House
Speaker 1: and both Houses of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, the FBI,
Speaker 1: and others believe that it's likely a pandemic that killed
Speaker 1: six and a half million people was caused by a
Speaker 1: lableau should cause us to do everything in our power
Speaker 1: to make sure that doesn't happen again, including and not
Speaker 1: limited to ban and gain a function research. And justin,
Speaker 1: before we let you go out, actually stand up for
Speaker 1: Henry Quaar's integrity. Please. He may be in bed with Ozerbaijean,
Speaker 1: but he did not get any money from Protect our Future.
Speaker 1: I see, I forgot about the Azerbaijean thing. Justin, before
Speaker 1: we let you go. White Coat Wastes is such an
Speaker 1: interesting project, and the way that you guys approach this
Speaker 1: issue is such an interesting project. We'll have to have
Speaker 1: you back some time to talk specifically about animal cruelty
Speaker 1: and the way at all the way your group was
Speaker 1: formed and has evolved. But tell us actually just a
Speaker 1: little bit about the mission of White Coat Waste because
Speaker 1: to Ryan's question about whether Democrats are sending on the
Speaker 1: dotted line, Initially, what you guys have been looking at was, well,
Speaker 1: how do we get Republicans on board with this issue
Speaker 1: of animal cruelty? That's absolutely right, I mean Whitecoat Waste.
Speaker 1: We consider ourselves to be a taxpayer watch drug group
Speaker 1: and we fight to end twenty billion dollars a year
Speaker 1: in tax payer funding for animal testing. The government actually
Speaker 1: outspands the private sector in animal testing two to one.
Speaker 1: And Whitecoat was started by my boss, our president and founder,
Speaker 1: Anthony Bolotti, who was a Republican political operative and he
Speaker 1: actually worked in an animal laboratory in high school for
Speaker 1: an internship and was so horrified. But by what he
Speaker 1: saw he thought, I'm going to go get a toolkit
Speaker 1: in politics and then one day circle back around and
Speaker 1: use those tools to fight against animal experimentation funded by
Speaker 1: the government. So he started Whitecoat. I was the first employee,
Speaker 1: and we take on federal agencies that are wasting tax
Speaker 1: dollars on cruel, dangerous, and you know, in many cases,
Speaker 1: just completely stupid experiments on animals. So we've actually met
Speaker 1: with the Trump Administrative We've met with the Trump White
Speaker 1: House in January twenty twenty to warn them about these
Speaker 1: labs in China, specifically the one Institute of Brology getting
Speaker 1: ANIH money. We've been following, you know, we've been following
Speaker 1: the people say follow the science, We've been following the money.
Speaker 1: And that's how we ended up at Wuhan. That's till
Speaker 1: we exposed beagle Gate, and that's how we're shutting some
Speaker 1: of these wasteful and cool programs down. It's just it's
Speaker 1: amazing how that position do you to be looking at
Speaker 1: what was happening in Wuhan through a mission like that one.
Speaker 1: And you're a former PEDA guy, aren't you justin Yeah,
Speaker 1: I spent ten years of PEDA working on you know,
Speaker 1: their style of advocacy. But you know, for me, they
Speaker 1: were not really attacking the root problem of animal experimentation,
Speaker 1: which is wasteful taxpayer spending if animals, If the taxpayers
Speaker 1: money was cut from animal experimentation, we changed the face
Speaker 1: of this problem completely. So our work is to unite.
Speaker 1: We call it, you know, we say, uniting liberty lovers
Speaker 1: and animal lovers to fight against wastefol government spending that
Speaker 1: hurts animals. And everything we do is bipartisan. I mean
Speaker 1: even the gain of function work. Obviously Henry Clayard is
Speaker 1: involved with bipartisan And even if things don't have bipartisan
Speaker 1: supporting Congress, every single thing we do work on has
Speaker 1: bipartisan support from taxpayers and that's who we're advocating for.
Speaker 1: Are some blood on Ryan before we started recording to them,
Speaker 1: but he brought another suit taping of this justin one.
Speaker 1: One quick question is there is there one place that
Speaker 1: has a kind of complete timeline and collection of all
Speaker 1: of the circumstantial evidence around you know, both theories or
Speaker 1: around either either theory. Do we need to write that still?
Speaker 1: Like what's the So I think, sorry, I'm there, we
Speaker 1: go US Right to Know. Our friends at US Right
Speaker 1: to Know have a great COVID origins timeline that they
Speaker 1: put together. I think the Center honestly the Center report
Speaker 1: that came out today is outstanding in terms of it
Speaker 1: was it was good. It didn't get enough I think
Speaker 1: into me under the circumstantial evidence around the Diffuse grant,
Speaker 1: the DARBA grant, like the the roadmap that was built
Speaker 1: and then potentially but it was really I think they
Speaker 1: did an incredible job of laying out all the different
Speaker 1: lab accidents at Wuhan and and in labs around the world.
Speaker 1: So I agree, I agree with you. But yes, so
Speaker 1: you think us right to know has us right to know?
Speaker 1: Has a great one. I don't know if we'll have
Speaker 1: diffused and some of the other stuff they haven't worked
Speaker 1: on directly. Obviously, most of the content we have up
Speaker 1: is related directly to things we've done. But if you're
Speaker 1: looking for a project on COVID origins, that's very useful.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, Justin Goodman, senior vice president over at
Speaker 1: the White Coat Waste Project, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time, Thanks for having me, absolutely and that does
Speaker 1: it today for us today on this edition of Counterpoints Friday.
Speaker 1: I'm going to remember my glasses next time. We'll see
Speaker 1: about that. Have a great weekend, everybody, yea, everyone,