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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?
Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What we have crystal, indeed we do tomorrow. You might
Speaker 1: be aware the big day midterm election, and so we
Speaker 1: have every indicator that we could find about how this
Speaker 1: thing might go. We've got the ones that are good
Speaker 1: for the Republicans. We've got a few stragglers that are
Speaker 1: still good for the Democrats. We're going to go through
Speaker 1: all of them and then you can make of it
Speaker 1: what you will. We also have some footage from on
Speaker 1: the ground at those rallies our front. Jordan Sheridan over
Speaker 1: at Status kup gathered some footage for us, so we're
Speaker 1: hearing from regular voters what they think about the race
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania in particular. At the same time, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four is already kicking off rumors that Trump is set
Speaker 1: to launch his campaign basically imminently, taking a few shots
Speaker 1: at Ron de Santis in a preview of potential things
Speaker 1: to come, So that is very interesting as well. We've
Speaker 1: got new moves from elon Musk and whatever the hell
Speaker 1: is going on at Twitter. We also have a report
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration is actually encouraging Zelenski and Ukrainians
Speaker 1: to keep the door open to negotiations and diplomacy. This
Speaker 1: of course comes on the heels of that progressive letter
Speaker 1: that was retracted and it was a whole thing, so
Speaker 1: very interesting developments there. We also have some developing liberal
Speaker 1: cope as the midterm elections seem to be not panning out,
Speaker 1: so some interesting explanations of exactly what went wrong for them.
Speaker 1: We are also going to go ahead and do the
Speaker 1: most foolish thing possible, which is to make our very
Speaker 1: specific predictions, which I'm sure we'll be completely wrong when
Speaker 1: we actually get the members, but what the hell, why not.
Speaker 1: But before we get to any of that, what are
Speaker 1: we doing tomorrow? Tomorrow? We are planning a live stream
Speaker 1: starting at seven pm. That's right, go and put it
Speaker 1: up there on the screen Eastern Standard time. It's great
Speaker 1: to be back on Standard time seven pm. Well, be
Speaker 1: here at the desk this We've got Marshall, We've got Kyle,
Speaker 1: We've got Ryan and Emily will have coverage for several
Speaker 1: hours to take you all the way into the night
Speaker 1: and break down everything that's going on. We've got some
Speaker 1: great guests. We've got people who are live on the
Speaker 1: scene at OZ and Fetterman HQ. Thank you all so
Speaker 1: much to our premium describers who are enabling all of
Speaker 1: that to be possible. It costs a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot of money in order to put the whole production on,
Speaker 1: to have people and pay for people you know, at
Speaker 1: various places, to have a live hook up all of that,
Speaker 1: so we want to thank you all so so much,
Speaker 1: and we will have some sort of benefit for you
Speaker 1: guys tomorrow which we will reveal. So just to give everyone.
Speaker 1: In terms of scheduling, it will be our show today Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we'll have the live stream beginning at seven Wednesday morning.
Speaker 1: We will get no sleep and we will be here
Speaker 1: at the desk in order to break down even more
Speaker 1: eventsive break overnight like instant reaction of sleep, break, crazes, well,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever we possibly can for you. Then Thursday
Speaker 1: and Friday we'll have two special editions of counterpoints that
Speaker 1: Ryan and Emily will be taking over. So everybody's gonna
Speaker 1: have breaking points or counterpoints every single day of the week.
Speaker 1: You're all very very welcome. Make sure you get your fix.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a fun time. What can we say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're kicking off. It's gonna be big, much much anticipated,
Speaker 1: and a lot of genuine suspense over exactly how this
Speaker 1: thing is going to break down. I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a lot less certainty than there were in other election
Speaker 1: cycles where it was just like really clear that there
Speaker 1: was a wave. There might be a wave. But it's
Speaker 1: a little bit less certain. So anyway, who hangs on
Speaker 1: who you know comes down of nowhere and wins that
Speaker 1: you didn't expect. It's always interesting. So again, starting at
Speaker 1: seven pm, livestream on the YouTube channel. The whole breaking
Speaker 1: counter Realignment Points and friends extended family will be here.
Speaker 1: We'll go late into the night and tomorrow morning Tuesday morning,
Speaker 1: though we're not doing the morning show. Instead, we're doing
Speaker 1: the evening show, and then we'll have show for you Wednesday,
Speaker 1: Counterpoints Thursday, Friday. So that is basically the plan. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be a fun time everybody. All right, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and get started on the midterms. Let's throw our
Speaker 1: beautiful midterm graphic up there. It's been a while since
Speaker 1: we've seen it the road to nowhere. So what we
Speaker 1: thought is that we would give the two cases here,
Speaker 1: which is that opening case is the case for a
Speaker 1: red wave. You know, we've gone over polling, we've gone
Speaker 1: over corrections, we've gone over what the last poll said.
Speaker 1: Is it going to turn out? Here is our best
Speaker 1: case for the GOP. Let's go to put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. The very final poll by Emerson College, Arizona.
Speaker 1: They have Blake Masters for the first time, rising up
Speaker 1: against Mark Kelly forty eight percent to Mark Kelly's forty
Speaker 1: seven point seven percent. That is still razor tight and
Speaker 1: obviously within the margin, but if you assume you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of red wave scenario, not difficult to see
Speaker 1: masters winning by one or two points. Pennsylvania, a doctor
Speaker 1: Oz maintaining the one point lead that he generally has
Speaker 1: had in the latest polling averages there in the state
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania. Oz at forty eight, Fetterman at forty seven. Nevada,
Speaker 1: this one is actually a little bit more interesting, given
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about later in the show. They
Speaker 1: have Adam Laxalt at fifty one percent and Catherine Cortez
Speaker 1: Masto at forty six percent. And then finally Wisconsin. This
Speaker 1: one's actually a little bit more before gone conclusion though
Speaker 1: they have Ron Johnson at fifty one percent and Mendela
Speaker 1: Barnes at forty six percent. Let's go ahe and throw
Speaker 1: the next one up there on the screen, which is
Speaker 1: that five thirty eight polling average continues to drift very
Speaker 1: much in the direction of Democrats. We should all remember
Speaker 1: what was it of the Republicans at one point, Chrystal,
Speaker 1: what was it like, seventy five, twenty five, seventy I
Speaker 1: think seventy one or seventy two was as high as
Speaker 1: Democrats went, But it was like a near you know,
Speaker 1: that's getting pretty close to the quarters of them, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so now we are at what fifty four to
Speaker 1: forty CI, so over fifty percent chance in the fire
Speaker 1: thirty eight. You got to be unhappy if you're Democrats
Speaker 1: with the trend, yes, because yeah, what you want to
Speaker 1: see in the final days is things moving your way,
Speaker 1: not just sort of steadily consistently drifting towards Europe. And
Speaker 1: I think it's actually what you see. I think it's
Speaker 1: worth going down, you know, kind of race by race.
Speaker 1: The reason why that they have it that way is
Speaker 1: because they have Walker and Warnock actually more trending in
Speaker 1: the GOP favor than Pennsylvania does. So they have it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have a fifty seven out of one hundred percent
Speaker 1: chance that Walker is going to win in Georgia. But
Speaker 1: they have Fetterman up very slightly at fifty four to
Speaker 1: one hundred. However, Adam Laxalt, they have at a fifty
Speaker 1: seven percent chance of winning. Mark Kelly, they have it
Speaker 1: at sixty five. Maggie Hassen. Right now they have at
Speaker 1: seventy three. But we need to specially highlight that race
Speaker 1: just because things have things have shifted so far in
Speaker 1: Brian Bouldock's direction in the last couple of days that
Speaker 1: it really is. And also they have no early voting
Speaker 1: in the state of New Hampshire. It's one of those
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't either, and so it's one of
Speaker 1: the you know, truly on the day of will determine
Speaker 1: what it is. And that's actually genuinely to the Republicans' benefits.
Speaker 1: A lot of the latest polls there even have either
Speaker 1: have it dead even Brian Buldock up one or Maggie
Speaker 1: Hassen up by two. So to have it very very
Speaker 1: tight in the latest days there makes it so that
Speaker 1: that could be a real surprise on election night. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously there's some other crazy scenarios and like a total
Speaker 1: total red wave you could consider. I mean, they say Colorado,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's gonna happen personally, but I
Speaker 1: think we are if there is the red wave, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm curious what you think. I think fifty
Speaker 1: three seats would be quote unquote red wave. I agree, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean pick up for republic basically they win all
Speaker 1: the jump bars right effectively, would be for them to
Speaker 1: get to fifty three and I mean So the latest
Speaker 1: pulls out of New Hampshire, just to underscore that, the
Speaker 1: most recent one was American greatness in cider advantage, which
Speaker 1: ins a cider advantage. I don't know is that a
Speaker 1: Republican leaning Polster American greatness is. So they have Hassen
Speaker 1: up one. University of New Hampshire Hasson up too. Daily
Speaker 1: Wire Trafalgar was the most recent one that has the
Speaker 1: Republican bulldock up by just one. So I mean we're
Speaker 1: talking about either way very very narrow margins in that
Speaker 1: race at this point. I mean, I think basically the
Speaker 1: Republican theory of the case is that, and this was
Speaker 1: laid out in a New York Our article, we can
Speaker 1: go ahead and get this up on the screen of
Speaker 1: like what the insiders, the Republican insiders who are at
Speaker 1: least telling journalists that they expect to blow out and
Speaker 1: they expect a red wave. The case they're effectively laying
Speaker 1: out here is like, look, yeah, abortion was really bad
Speaker 1: for us when it happened, but Democrats went all in
Speaker 1: on that messaging and they didn't realize that the impact
Speaker 1: of that would fade over time. So what they say
Speaker 1: here is basically like we didn't figure out a way
Speaker 1: to neutralize that issue. We just waited it out. And
Speaker 1: so as that has faded, ins and Republicans have come
Speaker 1: on strong with you know, crime ads and especially hitting
Speaker 1: you know, on the economy and inflation, and Democrats really
Speaker 1: didn't respond on those issues much at all. That's why
Speaker 1: you see this late shift towards the GOP and why
Speaker 1: Democrats in this scenario are in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was interesting to Sager they
Speaker 1: were talking about some of the polling because you guys
Speaker 1: will remember, I mean back when the five thirty eight
Speaker 1: average had the DEM's chances of taking this sen out
Speaker 1: like seventy one seventy two percent, that was what Fetterman
Speaker 1: was up by double digits. I mean, certainly Maggie Hasen
Speaker 1: was in no danger whatsoever. He had Mark Kelly up
Speaker 1: by double digits. You had Warnock with it smaller but
Speaker 1: consistent lead at that point. Well, what they're arguing is
Speaker 1: actually you had this response bias in the polls at
Speaker 1: that point because after Roe versus Weight is overturned, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of liberals who are eagerly answering the
Speaker 1: phone to respond to these polls, and you had a
Speaker 1: lot of Republicans who were kind of sitting on their hands,
Speaker 1: not answering the phone. And so now as you get
Speaker 1: closer to election day, it's not even so much that
Speaker 1: the landscape has really shifted, but the polls are reflecting
Speaker 1: a more accurate sample of who the voters are actually
Speaker 1: going to be on election days. So they have this,
Speaker 1: they have this quote here they say, the reason that
Speaker 1: Democrats have fucked this up is that they won't stop
Speaker 1: talking about abortion. And the reason they screwed it up
Speaker 1: with blacks is they won't stop talking about abortion. It's
Speaker 1: like they're a two issue party. It's this and Trump.
Speaker 1: They can't stop. I don't think they have anything else.
Speaker 1: And you know, to me, that's a pretty compelling theory
Speaker 1: of the case, not an unreasonable summary I think of
Speaker 1: what's going on here. I mean, I actually, to their credit,
Speaker 1: you know, there was an insider here that actually just
Speaker 1: put it very succinctly without any of the general talking points.
Speaker 1: Inflation is the big federal story. Lots of Blaine belongs
Speaker 1: to the White House because the White House just wish
Speaker 1: this would go away. Instead of saying we know it's real,
Speaker 1: we know it's a problem. It's happening everywhere. We're going
Speaker 1: to do everything to fix it, but we can't fix
Speaker 1: it immediately. Not a bad case, right, I mean, that
Speaker 1: is one of those that I really love seeing because
Speaker 1: a devoid of the public rhetoric of like, oh it's
Speaker 1: suspending or whatever, like look, we can have that debate
Speaker 1: another day. I think that that lands very effectively in
Speaker 1: the environment where the White House basically saying we live
Speaker 1: in the greatest economy since World War Two, and most
Speaker 1: people are like, well, I can't really pay my bills.
Speaker 1: Whenever you have a story that affects every single person
Speaker 1: in the United States, that by definition is going to
Speaker 1: be the most potent one, right, it's going to be
Speaker 1: in the election. And actually it's really interesting when you
Speaker 1: look at rankings of what people find important, even on culture.
Speaker 1: So we were talking about Arizona, Ryeah. Well number one
Speaker 1: or number two is not abortion, it's crime and immigration.
Speaker 1: Three is abortion. So that again, this is the difficult thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: it matters to many people. However, crime and immigration, especially
Speaker 1: in many of the swing states, are above abortion in
Speaker 1: the preferences of the general voters, especially of the Independence
Speaker 1: And then you add inflation on top of that, which
Speaker 1: is really just the trump card for the Republicans in
Speaker 1: this election. I thought there was an interesting point here
Speaker 1: made as well that they basically said Democrats got caught
Speaker 1: in what they described as an informational doom loop, where
Speaker 1: in the wake of Row versus Way being a return,
Speaker 1: they're getting all of these phenomenal poll results. You have
Speaker 1: those couple of special elections that we covered that it's like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, this is a bigger issue than we thought.
Speaker 1: And because of that, they decided we're going whole hog.
Speaker 1: We're doing nothing but abortion, We're all in on that.
Speaker 1: And they never adjusted from that as the polls started
Speaker 1: to move away from them and the salience of that
Speaker 1: issue and the shock of that initial decision started to
Speaker 1: wear off over time. So because they'd gotten such a
Speaker 1: strong response in the early days, they thought, oh, this
Speaker 1: is this is the way, this is the winner. And
Speaker 1: you know, in fairness, I think, listen, normally, when you
Speaker 1: see these kinds of economic numbers, right track, wrong track numbers,
Speaker 1: low presidential approval rating, forget it. It's a done deal.
Speaker 1: It's a red wave. It's over. So abortion has kept
Speaker 1: them somewhat in the game, but They had this theory
Speaker 1: of like, the issues that we think are bad for us,
Speaker 1: we're just not going to talk about, and we're going
Speaker 1: to try to shape the issues that are defining this election.
Speaker 1: We want the issues to be basically abortion and like extremism,
Speaker 1: democracy January sixth. That sort of stuff. Well, when you
Speaker 1: have voters over and over and over and over again
Speaker 1: saying like, that's nice that those are imported to you,
Speaker 1: and we're not saying they're not important. But we really
Speaker 1: care about the economy. This is really important, isn't By
Speaker 1: the way, we do also care a lot about crime
Speaker 1: and feeling safe, like in our neighborhoods and our homes.
Speaker 1: You can't just wish cast your narrative the election onto
Speaker 1: the electorate. I think they had every opportunity to rebut
Speaker 1: the Republican talking points on inflation. I think the Biden
Speaker 1: administration had every opportunity to talk about corporate price gouging
Speaker 1: and really call executives onto the carpet and really make
Speaker 1: that a focal point and a centerpiece of the campaign.
Speaker 1: And yeah, structurally it would still have been difficult for
Speaker 1: them because they're the party empowered. Things aren't going well,
Speaker 1: and so people are gonna say you're to blame. But
Speaker 1: if you could even eat into the Republican margin on
Speaker 1: the economy and on crime, where you could make a
Speaker 1: compelling case like, hey, these these people are out like
Speaker 1: flooding our streets with guns and allowing illegal guns to flow,
Speaker 1: and that's part of the crime problem. But at least
Speaker 1: you would have at least you would have something to say. Instead,
Speaker 1: they do this on these issues. They do this, you know,
Speaker 1: they do the same thing on CRT, they do the
Speaker 1: same thing on the fights over transgender issues in public schools.
Speaker 1: Instead they just want to say like, ah, we're just
Speaker 1: not going to talk about that and hope that it
Speaker 1: ultimately goes away. I think the lesson here is that,
Speaker 1: especially in the current media environment, and especially as effective
Speaker 1: as Republicans are at focusing these issues and putting them
Speaker 1: on the table, you can't afford to just completely see
Speaker 1: the issue to the other side. You have to at
Speaker 1: least have your own narrative around it, at least be
Speaker 1: messaging on it, and try to eat into their lead
Speaker 1: on those issues. Yeah, I think it's possible, although I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure. I mean to be honest, like, even
Speaker 1: when they do try and justify their positions. They're frankly
Speaker 1: even more popular when they don't talk about it, which
Speaker 1: is generally why they don't. I mean one, well, especially
Speaker 1: on some of the cultural issues like the crime I
Speaker 1: mean the guns argument. You made that Eric Adams position
Speaker 1: in New York. He's got historically low a rating on crime,
Speaker 1: so it's not like it actually works. Same with it
Speaker 1: the other cultural issues that you mentioned, Like honestly, when
Speaker 1: they do admit what they want, like, it just makes
Speaker 1: it more popular, which is why they generally ignore it.
Speaker 1: So like I could have framed crime very much as
Speaker 1: an issue, like the voting public is much more on
Speaker 1: democrats side on guns, like the Republican position on guns
Speaker 1: is really extreme, and so at least then you have
Speaker 1: a competing theory of the case of why crime is
Speaker 1: high and what Democrats will do to make you feel safer.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that you can say like, eh,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna not talk about this and hope people
Speaker 1: don't notice. Same thing. Inflation is really clear to me,
Speaker 1: like this is the number one issue. If there is
Speaker 1: a red wave, it's because of the economy bottom line.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that was really clear. I think
Speaker 1: that was the case with Glenn Youngkin, even though there
Speaker 1: were also cultural issues that were relevant, very motivating to
Speaker 1: the base there as well. You can't just hope that
Speaker 1: people aren't going to notice they can't pay their bills
Speaker 1: and inflation is still high. You can't just like pray
Speaker 1: that people aren't going to realize that their budgets are
Speaker 1: and they're like basically getting a pay cut every single week.
Speaker 1: That is not going to work out. So again, I
Speaker 1: think it would be difficult for them to win economic voters,
Speaker 1: but because abortion is a saliing issue, because you have
Speaker 1: a cast of characters on the Republican side that's like
Speaker 1: insane psycho, where do they even find these people that
Speaker 1: would have at least kept them in the game. And
Speaker 1: I think there is a compelling case that they could
Speaker 1: make that they just decided instead to bury their heads
Speaker 1: in the sand and be like, no, actually the economy
Speaker 1: is great, Yeah that's fair, or why don't we give
Speaker 1: the bluepe? All right? So here is the theory of
Speaker 1: the case for Democrats. If you're looking for any sort
Speaker 1: of hopeful signs that maybe this isn't going to work
Speaker 1: out the way that things seem to be trending in
Speaker 1: a lot of the indicators. The last Maris poll that
Speaker 1: came out actually is pretty good for Democrats. That's gone.
Speaker 1: But this on the screen to start with, You've got
Speaker 1: Fetterman beating Oz by six percentage points fifty to forty four. That's,
Speaker 1: of course in Pennsylvania. I've also got Shapiro of Vermastriano
Speaker 1: there by an even larger margin. You have Kelly hanging
Speaker 1: on in Arizona to win over Blake Masters by four
Speaker 1: points forty nine to forty five. You even have this
Speaker 1: one skeptical this is going to work out, but Katie Hobbs,
Speaker 1: the Democrat holding on for governor there over Carrie Lake
Speaker 1: forty eight to forty seven. Georgia Senate, you have Warnock
Speaker 1: narrowly over Walker four points forty nine to forty five.
Speaker 1: By the way, we should always note on Georgia, very
Speaker 1: likely Georgia goes to a runoff, because if neither of
Speaker 1: these candidates get over fifty, then you're in runoff territory.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of what I expect to happen in
Speaker 1: the Georgia Senate race, whether Warnock or Walker ultimately edges
Speaker 1: the other one out in total votes, and then you
Speaker 1: have This one is just consistent across the board, kept
Speaker 1: beating Abrams for governor of Georgia. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you're a Democrat, you're looking at those numbers and go, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, getting Pennsylvania, getting Arizona, getting Georgia. These numbers
Speaker 1: look pretty solid. We could live with that. You also
Speaker 1: have in the final NBC News poll, I saw a
Speaker 1: lot of Democrats sharing this news from that particular poll.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and put that up on the screen. You
Speaker 1: have Democratic enthusiasm rising to be at the same level
Speaker 1: as Republican enthusiasm. Previously Republicans in the last poll that
Speaker 1: they had taken, they had Republicans with a pretty significant edge.
Speaker 1: I think it was like nine points in terms of
Speaker 1: being highly interested in this election. So if you're a
Speaker 1: Democrat like, oh, this tells a different story than what
Speaker 1: I'm seeing in a lot of the other indicators, which
Speaker 1: are all trending to the Republicans. Maybe Democrats are turning
Speaker 1: out in a higher rate than is really reflected in
Speaker 1: some of these polls because they've closed the enthusiasm gap.
Speaker 1: You have the generic congressional ballot, they have Dems up
Speaker 1: by one point. Unfortunately for Democrats, you know, even if
Speaker 1: they were to win by a point or basically tie
Speaker 1: in terms of the generic congressional ballot, you have to
Speaker 1: win by several points in order for Democrats to win
Speaker 1: the House. So even that indicator here is not that great.
Speaker 1: And I do have to say, you know, if you
Speaker 1: dig into any of the other numbers in this poll, Sager,
Speaker 1: they also are not that great for Democrats. You've got
Speaker 1: Biden's approval writing Steale forty four percent, You've got seventy
Speaker 1: percent saying the US is on the wrong track. You
Speaker 1: have bad numbers in terms of the economy. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for sort of like hopeful signs, the
Speaker 1: fact that you have high democratic enthusiasm is encouraging. One
Speaker 1: other thing I pulled here that I thought was interesting
Speaker 1: and that we'd covered before. Nate Conant the New York Times,
Speaker 1: who's been not only tracking what their data says, but
Speaker 1: also tracking like what's the state of polling in America?
Speaker 1: He had previously said, Guys' warning signs abound that we're
Speaker 1: having the same sort of pulling misses as we did previously.
Speaker 1: These polsters haven't really fixed their issues. You're seeing them
Speaker 1: unexpected overperformance in some of the same states where we
Speaker 1: had huge misses, states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Well, he's
Speaker 1: now saying that that polling warning sign has significantly dimmed.
Speaker 1: Let's put this last piece up on the screen here.
Speaker 1: He says, the emergence of Republican leaning polsters has reduced
Speaker 1: the risk that polling averages will overestimate Democrats. And in fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of those races like Pennsylvania where we were like,
Speaker 1: is Fetterman really up by like twelve and fourteen points?
Speaker 1: Pretty doubtful there will now obviously that shows a much
Speaker 1: much narrow or margin, even with odds leading in certain instances.
Speaker 1: You know, same thing, Ohio. It no longer, Tim Ryan,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a poll with him up or even
Speaker 1: really that close in quite a while. Ohio. These white
Speaker 1: working class states are you know, places where there have
Speaker 1: been significant polling misses, so you no longer have that
Speaker 1: trend of sort of unexpected polling out performance. And some
Speaker 1: of the states with some of the big misses. So
Speaker 1: if you're a Democrat, you look at that and go like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe the polls are actually like if I look at
Speaker 1: that average is kind of accurate, and if the polls
Speaker 1: are kind of accurate going into the you know, especially
Speaker 1: for the Senate races. Then we're in the hunt. We
Speaker 1: got a chance to hold on. It's possible. I would
Speaker 1: just say. He says, well, at best, you know, it
Speaker 1: looks like the polling miss is like twenty eighteen. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, well, what was pulling miss in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Well we may forget that. Marshall Blackburn ended up beating
Speaker 1: our polls by twelve points in Tennessee, Ohio ended up
Speaker 1: going by seven. Pennsylvania outperformed by four, all in the
Speaker 1: Republican director. Yeah, of course, in Pennsylvania by four, Georgia
Speaker 1: actually by one, so Arizona also by one. So many
Speaker 1: of the states in twenty eighteen, if you have a
Speaker 1: similar polling era, of which Nate Cone is saying, it
Speaker 1: looks like all of those actually underestimated, specifically GOP performance
Speaker 1: in the Senate in those states. So in a fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty environment, I still think it would go to
Speaker 1: the Look, I don't know. I mean again, it totally
Speaker 1: could go the other way. If you want to talk
Speaker 1: about Nevada we were talking about this morning. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: interesting data, Yeah, this was interesting I'll add this one
Speaker 1: into the positive science. This is actually maybe the best
Speaker 1: sign that I've seen for Democrats, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: So John Ralston, who some of you guys will know,
Speaker 1: is this like longtime storied political analyst in the state
Speaker 1: of Nevada. He's got his own blog and he has
Speaker 1: tracked early voting data in Nevada, which has long been
Speaker 1: a state that has a significant proportion of the mail
Speaker 1: and vote for a long time, and he has been
Speaker 1: extremely accurate in terms of being able to look at
Speaker 1: the early vote and forecasts who's ultimately going to win
Speaker 1: on election day. And he is actually just this morning
Speaker 1: after a batch of very strong mail for Democrats came in,
Speaker 1: he is actually predicting that Catherine Cortez Masto is going
Speaker 1: to hold on and effectively, I mean, Nevada is a
Speaker 1: state that I'm fascinated by politically because it's much more
Speaker 1: working class. Democrats have been able to hold on to
Speaker 1: more of a working class base there, primarily because of
Speaker 1: the union density and because of the storied like read machine.
Speaker 1: Now Harry Reid has passed away, but the machine is
Speaker 1: at least somewhat still in operation, and so Catherine Cortez Masto,
Speaker 1: who has actually trailed in a lot more of the
Speaker 1: polls and a lot more of the average longer than
Speaker 1: the other Democratic candidates. He's saying she pulls it off now.
Speaker 1: Nevada polls have been more accurate than other polls, and
Speaker 1: also Democrats have even in you know, years where things
Speaker 1: went badly for them in other places, they've been able
Speaker 1: to sort of shore things up in Nevada again because
Speaker 1: of that union density and because of the red machine.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was interesting. I mean, he's very
Speaker 1: cautious in the prediction he's made. He said, Look, I
Speaker 1: could still see it going either way. Really depends how
Speaker 1: strong the turnout is an election day. It depends where
Speaker 1: the you know, the unaffiliated voters who don't say they're
Speaker 1: Republican or Democrat, Like, how hard do they swing in
Speaker 1: one direction or the other. It could still definitely go
Speaker 1: for the other, Dude Laxalt, but said Laxalt's brought a
Speaker 1: lackluster campaign Catherine Cortez master It was nothing to write
Speaker 1: home about either. But he thinks that ultimately she hangs
Speaker 1: on even as the Democratic governor he thinks is more
Speaker 1: likely to lose. Yeah, I think it's possible. I have
Speaker 1: a friend though, who went through and actually read some
Speaker 1: of Ralston's analysis and actually said, by Rawson's own analysis,
Speaker 1: if their independence do break, then La Salt is going
Speaker 1: to win. So I think that is, you know, the
Speaker 1: one caveat, which is that even by his own numbers,
Speaker 1: if their GOP does win the independent vote there, then
Speaker 1: they are going to win. Now, as you said, Nevada
Speaker 1: is kind of a crazy state. You do have it's rural,
Speaker 1: but you have a lot more union you have Nevada.
Speaker 1: It's like urban and rural divide. You have a lot
Speaker 1: of educational alignment that you don't see necessarily across the
Speaker 1: rest of the country with working class men and voters.
Speaker 1: So it is very interesting demographically also up there. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's very interesting, and it's possible.
Speaker 1: There's also an interesting environment we were talking about this morning,
Speaker 1: where you could see a upset in Nevada, not an
Speaker 1: upset you could see the Democrat there holding on, but
Speaker 1: then a possible upset in here in the east coast,
Speaker 1: like in New Hampshire. But in general, as you and
Speaker 1: I were saying before the show, these things all move
Speaker 1: in one way. Either all the Republics win or they don't,
Speaker 1: So we'll see. I mean, I will say if any
Speaker 1: state was going to be a little different than the
Speaker 1: other ones, I do think it's Nevada. Yeah, just because
Speaker 1: I mean you could put it intuit directions. I mean,
Speaker 1: number one, they were incredibly hit hard by inflation, They're
Speaker 1: incredibly hit hard by COVID because it is a service
Speaker 1: dominated economy. But on the other hand, we have seen
Speaker 1: Nevada sort of hold on even in red wave years
Speaker 1: for Democrats because of some of those structural underlying factors.
Speaker 1: You were going to have one state that went a
Speaker 1: little bit of a different way than the other ones,
Speaker 1: Nevada would be a good candidate, you know. Equally is interesting,
Speaker 1: he says, the early voting numbers do not indicate a
Speaker 1: red wave, just the possibility of one if everything breaks
Speaker 1: right for Republicans. This is not like twenty fourteen, when
Speaker 1: all the early voting data confirmed red wave, I know,
Speaker 1: after a couple of days, and was just a question
Speaker 1: of how many votes would be lifted by the red tide.
Speaker 1: And so again you have these sort of contradictory indicators overall.
Speaker 1: You know, I think you would you would definitely rather
Speaker 1: be the Republicans going into election day. As I look
Speaker 1: at all of this data, you've really got a kind
Speaker 1: of cherry pick to find things that look positive for Democrats,
Speaker 1: this being a key piece of it. And it goes
Speaker 1: back to, you know, do you believe at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the macro structural factors of economy right track,
Speaker 1: wrong track, presidential approval, inflation? Do you believe those things
Speaker 1: are going to be more determinative than Republicans nominated a
Speaker 1: group of like terrible candidates. And is it those individual
Speaker 1: candidate quality issues that will ultimately be the determining factor?
Speaker 1: You know, it has long been my theory that the
Speaker 1: overall national mood is more important. But we have to say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if Republicans had nominated basically like Glenn Youngkin
Speaker 1: types in all of these races, win done deal, it'd
Speaker 1: be over. It wouldn't even be close. So they've given
Speaker 1: Democrats every opportunity to be able to stay in this
Speaker 1: fight and even have a shot on election day. But
Speaker 1: even with you know, with that caveat in there, overall,
Speaker 1: I still think things are moving very much towards me.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing, Chris, Yeah, which is that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's last campaign stop at twenty twenty is going
Speaker 1: to be here in Ashburn, Virginia. And to me, the
Speaker 1: fact that you have to contest an area with nine
Speaker 1: did you won by nineteen points in twenty twenty, Listen,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can make the case for the way
Speaker 1: of all you want. I'm looking at that the man
Speaker 1: who's campaigned in Oregon. Okay, well, when you have to
Speaker 1: go to Oregon, I mean it's also partly because he's
Speaker 1: so dreadful on the stump. It's also that they just
Speaker 1: they don't want to send him anywhere where he could
Speaker 1: do damage. Really, I mean, and he's not popular, so
Speaker 1: the candidates aren't like clamoring to have him there. They
Speaker 1: much rather have Obama if they're gonna, you know, pick someone,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I mean they send him to Florida
Speaker 1: like Ron de Santis is gonna win by probably double
Speaker 1: digit like go Charlie Chris. I mean, so they you know,
Speaker 1: the strategy was basically to not have him do a lot,
Speaker 1: but to go places. I think he also didn't he
Speaker 1: go to like Maryland, Yes, to campaign for the Democratic
Speaker 1: gubernatorial nominee who's like definitely going to win again. By
Speaker 1: double digits, So I think that's more what they're focused
Speaker 1: on is like, where can we send Joe that he's
Speaker 1: not going to cause any problems, And even doing that,
Speaker 1: he's still caused some problems, talking about like shutting down
Speaker 1: coal plants and the way that dumber grat always Son died.
Speaker 1: But I guess we could put that for a second. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get we'll get to that. At the same time,
Speaker 1: we did have some reporters on the ground with our
Speaker 1: affiliate status coup at a I think it was at
Speaker 1: the the Obama Biden rally in Pennsylvania and then also
Speaker 1: outside of the Trump rally and Sylvania, a lot of
Speaker 1: folks flooding the zone in Pennsylvania. They talked to some
Speaker 1: of the voters there about how they're thinking about this election,
Speaker 1: what issues are top of mind for them. Let's take
Speaker 1: a lesson. Why I'm voting is because I'm tired of
Speaker 1: the line the Republican Party feel that they can get
Speaker 1: away with crime and lie. Mister Oz is a hypocrite,
Speaker 1: he's a coward, and he's a liar. No doctor talks
Speaker 1: about a stroke, Vin, you don't use a stroke Victa
Speaker 1: for whatever he called he called betterment were taxed fraud.
Speaker 1: But he's kissing Trump's but who's under indictment for taxing.
Speaker 1: He's a coward because he's going to descendate to help
Speaker 1: McConnell and Trump. He's not his own man. And he's
Speaker 1: a pathopholological liar for what he did with the diet
Speaker 1: supplements of the opioa. He only spent five minutes here
Speaker 1: to sign a thing that said that he's living with
Speaker 1: his mother. Really, there is no GOP in this state
Speaker 1: that couldn't represent Pennsylvania. They had to go to New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Come on, be serious, be serious. Veterans for Fort Fetterman, Shapiro, Somemmer,
Speaker 1: League Deluzio. And I'm an independent voter and I will
Speaker 1: never vote for another Republican after January sixth, And that's
Speaker 1: a fact. What is your top issue when you're making
Speaker 1: your decision on the vote right now? The border? The border, inflation, everything,
Speaker 1: border in inflation, order and inflation. Okay, got jess, what
Speaker 1: do you think Republicans are going to do to solve inflation?
Speaker 1: That's kind of making you lean towards them versus any
Speaker 1: Democrat candidate. Right, do have the slightest idea of what
Speaker 1: they'll do. There's a lot of things they could do.
Speaker 1: First of all, there's stuff that there's money that's being
Speaker 1: spent that doesn't have to be spent, and granted everybody
Speaker 1: should have a fair share, but there's little liquidities that
Speaker 1: can be sold off which we don't need. And the
Speaker 1: big thing about that is one start, the whole thing
Speaker 1: is once you have to pull the inflation back, but
Speaker 1: you can't do without dropping the bottom out of the market.
Speaker 1: You dropped the bottom out of the market. We're back
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty nine, right, So once that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna have to be a slow process. It can
Speaker 1: be done, but you got to just say that's it,
Speaker 1: we're done spending and Zager, I think in those just
Speaker 1: a couple of interviews, you see exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: The person who's going to vote for the Democrats. What's
Speaker 1: he talking about? Oz is specific character clearly in the
Speaker 1: news too. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I love always says he's independent.
Speaker 1: I'm like, bro, you're not. Like, here's the thing. It's fine.
Speaker 1: I enjoy seeing the way that people conceive of themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so so you see that the character traits of
Speaker 1: Oz are what he's focused on. And then when you
Speaker 1: talk to the you know, the ones outside the Trump
Speaker 1: rally who are all voting for the Republicans, they're focused
Speaker 1: on It's inflation, it's the border. And it also shows you,
Speaker 1: like Republicans don't even really have to have an answer
Speaker 1: of what they would do about inflation. When you're the
Speaker 1: party that's in opposition. All you have to say is
Speaker 1: like the macross are in control and things aren't going exactly,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's it's incumbent on the Democrats to
Speaker 1: be able to explain like, Okay, here's why, and here's
Speaker 1: what we'll do, and here's why it'll be different next time.
Speaker 1: The Republicans really can just say, like inflation, inflation, inflation,
Speaker 1: without having any plan, and it's sufficient. I completely agree.
Speaker 1: It was a good illustration too. You know, Philadelphia, the
Speaker 1: rally that's happening, that's exactly what they're trying to They're
Speaker 1: going to try and recreate the story of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: driving out a ton of vote in the city of
Speaker 1: Philly and in the mainline suburbs, and of course you
Speaker 1: know Western pa Bucks County as well, which is just
Speaker 1: on fire. You have all three presidents which were in
Speaker 1: the state basically in the same weekend, which is kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. Yeah, Bernie was out there, Ernie was out there,
Speaker 1: everybody was in Pennsylvania, which is fun because it's a
Speaker 1: preview also of twenty twenty four. And I think it
Speaker 1: does just show you the changing electorate, where the polls
Speaker 1: are trending, and it just shows like with in those
Speaker 1: two things, you got an illustration of exactly how a
Speaker 1: lot of people are thinking. So I like listening to
Speaker 1: actual voters. Yes, indeed, all right, let's move on now
Speaker 1: to Trump twenty twenty four. Possibly, let's go and put
Speaker 1: the up there on the screen. The Trump team is
Speaker 1: leaking to first Axios, but then to every single major
Speaker 1: paper in the country. November fourteenth could be the day,
Speaker 1: maybe all but possibly he might change his mind. As
Speaker 1: with anything Trump, he probably will. But November fourteenth, for now,
Speaker 1: the official announcement will be followed quote by a multi
Speaker 1: day series of political events. Trump and his top advisors
Speaker 1: have been sigling now twenty for twenty four announcement is imminent,
Speaker 1: and those discussions have reached the point allies are blocking
Speaker 1: off days in their calendars for the week after the
Speaker 1: midterms and preparing to travel. Why Trump is pointing towards
Speaker 1: a possible good night for Republicans. He wants to surf
Speaker 1: on the post midterm euphoria to build momentum for his
Speaker 1: campaign and to try and retake the White House. He
Speaker 1: wants to see it as a referendum on him, not
Speaker 1: on inflation in the broader economy. Why I think this
Speaker 1: is very interesting is, as always, he wants to preempt
Speaker 1: as soon as possible anybody who might actually run against him.
Speaker 1: And we'll get to the Dessantis part, which a lot
Speaker 1: of people are focusing on in a second. But to me,
Speaker 1: the major news was Tom Cotton called all of his
Speaker 1: donors yesterday and officially leaked it I'm not running in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I think it's smart. He's a young man.
Speaker 1: Why would you do it? I mean, I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of discussion on this. We could save some of
Speaker 1: this for the Dysantis conversation. But the Mike Pompeos of
Speaker 1: the world, Tom Cotton, Nikki Haley, any Chris Christy, I mean,
Speaker 1: you don't have a chance in hell. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just don't know why. It is not eminently obvious to
Speaker 1: anyone that even in take Florida for example, Even there
Speaker 1: DeSantis is tied with Trump in a head to head
Speaker 1: pole like New Hampshire, there was that one poll that
Speaker 1: showed DeSantis ahead, but then actually another one came out
Speaker 1: and Trump was winning by like twenty five points. Like
Speaker 1: everybody likes to focus on like one or two poles
Speaker 1: here or there, But here's the reality. He's the most
Speaker 1: popular figure in the Republican Party by a mile. Some
Speaker 1: people don't like him, most of them are not Republicans today,
Speaker 1: And as twenty twenty showed us, you can have a
Speaker 1: very low approval rating and still get seventy five million
Speaker 1: votes for the press if people don't like the other guy.
Speaker 1: So listen, I mean, it's a formidable candidate for all
Speaker 1: of the quote unquote gepiece civil war. I don't think
Speaker 1: there will be one. It's very smart to announce as
Speaker 1: early as possible. Personally, I think he should have announced
Speaker 1: the day that he was raided by the FBI, because
Speaker 1: that's when Glenn Youngkin and all those other people came out.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, oh, he'll screw up the midterms. Listen, Trump
Speaker 1: is baked in no matter what. At this point, I
Speaker 1: think people have proven that they care about many things
Speaker 1: other than Trump. Well, I think here's the other dynamic
Speaker 1: is it's very likely Trump is going to get indicted, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that's going to happen pretty soon. And what's
Speaker 1: going to happen is, just like with the raid, everybody
Speaker 1: from Ronda Santis to Glenn Youngkin to Mike Pompeo, every
Speaker 1: single one of them is going to have to defend
Speaker 1: him when he's indicted, bend the knee once again, just
Speaker 1: like they did when mar A Lago was raided. It
Speaker 1: only with the bass strengthens his hands a different deal
Speaker 1: with the general elector, but with the base it really
Speaker 1: only makes him stronger, forces them all to again come
Speaker 1: to a show who the real boss is in terms
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party, and also once again focuses the
Speaker 1: entire media ecosystem around him. So he's planning, it looks like,
Speaker 1: to announce very quickly before an indictment comes in. And
Speaker 1: that's also like part of the calculation here, and before anyone,
Speaker 1: i mean DeSantis will have just been re elected. He's
Speaker 1: obviously not going to be any position to like then
Speaker 1: just turn around and be like, by the way, now
Speaker 1: I'm running for president after you just re elected me
Speaker 1: as governor, and he's able to sort of consolidate support
Speaker 1: and you know, really assert his continued dominance of the party.
Speaker 1: And to me, you know, it's a fairly simple story.
Speaker 1: I actually think Biden is in a much weaker position.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about some of this in my monologue Visa
Speaker 1: VI the Democratic Party than Trump is with the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: So a lot of things he's you know, ridiculous and
Speaker 1: can be a fool, But in terms of just political
Speaker 1: power moves and branding, the dude is a genius. And
Speaker 1: I think to get out right after the midterms and
Speaker 1: go ahead and launch your campaign and make it clear
Speaker 1: to all comers that you're the guy, you're in it
Speaker 1: and show that sort of like Show of four, show
Speaker 1: of strength. Yeah, I think it's a savvy miss. And
Speaker 1: every Republican candidate is going to have to bow. I mean,
Speaker 1: Oz is going to bow all of them. Yeah, who
Speaker 1: were if you were a Walker? You know, let's think
Speaker 1: if Walker wins, literally, Trump is the one who picked him.
Speaker 1: Nobody else wanted Herschel Walker to be the next senator
Speaker 1: from Georgia. So he's going to have to go and
Speaker 1: bow with Trump, every one of these guys every single time.
Speaker 1: Like I'm telling you so, I will never forget. I
Speaker 1: interviewed Trump in twenty eighteen, the days after the midterm elections.
Speaker 1: Was a big interview for me because it was the
Speaker 1: first interview they gave after the twenty and eighty and
Speaker 1: he went race by he was obsessed. He's like, look
Speaker 1: at DeSantis, he was down by thirty six. I came in,
Speaker 1: I endorsed him anyone now he won big. You know,
Speaker 1: he goes down the list of every person. He actually
Speaker 1: had a list in front of him, prepared by his staff.
Speaker 1: Every person he endorsed what they were at before he
Speaker 1: endorsed them, how they want they won their primary, and
Speaker 1: then what they won the election by. He is obsessed
Speaker 1: with getting the credit for and I anticipate that he's
Speaker 1: going to be doing that all throughout this tour, whether
Speaker 1: it's true or not. I mean, look, it's a smart move, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you're the person you're going to show, Hey, we just
Speaker 1: had this big GOP support. I'm going to take back
Speaker 1: the White House in twenty twenty four. Well, one of
Speaker 1: the things we covered in the Republican primaries was some
Speaker 1: of the just like embarrassing lengths that Republican candidates would
Speaker 1: go to to try to secure his endorsement. Did not
Speaker 1: see a similar dynamic with regard to Ronda Santis. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just no doubt that if you are a Republican
Speaker 1: running in a Republican primary and depending on the Republican
Speaker 1: base for your power, whose endorsement you would rather have,
Speaker 1: It's not even close because this is, you know, largely
Speaker 1: where the basis. So I guess let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: get to the distantles part and that we need to
Speaker 1: blush that out fully teased it so much. Let's get
Speaker 1: ahead to this clip lots of notice and we'll have
Speaker 1: lots of commentary. Let's take a lesson. Is Trump at
Speaker 1: seventy one? Ronda Sanctimonius said ten, Mike Penn sid seven, Oh,
Speaker 1: Mike's doying better than I thought. Mike's doing better than
Speaker 1: I thought. Ron the sanctimony? What do you all think? So,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, Initially I was somewhat overwhelmed. However, now
Speaker 1: that I have seen the pushback from the DeSantis bros. Online,
Speaker 1: I think Trump was onto something. So let's go put
Speaker 1: this up there for Matt Walsh, the Daily Wire crew
Speaker 1: is very upset about this. They're all like, DeSantis is
Speaker 1: an extremely effective conservative governor who's had real policy wins,
Speaker 1: real cultural wins. Trump isn't going to be able to
Speaker 1: take this one down with a dumb nickname. He better
Speaker 1: have more than that up his sleeve, you know. Costa
Speaker 1: of Robert Costa over at CBS News had a similar
Speaker 1: take where he's like, many dysantis allies are dispirited by
Speaker 1: President Trump's attack on him, a popular Republican governor, they
Speaker 1: did not expect to try and take him down ahead
Speaker 1: of the election. I'm like, listen, do you know Trump? Like?
Speaker 1: Are you like, do he cares about the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: It's the man has been at the center of politics
Speaker 1: since twenty fifteen. It's been seven years. I think we
Speaker 1: all know he doesn't care about the Republican Party. Hence
Speaker 1: that famous moment where he's like, maybe I'll run as
Speaker 1: an independent if I don't win the nomination. He literally
Speaker 1: only cares about one thing, which is attention and as
Speaker 1: a commodity he can see and it is probably extremely aggravated,
Speaker 1: as many reports have indicated that Ron DeSantis has even
Speaker 1: floated somewhat next to his name, and anybody who believes
Speaker 1: that DeSantis could somehow win a GOP nomination without attacking
Speaker 1: Trump and not getting into a full scale brawl as
Speaker 1: Cruz and as Rubio both did, and then somehow come
Speaker 1: out victorious. What are you smoking? Like? You and I
Speaker 1: have said this, And it's funny because a lot of
Speaker 1: the DeSantis people they don't want to hear it. And
Speaker 1: yet every poll I've ever looked at for GOP voters
Speaker 1: tells me that DeSantis is purely like a college educated
Speaker 1: phenomena amongst college educated men, specifically in the GOP, DeSantis
Speaker 1: is the prefer candidate amongst working classmen. It's like seventy
Speaker 1: eight twenty Trump, and you're not, at this point winning
Speaker 1: a Republican primary with a college education exactly like sort
Speaker 1: of more elite electorate, right, not happening? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's to me, the DeSantis phenomenon. It's like the new
Speaker 1: iteration of the sort of like never Trump instinct. It's
Speaker 1: like people who the people are really behind it, are like,
Speaker 1: we don't like Trump, we think he's obnoxious. We you know,
Speaker 1: we want to replace him, we want someone else. But
Speaker 1: the going directly Adam didn't work. So let's get someone
Speaker 1: who's like sort of aligned with him and certainly backs
Speaker 1: his agenda and hasn't said mean things about him. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can like sneak someone in that way, but ultimately
Speaker 1: these two people are going to be head to head
Speaker 1: if DeSantis even runs, which there was also some reporting
Speaker 1: that he was basically signaling to donors like I think
Speaker 1: I'm got a way. Well apparently you know what that
Speaker 1: Remember Ken Griffin, the Game Stop billionaire, Yeah, that guy,
Speaker 1: He's like, I would write an unlimited check for him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, let's take the corrupt Game Stop guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll be for a person, and you know it's not
Speaker 1: to your benefit when the only people who are truly
Speaker 1: in your corner are like the Ben Shapiros of the world.
Speaker 1: Ben was a never trumper twyeh Ben sixteen exactly right,
Speaker 1: he did in twenty twenty. But he's like a tangential
Speaker 1: ally he's like a true con of the conservative movement
Speaker 1: and cares about that. Trump doesn't care about any of that, right,
Speaker 1: and I have to come back to this like true
Speaker 1: fantasy Trump does for all the reasons for why people
Speaker 1: would prefer DeSantis. Quote, he gets things done. Trump without Trump,
Speaker 1: those are the reasons why people love Trump. Like that's
Speaker 1: what nobody has ever wanted to grapple with. You know.
Speaker 1: I see these guys and like, listen, I used to
Speaker 1: think this way, so I'm somewhat sympathetic. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if the GOP is going to win on
Speaker 1: the backs working class voters, they're gonna have to deliver
Speaker 1: for them. I'm like, oh, really did Trump do that?
Speaker 1: Trump had two singular achievements in office. Number one, he
Speaker 1: cut taxes for rich people in corporations too. He led
Speaker 1: a bunch of drug dealers out of prison. Guess what
Speaker 1: he didn't do suffer any at all in the polls.
Speaker 1: He actually won ten million more votes, So I see
Speaker 1: no evidence. So they have to deliver anything for many
Speaker 1: of the people who are out there right now, and
Speaker 1: you still can't be tremendously successful at the ballot box.
Speaker 1: I don't wish it were that way, but it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, he has really made the Republican Party synonymous
Speaker 1: with him, and so DeSantis is able to rise a
Speaker 1: bit as long as there isn't this direct head to
Speaker 1: head confrontation. And this is what I always and they
Speaker 1: have this series like, oh, well DeSantis did better on
Speaker 1: the Lock. I honestly, I mean, first of all, that's
Speaker 1: like a ways of the past years ago, and sorry.
Speaker 1: Second of all, like you think that like the facts
Speaker 1: and the reality of the particular policy decisions that were made,
Speaker 1: Trump will just make up some other shit, some other
Speaker 1: narrative of what happened, and people will go along with it.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, you know, I don't even know if DeSantis
Speaker 1: really ends up running. I also, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people are very critical of the like dy sanctimonies.
Speaker 1: They didn't think it was that great of a nickname.
Speaker 1: Actually thought it was kind of good, because I agree
Speaker 1: the thing with a nickname is it has to strike
Speaker 1: at something that is, you know, that has the kernel
Speaker 1: of truth that makes the person into a caricature of
Speaker 1: some of their worst traits. And I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: There was reporting this morning about how Trump came up
Speaker 1: with the nickname, and I guess he's been privately testing
Speaker 1: different they describe as derisive nicknames for mister DeSantis with
Speaker 1: his friends and advisors. Roger Stone had floated this one
Speaker 1: in particular on truth social But what really locked in
Speaker 1: dysanctimonious for Trump was that DeSantis released this video that
Speaker 1: was aimed at, they say, infusing his candidacy with a
Speaker 1: sense of the divine. The ninety six second black and
Speaker 1: white video, which invokes God ten times, was fashioned after
Speaker 1: a famous So God Made a Farmer's speech in the
Speaker 1: seventies by the radio broadcaster Paul Harvey. You guys probably
Speaker 1: remember the Rams Trucks used it in a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: ad highlighting the importance of farming. Well, DeSantis took that
Speaker 1: and made his own version, which was posted by his wife,
Speaker 1: where they say and on the eighth Day, God looked
Speaker 1: down on his plan in Paradise and said, I need
Speaker 1: a protector. So God made a fighter fight. It's Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 1: So you can see in watching that how you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: to sanctimonious, that fits pretty well. Actually listen once again,
Speaker 1: I just got to come back to it like, oh,
Speaker 1: he gets things done. People don't care about getting things done.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, he listened. And even DeSantis, I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look, I think he's fine, but having watched him,
Speaker 1: like he doesn't have the it factor. I'm always like
Speaker 1: the case that they always make He's like Trump without
Speaker 1: the X, but people love the X. They're there for
Speaker 1: the show. That's the whole point. Once again, Do I
Speaker 1: want politics to work this way? No? But it does.
Speaker 1: I mean we have to be you go to war
Speaker 1: with the troops that you have, and like simply the
Speaker 1: troops show that they love Trump every polling indication that
Speaker 1: we have. The endorsement thing is such a good example.
Speaker 1: You have state senators out there who are literally running
Speaker 1: on like I'm back in Trump in like Wisconsin for
Speaker 1: the they don't. Yeah, they know who he is, they
Speaker 1: like him, but he's a second figure. He's like a
Speaker 1: you know, a B list star compared to a list talent.
Speaker 1: And look, you know, for all of the talk of
Speaker 1: effectiveness and all that, like I just I do not
Speaker 1: see any evidence that any of that actually matters to
Speaker 1: any of the people who will vote in a GOP
Speaker 1: mind of primary and the freak ount over it was
Speaker 1: to me very interesting because I was like, what did
Speaker 1: y'all think was going to happen? Yeah, I know, Like,
Speaker 1: did you just think he was going to just let
Speaker 1: DeSantis do his thing and never like try to check
Speaker 1: his rising influence? Of course of course not. I mean
Speaker 1: he was always going to come to some sort of
Speaker 1: a head to head confrontation if you really are seriously
Speaker 1: think this is going to get done. So anyway, interesting
Speaker 1: and listen, guys, day after the midterm twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: is on. If it's not on already, there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, questions about what Biden's going to do
Speaker 1: and what the midterms mean for him, and all sorts
Speaker 1: of jocking on the Democratic side, obviously the Republican side.
Speaker 1: So just prepare yourself. It's twenty twenty four right away,
Speaker 1: the minute that the polls close on to night. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy it, and we have no other choice. Chaos
Speaker 1: over at Twitter, Let's start with this one. Elon having
Speaker 1: some serious trouble here. Let's put it up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. He says, quote. Twitter has had massive drop
Speaker 1: in revenue due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though
Speaker 1: nothing has changed with content moderation, and we did everything
Speaker 1: that we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up.
Speaker 1: They are trying to destroy free speech in America. Well,
Speaker 1: as we have said from day one, whenever you are
Speaker 1: an advertiser relied business, it is going to be tremendously
Speaker 1: a big problem because many of those folks are ruled
Speaker 1: by an ideology or at the very least, like they
Speaker 1: don't want to have to deal with a bad headline.
Speaker 1: They're not ruled by an ideology other than money, and
Speaker 1: they're worried about like, yeah, he says, oh, content moderation
Speaker 1: hasn't changed, but then he has made some specific content moderation.
Speaker 1: He's just totally erratic and all over the place. That's
Speaker 1: actually so they're like, we're just gonna wait this thing out.
Speaker 1: He did in himself no favors with that advertise on
Speaker 1: those advertisers thing. By tweeting the Paul Pelosi story out.
Speaker 1: That's actually I think that might actually be the single
Speaker 1: most impactful play that he has done his owner, because
Speaker 1: they're like, I can't deal with this, Like if you're
Speaker 1: going to tweet out this stud and look, I think
Speaker 1: even now given all this NBC stuff, yeah, we should
Speaker 1: ask questions, but you and I'm not. I would never
Speaker 1: bring that to air. You know, when the job that
Speaker 1: you and I do without verification, we can ask questions.
Speaker 1: Asking questions is fine. But by linking to that, he
Speaker 1: actually showed, you know, being so quick on the draw
Speaker 1: that the advertisers were who are already on the fence,
Speaker 1: are like, I'm just not going to go with this.
Speaker 1: And you have a bunch of people who are already
Speaker 1: being pressured by the NAACP and all these other fake
Speaker 1: groups of like which are like, oh, we're going to
Speaker 1: see an explosion of X or Y or whatever word
Speaker 1: that you want to see and listen. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's why I wouldn't say that it's not just money, Crystal.
Speaker 1: I think that they are given the fact that Twitter
Speaker 1: ads are mostly fake anyway. Yeah, and they've never been
Speaker 1: proven to be all that effective, And it was all
Speaker 1: part of like vanity budgeting that to be pressure. It's
Speaker 1: not it cost him nothing to actually yield to the activists. Well,
Speaker 1: that's there's a million places you can advertise, right, Why
Speaker 1: are you going to run the risk of having your
Speaker 1: advertisement next to like someone saying the N word and
Speaker 1: like saying Paul Pelosi got murdered by his gay lover
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like you're just not going to take that risk.
Speaker 1: And so you know, before this all deal closed and everything,
Speaker 1: Elon made this comedy was like this is I don't
Speaker 1: care about making money at all. He was trying to
Speaker 1: portray this like this is just a free speech play.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point that is so obviously absurd
Speaker 1: and ridiculous. And you took on a lot of debt
Speaker 1: to be able to close this deal. You have responsibility
Speaker 1: to like pay back your lenders and whatever. So it's
Speaker 1: not like you can make this some sort of nonprofit
Speaker 1: play unless you're willing to pony up like your own
Speaker 1: net worth in order to backstop the whole thing, which
Speaker 1: obviously is not since he took on all this debt.
Speaker 1: So the level of like you said, chaos, erratic decision
Speaker 1: making just all over the place. Of course, advertisers are
Speaker 1: going to be like, yeah, we're gonna wait, We've got
Speaker 1: a lot of other places that we can spend our dollars,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see how this all shakes out to
Speaker 1: decide whether we're ever coming back. Secondary part two, which
Speaker 1: is that let's put this up there, which is that
Speaker 1: he's really trying to have it all both ways. He says,
Speaker 1: twitter strong commitment to content generation remains unchanged. In fact,
Speaker 1: we have seen hateful speech at times declined below our
Speaker 1: prior norms. Contrary to what you may read in the press,
Speaker 1: I keep seeing this canard that Elon is putting out there,
Speaker 1: which I think he's just getting completely wrong. He keeps
Speaker 1: saying over and over again, our goal is for Twitter
Speaker 1: to be the most accurate source of information about the world.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. You cannot look accurate to whom right
Speaker 1: by what standard, given what set of facts. That is
Speaker 1: the mindset which doomed Twitter in the first place. That's
Speaker 1: what led to fact checking. That's what's sticking by the
Speaker 1: community notes feature, which I'm still totally against. Any sort
Speaker 1: of editor judgment about tweets or not is ludicrous. And second,
Speaker 1: you know we have this all just happened last night,
Speaker 1: but Elon now has a policy that verified accounts are
Speaker 1: going to be quote permanently suspended for impersonating. Now, many
Speaker 1: verified accounts like Kathy Griffin and others were like changing
Speaker 1: their name to Elon Musk. I'm not gonna lie. It's
Speaker 1: actually confusing whenever you're on Twitter because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: is that actually Elon or not? But here's the point.
Speaker 1: Now again, you are peeking and choosing what flies and
Speaker 1: what does it. So it's like old boss is the
Speaker 1: same as a new boss. Like what's getting banned. And
Speaker 1: what's not the more that quote accurate information becomes the
Speaker 1: north star and not just let people say whatever they want,
Speaker 1: as annoying as it is, then really you're just getting
Speaker 1: yourself into dangerous territory and you will fall into the
Speaker 1: same pitfalls that Jack Dorsey fell into that the previous
Speaker 1: censorship regime did. And you know, look, I just a
Speaker 1: it's already ruined. It will ruin the experience for the
Speaker 1: users because with the fact checking in all that, you
Speaker 1: never know what is actually true. Genisis trust in the platform,
Speaker 1: and it leads to all sorts of debates. And second,
Speaker 1: you know, as we saw, it's not like it's helping
Speaker 1: you with your advertisements in the meantime, No, it's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even Jack Dorsey, of course, former CEO and founder of Twitter.
Speaker 1: He even replied, like accurate to who in regards to
Speaker 1: there should be the most accurate platform on the planet. Yes,
Speaker 1: that dude. Fifty shades of Whey tweeted free speech absolutist
Speaker 1: Elon Musk went from comedy is now legal to banning
Speaker 1: Kathy Griffin in less than ten days. Totally fair and also,
Speaker 1: I mean he has a history of being very thin
Speaker 1: skinned in terms of like how he runs his companies
Speaker 1: and whatever too, And this just strikes of Yeah, he
Speaker 1: didn't like people were making fun of him, so he
Speaker 1: went also from saying no more permanent bands to we're
Speaker 1: permanently banning you for basically making fun of me. It's,
Speaker 1: you know, again, incredibly erratic. Really reveals a lot about
Speaker 1: the fact that Number one, I mean, I've always been
Speaker 1: annoyed talking about the Elon story because there's this whole
Speaker 1: idea among conservatives among liberals of like the good billionaires
Speaker 1: versus the bad billionaires, when what you really see here
Speaker 1: is the reason these platforms are the way they are
Speaker 1: is because of the business incentives. And that was so
Speaker 1: clear instantly when Elon Musk takes over and the first
Speaker 1: thing he does effectively is like write his letter to
Speaker 1: advertisers like please please stay around. There is a business
Speaker 1: model here that if we want to get away from
Speaker 1: you're going to have to do something really different. It's
Speaker 1: going to have to come from the government. There is
Speaker 1: no billionaire out there who's going to be better, who's
Speaker 1: going to ultimately rescue it. And I also think that
Speaker 1: it takes some of the luster off of the mythology
Speaker 1: of Elon Musk as well, where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he was really seeing as the sort of global genius
Speaker 1: and this like incredible businessman and savvy and he's working
Speaker 1: on a level we can't even understand, and then you
Speaker 1: see these moves that are just scattershot all over the place,
Speaker 1: just throwing everything against the wall, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: a mask off moment in terms of his real capability.
Speaker 1: I will say, so I'll defend him on this count,
Speaker 1: which is that having read the history of Tesla and SpaceX,
Speaker 1: they were a complete shit show until they weren't shit show.
Speaker 1: So like SpaceX nearly failed and went bankrupt many times.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, they had like three there's
Speaker 1: actually a video people should go watch it of him
Speaker 1: with basically used all of the last money on his
Speaker 1: last launch. He's like, if this is it, the company
Speaker 1: is dead, and everybody anyway ended up working Tesla too.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a nightmare, and that's why short
Speaker 1: sellers were and against the stock for almost a decade
Speaker 1: basically up until now. So I think a man can
Speaker 1: still turn around. Every single one of his companies has
Speaker 1: been typified by chaos but not inspiring moves. And let's
Speaker 1: move on then to the second part here, which is
Speaker 1: exactly gets to what you said, which is that, look,
Speaker 1: if you really do want a Twitter which is free
Speaker 1: of censorship, the only way to really prove it then
Speaker 1: is to have a business model like we do here,
Speaker 1: which is direct a subscription and does not rely on advertisers.
Speaker 1: So the problem though, is that their plan on this
Speaker 1: a I don't think fulfills that with the plan to
Speaker 1: charge eight dollars for verification. But second, that too is
Speaker 1: chaotic in itself. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: This was originally Twitter is to begin offering it's seven
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month verification subscription, but then Crystal just
Speaker 1: last night they announced they're actually going to delay the
Speaker 1: full scale move to verification on Twitter Blue Tech until
Speaker 1: after the midterm elections because they don't want to have
Speaker 1: to deal with any of the ensuing chaos during elections
Speaker 1: and information and whatever is happening on that front. It
Speaker 1: does just highlight though that this scheme is not exactly
Speaker 1: all that well thought out, and I just let's let's
Speaker 1: highlight it just one more time for people. What they're
Speaker 1: charging eight dollars a month for is allegedly some sort
Speaker 1: of like priority replies and all that other stuff if
Speaker 1: you were to follow and to reply to people, which
Speaker 1: I believe kind of exists for existing verification. But really
Speaker 1: it's just the blue check for eight dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And again it just underscores that they people who are
Speaker 1: doing this miss the value of what the blue chart,
Speaker 1: blue check even is, which is all it was and
Speaker 1: originally instituted was to make sure that the people who
Speaker 1: are on Twitter, who are tweeting, are who they say
Speaker 1: they are, so you can quote trust the information. Hence
Speaker 1: why tweets from individuals from Jeff Bezos to Bill Gates
Speaker 1: and others can move stock markets, as Euon himself found
Speaker 1: out whenever he tweeted about taking Tesla private. That was
Speaker 1: the point was. It was instituted to make the trust
Speaker 1: the ability of the information on the platform to be trusted.
Speaker 1: By moving away from that and making people pay, he's
Speaker 1: actually losing it because some people, I think both of
Speaker 1: us probably are not going to pay for it. I
Speaker 1: don't see any inherent value in the check mark. I
Speaker 1: just don't care. But and I've said this before, moving
Speaker 1: towarn enterprise system of you know more followers, being able
Speaker 1: to keep access to them and seeing exactly like getting
Speaker 1: value out of the platform, possibly as customer service. It's
Speaker 1: all kinds of different things that you could do. That's
Speaker 1: where I think the real money is. I really do
Speaker 1: not think that this scheme is going to work. But listen,
Speaker 1: you know, he's fooled us all before, like we'll see.
Speaker 1: But the level of chaos and the lack of real
Speaker 1: value that you're getting eight dollars a month is a
Speaker 1: lot of money. That's significant. That's like a Disney Plus
Speaker 1: subscription that's like exactly, that's like one hundred dollars a year.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not nothing, especially in this economic environment
Speaker 1: when people are stretch really thin, and I've seen him
Speaker 1: like very you know, sort of casual or handwaving away
Speaker 1: the price of this. That's a significant amount for a
Speaker 1: lot of people that I don't think can just be
Speaker 1: hand waved away. The thing with it, too, is like
Speaker 1: it's not even really clear what you're getting. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: like contradictory information about what it's going to be, what
Speaker 1: it's going to mean, how it's going to be treated.
Speaker 1: There's indications that it's gonna, you know, help you in
Speaker 1: terms of having your tweet shown or showing up in
Speaker 1: the replies, which again takes away from the idea that
Speaker 1: it should be a neutral platform, which is one of
Speaker 1: the other, you know, more beautiful or more appealing parts
Speaker 1: of Twitters. That you can have someone who's I guess celebrity,
Speaker 1: you know, a Bill Gates or an Elon Musk or whatever,
Speaker 1: and that just random X person can potentially get seen
Speaker 1: in the reply, it can potentially interact with those people
Speaker 1: on that platform. So you're possibly undercutting that. It's going
Speaker 1: to take a hell of a lot of people paying
Speaker 1: eight bucks a month to make up for the advertiser
Speaker 1: revenue that you've lost. And ultimately, you know, with regard
Speaker 1: to the blue check, like the blue check did end
Speaker 1: up being this sort of like you know, weird like class. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the blue check system was not implemented well. In reality,
Speaker 1: there should have been a lot more blue checks where
Speaker 1: people's identities are verified. That would have actually contributed to
Speaker 1: a better ecosystem on the platform. But that's not profitable,
Speaker 1: that's not monetizing what you have there, So that's why
Speaker 1: they're moving in the opposite direction. So not a good move.
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way, which is that verification
Speaker 1: for pay is not a bad scheme, it's just that
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be all verification. So I actually saw an
Speaker 1: interesting graphic that some people are flow with different types
Speaker 1: of blue checks, right, So you have like the journalist check,
Speaker 1: then you have like the paid check, then you have
Speaker 1: like a government officials. It's like a tear, like a
Speaker 1: different color check mark. And I was like, well, that's
Speaker 1: actually not a bad idea. The point is that if
Speaker 1: you actually want to increase the reliability of information on
Speaker 1: the platform, making it so that you have to second
Speaker 1: guess whether or not it's actually the person who's tweeting
Speaker 1: is actually very bad. And so once again, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll just get to like, what's the value. The value
Speaker 1: is the ability for a hyper group of point one
Speaker 1: percent users in order to reach basically nine to nine
Speaker 1: zero point nine. It turns out that doing it via
Speaker 1: ads is not that great, but doing it via being
Speaker 1: able to access the following on the platform that's worth
Speaker 1: something to some people. So look, if anything, like I
Speaker 1: said at the beginning, he has shown a proven ability
Speaker 1: to be nimble personally, I think this is gonna flop.
Speaker 1: I do not think it's gonna make a lot of money,
Speaker 1: because if it only makes as you said, they have
Speaker 1: five billion in revenue eighty nine percent in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: So that means that if we have a massive cut
Speaker 1: of advertisers, let's call it one or two billion, you
Speaker 1: need to sell hundreds of thousands of subscriptions at eight
Speaker 1: dollars a month in order to make that up. Disney
Speaker 1: is able to do that because they have one hundred
Speaker 1: years of Disney's IP catalog. Netflix is able to do
Speaker 1: that basically because they were first to market. Ask Paramount,
Speaker 1: Polus and Peacock how they're doing, Yeah, and n plus
Speaker 1: for really subscription a month? How did all that work out?
Speaker 1: So this shit is hard? Yeah, you know, like we're
Speaker 1: small business, so we don't have to reach that level
Speaker 1: of scale. But if you are a multi billion dollar company,
Speaker 1: like that's a whole other ballgame. Yeah, of subscriptions that
Speaker 1: you need to see. And again to my point about
Speaker 1: how the information about this has been contradictory, Elon himself
Speaker 1: spoke a little bit about what the new blue check
Speaker 1: is ultimately going to mean in terms of how your
Speaker 1: content is viewed on the platform. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to what you have to say the net effect will
Speaker 1: be over time that the de verified users will be
Speaker 1: will pretty much always be at the top of comments
Speaker 1: and search, and you wantt really see you have to
Speaker 1: scroll far to see the unverified users. So you have
Speaker 1: to scroll far to see the unverified users. So I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: if Elon makes it so that the only way your
Speaker 1: tweets and your replies get seen, yeah, that makes it
Speaker 1: a clear value add for people. But that's in direct
Speaker 1: opposition to your stated free speech goals of the platform,
Speaker 1: And to me, that really just underscores the fact that
Speaker 1: you can either have your free speech values driven play
Speaker 1: or you can have a profit making play, and the
Speaker 1: two things cannot really coexist. And it's obviously really clear
Speaker 1: what direction he's going to go, and he's going to
Speaker 1: go in the business stret just like all of these platforms,
Speaker 1: ultimately make the justifications and make the decisions that they
Speaker 1: have to to try to make their thing profitable. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm crazy, but if you instituted kind of what I've
Speaker 1: talked about, an enterprise tier to follow type system for access,
Speaker 1: but a level playing field in Wikipedia, I actually wonder
Speaker 1: if people might if you're like, hey, listen, we have
Speaker 1: a commitment here. We could make money by doing all
Speaker 1: this album, but we're not you know, go ahead and
Speaker 1: pay X amount of month. I'm not so sure that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't pay for that in order to support that,
Speaker 1: But we find that in the overwhelming amount of subscriptions
Speaker 1: that we sell for our premium subscriptions. So look, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think if you throw it to people
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, do you like the idea of
Speaker 1: having a business that's not at the whims of censorship
Speaker 1: and you can have even tiered levels of subscription, like,
Speaker 1: it's very possible to work. That's actually a very interesting
Speaker 1: insight of what people might be willing to play for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to pay for is like, oh, I actually am invested
Speaker 1: in this project, and this is like a value driven
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that he's a billionaire and the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, as a profit may like it
Speaker 1: is a little bit more complicated than us media startup
Speaker 1: and people feeling like I want to build this thing
Speaker 1: from scratch. But I do think you probably have a
Speaker 1: better pitch if it was value driven and you could
Speaker 1: see really clearly the way that they're leaving dollars on
Speaker 1: the table to stay true to the values. But then,
Speaker 1: you know, how are you big bank lenders get to
Speaker 1: feel about that? Yeah, play, yeah, well that's all the
Speaker 1: perils of big business. Indeed, indeed, all right, some big
Speaker 1: developments actually in terms of Ukraine, let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this first piece up on the screen. This from
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. They say they have a scoop that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is actually privately encouraging Ukraine's leaders to
Speaker 1: signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their
Speaker 1: public refusal refusal to engage in peace talks and less
Speaker 1: Putin is removed from power. I mean, you guys might
Speaker 1: recall the trajectory of this. Early in the war, Zelensky
Speaker 1: was much more open, sort of floating negotiations, even floating
Speaker 1: some of what they might be willing to compromise on.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, frankly, understandably, given the level of
Speaker 1: atrocities and the level of conflict and death and tax
Speaker 1: on infrastructure and all of those sorts of things, he's
Speaker 1: really closed the door and said absolutely not not as
Speaker 1: long as Putin is in power. And also, by the way,
Speaker 1: we want to not just you know, retake the parts
Speaker 1: of Ukraine were really firmly in our control before this invasion.
Speaker 1: But we want Crimea back, we want the entire East back,
Speaker 1: and so his position is really hardened. There were no
Speaker 1: indications that the Biden administration was pushing them to sort
Speaker 1: of soften that even rhetoric whatsoever, even as you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately this is an incredibly dangerous situation, as we've laid
Speaker 1: out a million times here at this point, if it's
Speaker 1: going to end, there's going to have to be some
Speaker 1: sort of ceasefire negotiation, There's going to have to be
Speaker 1: some sort of diplomacy. It also comes on the heels,
Speaker 1: of course, of the faded letter, the ill fated I
Speaker 1: guess letter from the Progressive Caucus, where they, in the
Speaker 1: mildest possible language, floated that maybe possibly at some point,
Speaker 1: with the consent of the Ukrainians, considering diplomacy would be
Speaker 1: a good IDEA total freak out online about how this
Speaker 1: was horrible and you're stabbing Ukraine in the back and
Speaker 1: you're putent apologist and you're aligned with the Kremlin and
Speaker 1: all of this. They immediately retract it. Well, now it
Speaker 1: turns out that their letter is actually literally just what
Speaker 1: the Biden administration policy already appears to be. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's very well said. Also with the breaking news
Speaker 1: actually Crystal that these White House officials were having some
Speaker 1: undisclosed talks with Putin that almost frankly might be the
Speaker 1: most significant. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: Jake Sullivan actually has been having these confidential discussions with
Speaker 1: Russian counterparts. Now according to them, it has not been
Speaker 1: over Ukraine. It's been over nuclear threats about escalation. But
Speaker 1: this is an incredibly welcome development because what is something
Speaker 1: that we kept underscoring during the whole nucle We're like,
Speaker 1: we need to talk. The whole lesson of the human
Speaker 1: missile crisis was have the hotline so that we never
Speaker 1: have of this level of confusion ever again. And all
Speaker 1: the leaks that were coming out in some of the
Speaker 1: hottest rhetoric during the nuclear threats from the Russians was
Speaker 1: that there's no bilateral dialogue. So it seems that the
Speaker 1: I think clearly the dam broke in the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: They're looking down at a possible GOP victory in the House,
Speaker 1: where Kevin McCarthy has already said we're not going to
Speaker 1: pass nearly the amount of same of Ukraine AID. It's
Speaker 1: not a guarantee that they passed the sixty billion extra
Speaker 1: in Ukraine AID that they want to in the lame Duck.
Speaker 1: So they're like, well, our hands are going to be
Speaker 1: very different in the next couple of months. At the
Speaker 1: same time, the Ukrainians are reaching the limits possibly of
Speaker 1: their battlefield victory. I said, possibly. You know, they've had
Speaker 1: stunning victories. We don't know, we have nuclear threats. The
Speaker 1: American public is afraid. Inflation is sky high across here
Speaker 1: in Europe, and you know, it's not like the situation
Speaker 1: in Kiev is all that great. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about it in a little bit, So now is the time.
Speaker 1: And what we were saying is that by giving the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians basically a blank check and saying you can prosecute
Speaker 1: this till the end of time, even if whenever it
Speaker 1: comes to hurt our own core strategic interest, that's always
Speaker 1: been my objection. Yeah, And so to see them engaging
Speaker 1: in talks, possibly behind the scenes, nudging them in the
Speaker 1: right way, I think that's great. Will does the Lenskate listen? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think you will listen.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainian population, or at least the one and the
Speaker 1: ones in the West, they're not there right now. N Zelensky,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say is kind because I think he's done
Speaker 1: good for his own people. But like his bravado and
Speaker 1: the way he talks with the West, and really the
Speaker 1: level of which he admonishes anyone who doesn't want to
Speaker 1: give him anything that he wants here in the West
Speaker 1: and all that, Like, what is what is the evidence
Speaker 1: that he actually will listen to any of these private manishments?
Speaker 1: Well from the Bible, miss is how hard how hardball?
Speaker 1: Are the Biden people willing to pay play? Are you
Speaker 1: willing to say, you know, next time you come calling
Speaker 1: for your next you know, multi ten billions of dollars
Speaker 1: handout to not just for the weapons aid, but for
Speaker 1: economic aid to fund your government to be able to
Speaker 1: continue Ukraine as like a going concern, which they're really
Speaker 1: reliant on our aid in order to do any of that.
Speaker 1: You know, the answer might be different if you don't
Speaker 1: change the way that you're even publicly speaking about the
Speaker 1: possibility of negotiations. I personally have no doubt that if
Speaker 1: the Biden administration was willing to play that kind of hardball.
Speaker 1: You would hear a softening of tone because his fate
Speaker 1: and the fate of the country is so tied to
Speaker 1: what we here are ultimately willing to do. But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the bidenministration is really willing to
Speaker 1: go that hard You know, there are a few things
Speaker 1: that I think about here that could have kind of
Speaker 1: led the Biden administration to a bit of like, you know,
Speaker 1: a different certainly a different approach than what we were
Speaker 1: hearing in the early days of like we don't want
Speaker 1: negotiations and dispatching Boris Johnson probably to go and tell
Speaker 1: Zelensky like, no, we don't want diplomacy, we don't want
Speaker 1: an end to this war. We want to weaken Russia,
Speaker 1: basically out and out saying that our goal in this
Speaker 1: whole thing is to overthrow Putin and have regime change
Speaker 1: in Russia. This is a very different stance in tone
Speaker 1: than what we saw in those early days from Biden
Speaker 1: himself and also from Bloyd Austin and other high level officials.
Speaker 1: You think about the call that was reported with Biden's
Speaker 1: Lensky where Biden's very frustratedly basically like lost his temper
Speaker 1: and yelled at Zelenski over the fact that we're giving
Speaker 1: you all this aid and then you immediately turn around
Speaker 1: and asked for even more, even more, even more. It's
Speaker 1: never enough, and you're basically ungrateful. So look, that may
Speaker 1: sound petty, but the sort of personality conflicts, especially for
Speaker 1: a player like Biden who was not unlike Trump and
Speaker 1: that he's kind of a gut player on foreign policy front,
Speaker 1: that makes a difference. And then I also have to think,
Speaker 1: you know, the revelations that the Ukrainians were involved in
Speaker 1: that fire bombing in Moscow, like you're freelancing murder, assassinating
Speaker 1: private citizens in Russia. What the hell are you doing?
Speaker 1: Even the Crimean bridge explosion, which you know, the best
Speaker 1: indications are this was like a truck bomb that you know,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians were able to blow up the Crimean bridge.
Speaker 1: This is a legitimate military target. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: it's not. But Crimea is a different deal than the
Speaker 1: rest of Ukraine. And that also was very provocative, very asculatory,
Speaker 1: and that's when we saw the height of the you know,
Speaker 1: the worst rhetoric and the worst possibility, a potential nuclear
Speaker 1: you know, nuclear tactical nuclear weapon use. So I feel
Speaker 1: like and the other piece that I would add to
Speaker 1: this too is, you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: indications that we actually have had very little insight into
Speaker 1: what the Ukrainians are planning, how they're prosecuting the war,
Speaker 1: that we had more intel about what the Russians were
Speaker 1: planning to do than what our own allies the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: were willing to do. I have to think all of
Speaker 1: this has led to the Biden administration saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: we need to make a bit of a pivot. You're
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. And also poll came out ABC News Washington
Speaker 1: Post poll fifty something percent of GOP voters now say
Speaker 1: we're giving too much aid to Ukraine. That number was
Speaker 1: six back in March. So consider that a complete flip
Speaker 1: in the way that GOP voters are considering it. And
Speaker 1: those people are now going to be in power. So
Speaker 1: I think that that, more than anything, also could impact
Speaker 1: the way that they I mean, they're not stupid. They
Speaker 1: have to look at unified government as going away, which
Speaker 1: means that you're going to have to make very very
Speaker 1: different choices whenever you reliant on a very compliant Congress. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's it also I mean in the sense I
Speaker 1: know Biden wants Democrats to hold onto control of the
Speaker 1: House and the Senate, but it actually gives him a
Speaker 1: bit of a point of leverage. Ohto Lensky, whether the
Speaker 1: Republicans are ultimately full of show, which they probably are
Speaker 1: or not. You can Hey, the incoming likely speaker of
Speaker 1: the House says he's done, and look at this poll.
Speaker 1: My population is shifting. So you're going to have to
Speaker 1: work with me here otherwise you can't count on this,
Speaker 1: you know, just continued consistent shipment of weapons and aids,
Speaker 1: so that has probably strengthened his hand in some of
Speaker 1: these negotiations. The other piece that we wanted to bring
Speaker 1: you is, you know, I mean the situation throughout Ukraine
Speaker 1: and not just in the Eastern you know, other regions
Speaker 1: is quite quite dire and quite frightening for the residents there.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: Kiev is actually planning for a potential total evacuation if
Speaker 1: they lose electricity cities, also establishing a thousand heating centers
Speaker 1: for its three million residents. As Russia pounds away at
Speaker 1: civilian targets, they say they're struggling to maintain an electricity
Speaker 1: grid that's been heavily damaged by Russian missiles. They've started
Speaker 1: planning for what they describe as a once unthinkable possibility,
Speaker 1: a complete blackout that would require the evacuation of the
Speaker 1: city's three million remaining residents. The situation is already quite bad.
Speaker 1: They have forty percent of Ukraine's energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed.
Speaker 1: Municipal workers are setting up heating shelters, but they lack
Speaker 1: a lot of the needed equipment at this point, and
Speaker 1: to try to keep the grid from falling all together,
Speaker 1: Ukraine's National Energy Utility set on Saturday it would continue
Speaker 1: to impose rolling blackouts in seven regions. And y'all, it
Speaker 1: is getting cold in Ukraine and it is only set
Speaker 1: to get colder. Yeah, I mean, look right now when
Speaker 1: we're recording this, it's forty four degrees. It's the low
Speaker 1: is thirty nine. That's actually a little bit warm from
Speaker 1: what I've read. As we said, in general, the average
Speaker 1: temperature does not go above the thirties from November fifteenth
Speaker 1: until March, so they have four straight months of cold.
Speaker 1: Zelenski was actually warning just this morning, Chrystal, this is
Speaker 1: the major news, which is he says the power outages
Speaker 1: have no sign He keeps warning that major infrastructure attacks
Speaker 1: on Kiev are going to continue. So I think this
Speaker 1: evacuation plan is not a joke. I think that the
Speaker 1: Russians are waiting for exactly the right time to strike.
Speaker 1: And look, this actually fits very much in what they
Speaker 1: are capable of. They have terrible battlefield advance Their troops
Speaker 1: are mostly conscripts. They don't have the ability to launch
Speaker 1: a full scale like combined arms offensive. So what do
Speaker 1: you do. You have superior technology and you use the
Speaker 1: hell out of it against the enemy center of gravity,
Speaker 1: which is the capital where they run everything, a symbol
Speaker 1: of Ukrainian resistance and to have to evacuate your capital
Speaker 1: city in the middle of a war would be a
Speaker 1: massive emotional blow. Getting really, there's no getting wrong. And
Speaker 1: I mean these are designed to undercut the will to
Speaker 1: continue fighting. And we actually saw we saw a poll
Speaker 1: that we didn't actually end up showing it on the
Speaker 1: on the program right of Ukrainians and by region, you
Speaker 1: know what they want? Are they in it? Like, no
Speaker 1: matter what, We're going to take all the territory back.
Speaker 1: And in the eastern places like Keeve, that is very
Speaker 1: much overwhelmingly in the sentiment the places that have been
Speaker 1: at war and have been living with this for years.
Speaker 1: At this point, there's a much more complex picture there.
Speaker 1: And so the gamble from Moscow is basically like, and
Speaker 1: they don't have a lot of great hands to play
Speaker 1: at this point, is like, we're going to wear down
Speaker 1: this population so that they're willing to come to the
Speaker 1: table and open to some sort of and you know,
Speaker 1: end to this war. That's what they want to do,
Speaker 1: is to undercut the will to fight. Will it work,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's not crazy to think that
Speaker 1: when people are facing you know, elderly people facing a
Speaker 1: long winter freezing, that you become willing to accept things
Speaker 1: that maybe, you know, when things were going better, you
Speaker 1: weren't really willing to accept. Well. See, and it's a
Speaker 1: time honor tradition now of total war. You have to
Speaker 1: go after, you know, the enemy's civilian infrastructure. It's something
Speaker 1: that's certainly going to happen. And whether it will break
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian will or not, I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: it necessarily will, but it will inflict chaos on the
Speaker 1: life of million. Yeah, that's where no doubt about it. Focus,
Speaker 1: there's kids, you know, people, the old people die whenever
Speaker 1: your power outages your hospitals, I see, you know, all
Speaker 1: these things just go blank and a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of people will die as a result of this, which
Speaker 1: is just really sir, perfect Okay, all right, last little piece.
Speaker 1: We wanted to bring you here before we get our monologue.
Speaker 1: So there's already a lot of finger pointing going on
Speaker 1: in cable news. Who's to blame what went wrong? And
Speaker 1: of course soccer, Yes, the Democrats can never fail. They
Speaker 1: can only be failed, right, And so Joey read over
Speaker 1: on MSMB MSBC had an interesting explanation of what exactly
Speaker 1: has gone wrong in this election cycle. Take a listen.
Speaker 1: But people I ever heard here use the word inflation
Speaker 1: are journalists and economists, right, So that is not part
Speaker 1: of the normal lexicon of the way people talk. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that Republicans are doing something they don't normally do, right,
Speaker 1: which is not used the common tongue, right, not used,
Speaker 1: just common English to sort of use do on their campaigns,
Speaker 1: like they're doing with prime. But what they've done is
Speaker 1: they've taught people the word inflation. Right. Most people who
Speaker 1: have never used that word ever in their lives, are
Speaker 1: using it now because they've been taught it, including on TV,
Speaker 1: including in newspapers. They've been taught this word, and they
Speaker 1: sort of wrap this word around whatever it is that
Speaker 1: they really want to vote. Okay, yes, people who you
Speaker 1: had no idea what inflation was before the Republicans. So
Speaker 1: the boomers who lived through the nineteen seventies have never
Speaker 1: worn the name inflation. The gen Xers who also were
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies never heard their parents use the
Speaker 1: word inflation. I wasn't even born in the time of
Speaker 1: my inflation, and I know with the Norman inflation is
Speaker 1: so I think people know what the hell is going on. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just I see this stuff all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Stacy Abrams says that she might lose because of misinformation
Speaker 1: amongst black men. That's it misinformation. Maybe you suck. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like, why is it always the fault of
Speaker 1: the voters for misusing or mislearning the term inflation. It's
Speaker 1: a technical term. You don't have to like it. You
Speaker 1: can contest it if you would like. Yeah, well, with
Speaker 1: there's been a whole narrative in you know, on the
Speaker 1: twitters and in the in the ecosystem, the media ecosystem
Speaker 1: of like, the media is being too hard on Democrats
Speaker 1: and the economy. The economy is actually great, and this
Speaker 1: is like, you know, this is hurting Democrats that you're
Speaker 1: portraying the economic situation is much worse than it actually is.
Speaker 1: And look, I don't deny the economy. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a weird situation because you do have continued low unemployment.
Speaker 1: But I think it is the height of condescension and
Speaker 1: contempt to think that people don't know what's going on
Speaker 1: in their own lives and when they tell you they're struggling,
Speaker 1: like they mean it. It's not because Republicans had a
Speaker 1: talking point or the media or whatever. They are able
Speaker 1: to experience that for themselves. And so you know, I
Speaker 1: guess this is I certainly have been making the case.
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders been making the case. There are a few
Speaker 1: voices out there that are saying, like, hey, maybe y'all
Speaker 1: should have talked about the economy. This is a way
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that the economic concerns ended up being a
Speaker 1: big issue, but also to never cast any blame with
Speaker 1: the Democrats for failing to offer any affirmative, any explanation
Speaker 1: for why this was happening, any firm a program that
Speaker 1: would help people. Instead, it's like, oh, just the Republican
Speaker 1: media machine taught people the word inflation and that's why
Speaker 1: we're living. That's again, No, it's not. Or maybe people
Speaker 1: are like, hey, I would just I love the idea
Speaker 1: of somebody wh've been like, my groceries are more expensive.
Speaker 1: What's the name for that? And somebody's a inflation like, No, no,
Speaker 1: that's a Republican term. It's no, it's it's just more expensive.
Speaker 1: It is a technical increase in price relative to time.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's all. We have to consider it as
Speaker 1: whether it matters and what's the cause that Listen, there's
Speaker 1: a real debate around that one. That's fun, which we
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time talking about here on the show.
Speaker 1: But to deny that it's happening just totally ridiculous. Me again,
Speaker 1: the same thing. Oh, misinformation is the reason why black
Speaker 1: men are, you know, moving to Republicans and Latino men.
Speaker 1: Actually in his I think one of the major if
Speaker 1: I have to predict, one of our major segments we're
Speaker 1: going to do on our show is going to be
Speaker 1: black and Latino men moving in historic degrees to Republicans.
Speaker 1: There's been a real gender polarization, yes, over the last
Speaker 1: couple of months, and field Biro in part, which is fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. Possible. I don't know though, because it predates it.
Speaker 1: Maybe the accelerated well yeah, I think it was already printing,
Speaker 1: But I do think that Royal health to accelerate it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the problem for Democrats isn't that people learned
Speaker 1: what influenced that. The economic reality is not good, and
Speaker 1: Democrats haven't done a good job explaining what they would
Speaker 1: do differently. All right, tag already looking at well. As
Speaker 1: soon as next week, they say Trump may launch his
Speaker 1: next bid for the presidency, upending our politics in the
Speaker 1: current dynamic that I'm about to speak about. But it's
Speaker 1: important this moment in time is never memory hold, because
Speaker 1: perhaps the day may come in November twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: or in twenty twenty eight, but Trump eventually will be
Speaker 1: gone from our lives. The people who he saved last
Speaker 1: time around will have to confront once again what their
Speaker 1: lives really did look like without him. This week is
Speaker 1: kind of perfect last week without Trump. To consider the
Speaker 1: state of our news business. In the span of seventy
Speaker 1: two hours, three of the major networks announced major cuts
Speaker 1: across the board, revealing how pathetic their underlying business and
Speaker 1: viewership really is. Each of these instances, in their own
Speaker 1: right tells us a lot about how much our culture
Speaker 1: and population has changed, and how little trust that these
Speaker 1: major networks are tained. Let's start with Shepherd Smith. Got
Speaker 1: to say this. I got nothing against the man. He
Speaker 1: was actually good at Fox News, only at breaking news.
Speaker 1: But when he dramatically left the network in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: it was considered a major shock. He effectively anchored the
Speaker 1: breaking news credibility of the Fox News brand. Smith was
Speaker 1: paid some twenty million dollars a year, considered an essential
Speaker 1: person with a lot of credibility, and then something interesting happened.
Speaker 1: He was picked up by CNBC under the presumption he
Speaker 1: has a ton of credibility, he'll add a lot to
Speaker 1: the brand. He debuted a primetime show in September twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: What happened, absolutely nobody cared. It turned out Smith wasn't
Speaker 1: nearly as powerful as people thought he was. He didn't
Speaker 1: really have an audience. He was just good at narrating
Speaker 1: a car chase or whatever to do in the event
Speaker 1: of a hurricane. His low rated show flopped from the beginning,
Speaker 1: becoming effectively irrelevant in the two years that it was
Speaker 1: on the air. Even when it was canceled. The only
Speaker 1: thing noteworthy about it was that it was finally canceled.
Speaker 1: So why is that important? Because it shows that the
Speaker 1: so called stars really aren't stars at all. Their high
Speaker 1: paychecks more reflect insane market dynamics of a dying business
Speaker 1: that are than they are any worth to actually bringing
Speaker 1: real people's lives. Next on the list is a funny
Speaker 1: one too. Tiffany Cross, straight up canceled on MSNBC. Cross
Speaker 1: Too was a great example of the dying cable news business.
Speaker 1: Cross is just a racial shock jock in the mold
Speaker 1: of joy read just not as good at it says
Speaker 1: incendiary things about aw awful and racist America is she
Speaker 1: gets paid big bucks to do it. She hosted a
Speaker 1: Saturday show called cross Talk, actually on cable, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: she hosted an online show on Peacock TV. Now most
Speaker 1: of you know Peacock for the Office or for Yellowstone,
Speaker 1: but don't forget. NBC also was trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make streaming news work on their platform. They
Speaker 1: hired Meddie Hassen Cross in a bid to compete with
Speaker 1: shows like Hours and appeal to younger people. They cross
Speaker 1: promote their online shows on the major news channel in
Speaker 1: the hopes that people will come over. But guess what,
Speaker 1: it didn't work out, did it. NBC has never released
Speaker 1: the numbers for Peacock shows, but considering the Cross left
Speaker 1: and no one really cares. Even Hassen's shoke, of course,
Speaker 1: is irrelevant, as is the former White House aid Simone Sanders.
Speaker 1: Their bid to compete in news streaming is a failure.
Speaker 1: Cross was a great reflection of that. They're discovering that
Speaker 1: when people have actual choice, like what they do not
Speaker 1: have on cable, then their real feelings about their lack
Speaker 1: of credibility really comes out when they don't watch. And finally,
Speaker 1: my personal favorite CNN versus Jake Tapper, the so called
Speaker 1: rock of CNN. I'll say this, I guess he's better
Speaker 1: than the rest of them, but he's a lot like
Speaker 1: Shep Smith. He's good at the news, at actually getting
Speaker 1: people to want to watch, turns out not so much.
Speaker 1: Tapper flopped in the brief ex experiment with Primetime drawing
Speaker 1: only four hundred and fifty thousand viewers in total, a
Speaker 1: fraction of that in the key demographic. Even people in
Speaker 1: the cable news business who are used to having only
Speaker 1: old people watch described it as quote abysmal. The network
Speaker 1: claimed that he would have returned to daytime as always
Speaker 1: planned after the midterms, which is laughable. They hailed his
Speaker 1: placement there as a big move for the brand, which
Speaker 1: was all about the news and had all the intentions
Speaker 1: of making it permanent. They only backtracked after they realized
Speaker 1: how awful the numbers were. Then. Of course, Don Lemon
Speaker 1: Trump once aptly named him as the dumbest man on television,
Speaker 1: and he is fulfilling his promise in the debut of
Speaker 1: his new morning show. The numbers on this one are
Speaker 1: so low it is difficult to believe. As puck News,
Speaker 1: Dylan Byers writes, quote, the inaugural episode drew three hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty seven thousand total viewers seventy one thousand in
Speaker 1: the twenty five to fifty year old demographic, numbers that
Speaker 1: are significantly lower than the last incarnation at CNN's New Day.
Speaker 1: Media executives described it to me by turn as quote
Speaker 1: humiliating in abject disaster. All of that comes on the
Speaker 1: heels of bad news for CNN, whose new parent company
Speaker 1: of Warner Brothers Discovery, has sixty billion dollars in debt
Speaker 1: and now they have to cut ten percent of their
Speaker 1: entire budget. At CNN, with one hundred million dollars required
Speaker 1: in savings just this year, hundreds will be fired. Many
Speaker 1: anchors and talent could lose their job. I don't cheer
Speaker 1: any layperson losing their job, but when Don Lemon Show
Speaker 1: eventually does get canceled, I will be the first one laughing. Again.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this as an important reminder. Without Trump, these
Speaker 1: people are dead men walking. They will get their boost again.
Speaker 1: The boomers will come back, Let's be clear. But by
Speaker 1: the way, also don't think I'm not sparing Fox, They
Speaker 1: too are just as pathetic in their ratings and the
Speaker 1: key demographic. Their numbers may be higher overall than CNN
Speaker 1: or MSNBC, but their reliance on older viewers is somewhat
Speaker 1: even more of an existential threat. Their boomers too will
Speaker 1: come back for Trump, and that squares a circle. All
Speaker 1: of these networks got a huge lifeline in the time
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, but the best he was was a
Speaker 1: band aid that could stop the bleeding. The writing was
Speaker 1: on the wall in twenty fifteen. Today it is even
Speaker 1: bolder than then. Put this monologue in a time capsule,
Speaker 1: remember it. Over the next few years, you're going to
Speaker 1: see a lot of people in the industry crowing about
Speaker 1: how the people who predicted their demise came too early.
Speaker 1: In the reality, it all rests upon a figure who's
Speaker 1: now much bigger than all of them, Trump And when
Speaker 1: he eventually leaves the bill for their obsession with him
Speaker 1: and the sacrifice of their credibility will truly come due.
Speaker 1: And I'll be laughing, and probably in the interim few
Speaker 1: years too, because the end of cable is just a
Speaker 1: cause too great to be celebrated. And listen, I mean
Speaker 1: it's actually fir And if you want to hear my
Speaker 1: reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Christal, what are you taking to look at? Well, guys,
Speaker 1: as you know, the midterms are tomorrow, you know what
Speaker 1: that means. We are two days from the official start
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty four presidential election. Right now, looks
Speaker 1: pretty likely we're going to get the rematch that absolutely
Speaker 1: no one asks for Trump versus Biden the sequel. It's
Speaker 1: one of the clearer signs of our societal and democratic
Speaker 1: decline that two men with negative approval ratings that a
Speaker 1: majority of the country says really clearly that they do
Speaker 1: not want those two dudes very likely to be the
Speaker 1: major party standard bearers. But while that outcome is likely,
Speaker 1: it's far from predetermined. We already covered Trump preparing to
Speaker 1: announce shortly after the midterms, taking shots at likely rival DeSantis.
Speaker 1: There are some things going on on the Democratic side
Speaker 1: of Ledger two though that might cause one to question
Speaker 1: whether Biden is in fact going to end up being
Speaker 1: the Democratic pick once again. So, first of all, dude
Speaker 1: hasn't been doing so well in the public eye lately,
Speaker 1: as we covered last week. In a recent appearance, Biden
Speaker 1: misidentified the war that we're currently involved in and then
Speaker 1: seconds later misstated how his own son died. Again. Take
Speaker 1: a look at that, and they talk about inflation. You know,
Speaker 1: we're dealing with it for a second. Inflation is a
Speaker 1: worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq
Speaker 1: and the impact on oil and what Russia's doing. I mean,
Speaker 1: the excuse me, the war in Ukraine and uh thinking
Speaker 1: of iract because that's my son died. Yeah, because of
Speaker 1: even We're not worthy than Yet another Biden stumble, However,
Speaker 1: was the fact that The New York Times, which is
Speaker 1: basically a mouthpiece for elite opinion, actually covered those stumbles.
Speaker 1: One of their most prominent reporter's chief White House correspondent,
Speaker 1: Peter Baker, he wrote a piece highlighting those brain malfunctions.
Speaker 1: This came at the same time that George Will, a
Speaker 1: conservative establishment fixture for decades, wrote a scathing column begging
Speaker 1: Democrats not to stick with Biden or his failed vice
Speaker 1: president Kamala Harris. Will wrote in that column regarding Biden
Speaker 1: and Harris, the National Democratic Party faces two tests of stewardship.
Speaker 1: It's in primature cannot again be bestowed on either one
Speaker 1: of them. Biden has not just passed his prime even
Speaker 1: adequacy is in his past, and this is Harris's prime. Ouch.
Speaker 1: Now there is one more to add to this list
Speaker 1: of elite critiques of Biden. Reuter's has a reported piece
Speaker 1: out asking whether major midterm losses are going to lead
Speaker 1: to Democrats pulling the plug on the current president. The
Speaker 1: article begins quite provocatively, They write, the US midterm elections
Speaker 1: on Tuesday will do much more than shape the next
Speaker 1: two years of Joe Biden's presidency. They'll help determine whether
Speaker 1: he will run in twenty twenty four, as well, political
Speaker 1: advisors believe. They then go on to report on the
Speaker 1: efforts of a few Blue state governors to position themselves
Speaker 1: to the possibility Biden decides not to run after all,
Speaker 1: namely California's Gavin Newsom, Illinois JB. Pritzker, and apparently New
Speaker 1: Jersey's Phil Murphy. Okay, they also have a bunch of
Speaker 1: quotes from named and anonymous analysts questioning whether Biden is
Speaker 1: really the party's best choice for the future. Now, these
Speaker 1: articles are only interesting and that they give us little
Speaker 1: glimpse into a Washington insider game of jocking and of leaking. Basically,
Speaker 1: what these articles all signal is that the party donors
Speaker 1: and elites do not want Biden to be the nominee again. Now,
Speaker 1: these types of frankly always kind of underestimated Biden. They
Speaker 1: look down on him for his lack of educational pedigree
Speaker 1: and for a political style that leans into retail and
Speaker 1: gut instinct. Over the overly intellectual stylistic approach of saying
Speaker 1: Obama or a Pete. Ironically, they actually looked down on
Speaker 1: Biden for some of his more compelling characteristics rather than
Speaker 1: any of the actual policy issues with him. But this
Speaker 1: sid of party elites would prefer the Silicon Valley connected
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom or their real wet dream the McKinsey credentialed
Speaker 1: Pete Bootagic. Now, this whole dynamic of elites unsure of Biden,
Speaker 1: it does have a bit of a deja vu quality
Speaker 1: to it. In the run up to the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: Den primary, there were similar questions about Biden's fitness and
Speaker 1: capability to lead the party into the modern era. Typically,
Speaker 1: a former vice president would be seen as a clear
Speaker 1: era apparent would more or less be able to clear
Speaker 1: the nominating field. Instead, Biden's perceived weakness led to a
Speaker 1: record breaking number of candidates, everyone from outsiders to insiders,
Speaker 1: the latter climbers to people we had never heard of
Speaker 1: and really haven't heard from. Since it's easy to forget now,
Speaker 1: but the time you were even allowed to question whether
Speaker 1: Biden's age had caught up with him. Remember this, he
Speaker 1: wanted every single person in this country covered. My plan
Speaker 1: would do that? Your plan would? We do not have
Speaker 1: to buy in, They do not have to buy in.
Speaker 1: Said that, you just said that two minutes ago. You
Speaker 1: just said two minutes ago that they would have to
Speaker 1: buy in. You said they would have to buy in
Speaker 1: and to buy in if you qualify. Are you forgetting
Speaker 1: what you said for? But ultimately, when it came down
Speaker 1: to it, political donor and mediate leads underestimated Biden and
Speaker 1: wildly overestimated the bench that they had imagined to be
Speaker 1: stacked with talent and with appeal as there would be replacements,
Speaker 1: were rejected one by one by one by the American public.
Speaker 1: They were finally, at the last minute, faced with the
Speaker 1: reality that their only chance to keep Bernie from being
Speaker 1: the nominee was to go all in for Biden. As
Speaker 1: Biden's own wife once put it, to suck it up
Speaker 1: and vote Joe. Now, if I had to guess, I'd
Speaker 1: say we're going to see a similar process play on
Speaker 1: if the big terms result in the red wave that
Speaker 1: looks pretty likely at this point, expect a whole lot
Speaker 1: more articles like this CNN and MSNBC. They're going to
Speaker 1: lift their moratorium on discussing Biden's mental acuity leaks are
Speaker 1: going to fly. Anonymous DEM consultants will savage Biden aids
Speaker 1: to Pete Newsome and others are going to plant lots
Speaker 1: of negative Biden stories. Polls will flood the field, revealing
Speaker 1: once again the Democrats would love to nominate someone other
Speaker 1: than Joe Biden. And then eventually reality will set in
Speaker 1: once again for these elites. Reality that the elected dem
Speaker 1: bench is even less popular than Biden. Reality that as
Speaker 1: adult as Biden may be, he didn't spend all his
Speaker 1: life chasing the brass ring just to give it up
Speaker 1: because some donor types are thirsting after may or Pete.
Speaker 1: Reality that even in their fantasy world where Biden willingly
Speaker 1: steps aside, Dems then have to grapple with the fact
Speaker 1: that they can't just push aside the first black female
Speaker 1: vice president for casting governor white guys without facing a
Speaker 1: wave of shrieking about racism and sexism. Just like last time,
Speaker 1: almost instantaneously, the media will shift from questioning Biden to
Speaker 1: uncritical flattery. The close ranks hard and try to snuff
Speaker 1: out any outsiders who consider challenging Biden in the primary
Speaker 1: without the party blessing. But even after elites circle the wagons,
Speaker 1: one problem for Biden will still remain, and that's the
Speaker 1: hard fact that the Democratic base desperately wants other options,
Speaker 1: and that base, having seen the weakness of Biden's electability argument,
Speaker 1: with a mid term sheal acting and after a few
Speaker 1: more years of mainstream media weakening and alternative media strengthening,
Speaker 1: they might not be as easily corralled this time around
Speaker 1: as they were last time for Biden. The people, not demolites,
Speaker 1: are the real threat Sager I saw this morning jensak
Speaker 1: for and if you want to hear my reaction to
Speaker 1: Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, predictions, all right, should we lay it all
Speaker 1: on the table. Let's do it. Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's go all right, let's go one by one? All right,
Speaker 1: all right, So, first of all, the House is going
Speaker 1: Republican obviously, do you have any guests of the margin?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say R plus twenty five. Yeah, that's see.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm shamelessly stealing that from the Coco
Speaker 1: political way. And also, what's Kyle condyck of where Crystal
Speaker 1: ball they both have the same thing. That's yeah, I
Speaker 1: was going to say the same thing for the same reason.
Speaker 1: There you go. They are paying a lot more attention
Speaker 1: to those races than I am, so and they're lots
Speaker 1: smarter on these things. So better to go with the
Speaker 1: experts on that one, all right, Georgia. Okay, Georgia, I
Speaker 1: think Herschel Walker's is gonna win. Do you think he's
Speaker 1: going to avoid a runoff? No, I don't think he'll
Speaker 1: avoid a runoff. I think you will win narrowly by
Speaker 1: like one or two percentage points, and that ultimately will
Speaker 1: probably prevail on the runoff, although it makes it more uncertain.
Speaker 1: What about you agree? Okay, same, I think it'll be close, Georgia.
Speaker 1: The polls have been pretty accurate in Georgia, both in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and then in the runoffs, they were pretty
Speaker 1: on the money. They show a very close race. None
Speaker 1: of them shows either one of them surpassing fifty percentage points,
Speaker 1: which is what you have to do to avoid a runoff.
Speaker 1: So I would also say Walker by a little bit,
Speaker 1: but you're going to a runoff, all right? What about Nevada? Nevada,
Speaker 1: I'm still going to go with Adam Laxalt even after
Speaker 1: John Ralston's predictions, after seeing my friends Cory Larry on
Speaker 1: Ralston's own numbers and doing some of the analysis, I
Speaker 1: think Laksolt will pull it out by maybe one point
Speaker 1: or something like that. It is very tight, though, and
Speaker 1: this is why it's difficult to make these start. I'll
Speaker 1: stand with Ralston just because he has such a good
Speaker 1: track record. Here. My instinct would have been Laxalt, but
Speaker 1: because he is so steeped in the numbers and has
Speaker 1: such a good track record, I'll say that Catherine Cortez
Speaker 1: Master holds on there. Okay, next, Okay, what about I'll
Speaker 1: say Pennsylvania for last? What about Arizona, Mark Kelly versus
Speaker 1: Blake Masters. I think Masters pulls it out by a
Speaker 1: couple I'll tell you why. The gubernatorial numbers are just
Speaker 1: too good. Carrie Lake is nuking Katie's option. So even
Speaker 1: if you have some split ticket this is actually I
Speaker 1: might surprise people in Pennsylvania in terms of my analysis,
Speaker 1: but the gubernatorial I think really matters in the Arizona context.
Speaker 1: Whenever you have split ticket voting, it's not something that
Speaker 1: you can bank on Carrie Lake winning that race by
Speaker 1: like ten points right now, and I think that Carrie's
Speaker 1: popularity will bleed over onto Masters instead of vice versa.
Speaker 1: This is the one I'm probably well that. Actually I'm
Speaker 1: not that sure of any of them, but i gonna
Speaker 1: say I'm going to say Mark Kelly holds on because
Speaker 1: the thing that persuaded me there is that you had
Speaker 1: voters saying cultural issues were more important than in other states.
Speaker 1: He has a long standing and predating him being a
Speaker 1: senator profile in the state, and you know, very like
Speaker 1: positive feelings about him. Masterss has run just an abysmal campaign.
Speaker 1: Arizona is a place where, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: demographic trends are more in democrats favor. It's also a
Speaker 1: place where the polling has also tended to be more accurate.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say Mark Kelly holds on in Arizona.
Speaker 1: Let's go to New Hampshire. What do you think about
Speaker 1: New Hampshire? Okay, New Hampshire. It's a tough one. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say, Brian Baldock, I'm betting on the Red
Speaker 1: we I'm not going to go with it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: my my analysis is that Redway. Listen, I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: that region. What do we know about it? Big polling
Speaker 1: misses in the last contest Susan Collins in Maine, not
Speaker 1: the same state, I'm aware New Hampshire. Rites that being said,
Speaker 1: the poll was missed by ten points, and that was
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, much more favorable environment. Haston is a
Speaker 1: much weaker candidate. Bulldock might be kind of crazy. The
Speaker 1: fundamentals are all going in the GOP direction, major tightening,
Speaker 1: no election or no early vote in the state. I
Speaker 1: think it's just just a I think again, given the
Speaker 1: way that the trends are going, the poll under it. Also,
Speaker 1: there's actually not been all that many high quality poles
Speaker 1: out of New Hampshire up until very recently, so that
Speaker 1: was another reason, you know what, actually kind of fled.
Speaker 1: I actually was thinking New Hampshire Republicans would take it
Speaker 1: until I saw that Trafalgar only had Baldock by one,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, Trafalgar's only got you win
Speaker 1: in by one. That's pretty close to where the Democratic
Speaker 1: polls are. The Democratic polls have HASSENPI like a couple
Speaker 1: of points or not. The Democrat the mainstream polls have
Speaker 1: Hassen by a couple of points. I'm going to say
Speaker 1: she holds on there as well. Let's do I think
Speaker 1: we both agree. Ohio jd Vance is going to win.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be particularly close. Wisconsin, Ron Johnson
Speaker 1: is going to hang on. They're not particularly close. North
Speaker 1: Carolina is another one that sort of is in that realm,
Speaker 1: same thing. I think the Republican holds on and wins
Speaker 1: there not a difficult one, all right. How about Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with oz Man at the conqueror. I
Speaker 1: just I don't. I think given the debate, the early
Speaker 1: vote numbers were very high, but there's not a lot
Speaker 1: that people could make of that we generally see. I
Speaker 1: think with the enthusiasm Republican sorry, what was it, Biden
Speaker 1: approval rating is so low in the state. The only
Speaker 1: reason I think Fetterman might pull it out is the
Speaker 1: strength of Josh Shapiro. So this is that's the flip
Speaker 1: of Arizona. This is the flip of Arizona where Shapiro
Speaker 1: is up by ten. So to have then a split
Speaker 1: ticket of Shapiro and Oz doesn't make a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me. Mastriano in many ways
Speaker 1: might be more responsible for oz Is lost than even
Speaker 1: Oz himself because he's such a bad candidate, prevents a
Speaker 1: split straight ticket GOP. But I think he's gonna pull
Speaker 1: it out. I mean one point. To have that margin
Speaker 1: in a flawed polling environment makes it so very difficult
Speaker 1: to bet against it. So I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: it's possible list that one would actually ironically, that one
Speaker 1: surprised me the least. If Fetterman you could see it
Speaker 1: going the other way. That one, I think is truly
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty. But look, if I had to bet,
Speaker 1: I think I'm betting Oz. I am also going to
Speaker 1: bet Oz on this one because the polls are extremely close,
Speaker 1: and at this point, Real Clear Politics has OZ with
Speaker 1: a point one percent advantage, and Pennsylvania's a state where
Speaker 1: we've had big polling misses in favor of the Republicans.
Speaker 1: So when I look at a jump ball in terms
Speaker 1: of the polls and I think about past history, I
Speaker 1: have to think that that's understating Republican support, probably in
Speaker 1: the western part of the state and more like white
Speaker 1: working class areas. So yeah, I'm going to say that
Speaker 1: Oz pulls that one, pulls out the victory. There. There
Speaker 1: you go. That's our fun thing. I will remind people
Speaker 1: GOP people don't like to I called every state in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election. I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 1: Yeah you did, Yeah, yeah, you nailed it electoral college.
Speaker 1: And now, of course the Republicans are like, no, because
Speaker 1: the election was rigged. But listen, you know I think
Speaker 1: I have That's my only time I've ever done this,
Speaker 1: So it was yeah, so you guys, you got to
Speaker 1: go to subtrack. I'm joking. I don't know anything. I
Speaker 1: know just as much as all of you and as you.
Speaker 1: I think it could go easily that way, it could
Speaker 1: go my way. I think it could go. You know
Speaker 1: why I love these things is the probabilities, which is
Speaker 1: that I think there's a ten percent chance the Republicans
Speaker 1: win like fifty five seats, and I think there's a
Speaker 1: ten percent chance if they lose every single one of
Speaker 1: these every single one of these things, somewhere, it's going
Speaker 1: to be in the middle. That's kind of how probability works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do continue to think that they'll all
Speaker 1: fall in one direction, which honestly kind of argues against
Speaker 1: all of the picks that I just made, with the
Speaker 1: one exception being that no, that I do think is
Speaker 1: a little bit that is structurally a little bit different
Speaker 1: than the rest of the country. So I can imagine
Speaker 1: a scenario Dumcrats hold there even as they lose like
Speaker 1: everywhere else. The one I feel probably the most confident
Speaker 1: about is just like Georgia going to a runoff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see either Walker or Warnock coming on top there.
Speaker 1: I think probably Walker at this point, but I could
Speaker 1: see it going either way. But I have a hard
Speaker 1: time imagining either one of them getting over fifty percent.
Speaker 1: The fun thing on George is actually gonna know that
Speaker 1: relatively soon, or at least we'll get some great indications
Speaker 1: because the pole clothes there at like seven or seven.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right when we're on the air, we're going
Speaker 1: to start getting initial numbers, and I think with an
Speaker 1: hour we'll have a very good idea of like where
Speaker 1: things are. We should also, you know, we really before
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty elections, we really went on in deep
Speaker 1: on like, Okay, here's the results that are going to
Speaker 1: come in. First, the mail and bouts are going to
Speaker 1: come in, and then this is going to end the
Speaker 1: day of and whatever. So we didn't go as in
Speaker 1: depth on that, but just also keep in mind that
Speaker 1: the mode of voting has become fairly partisan. Democrats much
Speaker 1: more likely to vote early, Republicans much more likely to
Speaker 1: vote on election day. So just keep in mind as
Speaker 1: these results are coming in, you may see big shifts
Speaker 1: where there's nothing nefarious. It's just basically because Trump said
Speaker 1: that mail in voting is fake, that you have this
Speaker 1: partisan divide on how people vote, and so that may
Speaker 1: lead to some strange dynamics on election night, which is
Speaker 1: just something to keep in mind for all of us
Speaker 1: as we're watching these results ultimately come in. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm psyched. It's gonna be fun. We're gonna have the
Speaker 1: whole extended family in the house watching this thing live.
Speaker 1: And as you can tell, I mean, it really is
Speaker 1: really is hard to say on the Senate in particular,
Speaker 1: what direct all of these are going to fall going
Speaker 1: to be. I love election Day. You find out a
Speaker 1: lot about America a lot. It's one of the only
Speaker 1: times media gets real time checked all of us. It's
Speaker 1: a very humbling experience. I love the hell out of it.
Speaker 1: And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to cover with all of these. So maybe guys
Speaker 1: join us seven pm. We'll be up here on the
Speaker 1: desk as long as it is and then in the
Speaker 1: morning Wednesday we'll have a show for them for you
Speaker 1: all as well. So yeah, I think that you guys
Speaker 1: are going to have too much analysis. You get to
Speaker 1: pick up flood the zone. It's a flow, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: We're gonna flood the zone. It's a pick your own
Speaker 1: adventure for whatever you want to hear. And when we
Speaker 1: look forward to seeing all of you with Kyle and
Speaker 1: Marshall and Emily and Ryan so also our people on
Speaker 1: the ground. Seriously, I want to thank the Premiums so much.
Speaker 1: You know, it's in these times that we we just
Speaker 1: we think about how they have enabled us to give
Speaker 1: like a real production, to have real people on the
Speaker 1: ground to pay for that deo's interviews. I mean, that
Speaker 1: is the most expensive part of news gathering operation and
Speaker 1: it's solely because of your support. So if you like it,
Speaker 1: and by the way, we're heading into twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: you can sign up to be a linked down in
Speaker 1: the description. Otherwise we'll see you all tomorrow seven pm.
Speaker 1: Love y'all, See you soon.