Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have
Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today, a little bit of
Speaker 1: at home show of personal reasons. But Crystal, what do
Speaker 1: we have today? Yeah, indeed we do, and we'll be
Speaker 1: back in the studio on Thursday. But a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff to get to you this morning. We have more
Speaker 1: elon Musk and Twitter news. New Twitter files dropped. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's funny because I think people sort of lost interest
Speaker 1: in the Twitter files. But in some ways this was
Speaker 1: the most interesting one. The specific communications regarding the banning
Speaker 1: of any sort of links to the information about Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's laptop, So we'll get into all of that. We
Speaker 1: also now officially have criminal referrals being made by the
Speaker 1: January sixth committee of Donald Trump and a few of
Speaker 1: his associates. So we have those details and everything that
Speaker 1: that means. SBF has agreed to be extra guided to
Speaker 1: the United States. At the same time, we have more
Speaker 1: information about exactly who he was donating to, which is
Speaker 1: very interesting to dig into as well. And this story.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of fascinated by this new Republican conversation just
Speaker 1: one election, who apparently lied about literally every aspect of
Speaker 1: his bio where he worked for, what is businesses, where
Speaker 1: he lives, I mean everything you could possibly think of,
Speaker 1: and so that is now coming out. We'll give you
Speaker 1: the details on that and his reaction. We also have
Speaker 1: a great moment with Don Lemon being told to his
Speaker 1: face the problems with CNN and mainstream news and he
Speaker 1: doesn't take it all that well. Soccer, so that is
Speaker 1: what we're going to get into. But before we get
Speaker 1: to any of that live show, live show, I hope
Speaker 1: it's not too loud, as I shout into my microphone.
Speaker 1: That's right, Paramount Theater, Austin, Texas, Friday, February third. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have an awesome show there. We're gonna do some
Speaker 1: fun stuff while we're in Austin. We'll have great guests
Speaker 1: and we've got a great thing planned. It's going to
Speaker 1: probably be the last one of the season. So if
Speaker 1: you're in there on the fence, if you want to
Speaker 1: buy gift or anything like that, now is the time.
Speaker 1: Tickets are actually selling really, really well. So if you
Speaker 1: want to go ahead and grab your seat, now is
Speaker 1: the time, folks, before you get it into the new year.
Speaker 1: But let's start with Twitter. Of course, the Twitter files itself.
Speaker 1: There was some new and very interesting revelations put out
Speaker 1: by Michael Schellenberger, who's a part of Barry Weiss's The
Speaker 1: Free Press, with some revelations last night on the FBI
Speaker 1: and the Hunter Biden laptop story. So let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put the first one up there on the screen. Guys. This,
Speaker 1: in our view is one of the most important ones.
Speaker 1: It shows that Jim Baker, who is a former FBI
Speaker 1: General counsel and actually a staffer over at Twitter, repeatedly
Speaker 1: insisted to Twitter staff that the Hunter Biden materials were
Speaker 1: either quote faked, hacked, or both and it was a
Speaker 1: violation of Twitter policy. He did so in a Google
Speaker 1: doc and over email, both on October fourteenth and on
Speaker 1: October fifteenth. The reason why this matters is that Baker
Speaker 1: was setting the pretext through the initial banning of the
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story from The New York Post and
Speaker 1: peddling obviously false lies both at the time and in
Speaker 1: the future that the Hunter Biden laptop story and the
Speaker 1: associated materials were quote hacked or some sort of disinformation.
Speaker 1: You guys will remember, you had the Intel community and
Speaker 1: others saying this bears all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation,
Speaker 1: even though from day on one, all Hunter had to
Speaker 1: say is it's not my laptop, it's not true, and
Speaker 1: it's all fake, of which he has never once said,
Speaker 1: and of which all of the materials now on the
Speaker 1: laptop have since been confirmed. Let's go to the next
Speaker 1: one there, guys, and put it up there on the screen,
Speaker 1: because it's also important to remember this. By ten am,
Speaker 1: after the story had been dropped, already within nearly an hour,
Speaker 1: Twitter executives had bought into the quote hack and dump
Speaker 1: story quote. The suggestion from experts, which rings true, is
Speaker 1: that there was a hack that happened separately. Then they
Speaker 1: were loading the hacked materials on the laptop that then
Speaker 1: magically appaired appeared at a repair shop in Delaware. So crystal,
Speaker 1: they are clearly twisting themselves into lengths and honestly creating
Speaker 1: an even more fantastic story than what actually happened as
Speaker 1: to why these are hacked materials in the first place.
Speaker 1: And then finally the third element there, guys, please, which
Speaker 1: also just reveals here the deep connection between the FBI
Speaker 1: on the social media platforms. It continues to this very day.
Speaker 1: On August twentieth, In August of twenty twenty two, nearly
Speaker 1: two years after this, Twitter executives were still preparing for
Speaker 1: meeting with the FBI, whose goal was to quote convince
Speaker 1: us to produce on more FBI EDRs. EDRs there defined
Speaker 1: as emergency disclosure requests aka a warrantless search in which
Speaker 1: Twitter voluntarily hands over your and my and everybody else's
Speaker 1: information at the request of the FBI, possibly even for
Speaker 1: shit posting, for jokes. And it just shows again what
Speaker 1: they have. We've known really from the very beginning that
Speaker 1: there is a deep connection between the intelligence community and
Speaker 1: the social media companies. It goes deeper in some ways
Speaker 1: than we already know as to what they're curating and
Speaker 1: asking to be censored. But it is astounding to see
Speaker 1: this corrupt FBI former General Counsel Jim Baker directly playing
Speaker 1: a role in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story. Crystal, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, now we have all the pieces of coming
Speaker 1: into place. We knew before from Mark Zuckerberg over at
Speaker 1: Facebook slash Meta that they had been primed to expect
Speaker 1: some sort of hack and dump operation from the Deep States,
Speaker 1: so they had been warned something is coming, though they
Speaker 1: weren't told specifically about this Hunter Biden laptop situation. So
Speaker 1: when the Hunter Biden laptop information is revealed, they are
Speaker 1: all primed to think that this was a hack and
Speaker 1: dump rather than actually his laptop that actually got left
Speaker 1: at a computer repair shop. Same thing happened over at Twitter.
Speaker 1: So if you Yoel Roth and others who are sort
Speaker 1: of primed by the Deep State to expect some sort
Speaker 1: of hack and dump operation, so that's number one. Number two.
Speaker 1: When this actually happens, Joel Roth is actually very skeptical
Speaker 1: that this should be banned from the platform, that this
Speaker 1: violates terms of service whatsoever. And it's actually Baker, who
Speaker 1: of course has those FBI ties who really almost bullies
Speaker 1: and cajoles him into believing this fantastical conspiratorial story about
Speaker 1: how this information was really because of a hack and
Speaker 1: it wasn't legitimate and it should therefore be banned, And
Speaker 1: then you see them taking these incredibly heavy handed approach
Speaker 1: after the fact. So it's sort of you know, the
Speaker 1: FBI preps them for this Baker because he comes from
Speaker 1: that world, you know, pushes the most conspiratorial, absurd interpretation
Speaker 1: of what this material ultimately is, and then Uel Roth
Speaker 1: and others decide ultimately to act. That's the picture that's
Speaker 1: painted from this latest release. Yeah, I think that's right,
Speaker 1: and that's why we wanted to lead with it, which
Speaker 1: is and I know people are getting sick, including us,
Speaker 1: of talking about Elon and Twitter, but these are monumentally
Speaker 1: consequential events. I mean, we had a genuine election interference
Speaker 1: thing happened with Twitter where they just decided unilaterally to
Speaker 1: ban this story in a complete violation really of both
Speaker 1: their role as a quote unquote platform, moving totally into
Speaker 1: the publisher realm, and just setting this standard through which
Speaker 1: wh's been exposed that the intelligence community has these deep
Speaker 1: underlying connections of which even if you don't care about
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden laptop story, what we found out from
Speaker 1: Ken Klippenstein and from the intercepts reporting on the DHS.
Speaker 1: This is including Biden any criticism of Biden on the
Speaker 1: Afghan withdrawal quote unquote COVID misinformation, of which, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm still very much waiting for some of those Twitter
Speaker 1: files to be released. I would really love to see
Speaker 1: some of the lab leakue censorship, some of the other
Speaker 1: COVID censorship that happened within And we're also just learning
Speaker 1: that as capricious as Elon was, and he's a single individual,
Speaker 1: they had a bureaucratic capriciousness as well, in which they're
Speaker 1: straight up admitting many of these things don't abide by
Speaker 1: their own don't violate their own policies. And then we're
Speaker 1: also seeing the FBI just basically preparing the ground to
Speaker 1: get Twitter to censor whatever they want and browbeating them
Speaker 1: to the point where they're even making pro censorship figures
Speaker 1: uncomfortable Crystal with their monumental number of requests that they're
Speaker 1: sending over their way. Yeah, and I think the other
Speaker 1: piece that really becomes clear here as we put all
Speaker 1: these pieces together is just what incredible levels of evil
Speaker 1: were spawned by Russiagate, both in terms of the FBI
Speaker 1: and the expanded powers that they took on, and the
Speaker 1: expanded reach in terms of, hey, we now feel like
Speaker 1: we need to police every bad joke that's tweeted out
Speaker 1: from our own citizens, and then also the conception of
Speaker 1: these social media companies in terms of how they should
Speaker 1: be moderating content, because if it wasn't for their idea
Speaker 1: of you know, foreign interference from twenty sixteen, they would
Speaker 1: not have had this policy in place. Joel Roth directly says,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, after we learned what happened in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to take action. Here I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 1: but that was basically the idea. So you can see
Speaker 1: the way that Russiagate was used and perverted to hand
Speaker 1: both the social media companies and the deep state much
Speaker 1: more power and much more reach into our individual lives
Speaker 1: and into our sort of small d democratic speech. At
Speaker 1: the same time, Crystal, some interesting stuff happening with Elon
Speaker 1: Musk and the plane accounts, So guys, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. Musk has
Speaker 1: blamed the Twitter account for an alleged stocker. Police actually
Speaker 1: see no link and so yes, I will caution you
Speaker 1: it is co bylined by the one Tailor Orens. However,
Speaker 1: the information that we're after has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: Tailor Orens and has to do with the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Police Department, which said in a statement that his threat
Speaker 1: management unit was in contact with Musk Musk's representatives and
Speaker 1: security team, but that no crime report has yet been filed. However,
Speaker 1: video from the actual gas station where the confrontation occurred
Speaker 1: between an alleged stocker of both Elon of his ex
Speaker 1: y or I guess ex partner Grimes and Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: as well as his small child, appears to show that
Speaker 1: the incident in question happened actually twenty three hours after
Speaker 1: Musk Jet had already landed in Los Angeles and away
Speaker 1: from the airport itself, at a gas station allegedly near
Speaker 1: Grimes's home, So Crystal, this kind of casts doubt on
Speaker 1: the idea that the Elon Jet account itself had anything
Speaker 1: to do with the attack on Elon's sun in the
Speaker 1: car in the first place, because it happened so far
Speaker 1: after the fact and away from the airport. There's no
Speaker 1: indication that the airport actually played any role at all,
Speaker 1: even according to the police officers themselves. The police officers
Speaker 1: did caution and say, look, any sort of live information
Speaker 1: in all of that could have played a role. We
Speaker 1: don't yet have the full information on that, but we're
Speaker 1: still wondering exactly why Elon is drawing a connection between
Speaker 1: these two incidents when according to the police themselves and
Speaker 1: according to a lot of the facts of the matter,
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually look to have had to do anything
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, I mean, the bottom line here is
Speaker 1: the Elon jet account hadn't posted in nearly twenty four
Speaker 1: hours when this incident occurred. It didn't occur particularly close
Speaker 1: to an airport, so it's hard to really directly say
Speaker 1: that the Elon jet account had anything to do with
Speaker 1: this other than potentially just you know, raising safety concerns
Speaker 1: for Elon in general. But I just go back to
Speaker 1: the point, like I think anyone could relate to being
Speaker 1: fearful of their children's lives and wanting to do whatever
Speaker 1: they could to keep them safe and to keep them protected.
Speaker 1: But the whole problem with having one person or a
Speaker 1: small group of people in charge of a major platform
Speaker 1: like this is they start to make decisions based on
Speaker 1: their emotions and their whims versus any sort of clear
Speaker 1: and consistent standard. The other thing to point out here, Sager,
Speaker 1: it is really relevant that Taylor and the other author
Speaker 1: who was you know, had the co byline here. These
Speaker 1: were two of the people who were banned temporarily from Twitter,
Speaker 1: and specifically Taylor was banned after she asked Elon for
Speaker 1: comment on this story. Now Elon said, oh, it had
Speaker 1: to do with a previous doxing incident from this account,
Speaker 1: But it sure looks like he was punishing her for
Speaker 1: writing a story, a totally legitimate journalistic story about him
Speaker 1: that he happened to not like. Yeah, No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's a way to come away
Speaker 1: from that conclusion, because it wasn't just Taylor, it was
Speaker 1: the other reporter on the first lead byline, Drew Harwell
Speaker 1: for the Washington Post Reporter. And of course all this
Speaker 1: comes on the heels of the poll on Elon saying
Speaker 1: should I step down? Some fifty seven percent went ahead
Speaker 1: and voted yes. He has not actually issued any update
Speaker 1: on the matter since, although he did kind of imply
Speaker 1: in a reply to Kim dot com that perhaps the
Speaker 1: vote was rigged because of bots that were on the platform.
Speaker 1: I don't know, We'll see. Maybe Elon is going to
Speaker 1: pull his own version of stop the Steal on this post.
Speaker 1: But it does matter and comes on the heels of
Speaker 1: a major discussion we had yesterday, the financial incentives that
Speaker 1: are playing behind the scenes pushing Elon perhaps away from
Speaker 1: the CEO chair. Let's put this up there on the
Speaker 1: screen from Senator Warren. Senator Elizabeth Warren there asking saying,
Speaker 1: ever since Twitter was taken over by Elon Musk, asking
Speaker 1: on behalf of Tesla's shareholders, whether there is a conflict
Speaker 1: of interests and whether Elon is misappropriating Tesla resources. Because
Speaker 1: Tesla itself, accord is a public company, it has to
Speaker 1: be accountable to the Tesla board, not just to the
Speaker 1: whims of Elon Musk. Obviously, you know she's just trying
Speaker 1: to grab something, which could you know, inhibit Elon at
Speaker 1: the helm of Twitter. That said, though it is a
Speaker 1: legitimate concern that we've been trying to highlight for folks,
Speaker 1: let's put this up there. The third largest shareholder actually
Speaker 1: in Tesla is urging Elon to actually step aside as
Speaker 1: CEO he was somebody who has tens of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars or sorry, tens of millions of shares in Tesla
Speaker 1: worth some three point five to seven billion dollars, only
Speaker 1: trailing Elon and Tesla chairman Larry Ellison in terms of
Speaker 1: his share in the company, one of the single largest
Speaker 1: private shareholders. And he said, even though he's not selling
Speaker 1: his shares, he's actually planning to buy more. It's more saying,
Speaker 1: I think that he needs to set aside as the
Speaker 1: Twitter CEO, because this is both having a problem on
Speaker 1: this Tesla stock and you know, obviously it's going to
Speaker 1: draw some of his time away from actually running the
Speaker 1: company itself. He says, quote an executioner Tim Cook like
Speaker 1: is needed, not Elon, some sort of Tim Cook figure,
Speaker 1: Bob Eiger figure who can come in to a real
Speaker 1: drama filled mess and kind of bring order a mix
Speaker 1: the chaos. But I think that's one of the major
Speaker 1: storylines in all of this. Crystal is literally the third
Speaker 1: largest shareholder in the entire company, so of course he's
Speaker 1: going to have a say. Yeah, there's no doubt Elon
Speaker 1: is under pressure, definitely from Tesla investors, some of whom
Speaker 1: have been public about the fact that they're not happy
Speaker 1: with him over there screwing around at Twitter while Tesla
Speaker 1: stock is just going down and down and down. May
Speaker 1: also be under pressure from Twitter financially in terms of
Speaker 1: trying to bring in new money and investors' potential investors
Speaker 1: not being impressed with his tenure there as well. That
Speaker 1: is another possibility. And as you know, Sager, I have
Speaker 1: a personal stake in all of this because I personally
Speaker 1: would like Elon to stop screwing around with Twitter and
Speaker 1: get Starlink working so that I actually have Internet at
Speaker 1: my house. So that's my personal grievance here. But you know,
Speaker 1: some of the questions that Elizabeth Warren is asking are
Speaker 1: quite legitimate. You'll remember early on there were reports of
Speaker 1: how Elon had grabbed some of the top engineers from
Speaker 1: Tesla and brought them over to Twitter. So one of
Speaker 1: her questions centers around like, hey, is this harming Tesla
Speaker 1: that you took apparently some of the top talent over
Speaker 1: to Twitter. Is that an issue for Tesla? She also
Speaker 1: asked whether there are conflicts of interest here, whether Tesla
Speaker 1: is overpaying for ads on the Twitter platform. You'll recall
Speaker 1: Tesla has now bought a bunch of ads after a
Speaker 1: lot of other advertisers fled. It's Tesla getting a preferential rate.
Speaker 1: Are they overpaying? Is this a fair market transaction? And
Speaker 1: then there's also questions over whether Elon could use the
Speaker 1: Twitter algorithm to unfairly boost Tesla. So you can see
Speaker 1: how there are some legitimate conflicts of interest here and
Speaker 1: also legitimate questions over whether Tesla investors are kind of
Speaker 1: getting a raw deal here, and as you indicated, some
Speaker 1: of those investors are already expressing their concerns publicly. Now,
Speaker 1: the last thing I'll say about this is my assumption
Speaker 1: with the whole Elon poll of whether he should stay
Speaker 1: or go was that he basically knew the outcome was
Speaker 1: likely to be that people would vote for him to go,
Speaker 1: and that this was an excuse for him to find
Speaker 1: his way out the door, given that he is under
Speaker 1: a variety of financial pressures, just basic like personally in
Speaker 1: terms of the stock he's had to sell and also
Speaker 1: from his investors, et cetera, et cetera. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's not entirely clear that he did think that ultimately
Speaker 1: that would be the outcome. Some of the interactions with
Speaker 1: Kim dot Com do raise questions about whether maybe he
Speaker 1: did expect that he would win this poll, that he
Speaker 1: could take this as a piece of information. Say, look
Speaker 1: at the media out here complaining about me, but the
Speaker 1: put it to the people and they want me to stay.
Speaker 1: So at this point it's a little less clear to
Speaker 1: me than it was yesterday, given again some of his
Speaker 1: interactions that he's had after the fact with Kim dot
Speaker 1: Com and others online. We'll see, we're all in a
Speaker 1: holding pattern. We'll update everyone if there's anything there. Indeed,
Speaker 1: all right, at the same time, some big news. Grand
Speaker 1: finale of the January six Committee was yesterday, and as expected,
Speaker 1: they did send a few criminal referrals of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and some of his associates, including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani,
Speaker 1: to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution. Right on
Speaker 1: in the gates, I want to say, the fact that
Speaker 1: a House committee sent a criminal referral over doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean anything in terms of it doesn't force the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice to take any action. It is just simply
Speaker 1: a recommendation. Nevertheless, you know, it is extraordinary. It's something
Speaker 1: that we should take a look at, and we'll dig
Speaker 1: into the details. Before we do that, though, I want
Speaker 1: to show you some testimony from Hope Hicks. Now, Hope Hicks,
Speaker 1: as you know and as the audience likely knows, was
Speaker 1: a steadfast supporter of Donald Trump. She served as his
Speaker 1: Comms director, and as a White House counselor and a
Speaker 1: variety of other roles. She actually indicates here that she
Speaker 1: felt some of the activities building up to January sixth
Speaker 1: and calling into question the results of the election, we're
Speaker 1: undermining what she saw as his great legacy. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen to what she had to say. I was
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly concerned that we were damaging we were damaging
Speaker 1: his legacy. What did the President say in response to
Speaker 1: what she just described? He said something along the lines of,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody will care about my legacy if I lose,
Speaker 1: so that won't matter. The only thing that matters is winning.
Speaker 1: Sounds very trumpy in there. The only thing that matters
Speaker 1: is winning. No one will care if I've ultimately lost.
Speaker 1: I wonder what you make of that piece of footage
Speaker 1: before I get to the details of the criminal referrals.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it's true. It just sounds vintage Trump.
Speaker 1: And yeah, look Trump has an amazing capacity to convince
Speaker 1: himself of anything, whether it's true or not. I think
Speaker 1: in the beginning he just had to make a calculated choice.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, I didn't lose. This is something that
Speaker 1: my people kind of expect from me, despite all evidence,
Speaker 1: and not even evidence, just all advice that you can see.
Speaker 1: What's the most remarkable story to me is that many
Speaker 1: of these stop the Steal defenders and pro Trump MAGA figures,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, they were all telling Trump to concede.
Speaker 1: They were all telling Trumpy like, this is going to
Speaker 1: be bad for the country. You should just move on
Speaker 1: for your legacy. This isn't worth it. And he made
Speaker 1: the concerted choice, and they've all fallen in line since then.
Speaker 1: So there's a by there's like two stories. There's one
Speaker 1: of how cynical they are because they're willing to lie
Speaker 1: to the public after the fact and justify his actions
Speaker 1: when behind the scenes they were all telling him not
Speaker 1: to do this. And look, it's just exhibit like three
Speaker 1: thousand about how unique Trump is in that he was
Speaker 1: the one person to say, no, I'm going all in
Speaker 1: on stop the Steal, and still though a lot of
Speaker 1: people followed him as you can see, unique as one
Speaker 1: word for it. Let's go and put the CBS News
Speaker 1: tears sheet up on the screen that has the details
Speaker 1: of the criminal referrals. Here, they urged the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice to prosecute Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding,
Speaker 1: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a
Speaker 1: false statement, and incitement rebellion or insurrection. They say Trump's
Speaker 1: actions could also constitute violations of two other conspiracy statutes
Speaker 1: depending on potential evidence developed by the Justice Department. So
Speaker 1: again to emphasize the fact that they sent these criminal
Speaker 1: referrals over does not mean the Department of Justice has
Speaker 1: to do anything with it. It is a recommendation. However,
Speaker 1: this is the first time in history that you have
Speaker 1: had a House panel of this sort recommend criminal charges
Speaker 1: against a former president. So from that perspective, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get into the details of some of
Speaker 1: these charges in which ones are sort of likely to stick.
Speaker 1: But the other thing to say about this is, you know,
Speaker 1: I think you and I were both skeptical of this
Speaker 1: committee at the beginning of what it would accomplish politically,
Speaker 1: But after the midterm election results and how clearly stopped.
Speaker 1: This steal was such a stain on every candidate that
Speaker 1: embraced it. I think you do have to say that
Speaker 1: this panel did This committee ultimately did have an impact
Speaker 1: on the electorate. Having the evidence laid out in front
Speaker 1: of them did land. And I also think just everybody
Speaker 1: living through the experience of January sixth seeing Donald Trump
Speaker 1: continue to cling to these conspiracies, it ended up being
Speaker 1: incredibly politically potent and incredibly damaging for the candidates who
Speaker 1: were most closely associated with it. I absolutely concur I mean,
Speaker 1: I did not think it would matter. I didn't think
Speaker 1: that people would care all that much two years later,
Speaker 1: and I was absolutely wrong about that. I think people
Speaker 1: care quite a bit, And especially in the context of
Speaker 1: just general like MAGA extremism on the issue of voting
Speaker 1: and just being really abhorrent to the entire electorate, this
Speaker 1: is clearly now going to be a problem for them
Speaker 1: and just generally feeds the idea of not only like
Speaker 1: Trump being crazy and doing stuff that most of the
Speaker 1: electorate doesn't even care about, but also just being embroiled
Speaker 1: in scandals. And I don't know why exactly, though, for
Speaker 1: some reason, these scandals are hitting differently than in the
Speaker 1: Mulor era, maybe because you know January's that literally did happen.
Speaker 1: Maybe because he literally did, you know, claim that the
Speaker 1: election was stolen and push all kinds of false elector schemes,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But this is hitting, and whether you care
Speaker 1: or not, I think knowing the details, it matters enough
Speaker 1: to some voters in many of these swing states, in Georgia,
Speaker 1: in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and all across the country. So
Speaker 1: let me just give you some of the details of
Speaker 1: these potential charges. The first one here listed obstruction of
Speaker 1: an official proceeding. Based on some reading and research I
Speaker 1: did before, that seems to be the one that is
Speaker 1: sort of the most clear cut. This CBS News article
Speaker 1: we had at before says for its recommendation of prosecuting
Speaker 1: Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding. They argued he
Speaker 1: was directly and personally involved in the effort to delay
Speaker 1: the counting of the Electoral College votes during that January
Speaker 1: sixth Joint Session of Congress and acted with a corrupt purpose.
Speaker 1: They cited not only Trump's attempt to pressure Pence, but
Speaker 1: also the plan to submit fake slates of electors to Congress,
Speaker 1: So obstruction of an official proceeding. We've seen some of
Speaker 1: the January sixth defendants already charged with that as well.
Speaker 1: That one seems like it is the most straightforward and
Speaker 1: potentially the most clear cut. The next one they list
Speaker 1: here is conspiracy to defraud the United States, And this one,
Speaker 1: you know, there is a clear cut case here, but
Speaker 1: it'd be a somewhat novel application of this law, and
Speaker 1: federal government prosecutors tend to be very sort of conservative
Speaker 1: in their approach. They don't particularly like to use novel
Speaker 1: concess of a law. But what they say here is
Speaker 1: that for this possible violation, the panel again cited what
Speaker 1: it said was Trump's multi part plan to reverse the
Speaker 1: outcome of the election, as well as Jeffrey Clark, one
Speaker 1: of his lawyers, participation in the effort to keep Trump
Speaker 1: in office. They also highlighted Trump's repeated claims the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty election was rife with fraud, despite having been told
Speaker 1: by multiple close aids there was no evidence of significant fraud.
Speaker 1: So basically the argument here in terms of defrauding the
Speaker 1: country is that you knew this was a lie, you
Speaker 1: persisted with the lie, you attempted to disrupt the certification,
Speaker 1: and therefore this would be a charge of conspiracy to defraud. Again,
Speaker 1: this is one that the analysis I saw said it
Speaker 1: would be a bit of a novel application, so maybe
Speaker 1: somewhat less likely. The next one is conspiracy to make
Speaker 1: a false statement. They say this is based on the
Speaker 1: fake slate of electors submitted by Trump supporters to Congress
Speaker 1: and the National Archives. And then the last one, which
Speaker 1: is sort of the biggest and most eye catching, would
Speaker 1: be inciting, assisting, aiding, and comforting, and insurrection. They argue
Speaker 1: Trump's actions related to the capital assault constitute a violation
Speaker 1: of federal law regarding assisting or aiding and comforting and insurrections. Specifically,
Speaker 1: they point to him encouraging his supporters to descending to
Speaker 1: descend on the capital and also for going after Pence
Speaker 1: and claiming he didn't have the courage to discard state
Speaker 1: electoral votes. This one, to me is probably the biggest
Speaker 1: stretch and also runs into the biggest problems in terms
Speaker 1: of protected political speech. So I think it's probably the
Speaker 1: least likely for them to pursue. But you know, the
Speaker 1: other thing to consider with all of this saga is
Speaker 1: number one, Trump is much weaker than he was before
Speaker 1: the midterm elections, So perhaps these political considerations shouldn't be
Speaker 1: taken to an account by the Justice Department, But there's
Speaker 1: no doubt they're looking at this and wondering, you know,
Speaker 1: can the country take it? How strong is Trump, what
Speaker 1: is his supporter is going to ultimately do? And given
Speaker 1: that he is in a relatively weak standing right now politically,
Speaker 1: I would think that has to embolden the Justice Department.
Speaker 1: You also have the Proud Boys trial and Riguetario going
Speaker 1: on right now, and you previously had the Oathkeeper's trial
Speaker 1: where Stuart Rhodes was found guilty of seditious conspiracy. So
Speaker 1: you know, that was a big charge that they laid there.
Speaker 1: That was, you know, kind of a stretch and it
Speaker 1: ended up panning out for them. So that may also
Speaker 1: kind of embolden the Justice Department and the Special Council.
Speaker 1: Jack Ryan, Yeah, I think that's very possible. I think
Speaker 1: it's possible that they do do this, especially considering all
Speaker 1: the other investigations that are happening. They already had him
Speaker 1: under investigations that could fold this as part of the
Speaker 1: broader one, not only including mar A Lago but all
Speaker 1: of the various schemes, including tax including January sixth. So
Speaker 1: I just think in general it contributes to bigger problems
Speaker 1: for Trump. And by the way, speaking of that, Crystal,
Speaker 1: we have his tax return problems. It also could return now, yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. So after exhausting every appeal, House Democrats actually
Speaker 1: have some of his tax returns, the last I think
Speaker 1: six years of returns they have. I'm pretty sure that's
Speaker 1: the right number. And so they're trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what they're going to do with any with them, whether
Speaker 1: they're going to reveal them to the public. There is
Speaker 1: some sort of legal question over whether or not they're
Speaker 1: allowed to reveal them to the public. They want to
Speaker 1: act quickly. They're having actually a meeting and a vote
Speaker 1: on this next week. While Democrats still control the House
Speaker 1: and control power in these committees. The Ways and Means
Speaker 1: Committee is the relevant one here, and so to be
Speaker 1: determined how much of those we ultimately see and how
Speaker 1: damaging they are for the president. There's been speculation, of
Speaker 1: course about these returns for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, that's right. We have the politico tear
Speaker 1: sheet guys. B three we can put up there on
Speaker 1: the screen in terms of how they're poised to release
Speaker 1: the Trump tax secrets, how exactly the scheme that they're
Speaker 1: going to do it. Not even sure if will necessarily
Speaker 1: learn anything bombshell all though. Look, I mean, from transparency's sake,
Speaker 1: it's always good to see exactly what the president of
Speaker 1: the United States is getting his income from. From where
Speaker 1: we can see his various businesses, net worth, etc. We
Speaker 1: can either put to bed or look into any foreign
Speaker 1: ties and more. And I'm personally very interested to see
Speaker 1: if we can learn anything from these tax returns. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, that's been a long time coming. At
Speaker 1: this point, We've had so many scandals with Trump that
Speaker 1: I'm not sure there's anything in the tough tax returns
Speaker 1: that could shock us that other things have shocked us
Speaker 1: with Trump were associated at this point. But it's to
Speaker 1: be interesting and good for the interest of transparency. So
Speaker 1: one more thing kind of hanging over his head. Let's
Speaker 1: get to this next story, which I am fascinated with
Speaker 1: on a variety of levels. So there's this dude named
Speaker 1: George Santos who just won a suburban New York District
Speaker 1: for Congress. This was a hard fought race, and he
Speaker 1: portrayed himself as an immigrant who was the sort of
Speaker 1: like classic embodiment of the American dream, successful business owner.
Speaker 1: He had this whole rags to riches story that he
Speaker 1: was peddling. There's about to be a twist in the story,
Speaker 1: but first let's take a listen to how he was
Speaker 1: presenting himself during the campaign leadership. Robert is more of
Speaker 1: the old saying party he's been in. He's been in
Speaker 1: politics for thirty years. I'm a private sector guy. I
Speaker 1: was born and raised in abject poverty in this country,
Speaker 1: and only in this country to somebody who comes from
Speaker 1: a basement apartment in Jackson Heights like I did, is
Speaker 1: able to rise to become a successful business person to
Speaker 1: then run for the United States Congress. I want solutions.
Speaker 1: I don't want so. I don't want michigog. I don't
Speaker 1: want your working points like Robert does all the joy.
Speaker 1: You don't make a living off of this. So he
Speaker 1: made a lot of his personal bio and his you know,
Speaker 1: story of overcoming adversity to be this American success story. Well,
Speaker 1: a little belatedly here the new York Times has dug
Speaker 1: into that biography and found effectively all of it is
Speaker 1: a lie, or at least they could find no basis
Speaker 1: for anything, from where he currently lives, to where his
Speaker 1: income comes from, to where he went to college, to
Speaker 1: previous firms that he worked for. So the headline here
Speaker 1: is who is Representative Elect George Santos? His resume may
Speaker 1: be largely fiction. Mister Santos, a Republican from New York,
Speaker 1: says he's the embodiment of the American dream, but he
Speaker 1: seems to have misrepresented a number of his career highlights.
Speaker 1: That is to say the least. They found that he
Speaker 1: could not verify that. He said he worked at City
Speaker 1: Group in Goldman, Sachs. They said they had no record
Speaker 1: of it. He said he went to Brooke College, They
Speaker 1: said they had no record of him there. He said
Speaker 1: he founded this nonprofit called Friends of Pets. The irs
Speaker 1: that they had no record of that charity. One of
Speaker 1: the greatest mysteries here, Sager, is he does seem to
Speaker 1: have at this point a fair amount of money. He
Speaker 1: donated seven hundred thousand dollars to his own campaign during
Speaker 1: the midterm election, so that kid cash came from somewhere,
Speaker 1: and yet the businesses that he's associated with there's basically
Speaker 1: no records of what type of business they're engaged with.
Speaker 1: He claims to own a number of properties that he
Speaker 1: derives income from, there's no record of what those properties
Speaker 1: ultimately are. He hasn't disclosed them as he's supposed to.
Speaker 1: So there's a whole lot of questions here, up to
Speaker 1: the point of, you know, he has a certain address
Speaker 1: listed of where he votes from. They went to that address,
Speaker 1: and the person there was like, I have no idea
Speaker 1: who or what you're ultimately talking about. Put the next
Speaker 1: piece up here, because this kind of sums it all up.
Speaker 1: They say. This person on Twitter says, let me get
Speaker 1: this straight. George Santos, whose campaign bio is below, lied
Speaker 1: about working for City Group in Goldman Sacks, light about
Speaker 1: graduating from Baroke College, light about having an animal rescue charity,
Speaker 1: made bank doing question Mark, and maybe lied about owning
Speaker 1: a real estate fortune. So a whole lot, whole lot
Speaker 1: going on here ultimately, Cyber. Yeah, But the thing is,
Speaker 1: the money came from somewhere, So who's money. Where did
Speaker 1: this money come from? Who are you dude? There are
Speaker 1: so many questions. My favorite thing, too, is he was
Speaker 1: like in his response to this, he said, George Santos
Speaker 1: is a fighter. George Santos is standing up against the
Speaker 1: corrupt Washington. They're like, I don't care about George Santos
Speaker 1: lying about his resume. That's almost the immediate one. But
Speaker 1: the major one is what the hell was his opponent doing?
Speaker 1: What was the D triple C the Democratic Party doing.
Speaker 1: Let's throw this up there on the screen. How did
Speaker 1: they not catch literally any of this? As this person says,
Speaker 1: apparently the New York Democratic Party, the Nasau and Queen
Speaker 1: Democratic Parties a D triple C. The Zeroman campaign collectively
Speaker 1: employs zero opposition researchers, and even his opponent says, this
Speaker 1: story is not a shock to me. We always knew
Speaker 1: he was running a scam against the voters, but we
Speaker 1: were drowned out in this race where crime was the
Speaker 1: focus in the media had other priorities. I just think
Speaker 1: this is complete cope on behalf of this. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: whoever this gentleman is, because clearly he did not do
Speaker 1: his due diligence research kind of whatsoever. I mean, Crystal,
Speaker 1: you ran for Congress. I'm assuming that even at the
Speaker 1: most basic level, you have some level of opposition research
Speaker 1: that the Democratic Party provides to you. So this is
Speaker 1: a massive systemic failure on their part. Even the most
Speaker 1: bare bones campaign would hire what is called an opposition
Speaker 1: researcher to look at, Okay, what past statements have this
Speaker 1: person made, what sort of you know, is there a
Speaker 1: criminal record? Are there you know? Is there a tax lean,
Speaker 1: does the bio check out? Is he who he represents
Speaker 1: himself as? So a lot of times, if you're running
Speaker 1: a race that isn't a high priority for the party,
Speaker 1: they don't pick up the tab for that, and they
Speaker 1: don't really do that for you. But the campaign itself
Speaker 1: would do it. But in a race like this, which
Speaker 1: was high profile, which was a real target because this
Speaker 1: was the type of suburban district that frankly across the
Speaker 1: country outside of New York and Florida, Democrats mostly won,
Speaker 1: you would expect actually the party to have done this research.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I saw on an article in Semaphore
Speaker 1: the DRIPLEC that's a Democratic Congressional campaign committee ran by
Speaker 1: Sean Patrick Maloney who also lost his seat, by the way,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of relevant here. They did some research
Speaker 1: on him, but the only things they had were like
Speaker 1: his stupid extremist statements regarding January sixth, and they entirely
Speaker 1: missed the fact that literally every piece of his bio
Speaker 1: fails to check out. And oh, by the way, there's
Speaker 1: also a question of apparently he's accused of check fraud
Speaker 1: in Brazil too, so there's that piece hanging out there
Speaker 1: is petial criminality. So total failure on the part of
Speaker 1: the Democrats as very interesting subplot here as well. But
Speaker 1: it's just amazing to me that someone could lie in
Speaker 1: this day and age about every part of their bio
Speaker 1: and basically get away with it enough to get elected.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the next time around was going
Speaker 1: to be tough for him anyway, because it is a
Speaker 1: kind of a challenging district. Now I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be very difficult Republican leadership. They're basically keeping their
Speaker 1: mouths shut. They haven't had much of a comment on
Speaker 1: this at all. We do have a comment from mister Santos.
Speaker 1: Let me pull it up here on my computer and
Speaker 1: I can read it to you guys. He says, and
Speaker 1: this is funny too, George Santos represents and we can
Speaker 1: go ahead and put this up on the screen, the
Speaker 1: kind of progress that the left is so threatened by
Speaker 1: a gay Latino, first generation American and Republican who want
Speaker 1: a Biden district an overwhelming fashion by showing everyday voters
Speaker 1: there is a better option than the broken promises, failed
Speaker 1: policies of the Democratic Party. After four years in the
Speaker 1: public eye and on the verge of being sworn in
Speaker 1: as a member of Congress, the New York Times launches
Speaker 1: this shotgun blast of attacks. It's no surprise that Congressman
Speaker 1: Alex Santos has enemies that The New York Times are
Speaker 1: attempting to smear his good name with these defamatory allegations.
Speaker 1: As Winston Churchill famously stated, you have enemies good it
Speaker 1: means that you've stood up for something sometime in your life.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot going on there. Most importantly, he
Speaker 1: doesn't actually deny any of the allegations. Number one. Number two,
Speaker 1: I love the use of identity politics when it's convenient,
Speaker 1: you know, a first born son of immigrants or whatever
Speaker 1: he says there. And then I also love that he
Speaker 1: uses this Winston Churchill quote, which is actually not even
Speaker 1: a Winston Churchill quote. So while denying that he like
Speaker 1: lied about all of the details of his bio, he
Speaker 1: also managed to lie about a Winston Churchill quote. So
Speaker 1: good job there. Yeah, it's all just a little bit
Speaker 1: too perfect. Will it matter, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: Richard Blumenthal lied about getting drafted, right, he's still a
Speaker 1: Senator from Connecticut. This is a little bit more extreme.
Speaker 1: Will at all? Will the Republicans seed him? Will they
Speaker 1: do anything about it? Probably? Right? Will he resigned? Doesn't
Speaker 1: look like it, but yeah, amazing and a huge failure
Speaker 1: by the Democratic Party here. Yeah. Well, and Kevin McCarthy. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they have a very narrow majority in the House to
Speaker 1: start with, so they don't want to do anything about it.
Speaker 1: And this guy has pledged his vote for Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: as Speaker of the House, and Kevin McCarthy is having
Speaker 1: trouble gathering the votes to be able to do this,
Speaker 1: So don't expect an encourage here from the Republicans. And
Speaker 1: one more, just brazen detail about the web of lies
Speaker 1: that he apparently created. He said at one point that
Speaker 1: he had lost four employees in the Pulse nightclub shooting.
Speaker 1: That also looks to be a complete fabrication. So again
Speaker 1: just to show you that the extent of the brazen
Speaker 1: lies that this guy just created out of whole cloth,
Speaker 1: it is quite astonishing, quite astonishing. That is such a
Speaker 1: scumbag move. Yeah, okay, it's disgusting. Let's move on, speaking
Speaker 1: of liars, speaking of scumbags, and speaking of potential justice.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: Some real weird movie and shaking happening in the courtroom yesterday.
Speaker 1: So SBF, in a very confusing courtroom appearance, appears to
Speaker 1: have now agreed to be extradited to the United States. However,
Speaker 1: this all came amidst an insane court hearing where the
Speaker 1: lawyers had gathered in Bahamian court where SBF's lawyer was
Speaker 1: about to agree to extradition, but then he said he
Speaker 1: was quote shocked to see SBF actually in the court
Speaker 1: and said he needed to then talk to them. Then
Speaker 1: the judge granted this. SBF and his lawyer were conferring.
Speaker 1: The Bahamian lawyers appeared to be in chaos, and ultimately
Speaker 1: the end result appears and again appears to be Remember
Speaker 1: we are not dealing with the US Department of Justice here.
Speaker 1: He appears to say he will agree to be extradited
Speaker 1: to the United States. Once he is, he will be
Speaker 1: reigned in the Federal District Court in Manhattan and likely
Speaker 1: detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn pending a
Speaker 1: bail hearing. Is very unlikely he will be granted bail, however,
Speaker 1: given a flight risk and all of that, Although it's
Speaker 1: technically possible, why does that mean this matter? The moment
Speaker 1: that he gets to the US. That's what an actual
Speaker 1: US legal proceedings can begin. And Crystal SBF is saying
Speaker 1: the reason why he's being agreed to the extradited to
Speaker 1: the United States is because he quote wants to do
Speaker 1: right by his customers and make his customers whole. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that has to do less with him appearing
Speaker 1: in the US court and more likely to do with
Speaker 1: the actual money that he allegedly stole. The also interesting
Speaker 1: corollary to this is that you and I were looking
Speaker 1: one of the prison that he's being held in is
Speaker 1: allegedly one of the worst in the entire world. It's
Speaker 1: not exactly rated as a five star facility, so he
Speaker 1: may actually feel that being held in the Bahamas, especially
Speaker 1: given his Medley of like drugs and health conditions and
Speaker 1: all of that. He's probably better off, you know, from
Speaker 1: a health perspective being in the United States, but overall
Speaker 1: it's a big, big problem for him. And it also
Speaker 1: just shows you the amount of chaos that's happening right
Speaker 1: now in the Bahamas with the legal system where they
Speaker 1: are trying their best to finesse what's going on here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was speculation immediately that he would drop his attempt
Speaker 1: to fight extradition once he got into this person and
Speaker 1: realize just how horrific it ultimately is, and that seems
Speaker 1: to be exactly what has actually happened. Is he's hoping
Speaker 1: that potentially the situation in the US federal prison system
Speaker 1: is better than the situation that he's facing right now.
Speaker 1: In Pama's sad statement on the state of both prison systems,
Speaker 1: that you know, this is what he's ultimately weighing and
Speaker 1: calculating based on. But yeah, sort of chaos in the
Speaker 1: courtroom yesterday, but ultimately it looks like he is set
Speaker 1: to be extradited. And the other thing Sager is originally
Speaker 1: remember Matt Stellar is pointing out it can take years
Speaker 1: if you fight your extradition, can actually take years to
Speaker 1: be extradited to the US. We now will see a
Speaker 1: much more expedited process so that the criminal proceedings can
Speaker 1: move forward here in the States. Yeah, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, we're actually learning a little bit more about
Speaker 1: his campaign finance operation. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. Brian Schwartz from CNBC going through the indictment.
Speaker 1: What he shows here is that Bankman, Freed and co
Speaker 1: conspirators quote worked with others known and unknown who knowingly combined,
Speaker 1: conspired and agreed to defraud the United States to intentionally
Speaker 1: skirt campaign finance laws. They are reportedly right now looking
Speaker 1: at the former head of Engineering Nishad Singh, the former
Speaker 1: CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ryan Salom, who was one
Speaker 1: of the top Republican donors in the entire country number
Speaker 1: ten overall. For as a GOP donor, they collectively contributed
Speaker 1: some seventy million dollars towards the twenty twenty two midterms,
Speaker 1: which is insane, and SBF himself gave some forty million dollars.
Speaker 1: What they are alleging here is basically a straw donation
Speaker 1: scheme of epic proportions and also including and possibly ensnaring
Speaker 1: his own brother, Gabe Bankman free diverting some twelve million
Speaker 1: dollars to his brother's nonprofit. Another mind, the Gap Superpack,
Speaker 1: which was his mother personally donated some one million dollars
Speaker 1: towards mainly towards democratic issues, and also then using cutouts
Speaker 1: and others and friends to give to his parents' nonprofits.
Speaker 1: So overall you're basically seeing a fraudulent embezzlement scheme of
Speaker 1: massive proportions that has major political ramifications because what the
Speaker 1: indictment the SEC both and the DOJ layout is that
Speaker 1: he was diverting FTX customer funds to Alameda Research is
Speaker 1: privately held hedge fund, and then Alameda Research was both
Speaker 1: loaning billions of dollars to him to other FTX executives
Speaker 1: of which they were using for political donations. But Alameter
Speaker 1: Research itself at the entity level was also giving donations
Speaker 1: both to SBF affiliated nonprofits. All of this, of course
Speaker 1: is a nightmare for him from a tax fraud and
Speaker 1: wirefraud perspective, but it gives you just a good deep
Speaker 1: dive into some twenty two million dollars last year just
Speaker 1: from SBF's brother entity that was able to be raised.
Speaker 1: It doesn't disclose its donors per se, but it does
Speaker 1: show that Alameda Research itself gave twelve million dollars to
Speaker 1: them just in a single period of late last year.
Speaker 1: I mean, and again, all of this is being funded
Speaker 1: with actual dollars from FTX customers. That's what makes it
Speaker 1: goes so skeeedy. This is not money that he rightfully
Speaker 1: earned himself. These are customer funds, according right now to
Speaker 1: the SEC and to the DOJ. There's also some revelations
Speaker 1: here about his sort of personal promotional and brand building,
Speaker 1: because you know, he always positioned his political giving as like, oh,
Speaker 1: this isn't about my own personal profit. I just want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we're ready for the next pandemic.
Speaker 1: This is all about pandemic preparedness, which was always like yeah, okay, buddy.
Speaker 1: But you see it really clearly here with the donations
Speaker 1: to his brother's nonprofit, which was called Guarding against Pandemics.
Speaker 1: And then the brother turns around and gives a bunch
Speaker 1: of this money to you know, direct democratic group, so
Speaker 1: like Voto Latino, which spent the money opposing Gavin Newsom's recall.
Speaker 1: It's like, maybe you could make some sort of tangential
Speaker 1: connection to pandemic preparedness. But this just seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: standard issue democratic political fundraising. Same thing with his mom
Speaker 1: had this political advocacy organization that actually knew about is
Speaker 1: called Mind the Gap. He was donating to her as well,
Speaker 1: or through his cutouts or through Alameda or whatever. So basically,
Speaker 1: he's accused of violating campaign finance law in almost every
Speaker 1: way that you can straw donors, illegal corporate contributions, and
Speaker 1: also using effectively stolen funds in order to fund this giving.
Speaker 1: And then the other allegation here as well is that
Speaker 1: you know, he thought that the press would like him
Speaker 1: giving to Democrats and that this would build his personal brand,
Speaker 1: and so then he uses these other cutouts to give
Speaker 1: to the Republicans he wants to ultimately win over. So
Speaker 1: it's just this piece is maybe the part at this
Speaker 1: point I'm the most most interested in, because you know,
Speaker 1: SPF is going to go to prison, his empires collapsed there.
Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting to see some more of
Speaker 1: the details about how all this went down. But you
Speaker 1: still have these politicians who took this money are still
Speaker 1: in office, and there are still a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about like, Okay, well, what did you do after you've
Speaker 1: got that money? How did you serve this gigantic donor
Speaker 1: who contributed in some case, I mean, gave millions of
Speaker 1: dollars to Joe Biden. You know, did you call off
Speaker 1: the SEC from an earlier investigation that could have saved
Speaker 1: a lot of customers a lot of pain. That's the
Speaker 1: piece that I continue to be really interested in and
Speaker 1: is a really going concern because again, these people are
Speaker 1: still officeholders, and so they still need to be held
Speaker 1: to account, even above and beyond SBF ultimately having his
Speaker 1: day in court and paying a probably very heavy price
Speaker 1: for all of this. I hope that the clawback laws
Speaker 1: don't work work out so well in the politician's favor,
Speaker 1: and that every single one of them has to detail
Speaker 1: exactly how much they got and how much they've given back.
Speaker 1: So the Feds, I'm calling on you to do that
Speaker 1: something useful. All right, let's move on one of our
Speaker 1: favorite segments here. YouTuber Andrew Callahan appeared on Don Lemon's
Speaker 1: show over at CNN to promote a new documentary which
Speaker 1: looks really interesting, and he really triggered Don Lemon when
Speaker 1: he commented on the cable news business model. Let's take
Speaker 1: a listen. The movie's not just about like the Capitol,
Speaker 1: right and all that. It's also about like media echo chambers,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and like the dangers of
Speaker 1: the twenty four hour news cycle, and how I think
Speaker 1: mainstream media like Fox and even CNN like competes for
Speaker 1: views by running constant twenty four hour news cycles based
Speaker 1: upon fear, division, outrage, and panic, probably to sell ads.
Speaker 1: So it's not just about the Capitol, right. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure, first of all, agree with what you're saying,
Speaker 1: but I'm not exactly sure of how that played into
Speaker 1: people going into the Capitol and rioting on January sixth.
Speaker 1: There's nothing fake about CNN. Oh, I'm not saying like
Speaker 1: fake news. I'm just saying ramping people up and increasing
Speaker 1: division during that period of time, just watching people kind
Speaker 1: of fall down the rabbit hole and be pushed into action.
Speaker 1: Then like just yeah, falling down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Wow,
Speaker 1: he really triggered him there in the most Don Lemon
Speaker 1: way possible. I don't necessarily agree. And look, what you're
Speaker 1: watching is the lack of ability to grapple with what
Speaker 1: their job actually is Andrew has impegged properly. Their job
Speaker 1: is to gin people up so that they stay tuned
Speaker 1: in between the ad breaks. That's it. That's all you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do. The ad breaks are the only business.
Speaker 1: The actual news is just secondary. It's what gets people
Speaker 1: glued to the screen. And so he was like, look,
Speaker 1: you and Fox are both ginning people up, which causes
Speaker 1: people to go down rabbit holes. You do it for
Speaker 1: business purposes, and that has real world consequences in our politics,
Speaker 1: of which resulted in January sixth. I really appreciate him
Speaker 1: not just doing the typical like Fox News doing this
Speaker 1: you know they're the only ones, because yeah, look of
Speaker 1: course they are, but it's everybody. The whole point is
Speaker 1: that it's an entire system which is designed to gin
Speaker 1: up hate against others and which can have devastating consequences
Speaker 1: then in the real world. And look, clearly Donna didn't
Speaker 1: like that very much. And he doesn't want to take
Speaker 1: any responsibility for his own role over the last what
Speaker 1: four years, five years or whatever in the Trump era
Speaker 1: of doing the exact same thing that he accuses Fox
Speaker 1: of doing every single night. Crystal, Yeah, and they want
Speaker 1: to say, oh, We're not as bad as Fox, We're
Speaker 1: not as bad as OAAN, We're not as bad as
Speaker 1: like whoever. But you know, ultimately, CNN, MSNBC, all of
Speaker 1: them are kind of poison. They're all bad for the country.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, Andrew, who is very interesting, a
Speaker 1: really strong creator, actually encourage you to check out his
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. He kind of has them dead to rights here.
Speaker 1: And at the beginning of the segment, they set it
Speaker 1: up like, oh, you know, this is all about January six,
Speaker 1: this new documentary about January six, and he clearly takes
Speaker 1: issue with that, and it's like, well, you're kind of
Speaker 1: missing some of the point here, because you may want
Speaker 1: to use this to just exclusively serve the narratives that
Speaker 1: you're interested in, but there was actually a broader point
Speaker 1: here about the news media's role in this and the
Speaker 1: divisiveness of that and the problem with the twenty four
Speaker 1: hour news cycle and serving your advertisers and keeople keeping
Speaker 1: people glued to the screen. And he and Caitlyn Collins
Speaker 1: both get very uncomfortable with that part of the conversation
Speaker 1: immediately try to shut it down and move back to
Speaker 1: the points that they are comfortable opening on. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think one of the I encourage people to watch
Speaker 1: this trailer and to check out the doc whenever it's out.
Speaker 1: I also watched Into the Storm, the QAnon documentary, and
Speaker 1: I just came away with that with like a much
Speaker 1: deeper understanding of like, wow, like this stuff is real.
Speaker 1: You know, people really can just lose themselves entirely in
Speaker 1: this And it's a broader societal problem of which the
Speaker 1: media is complicit in. But there's also many other structural factors,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, the Don Lemons of the world just simply
Speaker 1: don't want a question, not even their own complicity, but
Speaker 1: what leads to society to like get to this point
Speaker 1: where people are so angry that they're willing to willing
Speaker 1: to storm the Capitol based on the word of Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: That's a really interesting question if you want to look
Speaker 1: into it. It doesn't have to be just you know,
Speaker 1: like about other people being bad. But you know, whenever
Speaker 1: you have the business model that they do well, that
Speaker 1: really is the only one dimensional view that you're allowed
Speaker 1: to take. So I really appreciated his appearance on CNN
Speaker 1: and kind of setting the record straight. I also love
Speaker 1: that he is just very He's like, yo, come on.
Speaker 1: He's like, that's what you guys are willing to do
Speaker 1: here in his own very drew way. It was great.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I enjoyed about this exchange is
Speaker 1: it was sort of like two worlds colliding. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't quite know what to do with him, and
Speaker 1: it is like a traditional media in new independent media,
Speaker 1: like being oil and water. Effectively in this interview with
Speaker 1: they're engaged in two very different processes and engaged in
Speaker 1: two very different activities. So it's kind of funny to
Speaker 1: see those two worlds collide and Lemon and Caitlin Collins
Speaker 1: really having no idea what to do with him. All right, Crystal,
Speaker 1: what do you take a look at? So, guys, the
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission has now settled with Fortnite game maker
Speaker 1: Epic Games for a massive amount of money over violations
Speaker 1: of children's privacy and also these sort of efforts to
Speaker 1: get customers to pay for things that they didn't actually
Speaker 1: want to buy. Let's go and put this tear sheet
Speaker 1: up on the screen and I can give you all
Speaker 1: of the details. This from tech Crunch, they say FTC
Speaker 1: finds Fortnite maker Epic Games five hundred and twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars over children's privacy and item shop charges. Let me
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of the details here and
Speaker 1: then I can show you the FTC press release as well.
Speaker 1: So they say that five hundred and twenty million dollar
Speaker 1: payment is actually divided into two settlements. There's a Kappa
Speaker 1: fine that is two hundred and seventy five million dollars
Speaker 1: largest ever penalty for violating an FTC rule. And then separately,
Speaker 1: there was a two hundred and forty five million dollar
Speaker 1: fine of Epic that is actually to refund customers for
Speaker 1: what it calls dark patterns and billing practices. Epic says
Speaker 1: that they're going to pay both of these fines, the
Speaker 1: latter of which will be the FTC's largest ever refund
Speaker 1: amount in a gaming case. So if you are a
Speaker 1: Fortnite player, you might be eligible for a refund from
Speaker 1: this two hundred and forty five million dollar fund. I
Speaker 1: do want to read to you you what Epic has
Speaker 1: to say about all of this, and then I'll get
Speaker 1: into the FTC press release and what exactly they say
Speaker 1: that Epic ultimately did wrong here. So Epic says, statutes
Speaker 1: written decades ago don't specify how gaming ecosystems should operate.
Speaker 1: The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved
Speaker 1: and long standing industry practices are no longer enough. We
Speaker 1: accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at
Speaker 1: the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience
Speaker 1: for our players. And I do want to say some
Speaker 1: of the practices that are detailed here they have made
Speaker 1: changes in order to better comply with the law and
Speaker 1: not run a fell of FTC regulations. So these finds
Speaker 1: really have to do more with some of their actions
Speaker 1: and failures in the past. Let me go ahead and
Speaker 1: put this FTC press release up on the screen that
Speaker 1: details some of the problems here. The first has to
Speaker 1: do with these Children's Privacy Act. They say that Epic
Speaker 1: collected person data from children without first obtaining parents verifiable consent,
Speaker 1: so that runs a foul of regulation. They also say
Speaker 1: that since Epic settings enable live on by default text
Speaker 1: and voice communications, Epic was matching children and teens with
Speaker 1: strangers to play Fortnite together, and they harm children and
Speaker 1: teens in the process. They say children and teens have
Speaker 1: been bullied, threatened, harassed, and exposed to dangerous and psychologically
Speaker 1: traumatizing issues such as suicide wall on Fortnite, and I
Speaker 1: read through this entire complaint effectively. What was happening is
Speaker 1: if I'm not a gamer, so forgive me for sounding
Speaker 1: like clunky and cringe and describing this. But when you
Speaker 1: log on, you are sort of automatically put into these
Speaker 1: chat rooms and ability to talk directly to players that
Speaker 1: you're playing with or playing against. And they knew that
Speaker 1: these were kids, sometimes little kids. The game is explicitly
Speaker 1: marketed to little kids, and that's reflected the fact they're,
Speaker 1: you know, selling merchandise to kids. It's clear in their
Speaker 1: corporate communications. And they're matching these little kids with grown
Speaker 1: up adults who are you know, which is like wildly inappropriate.
Speaker 1: And it was very hard to opt out of participating
Speaker 1: in this live chat. Now I believe this is one
Speaker 1: of the areas that Epic Games has now changed to
Speaker 1: make it easier to opt out of this. And then
Speaker 1: the other piece was collecting children's data without getting their
Speaker 1: parents consent. That is just like a blatant violation of
Speaker 1: this particular regulation. God put the press release back up
Speaker 1: on the screen, because there's another piece of this. This
Speaker 1: is where they were basically manipulating their customers into buying
Speaker 1: things that they didn't really intend to buy. They call
Speaker 1: this dark patterns. They say that the company has deployed
Speaker 1: a variety of dark patterns trying to get consumers of
Speaker 1: all ages to make unintended in game purchases. They for example,
Speaker 1: would charge them while they're attempting to wake the game
Speaker 1: from sleep mode, or while the game was in a
Speaker 1: loading screen, or by pressing an adjacent button while attempting
Speaker 1: to simply preview an item. These tactics led to hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers. And
Speaker 1: an important part of this too, had to do with children.
Speaker 1: Once again, basically, once they had gotten their parents' credit
Speaker 1: card information entered in once they could just press a
Speaker 1: button and continually charge their parents' credit card without the
Speaker 1: parent having any idea, and it was very easy to
Speaker 1: do and in fact, sometimes it would happen without you
Speaker 1: even intending to buy whatever you were buying. And then
Speaker 1: if you disputed charges on the account they also accused
Speaker 1: Epic of they would freeze your account if you disputed
Speaker 1: a charge, wouldn't let you use any of the stuff
Speaker 1: that you had actually you know, authorized and purchased, and
Speaker 1: they threatened to lock you out of your account entirely
Speaker 1: if you persisted with disputing any of these credit card charges.
Speaker 1: So just sort of like blatant consumer manipulation and abuse
Speaker 1: here ultimately, Sager, And one of the things, Saga, that
Speaker 1: I was remembering and why this really struck a chord
Speaker 1: with me, And if you want to hear my reaction
Speaker 1: to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com. All right, Saga, what are you looking at? Well,
Speaker 1: you may have noticed in the news that there are
Speaker 1: a couple of things going on with respect to public health.
Speaker 1: Number one is in China. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. After the Chinese Communist
Speaker 1: Party has been forced to recede from its COVID zero
Speaker 1: idiotic policies. Now it turns out there is a mass
Speaker 1: outbreak of COVID inside of China, both wreaking havoc on
Speaker 1: the elderly, and some ten percent of the entire world's
Speaker 1: population could be infected with COVID in the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: given how widely spread the virus is, with which they
Speaker 1: have almost no plan to deal with it. Second, actually,
Speaker 1: and what I wanted to combine with this is what's
Speaker 1: happening here at home. Let's put it up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. The next element there, please, is the so
Speaker 1: called triple demic that's happening here right now in the
Speaker 1: United States, the spread of both COVID, of the respiratory
Speaker 1: synolel virus or otherwise known as RSV, and of the flu.
Speaker 1: And I think, Crystal, what I really wanted to get
Speaker 1: to was about how much this involves lockdowns and the
Speaker 1: failure of these policies, because the reason why China is
Speaker 1: having this massive COVID outbreak right now is because they
Speaker 1: did not allow some sort of reasonable level of community
Speaker 1: spread up until this point and are getting slammed all
Speaker 1: at the same time by banking on a completely foolish
Speaker 1: and ridiculous policy. It's actually linked also to the same
Speaker 1: so called triple demic that's happening right now here in
Speaker 1: the United States. And I'll explain this mass infection of
Speaker 1: COVID was basically always inevitable, especially with the rise of omicron.
Speaker 1: By locking people and especially kids up now for two years,
Speaker 1: we are now suffering the consequences of weakened immune systems
Speaker 1: that are all being exposed at once. And I want
Speaker 1: to be clear, I'm not saying that the immune systems
Speaker 1: itself became weaker. But it's called an immunity gap. It's
Speaker 1: a lack of exposure to many pathogens, germs, and infections
Speaker 1: that otherwise people would have gotten. RSV, for example. RSV
Speaker 1: is not a special virus. We've literally been dealing with
Speaker 1: this for years, however, and actually every child in the
Speaker 1: United States, and this is according to the CDC, is
Speaker 1: usually exposed to RSV by age of two and then
Speaker 1: continually on from that point. Why having school closures and
Speaker 1: having a shutdown we had a natural exposure cycle that
Speaker 1: would have happened both for infants and toddlers that are
Speaker 1: getting infected with this now, but also all children that
Speaker 1: are in some cases bringing it back home. It's now
Speaker 1: happening though, all at once. This is again a direct
Speaker 1: consequence of school closure and of the lack of socialization
Speaker 1: of children. And I think this really is the first
Speaker 1: sign of a major public health catastrophe as a result
Speaker 1: of lockdown. I want to read directly from a new
Speaker 1: piece in The Atlantic quoting mainstream scientists who are talking
Speaker 1: about how Infants born during lockdowns have microbiota and immune
Speaker 1: systems irrevocably abnormal, which could result in a huge surge
Speaker 1: of autoimmune and health conditions. Quote. Perhaps most at risk
Speaker 1: are kids whose families went into hyper hygiene mode in
Speaker 1: the first couple months of their lives. Microbes are crucial
Speaker 1: for properly calibrating immune systems. Antipath alarms miss out on
Speaker 1: those opportunities our bodies defensive cells might end up mistaking
Speaker 1: enemies for allies or vice versa, sparking severe infections or
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease for the health professionals who are listening. Some
Speaker 1: of this is derivative of the so called hygiene hypothesis,
Speaker 1: but something I want to underscore is that this is
Speaker 1: not conjecture. The CDC right now, in response to what's
Speaker 1: happening with RSV and the hospitalization of children, says quote.
Speaker 1: Because of low RSV cases in twenty twenty and in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, young children may be at risk for
Speaker 1: a more serious infection since their immune systems weren't exposed
Speaker 1: to the virus as much over the last few years.
Speaker 1: Direct admission by the CDC that school closure and lockdowns
Speaker 1: had very much to do with the actual overall immune
Speaker 1: development of children very much also applicable to what's happening
Speaker 1: in China with their COVID outbreak right now. It is
Speaker 1: a direct fault of the government for both selling zero
Speaker 1: COVID to the population, especially in the case of the
Speaker 1: elderly who didn't want to get vaccinated and are now
Speaker 1: going to suffer the consequences, but also they have nobody
Speaker 1: but themselves to blame for keeping people locked up for
Speaker 1: so long and then sparking a major basically run on
Speaker 1: the hospitals as of right now. So that's really what
Speaker 1: I wanted to focus on, Crystal. You know, everyone a
Speaker 1: lot of zero COVID advocates on Twitter and elsewhere are like,
Speaker 1: see this is what happened. And if you want to
Speaker 1: here my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 1: today at Breakingpoints dot com. I really want to thank
Speaker 1: everybody for sticking with us. We have some technical difficulties
Speaker 1: on our end, so we're going to try and get
Speaker 1: the show out as soon as possible. Don't forget about
Speaker 1: the live show. We've got the tickets that are on
Speaker 1: sale right now for Austin. They're selling really well and
Speaker 1: we really hope to see all of you there. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: we're going to be back in the study on Thursday,
Speaker 1: we promise, and we love you. Happy holidays, Love you guys,
Speaker 1: See you soon.