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Speaker 1: the show notes. Enjoy the show, guys, Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: Crystal Ball is back at the house right streat to
Speaker 1: see you. Crystal Full recovery guys, Yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: rough stretch there for a while back in the game.
Speaker 1: We're very glad to thank you. I'm glad to be
Speaker 1: back here. I can promise you so a lot to
Speaker 1: get to you this morning. Some truly stunning and very
Speaker 1: troubling numbers coming out about record breaking opioid desks last year.
Speaker 1: It's disturbing, it's very revealing, where this is happening, why
Speaker 1: this is happening. So we'll get into all of that,
Speaker 1: some new indications about just why we're facing inflation that's
Speaker 1: a little bit different than the corporate media narrative that
Speaker 1: you've been hearing. Also a moment on the View that
Speaker 1: you just have to see where co hosts get into
Speaker 1: it about our former co host gets into it about vaccinations.
Speaker 1: Very explosive moment. We'll talk about that top tennis star
Speaker 1: has gone missing after accusing a high level Chinese official
Speaker 1: of sexual assault. No one has seen or heard from
Speaker 1: her since it has been weeks. Now. We'll give you
Speaker 1: the very latest there, But we wanted to start with
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting numbers, poll numbers about just how people
Speaker 1: feel about Joe Biden personally and something that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about for a while now. Sager going back to
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary, is that Joe Biden's greatest strength. People
Speaker 1: didn't really love his policy positions, they certainly didn't love
Speaker 1: his past record, but they felt a lot of personal
Speaker 1: affection for him. They saw on him a lot of
Speaker 1: leadership characteristics that they felt like contrasted very well with
Speaker 1: former President Trump. Well on every single one of those metrics,
Speaker 1: things like, you know, do you care about me personally?
Speaker 1: Are you a good leader? Are you a clear communicator?
Speaker 1: Biden has fallen off a cliff when terms of how
Speaker 1: voters see him. Let's go ahead and throw this political
Speaker 1: tear sheet up on the screen. They've got the headline,
Speaker 1: voter's doubts rising about Biden's health and mental fitness. Let
Speaker 1: me give you a few of the details here so
Speaker 1: you can see what a dramatic decline this has been.
Speaker 1: So only forty percent of voters surveyed now agree with
Speaker 1: the statement that Biden is quote in good health, while
Speaker 1: fifty percent disagreed. That ten percentage point gap, which is
Speaker 1: outside the poll's margin of air, represents a massive twenty
Speaker 1: nine point shift since October of twenty twenty, So a
Speaker 1: year ago, he was doing well on that metric about
Speaker 1: whether he's in good health now he is dramatically underwater.
Speaker 1: Asked whether Biden is mentally fit, voters are almost evenly split.
Speaker 1: Now forty six percent say he is, forty eight percent disagree.
Speaker 1: But that negative two point margin stands in stark contrast
Speaker 1: to again Biden's numbers last October, when voters did think
Speaker 1: he was mentally fit by a margin of twenty one points.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to get into here, So across the board,
Speaker 1: they sort of focused on the health and mental fitness one,
Speaker 1: which I do think is important. And by the way, guys,
Speaker 1: something that we were talking about all the way alone
Speaker 1: and brutally attacked for right come COVID times like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to talk about that one, right? No?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was amazing to watch the sort of
Speaker 1: evolution of how people felt about this, because at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the Democratic primary, when it was a free
Speaker 1: for all, you had Julian cast, you had mainstream MSNBC
Speaker 1: commentators Andrew talking about talking about whether he was up
Speaker 1: to the job at this point, which isn't to be mean,
Speaker 1: it's just literally to look with your eyes and listen
Speaker 1: to your ears and say, is this man really up
Speaker 1: to what the nation would ask of him at this point,
Speaker 1: the second that it basically was down to him and Birdie,
Speaker 1: you no longer could say anything about this, or you
Speaker 1: are a horrible person. You were ablest, you were attacking
Speaker 1: him for the fact that he stuttered as a kid.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of this insanity. And within this story
Speaker 1: this also blew my mind. They quote a prominent Democratic holster,
Speaker 1: stil Into, one of the best known out there, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't say, you know, oh well, I understand why
Speaker 1: voters and he had these mistakes and maybe that's why
Speaker 1: they feel like maybe he's not what he was before.
Speaker 1: She says that the right wing is quote running a
Speaker 1: very aggressive campaign on this, and it's bleeding over into
Speaker 1: the mainstream a little. By and large, the people who
Speaker 1: believe this are Trump supporters anyway, or they've been exposed
Speaker 1: to the right wing disinformation machine. Okay, listen, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. Right wing media is going to take whatever
Speaker 1: they can deceptively edit, play on loop all of that.
Speaker 1: But also, voters have eyes and they have ears, and
Speaker 1: they're not stupid. They can see with their own self
Speaker 1: that Biden is not what he used to be and
Speaker 1: it is not just Trump voters that are feeling that way.
Speaker 1: In fact, independence are also feeling seeing a massive decline
Speaker 1: in how they rate these sort of personal traits. And
Speaker 1: they even reference a focus group of black voters in
Speaker 1: a southern state where a number of the voters brought
Speaker 1: this up on their own. Here's a quote, Biden's definitely
Speaker 1: slow on a lot of things. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: it is because of his age or if he's still
Speaker 1: going after thirty decades ago. Asked if she would support
Speaker 1: Biden in twenty twenty four, the woman said, if he's alive,
Speaker 1: I'm just staying there. You go. I mean, no, Look,
Speaker 1: people have eyes, they have ears. During COVID, it was
Speaker 1: comforting he was not, you know, for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: because he was not really in the spotlight. Every once
Speaker 1: in a while he had a decent moment the debate
Speaker 1: whenever it came with Bernie, the debate, whenever it came
Speaker 1: with Trump, he seemed relatively lucid. He had those moments, though,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a Barack Obama actually said about the
Speaker 1: campaign process whenever I was reading his book that one
Speaker 1: of the good things about it is that it strips
Speaker 1: you down and exposes you to the American people. And
Speaker 1: what it means by that is that when you're on
Speaker 1: the road and on camera every single day for two years,
Speaker 1: we're going to find out pretty much everything about you.
Speaker 1: That's just the deal in terms of interaction with reporters.
Speaker 1: And we all remember right before COVID, his interactions with
Speaker 1: voters and reporters every now and then just seemed completely
Speaker 1: off the rails. And now when you're president of the
Speaker 1: United States, we see you in a very similar fashion.
Speaker 1: That's why they do their best not to allow him
Speaker 1: to do interviews. That's why they do their best not
Speaker 1: to have him out in the press or out in
Speaker 1: the public. And you know, he does that weird thing
Speaker 1: where he's like, I'm not allowed to take questions, which
Speaker 1: again is extraordinarily strange. And when people see that, they go, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing you really for who you are in the
Speaker 1: real American presidency, where you're on the camera, or at
Speaker 1: least should be every single day. Look at the graphic
Speaker 1: we have up on the screen in terms of the
Speaker 1: reduction overall and how people saw him in the past
Speaker 1: as opposed to people see him now. Knowledgeable sixty percent,
Speaker 1: now forty nine, compassionate, sixty one percent now forty seven.
Speaker 1: Mentally fit fifty three now forty six, trustworthy fifty four
Speaker 1: now forty three. Two Liberal is actually the only place
Speaker 1: where he's increased from forty two to forty three. Reckless
Speaker 1: thirty two to forty two. So he's doing well at
Speaker 1: least on that thin skinned as well. Capable of leading
Speaker 1: in good health, motivates his party. That's where there's a
Speaker 1: fifty eight to now thirty nine percent drop. Here's the
Speaker 1: other bad one. Cares about people like me. This is
Speaker 1: often one of the most important in all of politics.
Speaker 1: Fifty three to thirty nine, Strong leader fifty one to
Speaker 1: thirty nine, keeps his promises fifty to thirty nine, clear communicator,
Speaker 1: get this one, fifty three to thirty seven, and worst
Speaker 1: of all, energetic forty six percent to thirty four. Now, look,
Speaker 1: every single one of those are on a personal metric
Speaker 1: in which people assess how they feel after now having
Speaker 1: observed him for the better part of a couple of
Speaker 1: years on the highest stage in the world. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't take a genius in order to figure it out.
Speaker 1: As you said, the gas lighting in those early days
Speaker 1: was driving his nuts where they were like, oh, he
Speaker 1: has a stutter, a childhood stutter, and so it's actually
Speaker 1: like a heroic tale. Listen, I watched Joe Biden since
Speaker 1: before I you know, basically since I was born on television.
Speaker 1: He ran for president before I was born. That's how
Speaker 1: old this man is. And I even attended once a
Speaker 1: speech that he gave. I think it was twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it was before the twenty twelve midterm elections.
Speaker 1: And he was good, like, let you know, he had
Speaker 1: an aviator jacking on, and he had sunglasses and he
Speaker 1: was like putting his foot up on a stool. It
Speaker 1: was in Philadelphia too, it was like a majority black crowd. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was great. He lit the crowd on fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I saw him, you know, later on, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, this is just not the
Speaker 1: man that he once was. I was there at that
Speaker 1: Paul Ryan debate there, you go, all the Republicans were
Speaker 1: all psyched up for that thing because Paul Ryan was
Speaker 1: a golden child and they thought he was going to
Speaker 1: wipe the floor with Uncle Joe and it was not
Speaker 1: even cl No, he did a good job. Joe handled him,
Speaker 1: I you know, so it's clear to voters, to everyone,
Speaker 1: and the truth of the matter is, I actually don't
Speaker 1: think that people would care that much about his the
Speaker 1: fact that he's lost a step. He's not quite the man.
Speaker 1: You know, he doesn't have it all together the way
Speaker 1: that he used to. He doesn't have that quick on
Speaker 1: his feet, that energy, that charisma that he used to
Speaker 1: bring to the table. I actually don't think people would
Speaker 1: care that much if they felt like his priorities are
Speaker 1: my priorities. He really cares about people like me. He's
Speaker 1: fighting for people like me, and so that was always
Speaker 1: the real strength for him, is that people just had
Speaker 1: these warm fuzzies about him that like he's compat he's
Speaker 1: a good man, he's not perfect, he makes these mistakes.
Speaker 1: I mean that made him sort of more relatable. But
Speaker 1: he really is in there fighting for me, and he
Speaker 1: cares about he gets the middle class or the working
Speaker 1: class experience. He's got my priorities in mind. That was
Speaker 1: always his greatest strength. And so the fact that he
Speaker 1: has fallen off sojiermadically on a metric like cares about
Speaker 1: people like me. That if I was the Biden camp,
Speaker 1: that would be the thing I was most worried about,
Speaker 1: because that is a core strength I do want to
Speaker 1: note you alluded to it. It's funny to me that
Speaker 1: on he's too liberal like that was basically the best
Speaker 1: metric that he had in there, and it didn't budge
Speaker 1: at all and moved from forty three to forty two,
Speaker 1: which statistically means it didn't change at all. So just
Speaker 1: a note for all of you out there doing the like,
Speaker 1: he's AOC. You know, he's Bernie Sanders is running the administration.
Speaker 1: He's a socialist, big government, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: That particular talking point, y'all have been trying it for
Speaker 1: years now and it is still not working and it
Speaker 1: is not going to work. So you know, you've got
Speaker 1: some other things that you might want to work with
Speaker 1: here because that one is just not landing. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think that is particularly hilarious. And just to get
Speaker 1: you know, put a cap on this if you have eyes,
Speaker 1: the president has had some strange moments over the last
Speaker 1: couple of months, months, not even months, last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: We put together three moments literally just from the last
Speaker 1: like six weeks that were captured once again on camera
Speaker 1: that everybody can see for their eyes as to how
Speaker 1: exactly he's faring. Let's take a listen. You know, I've
Speaker 1: adopted the attitude of the great Negro at the time
Speaker 1: Pitture in the Negro Leagues went on to become a
Speaker 1: great pitcher in the pros in the Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: after Jackie Robinson, his name was Satchel Page. I was
Speaker 1: able to go to the private portion of all products
Speaker 1: coming into the United States of America on the West coast,
Speaker 1: go through Los Angeles, and what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: It's a long beach, long beach. Thank you. This conference
Speaker 1: is one of the most You have the chance to
Speaker 1: decisions which the generations. Now you are in a position
Speaker 1: of extraordinary power. You can change forever that year on
Speaker 1: you a world that is once again not here. This
Speaker 1: is my message from birth to cop on behalf of
Speaker 1: week fifteen. So for those who were just listening that
Speaker 1: last clip, Biden was actually asleep in public at the
Speaker 1: Climate change meeting, and we cut it right whenever one
Speaker 1: of his aids came over in order to wake him up.
Speaker 1: But relatable fall asleep there too. I probably would have
Speaker 1: fallen asleep too. I'm also not the president, and whenever
Speaker 1: it comes, it's just one of these I mean I
Speaker 1: even vividly remember even though we very much praised his
Speaker 1: speech on Afghanistan, you know, the defiant one, but whenever
Speaker 1: after it was done, he did that very strange thing
Speaker 1: where he put his elbows on the podium in order
Speaker 1: to take questions and was taking a lot of pausing
Speaker 1: and was cluely like unsure on his foot. And that's
Speaker 1: what I mean by has good times and bad times,
Speaker 1: which is and look, we're not insinuating anything. All we're
Speaker 1: saying is that old people when they age, that's a
Speaker 1: general feature of it. Anybody who's interacted with somebody over
Speaker 1: the age of seventy seven, seventy eight, and the president
Speaker 1: is now seventy nine knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: And they're trying to gaslight us into thinking otherwise. So
Speaker 1: this is the problem. Americans have eyes, they have ears,
Speaker 1: they know what's going on. Maybe they were willing to
Speaker 1: forgive it whenever it was versus Donald Trump, but now
Speaker 1: that they see it very vividly as their president, they're
Speaker 1: not happy about it. Yeah, and again I think it
Speaker 1: would actually be overcomeable if they felt like the administration
Speaker 1: is being run well. His aids have this I mean,
Speaker 1: you think back to the Reagan era, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of questions then about him, and they were turned
Speaker 1: out they were very justified, questions about how much he
Speaker 1: was understanding what was going on, and how much he
Speaker 1: was with it, et cetera, et cetera. And listen, I'm
Speaker 1: not a big Ronald Reagan fan here, but because he
Speaker 1: had people around him that gave the nation confidence, he's
Speaker 1: able to get reelected, the questions about his age, all
Speaker 1: of that stuff was sort of pushed to the side.
Speaker 1: With Biden. You don't get the sense that he's on
Speaker 1: top of it. You don't get the sense that his
Speaker 1: administration is on top of it. He's lost that warm
Speaker 1: feeling that people had towards him about like what he gets,
Speaker 1: he gets me, and he sees me, and he's got
Speaker 1: the right priorities of mine. We covered that pole before
Speaker 1: about people saying that he doesn't know, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: the right priorities in terms of what he's up to
Speaker 1: and what he's accomplishing. There's not a lot you could
Speaker 1: take from this that is positive. So yeah, like I said,
Speaker 1: I think if I was the Biden people, the ones
Speaker 1: I would be most concerned about is that people no
Speaker 1: longer feel like he cares about people like them. For
Speaker 1: a politician, that is absolutely devastating, especially especially for a
Speaker 1: guy like Joe Biden who has never been a policy
Speaker 1: guy or a vision guy or any of that. The
Speaker 1: whole thing he brought to the table is that sense
Speaker 1: of middle class, working class solidarity, and if that is gone,
Speaker 1: it's hard to see that there's much else left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. At the same time, we want
Speaker 1: to bring you some truly dire news. This is something
Speaker 1: we've tracked for a very long time, you know, really
Speaker 1: since we started worsh together on this show, which is
Speaker 1: the opioid epidemic and how many lives it has destroyed
Speaker 1: this country. And we've we've just hit a truly horrific
Speaker 1: milestone in that fight against those that deadly addiction. One
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people died of overdoses last year. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and put that first element up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So this is a chart that Washington posted a good
Speaker 1: write up of this. The number of people who died
Speaker 1: this is the most in history in this country, two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five every day people who died. It
Speaker 1: would fill the stadium where the University of Alabama plays football.
Speaker 1: There are now more over deaths from the illegal synthetic
Speaker 1: opioid fentanyl then there were overdose deaths from any drug
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. And I want to pause on that
Speaker 1: stat This was a twenty eight percent increase from last year.
Speaker 1: So even as we've been tracking the horrors of this
Speaker 1: epidemic for years now, it jumped up twenty eight percent
Speaker 1: in one year. There are a few things that they
Speaker 1: cite here as potential factors, and we can talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about this. One of the things that
Speaker 1: they said is because of the pandemic, people were more
Speaker 1: likely to be using alone. So if you get into trouble,
Speaker 1: then you don't have someone there to call nine one
Speaker 1: one to administer innloxome to help you out of that situation,
Speaker 1: you just die. So that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: is going on here. But going back to that stat
Speaker 1: about now, just fentanyl deaths account for more overdose deaths
Speaker 1: than everything put together in twenty sixteen. If you guys
Speaker 1: recall back to that twenty six team Presdential campaign, opioid
Speaker 1: addiction was a huge part of that campaign. It was
Speaker 1: actually huge part of how Trump started to gain traction
Speaker 1: because he talked about it in some of the biggest
Speaker 1: swing counties that we saw back in twenty sixteen. If
Speaker 1: you look at some correlative factors, one of the things
Speaker 1: that stuck out the most was drug overdose. The other
Speaker 1: one was actually vets killed abroad in foreign war. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always think about those two job lost job I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously job loss that was with Bernie Sanders and with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. The swing on and you know, amount of
Speaker 1: jobs lost to China after the wto entrance in two
Speaker 1: thousand was like directly in line with how much votes
Speaker 1: they got both in the primary and eventually for Trump
Speaker 1: in the general election. And I think the second part
Speaker 1: of this, which is really stark put the map up there,
Speaker 1: because it's not just that the deaths have surpassed one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, it's that it's very unevenly distributed. So you
Speaker 1: can actually see there, which is that West Virginia is
Speaker 1: coming in at over ninety ninety deaths per hundred thousand
Speaker 1: from a drug over dose, and the distribution is it's
Speaker 1: very hard to like pin down right. So obviously you
Speaker 1: see the less populated states that aren't getting hit as hard,
Speaker 1: and you know, South Dakota and all of that. But
Speaker 1: it's not one thing that's just in one particular place.
Speaker 1: Even though yes, you know, the industrial Midwest and Appalachia
Speaker 1: get harder than everybody. You can see hotspots in Florida,
Speaker 1: we see hot spot in New Mexico, even up in
Speaker 1: you know, the high like in the Northeast, like Maine, Vermont,
Speaker 1: Connecticut also not doing well. So yes, I mean things
Speaker 1: are very very bad in West Virginia and in Appalachia generally,
Speaker 1: but if you look at the whole country, I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole country is not doing so well in terms
Speaker 1: of where we see the deaths per one hundred thousand,
Speaker 1: they're on the map. West Virginia is just so I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the really and you have a lot of experience
Speaker 1: and maybe you can tell us about it. Like in
Speaker 1: terms of those counties you were saying, what is it
Speaker 1: in the South which have particularly been hardest hip because
Speaker 1: they've lost coal jobs and law and they have no
Speaker 1: economic opportunity. That's where you see some of the most
Speaker 1: deaths in the country. That's correct. I would actually like
Speaker 1: to see this map on a county by county basis,
Speaker 1: because I think what you would see is even within
Speaker 1: the state of West Virginia, which has a problem. Overall,
Speaker 1: deaths would certainly be most concentrate. I mean, the numbers
Speaker 1: that you would see coming out of southern West Virginia.
Speaker 1: It's horrible and it's not a surprise when you consider
Speaker 1: how exploited these people have been, how jobs you have
Speaker 1: completely disintegrated, and also just the amount of physical pain
Speaker 1: that workers are in in Appalachia because they've you know,
Speaker 1: literally used their bodies underground in very difficult jobs in
Speaker 1: order to survive. This is one of the things a
Speaker 1: fantastic author, Beth Macy, she wrote such a great book
Speaker 1: called Dope Sic on the origins of this crisis. She's
Speaker 1: based down in southwestern Virginia around Roanoke, so right next
Speaker 1: door to West Virginia, and that whole area has been
Speaker 1: hit so incredibly hard, as has Kentucky. All of Appalachia
Speaker 1: has hit so incredibly hard. And she really traces it
Speaker 1: back to you know, people who were doing hard physical
Speaker 1: labor and they had terrible chronic pain. And so you
Speaker 1: get a prescription for oxy and then once that is,
Speaker 1: once the doctor will no longer prescribe, well, that's actually
Speaker 1: when you really get into trouble and when you turn
Speaker 1: to the street and when you end up on heroin.
Speaker 1: And then now what we see with the rise of fentanyl,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is poison really in any significant quantity
Speaker 1: at all. And so you know, you look at these numbers,
Speaker 1: and actually there's a chart in here in this Washington
Speaker 1: Post graphic that shows oxy prescriptions have dramatically declined. Yes,
Speaker 1: and as they've declined, the death rate has actually gone
Speaker 1: up because people turn to the street. And so look,
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, what we're doing with the war on
Speaker 1: drugs is an utter and complete failure. Most people, the
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of these users, they don't want fentanyl. Fentanyl
Speaker 1: is so concentrated that it's easy for traffickers to smuggle.
Speaker 1: You can carry a lot more fentanyl, a lot more
Speaker 1: doses of fentanyl in a small space that weighs a
Speaker 1: lot less and it's a lot easier to traffic and
Speaker 1: carry than an equivalent amount of heroin and certainly that
Speaker 1: an equivalent amount of oxy. That's what happens when you
Speaker 1: have prohibition is people turn to the most concentrated. Traffickers
Speaker 1: turn to the most concentrated form of the drug. So
Speaker 1: that's why you end up with fentanyl now across the country,
Speaker 1: causing this much havoc, in this much death. And by
Speaker 1: the way, you know, one of the things that people
Speaker 1: I think rightly have discussed, and I think this is
Speaker 1: a part of the story is pandemic policies and lockdowns.
Speaker 1: And I was saying, you know, people were then alone,
Speaker 1: and we know the way that people's mental health suffered,
Speaker 1: But we also have to acknowledge if we put this
Speaker 1: last graphic up on the screen of how we compare
Speaker 1: to other countries, this is the US at the bottom dramatically,
Speaker 1: I mean not even close higher number of deaths from
Speaker 1: overdoses from any country in the EU. They also threw
Speaker 1: in here Turkey and Norway. I mean, this is a
Speaker 1: horrific picture. And the comment here is not the sign
Speaker 1: of a healthy society at all. While all of these
Speaker 1: countries that we're looking at, I mean many of them
Speaker 1: had stricter lockdown procedures in place than the United States.
Speaker 1: So to just say, oh, well, what's going on here
Speaker 1: is just a year of lockdowns, I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot more going on. It's a lot more complicated picture,
Speaker 1: because then how do you explain these countries that had
Speaker 1: much more stringent lockdowns than we did, not having this
Speaker 1: same horrific toll in terms of overdose death. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things. Number one obviously the traffickers, but
Speaker 1: number two is actually have a different type of trafficker
Speaker 1: than what euro pass to deal with. None all those
Speaker 1: countries have legalized drugs or even actually many of them
Speaker 1: even as strict dug laws as we have, and we
Speaker 1: have Mexico and we have China as well. In terms
Speaker 1: of supplying industrial fentanyl to Mexico, which brings up here
Speaker 1: through our poorest border, it's much easier in order to
Speaker 1: get that type of quantity. But the second thing is
Speaker 1: actually the prescription and that's where you know, you point
Speaker 1: to you see the drop in subscription, but it went
Speaker 1: from two hundred and fifty million to one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty million, so we still have a lot of opioid
Speaker 1: subscriptions here in the country. That's the other part of
Speaker 1: the story, which I think is really just tragic. But look,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the real thing is that in
Speaker 1: America we do everything a little bit bigger, a little
Speaker 1: bit worse, and we have a little bit more of
Speaker 1: a consumptive society. We also have much more disconnection from
Speaker 1: our healthcare system. That's a huge part of the story too,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, I've been doing some reading
Speaker 1: Michael Schellenberger, who wrote this very interesting new book on
Speaker 1: San Francisco. He's very pro actually legalizing drugs. So this
Speaker 1: is why I think it's interesting from his perspectives. He
Speaker 1: points to in Portugal and in many of these other places,
Speaker 1: the amount of connection that the state has with you
Speaker 1: whenever you're going through this stuff is totally out of
Speaker 1: this world. So Portugal, for example, if you are addicted
Speaker 1: to heroin in Portugal and you're sitting on a park
Speaker 1: bench and you shoot heroin in broad daylight, you're getting
Speaker 1: arrested even though it's illegal. But when you go to court,
Speaker 1: you're not going to go thrown to jail. They're like,
Speaker 1: you're going to mandatory. It's not like a paternalistic treatment
Speaker 1: where they're like, you're going to treatment like now. And
Speaker 1: I mean, you can go to jail if you want,
Speaker 1: but you know, most people opt for treatment. And this
Speaker 1: is what I really get scared of. And this is
Speaker 1: actually inside of the Washington Post story, is the American
Speaker 1: suffering some substance from disorder from drugs eighteen point four
Speaker 1: million with substance use, but by age one point three
Speaker 1: point three million are between the ages of twenty one
Speaker 1: and twenty five. So this is actually a crisis which
Speaker 1: is skewed down on the age scale, which means, as
Speaker 1: we've seen this, when you have aging addicts and you
Speaker 1: have a system like this, it's just going to continue
Speaker 1: to get worse. You actually see an age distribution where
Speaker 1: it's higher amongst people who are younger, and then drops
Speaker 1: off as you go to the older people once I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that older people aren't addicted to the drugs
Speaker 1: in millions. I'm saying the highest percentage wise of the
Speaker 1: age group is actually amongst people between twenty one and
Speaker 1: twenty five. So in terms of like if we have
Speaker 1: to revamp the treatment option is actually going to be
Speaker 1: one of the number one things that we have to do.
Speaker 1: I've been looking a lot into it around how exactly Portugal,
Speaker 1: the Netherlands and many of these other places which do
Speaker 1: even have legalized drug systems have much more paternalistic policies
Speaker 1: whenever it comes to hey, like if you're addicted to drugs,
Speaker 1: like we're going to take you off the street, you're
Speaker 1: going to go to treatment. You have the option to
Speaker 1: go to prison if you want, but you know most
Speaker 1: people don't want to. And there's like several interventions that happen, yea,
Speaker 1: all along that way. This it's insane. You and I
Speaker 1: obviously have a disagreement about what we should do in
Speaker 1: terms of legalizing true, but I think we could both agree.
Speaker 1: It's in saying that if you have a doctor who
Speaker 1: sees this person's getting having trouble, they have a they
Speaker 1: have an addiction. Now in this ox prescription I'm giving them,
Speaker 1: and your solution is just I'm gonna cut them off.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's insane, right without referring to and
Speaker 1: then you know, I don't want to put this like
Speaker 1: it's not just the doctor's fault here. They obviously the
Speaker 1: entire healthcare system is totally screwed. But let's say that
Speaker 1: they recommend a person to treatment, Well, is it going
Speaker 1: to get paid for by their insurance? Probably not? Probably not.
Speaker 1: It's not Do we have enough treatment or rehab beds
Speaker 1: even in the country for people, No, we don't. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you I used to know the stats in West Virginia,
Speaker 1: which again hardest hit place in the entire country. The
Speaker 1: number of beds is pathetically small, So even if you
Speaker 1: refer to someone to trip like, the resources just literally
Speaker 1: are not there, which is important. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the other thing that we've talked about a
Speaker 1: lot with overdose debts is there's a direct connection between
Speaker 1: all of these deaths of despair that we see. I mean,
Speaker 1: people are dying of cirrhosis to the liver, people who
Speaker 1: are dying suicide, the amount of people on various prescription
Speaker 1: drugs to deal with with you know, dramatic mental health issues, anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: all of these things are a horrific epidemic in this
Speaker 1: country that has led to people dying younger and for
Speaker 1: a developed country to be headed in the wrong direction
Speaker 1: in terms of mortality, the most basic failure that you
Speaker 1: could possibly have in a society and other countries. It's
Speaker 1: not like this is a developed world problem. No other
Speaker 1: countries aren't facing us this. It's us alone. So you
Speaker 1: have to look at the roots of that. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of that is a sort of disconnection, a
Speaker 1: sort of loss of any greater purpose, a sense of meaning.
Speaker 1: And you know, you never want to oversimplify things because
Speaker 1: every story is different of how people end up in
Speaker 1: a tragic situation. But ultimately there's something going on societ
Speaker 1: wide that is a deep sickness and a deep rot
Speaker 1: that is leaving people totally despondent and utterly rutterless. I mean,
Speaker 1: you think about the number of jobs that have been
Speaker 1: lost to automation shift overseas, the fact that we've told
Speaker 1: men that you know, your only worth is basically what
Speaker 1: your market worth is, and then we take strip away
Speaker 1: your ability to be able to earn and provide for
Speaker 1: yourself or to be able to have a family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's going to leave a lot of people really devastated.
Speaker 1: So it's an incredibly grim milestone. There aren't easy solutions,
Speaker 1: although you know, there is a lot to learn from
Speaker 1: what other countries around the world are doing, both with
Speaker 1: regards to drugs, but also with regards to that just
Speaker 1: human connection and basic supports and connectivity with the healthcare
Speaker 1: system and all of those sorts of it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: completely agree. And that's the other problem that we don't
Speaker 1: take rehab very seriously enough. You know, the recidivism rate
Speaker 1: on heroin is something like eighty percent or something like that,
Speaker 1: and when you add fentonol into that is even higher.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason why is a lot of
Speaker 1: our inpatient facilit is early ninety days. Ninety days is
Speaker 1: not long enough in order to rewire your brain neurons,
Speaker 1: and we don't fund it. A lot of these people.
Speaker 1: You could talk to parents who put their personally knows
Speaker 1: some people who've had to, you know, go some through
Speaker 1: this stuff, and ninety days is not long enough. And
Speaker 1: part of the reason why so many people o d
Speaker 1: right after they get out is because it's just they
Speaker 1: immediately go and then they shoot up on what they
Speaker 1: used to get high on before they win, and that's
Speaker 1: immediately going to make you od h. And many times,
Speaker 1: you know, if they're alone or something, it could be
Speaker 1: too late. If you're just going back into the exact
Speaker 1: same environment it's left, nothing's going to be different, nothing's
Speaker 1: going to do There's so much that needs to be changed,
Speaker 1: and you know, we could do many, many hours on this,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's such a terrible situation. That was
Speaker 1: one of the things I most appreciated about the Andrew
Speaker 1: Yang campaign is the most basic metric of how are
Speaker 1: you doing people living in and how are they dying?
Speaker 1: Like are they dying sooner? What's going on? You see
Speaker 1: that all consistently across the board, all across the middle,
Speaker 1: you know, parts of this country which were completely hollowed out,
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, I can and I was
Speaker 1: reading an essay this weekend that just came out. You've
Speaker 1: all lived in This is very very thought provoking usay,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll put it in the in the description. And
Speaker 1: what they talk about is that the problems of the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds and earlier, like the social problems, were problems
Speaker 1: of people acting out in excess, and then the social
Speaker 1: problems of today are more like listeness and to the
Speaker 1: extent that they have excess. It's like excess drugs while alone,
Speaker 1: excess drugs while participating, or taking something which is sedative,
Speaker 1: which makes you like not social, which makes you, you know,
Speaker 1: even oding. And just the picture that we're pointing here,
Speaker 1: somebody alone by themselves. Whereas in the past being able
Speaker 1: like drinking too much and you know, going out and
Speaker 1: doing something to another person, or like social pathologies of
Speaker 1: too much action, the ones today are the opposite. And
Speaker 1: it just shows you what the problems of the twenty
Speaker 1: first century with the Internet sitting on the couch obesity,
Speaker 1: you know, all these types of things. They're all downstream
Speaker 1: of a new consumerism and more, which we're still wrapping
Speaker 1: our heads around. I think that's what this is. That's
Speaker 1: why when I say, like America, like we do you
Speaker 1: know better than everybody else? Yeah, well ways, like we
Speaker 1: invented it. And the last point is a media point,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, last time I talked to Bernie,
Speaker 1: he was pointing out which I didn't even know because
Speaker 1: it got zero media coverage. They did an entire hearing
Speaker 1: on decline immortality rates. Why where new numbers knew? Which
Speaker 1: demographics is it hit? Which places in the country? What's
Speaker 1: going on here really important? I mean, the most important
Speaker 1: thing you could possibly talk about. Zero media interest. Zero
Speaker 1: media interest. They would rather talk about, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: the stupid culture war, outrage of Steve Bannon or like
Speaker 1: big Bird or whatever insanity is going on that day
Speaker 1: they would rather talk about than, you know, the things
Speaker 1: that are most impactful to your life. Now, Sesame Street
Speaker 1: should actually on ironically do an opioid thing that actually
Speaker 1: would probably be better off for the full supportive There
Speaker 1: you go, Okay, let's move on to this inflation. You
Speaker 1: actually found this. I love this story. We've been talking
Speaker 1: a lot about inflation, about the debates around inflation. We
Speaker 1: obviously see higher gas price, higher food price, higher prices,
Speaker 1: especially in the crazy sectors like used cars, rental cars, hotels.
Speaker 1: The debate is obviously over government spending or about supply. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, guys know we fall much more on the
Speaker 1: supply chain and how exactly the screw ups in that
Speaker 1: system fall. But another part of that story, which nobody
Speaker 1: has been discussing is the individual actors, who are the
Speaker 1: corporations themselves. So let's put this up there on the
Speaker 1: screen from the Wall Street Journal, who actually did a
Speaker 1: great investigation what does inflation mean for American businesses? For
Speaker 1: some bigger profits. So get this, nearly two out of
Speaker 1: three of the biggest US publicly traded companies reported fatter
Speaker 1: profit margins than they did before the pandemic in a
Speaker 1: very unprecedented environment. Now that doesn't make lot of sense
Speaker 1: because what you hear from the corporations whenever they raise
Speaker 1: prices is this, Hey, our supply went up, so we
Speaker 1: have to charge you more basic supply and demand. We're
Speaker 1: not making any more money, We're just passing on the
Speaker 1: cost to the consumer. Well, what we're seeing here is
Speaker 1: that when the two thirds of the companies are raising
Speaker 1: the prices, sometimes they say, well, everybody's used to raising
Speaker 1: higher prices. Right now, this is the best excuse that
Speaker 1: we've ever had, and so they maybe they just jack
Speaker 1: it up a little bit more and a little bit
Speaker 1: more and a little bit more, and then next thing
Speaker 1: you know, you got two thirds of the entire fortune
Speaker 1: five hundred with the higher profit margins than ever before. Now,
Speaker 1: it is true that profit margins sometimes rise with inflation,
Speaker 1: but what they are seeing is that the companies are
Speaker 1: skewing much more to the side of as high a
Speaker 1: price as they can possibly justify because they know that
Speaker 1: the consumer, paradoxically is now used to it. They will
Speaker 1: not you know, consumers will usually are pretty price conscious.
Speaker 1: They'll go and see their grocery stores, maybe they'll compare
Speaker 1: across the board. But in this type of crazy environment,
Speaker 1: they go, ah, man, it's just you know, inflation, right,
Speaker 1: I used to pay this, Now I pay this, And
Speaker 1: you're not asking as many questions about the proportion in
Speaker 1: that rise of increase and there look, there's no other
Speaker 1: word for this. They're builking us like that. That's what
Speaker 1: this is, using it as an excuse in order to
Speaker 1: charge you and us more money. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: And how do we know because their CEOs are bragging
Speaker 1: about it on investor calls. That's how we know. Okay,
Speaker 1: they go through in the Wall Street Journal numerous CEOs
Speaker 1: who are telling their investors, Oh, we've been able to
Speaker 1: We've been able to price up, so that's why we're
Speaker 1: getting these fat profit margins. We can throw the Business
Speaker 1: Insider tear sheet up on the screen as well, which
Speaker 1: talks about Walmart, which announced third quarter financial results this morning,
Speaker 1: able to post better than expected earnings in part by
Speaker 1: offering few discounts to shoppers. But a lot of large
Speaker 1: firms have spent their recent quarterly calls bragging to investors
Speaker 1: about their ability to hike prices with relative impunity. Here's
Speaker 1: the CEO of Colgate Palmoliv saying, what we are very
Speaker 1: good at is pricing, whether it's foreign exchange inflation or
Speaker 1: raw and packing material inflation. We have found ways over
Speaker 1: time to recover that in our margin line. You have
Speaker 1: the Kroger CFO saying we've been very comfortable with our
Speaker 1: ability to pass on the increases that we've seen at
Speaker 1: this point, and we would expect that to continue to
Speaker 1: be the case. So these companies are literally bragging about
Speaker 1: the fact that they're able to use inflation as a
Speaker 1: way to start either giving fewer discounts or upping their
Speaker 1: price overall to not just overcome that inflation, but post
Speaker 1: the largest earnings and the fattest profits that they have
Speaker 1: ever had in many cases. And the other piece of
Speaker 1: the story is monopolies, because if you had a actual
Speaker 1: competitive then what would happen. You might try to hike
Speaker 1: your prices super high. Your competitor would say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I can undercut them and still make a profit margin.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to do that and win win consumers
Speaker 1: over that way. But when you have a monopoly, well,
Speaker 1: that function doesn't happen, correct, So these companies just get
Speaker 1: to continue to increase prices, knowing you have few other options,
Speaker 1: and knowing that there are very few other competitors out
Speaker 1: there who can undercut them and pose a real threat
Speaker 1: ultimately to their bottom line that would force the prices
Speaker 1: to come back down. And by the way, when these
Speaker 1: companies are playing this game of increasing prices even more
Speaker 1: than they have to that fuel's inflation. That is part
Speaker 1: of the inflation story. So they benefit from inflation because
Speaker 1: they get this excuse. They increase their prices beyond inflation,
Speaker 1: and that further fuels inflation, giving them an even more
Speaker 1: excuse to increase prices. This is even more of a
Speaker 1: feedback loop here. And this is the problem, which is
Speaker 1: that when you're in sech crazy environment, the pricing, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's not logical. They can try and push
Speaker 1: it as far as they can, and you only need
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred of you to come together and
Speaker 1: do the exact same thing. Now prices are even higher,
Speaker 1: then those prices get reported as inflation, and now you
Speaker 1: get to push it up even higher and higher and higher,
Speaker 1: and it's a self fulfilling prophecy. This is part of
Speaker 1: the problem too, whenever we don't see a lot of
Speaker 1: regulation or at least threat of regulation on these companies.
Speaker 1: The Biden administration over the weekend actually sent a letter
Speaker 1: to the FTC Chairwoman Lena Khan, And what they're appointing
Speaker 1: to is that oil and gas companies. There's an audit
Speaker 1: actually right now of how much these oil and gas
Speaker 1: companies is. There's not very many of them, like three
Speaker 1: you know, major ones here in the United States. Well,
Speaker 1: are they actually pricing relative to demand? Are they actually
Speaker 1: making more money than ever? And it seems that the
Speaker 1: answer to those questions could be yes, And maybe the
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission should look into how much exactly of
Speaker 1: the supply shock and more is getting passed on to
Speaker 1: the consumer. Is it exactly one to one or is
Speaker 1: it maybe one point five to one one point seven?
Speaker 1: And is that point seven just going straight back into
Speaker 1: exceon stock. That's the problem right now, which is that
Speaker 1: whenever we don't have a real insight into the real
Speaker 1: time conditions and this crazy type of environment, they can
Speaker 1: charge you whatever they want and they are making money
Speaker 1: hand over fist while doing so. I was seeing in
Speaker 1: that bi article that over fifty percent of them actually
Speaker 1: making more money right now than in twenty nineteen. So
Speaker 1: what does that tell you? Are you doing better off
Speaker 1: than you were in twenty nineteen? No, you're not, but
Speaker 1: they are at the expensive view, Yes, the problem. And
Speaker 1: then they'll go out there and have the nerve to
Speaker 1: whine about like, oh, workers will work for us or
Speaker 1: these low wages anymore. It's like y'all have plenty of money.
Speaker 1: You could be given people a raise, make sure that
Speaker 1: you have plenty of workers to do whatever you need
Speaker 1: them to do. You could give them healthcare. You know,
Speaker 1: you could make it actually worth their while to work
Speaker 1: at whatever your company is, because you all are making
Speaker 1: higher profits than I mean, a lot of these companies
Speaker 1: made record breaking profits during the pandemic and now they're
Speaker 1: making even higher profits because they're sort of inflation, because
Speaker 1: they're gaming inflation and you know, using it as an
Speaker 1: excuse to raise their prices even higher than they need to.
Speaker 1: And again, I just have to emphasize, and I know
Speaker 1: if Stoler was here, he would back us up. Monopoly
Speaker 1: is a big, big part of this story. That's how
Speaker 1: they're able to get away with it because they know
Speaker 1: you have no other choice. No, I think that's the
Speaker 1: biggest problem in that don't fall for convenient explanations. And
Speaker 1: you know that's what we try to do here. It's
Speaker 1: not all supply. Some of it is demand. But part
Speaker 1: of the thing is that why is that demand there?
Speaker 1: If you'll ask the people who think it's all government spending, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting that inflation is that it's worse
Speaker 1: now like nine months after you know, two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: checks hit people's bank accounts, and not you know, immediately
Speaker 1: in that time or at the height of unemployment, which
Speaker 1: is what like October of twenty twenty, we didn't see
Speaker 1: massive demand. Massive demand hits right now because stuff is
Speaker 1: opening and people are moving on from COVID and using
Speaker 1: the savings that they would have spent at another time
Speaker 1: to now. It actually makes complete and total sense, and
Speaker 1: people are falling for very convenient explanations in order to
Speaker 1: demonize one policy or the other. The truth is is
Speaker 1: in all things that economy, it's competible. Well, but here's
Speaker 1: the other thing is okay, So if you stipulate that
Speaker 1: it's both that people were able to save a little,
Speaker 1: they've got a little more money, and it's these supply
Speaker 1: chain issues like which thing would you rather deal with?
Speaker 1: You want to deal with like, oh, people have too
Speaker 1: much money, I want to cut their wages. I want
Speaker 1: to take the money away from them, Like no, of
Speaker 1: course not. And and also, by the way, if you
Speaker 1: wanted to take money out of you know, if you
Speaker 1: want to take money out a circular the way to
Speaker 1: do that, there's a much larger pool of money from
Speaker 1: the wealthiest among us. But for some reason, their money
Speaker 1: is not a target here. I mean, they're the ones
Speaker 1: who got wildly rich, yes, during the pandemic, but that's oh,
Speaker 1: that's not a problem for inflation. It's only the people
Speaker 1: who got their like twelve hundred dollars stimmy checks. They're
Speaker 1: the real issue here. So again, even if you think
Speaker 1: that the government spent that went out to people is
Speaker 1: part of the issue here, just ask yourself, like, which
Speaker 1: side would you rather deal with? Personally, I would rather
Speaker 1: get the supply chain iss she's worked out, fix the
Speaker 1: fact that we have such a fragile economy in the
Speaker 1: first place. Then be like, oh, people's wages got too high,
Speaker 1: they got a little bit too much in their bank account.
Speaker 1: We can't possibly have that. So that's the other piece
Speaker 1: of this here. Really incredible, Okay, all right, let's move
Speaker 1: on to this remarkable segment on the view. So I
Speaker 1: would not don't consider myself a view connoisseur, So I
Speaker 1: don't know the revolving cast of characters. Jedediah Bela Is
Speaker 1: that how I say her name? It's Bilah Bilah okay.
Speaker 1: Jedediah Bylah, former conservative co host on the View appeared
Speaker 1: recently back on her old show in order to promote
Speaker 1: her book. Now, during the course of that she was
Speaker 1: not allowed on the View set because she's not vaccinated.
Speaker 1: According to her, she has a medical exemption. There's no
Speaker 1: verification or whatever on that. But there was an exchange
Speaker 1: between her and her former you know, former coworkers on
Speaker 1: the View around vaccination and around COVID. What really disturbed
Speaker 1: me was that even the people who are trying to
Speaker 1: make the proback's case aka Sonny and Whoopee and Joy,
Speaker 1: do not know any idea of what they're talking about,
Speaker 1: and in many ways are spreading misinformation whenever talking with
Speaker 1: Jedediah in this debate, we have the full segment here,
Speaker 1: there's no cut. Let's take a listen, okay, Jed. So
Speaker 1: let's just let's suddress the elephant in the room. Because
Speaker 1: you were supposed to join You were supposed to join
Speaker 1: us in the studios weeks ago, but you couldn't because
Speaker 1: ABC has a very strict policy. You can't get into
Speaker 1: this building unless you're fully vaccinated. Everybody in this room
Speaker 1: knows that and is vaccinated. But you made a conscious
Speaker 1: decision not to get the vaccine. Now, the CDC says
Speaker 1: the person is ten times less likely to be hospitalized
Speaker 1: from COVID and eleven times less likely to die if
Speaker 1: they've gotten the vaccine. Okay, so why didn't you get it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so my story is a little bit unique. I'll share
Speaker 1: that first before I get into those CBC numbers. But
Speaker 1: we have I actually out of time, Jed, if you
Speaker 1: want to get everything I have, so I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to let people know why I'm not there.
Speaker 1: I have a medical exemption to the vaccine that's been
Speaker 1: written by my infectious disease vaccinated specialist in New York City,
Speaker 1: that's been co signed by three other doctors. I'm not
Speaker 1: a candidate for this vaccine. I also have sky high,
Speaker 1: multi tiered, multifaceted natural immunity, very very high. That has
Speaker 1: also been proven. It has been shown, and it is
Speaker 1: substantiated by letters from these doctors. So for me personally,
Speaker 1: this vaccine poses a greater risk than a benefit. I'm
Speaker 1: also not a risk to any of you. I know
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of debate about that, but I
Speaker 1: have these doctors who've gone on record with that as well.
Speaker 1: So my point about all of this is that I
Speaker 1: am not anti vax. What I really want is for
Speaker 1: people to make these decisions for themselves. I want every
Speaker 1: one of you to sit with your family members, to
Speaker 1: sit with your trusted doctors, and to say what is
Speaker 1: the best decision for me. However, I do oppose man dates.
Speaker 1: I have posed them on the fact that let's look
Speaker 1: at the science. This is a vaccine that was created
Speaker 1: to prevent severity of disease and to prevent hospitalizations. Now
Speaker 1: we can have a whole debate on that in itself,
Speaker 1: but the vaccine does not prevent you from getting COVID
Speaker 1: and does not prevent you from transmitting My goodness, reality,
Speaker 1: we have seen that. So come on, no, enjoy You
Speaker 1: don't have to listen to me on that. You don't
Speaker 1: have to listen to me. You can listen to the
Speaker 1: director of the CDC. You can look at the CDC's website.
Speaker 1: That is why masks were reinstated for people who were vaccinated,
Speaker 1: because they said, and they admitted, they came out and
Speaker 1: said this for this delta variant transmission. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a thing for vaccinated and people. I'm not opposed
Speaker 1: to the vaccine, but I amn't posed to the rown
Speaker 1: thousand people have died from COVID, including Manny's in laws,
Speaker 1: and I just we've been friends a long time, but
Speaker 1: I just Manny's parents. I just don't understand why you
Speaker 1: would choose to prioritize your personal freedom over health and
Speaker 1: safety of others. And I just, I just I thought
Speaker 1: you didn't think that we should kind of misinformation. Again.
Speaker 1: We've had us a you, We've had the United States
Speaker 1: Surgeon General debunk Yes, I heard what he said, everything
Speaker 1: that you've just said, and I just don't think we should.
Speaker 1: We should you kind of misinformation on our air. I'm
Speaker 1: really sorry on you. First of all, I'm really sorry
Speaker 1: on me. First of all, I would say to you
Speaker 1: as a friend, what I just said to you is
Speaker 1: I am prioritizing my health and people talk about the
Speaker 1: commons health and safety. You're not prioritizing your own health.
Speaker 1: You have. This should sound very familiar to you. This
Speaker 1: should sound very familiar to you. We got to go
Speaker 1: to break and so I have to say thanks to
Speaker 1: Jeff's book, Dear Hartley, starting today and everyone in the audience,
Speaker 1: you're each going home with a copy of that pretty
Speaker 1: remarkable segment there. Crystal there's a lot going on, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot to unpack. Yeah, no, I'm curious for
Speaker 1: your thoughts. Yeah, okay, So here's the thing. First of all,
Speaker 1: I would say, overall, did anyone learn anything change their minds?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, listen, you have to think about these conversations.
Speaker 1: I think we try to think about this on our show,
Speaker 1: and you know, respect other people who approach things as
Speaker 1: like what do we actually want to get out of this?
Speaker 1: Sometimes there is a goal of I just want to
Speaker 1: expose this person, right, that's a legitimate thing. But you know,
Speaker 1: for me, at this point in the conversation about vaccinations,
Speaker 1: it's much more useful to do like what Sanjay Gupta
Speaker 1: did and go on with Rogan and have an exchange
Speaker 1: that doesn't just shut down into like you're risking people's
Speaker 1: lives and how dare you? And this is misinformation? So
Speaker 1: that's number one. Did the view audience get anything out
Speaker 1: of that exchange? No, anybody who came and watched that
Speaker 1: their priors were confirmed. Right, whichever side of this debate
Speaker 1: that you're ultimately on now, I think that the view
Speaker 1: hosts did a very poor job ultimately because of how
Speaker 1: they treated Jedidiah in that moment of effectively debunking what
Speaker 1: I think were some very selective things that she was
Speaker 1: ultimately saying, because she wanted to say, Look, it's true,
Speaker 1: you are vaccinated and you got sick with COVID. Yes,
Speaker 1: is true. Breakthrough infections are definitely a thing, she says,
Speaker 1: Jededi wants to point to that, but she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to tell you that severe hospital you know, severe cases,
Speaker 1: hospitalization and death dramatically reduced by the vaccine. And and
Speaker 1: this is the part that I think is really disingenuous
Speaker 1: from her talking points, you are also much less likely
Speaker 1: to get and spread the disease if you're vaccinated. It
Speaker 1: can still happen, Yes, but you are much We don't
Speaker 1: know what that figure is, but it is there. We
Speaker 1: are much less. You are much less likely to get
Speaker 1: and spread the disease if you have the vaccine. She
Speaker 1: just wants to say, it's still possible, right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: still possible, but we have to talk about, you know, risks,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the impact it has. And
Speaker 1: then of course they want to ignore the severe hospitalization
Speaker 1: and death thing altogether, and the fact that her coe
Speaker 1: that view co hosts aren't able to directly point to
Speaker 1: those facts and challenger with those things, rather than just
Speaker 1: wanting to sort of shut her up, shame her and
Speaker 1: shut down the segment. I think is what made it
Speaker 1: a very ineffective moment all the way around, right, and
Speaker 1: that was what bothered me. I mean, if you look
Speaker 1: on balance, the people who are spreading more misinformation was
Speaker 1: the view there. I mean, look, like you said, Jedediah
Speaker 1: can be selective in what she's saying, but she's not
Speaker 1: saying anything which is incorrect, whereas what they're saying is
Speaker 1: straight up not true. I mean they're saying like the
Speaker 1: Surgeon General has debunked that. No they haven't. As Actually
Speaker 1: she points to the reason why masks came back wrongly.
Speaker 1: My opinion was because there was a view that, oh,
Speaker 1: we're still gonna spread COVID and you know that vaccine
Speaker 1: doesn't reduce it all the way to zero. I'm doing
Speaker 1: my entire monologue about this and what doctor Fauci says
Speaker 1: is the new target. But the lack of honesty there
Speaker 1: from the people who are pro vax is actually going
Speaker 1: to harden people who are going to look at that
Speaker 1: and say, no matter what you bring them, they're just
Speaker 1: gonna sit there and tell you that you're a complete idiot.
Speaker 1: Shut up. We're not even going to air you know
Speaker 1: that other side. And I also thought this was the
Speaker 1: real point too. How can you have a real conversation
Speaker 1: around vaccine? That was what three minute thirty second clip
Speaker 1: forget about it. How can you do that? It's not possible.
Speaker 1: You cannot bring somebody on and you know, for a
Speaker 1: sparring session and then cut them off most of the
Speaker 1: way through saying ridiculous things and emotional blackmail like oh
Speaker 1: my in law, listen, I you know, God, bless your love.
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry. It's a terrible thing that people died
Speaker 1: from COVID. But we're also not in summer twenty twenty
Speaker 1: right now. We're living in a totally new era. That's
Speaker 1: again what I'm talking about in terms of my monologue.
Speaker 1: So whenever we're discussing vaccine, COVID policy, and more, we
Speaker 1: need to number one, update our priors. Number Two, talk
Speaker 1: to some people with some actual respect here, presumably Crystal.
Speaker 1: They were colleagues, so I would assume that they think
Speaker 1: that she's acting in better faith than you know, maybe
Speaker 1: a random guess, but that's just not what you saw.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't really think anybody in that segment
Speaker 1: was acting in good faith, because I do think data daiyah.
Speaker 1: It was effectively propaganda, I mean, is incredibly selective to
Speaker 1: the point of being propaganda. But here's what I would say.
Speaker 1: There is a view among a wide swath of liberals
Speaker 1: and especially liberal elites, that effectively, you can't acknowledge anything
Speaker 1: that might be inconvenient or your narrative or else you
Speaker 1: lose right. So acknowledging that you can still get break
Speaker 1: through infections with the vaccine, or acknowledging that you know
Speaker 1: there are treatments that are more effective now, or acknowledging
Speaker 1: that children are much less at risk than the elderly,
Speaker 1: like talking about just the facts and the science of
Speaker 1: this thing. If it happens to be a fact that's
Speaker 1: inconvenient for what you want people to do, which is
Speaker 1: to get vaccinated, then rather than engaging with that, they
Speaker 1: just want to shut it down, not acknowledge it. And
Speaker 1: to your point, I don't think that that's been helpful.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that ultimately has made people
Speaker 1: feel like you're being dishonest. All you want is this
Speaker 1: end result. You're willing to lie, ignore, and be sele
Speaker 1: in what you're doing in order to achieve that end result,
Speaker 1: and so you end up with exchanges like this, which again,
Speaker 1: ultimately I just think are profoundly unhelpful. Move no one persuade,
Speaker 1: no one change the conversation. If anything, it just muddies
Speaker 1: things and makes people even more confused than they were
Speaker 1: going in. And we've seen this from the beginning, you know,
Speaker 1: from the very top, with Fauci trying to manipulate people
Speaker 1: on what he thinks they can hear at that moment
Speaker 1: with regard to her immunity or with regard to masks.
Speaker 1: It's more of an interest in controlling the information than
Speaker 1: actually being upfront, even if there are facts that might
Speaker 1: be mitigating that might be inconvenient ultimately for your argument.
Speaker 1: By the way, this is not just a coronavirus thing.
Speaker 1: I mean we see this all the time in terms
Speaker 1: of Democrats and Republicans who they don't want to allow anything,
Speaker 1: they don't want to give any talking quote unquote talking
Speaker 1: points to the other side, and that just ends up
Speaker 1: making them into like propaganda filled liers. Ultimately, if you're
Speaker 1: never willing to acknowledge where the other side has even
Speaker 1: a tiny sliver of a point yep, that's the biggest
Speaker 1: problem we have. Let's move on to this segment. Really
Speaker 1: found it stunning. I found out about it, thanks fine,
Speaker 1: as good as possible, because I think that public attention
Speaker 1: on this could actually mean a life or death. So
Speaker 1: Kenny's tennis are pung shui. I'm sorry anybody who is
Speaker 1: Chinese that I'm saying that incorrectly. The timeline on this
Speaker 1: begins on November third, so let's put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. She posted on Chinese version of social
Speaker 1: media that she had been sexually abused three years ago
Speaker 1: by a high ranking married Communist Party official. She said
Speaker 1: that he rekindled their previous affair in twenty eighteen by
Speaker 1: coercing her into bed despite her crying and telling him
Speaker 1: that she did not want to. Now, this isn't just
Speaker 1: any high ranking Communist official. His seventy five year old
Speaker 1: Jiang Zho Lee. He was the former Vice Premier of China,
Speaker 1: and by you know many accounts, is well into the
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar territory of the oligarchs there within the CCP,
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful men in China. There is
Speaker 1: really just no uh, there's no dispute on that bureau exactly.
Speaker 1: It was on the pollit bureau, the seven members standing
Speaker 1: committee of the Political Bureau within the CCP and household
Speaker 1: name you know in China. Now you put that all together,
Speaker 1: and again we were pointed to We're like, oh, is
Speaker 1: she really good? Yeah, she's fourteenth in the world in
Speaker 1: global standing and one of the top number one, and
Speaker 1: the ranked in the world in doubles, number one ranked
Speaker 1: in the world in doubles. So after she posted that,
Speaker 1: overnight she was disappeared from the Chinese social media. It
Speaker 1: was completely gone. We have a screenshot in that Daily
Speaker 1: Mail article that we put up which had the allegation
Speaker 1: in a lengthy social media post on Whybo quickly deleted
Speaker 1: before her account was then heavily censored. Now since that time,
Speaker 1: she has not been seen in public period. She has
Speaker 1: not been seen at all. She once again had described
Speaker 1: this very vivid encounter of crying essentially being raped by
Speaker 1: the senior Communist Party official, and then that her account
Speaker 1: was deleted and she hasn't been seen. Now. Increasingly there
Speaker 1: have been calls from Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic who
Speaker 1: have been posting about this, saying, hey, Where is Punshwai?
Speaker 1: What's happening? Has she been arrested? Why has she not
Speaker 1: been seen in public? Yesterday the story got even more bizarre.
Speaker 1: And let's put this on the screen. This is from
Speaker 1: CGTN Official for those of you who don't know what
Speaker 1: CGTN is, the international media arm of the CCP's television network.
Speaker 1: Here's what she says, well not she. This is what
Speaker 1: a statement purporting to her says. Hello everyone, This is
Speaker 1: Punshwi regarding the recent news on the official website of
Speaker 1: the WTA. The con has no confirmed or verified by myself.
Speaker 1: It was released without my consent. The news in that release,
Speaker 1: including an allegation of sexual assault, is not true. I'm
Speaker 1: not missing, nor am I unsafe. I've just been resting
Speaker 1: at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for
Speaker 1: caring about me. If the WTA publishes any more news
Speaker 1: about me, please verify it with me and release it
Speaker 1: with my consent. As a professional tennis player, I thank
Speaker 1: you all for your companionship and consideration. I hope to
Speaker 1: promote Chinese tennis with you all if I have the
Speaker 1: chance in the future. If being a key, I hope
Speaker 1: Chinese tennis will become better and better. Once again, thank
Speaker 1: you for your consideration. Now, for those of you who
Speaker 1: are wondering what exactly is going on the WTA, what
Speaker 1: they're pointing to is the Tennis Association said that the
Speaker 1: statement they're reacting to that only raises their concerns as
Speaker 1: to her safety and her whereabouts. So they have repeatedly
Speaker 1: tried to reach her now on numerous forms of communication
Speaker 1: to no avail. So what you're seeing there is that
Speaker 1: after she put out that statement, they're basically saying no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, the WTA did it, and don't believe
Speaker 1: anything that they say. And maybe you'll see me in
Speaker 1: the future. I'm just quietly resting at home. By the way,
Speaker 1: I love China. No one believes that this message. No, yes,
Speaker 1: nobody believes that, And I want to say WTA to
Speaker 1: their credit, I mean, they put on a really strong
Speaker 1: statement sticking buyer, and they said that the statement released
Speaker 1: today by Chinese state media only raises our concerns. I
Speaker 1: have a hard time believing Punkshui actually wrote the email
Speaker 1: we received or believes what is being attributed to her.
Speaker 1: She displayed incredible courage and describe an allegation of sexual
Speaker 1: assault against a former top official in the Chinese government.
Speaker 1: The WTA and the rest of the world needs independent
Speaker 1: and verifiable proof that she is safe, and as you said,
Speaker 1: they have repeatedly tried to reach her by numerous forms
Speaker 1: of communications to no avail. Punkshui must be allowed to
Speaker 1: freely without coercion or intimidation from any source. Now, just
Speaker 1: so you understand how dire this is, it was November
Speaker 1: second when she posted this six days to social media,
Speaker 1: so this has been weeks now that she has not
Speaker 1: been heard from. And she's, you know, a big tennis
Speaker 1: star on that national stage in China. She is a
Speaker 1: household name. I mean she's a rock star because she's
Speaker 1: the best Chinese tennis player that has ever lived. She's
Speaker 1: the highest ranked in terms of doubles, and so she
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily famous and well known in China, and no
Speaker 1: one has seen or heard from her since this happened.
Speaker 1: They locked her account if you reports are that if
Speaker 1: you even post about her or about this official, or
Speaker 1: even say things like tennis on is a why bo?
Speaker 1: Is that on whybo like their version of Twitter, then
Speaker 1: that will be censored and blocked. You can't post comments
Speaker 1: to her account, which is completely lucked. You can search
Speaker 1: for and find her account, but you can't post your
Speaker 1: comment or anything on it. And of course that initial
Speaker 1: post alleging sexual harassment was taken down within thirty minutes. Wow.
Speaker 1: So this is this is just a terrible situation and
Speaker 1: you know, terrifying, and I think also obviously reveals how
Speaker 1: threatened they are by any sort of challenge to their
Speaker 1: authority or any questions about their morals or ethics or
Speaker 1: any of that. And you know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to say other than this is just incredibly dire. As
Speaker 1: you said, some top stars Djokovic and Naomi Osaka have
Speaker 1: been speaking out, you know, asking people to pay attention
Speaker 1: to this, calling for her, you know, for her to
Speaker 1: be what free or whatever's going on here. But this
Speaker 1: is very, very troubling developments here, and at this point
Speaker 1: we have no idea what's going on. But obviously that
Speaker 1: statement that was released that was allegedly from her, there
Speaker 1: is no wa that that came from her. No one
Speaker 1: believes that came Nobody believes that whatsoever. You know, stupid
Speaker 1: and terrible they are, even you know, pretending to put
Speaker 1: out probably yeah, very yeah, but you know, we're only
Speaker 1: three months away from a Beijing Winter Olympics. That's another
Speaker 1: thing which is on top of this, And I, if
Speaker 1: I had to guess, she thought that she might be
Speaker 1: able to get away with it because the entire world
Speaker 1: would be watching what was happening ahead of the Winter Olympics,
Speaker 1: and right now there's a big diplomatic showdown. The US
Speaker 1: allegedly is or reportedly is not going to be sending
Speaker 1: any diplomats to the Beijing Games, including the president or
Speaker 1: anyone else, kind of as a diplomatic boycott of Beijing
Speaker 1: about what's happening there. But it's a big deal. It
Speaker 1: is a big deal, very rare actually, you know, almost
Speaker 1: akin to a total boycott. They said they didn't want
Speaker 1: to do that because obviously it would punish the athletes
Speaker 1: and that's ultimately not what you want to do. But
Speaker 1: the world of sport, you know, is watching exactly what's
Speaker 1: happening in Beijing very closely. And if I was Naomi
Speaker 1: Osaka or Djokovic, this is not a joke. There will
Speaker 1: be punished for what they did. The CCP does not
Speaker 1: forget if Djokovic or name Osaka have deals with certain
Speaker 1: types of brands or posters, or anything. They will be
Speaker 1: disappeared in China. I can guarantee you that ahead of
Speaker 1: what happens. And for any of our Olympians who speak
Speaker 1: out on this, if maybe if you watch it, so
Speaker 1: watch out, okay, watch out. Whenever you're headed there, they
Speaker 1: will spy on you. They will you know, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, come into your room or intimidation tactic tactics.
Speaker 1: They're they're absolutely not above that whatsoever. So well, what
Speaker 1: they're most likely to do is hit you in the pocketbook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: money is that? That's right, that's their go to movement.
Speaker 1: I mean, contrast the NBA's handling of situations with regard
Speaker 1: to China in that respect, Thank you Women's Tennis the
Speaker 1: wt A. They this is a potentially massive lucrative market
Speaker 1: for them. They I mean you could they could lose,
Speaker 1: and and they're you know, totally unequivocal in their support
Speaker 1: and continuing to shine a light on this and seem
Speaker 1: to be totally unafraid of what it might mean from
Speaker 1: a you know, money capitalistic market perspective. So I do
Speaker 1: want to give them a lot of credit here because
Speaker 1: we've seen it shouldn't take that much courage to call
Speaker 1: for you know, the release of someone we haven't seen
Speaker 1: in weeks and who may be in you know, incredibly
Speaker 1: dire trouble. But what we've seen before is that it
Speaker 1: apparently does that take that kind of that kind of
Speaker 1: courage when people's money is at stake. That's right. I
Speaker 1: hope we see in the future sometime soon, Chystal, what
Speaker 1: are you taking a look at? Well, guys, I love
Speaker 1: y'all so much that this week I face down something
Speaker 1: extraordinarily difficult and painful, just so you would not have
Speaker 1: to do the same. That's right, everyone, I watched the
Speaker 1: Mayor Pete documentary so that you do not have to. Now.
Speaker 1: The first thing you should know about the Mayor repeat
Speaker 1: movie is that it is not a good movie at all. Listen,
Speaker 1: say what you will about Game Change, the Helper and
Speaker 1: Higan blockbuster, about the Rise of Ababa, and about Sarah Palin.
Speaker 1: That thing was a fascinating read and made for a
Speaker 1: great movie. Or perhaps a more apt comparison here, the
Speaker 1: documentary myt about Romney's presidential run was actually really interesting
Speaker 1: and quite revelatory, in spite of the fact that the subject,
Speaker 1: much like Pete, was a kind of odd introvert not
Speaker 1: known for expressing a lot of emotion In Mayor Pete,
Speaker 1: the filmmaker takes an emotionally inaccessible character In Pete, bodhages
Speaker 1: and Lee's the viewer right where they started with him
Speaker 1: wondering if a real life human being could possibly go
Speaker 1: through their entire life so calculated and so utterly detached.
Speaker 1: Pete doesn't warm to the filmmaker or his campaign staff,
Speaker 1: or even seemingly his own husband Chasten, leading to brutally impersonal,
Speaker 1: supposedly personal moments like this one. Cheers Tony as ice
Speaker 1: cream before the chicken was will do whatever he knows
Speaker 1: that well for sure, hold indifference, though I actually prefer
Speaker 1: another restaurant moment we can take a look at here.
Speaker 1: So after a long campaign day, Pete walks up to
Speaker 1: a table where Chasn is sitting with his head down
Speaker 1: on the table, totally despondent. Pete sits down and rather
Speaker 1: than offer Chass a kind word or the comfort of
Speaker 1: some gesture maybe physical touch, and he just picks up
Speaker 1: his glass of water and cinnamon bun and gets to
Speaker 1: work eating with barely a look in his dejected husband's direction.
Speaker 1: And I swear I am not cherry picking here. Either
Speaker 1: Pete's emotional distance from the action flumingxes his campaign staff
Speaker 1: as well. At one point, his comps director Liz Smith
Speaker 1: proclaims he's coming across like the Effington Man. At another
Speaker 1: she reminds him that when he's talking about overcoming adversity
Speaker 1: as a gay man, he's not supposed to be cataloging
Speaker 1: societal tendencies like quote a effing anthropologist. But that quote
Speaker 1: this is like a thing that you feel. Now. This
Speaker 1: is another theme throughout the movie which leans a lot
Speaker 1: on Pete's identity as a gay man. You see in
Speaker 1: real time the way that Pete and his staff set
Speaker 1: about crafting a biographical identity that might hold appeal for
Speaker 1: voters and that he might be able to pull off
Speaker 1: as authentic. Let me just say, I think this personal
Speaker 1: branding exercise type stuff is extremely common for most politicians.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make it any less gross. Though, early on
Speaker 1: in the film, Lis Smith suggests his campaign should be
Speaker 1: as much as possible about his personal bio. Quote, I
Speaker 1: really really do think it's as much about his style
Speaker 1: and as about as much of who he is as
Speaker 1: a person as it is about like policy and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and indeed, policy and all of that stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't figure into this film whatsoever. The stakes for voters
Speaker 1: on healthcare, or college debt, or really anything else, they're
Speaker 1: completely invisible in this film. Instead, Liz's analysis either proves
Speaker 1: pression or she is able to manifest a purely biographical
Speaker 1: contest of identities through her impressive sheer force of will.
Speaker 1: Nearly every media clip obsessed is over whether the nation
Speaker 1: is ready for a gay man or what it would
Speaker 1: mean for Pete to be the first gay man. Pete's
Speaker 1: failures with the Black community is either because that community
Speaker 1: is just too homophobic to fairly judge Pete, or possibly
Speaker 1: the result of Pete's identity being essentially trumped by the
Speaker 1: oppression faced by the black community. I guess it does
Speaker 1: make a kind of sense that if you argue that
Speaker 1: the main reason to vote for you is that people
Speaker 1: in your identity group have faced X levels of oppression,
Speaker 1: it does leave the door open for someone else to
Speaker 1: come in and say, well, my identity group faced x
Speaker 1: plus one levels of oppression. Of course, none of that
Speaker 1: explains why, in the end, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden
Speaker 1: were the most appealing candidates to voters in general and
Speaker 1: minority voters in particular. You also get the sense that
Speaker 1: for all the talk in the film of how important
Speaker 1: it is for Pete to be authentically Pete, this leaning
Speaker 1: into identity and biography, it actually isn't authentically Pete at all.
Speaker 1: I think he was probably much more comfortable at Mackenzy
Speaker 1: pouring over spreadsheets of how to eke out an extra
Speaker 1: cent for the corporate bottom line, regardless of what human
Speaker 1: beings might suffer as a result. Then he is trying
Speaker 1: to pretend that he has something emotionally compelling personally to
Speaker 1: offer to the nation. He lacked experience, His policy platform
Speaker 1: was and a dine at best, and a laughable afterthought
Speaker 1: at worse. Medicare for those who want it comes to mind.
Speaker 1: So identity and biography that was basically all they really
Speaker 1: had to work with. But Pete's heart is only half
Speaker 1: in it the entire time. When Shaston wants to know
Speaker 1: why he's the only spouse not on stage with the
Speaker 1: candidate after Iowa, for example, he's met with uncomfortable silence.
Speaker 1: They are going to be the only campaign I didn't
Speaker 1: have the spouse on stage. You're going to be the
Speaker 1: only candidate that didn't have your spouse standing next to you you.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to come at the end because
Speaker 1: we don't have the supporters and family. There's like a
Speaker 1: gap between who were there for the Yeah, we had
Speaker 1: to end it, but everyone, like everyone has had their
Speaker 1: spouse standing next to them. Maybe something was like back
Speaker 1: among the rights are on stage all the time, A
Speaker 1: feeling what you're going to be doing, Harry, Harry Wild.
Speaker 1: You're also when Chasten suggests that Pete had language into
Speaker 1: a speech about how gay kids can look at this
Speaker 1: campaign and know that the door is open for them too,
Speaker 1: he's once again met with uncomfortable silence. At one point,
Speaker 1: Pete actually directly says to Chaston that this stuff meaning
Speaker 1: gay identity and homophobia seems to bother you a lot
Speaker 1: more than it bothers me. Now, if you were a
Speaker 1: Bernie supporter, there was also plenty to enrage you in
Speaker 1: this film. You watch the moment when Pete decides to
Speaker 1: shamelessly declare victory and I owe in spite of there
Speaker 1: being basically no votes in to speak of. By the way,
Speaker 1: I had always suspected it was Liz Smith, who is
Speaker 1: an impressive operative with a killer instinct who made that
Speaker 1: particular call, But even Liz was a little leery of
Speaker 1: Pete going out and claiming a win based on basically
Speaker 1: nothing that call. It was all Pete. But by far
Speaker 1: the most discussing part is when Pete makes his dropout
Speaker 1: decision post South Carolina. Here's how he explained it, quote,
Speaker 1: we have a chance to do some good now. If
Speaker 1: it's true that too many candidates in this race are
Speaker 1: cluttering it, there's two things you can do. One of
Speaker 1: them is when, and the other is to get out. Now.
Speaker 1: Think about that. His idea of quote doing some good
Speaker 1: is to play his part in me Cap Bernie Sanders,
Speaker 1: because God forbid the guy who wants everybody to get
Speaker 1: healthcare as a shot at winning. It's revealing, isn't it.
Speaker 1: The logic has never spelled out in the documentary. It's
Speaker 1: just assumed that everyone will understand it to be an
Speaker 1: inherent good to help the corrupt guls who run the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party remain at their post. Now, Pete was smart
Speaker 1: enough to realize that if he wanted to keep his
Speaker 1: future safe in that party, he'd better fall in line
Speaker 1: sooner rather than later. Given the top Democratic donors are
Speaker 1: now holding secret meanings to plot how to push Pete
Speaker 1: ahead of Commalent in a line of succession. It would
Speaker 1: seem that that decision is being heavily rewarded. Bottom line,
Speaker 1: I'd say this film feels like a failed hagiography. To
Speaker 1: revere someone, you first have to care about them. This
Speaker 1: isn't enough here to really care whether Pete succeeds or
Speaker 1: fails or become Secretary Transportation. Just another unsuccessful media attempt
Speaker 1: to convince the public to embrace the political candidate, not
Speaker 1: because of what they might do for you, but because
Speaker 1: of what you might do for them at Sager, after
Speaker 1: watching Feede, I had never watched that mid documentary, And
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All right, Sager,
Speaker 1: what are you looking at? Well? America is moving on
Speaker 1: from COVID. Even the hellish district of Columbia I find
Speaker 1: myself in is getting rid of its second indoor mask
Speaker 1: mandate next week. Our political discourse today has everything to
Speaker 1: do with problems caused by the COVID pandemic, but not
Speaker 1: COVID itself. Vaccine mandate debates of the last remnants, and
Speaker 1: the courts have made clear that at least that's going
Speaker 1: to take a little while before we know either way. Everyone,
Speaker 1: it seems, is over it, planning and wanting the future.
Speaker 1: Everyone that is, except for doctor Anthony Fauci, who, in
Speaker 1: an extraordinary interview said the quiet part out loud. He
Speaker 1: revealed not only his internal thinking, but the type of
Speaker 1: neurotic and crazy mindset that dominates our White House today. Fauci,
Speaker 1: in an interview at the twenty twenty one State Summit,
Speaker 1: said that COVID cases may need to fall to below
Speaker 1: ten thousand a day nationally before we can resume normal life.
Speaker 1: But that was just the high estimate. The lower was,
Speaker 1: and what he seemed to prefer was thirty three hundred.
Speaker 1: Just so you wrap your heads around how completely nuts
Speaker 1: that is. We have not had below ten thousand since
Speaker 1: the beginning of COVID in March. To get the measure
Speaker 1: that Fauci is talking about, it would mean one in
Speaker 1: every thirty three thousand people we're testing positive, and Fauci
Speaker 1: says we need to be below that number, as James
Speaker 1: sir Kueki at The New Yorker put it, even in
Speaker 1: places with extremely high vaccination rates. That is not realistic
Speaker 1: because we would be talking here about point zero zero
Speaker 1: three percent of the US population. Fauci's comment is especially
Speaker 1: dumb because if the current testing regime remains in place,
Speaker 1: there is almost no chance that we are going to
Speaker 1: reach that figure. He is setting America up for failure
Speaker 1: and paradoxically actually fulfilling one of Trump's dumbest axioms during
Speaker 1: the pandemic that we should just test less in order
Speaker 1: to get our numbers down. He actually would be incentivizing
Speaker 1: people to do that in different states. But furthermore, why
Speaker 1: does the case count matter at all? No, it's November
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. We have a widely available and free
Speaker 1: vaccine that prevents serious hospitalization and death. You can go
Speaker 1: out and you can get it right now if you want.
Speaker 1: If you don't and you still contract COVID, I've got
Speaker 1: good news for you. Pfizer and Merk have now applied
Speaker 1: for FDA approval of their COVID pill, which is seriously
Speaker 1: efficacious at preventing serious illness and death in those that
Speaker 1: have contracted COVID. On top of that, we have monoclonal
Speaker 1: antibodies the host of other therapeutics that doctors have now
Speaker 1: learned to use in the two years that COVID has
Speaker 1: been around. In other words, the case count doesn't matter
Speaker 1: at all. Would it matter if the case count for
Speaker 1: a disease is if we had a statistically significant cure
Speaker 1: for it for the entire US population, which is also free, No,
Speaker 1: of course not. That's precisely the problem with the Fauci formulation.
Speaker 1: He's not dumb enough to say COVID zero is his policy,
Speaker 1: because that would be ridiculed. But he essentially laid out
Speaker 1: a path for the pandemic to literally never end, when
Speaker 1: we have the tools right now to just move on
Speaker 1: if we wanted to, And make no mistake, this matters
Speaker 1: a lot. Joe Biden's White House are some of the
Speaker 1: most neurotic COVID obsessives I've ever seen, even in our city, Washington, DC,
Speaker 1: which has a very high vaccination rate and is basically
Speaker 1: required to have a vaccine to get into the White
Speaker 1: House itself, even under those conditions, in this testing regime
Speaker 1: around the President of the United States, the White House
Speaker 1: announced yesterday it will still keep its mask. Man Day,
Speaker 1: still keep it. That's crazy town. When our idiotic mayor
Speaker 1: who brought back mass says that we need to move
Speaker 1: on from COVID and considered it an endemic disease. And
Speaker 1: you're behind her, then it's a problem. It's an even
Speaker 1: bigger problem when you're the most powerful man in the
Speaker 1: entire world. What Biden and his people around him don't
Speaker 1: seem to understand is that for most people, the pandemic
Speaker 1: is over. The people who want to mask up forever
Speaker 1: you people are welcome to be my guests. The rest
Speaker 1: of us have done, have been done, and have been
Speaker 1: for a long time. What they're really finding out is
Speaker 1: that the COVID excuse is just not going to cut
Speaker 1: it anymore. White House advisor Brian Deese he was on
Speaker 1: CNN this weekend when he was asked about inflation. He
Speaker 1: correctly ascribed the problems to the COVID pandemic, but when
Speaker 1: he was asked about solutions, he had nothing. He kept repeating,
Speaker 1: if we end the pandemic, we end the supply chain crisis.
Speaker 1: That's actually the most stupid thing I've ever heard. The
Speaker 1: pandemic has nothing to do with truckers who are being
Speaker 1: mistreated right now at our ports. The policies that have
Speaker 1: caused a backlag of shipping containers or you know, construction
Speaker 1: of a forty year just in time delivery supply chain. Sure,
Speaker 1: the pandemic gummed up the works, but we could go
Speaker 1: COVID zero tomorrow. Nothing would change in terms of disruptions
Speaker 1: in the supply chain for months. The same is set
Speaker 1: for the oil market, the same for food, and for
Speaker 1: every other disruption in American life. They have clung to
Speaker 1: the pandemic as an excuse for so long they've stopped
Speaker 1: thinking about how to move forward, and the American people
Speaker 1: have taken notice. Biden's strength for the longest time was
Speaker 1: a people had COVID as their top priority and they
Speaker 1: really trusted him to deal with it. But now, for
Speaker 1: the first time even Biden has dropped below fifty percent
Speaker 1: in his handling of the pandemic, and he remains in
Speaker 1: the mid thirties on the economy as a whole. It
Speaker 1: is time to move on. Honestly, the best thing he
Speaker 1: could do for the country and for himself would be
Speaker 1: to fire Fauci and declare victory and say, Okay, let's go.
Speaker 1: It's time to get going bring America back. Doesn't and
Speaker 1: he probably doesn't have the capacity for that it's a
Speaker 1: tragedy honestly, because all of us are going to suffer
Speaker 1: for at least three more years under this type of thinking.
Speaker 1: I mean, Crystal ten thousand cases a day nationally, that's nuts.
Speaker 1: You know. Gibraltar just came up, and if you want
Speaker 1: to hear my reaction to Cyber's monologue, become a premium
Speaker 1: subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com. We have a fantastic
Speaker 1: guest joining us now. Chris are not a longtime friend.
Speaker 1: He's the author of Dignity. He's somebody who came to
Speaker 1: our attention back in twenty sixteen really walking and spending
Speaker 1: time with people. Now he's launched actually his own substack,
Speaker 1: which we have a preview of. Let's put that up
Speaker 1: there on the screen, where he describes his walking journeys
Speaker 1: in different parts of America. And Chris, one of the
Speaker 1: things that Chrystal and I most appreciated about your work
Speaker 1: is that you just simply talk to people and you
Speaker 1: dron't judge them. You talk to them as they are,
Speaker 1: and you just print exactly what they say. One of
Speaker 1: the latest ones that you wrote in your substack was
Speaker 1: about among the unvaccinated. Just tell us about what you
Speaker 1: found amongst working class people who are out there who
Speaker 1: don't feel like they want to vaccine. Yeah, well, thank
Speaker 1: you both of you. Yeah, you know, I just spend
Speaker 1: time hanging out and places where I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: you call normies. I call them the back row, people
Speaker 1: without a lot of education like us. And and I
Speaker 1: just found what really struck me was how much people
Speaker 1: want to tell me they're unvaccinated. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a kind of a process of you know, like they
Speaker 1: tell me their name, where they're from. It's just like
Speaker 1: an introduction is like I'm Crystal, you know, where I'm Sager.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm unvaccinated, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's a very core to their identity. And
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't. My method is just to
Speaker 1: hang out. I don't really you know, I'm not a
Speaker 1: pro beeperson. I don't. I just try to be a
Speaker 1: normal dude hanging out McDonald's or a bar, or or
Speaker 1: a bus stops or you know, cheap motels. And you know,
Speaker 1: over the course of time, people just talk to me
Speaker 1: like normal people do. And and it was just really
Speaker 1: striking to me how central, first of all, how many
Speaker 1: people I met who were unvaccinated, and these I'm talking
Speaker 1: about people. I'm only talking here about people over the
Speaker 1: age of fifty or fifty five who you know aren't
Speaker 1: particlarly good shape, have had rough lives, and are unvaccinated,
Speaker 1: and you know, are are are are proudly unvaccinated, And
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: When someone makes it that, you know, what I think
Speaker 1: is a reckless decision. I think most people would say
Speaker 1: is probably a reckless decision. It makes it a cored
Speaker 1: to their identity, makes it, you know, feel like something
Speaker 1: that they're proud of, you know. And there's something I've
Speaker 1: written about in Dignity about also about addiction and other
Speaker 1: such things what I call you know, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're when you feel stigmatized, when you feel the world
Speaker 1: is against you, you tend to you tend to make
Speaker 1: reckless decisions partly to you know, to kind of out
Speaker 1: of a way of kind of like owning the stigma.
Speaker 1: Like you know, you're gonna you know, you're gonna call
Speaker 1: me a deplorable, I'll be a deplorable. You're gonna call
Speaker 1: me a dirty addict. I'll be a dirty addict. You're
Speaker 1: gonna call me someone who makes reckless decisions a loser,
Speaker 1: then I'll do that, you know. But also it comes
Speaker 1: from a you know, look, I'm very empathetic in my book,
Speaker 1: and I've been sympathetic a lot about the idea of
Speaker 1: owning the smug elites. You know, like I get the
Speaker 1: fact that if the elites tell you to do something,
Speaker 1: there's a tendency to say, well, they've everything else they've
Speaker 1: ever told me has been wrong, they don't like me,
Speaker 1: they think I'm mickey. Then I'll just do the opposite.
Speaker 1: And I think there's some of that going on here.
Speaker 1: This is just a really bad way of kind of
Speaker 1: trying to do that, you know. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it goes against a lot of you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of clear you know, and in this case,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the this this is the one
Speaker 1: time the kind of establishment has gotten it right. And
Speaker 1: so consequently it's a really bad place to fight them on.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's frustrating, but also it's understandable,
Speaker 1: and you know where where they've gotten here. You know,
Speaker 1: so much of the COVID policy has been you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I try to emphasize in my
Speaker 1: writings is how we we elites talk about politics, how
Speaker 1: we talk about issues, It's entirely on hundred eighty degrees
Speaker 1: different from how normal people do. They're just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's a it's a detachment that you know,
Speaker 1: it comes out of necessity. But COVID policy is one
Speaker 1: of those rare things that actually you can't hide from,
Speaker 1: you can't just move on with your life. It affects
Speaker 1: everybody literally, So people have strong opinions on COVID policy,
Speaker 1: and the elites haven't done well by the by by
Speaker 1: by what I call the back road by people who
Speaker 1: were the working class around COVID policy. It's it's the
Speaker 1: bulk of the policy has fallen hardest on them. You know,
Speaker 1: we can all zoom, we can all skype, we can
Speaker 1: all kind of escape to our country homes. For working class,
Speaker 1: you know, you're telling them you got to work, and
Speaker 1: you know, but you can't have a barbecue with your friends.
Speaker 1: And that was the original iteration. And then just you
Speaker 1: know again, people people have a kind of good common sense,
Speaker 1: you know, and so so much of COVID policy was
Speaker 1: just so contrary to common sense. It's like, we can't
Speaker 1: talk about the origins. I mean, what do you mean
Speaker 1: it came from a he has a cod cod lab
Speaker 1: in it, right, you know? I mean that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that struck me in reading your latest
Speaker 1: post is a couple things. So, first of all, you
Speaker 1: don't just have working class people who are forming an
Speaker 1: identity around being unvaccinated in their sort of opposition to
Speaker 1: COVID lockdown policies and other policies. You also have an
Speaker 1: identity that's more of an elite identity around those vaccinations
Speaker 1: and COVID policies that are mirror images of one another.
Speaker 1: And so one of my questions reading your post was
Speaker 1: do you think it was inevitable that our orientation towards
Speaker 1: COVID policies and vaccinations would become incredibly tribal and incredibly politicized,
Speaker 1: or do you think it stemmed from the way that
Speaker 1: public health officials and political elites talked about these different policies.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was inevitable or do you think
Speaker 1: that this could have unfolded the different way. I think
Speaker 1: it could have unfolded different way. But I think there's
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of it that was inevitable. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the anvil that broke broke the
Speaker 1: camel's back. To use a now, to use a turnive
Speaker 1: phrase is you know, we went from basically you can't.
Speaker 1: I remember that where they filled like skate park in
Speaker 1: with dirt, right, you know, like you can't you just
Speaker 1: and then they pivoted when the riots came, when the
Speaker 1: protest came, you know, the protest that you know, you
Speaker 1: can actually now congregate because of protests. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: I don't want to judicate whether that was the right
Speaker 1: thing for them to do, but but it was one
Speaker 1: hundred and eight degree move that threw a lot of
Speaker 1: people off and it was really confusing, like you know,
Speaker 1: I can't have a barbecue, but you can, you can,
Speaker 1: you can protest, you know. I think the whole the
Speaker 1: whole policy has been very and then you know, after
Speaker 1: my piece, a lot of people pointed out and I
Speaker 1: wish I had pointed out my piece is like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're right, the it's also being vaccinated is also an
Speaker 1: identity for a lot of elites who's turned it into
Speaker 1: thisind of you know, this this big issue. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the small things I do to gain trust
Speaker 1: with people, and is I don't wear a mask when
Speaker 1: I go into and when I go into Walmart or
Speaker 1: McDonald's or or or a bar, is because if I
Speaker 1: wear a mask, immediately they are not going to trust me,
Speaker 1: you know, They're going to just assume that I'm you know, uh,
Speaker 1: everything is wrong with me. And so you know that
Speaker 1: that kind of tribalism, down to the symbolic mask wearing
Speaker 1: is just so so ingrained, and I think it is
Speaker 1: a product of you know, highly we were highly politicized society,
Speaker 1: very very we joined camps. But again I think a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the policy fell really hard
Speaker 1: in the working class. You know, there's a really good
Speaker 1: comment in my piece from a from a from a
Speaker 1: reader who talks about how how core, how core community
Speaker 1: you know, getting together at the bar, getting together at
Speaker 1: the gym, getting together at the basketball corps, getting together
Speaker 1: at the you know barb shop is the working class.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, one on one introduct interactions being
Speaker 1: social is it's much is much more physically social, I
Speaker 1: mean in a real physical way, is much more central
Speaker 1: to you know, people without high school educations or well
Speaker 1: at college college educations. It's just you know, kind of community,
Speaker 1: transcendent community and physical community is just very core to
Speaker 1: who they are, and to take that away is really
Speaker 1: created a real, you know, a real cynicism and kind
Speaker 1: of anger in a lot of the working classes. It's
Speaker 1: being channeled through not getting the vaccine right. You know, Chris,
Speaker 1: it's interesting if you read your work in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Trump was not a surprise whatsoever. So you're out there
Speaker 1: once again walking the streets, you know, writing about it.
Speaker 1: What are the political wins and what are the political
Speaker 1: outcomes that you foresee a year, maybe two years, three
Speaker 1: years from now that are being ignored by the mainstream
Speaker 1: here in Washington. I mean, the Democrats are toast in
Speaker 1: twenty two you know, I mean, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of that's the COVID policy, you know, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know Biden, Biden said he was going to return return
Speaker 1: things to normal. You know, he can't paign on return
Speaker 1: to normal. And you know it's it's not normal, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I people, you know, you can go even
Speaker 1: in red states that you know, people say, well, you
Speaker 1: know they don't have lockdowns, they don't you know, don't
Speaker 1: have masking policies. It's still not normal things just just
Speaker 1: just aren't operating right. Everything is off, and so I
Speaker 1: think I think to a large degree, Biden is suffering
Speaker 1: from that, and I think the Democrats are just becoming
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very frustrating for me to talk about
Speaker 1: politics on shows like this. I mean, you guys get it,
Speaker 1: but so many people don't get it. You know, to
Speaker 1: be on the road, to be talking to people, to
Speaker 1: just hang out in Applebee's or you know, spend whatever
Speaker 1: and then go on Twitter. It's just so frustrating because
Speaker 1: the political dialogue that we have amongst ourselves, us at least,
Speaker 1: it's just so detached from reality. Just I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's two different languages. I can't it's it's just it's
Speaker 1: really hard to describe, you know. I mean people. You know,
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about non voters, and it's very
Speaker 1: similar to the to the to the unvaccinated. The non
Speaker 1: voting and the vaccinated and unvaccinated crowd are very similar
Speaker 1: group of people. There's this kind of this cynicism of
Speaker 1: I call it kind of justified sentism, not necessarily for
Speaker 1: the vaccine, but for the non voting of just like
Speaker 1: this whole system is broken. It doesn't change you guys
Speaker 1: don't care about me. Why am I going to participate?
Speaker 1: Why am I going to play your game? Like? You know,
Speaker 1: you just don't care about me like and you know,
Speaker 1: except for every four years you come in and you
Speaker 1: try to get me to devote for you, but in general,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't care about me. And so that
Speaker 1: kind of you know, justified cynicism permeates how much how
Speaker 1: they view politics. And again, you know how politics filters
Speaker 1: down to these communities is you know it is it
Speaker 1: is what matters for voting. And so you know, they
Speaker 1: they turn on their TV and you know, they they
Speaker 1: the COVID policy has been entirely wrong to has just
Speaker 1: been completely confusion, confusion, and then you know they see
Speaker 1: the debates going on online that are just about things
Speaker 1: that don't really touch them, and so there's tendency just
Speaker 1: to throw whoever is in out and should should they
Speaker 1: should they want of them? But I mean, the Democrats
Speaker 1: are on the wrong side so much right now. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've been saying so much
Speaker 1: is how you know, my whole thesis has been about
Speaker 1: the education gap, and that's where politics are going. And
Speaker 1: you know, the Democratic Party is going to become the
Speaker 1: party of highly educated whites and African Americans, and the
Speaker 1: Republicans are going to be everybody else, you know, and
Speaker 1: you don't want to be the party of highly educated whites.
Speaker 1: You just don't because that's just not demographically who who
Speaker 1: who who represents the country. I would also argue that
Speaker 1: you're going to end up with really crappy politics if
Speaker 1: you become a party there's going on in general among
Speaker 1: that group. But Chris, I also wanted to get your
Speaker 1: reaction to we covered on the show today the numbers
Speaker 1: just came out about the number of overdose deaths in
Speaker 1: the past year. We saw almost a thirty percent spike
Speaker 1: year over year. Fentanyl deaths alone now account for more
Speaker 1: overdose deaths than all over death dose deaths altogether in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. This is very geographically concentrated. It tends to
Speaker 1: predominantly be you know, the worst problems are in industrial
Speaker 1: Minwest and certainly in Appalachia, places that have lost their
Speaker 1: community center in terms of jobs, places where people work
Speaker 1: with their body and put a heavy physical toll on
Speaker 1: their body. You know, there's been some debate about why
Speaker 1: we saw that spike, in particular over the past year.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you have had any interactions or could
Speaker 1: shed any light on why this problem, not just in
Speaker 1: the past year, but over the past decade has been
Speaker 1: such a dramatic issue in the types of places than
Speaker 1: with the type of people that you're visiting with. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's core to the whole everything I right about, which
Speaker 1: is the lack of community, is like, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what what what we the elite, the educated class have done.
Speaker 1: If we made everything about secular materialism, We've we've taken
Speaker 1: away anything that's transcendent. We've taken away faith, faith, place
Speaker 1: and community, anything, family, anything that kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: that gives people a sense of meaning beyond a resume.
Speaker 1: We've kind of devalued. And so we have this big
Speaker 1: meaning gap in these communities where people you know, are
Speaker 1: are You've taken you know, transcendent meaning, faith, family, place,
Speaker 1: Those things are just those things aren't just you know,
Speaker 1: window dressing. Those are those are core to who they are.
Speaker 1: That's that's the hat they hang that's the the the
Speaker 1: hook they hang their hat on. That's how they define themselves.
Speaker 1: And we've devalued those and it's left a big hole. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's it's and moving jobs away has has also
Speaker 1: left a big hole because it's it's it's it's left
Speaker 1: the ability to build a stable life, you know, and
Speaker 1: with only a high school degree, and it's just you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it's just really frustrating for me to go to hear
Speaker 1: the dialogue that takes place in elite spaces when when
Speaker 1: these communities, you know, people are killing themselves. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: addiction really is a form of suicide. And you know
Speaker 1: why when you think about why does somebody kill themselves?
Speaker 1: I mean that's it really, you know, for someone to
Speaker 1: kill themselves, to actively choose to kill themselves, it's just
Speaker 1: such a such a you know, it's the canary and
Speaker 1: the coal mine of a very broken society. And that
Speaker 1: people are doing it in spades, you know. I mean.
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that I try to
Speaker 1: try to communicate in my work is that, you know,
Speaker 1: drug traps, you know, I spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: in them are community centers, you know. I mean I
Speaker 1: don't make people want to know that, and I don't
Speaker 1: encourage people to to find their community in a drug trap,
Speaker 1: but it's a place where you know, people who've been
Speaker 1: stigmatized as losers all their life, or or dummies can
Speaker 1: find other people like them who get them, you know,
Speaker 1: who don't judge them for being a failure, and you
Speaker 1: know it's unfortunate. So we've taken it. We've kind of
Speaker 1: taken away so many we've become so transient and so
Speaker 1: material that we've taken away so many sources of community.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you guys so much for watching. We
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. For those of you who are watching
Speaker 1: this after the fifteen minute clip, if you want to
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber, we give lengthy interviews just like
Speaker 1: that one, extended ones for our premium people all the time.
Speaker 1: We've got all sorts of other benefits. But really what
Speaker 1: it is is that you're supporting us here on the show,
Speaker 1: our ability to find people like Chris in order to expand.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got these new cameras and more. We've
Speaker 1: got big plans. We rely on you, so thank you
Speaker 1: all so much. The link is right there in the description,
Speaker 1: Love you guys, have a fantastic weekend. We'll have that
Speaker 1: segment with the daily poster that we're doing weekly now
Speaker 1: as part of a partnership with them. Tomorrow we'll have
Speaker 1: more great content for you over the weekend, and we
Speaker 1: will see you back here on Monday.