Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show
Speaker 2: for everybody today. Crystal is unfortunately at home, but she
Speaker 2: will be joining us remote. Don't you worry. She's waiting
Speaker 2: right there in the wings. There's a big snow day
Speaker 2: there closing the schools in her area. But of course
Speaker 2: we've got Ryan and Emily here at the desk, the
Speaker 2: full Counterpoints crew. We're going to be going over all
Speaker 2: of the results from the Iowa caucuses. Vivek Ramaswami he's out,
Speaker 2: he's dropped out of the race. Does he have a future?
Speaker 2: You can already guess who he's endorsed for president. We
Speaker 2: will get into some of that New Hampshire. What the
Speaker 2: hell is going to happen? Is this the best possible
Speaker 2: result for Donald Trump. Nicki Haley, she came in third
Speaker 2: now officially a little bit of a plot twist.
Speaker 3: And then the three of us are going to be
Speaker 3: going over some of.
Speaker 2: The Israel updates in terms of Iranian strikes in the region,
Speaker 2: very troubling, possibly escalatory, and then some questions about Israeli
Speaker 2: strategy and retreat. Congressman Rocanna is going to be joining
Speaker 2: us at the end of the show.
Speaker 4: We're going to talk.
Speaker 2: About the War Powers Resolution, whether those Yemen strikes themselves
Speaker 2: were illegal or not. And we've Ryan and I got
Speaker 2: a couple questions from on UFOs. He's a he's just
Speaker 2: received a highly classified briefing on the subject, and so
Speaker 2: is it real or is it not?
Speaker 3: What can he tell us? We will get into.
Speaker 2: All of that, but of course we got to start
Speaker 2: with the Iowa caucuses. Krystal and I brought everybody the
Speaker 2: breaking news just last night of Donald Trump officially won
Speaker 2: mere thirty six minutes. The Associated Press made the call.
Speaker 2: And so the question whenever we woke up this morning was, Okay,
Speaker 2: so who came in second?
Speaker 3: And I guess we certainly have those results.
Speaker 2: Let's going to put it up there on the screen
Speaker 2: as you can all see there the official results now
Speaker 2: with over ninety five percent of the votes. Now votes
Speaker 2: now counted fifty one percent over the fifty percent threshold
Speaker 2: for Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis coming in at twenty one
Speaker 2: point two percent, or a narrow second there, but still
Speaker 2: thirty some odd points behind Donald Trump, and then nineteen
Speaker 2: point one for Nicky Haley.
Speaker 3: A disappointing finish, if we could say.
Speaker 2: And then finally, Donald Trump also was able to give
Speaker 2: us a victory speech.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to what he said.
Speaker 5: Well, I want to thank everybody. This has been some
Speaker 5: period of time, and most importantly, we want to thank
Speaker 5: the great people of Iowa. Thank you, We love you all.
Speaker 5: I want a turnout, what a crowd, and I really
Speaker 5: think this is time now for everybody our country to
Speaker 5: come together. We want to come together, whether it's Republican
Speaker 5: or a Democrat, or liberal or conservative. It would be
Speaker 5: so nice if we could come together and straighten out
Speaker 5: the world and straighten out the problems, and straighten out
Speaker 5: all of the death and destruction that we're witnessing. That's
Speaker 5: practically never been like this. It's just so important and
Speaker 5: I want to make that a very big part of
Speaker 5: our message. We're going to come together. It's going to
Speaker 5: happen soon too, going to happen. So we congratulate Ron
Speaker 5: and Nikki for having a good time together. We're all
Speaker 5: having a good time together. And I think they both
Speaker 5: actually did very well.
Speaker 6: I really do.
Speaker 5: I think they both did very well. We don't even
Speaker 5: know what the outcome of second place is. And I
Speaker 5: see carry Lake, congratulations.
Speaker 4: Character I spotted her. I have to.
Speaker 5: Announce because she's terrific. She's going to be a senator,
Speaker 5: a great senator, I predict right, going to be a
Speaker 5: great senator. And I also want to congratulate Vivek because
Speaker 5: he did a hell of a job. He came from
Speaker 5: zero and he's got a big percent, probably eight percent,
Speaker 5: almost eight percent, and that's an amazing job. They all
Speaker 5: there are very smart, very smart people, very capable people.
Speaker 3: So Crystal, he said congratulations to Nicki and to Ron
Speaker 3: DeSantis for having a good time together the most petty
Speaker 3: way possible that he can.
Speaker 2: What's your initial reaction after we broke the news for
Speaker 2: everybody last night.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a classic Trump moment there, right, He
Speaker 1: gets to appear very magnanimous, congratulating Ron who he used
Speaker 1: his actual name, not you know, meetball Run or.
Speaker 7: Daysanctus or whatever.
Speaker 1: He uses his actual name, congratulates them, congratulates for Vake Ramaswami.
Speaker 1: It's effectively like a little pat on the head. Good job, guys,
Speaker 1: nice work. Now it's time to get serious. We all
Speaker 1: know where this is headed. And he's not wrong. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is in a lot of ways the best possible
Speaker 1: outcome that Donald Trump could have hoped for. He won
Speaker 1: all but one county, Johnson County, which is like a
Speaker 1: college town is where Iowa City is.
Speaker 7: Nicky Haley won it by one vote.
Speaker 1: It's the same county, by the way, that Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 1: was the only county she won in the state as
Speaker 1: well in her third place bid two. A lot of
Speaker 1: parallels there, but you know, there's no clear like dominant
Speaker 1: second place winner Ron de Santis gets second, Nicki gets third.
Speaker 7: But she's right on his heels.
Speaker 1: Ron really doesn't have a single state going forward where
Speaker 1: he has a shot to win. Nicki has one state
Speaker 1: going forward where maybe possibly she could mount some sort
Speaker 1: of you know, comeback, overcome the odds type of win
Speaker 1: in that one state.
Speaker 7: But that's it this thing is over.
Speaker 1: You know, he got over fifty percent of the vote.
Speaker 1: He's made it so that his opponents are probably Ron
Speaker 1: and NICKI going to stay in and fight another day.
Speaker 1: He's asserted his complete dominance among basically every demographic of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party save for the ones with like advanced degrees,
Speaker 1: and so he can afford to be completely magnanimous in
Speaker 1: that message.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're exactly right, Emily. I want to
Speaker 3: come to you on this.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen, just to
Speaker 2: show everybody some of the entrance polls we saw, you know,
Speaker 2: just the absolute dominance of Trump consistently amongst every demographic.
Speaker 2: He's running pluralities amongst men, amongst women, amongst, as Crystal said,
Speaker 2: every college group except for the total advanced degree holders.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, even amongst people who are young voters,
Speaker 2: from what we can see, possibly in the seventeenth category, exept,
Speaker 2: what is the vaunted seventeen to twenty four year old
Speaker 2: category for Republicans of always a big turnout group there.
Speaker 2: But what do you make then of the demographic breakdown
Speaker 2: from what we can see in the exit polls for
Speaker 2: Trumps support. I was even stunned by it, even though
Speaker 2: you know everybody expected to win, but to win so
Speaker 2: handedly amongst every single group is I mean, that's a message.
Speaker 2: That's a message about what the Republican Party is now.
Speaker 6: Yes, and I think there are a couple of things there. First,
Speaker 6: he also crossed the fifty percent threshold, and that's a
Speaker 6: really big deal because he was you could tell his
Speaker 6: team was a little concerned he was going to be
Speaker 6: in the forties. But once you crossed the fifty percent
Speaker 6: threshold in Iowa, that brings me to the second point.
Speaker 6: Iowa is a place where his opponents spent millions of dollars,
Speaker 6: spent tons of time and energy trying to undercut him. Primarily,
Speaker 6: you know, you had Desantas and Haley and for a
Speaker 6: while Tim Scott sort of sniping about who was better
Speaker 6: amongst each other. But the bottom line is they were
Speaker 6: all spending that money and that time to unseat Donald
Speaker 6: Trump as the heir apparent to the Republican nomination. And
Speaker 6: still still you had Trump running up these margins. Now
Speaker 6: this isn't even an exit poll. This is from the
Speaker 6: New York Times. They said in lower income areas, so
Speaker 6: they're just actually analyzing the demo, Trump won by forty
Speaker 6: three percent. He was up by forty three points in
Speaker 6: lower income areas. So let's go over to higher income areas.
Speaker 6: Trump won by eight point three points. Areas with fewer
Speaker 6: college graduates, huge margin fifty one, with more areas with
Speaker 6: more college graduates seven point four. Rural areas thirty nine
Speaker 6: points up, suburban areas twenty two points up. And in
Speaker 6: urban areas, who's twenty eight points up. I mean, these
Speaker 6: are just gargantuan margins. It's across the board and you
Speaker 6: can see it. Not only is he winning in these
Speaker 6: these lower income areas rural areas, he also put up
Speaker 6: massive numbers. I mean, it was just to Crystal's point,
Speaker 6: this is just a routing. It is the Republican voters
Speaker 6: preferre Donald Trump. National polls have him around sixty percent.
Speaker 6: He's up by double digits over everyone else. Republican voters
Speaker 6: just preferred Trump.
Speaker 3: They do at this point, right, What do you think, Ryan?
Speaker 8: You know, I saw some liberal commentators referring to it
Speaker 8: as kind of a wake up call, which is like,
Speaker 8: what you for that? How deep of a slumber did
Speaker 8: you have to be for this to be a wake
Speaker 8: up call, but the fact that he got over fifty
Speaker 8: percent meant that you had to have people on MSNBC saying, look,
Speaker 8: there was almost half of the Republican electorate that voted
Speaker 8: for somebody other than Donald Trump, and Crystal, I'm curious
Speaker 8: for your take on how Democrats were responding to this,
Speaker 8: because it does seem like they were living in some
Speaker 8: parallel universe where either the Republican electorate was going to
Speaker 8: somehow derail him, like it's what it's that one? Then
Speaker 8: question mark three kind of men like, we weren't sure
Speaker 8: how this was going to happen, but somehow he was going.
Speaker 4: To get stopped.
Speaker 8: Maybe he'd be in prison by the time that the
Speaker 8: electures started. None of that is happening. So what did
Speaker 8: you make of the kind of democratic response last night?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I didn't really watch that much of
Speaker 1: the Democratic response last night, to be perfectly honest with you,
Speaker 1: but there is a level of delusion there. They're kind
Speaker 1: of in a quandary because on the one hand, obviously
Speaker 1: they despise Donald Trump. He is the center of gravity
Speaker 1: in our politics, period, end of story. He clearly is
Speaker 1: the center of gravity in terms of Republican politics. You know,
Speaker 1: Republican voters, they've decided Nikki Haley is like a liberal
Speaker 1: if you just look at the issue set, She's actually
Speaker 1: more right wing in a lot of ways than Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is. But the only metric of where people exist
Speaker 1: on an ideological spectrum is how do you feel about
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. That's in the Republican Party and it's in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party as well, So on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you have this burning hatred of the man. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, he's probably the only Republican candidate that Joe
Speaker 1: Biden has a shot at actually beating, so it's a
Speaker 1: little complicated for them. I think the thing that I
Speaker 1: would like to comment on is the level of delusion
Speaker 1: that existed among these Republican challengers to Donald Trump, who
Speaker 1: spent the whole campaign squabbling amongst themselves, never really mounted
Speaker 1: any sort of a serious effort outside of Chris Christy,
Speaker 1: to actually make a case against the man who still
Speaker 1: is the center of gravity in all of our politics,
Speaker 1: and especially in Republican politics. And you know, to be
Speaker 1: fair to them, like, look at what happened to Chris Christy.
Speaker 1: He didn't even make it to the first votes. So
Speaker 1: I don't think that there was ever a path for
Speaker 1: any of these people to dislodge Donald Trump. I don't
Speaker 1: think that there was an argument that they could have made.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was an ad buy that they
Speaker 1: could have placed that would have moved the needle. Ronde
Speaker 1: Santa spent over one hundred million dollars in Iowa and
Speaker 1: visited like almost every county and it didn't move the
Speaker 1: needle for him. But Vake Ramaswami did travel to every
Speaker 1: county in the state of Iowa, and I didn't move
Speaker 1: the needle for him. So all of these people, in
Speaker 1: some sense were counting on something else, outside external to
Speaker 1: the electoral process to knock Donald Trump out of contention
Speaker 1: magically and make them the guy or make them the gal,
Speaker 1: and ultimately it's ended up to be a complete fantasy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Christal, I mean, I'm just did some quick back
Speaker 2: in the Napkin math here, and Ron Destant is one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars. He won twenty three thousan four hundred votes.
Speaker 2: That's almost four two hundred dollars per vote that he
Speaker 2: spent in the state. Nicky Hayley's got some similar maths
Speaker 2: going on there.
Speaker 3: When you start to put it that way, things are
Speaker 3: pretty out of control.
Speaker 6: Going and Trump's dollar per voter is way lower, but
Speaker 6: significantly lower according to early analyzes. And that's fascinating, right, Well,
Speaker 6: it's not fascinating to the extent that's surprising. It's not
Speaker 6: surprising at all. But it's interesting because he had to
Speaker 6: put so little effort into all of this. Because if
Speaker 6: you look at and Ryan described this once as the
Speaker 6: crocodile jaws, if you look at the RCP polling averages
Speaker 6: just in Iowa, you see what happened over time when
Speaker 6: the indictment started to hit Trump, he just rocketed. It
Speaker 6: made him even like it emphasized him as the center
Speaker 6: of gravity to Bros. Crystal borrow Crystal's point. I do
Speaker 6: have one more point, though, sure, just because it's something
Speaker 6: I think I disagree with Crystal on, which is that
Speaker 6: I wonder actually the extent to which DeSantis making the
Speaker 6: indictments part of his campaign was a problem for him.
Speaker 6: His numbers started to go down when the indictments happened.
Speaker 6: He kind of immediately did start using them. He clearly
Speaker 6: didn't want to. He sort of had to be dragged
Speaker 6: kicking and screaming to talk about the indictments and the
Speaker 6: problems there. But Jonathan Swann reported on a memo back
Speaker 6: in September from David McIntosh is the founder of Club
Speaker 6: for Growth, and he was running an anti Trump pack
Speaker 6: and they found in this memo that I have a
Speaker 6: quote right here. Broadly, acceptable messages against President Trump with
Speaker 6: Republican primary voters that do not produce a meaningful backlash
Speaker 6: include sharing concerns about his ability to beat President Biden,
Speaker 6: experis expressions of Trump fatigue to the distractions he creates
Speaker 6: and the polarization of the country, as well as his
Speaker 6: patterns of attacking conservative leaders. But then its ads, it
Speaker 6: is essential to disarm the viewer at the opening of
Speaker 6: the ad by establishing that the person interviewed on camera
Speaker 6: in an ad is a Republican who previously supported President Trump.
Speaker 6: Otherwise the viewer will automatically put their guard up, assuming
Speaker 6: the messengers just another Trump Peter whose opinion should be
Speaker 6: summarily dismissed. And actually, christ I don't even know. I
Speaker 6: don't know this. This is even a disagreement. I think
Speaker 6: actually we agree on this because that shows there's basically
Speaker 6: never a path, and what can you do if your
Speaker 6: only option is to be that specific and that precise
Speaker 6: every time you talk about the front runner in the race,
Speaker 6: lest you get tuned out.
Speaker 1: Basically, Well, and here's the thing, right with that memo
Speaker 1: talking about oh well, one effective argument is electability. Who
Speaker 1: is going to believe at this point that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: can't beat Joe Biden?
Speaker 7: Right, yeah, look at the polls.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's not an accident that when ron De
Speaker 1: Santis was performing at his highest peak was right after
Speaker 1: the midterms.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You had this stunning contrast of Ronda Santis romps in
Speaker 1: Florida while all of the Trump back candidates are flailing
Speaker 1: around the country, and so you know, he even at
Speaker 1: that point though he wasn't beating Donald Trump, but you know,
Speaker 1: there was a compelling electability argument to be made at
Speaker 1: that moment, and it was very visceral that faded very quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, assisted by the indictments and other things that
Speaker 1: were happening, and also, let's be frank, assisted by the
Speaker 1: fact that once people got to look at Ronda Santis,
Speaker 1: they were like, this guy is kind of awkward and
Speaker 1: hard to listen to and makes weird faces, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that he's really up for prime time.
Speaker 7: So he needed to be a different person. It needed
Speaker 7: to be a different country. Donald Trump needed to be
Speaker 7: a different person.
Speaker 1: Like I just I have never thought that there was
Speaker 1: actually a path for Rond de Santis, that there was
Speaker 1: any sort of needle that he could theoretically thread. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you when Republicans lost this nomination, When the Republican
Speaker 1: challenges to Trump lost this nomination, it was right after
Speaker 1: January sixth, when there was an open that was the
Speaker 1: only opening you had to dislodge Donald Trump. If you
Speaker 1: had a concerted, unified effort maybe among Republicans at that moment,
Speaker 1: you could dislodged him as the head of the party.
Speaker 1: When they decided not to even really try and instead
Speaker 1: to cover for him on January sixth and come up
Speaker 1: with all these alternate theories of what really went down
Speaker 1: on that day, et cetera, et cetera, it was effectively
Speaker 1: over at that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're probably right, Crystal, just because that
Speaker 2: would have meant he was genuinely disqualified from office, although
Speaker 2: you know that probably would have opened up a whole
Speaker 2: other can of worms. So the thing is, Emily, I
Speaker 2: want to spend some time this and we all just
Speaker 2: were dancing around. It is that the death of retail
Speaker 2: politics and even money now at this point is one
Speaker 2: of those where I mean we've talked about it quite
Speaker 2: a bit on the show, but it is sad. I mean,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, Vivek did more events
Speaker 2: combined than everybody else. Ron de sant Is, even he
Speaker 2: did eventually visit all ninety nine counties, didn't matter, Nikki Haley,
Speaker 2: all of these people, they spent tons of money.
Speaker 3: I was just looking this morning.
Speaker 2: Ron de Santis racked up the state governor's endorsement, a
Speaker 2: huge portion of the state legislature, all of these so
Speaker 2: called like important local men who cares. Not a single
Speaker 2: instance did this end up mattering?
Speaker 3: Ryan?
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump visited the state less than every single
Speaker 2: other one of his challenges, and he got over fifty percent.
Speaker 2: I mean, at a certain point, we're not even playing
Speaker 2: in an inner arena anymore.
Speaker 3: It's just all earned media all the time. From what
Speaker 3: we can.
Speaker 8: See, right, we might as well just get rid of
Speaker 8: this entire like first we do one state, then we
Speaker 8: do another, then we do another. Just have a national election,
Speaker 8: I mean national primary, because we are now a national
Speaker 8: public where a national elector it's not an original observation,
Speaker 8: but it's been it's been coming over the last ten
Speaker 8: to fifteen years, and we've arrived at a place where
Speaker 8: people don't have the same kind of Iowa identities that
Speaker 8: they have anymore. They have they have a lot of
Speaker 8: different identities, but that's way down there, and so going
Speaker 8: to their living rooms is just, you know, not going to.
Speaker 3: Do it, just doesn't do it anymore. The whole like,
Speaker 3: you know, what is it? The egg? No, the egg
Speaker 3: thing is new Hampshire. I apologize. We're only getting a
Speaker 3: taste soon if.
Speaker 4: Somebody tomb are, because that's true, it's going to be history.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Let's spend some time on the exit polls too, because
Speaker 2: we have some issue by issue ones which are pretty important.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen from CNN.
Speaker 2: What we could see here is do you think that
Speaker 2: Biden legitimately won the election? So amongst DeSantis voters and
Speaker 2: only Haley voters, is there a majority of voters who
Speaker 2: say that Biden legitimately won? It's still only fifty four percent.
Speaker 2: Now amongst Trump voters that number is nine percent. Do
Speaker 2: you think Biden legitimately won? In twenty twenty no. Amongst
Speaker 2: Trump voters is sixty nine percent. Is Trump fit for
Speaker 2: the presidency if convicted of a crime? Here is where
Speaker 2: I think it's really interesting. Again, only a majority will
Speaker 2: say no in the Nikki Haley category amongst DeSantis, Hutchison,
Speaker 2: Ramaswami and Trump voters. Of course, you just see like tiny,
Speaker 2: tiny percentages who are willing to say no, and seventy
Speaker 2: one percent of Trump voters there say he's yes, He's
Speaker 2: fit for the presidency even if he is convicted of
Speaker 2: a crime. Keep in mind these are Iowa caucus voters.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next one here, please, what we
Speaker 2: can see here is and actually this was fascinating to me,
Speaker 2: as you can always see the way that people think
Speaker 2: about abortion, even within the Republican Party is very much
Speaker 2: on display here. So a view on banning most or
Speaker 2: all abortion nationwide now top line, fifty nine percent say
Speaker 2: that they do support a ban. Amongst DeSantis voters, they
Speaker 2: say twenty seven percent favor of ban, fifteen percent of pose,
Speaker 2: Haley eleven percent, thirty seven percent of pose. But amongst Trump,
Speaker 2: you actually have the highest number of people who oppose
Speaker 2: banning national abortion. Now, don't get me wrong, fifty three
Speaker 2: percent still say that they would favor a ban, but
Speaker 2: forty two percent do not, So a little bit more
Speaker 2: socially liberal there, I think when compared to the rest
Speaker 2: of the GOP electorate. Interesting here also they have about
Speaker 2: decided on a candidate. But the abortion thing brings to mind, Emily,
Speaker 2: something are running to get with you today is about
Speaker 2: these evangelical voters. Because Desanta's entire strategy was I gotta
Speaker 2: win over these ted Cruz counties.
Speaker 3: And in the very.
Speaker 2: First moments, less than one percent of the vote, we
Speaker 2: were seeing counties that Ted Crews were Ted Crews won
Speaker 2: and Trump place fourth in twenty sixteen where he's getting seventy.
Speaker 3: Two percent of the vote.
Speaker 2: I mean the flip on that is one of the
Speaker 2: biggest flips in realignments within the GOP electorate, and that
Speaker 2: very few people actually are talking about. So what what's
Speaker 2: your kind of reaction to the fact that the evangelical
Speaker 2: voters and or block, both either self identified or actual
Speaker 2: church goers, these people all support Trump by overwhelming margins
Speaker 2: to a point where he can't really be dislodged amongst
Speaker 2: that group.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and the New York Times, the last couple of
Speaker 6: years hired their evangelical whisper as David French, somebody who
Speaker 6: lives in one of the wealthiest pockets of the country
Speaker 6: but pretends that he doesn't because it's outside of Nashville,
Speaker 6: and is the person who translate what evangelic translates what
Speaker 6: evangelicals think to the elite, and of course it's never
Speaker 6: what evangelicals actually think. It reminds me a lot of
Speaker 6: when the entire media was asking this question over and
Speaker 6: over again. In what year was Roy Moore twenty eighteen eighteen?
Speaker 6: Why would somebody in Alabama vote for Roy Moore? If
Speaker 6: he went down there and you talked to Alabama voters,
Speaker 6: they would look you right in the face and they'd say,
Speaker 6: because Doug Jones is pro abortion. Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 6: That was like that simple. And the media could never
Speaker 6: understand it. This or never Trump Republicans that could never
Speaker 6: understand it. They didn't like Roymore, they were not happy
Speaker 6: with Roy Moore. There were some people that just don't
Speaker 6: trust the media and didn't trust the allegations of serious
Speaker 6: sexual misconduct against him. But for other people, they believed
Speaker 6: the allegations. And we're still voting for Roy Moore. Yes,
Speaker 6: because they believe that abortion is murder. And again, if
Speaker 6: we could put the element back up on the screen,
Speaker 6: because they were just this last one, there's something super
Speaker 6: fascinating in it. Look at nikkiy Haley's numbers. They're the
Speaker 6: only ones that are anywhere in the ballpark of Trump.
Speaker 6: And that's in like, look at that DeSantis opposed ban
Speaker 6: fifteen percent, Haley oppose a national abortion ban thirty seven percent.
Speaker 6: It doubles, it jumps and doubles, and you get with
Speaker 6: Trump forty two percent. So Trump and Haley, this is
Speaker 6: what's super interesting. Trump and Haley have those demos that
Speaker 6: actually are closer to opposing a nationwide abortion ban, and
Speaker 6: it's two sides of that coin. Trump brings in the
Speaker 6: sort of Obama with Trump Russ Bell voters who are
Speaker 6: white evangelicals in some cases that don't even go to church. Yes,
Speaker 6: that's another misunderstood thing about why the white evangelical vote.
Speaker 6: They think these are the people that are in the
Speaker 6: pews every single week, and it's not necessarily the case,
Speaker 6: especially in rural areas. People have written a lot of
Speaker 6: social science about that. But you have these people that
Speaker 6: might be socially a little bit more liberal but culturally,
Speaker 6: culturally they're not because they hate political correctness, they hate
Speaker 6: the media. And Nikki Haley, then, on the other hand,
Speaker 6: just gets the people who are more socially liberal, and
Speaker 6: some exit polling found that too people describe themselves as
Speaker 6: liberal and independent went for Haley and higher numbers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Let me say something about the Gatari really quick, which
Speaker 1: is that it seems to me that with Row being overturned,
Speaker 1: abortion has become a central issue in democratic politics in
Speaker 1: a way that it really wasn't before. I mean not
Speaker 1: to say voters didn't care on the Democratic side, but
Speaker 1: it has become a real center of gravity on the
Speaker 1: Democratic side, and I don't know that it is as
Speaker 1: much on the Republican side anymore. Because you had Mike
Speaker 1: Pence and you had Tim Scott, and in a certain
Speaker 1: extent you had Rond de Sandis, who were really betting
Speaker 1: in Iowa, a state that is famous for its religious
Speaker 1: conservatism and for you know, that block of voters really
Speaker 1: being kingmakers. They really kind of bet the farm, especially
Speaker 1: Pence and Tim Scott, on being the most pro life candidates,
Speaker 1: and they didn't even.
Speaker 7: Make it to the starting line.
Speaker 1: So I think the centrality of that issue and the
Speaker 1: strength of that voting block that existed in the past,
Speaker 1: I think it may just not be there anymore. And
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, evident in these Iowa results
Speaker 1: where remember and not only you can attest this better
Speaker 1: than anyone I know, you were following this closely, like
Speaker 1: a lot of the pro life groups were coming out.
Speaker 1: They were very upset with Donald Trump. He said something
Speaker 1: critical about the six week abortion band that DeSantis passing.
Speaker 7: Effectively, it went too far, it was too much.
Speaker 1: They were putting out statements demming him, and you know,
Speaker 1: looking for someone who was going to be more consistently
Speaker 1: on their side.
Speaker 7: But clearly that didn't win the day.
Speaker 6: Super quick thought, because I'm looking at an exit poll
Speaker 6: right now, fifty one percent of DeSantis voters said abortion
Speaker 6: was the issue that mattered the most in deciding whom
Speaker 6: to support today. And that gets to the point that
Speaker 6: Sager was making that traditionally. And I'm curious what Ryan
Speaker 6: thinks about this. If you had run the campaign that
Speaker 6: DeSantis ran, he hired, he put all of his eggs
Speaker 6: in the Iowa basket. He hired Jeff ro the guy
Speaker 6: who did it for Ted Cruz. I'm hiring a guy
Speaker 6: who helped Ted Cruz lose the nomination. That's a really
Speaker 6: reallyiant idea. And because he knew Iowa really well, he
Speaker 6: was all over Iowa, constantly blanketing it, and they thought
Speaker 6: they had traditionally all of the makings of a great
Speaker 6: Iowa campaign. This is what you do, textbook Iowa campaign,
Speaker 6: and it shows up in some of these exit polls.
Speaker 6: Fifty one percent said abortion. This why they decided to
Speaker 6: support Dsantis. But doesn't matter anymore because the Trump factor.
Speaker 8: Because they've always been met pragmatic voters. Yeah, like he
Speaker 8: got it done, He's going to win. Let's let's keep
Speaker 8: with the guy. But I don't want to linger for
Speaker 8: one second on that legitimately elected question Hu, because on
Speaker 8: the way into the studio this morning, I was had
Speaker 8: NPR on and they had Scott Walker as what does
Speaker 8: They had Scott Walker and so they had a very
Speaker 8: long interview with him, and the entire interview was just
Speaker 8: pressing him about how Trump thinks the election was stolen
Speaker 8: and isn't that gonna art him? At the very end
Speaker 8: they said, isn't he an electoral handicap? But otherwise, like
Speaker 8: the entire interview was just about this question. If you
Speaker 8: came from outside of the country and we're listening to
Speaker 8: that interview, you'd have no idea which side of the
Speaker 8: spectrum Trump was on, like what positions he stood for,
Speaker 8: what he was going to do as president, what people
Speaker 8: were concerned about.
Speaker 4: Just about that one question.
Speaker 8: But I'm the wording of that was interesting, and I'm
Speaker 8: curious how you guys would answer, because if you're forced
Speaker 8: to answer this a like Poles, force you to say
Speaker 8: either yes or no, was Biden legitimately elected? I think
Speaker 8: if you guys are asked, were more legal votes cast
Speaker 8: for Biden?
Speaker 4: Yes? But was he legitimately elected?
Speaker 8: Given everything I've come to understand about the conservative criticisms
Speaker 8: of the mail in balloting and the pandemic and what.
Speaker 6: Did the CIA step in and collude with Facebook and
Speaker 6: Twitter in October.
Speaker 4: To fill that stuff?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is an easy one because I as
Speaker 2: I've understood now, there's an entire media apparatus that has
Speaker 2: been built to say exactly what you're saying, Emily, which
Speaker 2: is like, well, yeah, it's not actually Bamboo back, you
Speaker 2: got more votes there were Hunter Biden and Facebook unfair legitimate.
Speaker 2: I think both of those things are separate questions of.
Speaker 4: Which I so that's why so many people answer yes
Speaker 4: to that.
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure, though, because I bet you if
Speaker 2: you were to ask, if you were to ask whether
Speaker 2: Trump Biden won more votes than Trump, I still think.
Speaker 4: That's the same number.
Speaker 3: I won't say. I would say it's Marshall, Crystal, go ahead,
Speaker 3: do you have a last dot?
Speaker 7: I agree with Zager. I think the all those various like.
Speaker 1: Sort of like copes around why it's okay to still
Speaker 1: be a thinking person and say that Biden did not
Speaker 1: legitimately win. I think those are basically like DC designed fates.
Speaker 1: And most of the people who are saying no, Biden
Speaker 1: did not legitimately win, like they believe there was you know,
Speaker 1: ten thousand mules and bamboo ballots, and that there was
Speaker 1: out voter broad not like oh, tech companies did things
Speaker 1: I didn't like.
Speaker 7: They think that too, but I think the.
Speaker 1: Vast majority genuinely believes are like overbroad. Last thing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to say is on this metric that we
Speaker 1: had at before about you know, what would it mean
Speaker 1: if Trump is criminally if he actually has found guilty,
Speaker 1: is that a problem? Does that make him unfit for office?
Speaker 1: And I just I don't put a lot of stock
Speaker 1: in those metrics because on the one hand, you look
Speaker 1: you say, oh, well, the overall majority, more than sixty
Speaker 1: percent say, you know, they'd still vote for me, he's
Speaker 1: still fit for office. So you might look at that
Speaker 1: and be like, well, that's terrible. If somebody is, you know,
Speaker 1: criminally guilty, maybe they should be reconsidering. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if you look at it from another perspective, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: even a third of Republicans are basically saying no, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't be fit for office. I just wouldn't put a
Speaker 1: lot of stock in any of those metrics because I
Speaker 1: think people are very bad at predicting what they might
Speaker 1: do if some future event is too unfold. So I
Speaker 1: just I'm very skeptical of any of those numbers.
Speaker 7: You know, whatever direction they cut in, I.
Speaker 3: Could not agree with you more. And I also just
Speaker 3: want to remind people about who voters are.
Speaker 2: The CNN as a caucus opened yesterday, Chris I said
Speaker 2: this to you where a guy was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Voted for Trump.
Speaker 2: Of twenty twenty, I was in between NICKI Haley and
Speaker 2: Revike Ramis Swami.
Speaker 3: I think I'll go with NICKI. He's like, what what
Speaker 3: is happening here? And she's like, yeah, you know, she
Speaker 3: seems nice or something like that. I forget exactly the
Speaker 3: reason he gave.
Speaker 4: That's that's how people are.
Speaker 3: And I'm not even putting the man down.
Speaker 2: That's okay, he's living his life like that's that's how
Speaker 2: it goes. But you know, for all the prognostication and
Speaker 2: crystal as you said, of people's self predicting about how
Speaker 2: people will vote, who knows. I mean at that point
Speaker 2: we could go way beyond and it's like, well, what
Speaker 2: even is it?
Speaker 3: Emily? As you're talking about what even is a crime?
Speaker 3: Is it a New York State crime? Is it Georgia crime?
Speaker 8: If you if you pull people and you ask them
Speaker 8: if on Saturday night you have four drinks we drive home?
Speaker 4: But of course not absolutely not. There are people on
Speaker 4: the road.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, that's right, yeah, bing go.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's like whenever the time comes and the.
Speaker 2: Keys are jingling in your pocket, you're like, well, maybe
Speaker 2: five dollars. I do not endorse this, by the way,
Speaker 2: I was just thinking, that's how it happens. Just a
Speaker 2: few felonies, that's right, let's get now to the second question.
Speaker 2: This is a This was a big one amongst the
Speaker 2: Dysantis crew. Crystal Ine talked a little bit about it yesterday.
Speaker 2: I genuinely don't know what you guys think, so I'm
Speaker 2: excited to talk with you all. There was a big
Speaker 2: kerfuffle by the Dysantis team, who were very upset that
Speaker 2: the media, the Associated Press and all the networks called
Speaker 2: the race within thirty five minutes of the holes opening. Now,
Speaker 2: let's be clear though about what happened. To actually enter
Speaker 2: the Iowa caucaus you had to enter at seven pm
Speaker 2: Central time, so the doors were closed, no more people
Speaker 2: can come in, and the phone effect turnout exactly, it
Speaker 2: cannot affect turnout. But people were still casting ballots inside
Speaker 2: of the room. People were still giving speeches whenever the
Speaker 2: AP and all the other networks called the race. So
Speaker 2: CNN's Jake Tapper, I believe CNN was actually the first
Speaker 2: media organization to call the race. And even he he
Speaker 2: was like, look, I'm not used to calling things at
Speaker 2: this hour. Let's take a listen and then we'll talk
Speaker 2: about Desanta's reaction. Let's let's take a look.
Speaker 9: CNN projects that Donald Trump will win the Iowa Caucasus.
Speaker 9: CNN can make this projection based on his overwhelming lead
Speaker 9: in our entrance pull of Iowa caucus goers and some
Speaker 9: initial votes that are coming in the former president pulling
Speaker 9: off a huge early victory in his bid to return
Speaker 9: to the White House. Trump easily defeating his top opponents,
Speaker 9: Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, who are now in a
Speaker 9: high stakes fight for second place.
Speaker 4: So, Crystal, what we had there?
Speaker 3: Les you said?
Speaker 2: Thirty minutes or so into the election, the Dssanta's campaign
Speaker 2: immediately put out a statement, Let's put it up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. They say, it is absolutely outrageous that
Speaker 2: the media would participate in election interference by calling the
Speaker 2: race before tens of thousands of islands even had.
Speaker 3: A chance to vote.
Speaker 2: The media is in the tank for Trump and this
Speaker 2: is the most egregious example yet. And there were some
Speaker 2: further comments that he made there on cable news. So Christal, first,
Speaker 2: I want your reaction. What do you think about the
Speaker 2: point that they're making of Like, listen, you guys called
Speaker 2: this race when people are still counting ball. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you're not stopping anybody from entering the polls.
Speaker 3: But the people have their phones.
Speaker 2: They can look down and see the race called literally
Speaker 2: before they have even called a vote. What do you
Speaker 2: think I mean?
Speaker 1: I actually agree with Ron DeSantis and his team on that. Now,
Speaker 1: there's two separate questions. Number one, as a matter of principle,
Speaker 1: was it the wrong thing to do to go ahead
Speaker 1: and call this race when there were still people who
Speaker 1: hadn't even started causing yet. Yes, they were in the
Speaker 1: but they had not been able to cast their votes yet. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think as a matter of principle, that was the
Speaker 1: wrong thing to do because you could imagine, Look, it's
Speaker 1: not fun being out there listen to like the ASA
Speaker 1: Hutchinson representative give their spiel on why the Arkansas governor
Speaker 1: should be the next president the United States.
Speaker 7: You're like, I gotta get home.
Speaker 1: It's cole out there, Like my kids are with my
Speaker 1: neighbor or whatever.
Speaker 7: You get the message on your phone. Trump one. You're
Speaker 7: a Desanta support, You're like, what am I even doing here?
Speaker 7: At this point?
Speaker 1: Like it's over, I'm getting out of here. So I
Speaker 1: do think, as a matter of principle, it's wrong. I
Speaker 1: do think it interferes with the election. Do I think
Speaker 1: it paid any sort of measurable difference in terms of
Speaker 1: these numbers. No, And in fact, actually the later counties
Speaker 1: that came in were a little better for Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: than they were for Nicki Haley because early in the
Speaker 1: night Nikki looked like she was going to get second.
Speaker 7: Then more votes came in for Ron. He ends up
Speaker 7: getting second.
Speaker 1: So I doubt that it really had a big impact,
Speaker 1: especially given the margins that we're talking about here. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as a matter of principle, I don't think it.
Speaker 7: Was the right thing to do.
Speaker 3: I think that's fair. Emily. What's your reaction. What do
Speaker 3: you think?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it's against their own policies as far
Speaker 6: we have the policy.
Speaker 3: If we want to put it up there on the screen, please.
Speaker 3: This is according to the Associated.
Speaker 2: Press, and again we can actually kind of dig into
Speaker 2: what it means. Their policies do not call the winner
Speaker 2: of a race before all the polls are scheduled to close. Now, again,
Speaker 2: the difference here is that the polls were technically closed,
Speaker 2: but people were still voting tonight, APCNN and etc. Called
Speaker 2: the race after the caucus doors closed, but before all
Speaker 2: votes for cast. People could see on their phones that
Speaker 2: Trump had won before voting.
Speaker 3: So with that in mind, Emily, what do you think.
Speaker 6: Yeah, No, I mean, I think that's a policy that's
Speaker 6: written not for caucuses because it's like literally the one
Speaker 6: caucus that everyone cares about in the entire caucus. I
Speaker 6: think it is. But either way, it's I mean, this
Speaker 6: is like there aren't that many caucuses, so it makes
Speaker 6: sense that their policy word isn't tailored towards a caucus.
Speaker 6: But all that to say, I think also the Desants
Speaker 6: team is using this as a major cope, and I'm
Speaker 6: not sure that's super helpful for them at this point
Speaker 6: because and they probably know that internally something that really
Speaker 6: scares me is as valid as I think their concerns
Speaker 6: are in this case. You know, people are on their
Speaker 6: phone said it's going to affect the way people see things.
Speaker 6: Ron DeSantis ended at twenty one percent of the vote,
Speaker 6: think Nikka Hayley was down at nineteen percent. I doubt
Speaker 6: that it had any significant effect on the turnout. Crystal
Speaker 6: just had a really helpful point on that. At the
Speaker 6: same time, the Desanta's campaign immediately used the words election interference,
Speaker 6: and I think that's really cynical and scary, because when
Speaker 6: you start to get into and listen. This is downstream
Speaker 6: of Donald Trump. But this is downstream of not just
Speaker 6: January sixth, but all of the rhetoric that Donald Trump
Speaker 6: used after he lost the election. And I'm one of
Speaker 6: those people that thinks there was a lot of funny
Speaker 6: business going on, not with ballots but with the intelligence
Speaker 6: community and other places. Who knows what it would have done.
Speaker 6: But even all that said, election interference because people call
Speaker 6: the race that you were going to lose by double
Speaker 6: digits and did lose by double digits, jumping to election interference.
Speaker 6: I think the fact that that happened so quickly from
Speaker 6: and naturally from the Dysantas campaign. That's a phrase that
Speaker 6: used to mean something significant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point and be in the rhetoric.
Speaker 6: Well, and we've lost sort of a consensus on what
Speaker 6: that means. And that's really banana Republic territory.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know I can split the difference where I just
Speaker 2: have trouble taking their concerns seriously because I'm like, guys,
Speaker 2: you're gonna lose by thirty points. I mean, sure, it's
Speaker 2: marginal at the same Yeah, look, I don't want anyone
Speaker 2: to be disenfranchised, like you still won by I mean,
Speaker 2: you still got second, as Chrystal said, like people did
Speaker 2: come out. Now are we talking about a marginal difference
Speaker 2: of how many votes?
Speaker 3: Fifty to one hundred depending on the It.
Speaker 6: Was very close to the polling, the results were very exactly.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, well, you know, how much of an
Speaker 2: impact did this really have? That said, I mean, we
Speaker 2: can't all remember remember when Fox News called Arizona what
Speaker 2: like the day of the election, and not everybody else
Speaker 2: called it for another week. I think in retrospect we
Speaker 2: could say they called it too early. They ended up
Speaker 2: getting right the right call. Yeah, but they you know,
Speaker 2: they called it way too early, like I mean, I
Speaker 2: think six days before everybody else, and they're genuinely were
Speaker 2: still ballots to be cast, and that's something that Tuesday
Speaker 2: the Trump people are sorry, yeah, ballast to be counted.
Speaker 2: To this day that Trump people will not shut up
Speaker 2: about Fox News called Arizona. So almost to a certain point,
Speaker 2: this is uh. I wouldn't call it even like election
Speaker 2: interference per se, but media org should think.
Speaker 3: About it whenever they're making a call.
Speaker 8: So what do you think Ryan, the principals, I think
Speaker 8: Crystal's right on the principle.
Speaker 4: They should change their policy. They should make sure that.
Speaker 8: They don't announce anything until the Coxes are closed. The
Speaker 8: only only thing I'd say, though, to Ronda Santis's complaint,
Speaker 8: every single caucus goer who walked into a gym anywhere
Speaker 8: in Iowa knew ahead of time.
Speaker 4: Trump was gonna win. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 8: So they got a breaking news alert that Trump had won.
Speaker 8: They knew already, right it was. It was a fight
Speaker 8: for second.
Speaker 2: Place, and they were already in there, they could even see.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is you have to stand go ahead, Crystal.
Speaker 7: I disagree. I disagree.
Speaker 1: I think you underestimate the level of delusion that people
Speaker 1: can have. I mean, there were like supporters on Twitter
Speaker 1: yesterday who thought he was going to come from behind,
Speaker 1: the polls were underestimating him and whatever. Sure, so right,
Speaker 1: I only you can get in the voter's heads and
Speaker 1: say they knew going in.
Speaker 7: And we have to think.
Speaker 1: The reason it matters to talk about the principle and
Speaker 1: rather than you know, did it affect this particular outcome
Speaker 1: is because if this is now the standard that they
Speaker 1: can call it the minute that they think they know
Speaker 1: even before the votes are cast. Well, there are going
Speaker 1: to be other Iowa caucuses in the future, and they're
Speaker 1: going to have the same incentive to be you know,
Speaker 1: the first out with their calls that media organizations always have.
Speaker 1: And so maybe it didn't make the difference here, but
Speaker 1: it could in the future. And let me also make
Speaker 1: the case sort of against what I just said earlier
Speaker 1: about I don't think it really mattered. Donald Trump barely
Speaker 1: got over fifty percent, and that was an important metric
Speaker 1: for him.
Speaker 7: He wanted to be over fifty percent.
Speaker 1: That enables him to say, listen, even if every other candidate,
Speaker 1: you know, even if there was one other candidate and
Speaker 1: all the other voters consolidated on their side, I still
Speaker 1: would have won. So it is possible that that early
Speaker 1: call enables him to meet that fifty one percent threshold
Speaker 1: that gives him that, you know, that additional strength going
Speaker 1: into New Hampshire and beyond. So that's why principles matter.
Speaker 1: It's not because you can predict did it make a
Speaker 1: difference here or there or wherever. It's Okay, well, if
Speaker 1: this is going to be the standard going forward, what
Speaker 1: do we want that standard to be? And I think
Speaker 1: that this was the wrong precedent to set.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a fantastic point, Crystal, because as
Speaker 2: we all saw during the Buddhage edge like madness to
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, like, it was a genuine question of like, well,
Speaker 2: what the hell do you say?
Speaker 4: We still don't know. Yeah, it's right, we still actually
Speaker 4: don't really.
Speaker 3: Out claim victory.
Speaker 2: And then we all just move past I believe if
Speaker 2: we go and we look, some media orgs did eventually
Speaker 2: call it for him, but of course that is contested,
Speaker 2: and then that raises the question too, Ran, you probably
Speaker 2: have more insight into this than I do.
Speaker 4: How are they able to call a vote?
Speaker 2: Is it just based on their elect like their exit polls,
Speaker 2: plus their initial stuff that they feed into a computer.
Speaker 2: And this is where it's a genuine question of like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: well who designs an audits these models? I mean, like
Speaker 2: what is the actual econometric software whatever that's being.
Speaker 4: Used on this one?
Speaker 8: They matched they matched polling, yeah, in the weeks ahead
Speaker 8: with entrance polling. So they had people at a bunch
Speaker 8: of caucuses asking people on the way in, who are
Speaker 8: you going to caucus for?
Speaker 4: Trump? Trump? Trump? They sent that into the central.
Speaker 8: Headquarters and they're like, all right, we got eight precincts here,
Speaker 8: eight caucus sits here, every single one of them is
Speaker 8: like fifty percent plus for Trump. That matches the polling.
Speaker 8: Boom we're calling this when it comes to a primary.
Speaker 8: If they have the polling and it's like up by
Speaker 8: fifty points, it's Oklahoma. Like the second polls closed, they
Speaker 8: call it without him waiting for a single precinct. If
Speaker 8: it's like a twenty thirty point margin, they'll wait for
Speaker 8: a couple precincts, And as long as the precincts that
Speaker 8: are coming in match the polling, they're like, all right,
Speaker 8: call it.
Speaker 4: The only other question I'd wonder.
Speaker 8: About the like the VVA people who are like certain
Speaker 8: he's going to win. Why are they less certain just
Speaker 8: because the AP has called it? Who's the AP to them?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean, look, and that's the problem is that they're
Speaker 2: both like the media doesn't matter, and they're like, the
Speaker 2: media is the only.
Speaker 4: Thing that matters. Well, well, you don't believe that. You
Speaker 4: gotta pick one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I mean, yeah, I mean I think I'm
Speaker 2: coming around to it. At first, I was a little
Speaker 2: bit dismissive, but the more we talk at out the
Speaker 2: implications like look, as Crystal said, forty nine to fifty
Speaker 2: one actually is a big.
Speaker 3: Difference because we're all, what is the first thing? I said?
Speaker 2: One fifty percent? So you know, clearly it could maybe
Speaker 2: it have something back.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a marginal difference at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, but margins matter. The only county that Nikki
Speaker 2: Haley won is by a single vote. Who knows whether
Speaker 2: that had some sort of impact here, like what if
Speaker 2: she was able to get five more votes.
Speaker 3: Than Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: And I wouldn't say a single All of these things
Speaker 2: do have some sort of downstream impact here, and so
Speaker 2: I guess the reason we should all be hopeful is
Speaker 2: we don't want questions going into twenty twenty four as
Speaker 2: we all were, Like Fox News called Arizona that is
Speaker 2: still I, like I said, a wound that is the
Speaker 2: deepest for some of these Trump people, even though you
Speaker 2: know Biden did it Fox, Yeah, yea for Fox legitimately
Speaker 2: stopped watching, Yes, like thousands of people.
Speaker 3: Now you know, there's enough boomers they don't know how
Speaker 3: to change the channel. But that's a whole lot of conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding By the way.
Speaker 2: Somebody actually told me that that some of their viewers
Speaker 2: are so old that they don't have to change.
Speaker 4: They won't be able tofect just the least.
Speaker 6: There's two separate issues that we were talking about. One
Speaker 6: is the principal and the other is whether or not
Speaker 6: this had an effect last night. I think everyone, like
Speaker 6: I agree completely on the principal question. Whether or not
Speaker 6: it had an effect last night, I don't know, But
Speaker 6: I also think we can all agree that the DeSantis
Speaker 6: campaign has none using it as a cope.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Let me one and one last thing on that part
Speaker 1: of this statement. He said, you know, it's another sign
Speaker 1: the media is in the tank for Donald Trump, which
Speaker 1: I think is kind of hilarious. And no, the media
Speaker 1: is not in the tank for Donald Trump. They just
Speaker 1: like to be first out with the call and break
Speaker 1: the news and so they have the incentive to do that.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I think it's uh sort of
Speaker 1: preposterous to imagine, after all of these years of media
Speaker 1: coverage of Donald Trump that they're quote unquote in the
Speaker 1: tank for him to win.
Speaker 3: That's real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's sort of some like the vague level
Speaker 1: conspiracy like vote for me to say to support Trump.
Speaker 2: Vake Ramaswami making news around midnight last night he is
Speaker 2: officially dropping out of the race after I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: underperforming expectations, but coming in right along with his vote
Speaker 2: total or with his poll totals, which is exactly where
Speaker 2: he didn't want to be, hence the reason why he
Speaker 2: dropped out. He gave a speech last night in Iowa.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to what he said.
Speaker 10: We are going to suspend this presidential campaign, and this
Speaker 10: is going to have to be. There is no path
Speaker 10: for me to be the next president absent things that
Speaker 10: we don't want to see happen in this country. And
Speaker 10: I think that I am very worried for our country.
Speaker 10: I think we are skating on thin ice as a nation.
Speaker 10: As I've said since the beginning, there are two America
Speaker 10: First candidates in this race, and earlier tonight I called
Speaker 10: Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulated him on
Speaker 10: his victory and now going forward, he will have my
Speaker 10: full endorsement for the presidency, and I think.
Speaker 4: We're going to do the right thing for this country.
Speaker 3: He will have my full endorsement.
Speaker 2: He also made the news immediately after coming off the
Speaker 2: stage he will be joining Trump for a rally in
Speaker 2: Iowa or sorry in New Hampshire in the coming days.
Speaker 4: So I don't know. Probably it was inevitable.
Speaker 2: Anyways, he did eventually he did just drop out immediately
Speaker 2: after Iowa, with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis not pulling that.
Speaker 2: I guess to be fair, they did double his overall
Speaker 2: vote totals. One of the reasons we wanted to do
Speaker 2: this was to actually just spend some time in terms
Speaker 2: of Internet candidacy and what it means. So let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and put this up there on the screen, please,
Speaker 2: just so we can again look at the overall results.
Speaker 2: Fifty one percent for Trump, twenty one point two percent
Speaker 2: for DeSantis, nineteen point one for Haley, seven point seven
Speaker 2: for Vivek Ramaswami, and then I don't know who Ryan
Speaker 2: Binkley is, but he got point seven.
Speaker 3: Apparently he's in Iowa business.
Speaker 6: It's Ryan's alter. He goes by Ryan Binkley in Iowa.
Speaker 4: There's something to be said here.
Speaker 2: So Vivek Ramaswami got seven point seven, all right, So
Speaker 2: that actually sounds better in my opinion than when you
Speaker 2: look at the.
Speaker 3: Actual total vote total.
Speaker 2: He only got eighty four and forty nine votes in
Speaker 2: the state of Iowa. He did approximately over two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty events in the state. He visited all ninety
Speaker 2: nine counties in the state. He spent upwards of ten
Speaker 2: to fifteen million dollars I believe of his own money
Speaker 2: in the race. On top of all the money that
Speaker 2: he didn't end up spending, he spent inordinate amounts of
Speaker 2: time on our show, on podcast, Tim Poole's show, all
Speaker 2: of Patrick Bett David, I mean, almost every big YouTube
Speaker 2: show you can imagine.
Speaker 3: He made an appearance.
Speaker 2: He made a policy of saying yes, he got more
Speaker 2: earned media in the internet space than probably any other
Speaker 2: single candidate, and made an effort to reach out to them,
Speaker 2: and let's all be on it. It didn't matter at all.
Speaker 2: That said, amongst the age group. Amongst the age group,
Speaker 2: this is the only place where I think I could
Speaker 2: make the counter case. Let's put this up there before
Speaker 2: we get Crystal's reaction. If you take a look here
Speaker 2: at which age group are you. You see that between
Speaker 2: thirty and thirty nine year olds, Vivek is getting twenty
Speaker 2: four percent of that vote, but the drop off from
Speaker 2: forty to forty nine, he gets eight percent. There, from
Speaker 2: fifty to sixty four he gets five. And then from
Speaker 2: sixty five or over, which is the majority of the
Speaker 2: plurality of the people who are voting in here, he
Speaker 2: gets its marginal.
Speaker 3: It's like one or maybe two percent.
Speaker 2: And I think this is a media story more than
Speaker 2: anything I said yesterday. But the fact is is that
Speaker 2: if you're over forty five fifty or so, you're just
Speaker 2: living in a different universe on average, not everybody. We
Speaker 2: have many great septagenarian viewers here breaking points and boomers
Speaker 2: who like to remind me of that whenever I talk
Speaker 2: about boomers.
Speaker 4: But let's be really, I can see our data.
Speaker 2: The vast majority of people who watch our show are,
Speaker 2: you know, somewhere in the millennial generation or in Gen Z.
Speaker 2: And I think, then if you're consume a show like
Speaker 2: this to live your life on Twitter or online, on
Speaker 2: Instagram wherever, for that to be the primary way that
Speaker 2: you get your news as compared to the cable news environment,
Speaker 2: it's obvious to me then why Vivek Ramaswami would not
Speaker 2: do all that well amongst that demo. And then clearly
Speaker 2: that's something I think he really realized in his second
Speaker 2: debate performance where he's like, I know I come off
Speaker 2: a little bit too ambitious, and I know I'm just
Speaker 2: who's this.
Speaker 4: Kid with the funny name and all of that.
Speaker 2: So to me, you know, the Vik's candidacy is like,
Speaker 2: you can see it two ways.
Speaker 3: You can see it hopefully.
Speaker 2: Where you can be literally nobody and just rich and
Speaker 2: then you can become and win seven point seven percent
Speaker 2: of the vote in Iowa and outlash people like Mike
Speaker 2: Pence and Tim Scott sitting senators, a former vice president
Speaker 2: and actually get to this point. Or you can just
Speaker 2: see it as like look the Internet and all that,
Speaker 2: we still have a long way to go in terms
Speaker 2: of like actual real impact on the election.
Speaker 3: So Christal, what's your initial reaction.
Speaker 4: To all this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the media landscape is shifting dramatically, but
Speaker 1: legacy media, even in the Republican Party is still king.
Speaker 1: And I think that that transition is even further behind
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party because Democrats have a lot more
Speaker 1: trust for mainstream press than Republicans do. So, you know,
Speaker 1: especially when you look at this fact, yes, he did
Speaker 1: better among young voters, but he still didn't win young voters.
Speaker 1: So it just shows you how much legacy media still
Speaker 1: dominates and how much Donald Trump still dominates, you know.
Speaker 1: With Veg himself, obviously, I'm not surprised that his vote
Speaker 1: against Trump to support Trump argument didn't win the day.
Speaker 1: I suspect when he launched his campaign, I suspect he
Speaker 1: wanted to just like build a national brand, which he
Speaker 1: did mission accomplished, to have additional media visibility, and to
Speaker 1: be able to you know, go at a variety of
Speaker 1: directions for potentially media this direction in the future.
Speaker 7: He accomplished that.
Speaker 1: I do think that there was probably a moment early
Speaker 1: on in his campaign when he seemed to be getting
Speaker 1: traction and right after the first debate, when there was
Speaker 1: all this interest, in all this focus and attention on him,
Speaker 1: that he may have actually thought to himself, I think
Speaker 1: I could actually pull this off. And then when the
Speaker 1: polls come back after that first debate where he's so
Speaker 1: aggressive and he's so dominant, and people basically like recoiled
Speaker 1: from that, where to me, all the air goes on
Speaker 1: in the Vivak balloon and it's like, all right, if
Speaker 1: that didn't work for me, like me being my full
Speaker 1: self and being aggressive and sort of dominating the way
Speaker 1: that I feel like Trump dominates.
Speaker 7: If that doesn't work out, then.
Speaker 1: You're kind of back to the how do I make
Speaker 1: this into a media brand and a media career stuff.
Speaker 1: How do I make sure that I'm in Trump's good
Speaker 1: graces at the end of this so that maybe I
Speaker 1: end up in his cabinet or at least in his
Speaker 1: favor at the end of the day. So it's a
Speaker 1: very unsurprising end for him. I fully expected him to
Speaker 1: drop out after his Iowa performance. But yeah, it is
Speaker 1: a very clear crystallation and crystallization or DISTI leasure.
Speaker 7: Where the hell I'm trying to say here of the
Speaker 7: fact that if you are just.
Speaker 1: Like the internet candidate, there is a very very low
Speaker 1: ceiling on your support and how far you're going to
Speaker 1: get with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, both Andrew Yang and Tilsea Gabbard found that out
Speaker 2: the hard way back in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: What were your thoughts from me?
Speaker 8: He did finish second among what you would call our viewers, like, yeah,
Speaker 8: the YouTube podcast majority of our viewers. But I mean
Speaker 8: he is like, right, yes, exactly, But among the demographic
Speaker 8: of watches forty and under, he finished second. He beat
Speaker 8: the Santas and beat Nikki Haley, and if you compare him,
Speaker 8: he's sort of like a Buddha Judge, a guy who
Speaker 8: came from absolutely nowhere as a funny name, annoys a
Speaker 8: lot of people, but impresses a lot of other people,
Speaker 8: and then Buddha Judge winds up a captain secretary. But
Speaker 8: buddaj just did it through MSNBC, the New York Times
Speaker 8: and that element of the party really loving him, yes,
Speaker 8: whereas whereas Vivek had to go kind of around it here.
Speaker 8: But it shows that there is a path to national relevance.
Speaker 8: I think he's very happy that he ran. Now he's
Speaker 8: going to get to be a Fox commentator or.
Speaker 2: You know, he's going to get to give speech because
Speaker 2: he's going to get a job under Trump.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Emily, I think he's lined himself
Speaker 3: up pretty well.
Speaker 2: I don't think he could get confirmed through the Senate,
Speaker 2: so I don't think it'd be a cabinet level secretary.
Speaker 3: But he could work in the White House.
Speaker 2: Honestly, he could work as a comms aid like whatever
Speaker 2: Anthony Scaremoutier was supposed to be. I don't think he
Speaker 2: would want being pressitectory is a terrible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 6: If you're Trump, you bought a woman.
Speaker 4: Very hot woman.
Speaker 2: So because he needs to find it pleasing to watch,
Speaker 2: because I mean, let's be honest, it's the vast majority
Speaker 2: of what he does whenever he's president. But what do
Speaker 2: you think Trump will what do you think Viveke will
Speaker 2: end up as within Trump? He's obviously gonna be a
Speaker 2: big curgate. He's gonna be all over TV defending Trump,
Speaker 2: I think for the next what nine ten months odd
Speaker 2: until the election. But do you think he'll get rewarded
Speaker 2: or is Trump going to forgive him, you know, for
Speaker 2: running against him and having to attack him.
Speaker 4: That's the question.
Speaker 6: Well, and this is actually I think one of the
Speaker 6: things that's very interesting about Vivic's candidacy. So if you
Speaker 6: look at these numbers a little bit when we had
Speaker 6: this graphic on the screen, so Viveke getting seven point
Speaker 6: seven percent of the vote in Iowa, you know, it's
Speaker 6: sad for someone who went did so many events in Iowa,
Speaker 6: truly an eye popping number of events in Iowa, spent
Speaker 6: a lot of his own money. At the same time,
Speaker 6: Asa Hutchinson was a governor of a deep red state.
Speaker 6: Mike President Mike President, Mike pent was the vice president
Speaker 6: of the United States, and they dropped out because they
Speaker 6: wouldn't have even gotten around seven percent of the vote.
Speaker 6: And so yes, I mean, you spend a lot of
Speaker 6: money to get seven percent of the vote. But when
Speaker 6: you then go into New Hampshire, you see he has
Speaker 6: about he's pulling it around five percent. If all of
Speaker 6: those voters go to Trump, and there's a good argument
Speaker 6: that most of those voters go to Trump, that puts
Speaker 6: Trump around the fifty percent threshold in New Hampshire, a
Speaker 6: state that is not super favorable to Donald Trump. And
Speaker 6: everyone's now talking about Niki Haley potentially winning. She's down
Speaker 6: double digits to Trump. So if you take Vivikes five percent,
Speaker 6: or if you take his seven percent in Iowa and
Speaker 6: you put it on too Donald Trump, you're almost out.
Speaker 6: What the national polling looks like, which is a mirror
Speaker 6: image of what it looked like in twenty sixteen when
Speaker 6: you had about I pulled these numbers. Actually last night
Speaker 6: I went to RCP from twenty sixteen. You had about
Speaker 6: sixty five percent of voters saying that they would cast
Speaker 6: their ballots against Trump at this point in the race
Speaker 6: in twenty sixteen. Now you have about sixty five percent
Speaker 6: of voters, especially if you predict you're shifting Vivek's voters
Speaker 6: over to Trump. You have about the same thing saying
Speaker 6: that they're going to cast their ballots, they would cast
Speaker 6: their ballots for Donald Trump. So I think this is
Speaker 6: where will Viveke get rewarded? Absolutely, and that's why we're
Speaker 6: numb to this. Trump attacked Vivike on Twitter twice in
Speaker 6: the last week. He broke this long spell of not
Speaker 6: saying anything about Viveke attacked him twice on Twitter because
Speaker 6: he wanted to probably get over that fifty percent threshold.
Speaker 6: He was saying, a vote for you know, Viveke is
Speaker 6: not a vote for Trump, et cetera, et cetera. That
Speaker 6: is then he pivots on election night and embraces Viveke,
Speaker 6: goes to New Hampshire, is now doing event with Viveke.
Speaker 6: Why is all of that, because at the end of
Speaker 6: the day, the Vike was a great surrogate for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: That's a good point.
Speaker 6: He was a great surrogate for Donald Trump. He said
Speaker 6: he's the most he was the best president of his lifetime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one thing we do want to spend time on
Speaker 2: is just there was I think out of any candidate,
Speaker 2: this is what all online and maybe this speaks through
Speaker 2: my age, you know, in terms of the people that
Speaker 2: I follow and consume.
Speaker 6: To say just one young voters in Iowa.
Speaker 2: But that's a great point. Yes, that's I should I
Speaker 2: think that was amongst seventeen, seventeen to twenty nine, right,
Speaker 2: so seventeen.
Speaker 3: To twenty nine year old voters.
Speaker 2: One thing we should flag and this is a crystal
Speaker 2: and I it's why we pulled this video is there
Speaker 2: was an attempt to buy Vivake to actually kind of
Speaker 2: lean into this MAGA influencer, like he had Candice Owens
Speaker 2: with him that was on the road, and something they
Speaker 2: kept telling us is like watch out, guys, he's going
Speaker 2: to massively overperform because he's done the work. Doing the
Speaker 2: work is the most important thing. We have a video
Speaker 2: here from one of his campaign events where they're like,
Speaker 2: look at this packed house Candace Owns and Vivike RAMASLAMI
Speaker 2: didn't end up mattering all that much for the final
Speaker 2: vote totals, so as we could see you and put
Speaker 2: it up there on screen they say packed house for real,
Speaker 2: candas o of a Bake Ramaswami in Cedar.
Speaker 4: Rapids, Iowa.
Speaker 2: If you believe the polls showing Nicki Haley is the
Speaker 2: one show surging in Iowa, you are not operating in reality.
Speaker 2: This surge is with America first, as you could see
Speaker 2: in a hotel conference room. This is you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I will say it is sad because one of the
Speaker 2: in general, there was always this barometer of like, crowd
Speaker 2: sizes do matter, and you know, there is an element
Speaker 2: sometimes to things that you can miss from energy on
Speaker 2: the ground and surging and all that. But to a
Speaker 2: certain extent, the retail politics, just to reiterate, did not
Speaker 2: end up really mattering at all in this race, and
Speaker 2: in fact, there was generally an inverse relationship to Santas
Speaker 2: and Nikki Haley did roughly, you know, the same amount
Speaker 2: of events, they both spent an equal ton of money,
Speaker 2: didn't end up mattering. Trump barely set foot in like
Speaker 2: ten counties in Iowa. He only even arrived in Iowa
Speaker 2: for the caucus like the night before, and then he
Speaker 2: flew out immediately after he won. So anyway, I think
Speaker 2: there is a cautionary internet to tail here. Christal, if
Speaker 2: you have any last thoughts on this or any of
Speaker 2: you guys. Chrystal, you first, I do.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, going back to something that
Speaker 1: Emily said, the person I'm actually most fascinated by at
Speaker 1: this point is Asa Hutchins.
Speaker 7: I'm not even kidding this man. Think about this.
Speaker 1: You were a governor of a state, like you were
Speaker 1: an important person. You got elected, you know, you got
Speaker 1: to go to these meetings with all these people, and
Speaker 1: now you're barely beating Chris christ who's not even on
Speaker 1: the ballot anymore. Like, I genuinely want to understand the
Speaker 1: mentality that leads you not just to get in the
Speaker 1: race and see, okay, what's going to happen, but to
Speaker 1: stay in and persist in what you think that you're
Speaker 1: up to, what your goals are.
Speaker 7: Like I am genuinely fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: And then the other person that I don't want to
Speaker 1: let this end without mentioning is Doug Bergram. You did
Speaker 1: drop out and who after really, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: trashing Trump and saying he would never hire him, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: endorse him for president and was and I went backing
Speaker 1: him last night, which is both humiliating but also a
Speaker 1: sign that with Trump. You know, as long as at
Speaker 1: the end of the day you say you're right, sir,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you're the best, you're the greatest, I'm here
Speaker 1: for you, et cetera, all can be forgiven. So you know,
Speaker 1: he was there last night and Trump made an interesting
Speaker 1: comment about Doug Burgham. He was like, he's so solid.
Speaker 1: He doesn't attract any controversy, and sometimes you need some
Speaker 1: controversy to be able to catch on. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that is actually an incredible window the way that Trump
Speaker 1: thinks about politics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely accurate.
Speaker 8: Final thoughts, guys, wasn't Asa Hutchinson just basically like a
Speaker 8: messaging campaign for country club Republican.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't even call a country club. I don't know
Speaker 3: what the hell it was.
Speaker 2: If people want to watch Crystal and I interviewed him,
Speaker 2: I don't even I don't remember.
Speaker 6: You guys did what it was?
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 2: Actually I actually kind of enjoyed it. I thought he
Speaker 2: was a nice man.
Speaker 4: Yes, I like talking.
Speaker 7: He's a very nice man.
Speaker 6: Terrible, it's terrible on drug He's like a da if
Speaker 6: you go into like the Cold War trafficking star.
Speaker 4: That's right. Yeah, he's the good friend. Terrible. Now all
Speaker 4: vote Fred.
Speaker 1: I'm putting putting aside all his policy I don't agree
Speaker 1: with any of these people basically on policies, very rarely,
Speaker 1: so putting all of that aside, he seems like a
Speaker 1: perfectly nice, normal, lovely man. We gave him a tough
Speaker 1: interview because that's what you know, that's what we do,
Speaker 1: especially with something that's wanting someone that's running for president.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just can't really wrap my head around
Speaker 1: the calculation that's going on there, and I'm genuinely fascinated
Speaker 1: by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see. I don't know if he's going to
Speaker 2: drop out or not. I don't know if anybody really cares.
Speaker 2: He can't raise money, that's yeah, so we'll say. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think he's personally wealthy. That's kind of the vibe
Speaker 2: I got whenever he was in here. Not as personally
Speaker 2: wealthy as billionaire bug Doug Bergham. But that's a whole
Speaker 2: other story. Let's go to New Hampshire. This is the
Speaker 2: final electoral block that we're going to do here, just
Speaker 2: in terms of some of our predictions what we think
Speaker 2: is going to shake out. So let's go put the
Speaker 2: RCP average up there on the screen. This is where
Speaker 2: things stand as of right now. So Donald Trump currently
Speaker 2: forty three point five percent, Nikki Haley twenty nine point three.
Speaker 2: Chris Christy Obviously you could discount that he's been dropped
Speaker 2: out eleven point three. Desanti's was six point five in
Speaker 2: Vake Ramaswami at five. So if a vakes five, I
Speaker 2: think we would probably safely say either going to peter
Speaker 2: out or majority of those going to go over to Trump.
Speaker 2: Chris Christy, who the hell knows? I mean, the question
Speaker 2: here is, and this is I put this out last night,
Speaker 2: but I really do believe it is that I think
Speaker 2: this outcome Crystal was the best possible one for Trump.
Speaker 2: DeSantis has no path to victory in New Hampshire.
Speaker 3: Nikki did so.
Speaker 2: Her coming in third and not having the number two
Speaker 2: narrative that she needed and wanted coming out of Iowa
Speaker 2: is the only thing that could have put her over
Speaker 2: the edge in New Hampshire and made that a contested race.
Speaker 2: DeSantis has no chance of winning New Hampshire, and now
Speaker 2: they're more likely to equally split the so called Nicki
Speaker 2: surge in New Now, Listen, of course things can happen.
Speaker 2: It's only a week away, etc. But you know, this
Speaker 2: is just my overall like kind of prediction of way
Speaker 2: things go. This just seems to me more likely that
Speaker 2: Trump then consolidates that vote for vike Ramaswami voters. The
Speaker 2: Chris Christie voter is so anti Trump they may not
Speaker 2: even come out to vote because they just feel discouraged
Speaker 2: by the results.
Speaker 3: May would have depressed turnout.
Speaker 2: You know, majority of people backing Trump anyway, and it
Speaker 2: just seems like He's going to tie even more of
Speaker 2: a bow on it post New Hampshire than if Nicki
Speaker 2: Haley had come in second in this race.
Speaker 3: I think it would be living in.
Speaker 2: A different world, only because the media would make it
Speaker 2: such a big deal that matters a lot to these
Speaker 2: New Hampshire college educated voters.
Speaker 7: What do you think I agree with all of that.
Speaker 1: You know, even with Chris Christie dropping out of the
Speaker 1: race and Nikki getting a good bit of his support,
Speaker 1: it's not like the polls showed her winning in New Hampshire.
Speaker 1: And there is no state in the Union, including her
Speaker 1: on home state, that is better for Nicki Haley than
Speaker 1: New Hampshire.
Speaker 7: So when I look at the Iowa results last.
Speaker 1: Night, and I see that she wasn't even winning among
Speaker 1: college educated voters, which is you know, she's a total
Speaker 1: wine track like Elizabeth Wore kind of a candidate. I
Speaker 1: find it very doubtful that she could pull off a
Speaker 1: victory even in New Hampshire. And let's be real, even
Speaker 1: if she did, I don't think it would really matter
Speaker 1: because then you go on from there and you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose everything else. To me, last night's results proved how
Speaker 1: limited her appeal and her support is within the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: She has come to be seen and Emily, I'm be
Speaker 1: curious if you agree with this. She has come to
Speaker 1: be seen almost like a Chris Christi anti Trump figure,
Speaker 1: even though she was much more gentle with Donald Trump
Speaker 1: in terms of her critique. But her favorability rating with
Speaker 1: Republicans has been falling off a cliff. So, you know,
Speaker 1: people who said they were very conservative didn't vote for her.
Speaker 1: People who said they were somewhat conservative didn't vote for her.
Speaker 1: The only groups she did well with were moderates and liberals,
Speaker 1: which was a tiny sliver of the electorate last night.
Speaker 1: So yeah, she doesn't have momentum going into New I'm
Speaker 1: sure Ronda Santis is still hanging around.
Speaker 7: She needed absolutely.
Speaker 1: Everything to go completely perfectly, plus some things to be
Speaker 1: revealed that weren't being revealed in the polls, and none
Speaker 1: of that happened. So, you know, to go back to
Speaker 1: how we started this whole thing with Trump, basically like
Speaker 1: giving Nikki and giving Ron a little pat on the
Speaker 1: head and but bag as well. That's appropriate because this
Speaker 1: thing is effectively over. I just barring something totally external
Speaker 1: to electoral politics, which was that you'd ever know, But
Speaker 1: barring that, yeah, black swan event, barring that, it's it's done,
Speaker 1: it's a wrap, it's over. Donald Trump is still the
Speaker 1: man in the Republican Party. If you didn't know that yesterday,
Speaker 1: you definitely know it now.
Speaker 6: Bo time, What do you think, Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 6: think if Nikki Haley had had a surprisingly good showing
Speaker 6: yesterday or Ronda Santis, I mean, honestly, the second place
Speaker 6: was okay for DeSantis, but if either of them had
Speaker 6: come close to Trump for some reason, they had gotten
Speaker 6: you know, forty percent of the vote, something like that,
Speaker 6: even thirty percent of the vote, they just totally blew
Speaker 6: the poles out of the water. And we didn't know,
Speaker 6: you know, if the polling had proven to be pretty
Speaker 6: inaccurate yesterday, and one of them overperformed the poles. Then,
Speaker 6: especially Nicki Haley, could have gone into New Hampshire with
Speaker 6: some momentum. She's now third place and a distant, distant
Speaker 6: third place to Trump. She's already down by double digits
Speaker 6: in New Hampshire. So in the media you're hearing all
Speaker 6: of this chatter about how Nicky Haley is heading into
Speaker 6: New Hampshire with the wind at her back. In fact,
Speaker 6: people were making that argument in Iowa. They were saying,
Speaker 6: you know, Nikki Haley didn't put that much money in Iowa.
Speaker 6: She only focused there in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 6: It's kind of true, but not really. I mean, she's
Speaker 6: been in Iowa for a while. She wasn't doing exactly
Speaker 6: what Disants was doing, but she was doing more than Trump.
Speaker 6: And so if she's going into New Hampshire with the
Speaker 6: wind at her back and is down double digits and
Speaker 6: just came in a distant third, this race is over.
Speaker 6: Barring a black Swan event, this race is over, and
Speaker 6: Nikki Haley is the media's last ditch effort to make
Speaker 6: this narrative appealing and to drive ratings and not sell
Speaker 6: papers because seriously, this race is over. Is a potential
Speaker 6: track if she had done well, that they would have
Speaker 6: done what happened in twenty twenty with Pete and Amy right,
Speaker 6: that Republican donors would have gotten together behind closed doors
Speaker 6: and said, listen, she's a she just got thirty five
Speaker 6: percent of the vote without you know, really focusing on Yeah,
Speaker 6: you can't do.
Speaker 8: It, you can't do it Ryan, Yeah, And it undermines
Speaker 8: this gimmick that Democrats were going to try to pull,
Speaker 8: where they were going to you know, a bunch of
Speaker 8: Democrats just going to go out and.
Speaker 4: Vote for Dicky Haley. That's right. I forgot about it
Speaker 4: because you can switch, Yeah, you can take whatever valot
Speaker 4: you want. But if if you're a Democrat at this point, like,
Speaker 4: is that how you're going to spend your evening?
Speaker 8: Like what's what's your day? Like, what's even the point
Speaker 8: like if you thought there was a path? And I
Speaker 8: disagree with this strategy from Democrats because I think the
Speaker 8: Halee is more right wing as we talked about that's right,
Speaker 8: more pro war, yes, But setting that aside, they genuinely
Speaker 8: like that she speaks in like compolite, complete sentences, and
Speaker 8: like they feel like she's not a threat to democracy
Speaker 8: and on our right.
Speaker 4: So if they thought there was a chance.
Speaker 8: That gaining the New Hampshire primary would give her a
Speaker 8: boost and give her, you know, the jolt that she
Speaker 8: needed to win the Republican nomination, then maybe they go
Speaker 8: enough of them go through with that gimmick.
Speaker 4: But watching what happened in.
Speaker 8: Iowa, I don't I don't see how that incentivizes a
Speaker 8: Democrat to play games.
Speaker 3: So just to throw something on the fire, it's so,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't really understand how she does this.
Speaker 2: She's put out this morning. We've had five great debates.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately Trump is ducked all of them. He has nowhere
Speaker 2: left to hide. The next debate I will do either
Speaker 2: be Trump or with Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: I look forward to it. So she's trying to be like,
Speaker 4: the race is over.
Speaker 3: It's me versus Trump.
Speaker 4: Say the race is over.
Speaker 3: You're not even in this equation.
Speaker 6: Actually, quote from her last night, she said this, I
Speaker 6: would just made this a two percent race because she's
Speaker 6: going in New Hampshire and the RCP average she's at
Speaker 6: about twenty two percent in the polls and RCP, DeSantis
Speaker 6: is at eleven percent. Put those two numbers together and
Speaker 6: you're still nowhere near Trump's fifty two percent. So you
Speaker 6: could try to do what Pete and Amy did in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty, and you're still gonna lose, still gonna lose
Speaker 6: because Trump in New Hampshire's at fifty two percent. If
Speaker 6: he takes Ramaswami's three point three, you're putting him at
Speaker 6: something like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm South Carolina. Thank you're Ryan,
Speaker 6: you're reading the screen for me. Okay, So in New Hampshire,
Speaker 6: Trump's at forty three percent, Haley's at twenty nine point
Speaker 6: three percent. Chris Christie in the polls, was at eleven
Speaker 6: point three percent to Santa's is at six point five percent.
Speaker 6: So if you take Chris Christie's eleven point three percent
Speaker 6: from that RCP average, I don't think all of that
Speaker 6: goes to Haley. I think you probably get half to
Speaker 6: Haley half to DeSantis. So that still puts Haley double
Speaker 6: digits behind Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just so we're all clear, I even have
Speaker 3: South Carolina here in front of me. She's leading. She's
Speaker 3: losing Trump by thirty points in her own home exactly.
Speaker 6: That's what I want to say.
Speaker 3: It's like, what what are we doing here, lady?
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, you want to burn some billionaire cash
Speaker 2: on private jets, be my guest.
Speaker 6: But then you have to go into Super Tuesday.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in March.
Speaker 6: It was the March fifth, and so again they're down
Speaker 6: like so much in the national point Trump's at over
Speaker 6: sixty percent.
Speaker 2: Now California, don't forget California's part of Super Tuesday. Now
Speaker 2: Trump is winning by sixty points. We could probably go
Speaker 2: on ad nauseium, but the point has probably.
Speaker 4: Been made here.
Speaker 2: Christal, I know you're going to drop off, So any
Speaker 2: final electoral thoughts before we before we depart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just going to say last thought with
Speaker 1: regard to Nikki Haley number one, when that Iowa to
Speaker 1: Wine Register poll came out and it had her in second.
Speaker 1: But even the polster A Selzer is very well known
Speaker 1: and sort of respected in this and that's the gold
Speaker 1: Tenner polling. And by the way, that Pole did come
Speaker 1: very close to nailing the actual outcome when she made
Speaker 1: sure to say in the copy, like it is jaw dropping,
Speaker 1: how little Nikki Haley supporters actually support her, Like how
Speaker 1: not enthusiastic they are, and was basically saying about her
Speaker 1: own poll, I don't think that Nikki Haley is going
Speaker 1: to perform where this is showing her performing. I you know,
Speaker 1: I really took that to her, which is why to
Speaker 1: give us pats on the back, Soger.
Speaker 7: We're pretty close with our.
Speaker 1: Predicted predictions yesterday, including the ultimate outcome of what was
Speaker 1: going to happen. I will also say, if you're a
Speaker 1: Republican and your strategy depends on and getting Democrats to
Speaker 1: come to the polls for you to vote like, that's
Speaker 1: not going to work out. And even you know, they
Speaker 1: talk about this every time, Republicans are going to cross
Speaker 1: over and cause chaos. Democrats are going to cross over
Speaker 1: and cause chaos. I've never seen it happen in really
Speaker 1: serious numbers. They could have done it in the Iowa
Speaker 1: Coccus last night, also when it was still you know,
Speaker 1: going concerning that potentially they could beat Trump and it
Speaker 1: didn't happen. So NICKI needed for there to be some
Speaker 1: secret group of voters out there not reflected in the
Speaker 1: polling who really wants to move on from Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and needed a permission structure to do it. I think
Speaker 1: we can say definitively after last night that group of
Speaker 1: voters does not exist, and her campaign, whether she does
Speaker 1: okay in New Hampshire or not, is also effectively over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well said Crystal, and we appreciate you, Thank you,
Speaker 2: enjoy your snow day with the kiddos, keep them all safe.
Speaker 4: We'll carry on.
Speaker 2: From here, so we'll see you later, bye guys. At
Speaker 2: the same time, there's some major news in the internet
Speaker 2: national sphere. Let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Middle East was an absolute chaos yesterday, as
Speaker 2: rightfully summed up here. There was an attack on a
Speaker 2: US ship by Yemen's Houthis. The US intercepted two attacks
Speaker 2: in the Red Sea. Israel had strikes in Gaza. There
Speaker 2: was a stabbing and a car rabbing near Tel Aviv
Speaker 2: and a terrorist attack. There was an IRGC attack in Iraq,
Speaker 2: an IRGC attack in Syria, the IRGC being a paramilitary
Speaker 2: organization under the control of the Iranian Ayatola. And they
Speaker 2: say even for Middle East, this is beyond the usual instability,
Speaker 2: which I think is actually a pretty good way of
Speaker 2: putting it.
Speaker 3: Let's start with the first part.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen, the Houthi
Speaker 2: rebels struck a US flagged ship off of the coast
Speaker 2: of Yemen in the Gulf of Aden that was directly
Speaker 2: actor the strikes by the Biden administration on Houthi infrastructure. Sentcom,
Speaker 2: which is the US military command in charge of the region,
Speaker 2: elaborated a little bit on this. If we can go
Speaker 2: to the next one, and they say that the Iranian
Speaker 2: fact who the militants fired an anti ship ballistic missile
Speaker 2: from who the controlled areas of Yemen and struck the
Speaker 2: Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands flagged US owned and operated
Speaker 2: container ship. The ship reported no injuries or significant damage.
Speaker 2: But ryan to me, the big headline out of that
Speaker 2: is they still attacked US flagship after they attacked the
Speaker 2: US Navy ship with the you know, pretty significant military technology.
Speaker 4: That's a signal.
Speaker 2: And it's a signal too because this is to my knowledge,
Speaker 2: one of the first US flag or at least US
Speaker 2: owned and operated ships that's actually come under attack, not
Speaker 2: some Panamanian vessel or an Israeli vessel like they had
Speaker 2: previously gone after. So what's your initial reaction and the.
Speaker 8: Who thise, who really are that de facto though not
Speaker 8: legally recognized government Yemen have said that they are going
Speaker 8: to continue this blockade until Israel stops. That's a bombing
Speaker 8: campaign and its incursion into Gaza like that. Those are
Speaker 8: the conditions that they have put out. US responded by
Speaker 8: bombing Yemen. In response, I saw somebody, and I think
Speaker 8: we have this element, later saying, I guess the hoothies
Speaker 8: haven't gotten the message.
Speaker 4: The hoolies have gotten the message, like Yemen has gotten
Speaker 4: the message.
Speaker 3: Even next we can put it up there.
Speaker 4: People want the United States. That's Admiral Straritis.
Speaker 2: Just everybody knows who's actually the former commander commander of
Speaker 2: NATO forces. He says that the good news is that
Speaker 2: no one was injured in this attack by the who
Speaker 2: these The bad news is they probably have not gotten
Speaker 2: the message to see some desist, probably going to require
Speaker 2: additional military strikes to discourage them.
Speaker 4: I never thought of that, yeah, more cow bell.
Speaker 8: So the Obama administration spent most of its time drone
Speaker 8: striking Yemen. Yes, for years after the war broke out,
Speaker 8: the US gave every weapon that the United Arab Emirates
Speaker 8: or Saudi could ask for in their war against the
Speaker 8: hoo Thies that lasted about seven years. Basically they've been
Speaker 8: bombing them for years and years and years and years.
Speaker 8: The Hoothies have only gotten stronger and the Whothias have
Speaker 8: their own kind of regional and also domestic interests at
Speaker 8: play here. Some people portray this like what do you
Speaker 8: guys think that these are? Like this is good and
Speaker 8: evil and these are the boy scouts? No, like there
Speaker 8: they have had you know, a couple uh, you know,
Speaker 8: more than a year of cessation of hostilities right with
Speaker 8: the Saudis, which has meant that they have had to govern,
Speaker 8: and governing is is much easier sometimes when you're when
Speaker 8: you have kind of the civilian population behind you involved
Speaker 8: in some type of external conflict. So it actually helps
Speaker 8: them domestically, helps them regionally if you like. The polls
Speaker 8: around the entire Middle East show the who these are
Speaker 8: now like by far the most popular you know force
Speaker 8: in the in the area. So yeah, are a few
Speaker 8: more military struture in the US and they're not going
Speaker 8: to get the message they understand what we want.
Speaker 2: What concerns me Emily is that the story this comes
Speaker 2: after the tragic incident involving navy seals that we are
Speaker 2: getting actually some more detail curioustory reaction just literally came
Speaker 2: out this morning. It appears the US military is finally
Speaker 2: confirmed that there were Iranian warheads that were on route
Speaker 2: to Yemen and American military personnel, including US Navy seals,
Speaker 2: boarded in a shipboarding mission off the coast of Somalia
Speaker 2: last week, sought to disrupt that weapons resupply of Yemen,
Speaker 2: of which was specifically then being used in this war.
Speaker 2: Crystal and I have described this as kind of the
Speaker 2: first actual US I want to I don't want to
Speaker 2: say casualties out of respect to the families. These guys,
Speaker 2: you know, remain missing lost its scene now for three
Speaker 2: full days.
Speaker 8: When the Ikraine posted on his Facebook last night if
Speaker 8: you saw this, No, I didn't rest in peace, brothers,
Speaker 8: and he's a former Navy seal himself, member member of Congress.
Speaker 2: They have not they have not confirmed, but well we'll
Speaker 2: let the Pentagon speak to what the official The case.
Speaker 4: Sources I'm hearing is that everyone in that world understands
Speaker 4: them too.
Speaker 3: It's very sad, you know.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we've got two US Navy seals officially missing
Speaker 2: in action at sea right now, currently involved in this
Speaker 2: in this mission. John Kirby sopp at distance if he
Speaker 2: said this has nothing to do with the strikes in Yemen,
Speaker 2: even though they were literally involved, you know, here in Yemen.
Speaker 2: So this could be you know, kind of a jump
Speaker 2: off point for at least for the US p Like
Speaker 2: anytime to US Navy seals end up missing in some
Speaker 2: sort of daring raid in the middle. From what I'm
Speaker 2: reading here, we're talking about boarding like some unstable dow
Speaker 2: in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of warheads.
Speaker 3: And all this other stuff on it.
Speaker 2: Obviously they trained for this all the time, but it's
Speaker 2: recognized as an extraordinarily risky mission. Do you think this
Speaker 2: could raise you know, possibly like anti war energy because
Speaker 2: this is one of those where it's really the first
Speaker 2: time not only in terms of military action on Yemen,
Speaker 2: but now we've got US military personnel service members actually
Speaker 2: directly involved in combat here.
Speaker 6: This might seem like a weird word to use. I
Speaker 6: find it creepy though how little media coverage there. I
Speaker 6: totally agree these casual Yes, I mean, is it is
Speaker 6: creepy how serious and substantive of an issue it is,
Speaker 6: and how quiet the media has been about what happened.
Speaker 6: And I'm not saying they should be out there banging
Speaker 6: the war drums, but I think actually we're starting to
Speaker 6: feel an echo of how the Biden administration has prosecuted
Speaker 6: the war in Ukraine in the Middle East, which is
Speaker 6: that publicly and then they're posturing they're all in Ukraine.
Speaker 6: Is the battle for civilization is the most important thing
Speaker 6: in the world. And you know, you have a lot
Speaker 6: of sentiment in United States that doesn't reflect that. And
Speaker 6: so what they try to do is just sort of
Speaker 6: slow walk the war. So they'll give you, you know,
Speaker 6: the weapons, but they'll really hem and haul about it,
Speaker 6: and they'll pretend that this is a giant sacrifice for
Speaker 6: the Biden administration. Oh we went to the mat we
Speaker 6: got you more weapons. And then in the Middle East.
Speaker 6: You know, this is from doctor Parsi. Trae to Parsi,
Speaker 6: he says, all the Hoothies need to do is try
Speaker 6: that is enough to sustain a de fact of shipping blockade.
Speaker 6: Western commercial vessels will simply not risk moving their ships
Speaker 6: of those waters, not in spite of President Joe Biden's
Speaker 6: military strikes, but because of them. And so again, if
Speaker 6: your strategy in the Middle East Is to do these strikes,
Speaker 6: and we all know that the Houthis, to Ryan's point,
Speaker 6: have got the message. We don't know that. So what
Speaker 6: are you going to do? Are you going to half asset?
Speaker 6: You're get a full asset. The Biden administration is just
Speaker 6: kind of in between both of those options, trying to
Speaker 6: bide time until they can, you know, sort of massage
Speaker 6: the public and figure out what they're doing. In Ukraine.
Speaker 6: They've been doing this literally for years now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is very dangerous.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: In terms of the Hoothy statement, we have some of
Speaker 2: this that we can put up there. They say that,
Speaker 2: you know, their very long and loquacious. I guess is
Speaker 2: an easy way to say it. The TLDR of this
Speaker 2: very very long statement is the Yemeny armed forces continue
Speaker 2: to carry out their military operations and impose the decision
Speaker 2: to prevent is really navigation in the Arab and Red
Speaker 2: Sea until the aggression stops in the siege of the
Speaker 2: Palatinian people in the Gaza strip is lifted. So basically
Speaker 2: the center of gravity for this cup particular conflict and
Speaker 2: more is going to be what the hell is going
Speaker 2: on in Gaza not anywhere else? There is though a
Speaker 2: bleeding out continuing of the conflict. There was a major
Speaker 2: panic here in Washington just yesterday evening as strikes were
Speaker 2: being reported in the city of Airbil in Iraqi. Airbil
Speaker 2: is one of actually the safest cities in Iraq ITTs
Speaker 2: in the northern part in Kurdistan, and we saw Iranian
Speaker 2: ballistic missiles rain down on the city. Initial reports, Ryan,
Speaker 2: were that the US consulate was actually targeted. It appears
Speaker 2: that it is not true. US officials are no confirmed
Speaker 2: that no US actual facility was targeted, but it appears
Speaker 2: that it might have actually been a MOSAD facility. So
Speaker 2: we have some video that we can play here showing
Speaker 2: some of the strikes. I mean, this is some crazy
Speaker 2: stuff there, people. I mean it's the middle of the
Speaker 2: night there, and you could see there were other you know,
Speaker 2: things coming out of missiles just coming through the sky,
Speaker 2: you know, flying there and then blowing up right in
Speaker 2: the middle of the city. Some casualties initially reported. Obviously
Speaker 2: though if it was a spy agency at the Israelis there,
Speaker 2: they're not exactly going to confirm anything. But what did
Speaker 2: you make of this, Ryan, Because to me, it's escalatory
Speaker 2: only in this the Masad place surprisingly very close to
Speaker 2: the US consulate. People were afraid that the US consulate
Speaker 2: itself wasn't going to get blown up. But Arabel is
Speaker 2: not a city at war. I mean, they're not used
Speaker 2: to ballistic missiles coming from Iran directly acknowledged plopping down
Speaker 2: in the middle. Imagine if that happened.
Speaker 6: Well, it'sager. We are not a country at war either.
Speaker 6: Keep that in mind.
Speaker 8: Unfortunately, Iraq has recalled its ambassador from Iran, and yeah,
Speaker 8: because they're like, hey, look, I know that this is
Speaker 8: not about us, but yeah, you can't just bomb it.
Speaker 4: Yes, And the way that Parsi and others have said
Speaker 4: it is that going after.
Speaker 8: Let's say, let's say the reports are accurate that it
Speaker 8: was a Massad facility, they know that this is right
Speaker 8: near the US consulate, and the.
Speaker 4: Shockwaves hit, you know, were felt over there like it was.
Speaker 3: They initially thought it was an attempted to strike on
Speaker 3: the content.
Speaker 4: It was that close, and.
Speaker 8: It's extraordinarily risky because if you're off by a couple
Speaker 8: hundred meters or whatever.
Speaker 4: You know, then you've hit the US consulate.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 8: And so it is, you know, Commani has understood to
Speaker 8: be extraordinarily risk averse.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 8: Yet the bombing at Solemani's funeral, coupled with the killing
Speaker 8: of the IRGC general in Syria, coupled with the attacks
Speaker 8: on that you know, Hamas and heads blow leaders route
Speaker 8: have created so much domestic pressure that even even risk
Speaker 8: averse comane is saying the sees that he needs to
Speaker 8: do something aggressive. And so the shot at the Masad
Speaker 8: building so close to the consulate, you know, is a
Speaker 8: ratcheting up when they attacked Syria, that was going after ISIS.
Speaker 8: And the risk a version comes in there too, because
Speaker 8: there's two ways to go after ISIS. Afghanistan, which is
Speaker 8: where you know, probably a lot of the strike was
Speaker 8: planned from or in Syria.
Speaker 4: Syria is the more passive way because that's further away.
Speaker 8: You go after Afghanistan, you might unleash a little bit
Speaker 8: more of a response from ISIS or even the Taliban
Speaker 8: that that come in.
Speaker 4: He doesn't want.
Speaker 8: But you've seen the State Department and kind of its
Speaker 8: allies saying, oh boy, looks like it's we're being you know,
Speaker 8: we're getting closer to being drawn into another war.
Speaker 4: As if it's just this passive, gravitational whole thing it's
Speaker 4: like worst of both worlds. This is when they attacked Yemen.
Speaker 8: Everybody could forecast that Iran is then going to respond,
Speaker 8: either through its militias or directly through the IRGC.
Speaker 4: That's what's going to happen.
Speaker 8: So this attempt to like de escalate through escalating is
Speaker 8: absurd but also not working.
Speaker 2: I would put it this way if it was just
Speaker 2: let's say the who they's out of nowhere, starts shooting
Speaker 2: at ships, Okay, bomb them, right, But that's not what's
Speaker 2: happening here.
Speaker 4: This is about Israel. So it's like, well, we got
Speaker 4: to deal with the situation in Israel.
Speaker 2: Otherwise we're just gonna keep going in some tit for
Speaker 2: tat and now lo and behold.
Speaker 3: As you know, you put it very well creepy.
Speaker 2: In terms of the story, It's kind of like when
Speaker 2: those four was it Green Berets got killed in Niger.
Speaker 3: Everyone was like, wait, what the hell is going on
Speaker 3: in Niger? They're like, what happened here?
Speaker 2: And then the Pentagon story came out and it was
Speaker 2: let me say you this bullshit, it was complete bs.
Speaker 2: The families of those involved continue to press there's video
Speaker 2: that directly undercuts what they said.
Speaker 6: There.
Speaker 2: It was a boondoggle of apic proportions that probably goes
Speaker 2: all the way up to the pedagon for denied air
Speaker 2: support and all this suther stuff. There's YouTube videos and
Speaker 2: all that stuff that can go watch about it. I
Speaker 2: suspect something similar is happening here. We don't even get
Speaker 2: the official narrative about guys lost at sea until days later.
Speaker 2: And then we have to think about the strategic mission.
Speaker 2: You got a pivoty little dou in the middle of
Speaker 2: the ocean. They're shipping weapons from Iran to Yemen. This
Speaker 2: is not something that we ever particularly cared about, like
Speaker 2: we did you know, yeah, maybe we blockade, et cetera,
Speaker 2: but you don't put American lives at risk. And then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, somebody somewhere, probably the White House,
Speaker 2: green lights and they say, yeah, let's disrupt it a
Speaker 2: little bit. And now what, how do you look these
Speaker 2: people's families in the face and be like, what do
Speaker 2: they give their lives?
Speaker 6: If they.
Speaker 4: Pray that they were they were they were found.
Speaker 2: I pray that that said, let's accept reality about where
Speaker 2: things are right now, and let's you know, just think
Speaker 2: about that counterfactual in which they may eventually be declared
Speaker 2: missing or dad.
Speaker 3: How do you look them at the family and say
Speaker 3: for what?
Speaker 2: So that Israel continues this out on Gaza, It's like
Speaker 2: I thought that, you know, no wars for Israel used
Speaker 2: to be a meme and now it's reality. It seems
Speaker 2: to literally be reality anyway, So we wanted to, you know,
Speaker 2: lay out some of the chaos that's happened in the
Speaker 2: Middle East there at the same time, turn to Israel
Speaker 2: all eyes there. There's some video actually going viral in
Speaker 2: right wing circles in Israel calling out the government for
Speaker 2: allegedly retreating. So this is some video that emerged from
Speaker 2: inside of Gaza, and it shows the Golani Brigade, it's
Speaker 2: kind of a famous military unit inside of the IDF,
Speaker 2: cheering as they're.
Speaker 3: Actually leaving Gaza.
Speaker 2: And the interesting part about it is it's a major
Speaker 2: question about what the actual plans for post war occupation
Speaker 2: look like, how exactly.
Speaker 3: They're going to spin this inside of the country.
Speaker 2: So, for example, guys, we can go to the next
Speaker 2: part already, which is an Israeli news outlet.
Speaker 3: It's Wynett.
Speaker 2: We've used them before, excellent news outlet outside of Israel,
Speaker 2: and their headline here is that the IDF's thirty six
Speaker 2: Division ends Gaza deployment in a major troop reduction. Military
Speaker 2: is saying that the division, including the brigade the Golani Brigade,
Speaker 2: will leave for a period of training before then deciding
Speaker 2: whether it should resume operating in Gaza.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious that's what we make of this, Ryan.
Speaker 3: Is it a sign of things going badly or a
Speaker 3: sign of things going well?
Speaker 2: Is it trying to get the hell out of Dodge
Speaker 2: so you don't have to get stuck with occupation. You
Speaker 2: can stick big old Uncle Sam with that job. What
Speaker 2: did you make of something like this in the context
Speaker 2: of the broader military environment.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was announced, you know, Israel announced earlier that
Speaker 8: they were going to be withdrawing some some troops so
Speaker 8: that they could be sent back into the Israeli economy
Speaker 8: and others, so that they could train and then potentially return.
Speaker 8: It is a signal that, you know, the ground invasion
Speaker 8: is not going as quickly and smoothly.
Speaker 4: As they would like.
Speaker 8: But it also is a reflection of just the material
Speaker 8: limits to you know, seven million people going at war
Speaker 8: with seven million people, Like if you are Israel you're
Speaker 8: trying to, you know, run an entire economy and country
Speaker 8: which requires a civilian population, and so a mass mobilization
Speaker 8: of hundreds of thousands of people is not sustainable over
Speaker 8: the long term, not even sustainable kind of over the
Speaker 8: medium term. Plus, look look at what has become of
Speaker 8: gaz It's this dystopian kind of uh, you know, just
Speaker 8: miles long piles of rubble.
Speaker 4: If you look at the videos that the Casambragades puts.
Speaker 8: Out, this is the this is the has military place video,
Speaker 8: you can see how difficult an invasion would be. You
Speaker 8: are sitting ducks as you're walking through these areas, whereas
Speaker 8: hamas can go in and out of the different buildings,
Speaker 8: go into their tunnels and out of them. You can
Speaker 8: drop as many two thousand bombs as you want on
Speaker 8: civilian populations. But if it only takes a couple of
Speaker 8: guys with an RPG against the tank or against a
Speaker 8: troop concentration, you're going to be taking losses that are
Speaker 8: unacceptable to the Israeli public and unsustainable to an Israeli
Speaker 8: con We.
Speaker 2: Found that look Battle of Mosol, Syrian Democratic Forces, Battle
Speaker 2: of what is it whatever their capital was, Fallujah, Almadi.
Speaker 2: I mean we've spoken, you know, with about this ad
Speaker 2: nauseum in terms of urban combat.
Speaker 3: You can see every video.
Speaker 4: That isis couldn't take from the Kurds.
Speaker 3: That's I forget exactly and it was.
Speaker 6: And that's the question Fortyahu and the IDEF and the
Speaker 6: Israeli people as we're testing right here, is do you
Speaker 6: want that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: And does it make you safer? So it's one thing
Speaker 6: for the United States to do that in Fallujah or Mosul,
Speaker 6: it's another thing for Israel to do that right next door.
Speaker 6: And when you're looking at these videos of Gaza right now,
Speaker 6: and Israel says that they're they're actually not even on
Speaker 6: the same page. They're government's not on the same page
Speaker 6: about what their end goal is in this war. They're
Speaker 6: not on page on the same page with the government
Speaker 6: that they are relying on to prosecute this wark. Joe
Speaker 6: Biden says his end goal is a two state solution,
Speaker 6: not in Yahoo, and the people he relies on in
Speaker 6: his coalition say absolutely not, no two state solution. So
Speaker 6: this is the rubber meeting the road, because do the
Speaker 6: Israeli people think that it makes them safer? And do
Speaker 6: they want to in mass. Does the Israeli, the population
Speaker 6: of Israel in mass do they want to sacrifice as
Speaker 6: many young Israelis as would take to do a full
Speaker 6: scale invasion of Gaza? And then what does that accomplish?
Speaker 6: What is their consensus about why they sacrificed all of
Speaker 6: those fighters to do a full scale invasion of Gaza.
Speaker 6: The fact of the matter is nobody knows. Nobody can
Speaker 6: get to the same page about what the goal would be.
Speaker 6: Is it to eradicate Hamas? Okay, what is the metric
Speaker 6: for eradicated.
Speaker 3: Rescue the hostages.
Speaker 6: That's a good point.
Speaker 3: That's a good because this is very important.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there because there was a news
Speaker 2: announcement just yesterday that actually three of the Israeli hostages,
Speaker 2: according to Hamas, have been killed by the IDF in
Speaker 2: air strikes. Now, look, we don't know whether that's true
Speaker 2: or not. They are shown videos of them previously. You know,
Speaker 2: whether and how they were killed is going to be
Speaker 2: you know, unless we eventually their bodies are recovered. The
Speaker 2: only thing I think we could take from this is
Speaker 2: that at this point we saw a major rally Israel.
Speaker 2: We played some of the video yesterday for the hostages.
Speaker 2: Hostage are very emotional, very important issue inside Israel. The
Speaker 2: fact is they haven't saved to single one and that's
Speaker 2: a problem for them. I mean, I can't imagine.
Speaker 6: Rescued hostages have said that they felt as the Yeah exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I mean, you know, look, when Hamas says it,
Speaker 2: it's easy to discount it, but when I hear and
Speaker 2: I wouldn't even necessarily, you know, you don't take anything
Speaker 2: at face value. But when those people have been released
Speaker 2: are like I literally heard the bombs above my head.
Speaker 2: You're like, well, that's that's a pretty dicey situation. And
Speaker 2: to this point, and this kind of gets exactly what
Speaker 2: you're saying, Emily, put this up there, please. The Defense
Speaker 2: Minister of the War Cabinet actually stormed out of a
Speaker 2: meeting with Netsa Yahu. This is something Crystal actually flagged
Speaker 2: for us because the reason why it's hilarious is that
Speaker 2: he apparently stormed out over some petty issue where he
Speaker 2: was told his aides could not come in the room.
Speaker 2: But then Netson Yah who brought like five of his aids.
Speaker 2: The most classic like bureaucratic situation ever. But it's just
Speaker 2: like when you're fighting like that in the middle of
Speaker 2: the war and for war cabin near like personality conflicts
Speaker 2: and all of that come to the fort. Then you're
Speaker 2: not united in a goal, both in the immediate and
Speaker 2: theish medium and the long term, because they all hate
Speaker 2: each other and this is just who breeds just general
Speaker 2: instability in the country.
Speaker 4: And they're they're huge internal rivals. So this, this is
Speaker 4: that bubbling to the surface. Yes, it goes to how.
Speaker 8: Deeply unsustainable all of this is. Obviously Israel's tourism economy.
Speaker 8: It's completely shot in the toilet. The blockade has meant
Speaker 8: that the port of a Lot has basically no ships
Speaker 8: in it, and the civilian populations that we're living down
Speaker 8: in the south and the Negev and in the north
Speaker 8: up by Lemanon are now basically like internal refugees living
Speaker 8: with family friends and found.
Speaker 11: Huge internal displacement in apartments in Israeli am and you
Speaker 11: hear from net Yahoo this is going to go for many,
Speaker 11: many months because Yahoo needs it to continue going because
Speaker 11: politically and legally he faces potential prosecution if if he
Speaker 11: leaves office, and so.
Speaker 8: It's in his interest and his interest only to continue this.
Speaker 8: Everyone else is like is suffering from this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I mean again to your point, he has
Speaker 6: a coalition that he has to keep happy, and so
Speaker 6: they actually it's the opposite for them. You have a
Speaker 6: lot of discontent with hownt Nahu has proceeded in the war,
Speaker 6: but they want him to go harder and further and
Speaker 6: that becomes untenable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this final thing I'll mention here.
Speaker 2: We got the Congressman Rokanna and stand by outside, but
Speaker 2: we wanted to just wrap with this. Unfortunately, there's actually
Speaker 2: been a terrorist attack inside of Israel just yesterday, kind
Speaker 2: of reinforcing some of the future problems that might await them.
Speaker 2: Put that up there on the screen. A woman who
Speaker 2: was killed seventeen others were hurt in a suspected car
Speaker 2: ramming attack. This was, you know, two Palestindians who were
Speaker 2: actually from the West Bank arrested in a city about
Speaker 2: twelve miles or so north of Tel Aviv in the capitol.
Speaker 2: Don't forget there's a significant Palestinian population inside of Israel.
Speaker 3: What do they think about it? There's a lot, definitely
Speaker 3: a lot of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can't say anything, but you know, every once
Speaker 2: in a while, people gonna act out so it's not
Speaker 2: you know, the things are in more of a powder keg.
Speaker 2: I think right now, both regionally and inside the country,
Speaker 2: they're trying to make major decisions about their military strategy.
Speaker 2: So lots of things that are up in the air.
Speaker 2: As I said, we got the Congressman Rocanna who is
Speaker 2: here on standby. We're going to talk to him about Yemen,
Speaker 2: UFOs and more. Emily, Ryan just want to say thank
Speaker 2: you guys so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: So it was so fun to do this. I guess
Speaker 3: we'll see you in a week.
Speaker 4: After New Hampshire.
Speaker 6: But you see Counterpoints tomorrow.
Speaker 3: That's oh, I'm sorry. You'll have a counterfifer.
Speaker 2: Of course, Counterpoints rate subscribe five stars into your families
Speaker 2: and your grandma. So Crystal and I are not going
Speaker 2: to do an AMA this week. We had so much
Speaker 2: scheduling stuff going on yesterday. Counterpoints will be handling AMA.
Speaker 2: So for the questions, submit premium questions specifically for Ryan
Speaker 2: and Emily as you would normally, and they will record
Speaker 2: it tomorrow and we'll put it out for premium subs.
Speaker 2: I know some of you guys have been asking that
Speaker 2: now for quite some time. Next let's get to the
Speaker 2: congressman now as Congressman Rocanna. Great friend of the show.
Speaker 3: We are always happy to welcome him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we love it.
Speaker 12: You know hit like I said with the Capitol Police.
Speaker 12: In fact, they appreciated my shout out, oh did they?
Speaker 12: So let's stop the and said, you know we're hearing
Speaker 12: I have a.
Speaker 3: Couple of comments in the Capitol Police.
Speaker 4: But we'll leave.
Speaker 3: We'll keep it in court today.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We appreciate all of our viewers. Let's put the tweet
Speaker 2: that you put out on the screen. This was very important.
Speaker 3: We wanted to talk with you about it.
Speaker 2: It came immediately after the President Biden ordered strikes on Yemen.
Speaker 2: You said, quote, the President needs to come to Congress
Speaker 2: before launching a strike against Huth. He's in Yemen, involving
Speaker 2: US in another Middle East conflict. This is Article one
Speaker 2: of the Constitution. I will stand up for that, regardless
Speaker 2: of whether a Democrat or Republican.
Speaker 3: Is in the White House.
Speaker 2: You clarify that of the War Powers Act, it is
Speaker 2: clear POTUS may only introduce the US into hostilities after
Speaker 2: congressional authorization or in a national emergency when the US
Speaker 2: is under imminent attack. Reporting is not a substitute. This
Speaker 2: is a retaliatory offensive strike. So Congressman, you know, first
Speaker 2: of all, why is this important to you? You were
Speaker 2: one of maybe I want to say, maybe a handful
Speaker 2: who actually spoke out about this, both Democrat and Republican.
Speaker 2: But what why are you not buying the explanation of
Speaker 2: the administration. This is a defensive undercovered under the War
Speaker 2: Powers Act.
Speaker 12: Well, this is not a laughing man, It is a
Speaker 12: serious thing. I mean, you have the world's strongest, most
Speaker 12: powerful country bombing one of the world's poorest countries. Now,
Speaker 12: the Hutis are not good at actors. I mean they're
Speaker 12: obviously disrupting the ships in the Red Sea, and they
Speaker 12: certainly committed human rights violations in the war in Yemen.
Speaker 12: And some folks know that I was very very involved
Speaker 12: in Yemen, yes, and trying to stop that war.
Speaker 7: But here's the situation.
Speaker 12: You've had these reports with the administration from early December.
Speaker 12: They've been going to the UN. The President's been talking
Speaker 12: to the leaders of Canada, the leaders of Australia, the
Speaker 12: leaders of Britain.
Speaker 6: They can't talk to Congress.
Speaker 12: I mean, this is not some situation where HUTI is
Speaker 12: firing at some ship and the President saying, Okay, you
Speaker 12: have a defensive moment, and let's attack Kuti or defend
Speaker 12: us our. This is a month and a half where
Speaker 12: they've been making the case, so they need to come
Speaker 12: to Congress and say why they think that attacking the
Speaker 12: Huties will actually make the situation better.
Speaker 6: So far it has it opened up the Red Sea.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and based on a misreading of the War Powers Resolution,
Speaker 8: you saw a number of commentators pushing back and saying, well, actually,
Speaker 8: president can do whatever he wants, just as long as
Speaker 8: he tells Congress within.
Speaker 4: Forty eight hours.
Speaker 8: Setting aside the kind of I don't want to elevate
Speaker 8: community notes to like like a place where we're actually
Speaker 8: like discussing their opinion as that's merit. But I'm curious
Speaker 8: inside Congress how fluent are people with the War Powers Resolution.
Speaker 8: Do they buy that argument or do members of Congress
Speaker 8: understand Okay, yes, he actually does need congressional authorization to
Speaker 8: go to war against other countries.
Speaker 12: I think there's a lot of confusion, And unfortunately the
Speaker 12: comments were coming from quote unquote experts and pundits and
Speaker 12: they were saying, oh, it doesn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 12: Of course, Bernie Sanders and I are the only two
Speaker 12: people who've ever passed a Warpowers Resolution Act in the
Speaker 12: history of the United States. There are a lot of
Speaker 12: things I may not know about. I do know the
Speaker 12: war powers, and what they were doing is citing the exception. Yes,
Speaker 12: there is an exception where you can notify Congress within
Speaker 12: forty eight hours if it's immin in self defense. If
Speaker 12: the hoodies were shooting at our ships, President says, no,
Speaker 12: I've got to have an anti missile strike or take
Speaker 12: those out. He can come to Congress. He must come
Speaker 12: to Congress within forty eight hours. That exception doesn't apply
Speaker 12: when there's not an imminent self defense national emergency. It's
Speaker 12: hard for me to understand how they're claiming it's imminent
Speaker 12: national emergency when they're going to the United Nations and
Speaker 12: making the case when they're talking to international leaders. But
Speaker 12: it's created this sense of confusion. The funniest thing is
Speaker 12: the biggest request I was getting is can you text
Speaker 12: Elon to take community notes off? I was like, just
Speaker 12: because I've had conversations with Elon, no, I can't text
Speaker 12: him to intervene in community notes.
Speaker 2: I would save your text for something far more important.
Speaker 2: The question I think that it all comes down to
Speaker 2: is both in terms of law and in terms of strategies.
Speaker 2: Let's say that they did come to you for authorization,
Speaker 2: what would you vote have been or what questions would
Speaker 2: you have had for the administration? We've had just talked
Speaker 2: about it in our show earlier. Who The's fired on
Speaker 2: a US owned operated vestival They actually also fired after
Speaker 2: the strikes on a US Navy vessel.
Speaker 3: I mean, what do you make then of the fallout
Speaker 3: of that?
Speaker 2: And was the Biden administration them grappling with a so
Speaker 2: called defensive strike that's supposed to be something that is
Speaker 2: deterrent and yet we've still seen some action afterwards.
Speaker 12: Before giving them authorization, and I would have been open
Speaker 12: to what their strategy is. I would have asked, what
Speaker 12: is the strategy? Why is this going to be different
Speaker 12: than seven years of bombing that the Saudis undertook with
Speaker 12: the Yemenies. Have they talked to their golf allies? Have
Speaker 12: they talked to you a Why is it that there's
Speaker 12: only one golf country, Bahrain, that is on board with this?
Speaker 12: And I don't doubt that the Hutis are an not
Speaker 12: acting in good faith, But is this going to actually
Speaker 12: make the Red Sea safer? Is it going to actually
Speaker 12: have our ships not be disrupted because the Hutis just
Speaker 12: have to have the threat of that, which they've continued
Speaker 12: for commercial ships to be avoiding the Red Sea. So
Speaker 12: you've seen the price of oil increase, You've seen the
Speaker 12: Red Sea continue to be disrupted, and then the question
Speaker 12: is how long does this continue? And I think none
Speaker 12: of those questions were asked, and that's why you have
Speaker 12: now this creep towards escalation, because what are we going
Speaker 12: to do if Huti continues to threaten?
Speaker 10: Now?
Speaker 12: Are we going to back away? And we've not pursued
Speaker 12: a diplomatic regional solution. I would get the Saudis involved,
Speaker 12: I would get UAE involved, And of course the elephant
Speaker 12: in the room is Gaza and what can we do
Speaker 12: to de escalate there.
Speaker 3: I did want to get your reaction one second rhyme.
Speaker 2: We were just talking about this morning, but a story
Speaker 2: about two US Navy seals were missing in the ocean
Speaker 2: after a daring raid on a vessel that was an
Speaker 2: Iranian warheads bound Yemen. So this again falls in my card.
Speaker 2: We're talking about actual US service members what's the authorization here?
Speaker 2: I haven't seen much outcry reporting. I know you're on
Speaker 2: the House Armed Services Committee. Have they given you a
Speaker 2: briefing or any of you monitored the situation because it's
Speaker 2: very in a very tragic situation. As far as what
Speaker 2: we know right now, just want to get your reactions,
Speaker 2: because we learned some more than emails this morning.
Speaker 12: Well far as all my thoughts are with the families
Speaker 12: of these two brave Navy seals, I mean, they do
Speaker 12: extraordinary work for our country, and I hope we start
Speaker 12: to learn more, but I want to understand exactly what
Speaker 12: the mission was. I mean, is it interdicting the arms
Speaker 12: going to the Houtis, which is something that we have
Speaker 12: done in the past, and maybe the administration strategy could be, well,
Speaker 12: we want to make sure that the arms aren't getting
Speaker 12: to the UTIs and that's one of the reasons they
Speaker 12: need to come to Congress. You know, the irony with
Speaker 12: these things is a lot of times they may actually
Speaker 12: get three hundred votes of Congress, but you're actually going
Speaker 12: to have a much more unified stance for the other countries.
Speaker 12: And this argument, well, Congress is so broken, Congress is
Speaker 12: unpopular all of that is true, doesn't mean you could
Speaker 12: just bypass it and getting a vote and up, down
Speaker 12: or down vote on a privileged resolution is much easier
Speaker 12: than getting a budget. And so you know, in these situations,
Speaker 12: I actually think it's in the President's strategic interest to
Speaker 12: come to Congress.
Speaker 8: And if you were following the story of the strikes
Speaker 8: on Yemen through the mainstream media, I don't think you
Speaker 8: would really have any idea what was going on. You
Speaker 8: would assume that this is some kind of just random piracy,
Speaker 8: basically Somali pirates that have wound up somehow in Yemen
Speaker 8: and now we're going to stop them from doing their piracy.
Speaker 4: Whereas that you know, the facto Yemen government has.
Speaker 8: Been very clear that this is in direct response to
Speaker 8: Israel's attack on Gaza and that second that that stops,
Speaker 8: they will they will lift this blockade. So that brings
Speaker 8: into question the validity of that argument. And South Africa
Speaker 8: has brought, you know, has brought genocide charges at the Hague.
Speaker 8: I'm curious if you've read South Africa's charging. She did
Speaker 8: you watch some of the hearings, either South Africa's prosecution
Speaker 8: or Israel's defense, and what you make of their claims
Speaker 8: that an imminent genocide is being carried out.
Speaker 12: Well, I have read parts of it, I haven't read
Speaker 12: the whole thing, and what I would say is I
Speaker 12: would describe it as a humanitarian catastrophe. I mean, what
Speaker 12: you have there in Gaza is twenty three thousand or
Speaker 12: so civilians killed according to the Ministry of Health and
Speaker 12: other UN reports. Most of those are women and children,
Speaker 12: or almost forty to fifty percent. You have seventy percent
Speaker 12: of the houses that have been destroyed, and certainly the
Speaker 12: loss of human life is too much, and we don't
Speaker 12: have humanitarian aid going in there. It could be a
Speaker 12: potential starvation. I'll leave it to the legal system and
Speaker 12: legal experts to figure out what to call it. I
Speaker 12: call it in a humanitary cantestrap, and my interest is
Speaker 12: to make sure that all the hostages are released and
Speaker 12: that we have a cease fire and humanitarian aid there.
Speaker 8: France has said that they also are willing to leave
Speaker 8: it to the legal process, and if the court rules
Speaker 8: that it is a genocide, that France will support that ruling.
Speaker 8: Do you think the United States should do the same
Speaker 8: that leave it to the process and if the court rules,
Speaker 8: whatever way the court rules.
Speaker 4: The United States should support that ruling.
Speaker 12: I think we have to have our State Department involved.
Speaker 12: I have respect for the ICJ, but I wouldn't outsource
Speaker 12: all American foreign policy to the ICJ. So I do
Speaker 12: think that, But I think our State Department needs to
Speaker 12: take a hard look at what has gone on, and
Speaker 12: we need to look at what the legal analysis is.
Speaker 12: But I think that the issue ad myview, I mean,
Speaker 12: let the history is, legal experts figure out the terminology
Speaker 12: for all this. Right now, it's how do we save lives,
Speaker 12: how do we stop the bobbing, how do we release
Speaker 12: all the hostages, how do we get humanitarian and ate
Speaker 12: in and that to me should be the focus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you called for ceas fire, and I've done
Speaker 2: previously here on the show. I do want to move
Speaker 2: on to pet topic. Very hard turn, but it's UFOs.
Speaker 2: I know you've spoken about it, you have received as
Speaker 2: I understand it. Maybe tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: the circumstances of the briefing. Was it in a secure
Speaker 2: facility or not? Was it classified? You don't have to
Speaker 2: get into the details necessarily what you learned.
Speaker 4: If I want this to be my last show. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: just an undisclosed location.
Speaker 2: One of the things the process problem that we had
Speaker 2: heard was that members of Congress were denied a secure,
Speaker 2: compartmentalized intelligen facility to actually look at information rot by whistleblowers,
Speaker 2: by David Grush and by others. Have you been able
Speaker 2: to receive, then a classified briefing specifically about his claims
Speaker 2: and to what extent have they been willing to share
Speaker 2: information with you on the UFO subject.
Speaker 12: I've had a classified briefing on the subject of the
Speaker 12: whistleblowers complaint.
Speaker 3: Okay, it left me with more questions.
Speaker 6: I have.
Speaker 12: Not had a classified briefing on anything about the actual
Speaker 12: substance of the existence or not of UFOs. But I
Speaker 12: think that there are more questions that need to be
Speaker 12: asked about people in general coming forward with whistleblowing complaints.
Speaker 2: So my question it comes down to this, which is
Speaker 2: like you have been involved, now you're involved war power
Speaker 2: solutioning more on the UFO subject.
Speaker 3: There's two kind of strains of thought.
Speaker 2: One is that there's an active cover up going on
Speaker 2: by members of Congress and others who are tied to
Speaker 2: the intelligce community. One is that this is just about
Speaker 2: lack of transparency for the sake of it, simply because
Speaker 2: they don't want. You know, who knows what you would
Speaker 2: learn if we were to continue to push. And then
Speaker 2: one is that this is all just like bureaucratic snafoo
Speaker 2: and we're overthinking it in your involvement, you know on
Speaker 2: the House arm Services, commed in more your general observation,
Speaker 2: You've always been honest with us in terms of what
Speaker 2: you think. What do you see when you're with your
Speaker 2: involvement here on the topic amongst your colleagues. Is there
Speaker 2: an unwillingness to look at it? Is it disbelief? People
Speaker 2: just think that this is crank and kind of a
Speaker 2: crazy subject some genuine interest, Like what's your assessment of
Speaker 2: the kind of the landscape now that you've at least
Speaker 2: you dipped your tone in a little bit.
Speaker 12: Well, first, all members of Congress are incompetent to keep
Speaker 12: some kind of secret for more than two hours before
Speaker 12: Ryan will be tweeting about it. I mean, we can't
Speaker 12: keep a secret about it like a some staff person
Speaker 12: is leaving our office, let alone a topic like this.
Speaker 12: But the question is, so I don't think it's at
Speaker 12: the issue of Congress. I mean, el the Rushie one said,
Speaker 12: in democracy, there are no secrets that applies to Congress. Now,
Speaker 12: whether there are other agencies that have been fully transparent
Speaker 12: on the matter, I have more questions. I don't what
Speaker 12: I don't know this is not talking about anything classified.
Speaker 12: This is just me as a member of Congress and citizen.
Speaker 12: What I don't know is is the reluctance potentially to
Speaker 12: be fully transparent because there are things overt operations that
Speaker 12: look like UFOs that we are reluctant to share information
Speaker 12: or if there's actually any evidence of extraterrestrial life, and
Speaker 12: I think that that has led to a lack of
Speaker 12: full transparency. What I will say is that there are
Speaker 12: members on both sides who are now pushing for more transparency,
Speaker 12: and it could be one of the few things the
Speaker 12: Oversight Committee actually gets bipartisan consensus over.
Speaker 8: How would you describe your position on this question back
Speaker 8: when you were just a guy before you came to Congress,
Speaker 8: just a normal.
Speaker 4: Maria A question Ryan compared to how you are.
Speaker 8: To access to classified briefings, though of course not access
Speaker 8: to the kinds of classified briefings that would be at
Speaker 8: the very very highest levels. But it has there been
Speaker 8: a shift in your thinking or understanding of this issue.
Speaker 12: I think there's been a shift, not because I'm a
Speaker 12: member of Congress, but I was probably candidly on the
Speaker 12: more skeptical camp growing up in a till.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 12: And I think it's been more of the public reporting
Speaker 12: of whistleblower complaints, which the public has in and these
Speaker 12: are credible people bringing forth these complaints, and certainly that
Speaker 12: raises issues that has there been a challenge on transparency
Speaker 12: and why is that? And regardless of whether it's actual
Speaker 12: UFOs or something else, the transparency should be a concern
Speaker 12: to American citizens.
Speaker 2: I've said that for it. Look, we could be totally wrong.
Speaker 2: Who knows it's better to find out rather than to
Speaker 2: keep it, you know, be a secret. So there's millions
Speaker 2: of people who certainly want to look into the subject.
Speaker 2: We appreciate your joining us and really willing to talk
Speaker 2: about it, sir, and we always welcome you back.
Speaker 3: So thank you.
Speaker 12: Always enjoying going.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 3: We'll see you guys later.