← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/13/26: Trump Says Help On The Way To Iran, Credit Card Interest Caps, Influencers Take Foreign Money, Midterm Red Alert
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Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.
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A
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
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B
So if that is something that's important to you. Please go to Breaking Points, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows unedited ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
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A
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breaking points.com Good morning everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
- [02:53]
B
Indeed we do. Of course, another jam packed busy day. There is reporting indicating Trump is leaning towards strikes in Iran. So break down all of that for you. We also have some interesting economic moves being made by Trump via executive order, including trying to cap interest rates on credit cards, something that he talked about on the campaign trail. So we'll dig into that and what is going on there. A bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal about all of the right wing influencers who are getting paid by a whole variety of foreign countries. So digging into the details of that, pretty important to know who is getting paid by what country when they are telling you, making claims and pushing this administration on various issues. We also have some significant 2026 news both in terms of party identification for Democrats is going up. This was one of the warning signs for Democrats back under the Biden administration when Republicans overtook them. We also have a important Senate candidate entering the race in Alaska that actually gives Democrats a legitimate shot not just at that state but actually taking back the Senate. Dig into some of that. Also we're taking a look at Matt Stoller highlighting how gambling is now the second fastest growing part of the economy. So it's basically like AI data centers and and gambling polymarket integrated fully into the Golden Globes, all sorts of dystopian things happening there. And then we're going to get to a monumental, I would say guest on the show today, Janice Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece, actually hosts his own podcast now called the Econoclast. Is that what it is? I'm pretty sure that's right. I'll double check my notes. In any case, he is going to weigh in both on what Venezuela means in terms of global geopolitics more broadly, what the Trump administration is exactly up to. And then also wanted to talk to him about AI Sagar. He is one of the most deep faked person people on the Internet.
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A
I had no idea until you told me that.
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B
And some of them are so good. He said it took him two minutes of watching this fake version of himself to figure out that this was not in fact him. So very Dystopian preview of what is to come. And of course, the big tech company is not exactly responsive. When he reached out to them and said, hey, what the hell is going on?
- [04:58]
A
It's terrifying. If you think. I mean, you and I have spoken on camera almost every day for what, like eight years, something like that. If somebody showed me, they're like, this is a clip of you from eight years. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
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B
No. If you showed me a clip of me from last week saying some stuff that sounded like, yeah, maybe it's possible. He said the way he figured it out was he has two homes and the shirt they put him in in the fake video is a shirt that was at the background was one of the homes, and the shirt stays at the other home. And that was how he was able to tell because the cadence and the content sounded like him.
- [05:32]
A
That is terrifying.
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B
Crazy.
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A
That is absolutely terrifying. We need just a national ban on, like, likenesses, period. I know that the companies are fighting us, but seriously, I really think we just need all likenesses ban, period.
- [05:43]
B
At the very least, it has to be really clearly marked, right? And some of the. And there's like, multiple channels that all they do is fake. Yanis Varoufakis video.
- [05:52]
A
So crazy. We recently had an inspect say the name, but our logo is getting ripped off. Our old logo is getting ripped off. Breaking points for another show which is out there, which we will not deign to mention. Anyway, before we get to all of that, thank you to everybody who's been subscribing BreakingPoints.com to become a premium subscriber. But we have noticed in our YouTube data there are a significant number of you who do watch our videos but don't subscribe to the channel. It really just helps other people find the show. So if you could hit subscribe, we would deeply appreciate it. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please send an episode to a friend. It really helps other people find the show. So let's go ahead and get to Iran. Hey, everyone. Just after we recorded this, there was actually a new announcement from the president. Let's put it up there on the screen, and I'm gonna read from it. He says, iranian patriots, keep protesting. Take over your institutions. Save the names of the killers and the abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. Help is on its way. Miga President Donald J. Trump. So, Kristal, massively important to the discussion, which everyone Is about to hear. But pretty clear diplomacy rolled. The killing of protesters. Miga help is on its way. We're about to kick to ourselves. Talking about reporting, about leaning towards airstrikes.
- [07:06]
B
Looks all the more likely what happened to the Donro doctor I thought we were just focusing on our hemisphere. I thought, yeah, interesting.
- [07:12]
A
Would be shocked to learn as I pointed out, that that is not actually what happened. So anything else you want to say before we kick to our discussion?
- [07:18]
B
No. Just so you bear this in mind as you watch the discussion. Sagar and I already recorded the internal dynamics of here. It seems pretty clear Trump indicating like any sort of diplomacy is off the table. So I guess we know what direction we're headed in.
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A
Which is funny because as we're about to kick to my analysis appears to have been correct. And where we think is we're all being pushed.
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B
There you go.
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A
All right, let's kick to it. Turning now to Iran, some very fast moving parts. Everybody needs to pay attention now. If you care about this story over the next couple of days because things are moving very quickly in a bad direction, let's go and put this up here on the screen. Wall Street Journal, major leak story, lots of factions. You can interpret this two ways. First from the story in and of itself and second, in terms of what's going on, in terms behind the scenes. They say White House weighs Iran's nuclear offer as Trump leans towards strikes. Quote Vance leading efforts by some aides to persuade the president to engage in negotiations with Tehran. So if you read a little bit more quickly, they say the White House is weighing a last ditch Iranian effort to engage in diplomacy over curbing its nuclear program, even as President Trump currently leans towards authorizing fresh military strikes on Iran. They talk about some of the factional debates inside. But Kristal, to me what was important was that this is leaked. You can read this two ways. One, you could read it as somebody who is pro diplomacy leaking it. I think it was leaked by the pro strike crowd. Because if you read it, what's the one thing that you never wanna be, you never wanna be as the person who's opposing Donald Trump. And if its current iteration is to say we're leaning towards strikes, you're saying, oh, look at these disloyal people. The Wall Street Journal, already owned by Rupert Murdoch, extremely pro regime change. This is exactly the type of outlet you. But second is that what you're watching is in my opinion, again, is kind of trying to discredit any sort of talking effort by not only just pointing at J.D. vance. But I think actually it's about Steve Witkoff and a smaller contingent inside of the White House. The reason why they're also saying that leaning towards authorizing strikes is again, in my opinion is a bat signal to the hawk pro strike crowd to ramp up the pressure and to enforce the media environment. And so that's why as we talk for the rest of today, what we're gonna watch are statements from the White House. And obviously that's what matters the most. But the CBS News, the Fox News, the entire ecosystem that surrounds Washington, which has been pushing regime change now for some 40 odd years. Put a 2 please up on the screen just to show already the direction is strongly leading toward striking Iran. Trump saying yesterday, effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic Republic will pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with this order is final and conclusive. This is basically a backdoor way of saying that there will be a tariff of some 25% on China and on Russia, China in particular, one of the largest trading partners of Iran. There are various other ones, but those are the two that most importantly matter. And then finally you have a strong signal here from the White House just basically putting airstrikes there on the table. Let's play a three from the White House Press secretary strikes off the table.
- [10:22]
B
In Iran and does he believe there's a potential path to end the protest there without military action? Well, I think one thing President Trump is very good at is always keeping all of his options on the table. And airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the Commander in Chief. Diplomacy is always the first option for the President. He told all of you last night that what you're hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately. And I think the President has an interest in exploring those messages. However, with that said, the President has shown he's unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary. And nobody knows that better than Iran.
- [11:02]
A
No one knows that better than Iran. You know this and just in the context, because I know you guys covered it yesterday. Part of the reason I've been so angry at these people, cuz I've been getting from these people for years. They call me a bedwetter and now an idiot. They're like, oh, you were wrong about Iran or Venezuela, nothing bad happened. And I was like, well, you know, you're assuming that things happen in a discreet manner. And that Midnight hammer, the operation to bomb Iran just happened in a vacuum and we're not allowed to see that. It could potentially lead to more escalation from Israel and by the United States. Oh wait, is that exactly what's happening right now? Some six months odd later, Venezuela, the same thing. You have a highly like you have a highly specialized operation which is just to kidnap Maduro. And then you start to believe your delusions of grandeur and the ability to do something a little bit bigger. And so this one the exact same way. So yes, we have these protests in Iran. You and I are talking. Do you know how difficult it is from here in Washington to be able to assess these protests? We are awash in propaganda from both sides. We have, I mean, I was just reading Michael Tracy this morning, traced the death toll numbers to a single think tank here in Washington which is tied to regime change efforts. So who knows what the. I could tell you it may be 2,000, could be 15,000, it could be 12. I literally do not know. There are regime accounts putting out pro regime protests saying these are the real protests. I think it's undeniable, there's some level of protest. There's no Internet in the country. We literally don't know there's something that is happening, but organically. If you look in Washington where the entire narrative is about tens of thousands of people are being killed, again, maybe, I have no idea, can't confirm it, can't believe the government certainly whenever they tell you everything is being stepped up for this is gonna be some sort of benevolent action. And if you look at the military operations that have happened now under Trump, they're exactly designed to potentially inflate somebody's delusion of being able to do something. I mean, again, I've made the comparison of like, we have a military which is highly specialized at F1 race cars, but if we ever got into a real conflict, you need Toyota Camrys, guess what? We can't buy somebody, literally. Toyota is a Japanese company. It's not our philosophy, our ability, our supply chain that is capable of doing this. And you are looking at a country and I mean, let's not even pretend the sentiment of like, oh, we're doing this for the grandeur of the Iranian. I mean, come on, like, sorry, yeah.
- [13:35]
B
Oh, we're just gonna very confident about Iranian protesters, right?
- [13:39]
A
Exactly. But the stats of Iranian, especially in the context of, you know, not to be a huge shit lit, but in the concept of this whole ICE thing, like, come on, like what are we doing? Like, you know, it's ridiculous and beyond that, oh, we're gonna be the savior of protesters against Islamic theocracies. What about Saudi Arabia? We're gonna bomb Saudi Arabia? No, it's preposterous. It's all ideologically driven and you know, the idea that we care about the well being of the Iranian people, I mean, you and I both know the modal outcome if we do strike Iran and try to depose the regime is going to be a full blown chaos. And so look at Syria. How could you possibly want the Western powers to pump weapons into your country, depose the person in power or Libya as well, and then become a plaything of the us, of China, of Russia and of Israel and varying intelligence factions for the next 15 years. The likely outcome is that 10 times more of you would die as a result of that than if the current regime stayed in power. I don't support that regime. You know, you and I both. I don't know, I feel very torn. Like of course I want people to have self determination and the ability, you know, to rule themselves. We live in a, that's a fantasy. You know, whenever you have Israel, the US and all of these global powers which have interests inside of the country, who very easily would vie for, you know, turning it into a plaything and they don't want a strong Iran, that's the last possible thing. Yeah, so they want to cleave it. They probably want to turn it into a civil war, barren wasteland that could never pose any threat to the US Gulf allies to Israel ever again. And more likely you get a massive refugee crisis like what happened with Afghanistan.
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B
No, you will not be able to have true self determination for the people of Iran until number one, they get nukes and number two, we leave them the fuck alone. Like this. Just, I mean, that's the reality. And I think we have somewhere in here the Mike Pompeo tweet where he's like, happy New Year's. The protesters and Assad agents who were working alongside of them and you know, I mean, Mossad brags about their infiltration into Iranian society. There's no doubt that CIA Mossad are on the ground. That doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate grievances. I know that. I mean the economic situation, by the way, largely due to our own engineering. But in any case, the economic situation is incredibly dire. The regime there is incredibly repressive. Like all those things are true. There is no doubt that there is, you know, some sizable contingent. Is it a majority or not? I genuinely have no idea who want to see something different, who have legitimate aspirations. There also are going to be people. And again, speaking of the propaganda, very hard to parse who is with what and what's really going on here. There were pro government marches as well. And some of the people I saw interviewed said, look, I've got issues with them, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the US and Israel come in and meddle and get to install their puppets it into our government. Like, I will take what I've got here and at least have a shot at some sovereignty versus just becoming a puppet of the US and Israel. The thing that I can't figure out here, Sagar, is like, you know, with the first bombing campaign, there was some propaganda effort, right? We saw right through. It was very flimsy. Tulsi Gabbard had just testified to Congress the exact opposite in terms of the development of their nuclear program. But there was a propaganda effort and we were led to believe this is about their development of nuclear weapons. I don't even know what this is about. Like, no one, literally no one is gonna buy this. Oh, we're worried about the protesters. No one is gonna buy that. Right. So what is this even about? And Trump has already come in and said, the Shah isn't the Trumps. The Shah's son is not a legitimate, a viable ruler here. Very similar throwing him under the bus the same way that he did with Machado, Venezuela.
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A
But I support that.
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B
It's realistic. Right? So, I mean, that demonstrates some understanding that if we actually try to do full regime change. I think he did learn that lesson from Iraq of like, don't wanna get boots on the ground, totally embroiled, trying to install a new government and do nation building. Like, don't wanna do that. He likes these quick mission accomplished moments and then move on to the next thing. But I don't even know what would the mission accomplished be. Just that we bombed them to what?
- [17:58]
A
No, it would be, we bomb them, we have the regime go from power, probably bomb the IRGC or something like that and just say, okay, you guys are ready to. You guys can do whatever you want to do from that point forward, but this ignores Israel because as you just said, I mean, look, the Israeli press is bragging about it and I do not want to disparage all of the protesters to say that they're most. That'd be ridiculous. Like, that is not what I'm saying at all. But it is obvious that they have intense interests in Iran, as they acknowledge in their own press. Articles themselves. And that because as we all saw in April during the 12 Day War, that they had highly penetrated the security services of the country, that they had literally built a secret base inside of the like. To ignore that their ability to shape events on the ground would not be Titanic is ridiculous. And I think probably the result would be, if I'm thinking from their messaging, we would bomb it or we would allow Israel to bomb it. By the way, the Israeli security cabinet is meeting tonight, so everybody keep an eye or tonight, whatever in Israel time. So we'll probably know sometime in the afternoon or so they're meeting tonight potentially to, you know, greenlight some sort of strike on Iran, potentially. But even the United States, who we use them as our dirty work, as we openly acknowledge in Washington anytime I challenge the admin. Why do we support Israel? They're like, oh, well, they do all the stuff that we can't do. Perfect example. So yes, we may bomb Iran and have some sort of mission accomplished of removing the regime, and then we would lose it. We would just leave it to Israel to go into an internally shape the entire country.
- [19:29]
B
I think that it's a fantasy to imagine that the regime would be toppled so easily. Yeah, you know, I mean, they took significant blows in the last bombing camp between the Israelis and the US and there was no sign of, you know, if, if anything, the evidence was that there was a bit of a rally around the flag moment in the context of those attacks and those bombings. And so is the idea that the figureheads of this regime are killed or step aside and then you've got some sort of a Delsey Rodriguez type person who's with the same government but is now gonna play ball more. I mean, the Iranians, again, like the Venezuela, they have been willing to negotiate, right. They've been at the table. They were in a nuclear deal with us. We're the ones that walked away. Even that notwithstanding, they were still willing to come back to the table. We use some of those diplomatic negotiations as basically a feint to trick them into letting their guard down. And then the Israelis come in and start their bombing campaign. I just, I genuinely, you know, putting aside, of course, I think the whole idea is a bad idea. I think it's immoral. I think it's a terrible direction to go in. I think it's only gonna cause more pain and suffering for the Iranian people. I don't think it's going to provide any benefits to the United States, certainly outside of maybe a handful of oligarchs, but I just don't even really get what the plan is like, even in their most wishful thinking. And so look, I, you know, there could be something I'm not seeing some plan that is there that is not readily apparent. But it seems like they're high on their supply after this Venezuela operation. They've been convinced, Trump has been convinced that these protests mean that the regime truly is wobbling and that it would be another quick and dirty easy mission accomplished moment. And watch the regime topple and say we brought democracy, good luck to the Iranian people and move on to the next thing.
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A
That is literally what it is. I've said it before, we are drunk with power that we don't have. Like, we literally are completely drunk and high on our special operation, which look, we should be. I mean, they're great, okay? But I mean, it's also immoral. As we saw over the last 15 years, we turned the entire US military strategy into just put everything on the special operations and what happens? Oh, you know, massive ptsd, drug crisis, Fort Bragg cartel, like absolute insanity. Go and listen to their own podcast. And the toll that it took on them, the so called limited operations. And now we would want to put the same group, you know, back in charge of some highly specialized thing so this.
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B
And no one doubts the capability of our space station. No, like that's never been the question.
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A
Exactly.
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B
Can they go and do some complicated right away like. Oh, we know that the question is always what then exactly?
- [22:10]
A
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A
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B
Be.
- [24:39]
A
The year that we make Iran great again. I want a military invasion of Iran. I don't want any boots on the ground. But President Trump has chosen wisely to be with the protesters. He's the first president since 1979 to pick the people over the ayatollah. President Trump says if you continue to kill your people, all hell will break out, all hell to pay. That's as strong as when Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. So you could see there, Ronald Reagan first from 1979, Makey Ron great again. All of this is an effort to pump up his ego and like, this is really what it's about. And that's why that Wall Street Journal story, by the way, immediately the Vance team has to come out and be like, this is not true, all of that. I think that's what it was designed for. Like, the more that I thought about it, I'm like, oh, this has been designed to actually box out opponents and to make it so that you can more difficult internally. And you know, oh, then you have to suck up maybe to the boss to prove that you're truly loyal to him. Look at what happened to Tulsi Gabbard? Do you want to be Tulsi, who DNI stood for, do not invite to the Venezuela. I mean, it's humiliating. I mean, by the way, she should resign. Like, if that's actually true. You have been openly defense traded on the national stage.
- [25:51]
B
Yeah.
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A
You were in on the beach, you know, doing a yoga pose when the US military was taking out Maduro. They don't respect you. They don't care about your views. You have to do something.
- [26:02]
B
I mean, she has to resign also if she had a shred of integrity. I mean, just imagine like selling your entire soul just to be have DNI stand for. Do not advise what the most humiliating thing. But to your point, you know about the shaping of the information space and all of the manipulating of Trump. Mark Levin has been posting very hard. Here's something that he said last night. He said, I am convinced the president will act decisively and strongly and militarily as he has threatened for days, because he knows what we all know that is if that regime survives, it will be the greatest missed opportunity against terrorism and an avowed terror state ever. Diplomacy and negotiations are ridiculous words in the context of what's happening in Iran and what's happening to those brave people. And to me, the most important line in all of that, that is where Levin says Trump will act as he has threatened for days, because he wants to underscore that if you walk away from this, then you look like you're weak. Right. You've committed to this, you're committed to the intersection. There's no backing out now. You've gotta go or else you're gonna look weak. And that is the thing that Trump hates the most. Any appearance of fragility, any appearance of weakness. And so since he has laid down this red line about the treatment of the protesters, and clearly there are some protest protesters who are getting killed here. This is forcing him into corners that you gotta act now. You said you were gonna act. You have to act now in order to put action with your words and not be one of these weak presidents like Barack Obama, who says things and then allows people to walk all over you.
- [27:40]
A
Yeah, that's what they've said over and over again. And this is exactly what happened with Venezuela. One of the reasons why, I mean, let's all take a step back here and not forget the deal that we have right now with Venezuela was offered on the table by Maduro. The reason why we had to go and kidnap Maduro is because the administration set a red line in the sand and said, we can never have Maduro. It was completely arbitrary. It was set by the administration. Same thing here is you get manipulated. I'm not manipulated. Look, Trump is the president, right? Like, he came in and he said, I don't want, you know, the regime needs to fall or shouldn't shoot any protesters or whatever. They'll show him some number who knows the accuracy of said number. I'm not gonna deny people have been killed. I'm saying, I mean, look at the CIA, like, do they really have a good idea of the number of people who are getting killed in Iran? Like, be serious. Look at their entire past history and their ability to judge events truly on the ground. Like, it's not good. And you can present, you know, with medium confidence, something. Secretary of State Rubio, who's advocated multiple times for regime change in Iran, Lindsey Graham and others say, you said that you were gonna do this. That's the easiest way to play into it. And then next thing you know, look at our amazing United States military, Mr. President. They can easily accomplish this, this, this, and this. And then you never know. And this is the exact problem of events like Midnight Hammer and of the Venezuela operation. It convinces you that you are capable of doing something which was highly targeted and had very small in a narrow, defined mission set, and then open up some massive can of worms and then you own it, you know, completely. It may even look fine. Look, remember Libya? Libya looked fine for like six months. Everyone's like, oh, you know, it's not so bad. Chris, what was his name? I'm totally blanking. Our ambassador who was killed, you know, and then all of a sudden, 9, 11, Benghazi and all, you're like, whoa. Like Al Qaeda and all. And then three years later, ISIS is in charge of the entire city of Benghazi.
- [29:32]
B
Literally.
- [29:32]
A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
Can we guys pull E6 if it's possible? Because I do think this is relevant to what you were talking about, about the info that is being shared about. I mean, Trump. Trump believes the things that he wants to believe. And so you had polymarket tweet this out.
- [29:48]
A
Yes.
- [29:49]
B
Where they said, breaking Iranian regime security forces have lost nearly all control of Iran's capital city, second largest city and fifth largest city. Okay, that is not true. Like, there is no indication. Yes, there's an Internet flag and it's hard to know. There is no indication that that is accurate whatsoever. But, I mean, Don Jr. Is on the board of Polymarket. They're closely tied to the Trump administration. It would not surprise Me at all. If this is the sort of stuff that he's being shown that he is being fed and that he is believing or at least thinking that there's some truth to, and giving comfort to this idea that the regime is already crumbling, all you have to do is push with your pinky, and the whole thing is gonna come falling down, and then it's gonna be, you know, you're gonna be hero again and mission accomplished. The other thing is, I was listening to Glenn yesterday on with Aaron Bassani over at Navarro Medio, and he was making a point about Trump's psychology where it really seems like he takes, like, personal pride in these operations. Of course. Like, it was him.
- [30:57]
A
Yes.
- [30:57]
B
You know, he pointed to the fact that when he was doing his, like, congratulations speech to Netanyahu, he called Netanyahu a war hero. Now, of course, I mean, he's a war or criminal, but usually that's reserved for people who actually, like, bravely fought and did a thing in the battle space. But he sees himself in that same way that if you have a Special Forces operation that's successful or a bombing campaign that's successful, that that success redounds to him and contributes to his own sense of vitality and strength and projection of strength. And so I do think that that is part of the calculus here, is it just feels good to him when he can say, go, and without any checks from Congress, with having to consult anyone, not having to deliberate with literally anyone, including his own vice president, he can just say, go, and this major world shaking event will occur. That plays right into his psychology, which is why he's always very, you know, it's very easy to manipulate him in the direction of these bombing campaigns. That's why he's bombed, what, seven countries at this point? Because it's very enticing to him, and he can be persuaded. He wants to be persuaded.
- [32:09]
A
I don't think that that's. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that that's deniable in terms of his own impact. He also looks pretty. I mean, remember, he would always mention post Venezuela, the Jimmy Carter operation. Like, he sees the decline of Carter's presidency as. I'm forgetting the exact Eagle. Something where all of the special operators were killed in the mission to try and go to safety the American hostages at the Iranian embassy. So this is somebody who. This is a media creature. He knows what plays well. And of course, Midnight Hammer and the Venezuela operation are. I mean, look, it'll probably be a movie, right? Like, Zero Dark Thirty obviously lived on for years, in the whole bin Laden raid, there are people who are still making millions of dollars off of the bin Laden raid. There's a reason for that. Because of the mythos and the special operations of what you're talking about. He wants to play into that. But that of course ignores the infamy of Iraq. And the only lesson they seem to have taken away is that explicit regime change or nation building itself is bad, not the military operation by itself. But that is why Libya is such an important example of you can still try to thread the needle and fail. You know, I was very gratified recently. Tommy Vitor and the POD Save people who actually were literally behind Libya came out and they're like, it was a disaster. We were totally wrong. I was like, thank you. You finally somebody needs to say it and acknowledge how bad of a situation that was. And that requires also the difficulty. And I'm watching. Dave Smith recently was criticizing. He was like, come on, after backing Israel, we're really all gonna just be up in arms over Iran supposedly killing civilians. He's like, it's a ridiculous pretext of intervention. And people immediately are like, you're defending the Iranian regime. It's like, why are we so reductive when it comes to that? And just say, say it's not about the regime, it's about us. And by the way, if you do care about them, it probably won't work out for them. There's no history to say, yeah, it's gonna work out to their benefit. There's nothing that you can point to and say that this will be explicitly better for the people who are there on the ground if you do care about them. And then if you care about us and our own proven track record, I mean, what would your hitache rate be if you just simply bet against US intervention over the course of a five year period and they're trying to judge everything based on three or four months. Just because Venezuela hasn't exploded doesn't mean it won't. It probably will. I would bet on it will. There's no chance that this is gonna work.
- [34:27]
B
Certainly the idea that we're just gonna use our military leverage in order to control an entire country, very complicated country with a lot of ideological factions and a lot of armed guerrillas is I think, seems pretty fantastical. You know, the idea we're just gonna, the Venezuelans are just gonna accept us coming in and plundering their resources, and they're gonna have nothing to say about it. I mean, for a nationalist, he certainly doesn't seem to understand nationalism at all, that it can be a very strong animating force. It is. I mean, nationalism is really the core reason why these various imperial projects and colonial projects from the past were shelved in favor of a different model of exerting control and influence around the globe. So already you've got reports that some of these Maduro aligned or regime aligned guerrilla forces are going out with guns and demanding to see people's phones and doing God knows what to them if they find that they were celebrating at all the kidnapping operation of Maduro and the attacks on Venezuela. So you already see this possibility for destabilization. So to declare mission accomplished. I mean, I don't know how people didn't learn that lesson from history that it's incredibly premature. And so in any case, I do think that the Venezuela operation really gave Trump this unearned confidence that he could just play God in any country that he wants. Which is why you see these, you know, increasing threats against Iran. You've got the Greenland situation, Colombia, Mexico, like just one country after another that is coming under threat because he really feels like he can just, with the snap of his fingers, totally remake the global map and make everybody pay attention to him and fear him and do his bidding.
- [36:27]
A
Yep, I think that is unfortunately accurate. Okay, let's get to Econ.
- [36:32]
B
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A
Visit amica.com and get a quote today. Turning now to the economy, some major moves by the Trump administration, maybe a little too late, but potentially trying to swing things before the midterms. Let's put this up here on the screen. Hopefully, one of the more significant things. Senator Elizabeth Warren saying yesterday that this quote, this morning I gave a speech noting how Donald Trump is driving up costs for families, et cetera, et cetera. After my speech, the president called me and I delivered the same message on affordability to him directly. I told him Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it. I also urged him to get House Republicans to pass a bipartisan act on housing, which passed the Senate with unanimous support, which would build more housing at lower costs. No more delays. It is time to deliver relief for American families. And so this has been kind of a dizzying thing which has been happening behind the scenes is a spate of executive orders and truths from the Trump administration which are supporting a lot of these affordability measures which we have long been supportive of here on the show. So, for example, capping credit card interest rates. Actually, today he endorsed the Credit Card Competition act, which, by the way, would personally decimate me because it nukes the entire points industry. That's fine. I still support it because I understand it's userous and it's bad. But this from my friends in the Senate, they tell me the banks have never lobbied harder against any single piece of legislation since Dodd Frank. Is that the Credit Card Competition act, which effectively not only caps interest rates, but removes a lot of the points infrastructure and swipe fees, which obviously just print billions and billion and billions of dollars for them, is the one piece of legislation that they have targeted specifically because they, I mean, look at 29, 30, 40% interest. Now, in some cases, you don't have to be a genius at math to see how much money you can print off of all of these people who are desperate and who are in debt. This is exactly the type of stuff originally which, you know, there were some promises and some vision, you know, let's say in terms of economic governance, let's say of the country as things have gotten away from them. Over a year, you had the housing BlackRock order, then you had the defense contractor order, now you have the credit card look, who knows? All right. Because you actually have to do something in the Senate to get something like this passed.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah.
- [40:22]
A
For it to really go through. But calling Warren. Hey, good. There was another one about data centers actually that just came out. He says, I have never want Americans to pay higher electricity bills because of data centers. Therefore my administration is working with technology companies to secure their commitment to the American people. We will have much to announce. Microsoft, who my team has been working with, will make major changes beginning this week to ensure Americans don't pick up the tab for their power consumption in the form of paying higher utility bills. This is as major Wall Street Journal piece out just this morning about the spike in costs of utility. All of this is devils in the details, right? Like so don't give flowers or props or anything before any of it happens. But I think this is a recognition of the growing problem that they had on affordability, especially post Sauron. And they're like, okay, we actually have to try and to do something about this. The bigger question will be, as we all know, MAGA and Congress are slaves to the White House. They're the Duma. Well, treat them like it and force them to pass something which is actually counter to their interest. So that is why, you know, look, I think it's good in generally it's good and in some cases the executive, I mean, as we saw under Biden and previously and with this administration, you can use executive power for a lot of shit, as FDR proved to all of us recently. They had this thing with mortgages. Can we put that one up there? This is B2 where the Trump administration is going to buy some 200 billion in bonds to try to lower the mortgage rates which actually worked, fell below 6% for the first time in years. This is exactly the type of stuff where if you want higher numbers on economics, if you follow through and it actually shows up in people's personal finances in November, could make an impact. I personally think it might be a little bit too late just because of the entire first year of the administration. Doge, Medicaid, all this other stuff. And you try to do this at the end, but if you've done anything like this in day one, I mean, man, you could be 70% approval rated. Yeah, if you wanted to be.
- [42:16]
B
If he let out of the gate. I mean he signed a whole slew of executive orders to begin with. But you know, a lot of those were more fulfilling the culture war desires of the right and then giving the store away to tech billionaires. I mean that was the thrust of a lot of the early executive orders, you started with this instead, when there's a lot of attention being paid to the media about, like, okay, what is this administration going to be and where are they going to put their weight? I think you would have a very different perception from the American people about what their priorities are. And even if, look, I'm skeptical that any of these just, if they do executive orders and aren't able to, like, really pass legislation through Congress, which the last Congress, like, last year was like, the least productive year ever for Congress in history or something like that, they don't have a lot of attention to detail in terms of actually making legislative pushes. So, you know, I'm not convinced that any of these are going to have significant impacts, but it matters a lot. It would have mattered in the beginning a lot. To send that message of, like, this is what we're focusing on. This is what we're prioritizing. You and I both noted also, so many of these issues are, like, directly out of. Go back and look at the many segments and focuses on this show, which is also.
- [43:23]
A
This White House is very online. Super online, as we all know.
- [43:26]
B
Yes.
- [43:27]
A
And let's say I often, you know, I don't use Twitter all that much anymore, but when I do, I try to for a purpose. And all of these issues, I have been beating the drum because I'm like, do something about it. I know you're all following. You are looking at the discourse. So look, I'm skeptical. Will it actually happen? You know, there's been all this criticism I have of the AI Moratorium and giving their doe. But can you imagine a world where this was February of 2025?
- [43:52]
B
That's a different reality, right?
- [43:54]
A
No Doge in this.
- [43:55]
B
Doge coming in with the chainsaw, destroying Social Security, like, running around like maniacs, you know, all of that. Instead, you do this, and the other piece is that they, you know, so there's two things. I mean, number one, it does smell of desperation. There's just no doubt about it. Where they're looking at the numbers, they're looking at the results of the 2025 elections. They're like, like, holy shit, we've got a problem. We have to do a lot of stuff, and we have to do it now. And so at the end of last year, there had been promises from Trump and other administration officials, like, you wait and see, we're gonna do all kinds of stuff on affordability, even as Trump was calling it a Democrat con job. But in any case, it Appears that they got that political message of like, we are in big trouble if we don't do something. But they're also really sort of stepping on and bearing their own message here because this stuff is not getting talked about. I mean even this is the sort of stuff that in another week or in another era, you and I would have done like a whole show on each of these individual issues. But we gotta cover Iran, we gotta cover Venezuela, we gotta cover Renee Goode getting killed in Minneapolis. You know, I mean, there's just so many. And then, you know, are we going into Greenland? Are we, what are we doing with Columbia? All of these other things that are understandably going to dominate news coverage and really block out even the messaging value of these things, which is primarily what I think the value of them ultimately will be. I will say in terms of the impact that they will have, probably the most positive impact that they will have is shifting the Overton window because it'll be very hard for. If there's a future Democratic administration. It'd be very hard for Republicans. Not that they won't do it, they certainly will. But to cry socialism when they're like, no, we're actually codifying the sort of things that Trump floated. So do you oppose MAGA now? Do you oppose Trump? Cuz this is like, you know, some extension of his playbook. So I do think it shifts the public debate in a way that over time could be productive and beneficial.
- [45:49]
A
Absolutely. Yeah. Again, no one's. It's not. Most of this probably won't happen. Okay. There are deeply, as I just said, if you were to bet on the banks or on Trump, who would you usually bet on to prevail in the United States Senate? Where are we really gonna get 60 odd votes to cap credit card interest rates? Probably not. But as you just said, there is an Overton window where you can shift. Where literally the leader of the Republican Party is saying we need to cap user as credit card interest rates. You can use that sometime in the future. And you can use it in the way that a lot of people currently do in these intra MAGA fights where they say stuff like. So are you saying you oppose President Trump? Right. And same thing on private equity buying single family homes. Now we have the credit card stuff, we have the defense contractor. I mean it's effectively nationalizing the defense contractor industry to come in and say you can only pay certain amount of. Listen, I'm all for it. Right, good. I agree, yes. State is literally the only force that can regulate all of this chaos. And insanity currently happening in our private capital markets. I would just say I wish we would do it to a lot more other sectors, including the technology sector or the financial sector. Right. But I mean the messaging problem that you're highlighting is also the fundamental issue with the administration is I do think waiting a year, they let everything get. First of all, no Democrat, even if this help is going to give you credit now at this point you're in Biden territory, period. Like in the way that, in the way the Republicans truly hated Biden. That's how the Dems feel. No matter what you, you could give them all $5,000 checks. I still think they wouldn't do anything for you, you know, at this point. Seriously. And the news value as you just said, I mean, I mean every story you just listed is actually more important because you're like, well, that has more reality of actually happening. These are potential overton window. It's like, you know, you kind of robbed yourself of that ability. And then finally as we learned under Biden, because they did similar desperate measures when they were underwater, it didn't work. You know, by November, even when inflation was like kind of ticking down a little bit. Nope. The first year was really what stuck in everybody's mind. This is a cancer always on presidents. You really only have like three or four months to really do something. And Doge defined everything I would say truly, you know, like the honeymoon to the extent that it even existed. Liberation Day people were like I'm done. I really believe that.
- [48:10]
B
Well, and I think you're right about that. I think the tariffs are the most economically disastrous just from a political perspective move that. I mean it's hard to think of something that immediately turned cuz Trump's whole brand was being good on the economy that flipped on a dime after Liberation Day. And I don't think he will recover from that. I don't think that the brand will recover from that ultimately. And so it's also like what we said with Biden. You've got a reality problem like some messaging, executive orders or whatever that people feel like, okay, sure are not going to help you pay the bills at the end of the month if you don't see real and concrete action and a sustained focus. We can put just a few indications of that reality problem up on the screen here. Let's put B3 up on the screen. I thought this was pretty significant just to understand the trend and the dynamic. I think a lot of this has to do with AI. So US workers just received 53.8% of GDP in the third quarter. This is from an account called Hedgy Markets, by the way, that I'm reading from the lowest share since the government started tracking this in 1947. That's down from 54.6 the quarter before and well below the 55.6% average from the 2000 and twenties. At the same time, corporate profit margins are hitting some of their strongest levels in decades. So again, continuation of a trend in which any sort of productivity gains that are coming into play from AI, like American workers are not benefiting from that. It's just corporate profit margins which are expanding. And so people can see the way the economy has become so incredibly slanted. Let's put the next piece up on the screen, which again goes to this same exact issue. You have a massive youth underemployment issue. Let me go ahead and get the specific numbers here. So you've got youth unemployment on pace to reach a 10 year high. Over 15% of 16 to 24 year olds are unemployed. And I saw another stat that some, I think it's 43% of college grads are underemployed, meaning you graduate and you're not working in the field that you study. You're not fully, you know, you're not working full time. You are underemployed based on your education and based on full time working hours. That is an absolute crisis. So, and again, you know, AI plays into a good piece of this and then I can put this last piece up on the screen. It's never a good sign when gold is smashing new records. You know, the markets did not crash yesterday after the whole fight with Jerome Powell and the criminal accusations against him in the way that frankly I would have anticip. I think in part because they saw the statements from Thom Tillison later in the day, Lisa Murkowski saying we're not going to be down for what the President wants to do here. But in any case, we've had gold prices which is the ultimate flight to safety even above and beyond at this point. U.S. treasuries, which people are increasingly nervous about. Gold smashing new record at $4,600. So we did get inflation numbers this morning that were fairly good. They came in a little bit lower than expected. So I do want to want to put that out there. But in terms of how people are feeling about their job prospects, their future, where things are going, it is very, very bad. And so I think the administration sees that they're trying to do something. But to your point, I mean you said too little too late. And I think that probably, yeah, you.
- [51:33]
A
Need a whole of government approach from the beginning that's concerted and it's serious. I mean, that's the major problem. And they're also schizophrenic. They're like, oh, well, well right now the S and P is up on the year, right? It's up by 2%, 1.4% or whatever since January. It's like, okay, well as I've said many million times, the S and P was up like 60%. If you look overall by so what, who cares? It means nothing.
- [51:56]
B
Just like with foreign policy, he wants those mission accomplishments on economics as well. And that's just not the way that this works.
- [52:02]
A
That's not how it works.
- [52:02]
B
Yeah, remember he had previously said in his beset and everybody was running around talking about, oh, everybody's going to get this $2,000 dividend from the tariffs, blah, blah, blah. Trump got asked about it recently and was like, I don't know what you're talking about. He's like, I don't remember saying that. It's like, I mean, the attention span of a goldfish. So will he have the stick to itness to like work with Elizabeth Warren and do some bipartisan thing to actually cap credit card interest rates? Like maybe, I don't know, maybe. Or maybe they just take it and run with it and it's something that he doesn't really have to put his hands on and it makes its way through. But yet, yeah, long term thinking and sticking to really paying attention to the details is not really the thing that he's been about in the past.
- [52:45]
A
Not yet. And that's why it'd be fair to criticize. I hope to see it. I do. At the very least, who knows, get some rider in a bill, get a couple votes. Who knows which way 2026 will go in the Senate. Right? We're gonna talk about that just here in a second.
- [52:59]
B
It could happen.
- [53:00]
A
It definitely could happen.
- [53:03]
B
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All of that available@meaningfulbeauty.com hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this new year. Don't forget about the little ones in the family. Now through January 27th. Shop in store and online and save $10 when you buy two or more of your favorite baby care items. Shop for items like Happy Baby Formula, Pampers Pure Diapers, Pampers Baby Wipes, Pampers Swaddler's Diapers, Pampers Cruisers Diapers and Similac Powder formulas and save $10 when you buy two participating products. Offer ends January 27th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
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B
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Visit amica.com and get a quote today. All right, let's get to influencers.
- [55:07]
B
Yeah, so this is a wild story. A lot of this has been reported out before but the Wall street first of all, it's the Wall Street Journal. So you know, just a premature of such a prestige brand matters and also it puts together a lot of pieces. Let's go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. And I do want to give them their flowers for reporting this out because I think this is a incredibly important as people who care a lot about the media care a lot about the integrity of the media and that whole landscape. This is an absolute cancer. Wall Street Journal says Washington's new lobbyist paid online influencers with few rules. They go on to detail a variety of right wing influencers who are taking money from a variety of interests, some of them just directly from foreign government in order to push either the corporate or that government's line. So let me read you the opening sort of graphs here to give you the anecdote. They start with last summer Donald Trump's 28 year old former campaign aide, Alex Borusowitz had some new advice for the president. Reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. Sagar. Nearly 70% of Republican voters support Trump on this. No brainer, he said to more than 640,000 followers on Apple. What Brucewicz left out of that post, a political action committee funded by legal marijuana's biggest players had just paid him $300,000. Goes on to say Trump's return to the White House has transformed the federal government and upended the business of lobbying, creating a new class of Washington operatives that blur the lines between consulting, advocacy and journalism. So when the first Trump administration, the understanding was basically if you wanted to get the message to the president, you go on Fox News. Right. That's if you can't get like directly in face to face and sometimes even if you can get directly face to face that he would listen more attentively to things he saw in televised format than in a direct meeting.
- [57:02]
A
There's still some truth to that.
- [57:03]
B
And there is still truth to that. Yeah, I think more so. And you can tell me if this is your impression as well with the people who are in the Trump administration who are so incredibly online that they are very susceptible to messaging from a variety of influencers and seeing like what goes viral on X.
- [57:22]
A
Yes.
- [57:22]
B
And then when they see that, they take that and run with it and put it to the hey, look, this is really super popular. Let's do it. So there is a whole industry that has sprung up around paying these influencers and they do not disclose where the money comes from. I mean, I have an issue with the money to start with. With. But then it's not in like, there is no indication that this is a paid advertisement, that this content is anything other than this creator's own brilliant independent ideas. And it's incredibly, incredibly corrosive. It's dystopian. And there has to be at some point, I know it's not gonna happen under this administrator. There has to be a crackdown on this.
- [58:00]
A
But there already is a law like Fara. It exists. You have to register. It's just that nobody complies with the law. And we have a screenshot of some of these. We can go through them. Let's put them up here on the screen just to show you here, they highlighted one Rob Smith, a veteran gay pro Trump commentator. Instagram, a photo beaming next to Serena Williams. Quote, tbh. I had zero clue Doha was such a cultural hub. He wrote in the caption. Yeah, as Someone who used to live in Doha. It's not a cultural hub.
- [58:29]
B
After they paid him to go on this very glamorous trip and be wined and dined. Oh my God. Doha's so amazing.
- [58:37]
A
I'm sure it's amazing. Yeah. Ask some of the laborers there how much of a cultural hub it is for them. Let's go to the next one, shall we? Here they say Sinclair, who is 29, received $67,500 from the Maha Pack to host videos about issues of interest to the RFK Jr. Organization's financial disclosures. Quote, creators have the attention right now. In 2026, I believe attention is going to be the currency of power. Let's go to the next one, shall we? Influencer Deborah Lee launched to Internet fame after a video here's the other thing. I know I'm old. I literally don't even know who any of these people are. She is at various times acted as advisor to government officials, including to Mike Johnson questioning administration officials at the White House briefing, and been paid to promote everything from the solar industry to the prediction market. Kalshee She's a frequent Fox News commentator and has appeared there as a brand voice for Parler social media sites.
- [59:31]
B
I believe this is the lady who said she has so many different of these deals that it's just hard for her to even keep up with them. Hard for her to even keep track of all of the special interests that are paying her for her opinion.
- [59:44]
A
I'm in the wrong business, man. All right, let's go to the next one, shall we? After billionaire Jared Isaacson saw the administration blew up, he hosted independent MAGA commentators like Benny Johnson and Nick Sorter at his private Montana hangar where he keeps a fleet of fighter jets. And while his allies pushed for him to be nominated, he gave them rides in the jet and a tour of his private Star wars themed cantina bar that overlooks the plains. Quote, it was one of the best days of my life, the influencer said in a video he posted online. And then others then advocated for his re nomination. This one is a little bit more of just classic wining and dining, although who knows if money did change hands. But this is exactly what you're saying. Like if you have normal social media influencers which are out there right now, you generally because the ftc, after they crack down under the Biden administration, they have to put the hashtag ad whenever they're promoting a product. I do think that there should be the same standard, even just ethics. I mean, as people know, sometimes it's embarrassing. But if I know somebody who recovering, I just say it. Because it would be 10 times worse if later on, you know, the appearance of like trying to neutrally analyze somebody and then there's a photo or something that came out. You have to just be upfront about it, be like, yeah, listen, full disclosure, know this person. Right, Right. Known him for X amount of years. Again, it's embarrassing sometimes. Sometimes it's not a great look or whatever, but sometimes, you know, I go to a dinner or whatever. Like, you meet this person and you're just like, look, you know, again, I know who this person is. And it's not usually to your benefit necessarily, but in the long run, you have to be able to let people make up their minds for yourselves and couch your analysis. If you do know someone personally, and that's just like knowing someone, this is being paid. And I don't know, but I mean, the danger of what I have come to this general conclusion as of recently is the public actually doesn't care. Care. And that is deeply disconcerting because I actually believed for a long time, not only just disclosure, but in general trying to be nuanced or independent or like free thinking or any of that would be rewarded both by the marketplace and in the long run. But look at the most popular people today and the people making generational wealth off of what we do here, literally getting paid people openly, just like propaganda, lying. Many of them are genuinely retarded. And it's like, nobody cares. They're getting rewarded for it. I talked about this. What was it? I forget which scandal which it was. And I was like, you know, why bother checking the facts? It's actually to your benefit when you don't. It's like, these people are 10 times more popular, 10 times more, more rewarded, literally ascending to the heights of power. Some of them don't know the word benevolent. Okay, I'm like, okay, I don't know. Why read a fucking book?
- [62:41]
B
And the whole country is like dancing to his zone right now.
- [62:44]
A
Why read a book? I'm serious. At this point, what is even the point in this endeavor when it is very clear we're covering an NFL story, hopefully on Thursday, to this regard where everyone's praising this lady for going to a press conference and just being like, oh, coach, you're so amazing. And the public is on this lady side and the journalists who are like, hey, you're supposed to ask a question, are apparently the villains. I never thought I'd be defending a bunch of establishment journalists or something, but I'm like, this is where the country's headed. People don't care.
- [63:18]
B
What I would say is that we do just fine here.
- [63:21]
A
Yeah, sure.
- [63:22]
B
We earn a good living and we get to sleep at night. So I appreciate that. And you do see some of these, like, the people who just go all in on the partisan propaganda, which in order to get these deals and make sure you're still on the good side of the Trump administration, you cannot deviate from them. You've gotta be on message 100% of the time. And it does have a shelf life. Right. We've seen people flame out before. I also point to. Kyle was telling me about this yesterday. Bill Burr had really built this brand around, like, his credibility and his willingness to call out powerful forces and whatever. When he took that Saudi money, his. He has had a massive fallout, really. So for months, apparently, his comment section is filled with people who are just still disgusted with him.
- [64:11]
A
Really.
- [64:11]
B
His views have completely tanked. And it's, you know, I mean, when's the last time we saw a Bill Burr?
- [64:17]
A
Yeah, it's been a while clip in.
- [64:18]
B
A while that we were like, oh, that's interesting. Let's play it on the show. So, yeah, that really sort of nuked him. And I think the thing for him is that he really did hold himself out as having the sort of values that you and I tried to uphold here. And then when he did something that was so at odds against that in the perception of his audience, they were like, okay, we don't trust you anymore. I mean, I guess the difference is that these people really never held themselves down as the beacon of integrity, so they can just cash in and no.
- [64:47]
A
One cares when people don't even pretend and just openly are like, yep, like, this is what I do. They are dramatically rewarded for it. And it's like, not just. And the thing is, it's one thing to be worshiped by elements of power. People in power always love people who are willing to be propagandistic. But what happened to the people who supposedly. I mean, look, I've read a lot. Maybe, you know, the yellow journalism era is starting to make a lot more sense whenever I think back to it. But, you know, there was some general expectation, I thought, at least, you know, now currently, because what was the. Why did the mainstream media's credibility fall apart? Like, you know, Iraq. Lying.
- [65:29]
B
Yeah. And because they were seen as, like, partisan.
- [65:32]
A
Partisan outlets. Right. You know, openly ignoring certain sets of facts which are inconvenient to a narrative. Picking and choosing, obviously ideological and yet you see the worst in my opinion, the worst of them be recreated and then actually become more popular and supposedly trusted. It's crazy.
- [65:53]
B
Yeah, well, the question is how long is that shovel? Because my personal opinion is that you're in sort of a transitional phase.
- [66:00]
A
Yes, this was all the time. My theory too.
- [66:02]
B
People are excited about the genuine promise and possibility of independent media in the way that we are as well and should be and haven't really caught up with that. It can actually go even worse than mainstream media because at least with this legacy media there are some still like journalistic norms and standards and processes in place and there's some arm's length distance between the host and the people who are selling the ads or whatever. That does not exist in independent media. It certainly doesn't exist in like, you know, random TikTok influencers or whatever. And so it will take a while for people to catch up to that reality, but they're going to catch up to that reality. That is my belief. We would be remiss. I think there was one more slide in that C2 slideshow. Well, I just, I know this is one that people will be definitely interested in. In September, a newly formed firm called Bridges Partners registered as a foreign agent for the government of Israel and disclosed plans for a $900,000 influencer program dubbed Esther Project Now Quincy Institute. Responsible Statecraft. What's their blog called?
- [67:01]
A
Responsible Statecraft.
- [67:02]
B
Yeah, Responsible State Cross. They were the ones that initially broke this story. So again, this isn't brand new news, but I think there's something hopeful here. Sagar, because Israel's paying big bucks to a whole suite of influencers. We don't know exactly who they are, which ones are getting their 7000 bucks per post or whatever, but we know they're out there for sure. And is it working? No, it's not working. You know, Israel's look in terms of the death and destruction they've been able to, you know, to continue to commit in Gaza and in the west bank and they're backing from the Trump administration that has been very successful. But in terms of public opinion, it's been a disaster. I mean they've completely lost Democrats, they've lost independents, they've lost young Republicans and that bleeding just continues. So in that way it is sort of hopeful because you do have this very concerted, very sophisticated propaganda effort, paid propaganda effort coming from the Israeli government and people are seeing right through it. So in that way I find that to be sort of encouraging that there are some antibodies against this stuff.
- [68:12]
A
Yeah. You can't buy your way out of all of it, but you apparently can buy away a decent amount.
- [68:17]
B
Yeah.
- [68:17]
A
And I think that's.
- [68:18]
B
If you're committing a live genocide on our feeds, you're probably not gonna be able to. $7,000 paid influencer.
- [68:24]
A
I have never believed. That's why the weed thing is a perfect example. Right. It's one of those. Nobody's really paying attention to it. It was, like, kind of a side issue. This is why, you know, you've had. I mean, I covered the whole weed story here. Even if you support it, like, the way that it all went down is that a literal weed CEO went to the office, the Oval Office, and convinced Trump on the spot to do this. Like, that's literally how it happened. Somebody who had a direct financial interest and called Mike Johnson and he put her on speakerphone. Trump literally put her on speakerphone and was like, why don't you explain to Mike Johnson why this is a good idea? That's insane. Okay? Like, that's completely insane. And that's. This is a person who stood to make billions of dollars as a result of this decision. Oh, and lo and behold, there was a massive pump in the stock price as. Oh, shocker. Right? And so this is why they pay Alex Brucewitz in some of, like, in these side areas, like Maha, or remember the whole Laura Loomer thing with Vinay Prasad where, you know, attack. It was over a drug. Like, it was over a drug which he held up because it was killing children.
- [69:19]
B
Children.
- [69:19]
A
You know, that was the reason why it didn't get. That was the reason why.
- [69:23]
B
Is that Alzheimer's drug?
- [69:24]
A
No, it was. It was some rare disease drug. Oh, that's why it was so crazy that. That's what it was about. It was one specific company who got held up, and then Rick Santorum and Laura Loomer and all these other people started getting involved because they're literally getting paid, or at least in Santorum's case, don't know about Loomer. There was some suspicion of that. But in Santorum's case, like, literally getting paid by the drug companies that. But that's actually where it's more pernicious because that's like actual pay to play, you know, political influence slash lobbying. And in a lot of these, like, more side areas, yes, you can't buy your way out of Israel. But all, you know, these little things, which are tens of millions of dollars to a single company, 300, 400,000 is nothing if a single regulatory decision. Poly market. Why do you think they're sponsoring all of these people? All of it came down to. To the CFTC and the sec, who is gonna regulate a single regulatory decision worth billions. Wouldn't you spend 10 million? You could spend 100 million. If you're gonna make billions of dollars, it'd be worth it off of a single thing. That's why they do it.
- [70:23]
B
Well, speaking of things that are very dark and depressing to me, you have Dan Bongino fresh out of the FBI, back to his podcast career. And I am actually shocked because I thought that even. And the MAGA base was like, this guy really screwed up and we don't trust him anymore. I don't know. Looks like they're right back, right back to trusting him, wanting to watch his content, whatever. Now that he's no longer in any sort of position of power, and now that he's not at the FBI, now he's just back in his podcast chair. Now he's gonna reveal all the secrets and expose all the people and do all the things. Let's go ahead and take a listen to C3 when I come back. If it's gonna be endless complaining, then.
- [71:04]
A
Just don't watch the show's. It's okay. Hey, like, this is a constitutional republic. You're not obligated to listen to my show. The thing about black pill is where everything sucks all the time.
- [71:12]
B
It's like, well, we're demanding accountability.
- [71:15]
A
Great, so am I.
- [71:16]
B
You're endlessly complaining about things you don't.
- [71:18]
A
Know, even don't know anything about. That's all you do. Like, he'll shut down the border. Ten people across the mother. Why wasn't it zero? Okay, well, can you just acknowledge going from a million to 10 is a big deal? There's a cost to that. You can't let this negative vibe constantly set in. That doesn't. That doesn't mean healthy debates about policy are not welcome. Debating policies are fine, but the black.
- [71:37]
B
Pill, complaining and whining all the time.
- [71:40]
A
At the administration, it's just like, man, what team are you on? You don't have to watch.
- [71:45]
B
It's okay. There's a door, you know, Go find the freaking exits.
- [71:48]
A
I don't really give a shit. I'm not here for anybody's money or anything like that.
- [71:52]
B
I'm too old for that shit. Not here for anybody's money. But the next one up on the screen, he says, it's been a busy year. So much to talk about when I return to the podcast live on rumble on February 2nd at 10am Eastern Time. So in any case, he is, you know, now that he's back in the podcast chair, he can do all the things that he had promised he would do when it was at FBI, apparently. And, you know, everyone can just stop complaining and taking the black pill and reminding him that he was part of the Epstein file.
- [72:20]
A
But that's kind of a good example of what I'm talking about. I mean, you have somebody here who literally was in a position of power, did literally nothing and is apparently going to be well received.
- [72:27]
B
Worse than not, he was part of a cover up.
- [72:28]
A
No, part of the Epstein which he purported. Like, imagine if I went into government after everything I've said about weed and gambling and then I was complicit in like legalizing weed and giving a license to. And then I came back here and I was like, by the way, it was my fault. I mean, come on. Like, you know, it's like it would.
- [72:46]
B
Be responsible for making it like the US treasury brought to you by Kalshi.
- [72:50]
A
Exactly. Kalshi. And I was like, actually fanduel, we're going to, you know, literally directly working behind the scenes or was part of a meeting to like legalize sports gambling in the entire nation and then came back and I was like, oh, and fuck you for black for complaining. Yeah, but that's my point. It's like there's no price. It's so crazy just to watch in real time, you know, hopefully, you know, karma and all that. But like, I don't know. I don't know. I just watch. I watch the popularity and all and. No, there's no. I mean, you have that whole story about, you know, people getting paid 100 grand a video or whatever. Nothing happens. Everybody just moves on. It's like the team sport thing. There's no standards. You know, the stuff we would rip the legacy media for. Literally rip them whenever they would do correctly. Right? Whenever we would see somebody do a shoddy job and then you do somebody just do one of the dumbest jobs in like modern political journalism. And it's like, oh, give them the Pulitzer Prize. It's crazy, right? Like, I think I'm. This is a therapy session for me. It is. I feel like I'm going nuts. You just see it all go, you know, 50, 25 million views, it's whatever. All right, let's go to 2020.
- [74:01]
B
Yeah. So this is interest. A significant potentially development. Let's put D1 up on the screen. The reason that this is worth flagging is because party identification was a major indicator in the Biden era that Republicans were really on the upswing. And so you can see for, you know, the there in 2024, as Trump's campaigning, you had Republican Party identify identification beating Democratic Party identification. That was really a new development. Now that trend has reversed and you've got Democratic party identification at 48%. Republican party identification has fallen to 40% significant swing year over year. You know, last year, so Q4 of 2024, it was that measure was R plus 4. Q4 of 2025, it was D plus 8. So that's a net 12 point swing towards Democrats. And kind of a remarkable thing to happen at a time when the Democratic Party is extremely unpopular, like reaching lows of popularity. And a lot of that is, of course Republicans hate the Democratic Party. But there's a lot of sense of fecklessness coming from Democratic Party leadership. But even as that brand is obviously incredibly tarnished and people are disgusted with the way that leadership has conducted themselves, you still have have people who are feeling like, okay, but I'd rather identify with them than what I see happening in Trump's America. And at the same time, you've got the House is almost lost already. I mean, it's such a narrow margin at this point that Mike Johnson, barely, barely by the skin of his teeth, holds onto a majority. Looks very much like Democrats are poised to take back the House in the midterm elections. But the Senate always seemed like a much bigger stretch. Now you have the Senate also coming into play. And so that's why this development is really significant. Put D2 up on the screen. So former Representative Mary Paltola of Alaska is jumping into the Alaska Senate race. I do not pretend to understand the politics of Alaska. I don't understand them at all. But I do know Mary Paltola is popular in Alaska. And I believe this is a congressional seat where you actually represent the whole state because it's relatively small population. So you are as a Congress member representing the entire state. We can put D4 up on the screen to show you some of the initial polling about this matchup between Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan. Who's the incumbent, has it? Peltola up a point, obviously within the margin of error here. This was from back in October, so we haven't had a new poll to update us on exactly where things stand. But this means that this Senate seat is actually in play. Let's go ahead and take a listen to D3 to get a sense of how Mary Peltola is Positioning herself. I'm Mary Peltola, and I'd like to share why I've made the decision to run for U.S. senate. I grew up on the Kuskokwim river, salmon fishing with my father. Buzzy and I raised our seven kids in Alaska and spent long summer days at fish camp. Life is difficult here, and we know that we have to take care of each other. D.C. people were shocked that I prioritized going back to Alaska in July to help put up fish for our family. But Alaskans understand it's not just that. Politicians in D.C. don't care that we're paying $17 a gallon for milk in rural Alaska. They don't even believe us. They're more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts. When they actually work together on something, it's usually to help themselves. Our delegation used to stand up to their party and put Alaska first. DC People will be pissed that I'm focusing on their self dealing and sharing what I've seen firsthand. They're going to complain that I'm proposing term limits, but it's time. Systemic change is the only way to bring down grocery costs, save our fish, lower energy prices, and build new housing Alaskans can afford. No one from the lower 48 is coming to save us. It's about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska first and really America first looks like. Alaska first. There you go.
- [78:17]
A
Okay. I actually didn't believe that they're paying $17 for a gallon of milk. That's insane. Is that when she's like, they won't believe us. I was like, I don't believe there's no. I mean, it's possible, I guess. That's crazy. That's actually insane.
- [78:29]
B
Yeah. So anyway, the Senate math is, as such, Democrats have to hold on to Georgia and Michigan are the two that are most sort of dicey for them to hold onto. If they're able to do that, then they have to win three more seats. The two most obvious places are North Carolina and Maine, where they have also a strong candidate in North Carolina, the former Governor Cooper. I can't remember his first name right now. Roy Cooper. Yeah, Roy Cooper. Who seems like. I mean, people like him. Statewide, it's a difficult year for Republicans, whatever. That one seems very much in reach. Then you have Maine, which is Susan Collins, who may. She's making an announcement. It's not entirely clear she's even running for reelection. My personal opinion, Maine is lost for the Republicans. But I thought that in the past as well I just think the partisanship at this point is gonna be very difficult to overcome. But any case, North Carolina and Maine are definitely both in reach for Democrats. Then you need one more. And that's where it was always like. Like, where else? You got Texas, I don't know about that. You got Nebraska, where you've got Dan Osborne, who's running as an independent but will probably caucus with Democrats. Although I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't know that he said that. But, you know, he would take out a Republican, so could be that. But that's very difficult to accomplish. You've got Iowa, which Iowa's been hit very hard by the Trump tariff policy. Their economy is, you know, they're very upset with a lot of the economic aspects. There's actually the Democratic gubernatorial candidate looks like he's got a really good shot. Is it possible? I don't know. Iowa's really pretty red at this point. So Alaska now appears to be their best hope for a third seat. And Ohio, I should throw in the mix as well, where Sherrod Brown is running.
- [80:09]
A
Yes, of course.
- [80:10]
B
And Sherrod Brown is the strongest candidate Democrats could possibly put forward. Again, Ohio, though, tough, tough state at this point, and he's already lost once. So in any case, you know, Alaska really sort of puts things more in play for Democrats to be able to take the Senate than previously. If Mary Peltola is able to pull that one off.
- [80:28]
A
Look, it's possible. Again, I don't know. She was able to. Remember, don't they still use ranked choice voting?
- [80:35]
B
They do.
- [80:35]
A
So that could throw, you know, things in the mix. If you have a couple, you know, who knows, the narrowing of the field and all of that, that. So it's theoretically possible. This is the same way that she was able to win. I would probably bet Ohio, Maine are, you know, much better pickups, potentially for them. But you got to remember, if this is 2010, and you were there too, Crystal, like, you were. You were literally running for office. There were people who were winning for Republicans who had no business winning, like, all over the country. And then two years prior to that, in 2008, in a Democratic way, you know, Obama won, like, North Carolina, like, you had.
- [81:10]
B
He won Indiana.
- [81:11]
A
Yeah, right, exactly. There were, if I recall, there was, like, a Democrat who won, like, some. Some place in Louisiana or something. Like, there were these crazy districts where you had. People had no business being in the House and even in the Senate, you know, at that time. So it could happen, you know, you could anything can happen in a crazy wave type of election. We've seen it time and time again. So this is why I wouldn't count out out necessarily. I mean, it would be a huge coup for the Democrats to be able to have control of both houses.
- [81:38]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [81:38]
A
I mean, it would basically shut down Washington as we know it as it is right now.
- [81:42]
B
I will just say those sort of like really unexpected things usually happen at the like the House level versus the Senate just because there's more attention paid to the statewide Senate candidates. But if you do have a large Democratic wave election, you know, I think now you can credibly say that the Senate is in play between. So if you assume they hold onto what they got and they pick up Maine and North Carolina, they need one more. And Ohio and Alaska both are not preposterous to imagine. One more thing. We wanted to update D5 here. Graham Platner has a new internal poll that he gave to Zatteo, has him up 15 points on Janet Mills, which is pretty wild. I mean, it's a sign of the times, right? This guy Kyle and I talked to him last week and he was saying again, like, guys, remember last summer is when I launched it, like no one had ever heard of me before last summer. And now I'm thrust into this spotlight and like the level of momentum and the things that are happening he can scarcely wrap his head around. And he's up according to his poll and according to other polls we've seen too, by double digits on the sitting governor of Maine who has the backing of the DSCC and Chuck Schumer and all of these sorts of people, which we talked to Chris Van Hollen about him being upset about that yesterday, too, in the interview that Ryan and I did with him. So it is going to be a very, very interesting year in terms of politics and we're going to get a lot of indications of where things are headed.
- [83:07]
A
Internal poll, you never know. Sometimes they're cope, you know, usually it has some methodology. Maine is a hard place to poll, but tracks public with the actual, like private, private ones that really matter. And in general, you know, I haven't seen any stuff to back up her campaign's legitimacy like crowds or enthusiasm. There's none of the other accoutrement that would, you know, show that you're actually running a winning campaign from her at least, except, I guess, Chuck Schumer, who I wouldn't even want their endorsement if I were running the Democratic primary today.
- [83:43]
B
Foreign.
- [83:57]
A
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- [86:03]
B
Guaranteed Human.