← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
1/22/26: SCOTUS To Defeat Trump On Fed, DOGE Election Fraud, FanDuel Lies, MN Family Teargassed
00:59:15
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A
This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.
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Hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.
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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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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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So if that is something that's important to you, Please go to BreakingPoints.com, 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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We're we need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com.
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A
So we had some significant oral arguments at the Supreme Court over whether or not Trump can fire Lisa Cook, who is on the Fed Board of Governors. We can put actually this tear sheet up on the screen which explains some of the backstory here. So it says the Supreme Court appears likely to allow Lisa Cook to remain on the Fed board. The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared likely to block President Trump from immediately firing Democratic appointments Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board, a move that would prevent Trump from exerting greater influence over the powerful central bank that guides the economy. Nearly all of the justices asked skeptical questions of Solicitor General D. John Sauer during roughly two hours of arguments taking issue with most aspects of the government's case that the president had met the legal bar to remove Cook while a lawsuit challenging her removal plays out. Such agreement, they go on to say, is rare on high profile cases at the deeply polarized court. You guys may remember the backstory here. So the Trump administration was alleging there was some like mortgage application issue where she checked the wrong box and said a secondary home was really the primary residence. Apparently on other documents, it had been accurately portrayed as the secondary residence. This is a tactic they've used against multiple of their political adversaries. And they said that because they found this issue with this mortgage application and that gave them cause to be able to fire her because due to, you know, the way Congress set up the Fed, it says you have to have cause and provide notice before you fire any of the members of the board. In any case, let's go ahead and play a little bit of Justice Kavanaugh sounding very skeptical about what if they allowed this to go forward, what this would mean for future administrations and their use of a similar power if this.
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C
Were set as a precedent. It seems to me just thinking big picture, what goes around comes around. All the current president's appointees would likely.
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A
Be removed for cause on January 20.
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B
2029, if there's a Democratic president or January 20, 2033.
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C
And then we're really at, at will removal.
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A
So there you go. He says, hey, if we let you do this, you know, the Democrats, when they get elected, they're just gonna do the same thing. Which is kind of like a bit of a mask off, very revealing moment of like, you know, he's not so much concerned about Trump doing it. It's like, yeah, but, yeah, let's say we have President aoc. We can't let that happen.
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B
It's a hypothetical. Look, I think it'd be a good thing. I mean, I. Look, I will put it to you this way. Obviously the mortgage thing is ridiculous. Obviously the Jerome Powell thing is literally made up about renovations and all that. I mean, this is always my difficulty with Trump is, you know, the actions can be insane, but like the spirit of it, because people treat the Fed as if it's some like sanctified church which is untouched. It's like, no, that's not what it is. The board set up by Congress in the 1900s explicitly to remove the democratic power of the American people, to have influence over our money supply of our banking system, and has since morphed into this completely undemocratic institution which is wholly working on behalf of American banks. That's quite literally their job. And second, the global financial system, especially at a time when our personal interests, your and mine, are diametrically opposed to the global elite, and especially people like Jamie Dimon, who the Fed works on behalf of. We talked a lot about this when the interest rates went up. I mean, they literally have the, you know, the so called dual mandate about inflation and about unemployment. Well, their only tools that they have, which again we just decided to give them for no reason whatsoever, is to just be able to come, oh, we're going to raise the interest rates no matter the cost, and we're going to deliberately try to crush the economy. And I think a lot of this is goes back to Jimmy Carter. And there's this idea in the American elite that Carter is like this noble St. Francis for appointing Volcker and for destroying not only his presidency, but the American economy with 19%. I'm like, yeah, he's a noble saint for immiserating the population for like three to four years. My opinion, there was probably a better way about. Again, you know, I'm just an undergraduate or whatever. I'm not a PhD and I know all the PhDs completely disagree with me on that front. But like, I just firmly believe, like, democracy should have enormous power over how their economies are governed. It's fundamentally an undemocratic institution.
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A
Yes, there's no doubt about it.
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D
It.
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A
And yet, of course, Trump is not trying to like, return democratic balance to the situation. He wants it cuz he wants to have the power to do with it what he wants, what he finds to be politically beneficial and also will effectively reward his cronies. Professor Zhang, who probably a lot of you guys watch on YouTube, talks about how he sees this as a class conflict between different factions of oligarchs. On the one hand, you have the Wall Streeters who are the ones who are favored by the Fed currently and have control over the Fed currently versus the Silicon Valley oligarchs who Trump represents. So in that spirit, it's not like any of us are really going to be regardless of what happens here, it's not like our interests are truly going to be front and center in terms of what is done at the Fed three years.
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B
But then like you just said, if somebody else comes into power, they're like, hey, I'm gonna use it. Got another tool in my toolbox. Good. I think these are good things.
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A
So the other thing that's interesting to me with the Supreme Court is, I mean, number one, they have. The lower courts have checked Trump in various ways at various times, right? We saw pushback on the immigration tactics in Chicago. We actually just had a ruling that went at the appeals court level that overturned a decision that had gone against Trump in Minneapolis or at least put that on hold. But the lower courts, there have been some times when they have checked Trump's power. The Supreme Court has overwhelmingly sided with him. Overwhelmingly and oftentimes on the quote, unquote, shadow docket where they don't have to have a full decision that truly sets precedent. So that future, to Kavanaugh's points, Democratic presidents might avail themselves of those same powers. They just say, you know, for now, Trump can go ahead and do what he wants to do. They are coming to a rubber meets the road issue here with regard to tariffs. And we have been tracking this for a while where they're supposed to put on. Everyone's expecting them to put on a decision. Most legal analysts look at this and say that there's no way that Trump actually has the power that he has used with regard to tariffs. And they have just kept pushing this further and further down the road. Furthermore, with regard to this issue of these sort of Independent agencies which were created by Congress and meant to be protected and insular from political influence, whether you agree or support that or not. That's the way Congress set up the Fed. It's the way Congress set up CFPB and some other agencies as well. They have ruled on the side of Trump having executive power over those things. And so it is interesting that when it comes to the money, when it comes to Wall street, that is where they look like they're set to draw the line and where they may actually check him in a meaningful way when they have, have not done that, really. It's, I mean, you might say on the see, cot thing sort of, kind of. But in general, they have let him do whatever he wants. So I do think it's noteworthy that, like, this is the place where they jump out.
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B
Yeah, it's going to be Fed seekot and tariffs. I mean, again, that's an assumption I still don't really. No, yeah, I would, I would think perhaps one reason the tariff decision is taking so long is, remember, they write these in real time. And it's very likely because apparently, again, this is from my friends who have covered the court is there's often delays when you're doing, like the concurrences and writing the opinions. And then sometimes people will write like separate, or they'll concur in part and then they'll write a different one. Because this is such an important case for presidential power, which is probably gonna be taught, like, forever in law schools. Apparently. That's one reason which could be the delay. Again, I don't know. I still think that this stuff takes way too, like, insanely long, especially whenever it comes to an economic question like tariffs. Like, it's been a year. Like, people have been paying their billions of dollars on people in tariff. And then think about this. If they ruled unconstitutional, do we all get a refund? Who gets a refund?
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A
You know, to me, I, I think that potentially there could be a more sort of cowardly, I guess I would say, rationale here, which is that in the meantime, Trump gets to do what he wants. Like, you know, the height of tariff mania after Liberation Day has passed, now he's still using tariffs and the threat of tariffs in all sorts of crazy ways. We saw this with like, you know, the Greenland situation, and the more that they drag out that decision, the more, the more he just gets to do what he wants. I think they're genuinely, you know, I think they're afraid of Trump. I think they, many of them actually support his theory of like this massively powerful unitary executive. I think they obviously, many of them support him more or less ideologically. And so in a situation like this where, again, most legal analysts will tell you it's pretty clear cut that he did not have the power to do all the things that they do, they know that they don't want to completely destroy their credibility by putting on a ruling that's just idiotic and ahistorical in terms of previous case law. But they also don't really want to get crosswise with Trump. So to me, I mean, I think the court is very political, not just this court. I think the court has always been very political. Perhaps it has become even more partisan and even more political. And so I read into this delay basically that they want to forestall as long as possible having to have that reckoning with Trump on something that is truly central to the way he views the world, the tools and the power that he brings to bear. I mean, it's relevant to the conversation we just had with Mearsheimer, how we throw our weight around in the world even more so economically than we do militarily.
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B
You may be right. One thing I had to flag here, because this is so crazy. Let's put this up here on the screen. I spotted it in the financial press, but Scott Besant says that the Deutsche bank chief had to distance the bank from a research note on US Assets. So basically what happened is that a Deutsche bank analyst published a report in which he had said that US Assets and the dollar may be under threat. Well, eventually, when it ended up happening. And is that Bessen apparently either called or pressured the Deutsche Bank CEO to distance himself from this analyst report that suggested European investors could sell US Assets in response to a trade threat. He specifically said this notions that Europeans could be selling US Assets came from a single analyst, Deutsche bank, of course, a fake news media outlet led by the Financial Times, amplified it. And the CEO had to call to say that Deutsche bank does not stand by that analyst. The note, which was written by their chief forex strategist, had said that Europe held nearly 8 trillion of U.S. bonds and equities, making it its largest creditor, and underlined Washington's reliance on foreign capital. And so while he did not predict a sell off, he had warned that intensifying geopolitical strains could prompt European investors to reduce dollar exposure. That then led to this crisis where the US treasury secretary notices this in a Financial Times article and either called or pressured the bank to move away from the analyst report. So just to combine the two, just to show people about the preeminence of the dollar, the Fed, and why, you know, we always try to cover Fed news here, even though I know it's boring. And usually it's just like CNBC and Bloomberg and all those people who really pay attention. But I think the core theme that we've tried to hammer home here is, like, this has a lot of effect on your life. If your mortgage rates, credit card, you know, all kinds of interest rate, car loans, things that govern your literal financial existence ultimately are decided by this, you know, board of Gods here in Washington. And, like, it matters a lot. And that's why I always try to encourage people to pay more attention.
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A
The best thing is very important because sometimes this administration really does show their cards about what they actually do care about and actually are sensitive to. One time was when Trump flipped off that guy for calling him a pedophile protector. That was. That was a tell. This is another tell. Right, and the Taco Greenland is a tell.
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E
Yes.
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Like, this is the markets. What especially the bond markets are doing is very, very important to them. And, you know, so this is showing a little bit of weakness here, to be honest with you. I think it would have been better if they just, you know, pretended like it didn't bother them whatsoever, because you're basically broadcasting to the world. Like, this is something that we're worried about. This is an actual power that you do have with us that we are concerned about and that we have our eye on. So it's very interesting and revealing in that way.
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B
Absolutely.
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All right. There was another moment in Trump's World Economic Forum Davos speech that didn't get quite as much attention, but I think it was. He actually wanted it to. And it just, you know, with all the Greenland stuff, it didn't really get picked up, but where he threatens prosecutions against supposed people who were involved in, quote, unquote, rigging the 2020 election. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this.
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D
It's a war that should have never started, and it wouldn't have started if the 2020 US presidential election weren't rigged. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. It's probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. Can't have rigged elections. You need strong borders, strong elections, and ideally, a good press. I always say it. Strong borders, strong elections, free, fair elections, and a fair media. The media is terrible. It's very crooked. It's Very biased, terrible. But someday it'll straighten out because it's losing all credibility. Think of it. When I went in a landslide, a giant landslide, won all seven swing states, won the popular vote, won everything. And they only get negative press. That means that it has no credibility. And if they're going to get credibility, they're going to have to be fair. So you need a fair press, but you also need those other elements.
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A
Lest you thought that perhaps he had moved on from his election delusions and this didn't have to be something we think about anymore. No, no, no. The president still very much has this on his mind. There was another moment where he got asked about whether or not they had learned anything from Maduro about this supposed Venezuelan election voting machine fraud, rigging situation. Gave an interesting response there as well. Let's take a listen to that. And you spoke earlier about the 2020 election.
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Now that Maduro. Maduro is in US custody and he.
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Was criminally charged, has any more information.
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Emerged that you could share with us regarding Venezuelan election software and Venezuelan ties to tampering with the 2020 election? And would you consider speaking to Maduro personally in prison in New York to get some answers on Venezuela's involvement with the 2020 election?
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D
No, I don't think I would be doing that. I think my lawyers would be very unhappy if I did. Yeah, they've learned some things.
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Even Trump is like, what are you talking?
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But then he goes, no, they've learned some things. You know what? I don't. The question is obviously insane, but there is a non insane version of it, because one thing that has been actively floated and including by someone in Trump's doj, is that maybe there's a deal to be made with Maduro and he can turn over, reveal the truth. About the rigged Venezuelan dominions. Yes, about the rigged Venezuelan dominions in the 2020 election. And then he could plead a lesser charges and then he and his wife can go home. I don't put that out of the realm of possibility. So I appreciate actually this completely bonkers question getting asked.
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B
If that's the deal, honestly, send him home. All right. That's a good thing, right? Let's get it. Let's get him back and let's just move this nightmare on with it. No, in all seriousness, by the way, that was Lindell TV's.
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A
Oh, is that.
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B
Yeah, I've been watched my old colleagues in the briefing room with some interest of how this has all been going down. Every single one week she gets one and it's something along something about. She was the first auto pen question, by the way, when I was there, if I recall, whenever I went there, like last year, I feel like I've.
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A
Seen this lady before. Was she someone else?
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B
I know I don't know her career back in the day, but, you know, it's.
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I haven't followed her lore.
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B
Have not followed. Yeah, maybe I should.
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D
Maybe I should.
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B
There's certainly a burgeoning star, but that is definitely part of the Lindell tv. What is it, the Lindell TV scope here? I actually don't think it is as crazy as you said because a sizable part of Stop the Steal is entirely based on Venezuela. And so now that Maduro is here, it would actually track like you're seeing there, you know, people taking it seriously of supposedly trying to investigate this. And what we have seen with the DOJ is that they are willing to go along with many of Trump's fantasies with anything. Right. So comey Lisa Cook. I'm trying to think there's multiple here in Virginia. They had multiple cases that they had to drop, but they're continuing to pursue them.
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A
Letitia James.
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B
Letitia James, Eastern District of. Yeah, right. In the Eastern district of Virginia. So they've had multiple of these types of cases. And obviously, you know, he wants to be vindicated on the 2020 election. And so this is not something that's going to go away. I mean, they had the whole Tina Peters thing, which continues to be like a thing here in Washington. They're continuing to look at ways to like get her out of prison. So, no, I don't think it's actually all that crazy that something could potentially happen at the same time. Let's remember, remember Tulsi Gabbard went to the White House podium and was like, we have unveiled like one of the biggest political scandals in history.
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C
Okay.
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B
All right. Okay. Where's the prosecutor? Right? What happened?
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C
Nothing.
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B
All right.
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A
And this is where maybe Dan Bongino, now that he's out of FBI and Honest Podcast, can reveal it.
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B
That is the part too where for the MAGA folks like, you guys have to have some self respect here. Like you can't because they amplify this. They're like, my God. Bombshell, Tulsi Gabbard, Obama, all of the treason. Remember they asked him about treason.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
Which by the way, what's funny is that wouldn't Obama be immune under the official taxes which the Supreme Court ruled absolute immunity, absolute and total immunity for the president. Okay. But you know, it's like they just forget about these things, like three weeks later, as if it didn't happen. And I don't know, I'm like, obviously I hope this is like the case of just like bullshitting or whatever, but you can't. You have to take it serious.
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A
Well, here's why you have. Here's another reason why you have to take it seriously. Let's put D3 up on the screen. So the Trump administration has now been forced in court filings to admit that the DOGE team took Social Security data and was giving it to one of these like stop the steal organizations looking for, quote, unquote, voter fraud. So let me read you this. Two members of Elon Musk DOGE team working at the Social Security Administration were secretly in touch with an advocacy group seeking to overturn election results in certain states. And one signed an agreement that may have involved using Social Security data to match state voter roles, The Justice Department revealed in newly disclosed court papers. Elizabeth Shapiro, top Justice Department official, said Social Security Administration referred both DOGE employees for potential violations of the Hatch act, which bars government employees from using their official positions for political purposes. Shapiro's previously unreported disclosure, dated Friday, came as part of a list of corrections to testimony by top Social Security Administration officials during last year's legal battles over doge's access to Social Security data. They revealed that DOGE team members shared data on unapproved third party servers may have accessed private information that had been ruled off limits by a court at the time. Shapiro said the case of the two DOGE team members appeared to undermine a previous assertion by SSA that Doge's work was intended to detect fraud, waste and abuse in Social Security and modernize the agency's technology. So basically, previous SSA officials were either lying or didn't know what these DOGE people were doing underneath of their noses. This has now been discovered. And they probably were fearful that the court was going to catch them in this lie, so they had to come out with this information which says, you know how we told you that they were not accessing sensitive information, that they certainly weren't sharing it with third parties, that they weren't using unapproved, unsecured channels to share that information? Yeah, that was all completely wrong. In fact, these guys went in and did all of that. And so again, lest you think that the fixation on 2020 has ended, here they are directly working with one of these quote, unquote advocacy groups to try to overturn election results. Gee, I wonder which elections using your sensitive Social Security information that is being held by the federal government.
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B
Yeah, it's a disaster. I mean, there's no other way around. And this is always a problem with doge. And look with this one, it's. Their details are still a bit weird because they're saying that they're not sure what information or whatever was shared. It doesn't really matter because even being in touch with the organization is the violation here of the Hatch act. And it does trace back. I think that this is more of the tip of the iceberg, personally, and that this is that. I mean, I've said, you know, if you're, if you're a DOGE member, you better hope Elon's going to be paying your legal bills. Because when these Democrats come into power in 2026, can you imagine, like what the subpoenas and all of that will eventually show as a result of just those chaotic first couple of days? Well, not only that, and this was the concern.
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A
Yeah, and not only that, the Trump administration is throwing them under the bus. I mean, happy to be like, oh, these guys were doing some crazy stuff. We didn't have any idea about it in the context of this court. So they're not. Your pardon is not coming from Trump. You're not getting a pardon from Trump. He doesn't give a shit about you. He's throwing you under the bus. Whatever crimes you committed, that's gonna be on you. And yeah, so now it's coming out through this particular court process. But you're right, if Democrats are back in charge, even, you know, I mean, they probably gonna get the House back, possibly the Senate, Very likely they win the White House next time around. Any Democrat worth their salt will do a deep dive investigation into all the shit that went down during Doge, because they were going wild. Who knows what else was done in the context of those early months of Doge.
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B
Yeah, I think the Oversight Committee, I mean, look, the presidency, who knows, three years away, but House in a year, that's definitely something that's very open as a question. I have long thought that the. I don't think Washington is ready for what the House Oversight Committee, cuz it has subpoena power, don't forget. And we'll definitely get some sort of executive showdowns over that. But you cannot keep the House away forever. You're also going to have to have people who are going to be testifying under oath. You can call them to come and testify no matter what. Even when you do cite executive privilege, as we all saw during Russiagate, you know, last time around in 2017. So there are still some serious, serious problems that this administration, it's really not the top level officials, they're all rich, it doesn't matter. But it's the Doge employees, you know, Elon's assistants, other people who may have been privy to meetings. Then you always have questions and other things. You could hold up funding if you don't get certain things that come your way. So things are about to change, I think pretty significantly if the midterms go the way that we expect. Okay, we've got author Danny Funt standing by. He's going to talk about sports gambling. Let's get to it. We're very excited now to be joined by Danny Funt. He's the author of a new book, let's put it up here on the screen. Everybody Loses the Tumultuous Rise of American Sports Gambling. Topic near and dear to my heart, Danny. And it already seems from some of the excerpts that have been released that it backs up much of the reporting out there about the exploitative way that these companies run, how they're able to limit winners, how they are able to dramatically exploit some of the losers, the so called whales, how they manage their internal risk, their own PR strategy. So why don't you give the audience a little bit of a taste here of some of the revelations that you found while you're reporting out this book.
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C
Yeah. Even though, as you were saying, some of the predatory tactics the industry uses have been covered, I think there are certain details I was able to find that'll blow people away, particularly things that people within the industry admitted saying, you know, their advertising is untruthful, they're suggesting that you can win, but you can't. That was from the former CEO of FanDuel. Another high up at FanDuel told me that the way that parlays just annihilate customers reminded him of when he was a military contractor helping warships be more lethal. And he sort of had ambivalence about, you know, he wants to help FanDuel make money, but is destroying customers at that rate really the right thing to be doing? So a lot of revelations from all sorts of people around this field, but I'm particularly proud that so many people within the industry wanted to speak up for this book.
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A
So can you dig into that a little bit more for people who haven't followed it closely when, when you have the former what FanDuel CEO, you said saying, like people, we, we tell people they can win, but really you can't. What do they mean specifically by that? What do they do to engineer the outcome where over a long period of like, you are not going to win in any significant amount anyway.
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C
Right. So as much as the house always wins is such an axiom of the gambling business. There's something about sports betting where you think, I know my team or my league better than whoever's setting the odds, I can outsmart them. And the advertising from these companies totally reinforces that. It's so on the nose that they're saying betting on sports is a way to make money. Surveys of customers back that up. And yet it goes beyond the house edge. I remember speaking with someone who was an executive at a company that builds these micro bets. So nowadays you can not only bet on who's going to win or even prop bets like how many touchdowns will my favorite quarterback throw, but literally every play has become an opportunity for betting. Will this play result in a score or not? Things like that. And this guy who's a micro betting executive said, we recognize that fans are predisposed to think positive outcomes will happen, so you're going to hope your team scores more than you're going to hope they punt in a football game. And we're going to shade the odds, as they put it, so that those positive outcomes pay out less. And he sort of thought about it for a moment and said, we're kind of taxing the casuals with that shading. And I just thought, man, the leagues and even these sportsbooks have said betting is a way to enhance fandom. It just makes you more on the edge of your seat, you know, more locked into the game. At the same time, they're very explicitly taking advantage of your weaknesses as a fan just to drive up their margins. So that, you know, as basic as it is, was telling, I thought of just how this industry works and how ruthless they can be.
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B
Danny, some of the things that I have tried to hammer home specifically about this parlay bet is that many people have an antiquated notion about sports gambling, as if it's exactly the same as it used to be, let's say, whenever it was illegal. The truth is, is that these specific types of parlays, multi player bets, two touchdowns, combinations have never existed before and they are by far the most profitable engine for these gambling companies. You said that they remind people of a war executive, for example, of annihilating the enemy and the profits actually bear that out for these companies. Could you detail what you found specifically about these parlay bets, which are the most popular on all of these Platforms and how they work to specifically exploit many of these fans. Right.
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C
I'm glad you brought that up, because there's a lot of ways in which the industry will say there's always been illegal betting. We've just brought it out of the black market. Sure, there's some truth to that, but the online betting industry is a whole new ball game. Partly because just betting on your phone, 95% of this business is now conducted online. So online betting opens the doors to such more complexity with how you're betting. And the menu of things you can bet on has just exploded. Where there are thousands of things you can bet on within a single game. Parlays are now all some people bet on, especially young people. The idea that you can combine a bunch of things, if they all hit, you'll make a lot of money. You know, you might bet $10 for the chance at winning $300. You could understand how appealing that is. But 30% of bets are parlays, and about 60% of revenue comes from parlays. They tend to hold. For every $100 you bet, the house holds about $30 in revenue. The traditional margin for sports betting was like $5 for every 100 wagered. And what that same guy used to work at fanduel. His name is Nick Bonadio. So I'm happy a lot of guys put their names behind these quotes. Said customers have this assumption that I'll bet that $10 bet to win 300, and if I hit one of those bets, it's going to pay for all my losers. It doesn't work that way. The odds are so bad for those bets over time. It's why it's so profitable, he said. And I remember this quote he said, not to be condescending, but I think maybe 5% of customers understand that, understand that the odds are actually so bad that these are sucker bets, essentially. And yet, as I was saying, it's what it's sometimes exclusively how people now wager on sports.
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A
Let's talk a little bit more, too, about prop bets where you can, you know, not just bet on, like, the outcome of the game, but you can bet on how much one particular player is going to score in one particular quarter. I mean, with these very specific things. And of course, that makes it easier for those players and people who are involved in the league to get in on, you know, rigging those bets. So how widespread is this and how much does it undercut the legitimacy of the games that we're watching?
- [31:15]
C
Totally. I mean, you know, the most notorious Fixing scandal is the 1919 World Series. Eight members of the Chicago White Sox throwing baseball's championship. People say, you know, there would never be another White Black Sox scandal. That's true, but you'd never, you wouldn't need eight players now to collude to throw the World Series in order to make a lot of money. A single bench player, as we've seen, or even a more established player than that can influence one play through these prop bets and make a fortune for them or their friends. Emmanuel Clase, one of the top relief pitchers in baseball, was arrested at the end of last year allegedly for just intentionally throwing a couple of pitches as balls. He texted someone from the bullpen and said, heads up, I'm going to spike a slider to start this inning. And that was very profitable, allegedly for him and his partner in that. Again, it also relates to parlays because when you can stack those sorts of bets together, you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars on the most obscure bets. John J. Porter, a the most obscure player we could think of in the NBA, a two way bench player on the Toronto Raptors, was arrested and ultimately convicted for removing himself from a couple of games, pretending he had an injury so that those prop bets on his points and rebounds and assists and things like that would go under. That was, you know, something that people were betting hundreds of thousands of dollars to win on. And I hear bookmakers so upset about that, who've been at this for a long time because they would never have dreamed of letting you stand to win hundreds of thousands of bucks on a guy like Johnte Porter. They knew that was ripe for fixing. It was so corruptible. And yet because the online business is, you know, their biggest moneymaker is these parlays, they've rushed into offering as many ways of building parlays as possible and accepted that a price you might pay for that is the corruption of sports.
- [33:29]
B
Danny, can you talk about the media here? Because I think that actually might be one of the worst elements is I would be remiss to think of a single national sports personality who is not in league with the gambling gambling companies at a basic advertising level either. Direct partnership with DraftKings, FanDuel, Hard Rock, BET any of these points, bet any prize picks. If you pick even a cultural figure, a sports line figure, they are directly in league with the gambling companies. What do you think that that does for coverage of the sport? You, for example, had an excerpt from your book went quite viral about Bill Simmons over at the Ringer.
- [34:09]
C
Yeah, I'd love to get into that. But the first name that popped in my head was Bob Costas, who spoke with me and his father had a gambling problem, he told me. And so when he was calling baseball games and they wanted him to tout parlays or read sportsbook ads, he said, I just don't feel comfortable doing that. And they gave him a pass. The takeaway, I think is you need to be a 30 time Emmy winner, a legend of broadcasting, to be able to opt out of that. It's just become a fact of life for so many journalists. But at the same time, I don't want to let people like Bill Simmons off the hook because they've made millions and millions of dollars by hawking sportsbooks. Normalizing the idea that firing all these parlays and, you know, low odds prop bets is just the way to be a sports fan nowadays. The, you know, the influence of that on making this the default way of engaging with sports can't be understated. A consequence of it. Besides just, you know, giving the impression that this is a harmless, you know, no big deal way of being a fan now is it also handcuffs a lot of sports outlets that could be reporting on the dangers of betting, rising addiction, the risks of corruption. We were just talking about all of that. You'll be watching sports networks and feel like there's a conspicuous silence about that stuff. Even with Bill Simmons, as I wrote about in the book, this guy who is burnt a reputation as this defiant truth teller when John Day Porter was arrested or when other games that I know he cares a lot about were exposed to have fixing scandals. He's very, you know, kind of tongue tied and, you know, really watching his words in a way that he doesn't typically. And I think it's because FanDuel is one of his biggest sponsors and that's true of so much of the media. And just lastly, I'll quote a former ESPN reporter named Henry Abbott who said, when you think about all that sports media is really being bribed by all this advertising dollars. The bribe is we'll give you millions and millions of dollars and in exchange, don't say anything that would either embarrass these sports books or embarrass the leagues for partnering with them and profiting so handsomely from this betting explosion.
- [36:36]
A
Talk a little bit more about that human cost. You know, how is this, you're a fallible human being and you're up against this giant business that is spending as much money as it needs to to get you hooked, to trick you to make sure that you always lose. What is the cost that this has had for people?
- [36:57]
C
We're seeing addiction rates rise. The that the expectation for a long time had been that about 1 or maybe even 2% of the population is prone to a gambling problem. In states that have legalized that, health experts believe it's closer to 6 or 8%.
- [37:12]
A
Wow.
- [37:12]
C
Among young men who are the target demo, it's much higher. You know, as bad as that is. And I tell some really heartbreaking stories in the book of the most ordinary people who seem like they're smart and know about sports and wouldn't get themselves down that road. I also think that people can hear addiction stories and say, well, that doesn't apply to me. That's sad, but I don't have a gambling problem. And what we're seeing is such pervasive rates of problematic gambling, even if you don't have a clinically diagnosable problem. And what I mean by that is a third of gamblers saying they've felt ashamed after how much money they've lost, half of gamblers saying they've lost money and then bet and bet and bet to try to make up for it. What's called chasing losses. A telltale sign of a gambling problem. Half of sports bettors admit to that. You also see research that in a very scientific way has demonstrated that in states that have legalized sports betting, there are higher bankruptcy rates, worse credit scores, worse family savings. I hate to even bring this up, but higher rates of domestic violence compared to states that haven't legalized. So, you know, you might be thinking, I bet 50 bucks here, 100 bucks there. These products are engineered to get you to get carried away, to get you in over your heads. And you might look up and say, how did I lose thousands of bucks this season? That's what they are masterminds at, getting you to overdo it.
- [38:52]
B
And that's the last thing I really wanted to get you to expound on is something I've again tried to emphasize over and over, is that these companies literally could not operate if it was a level playing field. So if winners, people were good at betting, could actually bet, then they would not be able to operate. The only way to remain highly profitable is to limit the winners, the so called sharp bettors, and massively exploit the so called problem gamblers who make up the vast majority of their revenue. One thing actually, I'd love your reaction to can we put this E3 please up on the screen? I mean, we have an example here of how a company. In March 2024, PointsBet raised its share of online gambling revenue in New Jersey from 11% to 24% after wooing a single cash customer away from DraftKings. So that is. I mean, this is what is called a whale. And another thing that you detail in your book is how many of these so called whales, I would call them gambling addicts, which is money to lose, are showered with VIP hosts, phone calls, gifts. So could you just expound a little bit on that and how in many ways the so called best customers, AKA the addicts, are the ones who get all of these benefits supposedly while they throw away all their money. And then the people who are actually winning as they advertise that they can do get limited almost immediately when they join the platform.
- [40:09]
C
Yeah, it's so galling. You know, that single customer, I spent a lot of time trying to track down who they are because they've lost over $100 million. They're maybe the biggest loser of the legal online betting era.
- [40:19]
A
Wow.
- [40:20]
C
The closest I could get is that they have inherited oil wealth, but I don't know anything beyond that. But that side of the business, catering to VIPs, as they call it, people who lose at minimum tens of thousands of dollars on a weekly basis. I'd been covering this for years. I didn't even realize how huge that is. That about 2% of customers make up 60 or 70% of revenue. And those people, as a result, get pampered in the most extravagant ways imaginable. Particularly if you're a sports fan. Like getting to throw out the first pitch at a game, at a baseball game, getting to play pickup basketball on an NBA court, getting to have your kids take batting practice at a big league field, I could go on for a really long time. It's nuts. But it's also ruthless because as soon as you either pull back a little bit and say, hey, I'm getting carried away, let me chill out for a minute, or you start winning, all of those perks disappear. There was one VIP in Ohio who said, I love the Pittsburgh Steelers. They're coming to Cleveland Fanatics. Would you get me seats? He's a VIP at Fanatics. They said, absolutely, we got you. The game came around. He said, hey, could you throw in a parking pass? And they said, yeah, unfortunately, we've been seeing that you're. The way you've been betting on football no longer qualifies you to be a vip. We had to revoke those tickets. But if you go back to the way that you were betting when we gave you these VIP privileges, maybe we can think of a way to make this up to you down the road. But he hadn't broken any rules.
- [42:01]
B
He was just winning.
- [42:02]
C
He was just winning or even just placing smart bets. And that disqualified him in their eyes.
- [42:08]
A
Wow. Well, the book is Everybody Loses. Danny Funt, thank you so much. So great to have your insights and congratulations. I think it's such an important topic.
- [42:18]
B
Thank you, Danny. Appreciate it. We'll have a link down in the description. Everybody can go purchase the book.
- [42:22]
C
Thanks so much. Take care.
- [42:23]
A
Our pleasure. All right, guys, we have some bombshell news this morning. A whistleblower coming forward and saying that ICE is training their agents to disregard decades of precedent with regard to Fourth Amendment constitutional protections. Let's go ahead and put this up on the screen because this is incredibly significant and doesn't necessarily only apply to immigrants. So the headline here from the AP is immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, according to this memo that was revealed by a whistleblower. Let me read a little bit of this. Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant, making a sharp reversal of long standing guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches. The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities. And this dovetails with what has been reported on the ground in all of these cities where you've seen an influx, a surge of these federal agents, largely ICE agents, but others besides where they are entering people's homes. People are asking for a warrant. They are not providing one. And the difference between a judicial warrant and an administrative warrant is judicial one is the one where you have to go and present evidence and have a judge sign off on it. An administrative warrant is basically just like a piece of paper that an ICE agent can fill out in the field. So it has long been the case that if you are going to take such an extraordinary action as forcibly entering someone's domicile, that you had to have a judge sign off saying that, yes, this is reasonable, yes, there is sufficient evidence for you, agent of the state, to undertake this extraordinary action that has apparently been thrown out with this Trump administration in regards to immigration. And again, there is no limiting principle here that says that this guidance contained in this memo would only apply to immigrants. Now, the Way that they set it up is they say, well, we're only doing this in cases where there's a final order of removal. However, in a footnote, they acknowledge that that does not mean that they are limiting themselves exclusively to those immigrants who have a final order of removal from a judge. So they have opened the door to basically being able to raid anyone's house whenever they want to if they just have someone at ICE sign off on one of these administrative warrants. Again, really puts together some of the pieces of what immigrants and activists and advocates on the ground have been saying about the conduct of ICE agents and the way that it completely conflicts with Fourth Amendment protections and the way it completely conflicts with the way immigration operations have been conducted previously. So on that note of the incredibly aggressive and unconstitutional illegal actions that are being taken by ICE agents on the ground, we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Minneapolis parents who were tear gassed by ICE agents. And not just them, but their four children as well. Six month old baby in the car. They all had to go to the hospital. The baby stopped breathing. Terrifying situation. Their crime, they were on their way home from a basketball game and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So let's go ahead and get to our guests. All right, guys. So we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Sean and Destiny Jackson. They are the parents of those children. They were on their way home from a basketball game when they were tear gassed by ICE agents. First of all, guys, thank you so much for doing this. How are you guys doing and how are the kids doing?
- [46:27]
E
I'm doing, I mean, we're doing okay. We had our follow up appointment and stuff. And so we're having some long lasting effects of the effects of the tear gas. So I got like some inflammation in my chest and in my nose and stuff. So I'm like on a couple of medications right now just to clear that all up so that I can have my surgery that I have to have done next week.
- [46:50]
A
Oh, my God.
- [46:51]
E
But the kids are. They requested to go back to school, so I'm just. Because they didn't want to, you know, keep reliving what happened, especially with like us talking to news people and just, you know, having to do the story and stuff. So they're doing well.
- [47:07]
A
Sean, can you just take us through that day where you were, what you were doing and you know, kind of blow by blow, what happened here?
- [47:17]
F
Well, that day, it was like a normal day for us. We, we left work, picked up kids from school, headed to our oldest son. Basketball game, Basketball game finished. We went to the store to get something to eat. And from there, on the way home, we take our regular Ralph we do any other day. And on a route, we came up the hill and it was blocked off. And it was only like two, like, it was only like two ways we could go, but it was both. Both sides of the streets was the same. So it's like we always take a right at that corner anyway. So we took the right. The middle of that we got. I had to pull over to the side to let other cars come. And I did that now just started asking questions like what was going on and everything. And in the middle of that, we have seen my mother in law and she was like, we need to get mom home just cold and stuff. So I'm like, okay. So I was still asking questions and they was explaining to me what was going on. Like, what, somebody died? And they was like, no ice.
- [48:45]
E
So.
- [48:47]
F
Yeah, well, in the middle of that, it just, it was a lot. Yeah.
- [48:54]
A
So destiny, you all were asking people who were there what was going on. And you're trying. It's your mother that you're trying to pick up. She's out there in the cold, you're trying to get her in the vehicle. And then what happens in the process?
- [49:09]
E
I mean, that took a while. You know, people were like, oh, your kids were in a car by themselves, but they weren't in a car by themselves. You know, my mom actually was out. My aunt. My mom had. My auntie out there. My auntie is actually pregnant with twins. And so like, she like went and asked her, like, could you go and sit in the car with the kids while I try to gather her up, you know, and it took a while. My mom's. What I say is, my mom's hard headed. She's like another one of my kids. Like, and, you know, it was actually kind of like, you know, she was just trying to exercise her first opinion because, like, my mom actually lived in the neighborhood where Renee Good was, you know, killed. And so just five blocks away, my mom stays on Portland Avenue, like 29th. So it was like, you know, and so when I guess when she heard, like they were in our neighborhood, like, she was just like, oh, no, you know, like, so that was the reason she was out there. And in a mix of being out there trying to get her to go home, you know, like, you see me like you can. There's videos, like you see us like standing around and stuff like that, I'm like, But we were, we were trying to get her to go home. But like, you know, like in the mix of that, I was just trying to let her do what she does, but I was not going to leave without her, you know. And so like people like did like ask us questions while we were out there and stuff like that. And you know, like we asked questions while we were out there and stuff too. But you know, it took her about 40 minutes to budge before she was like, okay, I'm going to go. And that only happened because, like people with like yellow jackets started walking up and someone like she over overheard someone say, like, it's about to go down. And I'm like, what's about to go down? You know, and then they were like, when they come, that's when stuff starts happening. I looked at her and she's like, okay, I'll go, I'll go. And so that's when we all like started going to our cars and stuff like that. And the mix of going to our cars. We got in the car, we were starting to pull off and ICE started closing in. So they were coming up our exit route and they were also pushing people like from the protest behind us. So they were like, kind of like gathering them up and that's when they started throwing flashbangs here, gas.
- [51:15]
B
So one question I have here is about the government's narrative. Can we put that up there on the screen, please? In a since deleted tweet, they accuse you. They said, it is horrific to see radical agitators bring children to their violent riots. Please stop endangering your children. You're saying that, you know, you were on your way from a basketball game to pick up your mother and in the context of all of this kind of chaos that you were caught in the crossing bar. Go ahead, sir.
- [51:40]
E
Oh, he was just saying that he didn't see that. I have never seen that.
- [51:43]
B
Yeah, that is from the Department of Homeland Security from the United States government.
- [51:47]
E
And I've heard that since then they have deleted.
- [51:51]
B
Yes, we just wanted to make sure that we.
- [51:54]
E
Yeah, from. The only violence part was from them. Like no one. When we, like when I was, when we were out there, nothing was violently. Nothing violently was happening until they started doing what they are doing.
- [52:05]
B
Sir, did you have something you wanted to say?
- [52:07]
F
No, that's what I was going to say. Yeah, Nothing violent going on until ICE.
- [52:12]
E
And the agents started throwing tear gas and all that stuff. Like it was. And then like on top of that, like we didn't bring our children to the protest. I Don't even protest. Like, we've never protested before. You can. We weren't there to protest, for God's sakes. It was below zero outside and we had on sweaters. You think I would have came to a protest with just the sweater on? I didn't have a hat on, no gloves, no anything. There were people outside that were out there offering us stuff and we're like, we're not here for a long time, right? We're just trying to get my mom to go home. So, like, you know, say you can give that to somebody who's actually in need of it because we didn't need it.
- [52:49]
A
And I believe, was it your 6 month old who was most physically impacted? I mean, I'm a mom, Sagar's a dad. I can't imagine watching my baby be unable to breathe. Can you talk about what the physical impacts were like and what the emotional trauma has been like for you and for your kids?
- [53:07]
E
Yeah, it definitely was heartbreaking for me. He was actually the last person that they were able to get out the car because he was in his car seat, which was also strapped to a car seat base, and the car seat base was strapped into the car. And if you're not a person that, I mean, for God's sakes, I still struggle with it and I've been doing it with him for a while and I have other kids that I've been doing it with. So if you're not an everyday person that is strapping this baby in this car seat, then you don't know how to get him out. So it took them a while. They had to cut the actual seat belt. And they actually, when they brought him in, he was still connected to the base.
- [53:38]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [53:39]
C
Actually.
- [53:39]
A
Wow.
- [53:40]
E
So, you know, and like, when he got, when he came in, he. His eyes were closed. There was like foam or something, spit all around his face, all around his mouth. And so, like, I began, like, I was screaming, like, give me a towel, give me a towel. Give me something so that I can clear his, like, face off, the tear gas off his airway so that I could be able to, you know, give him mouth to mouth. And I just remember doing that. And I remember, like rubbing his sternum and patting his back and still giving him more breaths. It was. It was very horrifying. And then, like, in the mix of that, I hear my kids screaming and people were pouring milk all over my other kids. And once my other kids finally were able to open their eyes when they seen what I was doing with the baby, they started screaming, my baby brother. My baby brother. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, I just remember I stopped for a couple of seconds and I started praying and I remember telling like, I'm gonna give you all my breath until you take yours.
- [54:29]
B
What a nightmare. Are you guys considering legal action against the government? Have you heard anything from them? Any apology? Nothing.
- [54:35]
F
No, we haven't heard nothing. We're thinking about it though, so we just. Especially after that comment. That's crazy. I would, I would expect, like.
- [54:47]
E
But I mean, even, like, you know, even if my kids weren't out there, is it still okay for you guys to do what you guys do to people where the kids were there? Is it okay for you guys to do that to just adults or whoever's there? It's not okay in any kind of way. They weren't tear gassing you, they weren't flashbanging you. They weren't macing you. It's. It's not okay to do it to anybody.
- [55:08]
A
What have you told your kids about, like, how have you explained to your kids what happened?
- [55:14]
E
You know, I do. I mean, like, we've been talking. Our kids have been having questions about the stuff that's been going on way before. Like, what happened to us happened to us because, I mean, we have the middle schooler and then you know, like our, our, what do you call it, elementary school age. He has Hispanic friends who haven't been coming to school. And my son's been having basketball games canceled because some schools are predominantly Hispanic and if there's not enough team players on the team and we've just been telling them, like, you know, like, you know, there are really big things happening right now and they're not there because they're trying to, you know, either they're, they've been taken or they're just trying to prevent from being taken. And like now, like, since what happened to us, happened to us, like our 11 year old is just constantly talking about it. And I'm just, I haven't, I'm like, it's your, you are part of it. It's. You're a part of history now. It's your story to tell. Don't let anybody silence you. You tell it how you feel it happened. And you know, and like, we do, like, we're constantly apologizing, like we're sorry. You know what I'm saying? Like, we never meant for that to happen. Like my.
- [56:20]
D
We're.
- [56:21]
E
Anybody that knows us knows that we're not bad parents at all. We do a tremendously great job at taking care of our kids. Our kids are our world. We had our first kid at 14, you know, like. And so our kid went to school with us. When I was at basketball practice, he was there like, you know, like. And I mean both of like his basket. His football coach was. It's part of Minneapolis Police Department. My basketball coach was a part of Minneapolis Police Department. We're highly connected with them. We still talk to them to this day. So, like, people know we've been a part of the community for a very long time and we're very respectful people. So it's like people know that we didn't purposely put our kids in harm's way.
- [57:05]
A
Yeah, well, it's important to hear too, the way that even before this, that it has impacted life in Minneapolis. Just trying to go about your day to day. Have you. Go ahead, Destiny.
- [57:18]
E
I like to have my kids. They were asking because we're always outside with our kids. Not outside either where they're sweating or community centers or anything. And so when our kids, kids, the other day they were asking us like, are we gonna get a new car? Like a car that fits all the bus so that we can, you know, like go and do our, you know, just our regular. And we were telling them like, yeah, we are. And they're like, well, we need to get an armored car. And then there's my four year old. There's my four year old daughter who yesterday was sitting and she wanted to have a conversation out the blue and she was just like, we, the police need to lock up the bombers. They are bad people. And I'm like, bombers? Who are bombers? Like the people who threw the stuff under our car. They're bad people. They're bombers. They have to get out of here. No, that's my four year old.
- [58:00]
A
Have you been worried about any sort of like retribution? Especially since you've had the courage to speak out and expose some of the lies that have been told by the government with regard to this.
- [58:12]
E
Yes, we have. We have not slept much. I mean like we have had all the news interviews. So we're like busy throughout the day, especially with taking kids to school and coming home and just still trying to continue day to day life on top of doing things like this. But then also when it's time to go to sleep, we're like alternating on and off like by the hour, checking our cameras just because we're scared that they're going to run up in our house just because we told our story.
- [58:37]
A
Yeah, well, thank you guys so much for having the courage to tell your story. I think it is quite courageous. And I'm really glad that you and your beautiful babies are fine. You do have an absolutely gorgeous family. And thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to inform our audience about what your experience has been like.
- [58:56]
B
Thank you both.
- [58:57]
E
Thank you. We appreciate it.
- [58:58]
A
Yeah, it's our pleasure.
- [59:00]
B
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. There will be a great Friday show for all of you tomorrow. See you all then.
- [59:19]
E
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [59:21]
A
Guaranteed Human.