3/25/26: Ryan Smeared For Cuba Aid Trip, Newsom Flips On Israel Apartheid, Blackouts Imminent In US, Mortgage Rates Spike

Summary

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Breaking Points with Krystal & Saagar — March 25, 2026

Episode Title: Ryan Smeared For Cuba Aid Trip, Newsom Flips On Israel Apartheid, Blackouts Imminent In US, Mortgage Rates Spike
Hosts: Emily, Ryan Grim
Publisher: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

In this episode, Breaking Points dives into several fast-moving political and economic stories, with a signature focus on holding power to account. Key themes include Ryan Grim’s controversial humanitarian reporting trip to Cuba (and the backlash), Gavin Newsom's evolving stance on Israel and AIPAC, surging economic pressures like blackouts and mortgage rate spikes, and the interplay between establishment politics, influence money, and grassroots energy as the 2026 midterms approach.

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Key Segments & Highlights

1. Ryan Grim’s Cuba Aid Delegation: Reporting, Realities & Smeared Narratives

[02:15–13:16, 34:44–46:13]

• Context & Controversy:
  Ryan Grim reports back from a humanitarian delegation to Havana, Cuba, aimed at delivering crucial aid amidst a U.S. blockade. The trip, also featuring Hasan Piker, drew fire from mainstream and alternative outlets, which painted the delegation as naïve regime apologists.

• Media Criticism Explored:

  • The Free Press labeled Ryan and Hasan as “Cuba’s useless idiots.”
  • New York Times ran with a slightly more nuanced take but highlighted criticism from Cuban politicians accusing the delegates of siding with repressive power.

• Ryan’s Response:

  "We saw the starvation of the economy and of the Cuban people, which is being done deliberately to try to allow the US to overthrow the regime." (Ryan Grim, [04:53])

  • Sanctions tactics ("make the economy scream") are openly confessed legacy U.S. policy (Henry Kissinger, Marco Rubio, referenced at [05:40]).
  • McCarthyite critiques over the delegates' choice of hotel omit that U.S. law prohibits Americans from staying in most places (Ryan, [06:30]).
  • The larger moral outrage: recent U.S. rules allow hotels to import diesel for generators, but block government-run hospitals—leading to dire survival scenarios for patients reliant on unreliable power, especially for children on ventilators ([10:00–12:09]).
  • Vivid on-site descriptions:
    • "The block of houses around every hospital compound had lights...because they protect the hospitals foremost." ([17:13])
    • Ryan shares stories of children and families navigating broken medical supply chains, like waiting for a U.S.-sourced $80 screw for life-changing facial surgery ([22:00]).
    • Quote from a Cuban doctor:

      "I'm going to need the surgery for a heart attack as this keeps happening, because you're very nervous that you're going to over pump because you can kill someone by, you know, pumping too hard." ([21:47])

• Newsmax Interview Recap:
  Ryan debates Newsmax’s Rob Schmidt, dismantling U.S. sanctions and reflecting the futility and cruelty of economic warfare.

  "If their system of government is so awful, why not just let it fail on its own? Why do we have to blockade them?" (Ryan Grim, [39:02])
  "The misery is like unspeakable...it's a lot worse." ([45:11])
  Newsmax tries to cast aid as propping up the regime, but Ryan holds focus on humanitarian consequences, deftly pushing back at the narrative.

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2. Newsom Flips on Israel, AIPAC, and the Politics of Apartheid

[47:52–56:54]

• The Gavin Newsom Dilemma:
  Newsom, seen as a barometer for the Democratic mainstream, calls Israel an “apartheid state,” only to rapidly walk it back in front of Politico's Jonathan Martin.

  • Quote (Newsom):

    "I believe I revere the state of Israel...I deeply oppose Bibi Netanyahu's leadership...his opposition to the two state solution..." ([48:45])

  • On using “apartheid”:

    "I regret using the word apartheid...that is a legitimate concern I have..." ([49:06])

• Hosts’ Dissection:

  • Ryan and Emily argue that Newsom’s contortions make him look inauthentic—a “1990s era politician who just doesn't believe in anything.” ([51:32])
  • Apartheid vs. legalistic constructs: in practice, rights and privileges are systematically different for Jews versus Palestinians in the West Bank. ([50:42])

• Contrast with Booker:
  Recall of Cory Booker’s viral moment dodging the “war criminal” question about Netanyahu and resulting in him eschewing AIPAC funding—an example of the shifting norms for Democrats. ([53:46])

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3. AIPAC, PAC Money, and the Influence Game

[56:16–59:08, 81:41–87:18]

• AIPAC PAC Tactics:
  Ryan exposes AIPAC’s use of shell PACs and stealth super PAC funding in local elections, like “Elect Chicago Women,” “Affordable Chicago Now,” etc., only revealed after the fact ([57:17]).

• Case Study – Philadelphia Race:
  Chris Robb, a Philadelphia congressional candidate, discusses being targeted by massive outside spending, particularly from AIPAC and STEM-oriented 314 Action PAC (revealed to be AIPAC-funded with >$2 million in support for opponent).

  • Quote:

    "People want to see that I'm not accountable to anyone but the people. And I remind people that my biggest donor is my mommy." (Chris Robb, [85:11])

  • Candidates with the courage to take clear anti-establishment stances—on Gaza, on abolishing ICE, on Medicare for All—are gaining traction with younger, activist-heavy electorates.
  • Opponent’s comparison of using "genocide" to the N-word brings backlash, emphasizing weaponization of identity politics by big-money-backed candidates.

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4. Blackouts, Data Centers, and Grid Strains

[61:11–67:34]

• Immediate Threat:
  Nationwide risk of electrical blackouts due to surging demands from data centers, AI, and blockchain tech.

  • New bills (by Sanders and AOC) propose data center moratoriums to protect grid reliability.

• Grassroots Resistance:
  Kentucky residents refusing massive buyouts to keep family land away from data centers:

  "I say they're a liar and the truth ain't in them is what I say." (Local Resident, [63:16])

• Bigger Picture:
  Nvidia’s Jensen Wang claims “AGI has been achieved,” but Ryan is skeptical and notes economic uncertainty is fueling hiring slowdowns, especially for younger graduates ([64:56]).

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5. Economic Pressures — Mortgage Rates & The Petrodollar

[69:10–73:23]

• Petrodollar at Risk:
  The Iran war has shaken the U.S. dollar’s function as global reserve, which underwrites U.S. debt by ensuring oil purchases are in dollars ([69:10]).

  • Complexities in oil trade create new vulnerabilities for American fiscal stability.

• Mortgage Market Jitters:
  Hopes for easing mortgage rates dashed as they spike toward 7% again, compounding housing market frustrations ([71:59]).

  • Trump's economic approval is tanking, with approval for handling the economy now at a bleak 29% ([72:02]).
  • Economic insecurity is not just numbers; it’s pushing the politics of affordability and spurring new anti-establishment campaigns.

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6. On The Campaign Trail: Material Politics & Voter Sentiment

[74:33–80:33]

• Economic & Social Justice Litmus Tests:
  Philadelphia State Rep. Chris Robb shares that voters demand clear stances on topics like PAC money, Gaza, Medicare for All, and abolishing ICE.
  • Establishment centrism is increasingly rejected in favor of bolder, values-driven approaches.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• "Listen up, bitches. They refuse to verify me [on TikTok] and as a result all these fake accounts keep popping up, impersonating me..." — Emily, humorously, on social media authentication ([03:47])
• "There’s just no world in which anybody is going to take the other side of the argument that...it’s good that the hotels get diesel and the hospitals can’t." — Ryan Grim ([11:52])
• "If their system of government is so awful, why not just let it fail on its own? Why do we have to blockade them?" — Ryan Grim on Newsmax ([39:02])
• "If you’re not going to draw the line at genocide, how can I trust you to fight for democracy?" — paraphrasing Ta-Nehisi Coates, cited by Ryan ([81:41])
• "I only get money from human beings, I’m old school that way. And I think that’s important. People want to see that I’m not accountable to anyone but the people. And I remind people that my biggest donor is my mommy." — Chris Robb ([85:11])

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Timestamps Quick Reference

| Time | Topic Summary | |------------|-----------------------------------------------------------| | 02:15–13:16| Ryan’s Cuba trip, media criticism, blackouts, sanctions | | 34:44–46:13| Newsmax interview: Defending the trip, real-world impacts | | 47:52–56:54| Newsom, Israel, AIPAC, and Party waffling | | 56:16–59:08| AIPAC PAC money, shell tactics | | 61:11–67:34| Blackouts, data centers, economic uncertainty | | 69:10–73:23| Petrodollar, mortgage rates, U.S. economy/politics | | 74:33–80:33| Chris Robb: campaign realities, grassroots dynamics | | 81:41–87:18| PAC influence in the Philly congressional race |

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Conclusion

This episode delivers classic Breaking Points analysis: unsparing on U.S. foreign policy hypocrisy, deeply skeptical of elite narratives and moneyed influence, and rooted in the real struggles facing both the country and the Democratic base. Whether taking on the weird dance of presidential hopefuls like Gavin Newsom, or exposing the human impact of policy choices in Cuba and at home, the show persists in putting the powerful and their stories under a sharp, independent microscope.

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Transcript

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[Emily]

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[Emily]

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[Ryan Grim]

hope to see [e-mail]

[Emily]

well our own Ryan Grim recently returned from Havana, Cuba, where he was on a reporting trip as part of a delegation, a humanitarian delegation that went to deliver supplies lies to the people of Cuba in protest of the blockade and escalating U.S. efforts to squeeze the Cuban economy and the Cuban people into some type of deal. We'll see exactly what happens. Ryan's going to give us some updates on what could come. But boy, is Ryan Grim getting a lot of criticism. The whole delegation's getting a lot of criticism. And we have a incredible clip of Ryan from Newsmax that we're going to talk about in a bit. Let's just go through some of what's going on. Been leveled at you at Hasan Piker, who you were on the trip with as well. You could tell us a little bit about who organized all of this, but basically the Free Press, we could put C4 up among others. They wrote that you and Hasan were Cuba's useless idiots.

[Ryan Grim]

I love the subhead here.

[Emily]

Yes, viral content creators like Hasan Piker and Ryan Grimm were invited for a weekend in a blacked out Cuba so they could preach the glories of la revolucion, which Hasan did. I don't know that you did that, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

No. How weird would that be to go to Cuba and a white guy preach to them about the glories of the revolution? Also, viral content creator for what I know are explicitly political reasons, TikTok actually refuses to verify my account. So TikTok, if you're listening, according to the Free Press, I am a viral content creator.

[Emily]

Listen up, bitches.

[Ryan Grim]

They refuse to verify me and as a result all of these fake accounts keep popping up, impersonating me and like stealing stuff and dming people.

[Emily]

So it wasn't just the Free Press. Here's the New York Times going after Hasan Piker. Actually, I thought this was a pretty. So the headline here is Hasan Piker, a celebrity left wing streamer defends Cuba aid mission. I thought they gave Hasan a lot of oxygen here to defend what happened over the weekend. And a more serious criticism, I would say, from a Cuban. Actually, this is a quote from a Cuban politician who said. Who said. They say they've come to support the Cuban people, but they meet with the man who gave the combat order to repress those who took to the streets on 11J, which was the July 11 protest demanding freedom.

[Ryan Grim]

So Ryan Grim, that might be my photo, actually.

[Emily]

Did you take that?

[Ryan Grim]

I might have. All right, so we didn't meet with him. He gave a speech.

[Emily]

Tell us what break this all down. What did you do? Who organized it? And what is your response to your critics?

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, and so there are a couple. There are a couple of key criticisms. First of all, it's. It makes me embarrassing to be part of this media ecosystem because it's so divorced from reality. Like we went there, we saw the Starvation of the economy and of the Cuban people, which is being done deliberately to try to allow the US to overthrow the regime. Like that's like. We have been very explicit that we are blocking fuel from getting in, designating them as terrorists and supporters of terrorism, not allowing them to use credit cards, et cetera, everything we can to make it as miserable as possible so that we accomplish our foreign policy objective of overthrowing the government.

[Emily]

Unless you think that's not an American strategy. Henry Kissinger said it himself that we were going to. This was.

[Ryan Grim]

Rubio said it himself a couple days ago.

[Emily]

Right. But what was. We're going to scream, make the economy scream. This has been a Cold War policy for decades.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. Instead we're talking about this other silly stuff. But for people who are curious. So the two. So the criticism is that. Well, I guess there's two related criticisms. That the delegation stayed in a five star hotel that kept its power on despite there being major blackouts across the island. So two points on that. Yeah, it is bad if hotels keep power and hospitals lose power. I agree with that. Two things. Why did the delegation stay at this quote, unquote, five star hotel? First of all, five star is quite relative. It's so much nicer than the conditions that the Cuban people are suffering under. No question about that. Also, nobody in the Bravo Liberty universe would go to that hotel and call it a five star hotel. That is absolutely the case. But there is a US law on the books that says if an American visits Cuba, there is a long list of places they cannot stay. Anything connected directly or indirectly, really, for the most part with the government, you can go read their FAQs, you can go read their rules about it, and they'll specifically list a bunch of hotels you cannot stay in on top of that. And so that leaves a very small number of hotels that you can stay in. And this was among them. This is Spanish operated hotel among them. Now there's like five or six hundred people in the delegation. If you go just by yourself, you can try to find what's a Casa particular like a, an Airbnb. Not an Airbnb, obviously, because that companies aren't allowed a version of it now. You can't book it online, you can't book it with a credit card. The telephone and Internet service is very spotty. So good luck in 24 to 48 hours, you know, finding five or six hundred of these for a giant delegation, it's not serious. The only, the only thing you can do is stay in a hotel. Also, the Cubans want you to stay in these hotels to bring cash into the economy now. So there it is. Like you don't like that. That's where we stayed. Change the law so that we can stay in any hotel that we want and we'll stay in a cheaper hotel. Although if you have the money as an American, it's actually better that you stay in a more expensive hotel because you're then pumping more money into the economy. Their second complaint is about the fact that hotels have generators that stay on now. The hospitals also have generators and the generator and we can, we can get into that. They are, the hospitals are deeply, deeply struggling. In February, the Trump administration introduced a new policy that said it is okay for private businesses on the island of Cuba to import oil while it is not okay for any, anybody affiliated with the government. Famously the hospitals are publicly run in Cuba, if you weren't familiar with that. And so it is okay according to the U.S. government. And that's not just from the U.S. that's from Mexico, that's from Russia, China. We are trying to block oil from getting in to the hospitals from any country, not just us. But if you want to send it to a private business, that is okay with us. C10, Reuters just reported. And I've been saying this, I've been telling you this again, you guys never believe me. I'm telling you the truth. So Reuters reported this morning, actually exclusive US ramps up fuel exports to Cuba's private sector. This is C10. So if you read the article, there are many thousands of barrels, not enough, but many thousands of barrels of diesel in particular, which is what they use for the generators that the US is allowing to be sold to private businesses. So I want people to sit with this for a second. The critique that the New York Times elevated, that the Free Press pushed, that a lot of these like right wing Cuban defenders were pushing around Cuba policy defenders were pushing was that it is bad that the hospital had, I mean that the hospital did not have power, hospitals did not have power and the hotel did okay, so that's the premise that the Free Press is operating under. I agree. I am now making the Free Press aware because they apparently didn't read our reporting in February and now Reuters is confirming what I'm reporting. Our American policy is that it's okay for the hotel to buy oil and diesel, but it's not okay for the hospital to buy diesel. So if you spent the last three or four days yelling at me and Hasan Piker about the fact that the hotel has energy and the Hospitals didn't. Now that you know the truth, you have to be furious at the Trump administration, because the Trump administration's explicit policy is that hotels can buy diesel but hospitals cannot. Now, what they're really going to do is just ignore it and keep it moving, because that is a morally indefensible policy. It is barbaric, it's uncivilized, it's cruel, it's disgusting. There's just no world in which anybody is going to take the other side of the argument that. No, actually, I think it's good. It's good that the hotels get diesel but the hospitals can't.

[Emily]

It may have. That may have had a lot more cash. With the American public in the early stages of nuclear weapon capacity, when people were like, you had school kids getting under their desks preparing for nuclear launch.

[Ryan Grim]

Cuba's gonna have the Soviet bombs.

[Emily]

Well, yeah. So C7. Let's put C7 up on the screen. If you want a little flashback, that's very, very current. This is a report in the New York Times.

[Ryan Grim]

Just look at this headline, by the way. Let's just. Let's just let this marinate in our brains for a second.

[Emily]

Yeah. No, it's incredible. Russian Oil Shipment Puts Focus on Kremlin spy Outpost in Cuba.

[Ryan Grim]

It's a New York Times headline.

[Emily]

Then the lead is a Russian oil.

[Ryan Grim]

Let's just, like, sit with this headline for a second. Such a window into our world.

[Emily]

It's incredible stuff.

[Ryan Grim]

Russian oil shipments. So there's a Russian oil shipment that is headed to Cuba. It should be there in a few days. That the US Is trying to stop. They're threatening it. Apparently there's a naval escort that Russia is sending with it. So according to the New York Times, what the Russian oil shipment puts in the focus on is not the fact that there's no fuel on the island and that the US in an act of war and a crime against humanity, is blocking the island from getting fuel. That's not what the Russian shipment puts the focus on. It puts the focus on a defunct spy base.

[Emily]

Well, I thought where you were going to.

[Ryan Grim]

First. First paragraph.

[Emily]

Well, yeah, the lead here is a Russian oil tanker, possibly bound for Cuba, is highlighting a key US Security concern, the Communist islands, ties to foreign adversaries who use Cuba to spy on the United States. That lead is just straight out of, like, 1962. Incredible. And what's to the point? We were just getting at about whether it's worth making the Cuban economy scream. That was from, like, 73. That was Allende when Kissinger said that to Nixon. That was. People were on a daily basis utterly terrified of imminent nuclear annihilation. And listen, I still think that's a fear that we gloss over way more than we probably should. But it is not 1962 anymore. Cuba has, yes, turned to Russia and China. There is, I think, real evidence that Russia and China have bases, have outposts, probably is a good way to put it.

[Ryan Grim]

And embassies too.

[Emily]

Yeah. But they also, like, are they probably using. Are they probably monitoring the United States, like launches in Florida? Space launches in Florida? Yeah. From Cuba. Yes, absolutely. Cuba has been pushed repeatedly into the arms of Russia and Cuba, despite what we're always constantly told is that the Cuban people are freedom loving. Many of them are, whatever that means. Many of them don't like the regime. There are people in jail. And I don't know if you had any reporting when you were on the ground about this, Ryan, as the politician who was arguing against you all, was saying that there are artists, there are activists who have been in jail since the July 11 protests. What was that, 2021? There have been people who've been in jail, rotting in jail longer than that for practicing political speech or being artists who oppose the regime.

[Ryan Grim]

I think it's about a thousand at this point. Political prisoners is the number that I see.

[Emily]

And the repeated insistence on this pattern over and over and over again, when you see that it drives a place like Cuba, that could potentially be a partner further and further towards Russia and China, I thought where you're going with it is that Trump also, this is another New York Times headline. Removes sanctions on Russia to help oil flow amid Iran conflict. Like, that's what I thought when we were talking about the first headline we

[Ryan Grim]

were talking about, you can buy and sell Iranian oil, you can buy and sell Russian oil. You just can't allow Russia to sell

[Emily]

oil to Cuba just amidst an obvious motion. Well, as Cuba continues to rely more on Russia and China, if you think that's good for the United States, it makes no sense.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. And so what does that look like on the ground? So. So we were there Friday through Monday on about a week, a little more than a week ago, there was a complete nationwide blackout, like used to be a LIONEL and recently 11 million people. It's now about 9 million because of the economic strangulation. And it's now legal for people to just leave Cuba if they can find somewhere that they can go. And so millions of people have gone to the U.S. mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, et cetera. And so we're down to something like 9 million people, but. So 9 million people plunged into darkness a little more than a week ago. Got the grid back up. So then on Friday night when we were there, the, there were partial and very significant blackouts all over Havana. And let me tell you, walking through a city without lights is a truly surreal experience. To be able to look up in Havana and see the Big Dipper is. It's a mind bending experience with buildings looming over you. It's still a very safe city. It's less safe than it was six months ago, but the social cohesion is strong.

[Emily]

You took an amazing picture. We can probably start rolling these, right?

[Ryan Grim]

Oh yeah, we can roll. I think it's C8.

[Emily]

You took an amazing picture in the middle of Havana.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, we can roll, yeah.

[Emily]

Oh my gosh.

[Ryan Grim]

That's actually March and Hassan there. So that one is in a hospital. That's urine from an 11 year old collected, but it's not in a urine bag. It's a separate, it's like a different kind of bag. It's just, it's a recycled saline bag. The completely closed gas station there. This is a boy on a ventilator who, we interviewed his mother, who you can see to the, to the left there. Luckily, his ventilator had a battery, so when the power went out, its ventilator didn't shut down, but the monitor connected to it shut down. So they had to rush in and, and you know, do a lot of kind of manual checking of vitals and other and otherwise make sure that he was getting the proper amount of ventilation. And so Friday night there's a partial blackout. Most of Havana goes down, but the grid didn't completely collapse. And so what the grid is designed to do is protect the health care system first and foremost. And so what was interesting is that the, and I was walking around with a Cuban journalist who was explaining this to me and pointing it out. The block of houses around every hospital compound had lights. And the hospital had lights because they protect the hospitals foremost.

[Emily]

This is, let's put a second element up on the screen. Vo. You can see the blackout here.

[Ryan Grim]

And I think this one is from Saturday night, which ended up being a, a complete blackout. But so what, what it's, it's had this interesting effect of like, if you happen to live within a certain distance from the hospital, you're now super lucky because I don't know what hotel that is. That's not the one we were in.

[Emily]

Okay.

[Ryan Grim]

So, because, because if your house is right next to the Hospital. You keep your, keep your power on now Saturday, Saturday morning because they have now 20 plus percent of their energy is coming from solar power. Energy kicked back on Saturday morning. Then around 7:30 on Saturday night, complete and total nationwide blackout. Not just the partial blackout. So when there's a total blackout everything goes down. And then generators kick in the little fuel that the Cuban government has. They prioritize to the hospitals. And so all the hospitals have generators. But there is a gap between when the power goes out and when the generator kicks back in. Just obviously anybody can understand that that is fine. Like in a hotel. Like we saw power go in and out pretty frequently actually even in the hotel. But then it would kick back on. That's fine in a hotel. That's not fine in a hospital. And so we, on Sunday morning I went with. Actually the Truennan guys were there as well. Hassan had gone with us on Saturday to the hospital. He was gone by.

[Emily]

Was the government organizing the tour of the hospital?

[Ryan Grim]

Well, the government is, they run the hospital. The government runs the hospital. Belly of the Beast, which is a US based nonprofit news organization that has reporters in Cuba. They, they set up the interviews with the, with the hospital. They're really helpful and they have to be approved. Everything has to be approved by the government.

[Emily]

And the visas I imagine too it's, I know that there are a lot of Cubans who say like, well maybe exiles or the like who say we can't get into Cuba.

[Ryan Grim]

And so it wasn't arranged. It wasn't arranged by the government and the government was not there. There was no government minder. But the government had to approve. Right going in. You can't just walk into hospital. In fact you can't just walk into a hospital here in the United States.

[Emily]

But you felt comfortable asking what you wanted to ask.

[Ryan Grim]

Not only that, they showed us the, they showed us the place in total disrepair. Like I saw some people saying, oh, they only got showed the best parts of Cuba. That's not, that's not at all what the, what the government is doing right now. They are not pretending for a second that things are great. Maybe they were doing that 10 years ago, only showing you the good stuff. We were at Williams Hilaire on Sunday. We were at Williams Hilaire. Pediatric hospitals went to the crown jewels. They were not at all sugar coating it. They were showing this is C6 how absolutely brutal things have gotten.

[Emily]

Look at that.

[Ryan Grim]

And so this is Dr. Alios Fernandez who's one of the top pediatric doctors at this hospital. That is a A baby named Eric who's on a ventilator. And what he's describing is this absolutely terrifying situation where when the power goes out, he and the nurses, and that's Liz Oliva Hernandez from Fernandez, from Belly of the Beast, who was there with me. So the power goes out, they turn on their flashlight immediately on their phone and then sprint to the babies and the, and the children who are on ventilators and crank it and just, and hand crank it. But, and the doctor was telling me, he's like, I'm going to need the surgery for a heart attack as this keeps happening. Because you have, you're, you're very nervous that you're going to over pump because you can kill someone by, you know, pumping too hard. That, that is, that happens. You can kill them by not pumping enough. And it takes anywhere from a minute to five, six minutes for the generator to kick on. And after the generator kicks on, then it doesn't just fire right up like you've got to, it has to. These are 20 plus year old devices. That's obviously not top of the line contemporary stuff. And then you have to monitor constantly while they're going. They did not lose anybody. They were very proud. They have not lost anybody as a result of the blackouts at this hospital. They said that their patients, many of which we met and their parents, they've definitely seen deterioration, that they've moved downward in stages. And many of them are more critical now but haven't died yet. There were rumors that people in other hospitals died in the gap between the power kicking off, the generator kicking on. I haven't been able to independently confirm that. We'll have more reports on this as we collect more of our video and continue to do interviews on it. But there's no question that it is extraordinarily dangerous to the children. And also we also saw the way that the sanctions and block an embargo make it extremely difficult to get supplies. We met one woman who had just had facial reconstruction surgery where she had waited for a very, very long time for this $80 screw. And finally a doctor that we interviewed was able to get a friend of his who lives in the United States who was visiting to buy the screw and just bring it with him. And that's how this, and that's how that woman got her surgery. We met a boy, Carlos, and his mother who is, has cystic fibrosis, which is eminently treatable for the most part if you have the right kind of cystic fibrosis disease. But he couldn't he can't get the medication and he's going to die if he doesn't get that medication. Now I'm hoping to have actually a really positive update on that kid. I'll wait on that until it's confirmed. But this is how these folks are trying to survive. It's just luck and ingenuity and oh, I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who can get this thing. And so I also interviewed Mitchell Valdez Sosa, who is the head of the Cuban center for Neuroscience. And it was hour long interview. We'll put up the whole thing at some point. But I do want to play one little clip where he describes their efforts to buy an MRI machine and keep it operating amid sanctions. And he added that since fuel shipments have been cut off, helium has not been able to get in either. Now Qatar, a bunch of their helium production has been taken offline. So what they're suffering. A lot of the world is going to suffer. MRI machines require cooled helium. But let's roll a little bit of Mitchell Vada Sosa, who actually, interestingly, as an American citizen, because he was born in Chicago in the 50s, but he's been in Cuba since the early, early 1906, early 1960s. So this is a couple minutes with Valdez Sosa. You were telling me earlier, before we started talking about an MRI machine. So how, how is that working in court? In coordination with the lack of electricity.

[Mitchell Valdez Sosa]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

And how did you.

[Mitchell Valdez Sosa]

Yeah, what we're thinking first, MRI systems are very expensive, but they're, they're really very useful. So we had a, we had an interesting opportunity. There was this bank that gave us a soft credit line, you know, something we can pay over the years with a long period of payment and very low interest. And so we took advantage of that in organization and we bought equipment for different centers and we bought an MRI system from Germany that had to wait about seven months after they manufactured it. So they received certification that it didn't have 10%, more than 10% of American components. But we managed to get the system to Cuba. But the problem is that MRI systems which, which are really necessary. Imagine a kid with medulloblastoma. This is a kind of cancer. Spinal cord surgeon has to know if it's present, the size, if it has metastases. This is all part of the, it's life or death for the kid and so many other disorders. So the only thing we needed is to fill them up with helium, which is used to liquid helium to cool. Because MRI systems work at very Low temperatures. The magnets are called superconductors, which means they're cooled. And when they're cooled, very, very low temperatures, there's practically no resistance, no friction for the electrons. It circulates, and that creates a very strong magnet. And the problem is we bought the helium and ships are afraid to come to Cube. This was after President Trump said that he would block oil. And we're trying to get one of these ships that's bringing donations, humanitarian donations to Cuba to bring. Because most of the MRI systems in Cuba are old, it's very difficult getting spare parts. And we know that our system, once we set it up, which is brand new, we'll probably be doing a lot of heavy lifting for all the hospitals around the state. The Children's hospital in Marianao, the big hospital for blindness and other disorders of vision, Pandoferrer, which is also in Marianao, and polyclinics. We had a previous system. The story is very funny because we received a donation from the University of Maastricht. Why they got money to buy these new scanners. And in an international conference, my twin brother, who's also a neuroscientist, was giving some talks at the conference, and he talked with this professor from Maastricht University, said, we don't know what we're going to do. The old system, give it to us. And we got some money from a charity and we brought this. This system was very old, but we kept it working almost eight years. We saw thousands of patients, but it was impossible because once a system is too old, it breaks down. You have to put helium, which cost a lot, in every few months. And we got this opportunity. We bought the new system. So we're bringing the helium to Cuba. We're finding how, we don't know how. Humanitarian convoy, let's see. But then the problem is you can't have an MRI scanner without electricity. So now we're launching a campaign to receive donations similar to what we did with the ventilators in Covid. And we're going to. Some friends are trying to collect money and we want to buy a generator and we want to buy oil tech.

[Emily]

Meanwhile, Nick Turse over at the Intercept is reporting that the Pentagon has revealed the attacks in Latin America are just beginning with, quote, operation Total Extermination and Trump's threats against Cuba. Expect more US military strikes in the region. Terse reports. You go read that full report over at the Intercept. Now, Operation Total Extermination looks technically like it's referring to the Naboa operation in Ecuador. But if you look at the testimony in the House Armed Services document that terse links to, it says the joint effort named, quote, Operation Total Extermination, referring to what happened in Ecuador, is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the US Setting the pace for regional deterrence focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. So whether or not they're going to apply, quote, Operation Total Extermination just to cartels in Ecuador, or it'll be more broadly interpreted as, you know, even including Cuba as part of Latin America, we will see, but certainly escalating by the day.

[Ryan Grim]

And did you see the New York Times report, by the way? This one here?

[Emily]

Yes, I did. Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

So the New York Times sent reporters out to get it for them, give them their flowers when they deserve it, to the site of a US bombing in Ecuador that they had said was a drug cartel training camp or something. Turns out it was a dairy farm.

[Emily]

Total extermination.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes. And so remember this when they're telling you that their intelligence on boats is 100% rock solid. If they can't nail down their intelligence on an immobile dairy farm, like, why are we so sure that they're exactly right about all of these boats that are moving around separately? Naboa, just Google Daniel Noboa, drug trafficker. His family, he's, he's the scion of this banana export business. Their boats are constantly getting found to be stashed with cocaine.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

This is the president of Ecuador who we are allegedly teaming up with to do drug eradication campaign.

[Emily]

I'm starting, I'm starting a team. It's going to be Juan Orlando Hernandez, Daniel Noboa and Bukele.

[Ryan Grim]

Drug war.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Ryan Grim]

Yes.

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments.

[Ryan Grim]

But that's weird.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

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[Emily]

Ryan, you went on Newsmax just last night on Rob Schmidt show and he asked you basically to defend this trip we've been discussing. So Juan David Rojas pointed out, he posted a really, I thought he put it really well. He reports for Compact and other news outlets from all over Latin America. You probably remember him having been on the show several times. He says, earth to anti imperialist fundamentalists. This is the most honest and effective way of advocating for the Cuban people. Ryan doesn't talk about, quote, participatory democracy or the regime's righteousness. He talks about the real world consequences and double standards of our despicable policies. Better yet, he asks how any of this benefits Americans. This method is so effective, the interviewer concedes multiple times. One David adds, the difference between Ryan and Piker or Ben Norton is his first, second and third priorities are normie Cubans, not the PCC oligarchy staying in power. Ryan, I do feel as though you, maybe it's your reporter background, are very careful in how you cover Cuba. And I thought that came out in this conversation with Rob Schmidt where nowhere do you ever or did you in your reporting from Cuba defend the regime, which is a very easy thing not to do.

[Ryan Grim]

I will defend the quote unquote regime in the sense of when I think they're being unfairly criticized, the media is

[Emily]

getting a story wrong.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, right, exactly.

[Emily]

But if you consider that to be like a defense of imprisoning a thousand political prisoners, that's not the same.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. And also it's important to just understand the reality of who is actually causing the suffering. It is the sanctions, it's the embargo blockade, the state sponsor of terror Designation. We didn't, in this interview, we didn't get into kind of the details of it. But as you saw from the last segment, like, Cuba is blocked from purchasing MRI machines for the most part, or getting helium to keep their MRI machines running. They can't buy anything that has a minimum of 10% of US parts in it, even when they end up buying. They bought a 3D printer to try to get around this so that they could produce medical supplies, these, you know, unique medical supplies that people needed. It broke down. The German company said they can't send a tech out because of the U.S. sanctions. And they said that's not true. Like, there's an EU law that says. Michel Valdez Sosa relayed this story to me. He was on the phone with the Vice President. He said, there's an EU law that says you're not allowed to follow U.S. sanctions because it's EU sovereignty, means that you have to make your own decisions. You cannot be driven by U.S. sanctions. And the guy told him, yeah, I know that law is on the books. We do a lot of business with the United States. We don't do much business with Cuba. I'm sorry that you bought a million dollar 3D printer from us. We're not gonna be able to fix it. And so it's just sitting there collecting dust. So we didn't get into a lot of those details about the, the sanctions and the embargo play a primary driver of the immiseration of the island. But the point I did make to him is if you think that's not true and the system is so flawed and unable to succeed, let it try

[Emily]

and make inroads with them so they don't turn to Russia and China.

[Ryan Grim]

Then there you go.

[Emily]

Yeah, and it's a. Yeah, we don't have to keep going.

[Ryan Grim]

Also, yeah, I haven't seen Schmidt calling for regime change in Saudi Arabia over, like the human rights abuses and the lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia make Cuba look like Switzerland.

[Emily]

Well, this is a great back and forth. I think it draws out some important contrast. So without further ado, here we go. Ryan on Newsmax.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Dropside news reporter Ryan Grim also traveled to Cuba as well, reporting on all this he's seen in this photo here. And Ryan joins us tonight. And it's good to have you back on the show. The Trump administration is trying to end a 70 year regime. It looks like these guys, along with you there, are trying to help it survive. Am I missing something?

[Ryan Grim]

Wait, they're trying to do what?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Trying to help this regime survive.

[Ryan Grim]

Who is Piker?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Most of the people there. I'm wondering if yourself along with them are included in that.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, the group that went along brought about 50 tons worth of medical supplies and solar panels.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's right, medical supplies and solar panels. And a lot of sympathies for the regime that controls the country, I imagine.

[Ryan Grim]

So let me try to help out your viewers a little bit here. How do you feel about the fact that when Americans travel to a foreign country, in this case Cuba, they are told specifically a list of hotels that they are allowed to stay in in another country?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I went through it because when I went and stayed there, it was the same. I stayed in an Airbnb. I think if you have.

[Ryan Grim]

What do you think of that?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think our country's trying to end a regime that's been torturing people for a very long time and they don't want to fund it. They don't want us funding it by paying money to a communist owned entity like a hotel.

[Ryan Grim]

So if their system of government is so awful, why not just let it fail on its own? Why do we have to blockade them?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Because they won't leave. They don't have elections, they won't leave power.

[Ryan Grim]

How do you think the United States economy would do if we cut off fuel for three straight months? No fuel has basically gotten into Cuba since the Venezuela operation.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, but I was there and I was there in 2019, Ryan, and it was still a horribly impoverished country. We're cutting off fuel to try and get this leadership out. Get them the hell out of there. Because they won't leave. They won't have an election. They won't leave.

[Ryan Grim]

Why do you, why do you want to. Why do you, why do you care about, like, who's, who's in charge in Cuba? Who elected you to do that? It's such a bizarre, like there aren't enough problems in the United States here for you to worry about. That's another side of it, really. Like I can't even get my mind to a place where I would think it's my call. Like, who runs Cuba, who runs Haiti, who runs Mexico, who runs Iraq, who runs Iran? Like that's a fair Israel.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's a fair criticism. That's a fair criticism. But I mean, but do you think it's better for, do you want this regime to continue to run this country against the wishes of the people?

[Ryan Grim]

It's not that are all impoverished. It's not up to me. I live in Washington D.C. i vote in Washington D.C. elections and I vote in federal elections. Where do you live?

[Ryan Reynolds]

You live in. Yeah, that's.

[Ryan Grim]

Where do you live?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I live in New York and it's nice.

[Ryan Grim]

Why should you vote? Why should you? Like, what do you have to do with Cuba?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, I think the prosperity of that country that's only 90 miles away from our border can't be a bad thing. And I'm just saying what I'm asking

[Ryan Grim]

to you is then why not let them import oil?

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's fine. It's not America first, let's put it there. But do you think that regime should be running the country?

[Ryan Grim]

Why does it bother you if Mexico sells oil to Cuba? You live in New York. In what world is it a New Yorker's responsibility to stop Mexico from selling oil to Cuba?

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's okay. Fair criticism right there. My question to you is, why did you travel there? Why did you. If you don't care, why did you travel there to try and support the regime?

[Ryan Grim]

I'm a journalist and the United States is literally killing people like we are killing people. I toured two hospitals. One is a pediatric hospital. We implemented a new rule in February that says that if you're a private business, you can import oil, you can import fuel. So the hotel where we were required to stay is allowed by the United States government to have fuel. Hospitals, because they have a publicly run health care system, are not allowed to have fuel. I heard a lot of people complaining that the hotel still had power, but the hospitals didn't. Not understanding apparently that it is a US rule that blocks the hospitals from getting fuel. I tore the pediatric hospital. You know what the nurses and doctors there told me? They said when the power goes out, they immediately turn on their phone lights and race to the babies on ventilators.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Let me ask you this, because there's

[Ryan Grim]

a gap between the hold up, I

[Ryan Reynolds]

understand babies with the water, there's a

[Ryan Grim]

gap between, between when the power goes out and when the generator kicks in. That can be up to like five or six, seven minutes. A baby can die in that time on a ventilator. So they have to take their phone, turn the light on, race and hand pump the ventilator. All because the United States has decided that Mexico can't sell oil and fuel.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Let me ask Cuba states, that's fine if you don't. You want to say it's not America first, that's fine. But let me ask you this. How many tens of thousands of people have died over the last 30, 40 years as this country has lived in extreme poverty? 88% of the people live in extreme poverty. The government will not allow any kind of capitalism in. To bring these people up, to bring the quality of life up. How many thousands of thousands of their own people has that government killed? We're trying to strangle out a government here. And yes, there's gonna be ancillary. There's gonna be some negative impacts of that like you just described. That's fair.

[Emily]

But.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But you've. How many people have died because of the government in power?

[Ryan Grim]

I interviewed the number three guy in Cuba. In Cuba. I will let you have the interview. You can air the entire thing. He said, cuban nationals, Americans are welcome to invest in Cuba. He said they're open to. In a holistic negotiation, compensating Americans for property that was seized during the revolution.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Capitulating now.

[Ryan Grim]

Right? No, they offered that in the 1960s. The United States refused it because we thought we were gonna do regime change. So why take a deal if we're just gonna do regime change?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Well, let me.

[Ryan Grim]

We didn't overthrow the government. We failed over and over and over. We tried to assassinate Fidel Castro, what, like a dozen plus times. We tried an invasion, Bay of Pigs. It didn't work. Every other country, France, Italy, France, Spain, they all took. They all took compensation for what was nationalized. So they're saying, you can invest here. We will compensate you for what was nationalized. All we're asking is that you lift the sanctions and leave us alone. Why is it. Leave the regime alone, Leave Cuba alone,

[Ryan Reynolds]

leave the regime alone and let the people continue to suffer. I mean, did you see the people there? The misery of the people that live in that country under these a holes? It's horrific.

[Ryan Grim]

The misery is like unspeakable.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Unspeakable.

[Ryan Grim]

It is unspeakable.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's been that way for a long time.

[Ryan Grim]

It's a lot worse. It's the people who were there in December and people who obviously live there telling me, like, it's noticeably worse. You know how you have people you like, starvation and homelessness wasn't really a thing. Like, there was poverty. It wasn't like a rich country. Yeah, but, you know, even a few months ago, 90% of the people live

[Ryan Reynolds]

under $2 a day. I mean, that's. Nobody in America lives under $2 a day.

[Emily]

Not.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Not a single person. I gotta leave it there. I really do. You're a good sport for coming on. Ryan Grimm from Dropsite News.

[Ryan Grim]

You got it. Good to see you, Ryan.

[Emily]

My favorite part of that clip is the picture of you guys outside the hospital. Where Newsmax circled your faces like it was a true crime documentary. Incredible. It was like your face and Hasan's face.

[Ryan Grim]

You can almost hear the music that would be playing in the true crime documentary there.

[Emily]

Yeah, that was good stuff. Good stuff. I agree with Juan. So I'm glad that Robert Schmidt had you on.

[Ryan Grim]

Sure.

[Emily]

This is a fun conversation.

[Ryan Grim]

Always happy to go on Newsmax.

[Emily]

Yes.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, I'm sure they'll have me back. Right? That was probably good TV for them.

[Emily]

I thought it was great tv. Let's talk about apac.

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[Ryan Grim]

So if you want to know where the center of the Democratic Party is, it's always useful to study Gavin Newsom and he has gotten himself into a very interesting pickle when it comes to his posture towards AIPAC and to Israel. You might remember when friend of the show Van Lathan had him on, he was like, you're gonna take AIPAC money? He just kept saying, that's an interesting question. Interesting. Interesting that you would ask it. Never thought about that before. Interesting. Interesting. He's now Saying he won't take AIPAC money. He recently said that Israel is an apartheid state and we should have had a timer up to counting down the days or minutes until he walked that back. We can end that timer at his lunch with Jonathan Martin of Politico. So Jonathan Martin asks him straight up about this, and this is Newsom's response. Do you consider yourself a Zionist?

[Gavin Newsom]

Do I consider myself a Zionist? I believe I revere the state of Israel. I'm proud to support the state of Israel. I deeply, deeply oppose Bibi Netanyahu's leadership, his opposition to the two state solution, and deeply oppose how he is indulging the far right as it relates to what's going on in the West Bank.

[Ryan Grim]

Do you regret using the word apartheid

[Gavin Newsom]

to describe the word I used it? I do. In this context that I said it and I referenced, why I used it. A Tom Friedman article in that same sentence where Tom used it in the context of the direction that Bibi is going, not the current and the concern. Correct. And that is a legitimate concern I have that I share with Tom. That direction, if that vision in that direction of the far right that Bibi is indulging, that if they see the full annexation of the west bank, then that's not something that's a word you may hear others use.

[Ryan Grim]

So, Emily, the reason I say that this is an interesting pickle is because it's a real test of whether an obviously very talented politician can play both sides on this question. I think the answer is going to be no and that even the most talented gymnast can't stretch this far because the question of apartheid itself is interesting. It's like if you are a Palestinian born in the west bank, there are certain laws about whether or not you can vote, you can't, who you can marry, where you can move, if you get married, what your travel is, where you can work, if you are arrested, you go to military courts. If you are Jewish, an Israeli citizen born in the west bank, you have civilian courts. You can marry and move. You have free travel restrictions, you can drive on different roads. It's apartheid. The only way that they get around saying it's not apartheid is, well, they don't have legal control of the West Bank.

[Emily]

They're just.

[Ryan Grim]

They're occupying it and they have, basically, they exercise sovereignty over it. But we don't recognize that the west bank is part of Israel yet. So therefore, it's not part of the state. So therefore, technically, it's like, good luck trying. But more to the point.

[Emily]

Well, also, and if you're Jewish, you do have privileges about whether you can be a resident and come and move to Israel and the like.

[Ryan Grim]

Right, Exactly. Sure. Yeah.

[Emily]

Which is, I mean, I think there are important distinctions because usually when people hear apartheid, it's used to invoke South Africa. And there's a distinction, of course, being that there are Palestinian members of the Knesset, Muslim members of the Knesset. There are, there's. It's not exactly South Africa, but there are also distinctions where you see people being treated differently on the basis of religion and ethnicity.

[Ryan Grim]

And the big problem for Gavin Newsom, correct me if you think I'm wrong here, is that people don't think he believes anything now. I think people, a lot of Democrats, who believe that are still willing to support him if they think that his new positions that he's claiming to believe are something that he'll fight for. You know what I mean? They're beyond caring, even if, like, he has a soul or if he believes in these things. But just show me that you'll fight for whatever you're claiming you believe in now. And he's going to be forced to waffle back and forth on this through the entire campaign if he is unwilling to make a stand. And so this thing of like, oh, yeah, it's apartheid, but it's not, I regret saying that is just going to make him look like a 1990s era politician who just doesn't believe in anything. And I think it's gonna be a major problem for him.

[Emily]

Yeah. Cause when you imagine this out in the campaign trail, Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, you're talking to people at fairs and at pancake breakfasts, and you are going to be in a Democratic primary in 2028. Every single day, in and out, berated with this question, does it backfire and some normie voters get sick of it? Maybe. But you need the party's grassroots, you need the base and to show up for you in a small state like New Hampshire or Iowa. So he's gonna have to. I mean, this is his best answer right now. You can see it, how he kind of repeats the question.

[Ryan Grim]

He'd like to do that.

[Emily]

He's ready to launch. Yeah, yeah. He's like, he's preparing his launch. And this answer is clearly, like, well thought out from their campaign perspective or their strategic perspective. And even then, it's not gonna cut muster when you're getting constantly hounded by people over and over again and the smartphone videos are pinging around the Internet.

[Ryan Grim]

And Jennifer Welch has kind of driven a lot of this, because these candidates, these mainstream candidates keep coming on her program and getting pressed on this exact question. Let's roll. Let's jump to D4 where she had Cory Booker on. And you might remember this viral moment from the fall of 2025. And there's a reason we're showing you this. So here's Welch and Booker.

[Chris Robb]

I'm one of a handful of people that don't take corporate PAC money.

[Redfin Advertiser]

What about APAC money? You take APAC money, don't you?

[Chris Robb]

A minuscule percentage of my resources.

[Redfin Advertiser]

I read it's like 800,000.

[Chris Robb]

Yeah, but that's a lifetime number.

[Redfin Advertiser]

When you did your 25 hour speech, I was like, go, Corey. I love this. That is amazing. And then there's a photo shoot with you with Benjamin Netanyahu. And I was just like, what in the actual. Like, how can he do that? It was heartbreaking. I felt betrayed. I felt like it diminished your 25 hours. That's how it felt to me. Do you think he's a war criminal? Benjamin Netanyahu, do you think he's a war criminal?

[Chris Robb]

Again, these are. These are questions that a lot of people think are the important litmus tests that are loaded and hot. My urgency is to be an effective leader in bringing an end to this crisis. And I get these questions all the time that, to me, undermine my urgency.

[Redfin Advertiser]

I think the thing that Democrats get so frustrated with where we are right now, where you see, like, the Zoran Mandanis and the Grand Plan Platners rise up because they can go on podcast and you can say, do you think Benjamin Netanyahu's a war criminal? And they just say, yes, I love

[Ryan Grim]

What a delightful collection of words that is coming out of his mouth. Yes, these questions undermine my urgency.

[Emily]

I think he said underline.

[Ryan Grim]

Oh, they underline.

[Emily]

I think he said they underlined his urgency.

[Ryan Grim]

It doesn't matter because the words aren't supposed to mean anything. They're just supposed to fill space.

[Emily]

Yeah, don't worry about it.

[Ryan Grim]

You saw him backing away slightly from this. You put up D2, this hilarious picture that circulated of when Cory Booker went to. There he is, Cory Booker hiding behind a bunch of other senators when he's meeting with Netanyahu.

[Emily]

We did to him what they did to you on Newsmax outside the Cuban hospital.

[Ryan Grim]

But this is a little bit fairer because he actually does seem to be hiding back there. Yes, but now we can roll D2. Cory Booker. Guess what? Just like Gavin Newsom, he went from getting embarrassed in an interview to saying, you Know what? Okay, I'm not taking AIPAC money. Now he's, what he smartly did is he rolled it out with this pledge that he's not going to take any PAC money, including AIPAC money. Smart. Now when you're running for president, here's what people don't quite know. Corporate PAC money is capped at what, $5,000? It's not much if you're a house member. For them, corporate PAC money is helpful because you can rack up half a million of it very easily with a couple dinners in Washington D.C. you get, yeah, you know, you know, get 100 corporations around and they each give you five grand.

[Chris Robb]

Boom.

[Ryan Grim]

Like that's, that adds up fast. That's not enough for a presidential campaign. For that you need billionaires or regular people. Cory Booker needs billionaires who are going to drop massive checks so he can say no to corporate PAC money running for president and it's not actually going to hurt him that much. And so what he's doing then is smuggling in. I'm also not going to take APAC money.

[Emily]

Right.

[Ryan Grim]

Cory Booker is one of the lead champions of AIPAC's agenda in Congress over the years. For him to understand that it's too toxic to take is a watershed moment for APEC. I will say that.

[Emily]

Now let's put D5 up on the screen. Ryan, can you take us through this? The NBC News report here. AIPAC super PAC funded Illinois group. We went through all of this after the results last week. But there's a quote here. UDP was happy to support these local committees along with Chicago donors to make sure pro Israel voices would have their voices heard, according to Patrick Dorton to NBC News on Friday. What does that mean?

[Ryan Grim]

And so UDP is United Democracy project. That's a PAC's super PAC. You're like, what does that name mean by the way? Because according to them, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle east and we are here United States, we're a democracy. There is, we are united democracies. And so that's where their super PAC name comes from. Just wanted to highlight this because in case there's anybody out there doesn't believe me, we've been reporting for many weeks that it was AIPAC money that was funneling through these, what they call local committees. And those quote unquote local committees were, they're called Elect Chicago Women, Affordable Chicago now and one other progressive something something. There were fake pop up PACs that would then be funneled, that would then be funded by udp, apac, super pac. Plus a bunch of AIPAC donors. And then you don't learn that officially until after the campaign is over.

[Emily]

This is so ridiculous.

[Ryan Grim]

And when we report, based on our sourcing and our just doing journalism about what's going on in Chicago, when we report, oh, no, this is actually AIPAC money, you get people saying that's bigoted and you're trafficking in tropes. And then after the campaign they're like, yeah, that was us. And with one of the races, they even, they won the race with this candidate, Donna Miller. AIPAC put out a tweet saying, big win for aipac. They had not endorsed her or admitted that they were even spending on her behalf, still publicly, then took credit for winning the race, which I feel like that you can't do that. Okay, you won, we'll acknowledge it. But you don't get to claim publicly, you don't get to do the victory lap.

[Emily]

No, you would think, you would think. Now, speaking of victory laps, quite a scene down in the. I think it's, the town of Palm beach is included in this district. There's West Palm beach, there's the town of Palm beach, there's Palm beach itself. Last element here. Headline from NBC News. Democrat flips Republican held Florida state House district that includes Trump's Mar A Lago. Emily Gregory, according to NBC, quote, narrowly won the special election for the district Tuesday night. According to AP projections, Trump carried this district in 2024. Gregory got 51% of the vote to 49% for the Trump endorsed candidate. And in that race that had a. I was, I was just watching this come in on X last night, had a lot of Dems feeling pretty good, Ryan.

[Ryan Grim]

I think it's fun for them to just win Mar A Lago.

[Emily]

Well, they're going to.

[Ryan Grim]

Trump had won it by 11 points.

[Emily]

Now they're going to do all like ticky, tacky, like municipal stuff, run Mar a Lago to mess with them. Yeah, well, they can, I mean, it would have to go through the House, but.

[Ryan Grim]

And another one, it's now official. It wasn't official last night, but it's in a Senate, a Republican Senate, District 14. I don't know where that is. You look it up. Democrats flipped that one too. Guy Brian Nathan beat Josie Tomkow, a Republican. So that had been. So they flipped, they flipped. Democrats flipped two seats in Florida that had been Republican held before. I think the Republicans had won Trump's Mar A Lago seat by 11 points before. So, you know, if you're, if you're a Republican, it's another sign of this. Roughly, that's a 13 point swing that we've been seeing somewhere between 10 and 20 points in all these special elections. If that holds this Texas gerrymander, where they put people, put Republicans in districts where they kind of won by like 8, 9 points, may go down as one of the funniest own goals ever because what they've done is they redrew all these Texas districts to actually now put them within reach for Democrats. Whoops.

[Emily]

Insane. All right. Well, quickly, Ryan, let's go to a blackouts. We got a guest come in in just one moment. Some breaking news on this, by the way. According to Brian Metzger, as of just this morning, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Casa Cortez are planning to introduce the, quote, a data center moratorium act at a 4pm press conference over on Capitol Hill. So that's expect that to come down later today. But why might they be pursuing this? Well, one reason, first element we can toss up on the screen here, per Tom Winter over at NBC News, electrical grid. This is according to his NBC News report, quote, electrical grid at increasing risk of blackouts due to surging demand. Then he asks, could there be blackouts in nyc? How serious is the threat nationwide? The fact that that question is even being asked, Ryan, is all the evidence you need for why populists on the left might be considering introducing a moratorium on the data centers.

[Ryan Grim]

Now, I look forward to people asking their phones, grok, is it true that I'm in a blackout caused by you?

[Emily]

That is so dark. That is so dark. Let's take a look actually at this video from an interview that was done in Kentucky really recently. It was making the rounds. This is a Kentucky family being interviewed. I think this was the local news about a data center. Let's roll it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

If it's my way, I'll stay and hold and feed a nation. 26 million doesn't mean anything.

[Ryan Grim]

Some people might find it hard to understand how Delcia Baer can turn away a $26 million offer to buy some of her land until you spend a little time with her walking the dirt road she grew up on and in the house her daddy built.

[Ryan Reynolds]

My grandfather and great grandfather and a whole bunch of family has all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it.

[Ryan Grim]

So what do you say to the people who are in town that say, hey, this is going to bring jobs, this is going to bring economic prosperity?

[Ryan Reynolds]

I say they're a liar and the truth ain't in them is what I say.

[Chris Robb]

It's a scam for Delcia.

[Ryan Grim]

Scam or not, she says she's connected to her home like Scarlett o' Hara was in Gone with the Wind.

[Ryan Reynolds]

As long as she was attached to that land, her spirit never would die. That's. That's the exact same. Same thing for me right here. As long as I'm on this land, as long as it's feeding me, as long as it's taking care of me, there's nothing coming. Destroy me if I've got this land.

[Emily]

I actually just watched Gone with the Win again a couple of. A couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure Scarlett o' Hara is the comparison she wants to make in this case, but you see how deeply felt.

[Ryan Grim]

We'll allow it.

[Emily]

Brian will allow it.

[Ryan Grim]

In the interest of whatever. We'll allow it.

[Emily]

Meanwhile, this is another one of these AI updates that just casually pops into the discourse. And it's so massive, you can't even do it justice through coverage because, again, like, it's casual things that AI guys are saying. This is Jensen Wang of Nvidia over with Lex Friedman. He says, we've achieved AGI. We could roll the clip.

[Chris Robb]

I think it's now. I think we've achieved AGI.

[Jensen Wang]

You think you can have a company

[Ryan Reynolds]

run by an AI system like this?

[Chris Robb]

Possible. And the reason for that is this. You said a billion, and you didn't say forever. And so, for example, it is not out of the question that a claw was able to create a web service, some interesting little app that all of a sudden, you know, a few billion people used for 50 cents.

[Emily]

The robots are now on our level. Casual little. Now, he has his own motivations for saying that, unlike.

[Ryan Grim]

Because he's the only guy making any money here, because he's selling all these chips, everybody else is losing money. That's the new definition of AGI, that you can make an app like that. An agent can make an app that people might like. Okay, I thought we were. I thought AGI was supposed to mean something a lot deeper and more profound than that, but whatever.

[Emily]

Yeah. Now, finally about where this is going. And again to the point about why Bernie and AOC are teaming up on this moratorium, which, by the way, I don't. I get the thrust of the moratorium policy. I'm not necessarily advocating that that's the right thing or the wrong thing. I have to think about it more. But you can see the politics of it from a country mile, why it's important for them to be on this side of the issue. And we can put the New York Times tear sheet up on the screen here. Young graduates face the grimmest job market in years. I don't know if they invoke grim intentionally, but listen to this. Copyright the unemployment rate for College graduates ages 22 to 27 soared to 5.6% at the end of last year. That is. We are going back to the New York Times has a chart included in this article. We're going back to roughly Great Recession levels of unemployment for people with college degrees. And this is the spring. A lot of people right now looking for jobs finding that they're probably hitting an impasse, hitting a wall in those searches. The Times article says that this is not necessarily this. Although I may be replacing some entry level jobs in the margins. There's little evidence it's the culprit yet. But some of it is from this quote, low hire, low fire dynamics in the labor market or most of it is what the Times report says economists are convinced. On that note, what this tells us is next year, year after, what we could be looking at is low, higher, low fire dynamics and an AI, potentially an AI bloodbath of entry level positions. So what that actually is telling us is the worst may be yet to come, right?

[Ryan Grim]

And, and people expect that we're heading into very uncertain territory. And so as a result they're not hiring, which becomes a self fulfilling thing. It is bleak. It's bleak even in China, by the way I was looking it up. They're seeing an increase too in unemployment among people in their 20s. And so this is a trend that isn't unique to us. Maybe they should do a little moratorium over there too.

[Emily]

There you go.

[Ryan Grim]

They don't have the same energy problems though they can fire away.

[Emily]

On a similar note, let's break down some economic indicators from coast to coast.

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[Ryan Grim]

The entire underpinning of the US run global economies under threat by the Iran war, We put up this Reuters article talking about the rattling of the foundations of the Gulf Petrodollar, which would have extraordinary implications for the US Economy and everybody else around the world. It's based significantly on a Deutsche bank report that included, quote, the huge strategic importance of the Middle east to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency should not be underestimated. The current conflict could test the foundations of the petrodollar regime, unquote. Now, when Deutsche bank had floated this as a risk of the looming conflict in Iran back in January, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessen lashed out at them, basically saying, how dare you? Now that this is, now that the war has come to pass, we're seeing the Iranians allowing oil tankers to go through the Strait of Hormuz as long as they trade in yuan. And you're seeing a lot of questioning of the value of the relationship. The petrodollar, effectively, Emily, as you know, means the deal is these Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia most particularly will sell its oil in dollars. We will offer them protection as a result of that and with their dollars, they will invest that back the into in the United States and global economy in dollars, particularly buying U.S. treasury bonds, which allows us to keep our interest rates down. It allows us to keep our debt load at what it is. If that breaks down, you're looking at a completely different ERA for the US and we put up F1. There had been some hope mortgage interest rates had been coming back down to earth hope. There was some hope that people who were locked into their mortgage would be able to start, would be able to sell that people who've been waiting forever to buy a house would be able to buy in the last couple weeks, we're now surging 7% again. Could be in sight if these trends continue. We're up over. Back over 6% and put up F2. People are not feeling so good about Donald Trump's handling of the economy. Man, if you're just listening to this, you're not getting to see the blood on this chart. It looks like Donald Trump's approval rating got hacked by Joe Biden. It's just straight down and by Joe Biden. Yet it shows his Trump's approval of the economy finished at around 50%.

[Emily]

Now, compare that to where he was in his first term. Look at that.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, yeah, he used to be. People used to love him. It's his handling of the economy, at least. Biden tanked under Biden spiked at the beginning under Trump, and is now down to 29% of people approving of the economy.

[Emily]

I mean, this is a midterm year. A midterm year for Donald Trump. And, you know, he looks at the markets and he says, well, the markets are up. So that's the economy.

[Ryan Grim]

Right. What's wrong with voters?

[Emily]

Right. He keeps musing what's wrong with the people? What's wrong with the voters? And obviously, the American people are not feeling that the economy is good because the markets are good. So if you see the markets as the economy, that would be a very confusing figure.

[Ryan Grim]

Like, wait a minute, why am I not messaging this? Right.

[Emily]

And I mean, we can just go ahead and toss this element up on the screen. This is from the. Well, actually, we'll save it. We talked about this earlier in the show, so we don't have to get back to it. But the New York Times new article that we talked about moments ago on the college graduate situation, people are saying it's the uncertainty that's in the economy. It's not necessarily AI yet.

[Ryan Grim]

Right.

[Emily]

But Liberation Day. Pedal to the metal on AI. This is just the first year, right? This is just the first year.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah. This is dark. And this is before the collapse. Before the collapse. Before the crash that everybody knows is coming.

[Emily]

Well, and remember when this was the Scott Besant letter where he said, quote, trump will pursue a weak dollar policy rather than implementing tariffs. Weakening the dollar early in the second admin would make us manufacturing competitive. A weak dollar in plen. Cheap energy could power a boom. What is this, what we're witnessing?

[Ryan Grim]

I don't know. I guess so. So to find out how voters are thinking about this, let's bring in State Representative Chris Robb, who is running for Philadelphia's Open congressional seat. Robb was recently endorsed by Justice Democrats and so giving him a real shot in the arm in this kind of open race that has like, you know, 72 different people running for it. Because if you get elected to this Philadelphia seat, one of the most progressive, probably bastions in the United States, you know, you're going to be, you know, people think if you get it, you're going to be in there, it's going to be difficult to dislodge you. So, State Representative Rob, thank you so much for joining us.

[Chris Robb]

My pleasure.

[Ryan Grim]

And the election is in the middle of May, so this is. This is coming pretty rapidly around the corner. In New York, Mayor Mamdani came up with this innovative idea, apparently innovative in American politics, that he would actually talk about how difficult it is for people to live day to day and that people might respond to that. It was kind of people were like, that's crazy. You're gonna talk about people's material concerns and you think they're gonna respond to politician. This is crazy. Now he's mayor. So since then, we've seen a lot of Democrats adopt his language around affordability, but not often connected to concrete ways that he's gonna actually make your. That Democrats are gonna make your life more affordable. So I'm curious as this, as people have really come to the conclusion that this economy sucks, what are you seeing on the campaign trail from people and what are you finding is resonating with them and what isn't?

[Chris Robb]

Well, sure. So I've been on the campaign trail for several months now, and it's a very unique moment for us in Philadelphia because it's the first time in 35 years that there's no incumbent on the ballot in this race. 35 years. So we literally have voters who are not born. The last time there was no incumbent on the ballot. It's also, like you said, the bluest congressional district nationwide. Of all 435 seats, it's number one. It is also an aggressively young district. So it's all within the city of Philadelphia. Over half of voters are millennials and younger. It is also a majority black district with a lot of ethnic diversity and a number of universities. So it is a unique space to be campaigning. And as someone who never takes corporate PAC money, that's one of the first questions people ask, particularly folks who are on social media, because they see that there's a corrosive influence of money in politics, and they assume that any viable candidate, be they Democrat or Republican, is somehow mired in that system. And they are shocked and pleasantly surprised that I don't take corporate backed money and that I've never taken it. And that also relates to how I message on issues that are of concern to people because I have opponents who will not say we should tax the ultra wealthy because they receive money from ultra wealthy insiders. They will not mention Gaza because they have support from folks who want the war in Iran and that's connected to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. There are folks who are not going to talk about Medicare for all in the most meaningful ways because they're receiving money from folks who do not want universal health care in this country. And so people are finding that refreshing. Mandani put it on the map and did it masterfully. It also helped that there was ranked choice voting in New York, which I'm the prime sponsor of in Pennsylvania, in the Pennsylvania legislature. And also that there's public financing of elections, which is also huge, which I think a lot of people appreciate because it reduces the influence of the wealthiest members of the donor class so that we can actually have races that are not pandering to folks closest to the Epstein class, essentially.

[Emily]

So one of the, I think questions that's always valuable to ask people who are out campaigning in the field is what are you hearing? I mean, this is, as you mentioned, a very deep BL area. What are you hearing from voters? And then how much do they care about the issues that you're hearing about? Because one of the big questions in a midterm cycle is how the coalition turns out on election day, how energized people are to go vote. Whether it's the economy, maybe for some people it's Gaza, Iran. But what are you hearing about most? And what is your sense about how deeply people are bothered by those issues?

[Chris Robb]

Yeah, so I think it's a twofold kind of view. One is when I'm meeting folks for the first time and they don't know anything about me, they want to kind of test how authentic I am. So they'll say, do you take corporate PAC money? Assuming that I do, because, you know, I'm viable. And it's like, no. And they're like, oh, all right. Where are you on Palestine? I'm like, well, I believe there's an ongoing genocide in Palestine and that needs to be addressed. And they're shocked that I even used the word. And then they'll say, well, what about ice? And I said, well, we should start with abolishing ice, but we should also dismantle the immigrant detention centers which were born out of bipartisan complicity. And that's when I pivot into talking about critiquing my own party because I'm running in the Democratic primary. So while everyone likes to take shots at Trump because it's so easy, we can unless and until we can hold our own party to account, it really doesn't matter about anything else until we've done that. And so one of the things I do is I say I am not an establishment Democrat. I've never been, even though I'm a five term incumbent, I've never been endorsed by my own political party even though I've received more votes than any state representative in Pennsylvania history. Because I'm an independent thinker who does not. I'm nobody's rubber stamp. And people seem to respond well to that in this moment because establishment politics is why we got here, centrism is why we got here. And centrism is not going to be the solution for systemic issues that people are crying out to be addressed in the most bold and humane ways.

[Emily]

It's fascinating that they're going through these series of litmus tests to determine how anti establishment you are, which is entirely fair, right?

[Ryan Grim]

It is. Because I think people are thinking like if you're not willing to say these basically obviously true things, then you're not going to fight on it. You're not going to fight on anything else. And in that respect, your race caught some national attention. On the flip side, when your lead opponent, Ala Stanford made some extraordinarily like bizarre and eyebrow raising comments that went in the complete opposite direction. We'll play it in a little clip here, which is actually from Sunrise Movement Philadelphia which has endorsed you. This is a climate group, but showing the kind of valence and the strength of the question of this genocide in Gaza. For the Sunrise Movement, that seems to be a proxy as well for your willingness to fight on the climate. Because I think Ta Nehisi Coates said, if you're not going to draw the line at genocide, how can I trust you to fight for democracy? Same is true, I think, for everything else, climate included. So let's quickly, let's roll this sunrise clip here.

[Jensen Wang]

If you're in Philly, you gotta hear this. Ayla Stanford, who's running to be our next congressperson. Just compared using the word genocide to using the N word, acknowledging the fact that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians is not the same as using a slur that has been used to harm black people throughout this nation's history. But I guess that's the Kind of loyalty that over a million dollars from pro Israel groups can buy from you, huh? If you want the kind of candidate who has the courage to say apac, well, then you'd be in good luck because the Sunrise Movement is supporting this dude, Chris Rab, who's running for Congress. And you can help us put him there by signing our Sunrise for Rab interest form or donating to his campaign in order to get a uncompromised progressive leader in Congress. Let's be aipac.

[Ryan Grim]

So has there been any fallout for Stanford for that comment saying, I don't want to describe what's going on in Gaza as the G word, because to me that's for some people, that's too similar to the N word. What has been the kind of reaction locally to that?

[Chris Robb]

I mean, it is such a bizarre and problematic statement. The response from Jewish people has been overwhelming. Like, how dare you put it, make us a monolith and conflate AIPAC with Judaism or Jewish identity. That's offensive. To connect an actual genocide with a term used by white supremacists to dehumanize black people over centuries, like it is so deeply problematic. But here's where it matters Most. This Super PAC314 action, on the surface is about empowering and supporting folks with the STEM background to run for Congress.

[Ryan Grim]

Right?

[Chris Robb]

Right. But the reality is 314 action received millions of dollars from a United Democracy Project, which is a front group for aipac. But it's worse because the six Democratic physicians currently in Congress who were endorsed by the same super PAC are not folks who are on the Medicare for All bill. They are not one of the over 110 co sponsors of the Medicare for All bill. And why does that matter? Because in this election, in this campaign trail, rather, all of us claim to be for universal health care, but I'm the only one who says I would co sponsor the Medicare for All bill, which is very different and it's very precise and my opponent's not doing that. And if you have a super PAC that now has given over $2.5 million in support of her candidacy and their track record is only supporting Democrats who are physicians who do not support Medicare for All, that's problematic. And that does not pass the smell test among folks who are outraged at this, this awful statement and also being funded by folks who are not human beings like this should just, I only get money from human beings. I'm old school that way. And I think that's important. People want to see that I'm not accountable to anyone but the people. And I remind people that my biggest donor is my mommy.

[Ryan Grim]

And just, just to do a little back patting 2024, I did the reporting on this race in Oregon. Was it Oregon? No, Seattle, Washington. Seattle, where Maxine Dexter, who is now a member of Congress, who's also a physician, was backed by this called super PAC called 314Action, which backs doctors and scientists or says they back doctors and scientists. I reported that in fact AIPAC was using it as a shell to secretly funnel money in it because they opposed Sushila Jayapal, who was Pramila Jayapal's sister. Pramila Jayapal had been critical of Israel. They didn't want her sister coming to Congress. They furiously denied it, called me all sorts of names, bigot, et cetera. And then after the, the election is over and she wins, they publicly have to now do their filing and it's oh, yep, it was AIPAC the entire time. And so now every time that 314 action jumps into these races in a significant way, people are asking where did this money come from? And to me that, because sometimes it's not AIPAC money with through 314 actions, sometimes it is. If they're putting in a huge amount, it's probably AIPAC money. Are they over a million for her at this point or what are they throwing?

[Chris Robb]

I think it's over 2 million at this point. You're being inundated.

[Ryan Grim]

And I can tell you from reporting on this group over the years, this is not a new group. 314 has been around for a while. They're the kind of super PAC that usually comes in and spends six low six figures in a race because while, while doctors and scientists are doing well in the United States, they're the kind of people that will write five and $10,000 checks. They don't own stadiums and baseball teams. And so they're not the kind of people that can write multimillion dollar checks. So if they're spending two plus million dollars in this race, the chances that that's AIPAC money are very high because that it's just outside of the pattern of what they've done over the years

[Emily]

anyway.

[Ryan Grim]

Were you going to say something?

[Emily]

No, I just, I was kind of wondering in my own mind how Iran, the war in Iran has changed, if at all. The race, it seems like something that would shake things up.

[Ryan Grim]

Good question. Yeah, it should.

[Chris Robb]

But only if you have you show the nexus between what's happened in Palestine and the interest like this is Netanyahu's war. Right? This is Netanyahu's war. Trump is doing the bidding of Netanyahu. So if you support, if you have issues with Netanyahu, then you should have deep issues with what's happening in Iran. So everyone is against the war in Iran in this race, but they're not connecting the dots between the interests of folks who want to level Gaza and the folks who believe in regime change and do not believe in multilateral diplomacy. And that's a problem. And that's what I'm trying to connect the dots for. The other thing is a lot of people are concerned about this, but they're also concerned about putting food on the table and, you know, filling up their, their gas tanks. And my job is to connect the dots to say every bomb we drop on civilians in Tehran is money that could go to free child care, you know, social housing, universal basic income, any number of these so called radical ideas that are adopted in other industrialized nations with far less financial wealth than what we have. And so that's how I connect the dots. And it's important. But there are opponents of mine who do not want those dots connected because they're going to be against the war in Iran, but they're for what Netanyahu is seeking to do in Palestine. And that is deeply problematic and hypocritical.

[Ryan Grim]

Well, Chris Raab, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate. We'll continue to follow this race.

[Chris Robb]

Thank you.

[Ryan Grim]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to look in a little close to see if we can nail down for certain whether this is APAC money going through 314. But appreciate you joining.

[Chris Robb]

My pleasure.

[Emily]

That's going to do it for us on today's edition of Breaking Points. As a reminder, hit upbreakingpoints.com for a premium subscription to support our independent journalists associated with support. Journalists like Ryan Grim. Going to Cuba ain't cheap.

[Ryan Grim]

Actually, it was fairly cheap. $700 for three nights. Reasonable.

[Emily]

That was like also the visa.

[Ryan Grim]

You get breakfast. Whoa.

[Emily]

You got breakfast.

[Ryan Grim]

The visa was $90.

[Emily]

Oh, okay.

[Ryan Grim]

That goes straight to Cuba.

[Emily]

There you go. Well, Please go to BreakingPoints.com support the show.

[Ryan Grim]

One of your 1 Breaking Points, Premium sub pays for a visa.

[Emily]

I was gonna say it's like we were about to do the ASPCA.

[Ryan Grim]

I got $10 left over.

[Emily]

Over. Yeah. We should zoom in on Ryan's face and have him like looking like a sad puppy trying to cute.

[Ryan Grim]

Buy me another visa.

[Emily]

All right, well, thanks so much. We'll see you on Friday for the Friday show. Premium half of the Friday show. Have a great afternoon everyone.

[Mitchell Valdez Sosa]

Foreign.

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[Ryan Grim]

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[Jensen Wang]

Risks include principal loss and the use

[Ryan Grim]

of derivatives, which could increase risks and volatility. Monthly income is not guaranteed. Prepared by BlackRock Investments, LLC.

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