12/12/25: Trump SHOOK After Indiana Loss, Beef Price Fixing EXPOSED, Iranians BRACE for New Attacks

This Friday the teams looks at the Indiana map redistricting, reporter from The Lever Brock Hrehor tells us about his reporting on Beef Markets price fixing your burger to cost $20 dollars, and a journalist from Al Jazeera Hind Hassan breaks down her documentary on the aftermath of the strikes on Iran known as the 12 Day War.

Sign up to see the 2nd half of the show at breakingpoints.com

Brock Hrehror Article: https://www.levernews.com/the-secret-algorithm-behind-your-20-burger/
Hind Hassan Doc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLAXcKI9OV8

 

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com

Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of the show.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Good morning, everyone, Friday, December twelve. How's everybody doing so far?

Speaker 4 (00:35):
So good?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Got a big gymnastics meet from my youngest today, so
nerves are running high in our household.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
Huge good luck.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Yeah she yeah she.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I'm kind of annoyed because I mean, she's eight years old, right,
She's not at like a super high She's a good
competitor and she's on the team. It's not like a
super high level of the sport, and we have to
take off school for the meat. Like, that's kind of
crazy to me. That whatever here, we are, right, Yeah,
that is crazy. A bunch of these girls that do

(01:08):
gymnastics really seriously, they are homeschooled just so they can
like train enough for the sport.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I mean, you guys know, I was like high level
athlete and that's still insane to me. But anyway, so
good luck to aid IT today.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Good luck to everyone being in homeschooled, everyone being homeschooled,
to goluct to you as well. Big show, Big show today.
We got double guest here in the first hour. First
of our guests, we've got Brock from the Lever who's
talking to us about meat burgers. Why your five guys
burger is one hundred dollars every time you go in

(01:46):
and buy it the meat market?

Speaker 5 (01:48):
And then Ryan, who's our next guest. After that, we'll
have hind Hassan.

Speaker 6 (01:52):
She wrote a piece for Drops Out yesterday about a
documentary that she helped produce with Al Jazeera where she
tried to Iran to talk to people who had been
who are basically survivors of the twelve day Israeli War.
There interviewed the Foreign Minister on camera, which is which
is which is quite rare, you know, more than a

(02:13):
thousand people were killed, and she'll talk about, you know,
what the after effects have been and how likely people
there think another attack is to come, and that's the
spoiler quite high, really interesting.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
We also have more We have the time Person of
the Year has been anointed. We're really excited to celebrate them.
And we also have some Disney characters moving into sora Ai.
But first, Crystal, why don't you start us with this
map from Indiana.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, so you know, Trump has been pushing for a
bunch of red states to redistrict and make their maps
more aggressively jerry mandered so that Republicans can pick up
seats as they're not feeling super great about just like
I don't know a few linked to voters, so they're
trying to do as much as they can to mess
with the maps in order to give them a more
favorable landscape. Texas went along with it sort of immediately

(03:10):
than California retally, it's that's sort of like a wash.
And they've been making this big push with Indiana in particular.
You've had I think Jadie Vance went to the state.
They've been lobbying these people and then they outright resorted
to threatening the entire state. If the Republicans there, it's
you know, a very Republican dominated state, don't go along

(03:30):
with their plans for this redistricting. And so yesterday the
redistricting plan, after all of these threats, were going to
pull all of your federal funding. These lawmakers are getting
individual threats and swatted and you know, pizza sent to
their house in the whole bit, so full pressure campaign
from the grassroots all the way up to the president.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
The Senate.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Republicans in Indiana and the Indiana Senate soundly rejected this
new more partisan, gerrymandered map.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
So there's a lot of interesting dynamics.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Emily b probably better position than me to speak to,
but I mean Indiana, obviously this is the home of
Mike Pence. Mitch Daniels has figured in the rhetoric here.
There's sort of like an old lines, like more standard
traditional conservative Republican that still has a lot of sway
in the state of Indiana. And then you also have
just you know, when you redraw these maps, there are

(04:22):
going to be incumbents, even Republican incumbents who are kind
of on the losing end of that, like they may
be redistricted in with another Republican incumbent, their district may
go from being like super duper safe to like pretty safe.
But it's about to be a really landslide bad Democratic year.
And you know, if you're in one of these districts
that they're being most aggressive with, you may not be

(04:43):
super excited about it. And then I think there's also
just a natural human reaction of like, don't tread on me,
reaction like who are you to tell us the way
that we need to operate in our state? So Emily,
what did you you know, what are some of the
dynamics that you thought were important here? And then, I
mean the last thing all through is like this is
also a moment of extraordinary weakness for Trump in terms

(05:04):
of the you know, the long breadth of his political career.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
I think you'd have to look back to post.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
January sixth to see a moment when his sort of
hold and dominance of the party is as weak as
it is right now. You've got I mean, the republic
the like right wing influencers are just like ripping each
other to shreds. Marjorie Taylor Green is out there doing
her thing. You have some chunk of the base that
is unhappy with everything from foreign policy to the lack
of focus on domestic issues. And you also have just

(05:32):
this man is basically a lame duck at this point.
You know, you had took a massive electoral loss in
the off year elections, and so there also is a
little bit of like, Okay, we're realizing that Trump is
not going to be the guy here for the party forever.

Speaker 7 (05:49):
I think there's a really interesting counterfactuist to whether this
would have happened in Trump's first administration if we were,
you know, ten months into Trump's first administration with the
Indiana Republicans have listened to them. So Trump is right
now saying, uh, like the copiers that he didn't really
try that hard. Uh it wasn't really that big of
a deal. He wasn't paying that close attention to it. Yeah, yeah,

(06:13):
Uh that's.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
The that's the cod map. Anyway, it was.

Speaker 8 (06:19):
I love Andre Carson.

Speaker 7 (06:20):
The line is, I think they're saying it just it
would have just been gravy. I think that's what Playbook
had this morning. What has just been gravy. But you know,
if you've covered state lawmakers ever in particular, you know,
like the worst way, the worst way to try to
get them to do something is to be like a
federal government national pressure campaign and to try to tell

(06:44):
them like, we're bullying you around.

Speaker 5 (06:47):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (06:47):
That first of all makes them look terrible to their constituents,
even if they're conservative.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (06:52):
And second of all, they hate it so much because
they already feel kind of looked down upon as state lawmakers.
So if you're trying to do a pressure campaign, nationalizing
it and turning it into like this Roy Cone rigamarole,
which is totally how Trump was doing that, it completely backfired.

(07:12):
And the reporting actually suggests that. But I think also
if you just look at it, if you look at
what the state lawmakers are saying. One of the pro
Trump state lawmakers was saying that yes, they did threaten
federal funds because that was sort of in just.

Speaker 5 (07:26):
Right.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
Governor indicated that yeah.

Speaker 7 (07:29):
And whether or not it actually happened. The White House
is also being cagy about that. This is they're now
like outright saying yeah, no, that was on the table.
The federal funding was on the table. So it does
look like a very significant setback in terms of like
the future of trump Ism. I don't know how that
counterfactual shakes out and Trump one point if this would

(07:49):
have happened, because either way, it seemed like it was
just the clumsiest push to try and push back against
Gavin Newsom. So Newsom gets his redistricting. Okay, going to
do it in Indiana, deep red state, it's coming. We
can play your game two. And that was clumsily done
from beginning to end.

Speaker 6 (08:11):
Yeah, and nine zero I think also feels just wrong
to people like Maryland is going to try to do it,
to try to completely blank out Republicans. And there's just
something I think where you're like, wait, zero, like you
know because I just looked it up. Trump won fifty
nine to forty basically in Indiana, but that's you still
forty percent of the state is Democratic, Like to have

(08:34):
zero is a little crazy.

Speaker 8 (08:35):
But Crystal's point I think is key.

Speaker 6 (08:37):
That Like, so if you if if on average they
won by nineteen, that means if you drew it out
perfectly and you split Indianapolis up into these four districts,
which is what they were trying to do, plus then
the district up by Michigan.

Speaker 8 (08:52):
Or by Lake Michigan, you.

Speaker 6 (08:54):
Then if if you did it absolutely perfectly, everybody would
be a plus nineteen, you know, relative to twenty twenty four.
But with people angry about the redistricting, angry about the economy,
and angry at Trump and watching Nashville the Nashville race,
which was plus twenty two be too close for comfort,
You've got then nine candidates who are like, Okay, it's

(09:17):
plus nineteen, and in a normal year, I would cruise,
but ugh, I am not feeling super good about this
plus nineteen. So I think they'd rather I think those
seven guys would rather just be comfortable, like they have
no chance of losing, rather than nine people who have
some tiny chance of losing. This is also well two
hilarious things here. One, Indiana might lose federal funding before

(09:39):
New York City, which.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
Is absolutely logic of Mom, Donnie.

Speaker 6 (09:45):
Can you believe that if I'm Mom, Donnie, I'm on
the phone now, like, hey, if you're not spending that
money in Indiana, like we will call them the Trump
bus lines, Trump Trump childcare.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
But clearly they.

Speaker 7 (09:58):
Don't want to own. Clearly they don't even want to
own that they pushed that hard. So they're not going
to take the money from Indiana because then it would
look like they cared about Indiana.

Speaker 6 (10:07):
Just just quietly take the money, just and make Indiana
just keep calling like the money is not here yet,
where's the money, where's the money?

Speaker 8 (10:15):
Oh, it's common, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, then we'll get back to you, sorry, boys, Meadow.

Speaker 6 (10:19):
The other point is they they went after so far.
So far, they've had setbacks in what Ohio, Utah, Kansas,
and and they're struggling in Missouri. So they were looking
to like run the table on a whole bunch of
seats here, and they're they're and Florida is not going
to go till next year.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well, in Florida, there are some issues there because they
actually have in their state constitution provisions against partisan jerry manders.
So they actually have some of the more sort of
stringent laws on the books apparently about partisan jerry so
they have to like so they have to deal with that,
and yeah, and potential court challenges there. And then you

(10:58):
mentioned so effectively, so Gavin does his redistricting, Texas does
their redistricting. The courts have now said Texas's map is okay,
even though there was a question about that those are
effectively a wash, right, it's i think it's five in
California for the Dems, five in Texas for the Republicans,
assuming that's another one. I don't know the details, but
that's another map I might be a little nervous about,

(11:19):
given how hard Latinos are swinging against Trump, right So,
you know, I'm not sure that everybody there should be
super comfortable about the way they drew their map, assuming
this new Republican coalition that may have only been you know,
kind of flashing the pan, you know, for Trump specifically
kind of a deal. Anyway, putting that aside, Democrats in

(11:39):
Virginia are looking at a Jerrymander Maryland, as you said, Ryan,
and again there are some like democratic resistance in Maryland.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
Not everybody is on board.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
The governor is on board for sure, so anyway, none
of that is guaranteed. And then yeah, Florida is a
place where that would be a big prize for Republicans.
There's a lot of seats they could gain there. I
don't remember exactly the number, but that's also one where
they have this state law issue that they're going to
have to contend with. So I don't know right now,
it's pretty up for grabs. Who's going to ultimately win

(12:12):
out in the redistricting wars. Bannon gave a quote to
Politico saying, like, the Republicans are in deep trouble because
he feels like they need to net at least ten
or so seats to have even a prayer at holding
onto the House in the midterms, and currently they're not
really on track to be able to achieve that.

Speaker 5 (12:32):
And what kind of go ahead right now? What's soill
remarkable about? By the way, and this came into relief.

Speaker 6 (12:38):
I was talking to my daughter last night when she
was asking me who before Trump in the modern era,
was like the most unpopular president ever, and I said
it was, well, it was probably Bush. And she asked
like why and I told her, you know, well, he
tried to kill Soul Security and that that blew up
in his face. Then the Iraq War was going really badly,
and then there was this flood and this hurricane in

(12:58):
New Orleans that and so all these things were going
terribly for him and it and it made me realize
again something that I'd forgotten, that Trump hasn't had anything
bad happen to him, which is it's it's been a
remarkably kind of lucky run of his first year. There
haven't been any like significant you know, obviously there have

(13:18):
been like some small crises here and there, but there's
been no financial crisis.

Speaker 8 (13:23):
Uh, there's been no disastrous withdrawal.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
From Afghanistan, no pandemic.

Speaker 8 (13:28):
There's been no pandemic.

Speaker 6 (13:29):
There's been no earthquake, there's been no The hurricane season
was the lightest.

Speaker 8 (13:34):
Who been.

Speaker 6 (13:35):
There haven't been a you know, fires are not breaking
out everywhere, like things are going pretty calmly around the war,
around the country and around the world.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
There's an Epstein shaped hole in that recount though.

Speaker 6 (13:47):
Right, that artificial stuff like, so, so he has done
this to himself. There's no there's no external pressure that
is driving his approval rating into the ground, is my point.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
It's coming from all him, all all him.

Speaker 6 (14:02):
There's gonna be something like there's no way he goes
four years without external disasters hitting him. So to go
into those disasters at thirty percent is uncharted territory.

Speaker 7 (14:15):
Yeah, so I searched Trump's true social account. There's some
Twitter accounts that repost US true socials. Here is him
not really caring that much about India?

Speaker 5 (14:26):
This is a fact.

Speaker 7 (14:27):
On November twenty fish.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
He's gonna read all that body.

Speaker 8 (14:30):
It looks like you care, it says.

Speaker 7 (14:32):
Yeah, it's a little Acmany. It's giving Acman a very
important initiative, a very important initiative. This is like, if
you're listening to us, this is like probably one hundred
and fifty two hundred wars esus all kinds of stuff.
That's just one post. I'm sure there are more, but yes,
it's he didn't really care that much at all.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
And there's another one. Yeah, yeah, lost's another one.

Speaker 6 (14:58):
They've straight up lost Republicans in the Indiana Senate, like
even if Democrats had not been able to vote, they
lost a majority among Republicans. There's not getting told no
by state senators. There was actual violence done to these
people too. We shouldn't forget that, Like not just threats
of violence against them. There were some like actual like

(15:20):
acts of like violence done toward them to try to
pressure them to implement this map. And they told this guy, no.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
This is it wasn't that important to anyone.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
It was so inportantly that he riled up his base
into like threats and violence against lawmakers to get them
to fold to his desires.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
But the majority at all costs.

Speaker 7 (15:44):
Republicans must fight back. I'll be strongly endorsing any state
senator House member from the Great City of Indiana the
votes against the Republican Party in our nation by not
allowing for redistricting like this is. If this is not
trying too hard, I wonder what it would look like
if he was, if he had really gone all out.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
Should we take a look?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Can you pull up Griffin this Trump approval writing, because
this speaks to what Ryan was just mentioning about where
he is, Because I mean, look, I'm all the polls
are going to be slightly different, but pretty much everybody
has an overall downward trajectory here. And this is specifically
on immigration, which you know, immigration crime were seen as
his two strongest issues. I think they still are his

(16:26):
strongest issues. But even there, you are you are seeing
a dramatic decline and he's underwater on both of the
issues where he's supposed to be, you know, allegedly the strongest.
And there was a lot here in terms of just
how far he has fallen. And the biggest area that's
a major issue for him is the economy. His overall

(16:50):
approval on the economy is now thirty one percent, thirty
one percent, and that's going to be a disaster for
any president, but this president in particular. You know, his
whole thing is his brand, Right, That's what he's best at.
He's best at creating this mythology around him and creating

(17:10):
this brand image. And for a long, long, long long time,
up until literally this year, his brand was I'm the businessman,
I understand the economy. I'm going to make you, your
you and your family better off. And now that brand
is completely toast. And to Ryan's point, I mean to

(17:30):
you know, the whole the whole concept of they're they're blaming,
trying to blame Biden, but not only are you a
year into your administration, but you were so aggressive in
all of the moves that you made on the economy.
Like the idea that this is Biden's economy at this
point after post Liberation Day is absurd to people, right,

(17:52):
even a lot of Republicans are like, no, it's not
Biden's again, like we are where we are, And then
the attempt to gaslight everybody and say no, the economy's
a plus plus plus plus, but also if there's problems,
it's Biden's economy. You know on something like the like
you have your own independent experience of this. He cannot
work work his reality creation distortion mechanisms nearly as effectively

(18:18):
in that areas. Perhaps he can and some others.

Speaker 7 (18:20):
And let's just take a look before we like, let's
take a look at this. Just a few moments ago,
Trump in the Oval Office last night projected.

Speaker 9 (18:28):
The congressional maps to redistrict in that state.

Speaker 7 (18:31):
A number of Republicans voted against that redistricting effort.

Speaker 10 (18:35):
You have spent a lot of time talking about this.

Speaker 9 (18:37):
Vice President traveled to Indiana.

Speaker 11 (18:39):
What's your reaction, Well, we want every other state. That's
the only state. Is funny because I won day. I
went Indiana all three times by a landslide, and I
wasn't working on it very hard. I think we would
have picked up to be siege. We did that. You
had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess
Ray or whatever his name is. He was against it.

(19:00):
Probably loses X primary whatever that is. I hope he does,
because he's done a disservice. I think of it. It's
a great place. I love the people there, they love me.
We wanted a landslide all three times and then you
there's no reason for doing it's a nice time it
to us, So I can't imagine that they do it.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
But it's different than.

Speaker 11 (19:24):
But there's a band named rays A. I guess head
of the Senate was that Bray? Is that the name
ray Uh?

Speaker 7 (19:33):
And Uh?

Speaker 11 (19:34):
I mean he'll I'm sure that whenever his primary uses
I think in two years, but I'm sure he'll go
down all right.

Speaker 7 (19:41):
So it's it's not that we weren't working very hard
on it, but it was quote a tremendous disservice. And this,
to Crystal's point, is the branding challenge of Trump going forward.
The economy is an a plus plus plus plus plus plus,
but consumer sentiments are at record loss. There's a lot
to not record loss, probably but pretty low, and so

(20:02):
there's a lot for the branding master to maneuver here
going forward.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, and I was just looking at another poll that
just came out in terms of like people's you know,
what people are prioritizing. No surprise, majority people say either
prices and inflation or jobs in the economy. Only three
percent are saying border security, nine percent are saying crime
and public safety, seven percent are saying immigration. So you know,

(20:31):
and this is where Venezuela factors into this as well,
where the vast majority of the public I think it's
like seventy percent of the public are like, no, I
don't want to.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
Do regime change in Venezuela. What are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (20:41):
And it's not only the opposition to the action itself,
it's also the sense of, like, hey, we have some
situations here that we feel like you should maybe be
focused on rather than murdering random people in the Caribbean
and doing another foolish foreign adventure regime change war. You know,
just to ask Biden and Kamala Harris how it goes

(21:03):
when people feel like you are more committed to war
making than you are to their own lives and their
material conditions. So, you know, I think that's that's another
that's another factor that is playing in here that is
probably not going to benefit them over the short or
long term.

Speaker 6 (21:19):
He took another loss last night that is actually very
relevant to this House of Representatives, which is still Republican controlled,
voted to reject Trump's executive order on what artificial intelligence
or no it was on rolling back No, no, no, it
was sorry.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
It was the labor that writes is that one.

Speaker 6 (21:40):
Yes, he was about the rolling back the union protection.
So Trump issued an executive order that was like hostile
to organize labor and workers, and they voted to roll
that back. And so, you know, a bunch of Republicans
cross the aisle twenty I think twenty Republicans nineteen were
facing you know, tough reelection campaigns, and one who's retiring

(22:04):
joined Democrats to overturn this executive order. So like he's
he's losing his hold on the party in a way
that you as you said, is like reminiscent of just
a few weeks after January sixth.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
One more thing to throw in here before before Brock
joins us is according to ms NOW, don't know how
amazing their sources are, and Marjorie Taylor Green denies this,
but sources tell ms NOW MTG's engaging support for emotion
to vacate well long shot bid to ouse Speaker Johnson,
Marjorie's approaching members to get to nine who will oust

(22:43):
the speaker. And you know, I mean this is direct
shot of Mike Johnson, not necessarily Trump, but like Mike
Johnson is not his own independent person out there he's
been Trump's puppet doing whatever it is that Trump wants
him to do, and that's a lot. That's been his
whole purpose and role. So you know, the other thing
I saw is she she posted this herself, So this
isn't something that she denied that she's gonna. She's thinking

(23:05):
about signing on to any discharge petition that comes up,
even if it's something she disagrees with. She's like, these
things should get a vote on the floor, Like they
should get a vote on the House floor, and people
disagree with them, then vote against them. But what is
it with this not being able to vote on things
and members not being able to express themselves. So I'm
so for it. I'm just sad she's resigning in January.

(23:27):
I want her to stick around.

Speaker 7 (23:28):
Yeah, I am too, But if she wants to do
a motion of vacate, she can definitely find enough people
to do it. It's like everyone is mad at Mike Johnson.
The moderates are mad at Mike Johnson, Mago is mad
at Mike Johnson. He has a very thin margin, obviously,
so the emotion of vacate basically Kevin McCarthy's entire conference
was happy with him except for like Matt Gates and

(23:49):
a posse of friends, and so because of what the
margins are right now, you know, it's just fair enough.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
Yeah, yeah, most likely.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean the biggest why are people so mad at
Mike Johnson specifically? Like has there been a key central
failure that they're all pointing to?

Speaker 7 (24:09):
Yeah? I mean during the government shutdown, everyone was home
in their districts and had lots of time on their
hands and just was like getting really really mad at
Mike Johnson and felt like he wasn't prioritizing the like
actual action type stuff. He hasn't been getting them to

(24:31):
like do things, and they feel kind of idle and frustrated.
And so I think you would have you would have
some like Freedom Caucus types, and then you would have
like Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania, a kind of moderate type
who's been speaking out against Mike Johnson. Now, would he
actually vote in the discharge position? You probably if she
made a serious push some of these. You know, there's

(24:53):
twenty people who are considering announcing their retirements according to
Jake Sherman, So what do they care? They'll they'll do
a motion of va Kate if they want to, you know,
make a point about Mike Johnson.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
So I would think for the moderates, for anybody who's
in a swing district too, they'd see it as an
opportunity to like separate themselves from a party that's unpopular,
you know, same function then in the past, like voting
against Nancy Pelosi would have served. I don't know how
far it gets you though, because most people see that
the problem is not really Mike Johnson, you know, outside
of like the you know, insular Republican infighting. They see

(25:25):
the problem as being Donald Trump and Mike Johnson is
just there to like do his bidding. But I do
think a lot of you know, some people who were
in districts that are vulnerable, would probably feel like, oh,
this is an opportunity for me to show that I'm
not like the rest of these people on my own person,
I'm independent, I'm voting against the party in some key ways,
and use that to.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Kind of try to bolster an independent brand.

Speaker 7 (25:45):
Yeah. I tried to get how their subsidies.

Speaker 6 (25:47):
Yeah, yeah, they yeah, right, they might get that next week,
right they might.

Speaker 8 (25:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (25:58):
Do you think that has a chance of passage? This
this deal that is coming together with House Republicans.

Speaker 12 (26:02):
Yeah, and this is the.

Speaker 7 (26:03):
Flip side of what we were talking about with Trump
operating as a Roy Cohnes style political figure, where sometimes
the arm twisting is a disaster and it backfires because
people take such umbrage with it, especially in politics, treating
them like it's mafia time. And then on the other hand,

(26:26):
sometimes it twists arms and Trump is able to like
sweet talk plus strong arm and gets it done. So
I think he's really not used to it not working.
I feel like that's what happened in Indiana.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
What does the deal look like?

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Because I saw the Republican talking points and it was
extremely vague.

Speaker 6 (26:47):
Is it what's a year extension Yeah, of of the
of the Obamacare subsidies right like through the election basically, Yeah,
which would be that'd be that'd be huge for everybody
who's staring at those bills right now.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
Yeah, who's already gone through the marketplace.

Speaker 8 (27:04):
And then if.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
Democrats and then if Democrats take the House, that you
know they they'd be in a position to defend defend
the subsidies in the next spending package.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
What about these two k tariff checks?

Speaker 3 (27:17):
I was promised a tariff check at some point Emily
is still on the table.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
They have they have conceded that that was made up.
Ah damn what they What they meant is that the
beauty of Trump's eight plus plus plus economy and his
and his beautiful tax.

Speaker 5 (27:34):
Feels like we all got to check.

Speaker 8 (27:35):
It's going to feel like literally.

Speaker 7 (27:38):
Trump Trump has suggested that it's actually branding.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
It's two thousand.

Speaker 6 (27:43):
Do you just send a vibe check and sign it
that is literally and then like fine printed says this
is not not redeemable for actual money.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Well, they would do that, but Doge fired the bureaucrats
that might have been able to send out.

Speaker 5 (28:00):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 8 (28:01):
It's going to get a truth email.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, you can get an AI slot video about it.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Well, I think we've got our guest Brock here from
the Lever Let's let brock in Brock.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
What's going on?

Speaker 7 (28:17):
Man?

Speaker 5 (28:17):
Hey, folks, how's it going good?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Great to have you, Yeah, thanks for having me on. Yeah,
of course. So can you can you give us your
last name pronunciation?

Speaker 7 (28:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (28:26):
Yeah, sure, it's a I was not going to try Crystal.
I wasn't gonna.

Speaker 12 (28:32):
Right, that's pretty close.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
Actually, yeah, it's it's Rehorse.

Speaker 12 (28:36):
So it's a. It's a check class name h is silent. Yeah,
it's been getting butchered since I was a kid, No worry.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
But yeah, excellent. Well you're you're just so iconic. You
only need the first name.

Speaker 5 (28:47):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
That's right, and you read an iconic article. Here we
got it up. This secret algorithm behind your twenty dollars burger.
According to multiple lawsuits, data analytics firm Agristatus is quite
lately enabled the nation's largest meat processors to coordinate price
hags and wage suppression for decades.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
Tell us a little bit about this story, Brock.

Speaker 12 (29:09):
Yeah, sure, So this started when I saw this, Uh,
I saw a little bit of information come out about
how there was this ongoing class action lawsuit and some
of the country's biggest poultry processors had been colluding to
suppress their workers' wages. And so I write a little,

(29:32):
you know, good newsletter for the Lever every week, and
so this was one of the items that I was
including on this. But when I started looking a little
bit further, I saw this information about this company, Agristats.
I had seen that, you know, some places have done
coverage of this firm before. I think Mother Jones, the
American Prospect A couple of sources have covered the technology

(29:54):
more broadly, but nobody was really talking about this settlement.
So in lieu of a finance settlement, agristats agreed to
redact some of the wage information in a way that
you know, allegedly was like satisfactory for the plaintiffs for
the workers. But I wanted to look a little bit
more into it, and when I started talking to industry

(30:15):
insiders and legal experts, the overwhelming consensus seemed to be that,
well know, the settlement isn't actually gonna change anything substantive
in the industry, and it sort of follows a broader pattern,
which I think is pretty interesting. I spoke to this
independent rancher, Mike Cali Crate, who I think summed it

(30:35):
up pretty well. I also talked to Claire Kellaway of
the Open Markets Institute, and both of them kind of
landed on the same general pattern that is going on
with price fixing more broadly in the meat in the
meat packing industry, and it's sort of you know, these
companies are always able to settle, and often what happens

(30:58):
is the settlements that they pay out are less than
they got in their ill gotten gains and a lot
of the time they don't actually have to give those
games back. So it's perfectly rational for these companies, you know,
just pursuing profit maximization. It's perfectly rational for them to
continue price fixing. And what's happening is nothing's being done

(31:19):
to change the underlying conditions that enabled price fixing in
the first place. And that was sort of the broader
takeaway that I came with this. But I also think
it's pretty interesting because I think with everything going on
with real page right now, algorithmic price fixing is sort
of a hot button issue. It's a pretty pretty salient
political issue, especially with like New York and California trying

(31:41):
to update their state any trust laws to account for
sort of algorithmic price fixing. But what's interesting is agristats.
It's been around for forty years and the technology I think,
I'm not going to attempt to explain the differences in
the technology, but from what I was able to gather
from people I spoke to, the technology works pretty differently,

(32:02):
but it's the same idea of this third party intermediary
used by companies to exchange sensitive information. And yeah, obviously
again I think I can't overstate this. This is a
problem that exists beyond algorithms. It goes beyond third party intermediaries.
This this sort of standard smoke filled room price fixing

(32:23):
is still definitely also going on a lot. But it
was sort of interesting that aggressats, this firm in particular
wasn't really getting a lot of coverage, and people weren't
really talking about well, like, well, what's gonna what's gonna
happen after this settlement, Like, you know, they agreed to
redact the information, but are they just going to be

(32:45):
able to continue sort of existing and sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
So effectively no, I was just gonna say so effectively,
you started writing this as like a piece of good news, like, oh,
look there's this class action lawsuit and they forced a settlement.
This will improve things. And then as you start to
dig in to it, you come to realize the settlement is.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Actually a strategic tactic.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
From the algorithmic price fixing company to make sure they
don't have to admit any wrongdoing and they can just
sort of like pay the fine and just consider that
a cost of doing business. And it also did you
just mentioned real page. It also did very much remind
me of that story which we have covered extensively here
as well, where effectively they thought that they could get around,

(33:28):
you know, antitrust and anti competitive laws by doing it
through a new fangled way, like since we're doing the
collusion through algorithms, it doesn't really count anymore. And you know,
I'm sure that the mechanism is a little bit different here.
But what you effectively point to and again this is
all alleged and they deny blah blah blah, but what
you point to here is, just like with the algorithmic

(33:52):
rent price fixing, some of the information that landlords were
able to glean was basically like, you know what, you'll
actually be more profitable if you jack up the rents
so high that it is beyond and above market prices,
and you keep some units open so effectively like reducing supply,
you keep some units open because people just literally can't
afford it, you will actually be more profitable that way.

(34:14):
And in a similar way in the meat processing industry,
what they've also realized is that by constraining supply and
jacking up the price, they're going to be more profitable.
So you know, we've had there's a lot of factors
that are going into both. Why the prices are so high,
why the cattle herd right now is so low. There

(34:36):
are various factors that go into it. But if you
look at the overall structure of this market, the ranchers
are getting screwed right their margins. We've talked to Mike
Cali Crate as well, amazing guy. Shout out to him.
Go check out ranch Foods Direct. Ranchers are getting screwed right.
They're not making they're not making much if anything. They're underwater,
so they're not building out the herds because they can't

(34:57):
afford to, because there's no margin in it for themnsumers
are getting screwed and companies like Tyson's are racking up
massive profit margins. So just from looking at that structure
of the industry, you can see the way that this
consolidation of power has allowed them to set the price
and suck all of the sort of benefit out of

(35:19):
the market to the detriment of the ranchers and to
the detriment of the consumers. And you filled in with
this article an important piece of the puzzle of how
exactly they are colluding and working together allegedly to be
able to effectuate that outcome.

Speaker 12 (35:34):
Yeah, yeah, that's That's definitely another thing that I that
at least the DOJ alleges is that these companies are
you know, agristats in the same way that you that
you pointed out with real page it is getting these
companies to artificially constraint excuse me sorry, artificially constrained supply.
And I think that's a really important thing to focus

(35:55):
on when we're talking about these.

Speaker 6 (35:57):
That to that point, rouan On, I play the if Griffin,
if you have it handy, go ahead and play it.

Speaker 8 (36:04):
But if not, I can.

Speaker 6 (36:05):
I can pull it up the the Pete Ricketts response
to Dan Osborne here, I'll pull it up that we
this is and I think Chrystal's kind of alluding to
this that you know, Tyson closed. So Tyson closed this
processing plant a couple of announced the closure of this
processing plant in Lexington, Nebraska a couple of weeks ago,

(36:27):
and Dan Osborne, the Independent Senate candidate, has been making
the case that it's a violation of the Packers and
Stockyards Act, which says that you cannot take action with
the intent to or with the effect of manipulating the
price and what they're trying to do here, it appears,
is both manipulate the price that they have to charge

(36:48):
or that they have to pay to ranchers to get
the cattle, because you know, if ranchers have fewer you know,
processing plans to sell to, then they can charge less
for their cattle, and then if as they reduce the
supply that they're producing, they can then charge more to
the customers.

Speaker 8 (37:05):
And so Osborne has been.

Speaker 6 (37:06):
Saying the FEDS need to step in here and actually
crack down on this criminal wrongdoing. And so Ricketts was
asked about this, and he's a billionaire who's running against
this independent mechanic, and his answer is just so mealy mouthed,
and I think it shows everything. So yeah, so let's
let's go back to Ricketts.

Speaker 5 (37:27):
Independent mechanic versus independent billionaire. Card Zach.

Speaker 13 (37:34):
I've got my team taking a look at any allegation
of wrongdoing with regard to how Tyson is going about
this process.

Speaker 11 (37:43):
And of course, what I have.

Speaker 13 (37:45):
Said in the past is that I've talked to other
employers with regard to finding jobs for the people who
are being displaced. I have talked to Donnie King, the
Tyson CEO about making sure that that facility can continue
to be used for job creation, and that I'm really
treating this like a natural disaster, that it's locally, locally executed,

(38:07):
state managed, and fairly supported, so will continue to.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
Natural disaster and the local god really.

Speaker 13 (38:14):
To mitigate issues associated with the shutdown.

Speaker 8 (38:17):
Amazing, like a natural disaster.

Speaker 6 (38:20):
Yeah, exactly, an act of God because he sees these
CEOs as gods, and so the acting together, it's they
They've brought about a natural disaster on this town, and
he's gonna he's hoping that they can continue using it
for job creation.

Speaker 8 (38:35):
Like what are you doing? Like, what are you talking
about anyway? Brought? How does this fit into your reporting?

Speaker 5 (38:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 12 (38:43):
Sure, So I think like we were sort of alluding
to a little bit earlier, I think the closure of
this could you remind me of of what percentage of
the beef supply the closure of this market would.

Speaker 6 (38:57):
It's fifteen percent of Nebraska's beef processing at it's five
percent nationally, like so like one out of twenty. And
also like I think we should acknowledge for like, this
is just an awful industry and we should.

Speaker 5 (39:11):
Like move away from it.

Speaker 6 (39:15):
And move to something more humane and that would be better. However,
this is what we've got.

Speaker 7 (39:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (39:23):
So, you know, one out of twenty one out of
twenty cattle that get butchered get butchered at this processing plant.

Speaker 12 (39:28):
Yeah so, I mean, like I think again, this sort
of follows the general trend. I mean, this is both
going to be obviously very detrimental to consumers, the people
buying the beef. This is that's a very substantial amount.
But I think also it's important maybe to think about
how propped up these these rural towns become when a

(39:49):
plant like Tyson moves in. I mean, when there's you know,
three thousand or so workers in this plant in a
town of ten thousand, the local economy becomes entirely reliant
on this one, this on plant.

Speaker 5 (40:01):
So somebody they can build.

Speaker 7 (40:02):
The data center and then do more of the AI
computing at the data center from all.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
The jobs that will bring yes in both of the
jobs that will bring yeah.

Speaker 8 (40:15):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (40:16):
And so it's fascinating to see the Republicans try to
push back on this, because the Republican billionaire is just
you know, his he has he has thoughts in prayers,
and that I don't think that's going to cut it
for this town. And born Osborne has been going in
on this the last several weeks, like he looks like
he's gonna run his entire campaign on this, because it's

(40:38):
such a perfect proxy for how we understand billionaires to
be rigging the economy against regular people, both the workers
and the consumers.

Speaker 12 (40:47):
And I think it is it is sorry, no go ahead.
I think it is such a salient issue on both
sides of the aisle. I mean, something that I sort
of mentioned in my article was that, you know, maybe
like a month or two ago, even the Trump administration
has sort of tried maybe it's more opportunism, but they've
tried to kind of capitalize on how much anger there
is around price fixing and in the meat industry specifically.

(41:09):
I think Trump called out in a truth social post.
Again he didn't name any names, but he called out
foreign owned meat packing companies. But again, I think, and
a lot of the people I spoke to tends to
be of the opinion that this is maybe more rhetoric
than anything else. I think it's important to note that
the Trump administration they did accept I think it was

(41:30):
a five million dollar donation from Pilgrim's Pride, which is
a subsidiary of JBS, which is a Brazilian owned company.
And shortly after that donation, again there's I don't want
to like assume causation or anything, but shortly after that donation, JBS,
this Brazilian company was listed publicly in the New York

(41:50):
Stock Exchange. But I do think it really speaks to
you know, regardless of where you are in the political spectrum,
there's these issues are carry a lot of weight, and
even just talking about them, it's a yeah, it's on
a lot of people's minds right now.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Well, and Rickets is not just you know, a very
one of the wealthiest members of Congress. He also has
received according to Osborne. I haven't double checked it, but
according to Dan Osborne's eventy thousand dollars in campaign contributions
and support to hard soft money from Tyson's directly. And
I think there used to be a bit of a

(42:26):
Republican base assumption that what was good for these companies
was going to be good for them in these individual towns.
And I saw I certainly saw this in West Virginia,
where they're you know, from the antagonism of the mind
wars there shift into this like Friends of Coal campaign,
where the idea that is actively pushed from Chamber of
Commerce types and from Republican elites, and that is bought

(42:49):
into in a lot of ways from the base voters themselves,
is that, Okay, if these companies do well and we
like to support them and give them their tax cuts
and let them do their thing, then that is going
to be good for my town. They're not going to
leave my town. They're not going to screw us over
this is what we've got to your point, like, this
is all we have in this town, so we better

(43:09):
keep them happy. And I think that that illusion has
been completely destroyed at this point. So you know, for me,
this issue, obviously, it's very visceral for people because one
of the markers of whether you're making it or not
is whether you can afford like a stake every now
and again. And for so many Americans now, the prices

(43:33):
are just so out of control that that is just
not even remotely a possibility. That's completely off the table,
both literally and figuratively at this point.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
So when you have some.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Sort of insight into okay, well, why is that, who
is what happened? With this specific market, like who is
screwing you over? You know, I think people are very
receptive and very open to the understanding that these giant
companies are colluding allegedly in specific ways using now high tech.

(44:07):
But it's the same, you know, same as getting in
the smoke filled room and doing it that way. It's
effectively the same mechanism, just through like a tech smoke screen.
That that is a significant part of the puzzle of
why it is that you're getting screwed in this particular way.

Speaker 8 (44:23):
And on the electoral level.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
And then brockwen leave you with the last word, Pete
Ricketts looks like the guy who's doing the colluding and
the screwing. Like you couldn't have a worse candidate to
me if you're like, he looks like your CEO. He
looks like the guy who's going to saunter through the plant,
you know, with a like crisp hard hat for five minutes,

(44:47):
walk out and then close your plant.

Speaker 8 (44:50):
Like he just looks like that guy.

Speaker 6 (44:53):
And so when he's like, I'm going to do everything
I can for these workers, You're like, are you are
you really.

Speaker 8 (44:59):
Not so sure? Johnny Warbucks anyway, any last thoughts. Yeah, no, no.

Speaker 12 (45:05):
I think that pretty much does it. But thank you
all so much for having me on it.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Really, I actually do have a Brock, I have a
McDonald's base question. Me and Crystal are famously McDonald's eaters
on the show.

Speaker 5 (45:16):
We love going to.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Mickey D's for a little fast food, but there is
something incredibly undignified about paying like sixteen seventeen dollars for
McDonald's combo. Is this kind of price ficting, like affecting
burger chains like nationwide?

Speaker 7 (45:32):
Like?

Speaker 5 (45:32):
Is this why it's so expensive in McDonald's these days?

Speaker 12 (45:38):
I mean, I don't know if I want to necessarily
say that that's the only factor that's at play, but
from what is alleged in these lawsuits and from what
a lot of the sources that I spoke to said,
this is definitely one of the factors that's contributing to
rising crisis in beef, which would probably then translate to

(46:01):
higher prices for burgers and McDonald's.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
Tacobou fantastic talk about.

Speaker 8 (46:05):
Yeah, there's no products luckily though.

Speaker 5 (46:12):
Brock Brock, thanks for coming out.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Where can we find you if people want to learn
more about you?

Speaker 5 (46:17):
Follow your journalism sure.

Speaker 11 (46:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (46:19):
Yeah, my uh, my Twitter is just my name with
no caps in no spaces brock rehor Yeah.

Speaker 8 (46:26):
Surprising that was available. I'm glad you could get it luckily.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Yeah, Stiff in the description, thanks for joining us, Brock,
We'll catch you later.

Speaker 12 (46:35):
Thanks, appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yeah of course, And guys, make sure you subscribe over
the lever if you are able. They have actually a
lot of really great reporting always, but specifically right now.
They also have a scoop about Google paying a bunch
of legislators to go on some trip like state legislators
to try to move them with regard to data centers
and fueling sort of that propaganda. They've been doing a

(47:00):
lot of great work on AI, is it an AI bubble?
All of that sort of stuff. So give our our
friends over at lever News some love.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
And Ryan who we got now.

Speaker 6 (47:13):
So hint hint Asan joining us from London who authored
a recent piece, well, created a documentary for Al Jazeera.
Uh did a piece for us over at drop site
News which I encourage people to go and read the
Aftermath of the Twelve Day War between Israel and Iran.

Speaker 7 (47:31):
UH.

Speaker 6 (47:31):
The documentary itself which aired on Al Vazia. If you
don't mind, we'll just play. Let me let me just
throw up a little clip of it, and then and
then hint, well, first of all, hint, welcome to bringing points,
Thank you for.

Speaker 10 (47:42):
Joining us, thank you for having me pleasure to be here.

Speaker 8 (47:46):
And so let me pull this, let me pull this up.

Speaker 6 (47:49):
Just play a little bit of this so people get
a flavor for the reporting that you did, you and
your team did. And then and then we'll discuss this.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Thank you.

Speaker 9 (48:04):
In Iran's largest cemetery, Mother's choir out for children who
will never answer. In June thirteenth, twenty twenty five, is
Well launched Operation Rising Lion brik in nuclear and military facilities,
as well as devastating residential neighborhoods across Iran, killing hundreds
of civilians, among them of your Oldermir Ali and his

(48:28):
father was.

Speaker 14 (48:28):
A man daughter as in Kashom Astrad.

Speaker 10 (48:41):
From one that is that.

Speaker 14 (48:48):
You want to welcoming the win in Hamed Javon, in
Hamed Ptud, in your question them you study you know
about Shaki one miss of time, pro fine dosh.

Speaker 10 (49:04):
Contact the US act Israel's war joining the offensive on
the tenth Day by striking around nuclear sites.

Speaker 9 (49:12):
With some of the biggest bombs in the world.

Speaker 10 (49:14):
President Trump called it a spectacular military success.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
And when you were talking to people there and going
around the country, what what what what did? What did
you think you would find going in and what what
surprised you about the aftermath of the attack.

Speaker 10 (49:35):
Well, we've covered for fault Lines and Vice before I
worked with Al Jazeera and fault Lines. We've covered wars
in different parts of the world. And wherever you go
and you cover these stories of conflict and you speak
to the victims of those wars, there's not a story
that isn't devastating. But when it comes to Iran, we're

(49:57):
not short of hearing about the politics behind it all.
We're not sort of hearing about the nuclear program, what
the US thinks, what Israel thinks, what the Iranian government thinks.
But I think what we really wanted to do is
focus in and give a platform to those victims of
war so we can hear from them the impact of
this war. Because all these wars are fought by politicians,

(50:19):
we want to know what impact it has on the
people on an individual level. And really just given the
space to be able to talk about that and what
I have done so many interviews with people who have
lost loved ones, and nothing prepared our entire team for
hearing these stories in Iran. Every single person on that team,

(50:39):
every time we spoke to someone there were our translator
was crying, the producer behind the screen was crying. It's
just very difficult to not be able to feel that
emotion with the people that we were speaking to. And
it really hammered home just how devastating it is that,
regardless of what people think in terms of politics and ideology,
that the victims of war is always the most vulnerable

(51:01):
in society. And you know, they always the children that
we heard about who not only lost their lives but
also are currently struggling with the impact of it and
the injuries that they've they've obtained. I think what we
took away from this is just how how much of
an impact this had on people in Iran and also

(51:23):
the risk of what another war, the risk of another war,
and what that would have on people as well going forward.

Speaker 6 (51:30):
What do you think it was that, real quick, real quick,
what do you think it was that made it so
that these this hardened crew, You know, this team that's
been around the world and seen, you know, the ravages
of war was so extraordinarily affected by this. I wonder
if it's partly it's that, you know, Iran, even though
they're getting you know, constantly threatened with attack, it's generally

(51:54):
been living at peace, whereas you know, a lot of
war torn areas, like they can they can count the
the months in between conflicts and then another and then
new conflict comes and it becomes not a way of life,
but like less of a shock when the new conflict
breaks out, whereas with this quote unquote twelve day war,
you know, one day there's peace, in the next day

(52:15):
just bombs are raining down everywhere, and then all of
a sudden it stops.

Speaker 8 (52:19):
What was it that like shook your team so much?

Speaker 10 (52:24):
Well, first of all, we worked with local Iranian producers
as well on the team. Whenever we report, we always
work with local journalists. It's the only way that we
can really tell the stories as well as we can.
And the local journalists that we were working with, they
lived through the war themselves, and actually even talking to

(52:45):
them when we went filming and talking about the possibility
of another war, you could see how afraid they were
of that possibility because the memory of those bombs going
off nearby and hearing the explosions in Tehran during the
war and living through that, it was still impacting them
and the idea. I remember when we were on we
were in the car one day and there were news

(53:06):
reports coming in that Israel might be planning another attack
within the next few months, by the end of the year.
And the team that the Iranians that we were with.
When you're journalists, you just talk about things on you know,
have you seen this post, have you seen this tweet,
have you seen whatever? But the response that we had
from the Iranian journalists who were in the car and
how afraid they were hearing that us flippantly saying, oh,

(53:29):
Israel could attack again. Their response, as humans who live
in the war, who will be the people who experienced
whatever happened it was. It kind of humbled us a
little bit and made us remember that this is this
is real for people, and they were so afraid of
it happened again. It also hammered home what had happened
in Tehran, that this was for the people who lived there.

(53:52):
The bombs were going off in the middle in the
middle of the city in the middle of the capitol.
And I think also in terms of so for them
going and hearing from Iranians who had experienced the same
things as them but had suffered so much more, that
was hugely impactful. And also Iranians they have obviously every
country has, you know, the people have their own ways,

(54:15):
and Iranians have a very very poetic, lamenting way of
telling stories or talking about what happened, and that came
across when we were speaking to them about their loss
and the way that they spoke. You saw there at
the top of the report. We spoke to Sayed, who

(54:35):
is the grandfather of Emir earlier, twelve year old who
was killed alongside with his father Reza, and just the
way that he says, there's a clip that comes later
he said, I pray for Martyrdom. I wish God would
take me because I miss him so much. And you
can see that in the way that he spoke. It
wasn't just you know, the people behind the camera who

(54:56):
were breaking down listening to these stories. Every single person
person that we spoke to broke down because even though
this war happened months ago, the impact that it's had
on them it's so raw right now, and you can
see that it's going to be it's going to live
with them forever. It's impacted their lives permanently. It's changed
their lives forever. And I think that that was really

(55:20):
what you know, how that affected us just to say it. Also,
it's not uncommon for when we go out on the
road and we film and we speak to victims for
us to find it very difficult or to quet. I
think with a lot of journalists we have this idea
that we need to be that neutrality means to not
be moved, whereas I actually don't agree with that. If

(55:41):
you're telling the stories of the victims of war and
you're dealing with a power dynamic and you're giving them
a platform to be able to speak, I think humanity
and allowing the viewer to be able to relate to
that person on camera, and you being able to relate
to the person that you're speaking to. It's not an
accountability interview. This this is somebody who suffered through something.
I think that's actually very important and when you have

(56:02):
that sort of relationship, it really comes across on camera.

Speaker 7 (56:05):
Well. And I was going to ask more about the
reporting process, the reporting process too, Just what it was
like to be in Iran, if there's anything you want
to add just about being a journalist in Iran. Were
people eager to talk? Was it hard to find anyone
or were people really like very pleased to be able

(56:25):
to tell their story? But yeah, as a journalist in
Iran trying to cover this, any difficulties, any process, stories
that might be interesting.

Speaker 10 (56:37):
It's not easy to get access to Iran. It is
very difficult to go there as journalists and to report.
So you know, we worked for a long time trying
to get this access and you know, we were very
happy when we were able to go in. And then
once again, once you're inside, it's not so easy that
you know, you can go out and report whatever it

(56:58):
is you want. There are process in order to be
able to get access to certain things. Some things are
easier than others. So for example, when we want to
speak to a victim of the war, that is a
case of working with the local journalists, knowing who the
people are that have been impacted, reaching out to them,
seeing if they're willing to speak. There were some people
who didn't want to speak to us. There were some

(57:19):
people who would say, actually, we don't want to speak
to Western journalists. In fact, Amir Ali's grandfather at first,
he didn't really want to speak to us because he said,
you know, I've done it before and what I said
didn't come across accurately, and I don't know what impact
it's going to have, and I don't know what change
it's going to have. But we hear that from people
wherever we go. When people have experienced something and they

(57:42):
have been made victims, sometimes they lose faith in institutions
or platforms or the media. We did face that a lot,
and that definitely made us really determined to ensure that
we are telling the story accurately and really doing justice
to whatever it is that they were telling us. So

(58:02):
that had its own issues, but I think it's very
similar to wherever you go reaching out to people, speaking
to them, building that trust between you and the people
that you're speaking to to ensure that they are happy
and that you are having an honest relationship and you
can tell their story as well as you can the
other places. For example, in the documentary, we actually managed

(58:24):
to get access to Evine prison, and Avine, you know,
has been reported on many times before it's the location
of where anti government activists or protesters or journalists have
been reported to have been held. It's also the place
that was bombed by Israel and resulted in the largest
casualty as a result of an attack on the eleventh

(58:46):
day of the Twelve day war. So right at the end,
and so getting access to that was very, very difficult,
and we were having to put in requests repeatedly over
and over again. It looked like at one point we
might not be able to get access, and then you know,
we got the phone call saying be there at this time.
Even when we went in, we couldn't just explore the
prison grounds as much as we wanted to, but we

(59:08):
were able to see one of the major bond out
sites of the prison and it was left as it was,
and we were allowed to roam about in there and
have a look and you know, go and look at
the different flaws and you know, see what had been
left and the impacts of that and so but it
was it was very difficult getting in, and when we

(59:29):
finally managed to get in, we did have some freedom
to be able to explore the area and too really
try and understand the impact of that strike, and then
afterwards we actually spoke to you know, one of the
judges who is you know, works it with the government
on human rights, and we also put to him the
allegations of human rights abuses in the in prison by

(59:49):
the Iranian government. So we covered all angle and also
they were very happy to answer those questions. Maybe happy
is the wrong word, but they they didn't put up
any obstacles to us asking those questions or saying that
we couldn't ask those questions, and we did do that.
So I would say definitely very difficult to get access
to anything that is linked to the government. Another example, sorry,

(01:00:11):
is there is a building, Chamran Building, which was Chamran Complex,
and that was bombed one of the first places that
was bombed in the first hours of the war, and
it resulted in what the government tells us were around
I think I'd have to check this through the documentary,
but you know around forty six I think people killed
in total, and twenty four of those being children. But

(01:00:34):
that building was linked to the Ministry of Defense, and
so getting access to that, for example, was difficult, and
we had to wait just to be able to go
film on that site. And you know, there were procedures
and communications that we had to go through. In the end,
again we were allowed to go there and film and

(01:00:54):
see what was left of this building that had been destroyed.
That was the building that Amir Ali's grandfather, Amir Ali,
had been killed in.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
And I have a maybe it's a silly question. And
then unfortunately, after I asked my question, here you answer.
I'm gonna have to jump because my daughter has a
gymnastics meat today that.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
I have amazed too.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
But my silly question here is, you know, as an
American on Twitter, I'm treated to a lot of images
of women in mini skirts on the street in Tehran
in the nineteen seventies, and I'm curious when you weren't
reporting and doing your job, when you were just out
and about in the city as a woman, like observing
ordinary life on the streets, Like what does it give

(01:01:35):
Americans a sense of what is it like in Tehran
right now?

Speaker 10 (01:01:40):
So this was my first time in Taharan. I've never
been before, and I too have just seen the images
that were online and actually what I saw now surprised me.
So we were advised that was probably a good idea
to wear the hijab, But you can see in the documentary.
I'm kind of a you know, a half hijabb, i

(01:02:02):
would say in Tahran. And we didn't go outside of Tehran,
but in Tahran, most of the women either wore the
hijabb loosely, wore it around the neck, or didn't wear
it at all. And one of the very trendy young areas,
hipster areas that we saw, we went there in the evening.
It wasn't too far from the hotel. We saw a woman.

(01:02:22):
I saw a woman buzz cut in a crop top
walking around the streets of Tehran, which was just huge
and surprising. Now I'm told you know, this is something
this is a recent development. It hasn't always been like this,
but since the protests and then also since the war,
there has been an easing up of people's freedoms, individual

(01:02:48):
freedoms in it around to be able to dress how
they want. So that was definitely something that I saw.
I was really shocked with the amount. And it wasn't
just like the odd person here, and there many women
not wearing not wearing cajab, which was something that you know,
was surprising for me to see considering especially what we've heard.

(01:03:10):
But yeah, it was. It was. What was Also what's interesting,
I do think this is important to say is that
we spoke to a lot of people who were not
fans of the government and people who supported the government,
but they all said that they were united against the
attack on Iran. So I think this is what we've

(01:03:34):
heard from people. A lot of Iranians, you know, speculating
and people that we speak to thought that perhaps Israel's
plan was to create some form of disunity inside Iran
and to create unrest, and that didn't happen. Actually, a
lot of the people there, the people, whether they supported

(01:03:56):
the government, when they didn't support the government, were very
very united against outside aggression or the bombing of Iran.
And once you're there and you speak to the victims
and you see the impact, it's very very clear. People
were afraid, they lost loved ones, they lost children, and
so the feelings of politics were put aside, and in return,

(01:04:22):
you had this unity against the bombing of their country.
And that was something that was that came across with
everyone that we spoke to.

Speaker 8 (01:04:32):
Last question for me, then, how was and Crystal, thank you,
good luck.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
It's great to meet you. Thank you guys.

Speaker 6 (01:04:41):
How are people talking about a.

Speaker 8 (01:04:45):
Follow on strike.

Speaker 6 (01:04:46):
Were they talking about it more as a looming weather event,
basically like just this is like this is going to
happen and we just need to kind of prepare for
it and there's nothing we can do about it. Or
was there any talk about ways that they could actually
stave off some type of second attack, And I guess
related to that, there's been a lot of reporting in

(01:05:08):
the last several days about Iran. Iran's quote unquote pivot
to China and kind of giving up almost I don't know,
giving up isn't the right word, but putting more emphasis
on the relationship with China rather than bending over backwards
to try to get Europeans and the Americans to lift

(01:05:28):
the sanctions and stop attacking them.

Speaker 10 (01:05:32):
Well, I think with the people that we spoke to
first of all, so the first part of your question,
and of course this isn't this won't be everybody. These
are just the snapshot of opinions that we got when
we were there, and people that we spoke to, it
was almost like a kind of a psychological defense that
they didn't want to accept that it was happening again.
It wasn't like they were oh, yes, this is definitely happening.
We've got to just you know, get through it. And

(01:05:54):
it was more like, we don't want this, right, we
don't want this to happen. Please don't let this happen again.
We don't want this to happen. And it's not They've
definitely psychologically, I don't think I want to accept that
it would happen again. I think, you know, to emphasize
the bombing that happened into Harana and the people that
we spoke to for twelve days, destroyed so many people's

(01:06:18):
lives and put the fear of God into a lot
of people, and the idea of just broaching this could
happen again, they want whatever can be done to avoid that.
That's not something it's like, Okay, we need to get
through this or this is the next time. And I
think they're very aware that if there is another war,

(01:06:38):
it could be longer and it could result in more
lives and we don't know what will happen. Then you know,
if what will be the aim and the goal. If
you've already bombed the nuclear plants and you say that
you've put back the nuclear program by ten years, what
are you going to try and achieve from the next conflict,

(01:06:59):
and is it to do with, you know, getting rid
of the government. And if that's the case, that is
a long and bloody war. And so people I think
they are petrified of that happening and are hopeful and
want a diplomatic solution. And actually, when we spoke to
the foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister, we also interview

(01:07:21):
with the documentary answer he gave to us any question
we asked him, he ended it with there is only
a diplomatic solution. He said that over and over again.
It's very clear that they do not want to go
into another armed conflict. They do of course as a government.
They had to say over and over again, you know,

(01:07:42):
we will fight back with everything we've thought, We are prepared,
we will take on Israel if you know, if they
want to attack us, we will defend ourselves and we
have the mean to do so. And then prefix it
with we think we would like a diplomatic solution. And
to answer your second question of that, they try and
they stopping bending over backwards to the US and pivoting

(01:08:04):
to China. I think that's definitely something you could see
when we were inside Iran that a lot of the
exports were coming from that direction, so it imports from
that direction. And also just like us, yeah, yeah, and
then we also and then like in the conversations that

(01:08:24):
we have with the foreign minister, he said that we
do not trust the US as an honest negotiating partner. Again,
that doesn't mean that he said, doesn't mean that we
don't want diplomatic solution. We do, and we want to
emphasize that over and over again. But it's clear that
they don't trust the US. It's clear that they don't

(01:08:45):
have a huge amount of hope. And yeah, it's a
it's a case of waiting to see what happens next.

Speaker 6 (01:08:53):
That's so interesting, Well so Hindusan that the documentary is
called twelve Days That ook Aran. You can find it
on Al Jazeera English's YouTube page. Can also read your
sum people can read your summary over it drop site.
But thanks so much. And last thing like do you
know what? Do you know what's next? You know what

(01:09:14):
investigation you're doing next? Can you tell or is it
that under wraps?

Speaker 10 (01:09:18):
Well, thus, all, thank you for having me, you know,
great to be here with you all, and what's coming next?
There there's a few things in the pipeline for twenty
twenty six. I don't want to give away too much
and jinx it because none of it has been one
hundred percent over the line. But look out for prisons

(01:09:39):
and Brazil. Okay, interchange something out two separate things that
are not in the same, could be something different. Don't
hold me to it, but there's always something in the pipe.

Speaker 6 (01:09:52):
Well, look forward to having you back when those come
out of the other end of the pipeline, and.

Speaker 10 (01:09:56):
Look forward to it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 12 (01:09:58):
Stay safe.

Speaker 6 (01:10:00):
So Griffin, Griffin, does that do it for this portion
of the program or do we have anything else?

Speaker 5 (01:10:06):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
You know, we're running out, We're running out of time.
Let's let's move over to the second half, which you
can find.

Speaker 6 (01:10:11):
Of course, we we haven't talked about weed. We can
just let people know that. Yeah, we'll get that in.
Did it happen. It looks like they're rescheduling weed, yeah,
which means that the weed shops will have access to banking.
I've been talking to Sager. I think he's onto like

(01:10:32):
a real genuine corruption angle. Like if you look at
some of the yeah, the movements of the the weed
penny stocks over the last couple of days. I'm shocked
that there wasn't more integrity among the uh the stock
traders in in weed companies. But it looks like the
administration was leaking some information uh to some of these

(01:10:54):
weed executives and that they were they were taking money
off of it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
But I guess not we users, because they would have
never sent those emails if they've been smoking it. I
want to get into that and a lot of other
stories in the second half of the show, And Sager
also sent us a manifesto or a rebuttal to the
to the weed legalization that I'll that I'll have to
bring up on the show as well. We're gonna switch

(01:11:20):
over to that. Now you can go to Emily. Where
can you go to sign up for Breaking Points?

Speaker 5 (01:11:25):
Wait? Where do you go?

Speaker 7 (01:11:26):
You can go to breakingpoints dot com. Of course, obviously
why would you go awhere else? Breakingpoints dot Com get
that premium membership. Great Christmas gift, Great Christmas gift to yourself.
Shout out by the way to all of the premium
subs that came up to us after our reason debate,
where of course, as expected, we did wipe the floor

(01:11:47):
with little wonderful folks at reason, but so many breakers there.
It was like Ryan and I werely looking around. We're like, whoa,
there are a lot of you guys. You guys showed
up in force, so and drop side fans. So neat
it reason yep, join the club Breakingpoints dot Com premium
subscription mm hm.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
And Ryan, what do you get for that premium subscription?

Speaker 6 (01:12:08):
Well, soon, when I win the internal argument, you're going
to get the Friday Show Live. It is is running
up against some uples by the name of Griffin, but
we're going to over We're going to overcome them.

Speaker 5 (01:12:22):
The compromise. We're gonna go live, but we're gonna start
an hour later. That's the compromise.

Speaker 6 (01:12:30):
And actually, as a West Coaster, that will you know,
actually be able to see the sun when you wake up.

Speaker 8 (01:12:34):
It's okay, you know, I'll make that deal.

Speaker 6 (01:12:38):
Starting start an hour later Friday, Friday Show Live for
premium subscribers, and then Monday through Thursday you get the
show an hour early, without without the ads, unless YouTube
just breaks their deal with us and like puts inserts
ads into the unlisted link, which sometimes they do, and
you know they're a monopoly and they can do that.

Speaker 8 (01:12:58):
But you get it.

Speaker 6 (01:12:59):
You get the the show an hour early, and you
get you get the entire thing so that you can
you know, when you get to a segment where you're
like really like you're covering.

Speaker 8 (01:13:09):
This, you can just skip right through it and go
to the next one.

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
Yeah, incredible features there, and then you know, ultimately you
get to ask us a m A questions to the hosts.
And finally, this one is more of like an invisible hand.
But your guys support allows people like Ryan to do
crazy journalism where they attack the biggest people in the
world and out their dirty laundry, and that requires resources,

(01:13:36):
it requires lawyers on standby.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
All.

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
That is another big, big support to us. So we'll
see y'all were there in the second half right now,