12/17/25: Unemployment Spikes, GOP Flails On Healthcare, Trump Demands Venezuelan Oil and Land

Ryan and Emily discuss unemployment spiking, GOP flails on healthcare policy, Trump demands Venezuela oil.

Brian Blase: https://x.com/brian_blase?s=20 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 4 (00:33):
All right, good morning, and welcome to Breaking Points. How
you doing good.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
This Christmas set actually always gives me a flashback. I
always feel like I have a flashback to you arguing
with Ted Cruz on the Christmas set.

Speaker 4 (00:44):
Oh that's right, the video, Yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 (00:47):
On the Christmas set. So I'm always like expecting Ted
Cruz to we should have.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Worn our Breaking Points Christmas sweaters. I actually thought about that,
which you can get in our store.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Down They still I think you still some available.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Go check out the store.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
They're pretty great. Everybody loves them.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
We should all want to get something front of the
tree for everyone.

Speaker 5 (01:05):
Yes, or a Breakingpoints dot Com subscription if you maybe
you can get a year of Friday Show second halves
for Christmas for someone you love, because those Friday Show
second halves they get wild.

Speaker 6 (01:18):
Although based on the new Jobs Report, which we'll be
talking about at the top of the show, you probably can't.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Things are getting dark.

Speaker 6 (01:24):
Also, talking speaking of the amount of money you're spending
on healthcare, you probably can't.

Speaker 4 (01:29):
We'll be talking about that for our second episode.

Speaker 6 (01:31):
Although there's some good news in the fact that Republicans
are completely collapsing and that might lead them to actually
pass the Democratic legislation.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
We'll see.

Speaker 6 (01:40):
If you're in Venezuela, you absolutely can't because we're putting
Venezuela under a complete and total naval siege.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
We'll talk about that.

Speaker 5 (01:47):
Yeah, Trump put out a bild true social just last night,
so we'll break that down to.

Speaker 6 (01:51):
Susie Wilds, we'll talk about the Republican response to her incredible.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Just vomiting of her thought to the vanity fair.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Day two of Susie Gate. It is here.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
We're loving every second of it.

Speaker 6 (02:05):
The New York Times had a fascinating for many different
reasons story on Jeffrey Epstein yesterday. We will talk about
what was in it and most importantly, what was.

Speaker 4 (02:16):
Not in it. Barry Weiss meanwhile.

Speaker 6 (02:20):
Is she ran her Saturday night town hall with Erica
Kirk huge get very difficult to get Erica Kirk an
exclusive because she's usually on other networks, so it's hard
to like actually schedule that between Fox and podcast.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Yeah, the numbers are out and it was terrible.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Could have been better, It could have been better.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Yeah, that's very bad.

Speaker 6 (02:43):
We'll have some updates on the Brown University shooting as
well as a nuclear scientist, yes, or like even beyond.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
A nuclear scientist.

Speaker 6 (02:52):
He was doing stuff that I can't even begin to
try to explain, was assassinated at his home. So we
either have one or two killers still in the loose
in the Northeast. I'm not sure which of those two
scenarios is actually more frightening the public now rather than
the FBI has been falsely accusing people of being involved

(03:14):
with the brownshooting.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
We'll talk about all of.

Speaker 6 (03:16):
That, and the weather is improving in Gods of but
we're going to talk about what the floods did and
what the and a new drop site report on what
the Israeli destruction of all the sewis treatment and trash
collection has done to just day to day life in Gaza.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Well, let's get to a big show today, So we'll
start now with these new job numbers. We get new
jobs data yesterday, and actually, before we even dive too
deep into that, the basic news is that about sixty
four thousand jobs were added in November. That was higher
than what many people expected. But the unemployment rate also
rose in November. That's the gist of it. We're going

(03:54):
to break down those numbers in more detail, but first
let's dive on into Fox News example of how they
covered where the economy is right now.

Speaker 7 (04:03):
People are sick of waiting. In terms of the jobs.
Since Liberation Day, which is when most people look at
as when things kind of start taking a turn for
the worse, we've only added seventeen thousand jobs on a
monthly basis. There are over seven hundred thousand Americans were
unemployed today versus this time last year. That's a huge number.
Unemployment for young Americans is over ten percent. If you

(04:26):
took out healthcare sector hiring, would be negative.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
So if you're familiar with Fox, of course, that was
Jessica Tarlov, who is a Democrat. Not surprising, but spot
the lie and those numbers. We can put the CBS
tear sheet up on the screen here. Employers across the
US ad at sixty four thousand jobs in November, beating
economis forecast. New government data shows, even as new October
figures revealed a loss of one hundred and five thousand
jobs assigned, the labor market remains under pressure. The unemployment

(04:53):
rate in November rose to four point six percent. That
is the highest level since September twenty twenty one one.
They also go on to note that it's a picture
of the labor market after the six week blackout and
official data caused by the recent government shutdown. That's true, Brian,
this is the first information we are getting here. The
data suggests CBS continues that employers and industries ranging for

(05:15):
manufacturing and hospitality are hitting the pause button on hiring
amid concerns about economic growth and tariff costs. According to
some economists, quick reaction to that first rune, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (05:28):
What seems to be going on here, and this probably
comports with your own experience. People aren't losing people aren't
leaving their jobs voluntarily.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
They're holding onto jobs even if they hate them.

Speaker 6 (05:39):
They're not moving around and getting wage increases like they
were during the pandemic and towards the end or towards
the end of the pandemic. But companies are not creating
any new positions, and when somebody leaves, they don't fill
that person. And so that's why you see that unemployment
number going up into the right, which is not how

(05:59):
you want it to go.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
Okay, So let's then dive here into Kevin Hassett talking
about the economy.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
This was from Face the Nation.

Speaker 5 (06:08):
She Margaret Brennan in this clip is pushing Hassett on
surveys of CEOs about employment. So could the situation get worse?
Let's go ahead roll the clip.

Speaker 8 (06:18):
I want to ask you about the FED decision. The
Federal Open Market Committee said job gains have slowed this year.
We also saw the survey from the Business Roundtable. I'm
sure you saw it. They asked the CEOs what they
expect to happen, and they anticipate employment will decrease in
twenty twenty six rather than increase. Are you concerned about
a hiring slowdown.

Speaker 9 (06:37):
The same FED said that they were more bullish on
growth for next year, right, And so I think that
we're at a circus shaft.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
But at the jobs picture.

Speaker 9 (06:46):
You know, we're going to get the data next week,
and so maybe next Sunday I'll come back and we'll
talk about it, because we've got two months of data
coming out on Tuesday, and we'll get a clearer picture
because right now we just have some very difficult to
pin down surveys, like the gold standard for this will
be really the household Survey, which we don't even get
for October.

Speaker 8 (07:03):
But these are CEOs. They are the people who would
be doing the hiring right, and they're saying we're not.

Speaker 9 (07:07):
But they don't have the broad perspectives that will get
when we get the big data released next week.

Speaker 8 (07:13):
And you trust that big data.

Speaker 9 (07:15):
I trust the household survey especially, And sadly we won't
have one for October, but we're going to get one
for November, and that's going to be really important for
thinking about where the job market is.

Speaker 5 (07:25):
Okay, and we can actually put the next element up
on the screen as well, This is showing unemployment increasing
over time. Since November twenty twenty three. So this is
from Mike Conskahal. He is the senior director of Policy
and Research at the Economic Security Project, and he's saying,
it's not just that this job report is bad, though

(07:45):
it is Unemployment is up zero point four seven twenty
twenty five and increasing. It's that it shows what Trump
hoped to do with the economy is failing. And I
just want to pause on that point because it is
now that we have almost a year into the second
time administration, fascinating, not surprising, but fascinating how closely they

(08:06):
have tied themselves to AI because Trump obviously, I mean,
there are a million reasons that they've done that, but
Trump obviously also saw AI is getting a shot in
the arm to markets. And so I mean the amount
of stock increase that's tied to AI right now is
stunning and horrifying. More than it yep, And yeah, it's
something like eighty percent. Like it's crazy, And they now

(08:31):
are going to have on their hands responsibility that people
will point to them. They would have done it anyway,
but they basically have bear hugged these big tech companies
that are going pedaled to the metal on LM's artificial intelligence,
and what's likely to happen in the next couple of
years is mass displacement on the level of different periods

(08:52):
during industrialization where we've seen mass job displacement because of automation.
I'm not even making a judgment on whether that's good
or bad, although we talked about that a lot, but
I'm just saying it's happening, and it's happening as they
bear hug these AI companies to juice the markets, and
that just politically, as it's as it's unfolding before us

(09:14):
kind of look back at last year and you're like,
you guys didn't see this coming.

Speaker 6 (09:18):
Yeah, And the comment from Kevin Hassett there was ominous,
I'm sure for people where he was saying, Okay, yes,
the CEOs are saying that unemployment might be up next year, but.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
What about growth? They're bullet on growth. Yes, And if
you live on.

Speaker 6 (09:37):
Wall Street, work on Wall Street, and live live in
upstate New York, and then that's great. Unemployment is up,
but growth is up too. Hey, that's even better actually,
because then you don't have any you have to worry
about upity workers demanding higher pay.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
You're like wait a minute, what if what are you
saying here?

Speaker 6 (09:56):
So you're putting all your money in AI and data centers,
and you're saying that we're going to continue to have
unemployment rate, unemployment numbers going up, but the economy is
going to continue to grow. How does that help the
people who don't have jobs? And nobody's talking about that.
If if you had a party who was like, here's
what we're going to do. Everyone's going to work twenty
five hours a week, and we're going to make sure

(10:18):
that you're paid an amount that keeps up. Not just
keeps up, it gets you ahead. Because if we're getting
all these productivity gains.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
Let's enjoy it.

Speaker 6 (10:27):
Took us thousands of years as you managed to get
to this place. Let's bask in it. Instead, they're like, nah,
jobs are going to keep collapsing, but growth is going
to be good.

Speaker 5 (10:36):
Well, on that note, let's go ahead and listen here
to Treasury Sector secretaries.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
Speaking speaking of ominous Oh my god.

Speaker 5 (10:42):
Well this actually makes the point your point about Kevin Hassett.
Here Bessett is flushing out. I think even more we
can roll this clip.

Speaker 10 (10:50):
Two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, ten financial
rules were too tight. They have hamstrung the American financial system.
It was time for a change. We are going to
be safe, smart, and sound in terms of our deregulation,
but we have to take the financial system out of
the straight jacket. This substantial increase from private credit, which

(11:14):
is outside of the regulated banking system, that tells me
that the regulated system is too constrained and has not
been able to compete with those who aren't regulated. So
we're leveling the playing field, and I believe that we
can do that in a way that creates trillions of
dollars in credit for this very strong economy we're going

(11:36):
to see, and it will be non inflationary.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
All right, So Ryan, put your finance bro hat back on.
It's probably been since the early oughts since you've had
it on. But when he says the substantial increase in
private credit, which is outside of the regulated banking system,
that tells me that the regulated system is too constrained,
What say you?

Speaker 10 (11:54):
So?

Speaker 6 (11:55):
I mean what he's saying there is this rise of
private equity basically says that we're being too hard on
oligarchs and that we should just reduce the rules so
that more people will then not follow the rules that
we've gotten rid of. Play around. Yeah, I mean it

(12:15):
makes no sense, like it's just it contradicts itself. It
also leads exactly to financial crisis every single time. Like
so it's also a kind of hail Mary, Like, Okay,
nothing else is working. We need just a severe amount
of deregulation so that we'll flood in, you know, the

(12:37):
so capital can flow. You know, we can get another
subprime bubble. We need more bubbles. It's basically what he's saying,
like we're out of bubbles and when the next when
this next one pops, we're gonna need another bubble to
keep things going. And then he hads at the very
end with no evidence, and it won't be inflationary.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
Oh okay, good.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
That's the point of the regulations.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
It's good, glad to did you clear that up?

Speaker 6 (13:02):
The Mike Conzel post where he talks about where he
you know, talks about the rate of unemployment increasing, He
also has a full thread and maybe we can put
it in the in the link so people can dig
into it more. But what he does is he compares
what the president is trying to do and what the
president's team is trying to do to the economy with

(13:25):
with what is actually happening, and what he's trying to
do is drive up wages for Native born workers, drive
up wages on the low end, and manufacturing. He's trying
to reduce the amount of spending and healthcare, and he's
trying to reduce the amount of spending for the federal workforce.
And a key reason that you had an unemployment increase

(13:46):
this month is because the DOGE firings actually finally hit.
Now it's like because of the federal rules and on.
But what he finds is that nothing is nothing that
they're trying to do is happening, and in fact, the
reverse is happening. Manufacturing jobs are are collapsing. He writes here.

(14:08):
Unemployment is up everywhere, but especially for younger workers, black workers,
and those with bas and without a high school diploma
to the trend, and a bit more for men. Yes,
the people that he said he was doing all of
this for are the ones who are actually getting hit
hardest by this. And you know he's he chalks it

(14:30):
up to all of the uncertainty that Trump is injected
into the economy by making it really impossible to create
a business if you have any reliance on imports whatsoever,
deporting you know, huge numbers of workers and otherwise just
being a chaotic dude. And it's like, yeah, this is

(14:53):
this is what this is what you're going to get.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Well, yeah, the the uncertain.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
And increase in health care costs, of course.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
So there's no way around.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
And I mean, I think you even hear it in
what Hasset is saying. Hasset obviously is under consideration for
a FED spot, and there's leaking against Hassett right now
actually interestingly enough, But they what you're hearing them say
is basically they're conceding they're in the middle of an experiment.
They're very confident as to how the experiment is going

(15:25):
to turn out when it comes to totally restructuring the economy.
So we're talking deportations, uh, manufacturing credits from the big
tax bill and trying to incentivize factory building and all
of that in the United States, Why would we have.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
A manufacturing collapse?

Speaker 6 (15:43):
Like that's what I'm right then, Well, I mean, I
think if you're about to have a boom, you would
at least be staying steady because but and this is
the point that companies are like, no, we yeah.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
It's the point that you and Crystal have made since
the very beginning post Liberation Day, which is the uncertainty
is going to send people to China. It is going
to send people, not everyone. And that's what the administration
is in the middle of trying to figure out, is
where does it shake out at the end of the day.
Do you come out on top or do you come
out on bottom? And it looks right now like their

(16:15):
skeptics are proving correct.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Now there are all kinds of things.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
That they can do in the new year, because they're
doing all of the tariffs, as we know, while awaiting
a Supreme Court decision ad hoc through the executive branch,
and that means they have a whole lot of control
over what happens in the new year. If they want
to create more certainty in the economy, if they want
to do all of these like grocery type carve outs

(16:40):
for things like I don't know, bananas, they can find
a way to do it. They can cross their fingers
and hope that when their tax bill kicks in, more
and more jobs start getting created. There are, of course,
anecdotal examples of factories betting on the United States, or
companies betting on the United States and building factories here.
And so the White House trumpets those examples constantly, but

(17:02):
even they have to concede they're in the middle of something.
And that's where just thinking about the AI question, as
you're trying to restructure the economy to bring jobs back
to the United States, you're bear hugging an industry that
is intentionally eliminating.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Jobs in the United States.

Speaker 5 (17:20):
I'm reading here from a CNBC story from later late
last month, but we've been talking about the college unemployment rate,
so recent college graduates that are unemployed. This is one
of the big blind spots in politics right now, is
that you have so many young people rising youth unemployment,
as CNBC puts it, and that's because entry level jobs

(17:43):
are being.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
This is CNBC quotes.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
Some large employers have said they're replacing entry level workers
with artificial intelligence in order to streamline operations and cut costs.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Concerns about the economy.

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Persistent inflation and slow down in consumer spending are also
likely contributors to an erosion of entry level opportunities, other
research shows, and so on top of all of that,
you have the administration saying okay, well college education pipeline
need to incentivize vocational schools.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Technicolure. Great, we agree with that. These are people who
just got college degrees.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
There are people who are going to graduate next year
and the year after that with.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
College degrees who are not.

Speaker 5 (18:24):
Going to suddenly say I'm picking up welding and the
jobs are being eliminated and the ladder is shifting, and
so even just that's the substantive point. But like the
political point of this that's going to play out during
the Trump administration is absolutely mass employment, displaced displacement. Like
it's happening right now, it's going to continue to happen.

Speaker 6 (18:44):
At least Bernie Sanders is responding to it. Interesting development
from him. Last night he put out a video calling
for a moratorium on data center construction, which hits on
both sides because the data center construction drives up your
electric city bill and threatens your water supply while delivering

(19:05):
basically no jobs, and if it works as expected, will
also take your job.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
So it's like, wait a.

Speaker 6 (19:11):
Minute, So Bernie is like, I don't know, how about
we not do that. Let's roll a little bit of Bernie.

Speaker 11 (19:15):
What will ai and robotics mean economically for the working
class of this country. Well, don't listen to me, listen
to the people who are developing those technologies. Elon Musk
recently said quote AI and robots will replace all jobs.

(19:36):
Working will be optional. End quote. Bill Gates predicted that
humans quote won't be needed for most things. End quote.
Darie are A Moodi, the CEO of Anthropic One, that
AI could lead to the loss of half of all
entry level white collar jobs.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
Question.

Speaker 11 (19:58):
If AI and robotics eliminate eight millions of jobs and
create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have
no income?

Speaker 6 (20:09):
They have no answer for that, and nobody trusts them
to answer that question.

Speaker 4 (20:13):
You know who they do trust is that guy. He
looks spry, maybe he could do one more run.

Speaker 5 (20:16):
He looks like he totally knows what AI.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Is, how it works.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
He gets it better than most.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
He probably does. No, I actually believe.

Speaker 6 (20:23):
That he gets the gist, which is really all you need.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
Yeah, and I mean some of this is like intentionally,
we actually have such a murky picture of what's happening
right now with AI and in the economy and what
the company's plans are. But I don't necessarily support that policy,
by the way, because what's happening in China and other
countries is no matter what we do, that's going to
continue to happen. So I think we have to be

(20:48):
smart about it. But that is going to be It's
like the healthcare conversation that we're having in the next block.
Absent a genuine, decent solution from the capitalist just keep saying,
trust us, we have your best interests at heart, you're
going to end up with either medicare for all or,
in this case, you're going to end up with something
like a moratorium because people don't want the stupid option

(21:10):
of just saying no pedal to the medal, eliminate all
of the jobs, and we'll just trust you to give
us UBI and be happy when it all shakes out.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And he's right.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
I mean, going back to those quotes from CEOs of
tech companies, that is what they're saying. They're saying that aloud.
That's what they think the future is going to look like.
It's a question of how distant that future is. But
I think you'd be ridiculous to think that's like multiple
generations down the line when this is happening as quickly
as it is happening. And so for the Trump administration,
it tie itself so closely a to the economy, I mean,

(21:44):
and then b to AI just the politics of that
are going to be difficult no matter what.

Speaker 6 (21:52):
And so meanwhile, swinging into this struggling economy is the
sledgehammer of these looming healthcare increases. We'll talk to Brian Blaize,
is a conservative healthcare economist, about the latest going on
in Congress about efforts to extend subsidies and why he thinks.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
It's a terrible idea.

Speaker 6 (22:13):
In a moment, We're going to be joined by Brian
Blaize as a conservative healthcare economist, to talk through Republican
health care policy and strategy, which is currently this week
seems to be collapsing a little bit.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Yeah, Brian is the guy to talk to.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (22:26):
All right, So here's Donald Trump talking about where he
is right now.

Speaker 10 (22:32):
What do you want to see Congress through this week
that relates to healthcare and the expiring ACAH.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
That's a good question.

Speaker 12 (22:38):
I'd like to see the people get the money. I'd
like to see all of the money that's going to
the Democrat insurance companies. You know, the insurance companies are
making a fortune. They're up seventeen hundred percent and more.
Obamacare were set up, and I said it right from
the beginning, for the benefit of the health insurance insurance companies,
of the insurance companies that are making big and billions

(23:00):
of dollars as stock is through the roof. I don't
want to give them anything. I want all money going
to the people and let the people buy their own healthcare.
It'll be unbelievable. They'll do a great job. They'll get
much better healthcare at a much lower cost.

Speaker 6 (23:18):
So he sort of wants to end subsidies and just
turn basically just we'll talk with Brian about what his
idea is there. There are a bunch of different ideas
that Republicans have been kicking around to try to stave
off the increase and put up B two here that
we were expecting a vote tomorrow in.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
The House of Representatives.

Speaker 6 (23:37):
Looks Mike Johnson saying no, because we're not ready for
that and can put up B three. Jake Sherman prowling
around Capitol Hill, he reports the deal between House GOP
moderates and House Republican leadership is breaking down disagreement over
the language in the amendment to extend Obamacare premium subsidies.
So the four will go to rules Tuesday to offer

(23:59):
their amendment. If if they're rejected, that means they will
be free agents. This is if it's given Kiggins, Valedo,
and Lawler, which matters because a lot of them are
up for reelection and tight races. What he's saying is
if they become free agents, that could put Keem Jefferies
three year ACA extension over the finish line if you

(24:19):
get enough Republicans to join with Democrats. Now, Rocana was
recently on Fox News making the pitch for a Boulder
plan Medicare for All its rocan and then we'll go
to Brian.

Speaker 13 (24:30):
The high cost of the Democrats health care plan did
not work.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
That's just not true.

Speaker 13 (24:38):
Look, private health insurance is what's bankrupting in America. Was
happening before the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act
helped slow the growth of private insurance. But of course
it's not the solution. The solution, as everyone knows in
my view who study this, is Medicare for role. People
should have national health insurance. Healthcare as a human right,
you should not be subject to these private insurance companies

(25:00):
that have eighteen percent administrative costs, that are making billions
of dollars of profits. So as executors are making millions
of dollars, they're hurting our manufacturing. It's one of the
reasons jobs are off short. They're hurting workers pay going up,
they're sucking on money from our economy, and they're denying
people care. Even people on the MAGA right have recognized
that the system is not working, the system is broken.

(25:22):
It's time to get medicare for all in this country.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
Well, we're excited to be joined now, as we've teased
long enough Brian Blaze, who is of the Paragounty, founder
of the Paragon Health Institute, and really at the center
of this policy conversation on the right and more broadly
as Mike Johnson seeks to strike a deal.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
So thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Brian, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 5 (25:43):
Now, maybe you could start just by telling us a
little bit from your perspective of where things stand right now,
because I'm sure you're hearing what's going to happen or
what people want to happen.

Speaker 1 (25:54):
What's your prediction based.

Speaker 5 (25:56):
On what you're hearing of how this all ends up
before year's end.

Speaker 14 (25:59):
Yeah, thanks for having me on, and just let me
explain exactly what the situation is before the Congress. So Obamacare,
the Affordable Care Act, took effect in twenty fourteen. It's
mainly affected the individual market for health insurance, which is
where people go that don't get a plan from their
employer or through a government program. Its regulations significantly increased

(26:22):
the price of insurance, and it contained large subsidies to
help people afford the coverage that the government regulations had
made more expensive. Those subsidies are permanent. They mean that
the taxpayer pays a very large share of the premium.
In twenty twenty one, as a pandemic measure, Democrats use

(26:45):
reconciliation and they passed an expansion of subsidies. They put
those subsidies in place for two years, and then in
twenty twenty two they extended them through twenty twenty five.
So at issue is the expiration of these enhanced COVID
era subsidies. If they expire, the typical Obamacare enrollee would

(27:07):
still have very large subsidies. In fact, the subsidy would
cover more than eighty percent of the premium for a
typical enrolle. Now, there are some people who would face
significantly higher premiums. That is because the law originally capped
the subsidies for people making less than four times the
poverty line. Now that's a small number of Obamacare and rollies.

(27:31):
It's only about six percent of Obamacare and rolllies making
less Only about six percent of inrolies have income above
four hundred percent of poverty line. So most of the
examples that you see from Democrats right now on people
that face high premiums because these COVID era subsidies expire
there for individuals right above four times the poverty line.
But for the vast majority of people, the government is

(27:54):
going to pay the vast majority of the premium next year. Now,
I think these subsidies.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
Line is what.

Speaker 14 (28:02):
For a family of four sixty For a family of four,
the federal poverty line is about thirty thousand dollars for.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
A family of four. For a family of we're talking
one hundred and twenty thousand.

Speaker 6 (28:14):
So if you make more than one hundred and twenty
thousand for a family of four, then you're getting hit
with that.

Speaker 14 (28:19):
Then you would face the higher premiums okay, right, So,
but ninety five percent, ninety five percent of enrollees would
maintain subsidies and the subsidies would cover on average about
eighty percent of the premium. Now, one of the problems
from the enhanced subsidies. They made coverage fully subsidized for
a share of enrollees, and what we have seen is

(28:41):
that far more people report that they have income to
receive those fully subsidized enrollies. So we have done research
that estimates that about a quarter of all of the
Obamacare exchange in rollies are improper. They don't have they
don't meet the eligibility requirements. Many people have how much income?
So this is between one hundred and one fifty of

(29:04):
the federal poverty line. The covid era subsidies made that
coverage fully subsidized, and almost half of all Obamacare enrollees
claim that their income is in that narrow band.

Speaker 4 (29:16):
We did a paragon was look at sign ups.

Speaker 14 (29:19):
In that income range with the actual people that have
income in that range who would be eligible for the program,
and we estimate six point four million people are enrolled
in a fully subsidized plan who don't have that coverage.
There's been pretty sophisticated schemes to enroll people because again
these subsidies, to the President's point, they go directly to

(29:40):
the health insurance companies. So if people don't have to
pay any premium, that is a reason for people to
sign up in brokers have developed pretty sophisticated schemes to
get people get their information to get them enrolled. So
there's millions of people that have enrolled that aren't aware
of their coverage. Now, if we've enrolled a lot of

(30:01):
people that aren't aware of their coverage, one thing that
you might expect is a lot of people don't use
their health plan. In August, CMS released information on the
number of enrollees in Obamacare that didn't use their health
plan a single time in twenty twenty four and it
was twelve million people. So thirty five percent of all

(30:22):
enrollees in the market didn't use their health plan a
single time.

Speaker 6 (30:27):
So we think there's do you think they got paid,
Like does the brokers say here, if you get one
thousand dollars up front to sign up, Like, how does it?

Speaker 4 (30:34):
Like, why would you sign up for insurance and then
not use it?

Speaker 14 (30:38):
So they were sophisticated of social media campaigns. They advertised
cash and gift cards if people would call the number.
People call the number they asked for the cash and
gift card. They gave their information. They didn't get cash,
they didn't get a gift card. They got signed up
for an Obamacare plan. The epicenter of the fraud, South

(30:58):
Florida is like the episode at SO.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
It put bars around all of South Florida. It's the
worst in South Florida.

Speaker 14 (31:05):
And actually DOJ just a couple of weeks ago closed
the case. Two brokers committed massive fraud like this the
benefit the main beneficiary of the health insurance companies because
they're getting monthly payments on behalf of people that aren't
that aren't enrolled in coverage and that aren't using the.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
Best kind of gemer. It doesn't take your product, that's
right now.

Speaker 14 (31:26):
So these two brokers, the amount of improper subsidies just
from these two individuals was two hundred and thirty million
dollars and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 4 (31:37):
Rick Scott's like, that's.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Real money, okay.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
So on that point, this explains a bit about why
Republicans are hesitant. There's some obviously real problems, and it
explains a bit why Republicans are hesitant to just rubber
stamp an extension of the deal. There are all kinds
of political questions going into a midterm cycle that are
different from the policy questions that But what, then, Brian,

(32:03):
do you think actually could be done? Because we're almost
at year's end here, there's going to be an increase
for some people, as you just explained, what could or
should be done from your perspective when they have such
Republicans have such narrow margins. Democrats are pushing, as we
heard from Congressmancana, Medicare for all, like, what are you
thinking right now should happen in the next couple of

(32:24):
weeks if there is anything to be done to stop
people from getting.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Higher costs right away?

Speaker 14 (32:29):
Yeah, So I think there's action that dated the next
couple of weeks, and then there's the development of sort
of free market health plan. I think what the Senate
passed Finance Committee Chairman Crapo and Help Committee Chairman Cassidy
introduce legislation that would redesign a portion of the Obamacare subsidies.

Speaker 4 (32:53):
It would open up the cheapest type of.

Speaker 14 (32:55):
Obamacare plan to more enrollees, and it would take these
enhance subsidies and do what the President is advocating, direct
them to individuals has HSA contributions rather than as payments
directly to health insurance companies. I think that legislation, there's
a lot to like about that. I think what the
House is looking at doing today is to expand further,

(33:18):
expand options for small businesses, allow them to join together
to get some of their regulatory advantages.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
That large employers get when they offer coverage.

Speaker 14 (33:27):
So I testified from the Center of Finance Committee about
a month ago. I suggested nine ways that Republicans could
from expanding health savings accounts, to addressing some structural flaws
with the Obamacare subsidies, and to opening up different coverage
options that they could do in the near term. Fundamentally,

(33:48):
I think the worst thing that Congress could do is
throw good money after bad. The way to guarantee that
we don't reform a very inefficient program and sector of
the economy is just to continue to over subsidize it
because that reduces the pressure for real fixes, and we

(34:08):
have a health care affordability crisis in the US. I
don't think it's right to just shift all those costs
to the American tax pair.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
We can put B five up on the screen, just
to make that point. This is a gallop poll.

Speaker 5 (34:25):
The headline here's cost leads Americans top of mind healthcare concerns.
So to the point Brian just made people agree. Everyone
basically agrees this is one of the top top stressors
on the economy and individual families budgets.

Speaker 6 (34:40):
And then we can put up the final one too,
So put up B six. When Obamacare was passed, you
were sitting at about thirty percent, a little over thirty
percent said that they would prefer a government run system.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Obamacare.

Speaker 6 (34:58):
You rejected the public eye option, rejected Medicare for all,
rejected even a Medicare buy in for people fifty five
and over. It was very close to being included. Joe
Lieberman pulled it out at the last second. And so
people have gotten this interaction with a bastardized version of
a private system, which is the only thing we have

(35:19):
actually around the world. Right there's no pure kind of
private healthcare system that I know of outside of any
kind of developed country.

Speaker 4 (35:28):
Maybe on the outside of Singapore.

Speaker 6 (35:30):
South Okay, outside of Singapore, I don't know much about
Singapore health policy.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
You can you can teach us more about that.

Speaker 6 (35:35):
But as I was listening to you talk about the
brokers and the scams and the fraud and how complicated
this system is. And you're asked, and I assume the
reason that you can fudget is that they ask you
ahead of time, what's your income going to be for
the next year.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
I don't know. Most people are like, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
Like if some people are like, this is my salary,
I hope I don't get fired, so I expect this
to be my But maybe I will get fired and
I will fit and I will fit into this nice
little band where I get all the subsidies. Or you
just kind of game it and like, I guess I'm
gonna make this, Or we could just do medicare for
all and then focus on the fraud, like put a

(36:16):
ton of money into Like if these chatbots in this AI,
the lms are good for anything, they should be able
to find this fraud. Like you guys, you have a
couple interns, and you compared the number of people that
exist right in this economic band and the number of
people claiming the subsidies in that band, and you're like,

(36:36):
this doesn't match. You would think our llms could help
us with that, and then say, okay, Medicare for all.
We're gonna we're gonna make this simple so people don't
go around not knowing that they have insurance. You know,
because you're an American, you've got it, Like, why why
don't we just do that and be done with all
of this.

Speaker 14 (36:56):
Well, I think of how much government has already screwed up,
and the fact that you need to get the example
out of Minnesota recently with that Medicaid fraud and dramatically
increasing autism, diet pain parents to diagnose of it's going
to be.

Speaker 6 (37:11):
A constant pat and mouth game. Americans are very clever,
so are the newer Americans.

Speaker 14 (37:16):
I think fundamentally, the problem with health care policy is
that the individual consumer and patient is not in control.
So only about ten percent of spending that people make
on healthcare comes directly from them. Most of our expenditures
come from third parties, whether it's government programs, whether it's

(37:37):
insurance that takes the form of an employer sponsor insurance plan.
We have created a market that is not responsive to
the individual consumer and patient, so it meets the needs
of the insurance company, it meets the needs of the
government program. It's not responsible to the individual. We have
no idea what prices are right. Prices in most sectors
of the economy, that's what coordinates behavior, and we know

(37:59):
how to value things relative to other things. But prices
are basically just made up. Nobody has any idea, and
people don't have any incentives to care about what the
prices are. So I think fundamentally what we need to
do is address these problems with government programs that have
centralized control and power in the hands of the intermediaries

(38:22):
and the middlemen, and return as much control to the
individual as possible so that they can choose the care
and coverage it works for them, and so the healthcare providers,
the doctors, the nurses are serving actual patients and meeting
their needs.

Speaker 6 (38:36):
The reason I'm cynical about that is not just because
of what most people say, which is that healthcare can't
be a normal market because you know, if you don't
buy the thing, you could die, and so that you
creates an imbalanced amount of leverage in the transactional relationship
between you and the person who holds your life in

(38:57):
their hands.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
But existing conditions.

Speaker 6 (38:59):
Yes, setting that aside, the United States government doesn't seem
to care about markets anywhere else. Like in every other industry,
we're okay with a monopoly or oligopoly, you know, whether
it's airlines or youth sports, or beef or poultry or like.
Actually it's harder to find an industry that we haven't

(39:21):
allowed to consolidate into just one or two producers and
that set prices and so then we're expected to believe that.
Oh no, when it comes to healthcare, which makes up
a third of the economy or something, we promise we're
going to do it strong antitrust enforcement. We're going to
really crack down on the giant scammers. There were the

(39:46):
medical providers, and we're not going to let private equity
just roll this up and have giant companies, you know,
let three companies control the entire healthcare industry and then
set prices. And so then you have a situation where
it's not just like beef, because like with beef, okay,
you know, you have four beef companies and control everything.
I guess I could eat less beef, maybe go eat

(40:07):
some chicken and some more soybeans or whatever.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
But when it comes to healthcare.

Speaker 6 (40:11):
It's like you're gonna have to You're gonna have to
pay the piper, and the US government I just don't
trust to.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Not make it. So there's like three pipers.

Speaker 14 (40:22):
Don't I don't trust the US government either. I do
think in some place it'd be great if we would
have four competitors. We have produced a lot of local
hospital monopolies. Exactly local hospital monopolies. It's a real problem.

Speaker 6 (40:35):
So why I was hospital is gonna Well, where I
would look is where's the government.

Speaker 14 (40:38):
Policy that incentivizes consolidation and reduces competition in the market.
A really good example comes from the Medicare program. Medicare
pays much more for the same service delivered in a
hospital than if it's delivered in a physician's office. What
does that lead to? That leads to incentives for hospitals
and physicians to sell out. So the hospital acquires the

(40:58):
physician practice, and then you have an integrated healthcare system
and you've reduced contractions in that area. There are examples
where we've allowed market forces to work in healthcare and
consumerism to work of people making cost conscious decisions and
driving health care services to lower cost providers, and those

(41:21):
lower costs provide. The high cost providers don't want to
lose consumers, so they do lower their prices. So we
do have examples, they are too few and far between, unfortunately.
But I think where I want to go is what
can we address in government policy that reduces consumer control

(41:41):
and leads to these incentives for additional consolidation.

Speaker 5 (41:45):
And consuming it in the politics of this quickly. I
think one of the reasons that Republicans and you'll know
this better than I do, never landed on a consensus
repeal and replaced plan is that they never landed on consensus.
There was never something that brought everybody together, you know,
everyone from John McCain to you know, Marco Rubio at
the time in the Senate. So do you feel that

(42:07):
as these conversations are happening now, and it seems to
me again this is probably a frustration you've had for
much longer, but that Republicans just keep putting healthcare on
the back burner while voters say, this is on our
front burner. This is the thing that is like eating
us up right now. This has forced the conversation, do
you think Republicans are getting anywhere close to a consensus,

(42:29):
either tweak as you say, before the end of the
year and then big fix in the new year, or
is it still just kind of We're going to tinker
around the edges, do what we can when the crunch
is on, and hope that you know, it doesn't come
up again before we have absolutely have to have some
type of comprehensive solution.

Speaker 14 (42:47):
Yeah, So I do think Republicans have to do Conservatives
have to do a better job on healthcare policy. I mean,
it's one of the reasons that I found it Beregon
was because a job there was a app on the
free market side on healthcare policy. And like you said,
I mean, healthcare is twenty percent of the economy. We needed,
and the healthcare sector is its system is not working

(43:10):
for most Americans, so we need policies. I think that
there are like they recognize that Obamacare hasn't made healthcare
more affordable. I think there's widespread agreement that just continuing
to throw good money after bad and propping up an
inefficient regulatory structure is unwise policy. I think there is
agreement on how we should expand options and make some

(43:34):
improvements on the margin on Obamacare and I think what
we have to do is just I mean, one comprehensive plan.
I don't think is the right strategy. I think the
right strategy is to look at what's not working correctly
diagnose the problem. Like I mentioned on Medicare, paying much
more for hospital services than doctor services, that's a bipartisan problem.

(43:59):
It's recognized by Democrats and Republicans. Now, who's the main
obstacle to getting that policy through. It's hospitals. Hospitals are
very powerful. If you look at the American Enterprise Institute
has what they call a chart of the Century and
it looks at the price increases by economic sector since

(44:19):
two thousand. The number one the highest growing price inflation
is hospitals. That to me is where we have our
main healthcare affordability problem. Is we need to drive down
hospital prices in the US and the site neutral payments
and Medicare should be a starting point. But it's going
to require reformers to go and combat the healthcare industry.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
What do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 6 (44:46):
Do you think that these four Republicans or more will
join with Democrats and pass the three year extension in
the House. And if it doesn't have a shot in
the Senate, I do not.

Speaker 14 (44:58):
So I don't know if they'll join Withocrats and pass
an extension.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
I do not think that that is a realistic policy.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
I mean, right, but we've been doing unrealistic policy for decades.

Speaker 4 (45:09):
So well.

Speaker 14 (45:10):
I don't think there's not going to be a clean
extension of the subsidies. I mean, I think there's so
many problems with the subsidies. The fraud is one major problem.
There's not going to be a clean extension of these
COVID era credits. I mean, there might be some compromise
out there. I think there's certainly a way to deal

(45:30):
with the problem for the people that I mentioned just
above four times the poverty line, Like that is a
relatively cheap fix. You would allow to enhance subsidies to
expire for people below four times the poverty line, who
still get very generous underlying Obamacare subsidies. You deal with
the cliff that was created for people just above four

(45:52):
times the poverty line, and you introduce some reforms to
address the cost drivers in Obamacare.

Speaker 5 (45:59):
Yeah, so interesting, And just like you said, Republicans had
such a gap on this, so we appreciate you coming
in Brian and helping walk as through. Well, we'll have
to have you back on to talk about Singapore's healthcare system.
Appetite husband pethe all right, thank you, Brian Blaize, founder
of Paragon, appreciate being here.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (46:22):
So I think a friend of Donald Trump's must have
told him that he was losing the capacity to shock
people with his truth social posts, and so in the
last few days he shocked the entire world, and with
his response to the brutal murder of Rob Ryaner and
his wife Michelle now is following it up with one

(46:43):
of the most unhinged remarks he's made about Venezuela. Yet,
we could put up this true social post. We'll read
this entire thing, he says. Venezuela is completely surrounded by
the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America.
A pause on that note, are you really invoking the
span here?

Speaker 4 (47:01):
Like? What are you doing? He says?

Speaker 6 (47:03):
It will only get bigger, and the shock to them
will be like nothing they have ever seen before until
such time as they return to the United States of
America all of the oil, land, what and other assets
that they previously stole from US. Yes, Venezuela stole our oil,
land and other assets. The illegitimate Maduro regime is using

(47:24):
oil from these stolen oil fields to finance themselves, the horror,
drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder, and kidnapping. For the theft
of our assets and many other reasons, including terrorism, drug smuggling,
and human trafficking, the Venezuelan regime has been designated a
foreign terrorist organization. Therefore, today I am ordering a total

(47:46):
incomplete blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going into and
out of Venezuela. The illegal aliens and criminals that the
Maduro regime has sent into the United States during the
weekend andept Biden administration are being returned to Venezuela at
a rapid pace. America will not allow criminals, terrorists, or
other countries to rob, threaten, or harm our nation, and
likewise will not allow a hostile regime to take our oil,

(48:10):
land or any other assets, all of which must be
returned to the United States immediately.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
Thank you for your attention to this matter. Donald J. Trump,
President of the United States.

Speaker 6 (48:21):
I don't understand how Venezuela could return land to US promptly.

Speaker 4 (48:28):
I understand the oil thing, like.

Speaker 6 (48:29):
There was a there was a meme during the occupation
of a Raq that said, how did our oil get
under their sand?

Speaker 1 (48:37):
It beats me, But.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
However it got under there, We're going over there and
we're taking it back.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Someone's got to find out.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
I understand the oil part. The land. How are we
going to take How did Venezuela take our land?

Speaker 6 (48:50):
Jesse Waters, as we talked about I think last week,
said South America is ours.

Speaker 4 (48:54):
It's in the name America America. Maybe that's what he means.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
It's not that hard, it's America.

Speaker 6 (49:00):
Ironically, Trump recently seized Venezuelan assets. They seized an oil tanker,
We seized Sidgo, like we took their oil company. Now
we're going to now they took our land.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
I mean.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Also another part of that where he's saying, on the
one hand, Maduro sent criminals into the United States during
the Biden administration.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
On the other hand, Maduro is a vicious dictator.

Speaker 5 (49:28):
These two things are in conflict because what's actually happening
is that Maduro is a dictator and people fled Maduro
to come into the United States, which is why there's
debate among the Republican Party over whether or not to
grant asylum to people who, in the case of many
Venezuelans and all of them, actually is pretty sound for

(49:50):
asylum fleeing the Maduro regime. There were real reasons for
people to be fleeing the Maduro regime, just as other
are real reasons for people to be fleeing Cuba over
the last several decades, and so On the one hand,
Trump is acting as though this was intentionally set up
by Maduro to infiltrate the United States.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
But on the other hand, Maduro so bad. If Maduro
is so bad, then.

Speaker 5 (50:13):
It stands to reason people are going to flee into
the United States, which is exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
It wasn't.

Speaker 5 (50:18):
It's similar to the trafficking narrative that they're trying to build.
Of course, I think there's pretty significant evidence that there
are state actors in the trafficking, and many people would
argue there were state actors on our side in the
trafficking as well. But that's the argument the United States
government is making. But to say that this was intentional,

(50:40):
that the migration from Venezuela and the United States was
an intentional invasion infiltration, they're doing the same thing with drugs,
and actually what's happened is that people are poor and
desperate and are trying to make money or trying to
get to a better country. And so that actually confirms
the administration's argument about a duro being a dictator. But

(51:03):
of course, you're they're trying to have it both ways.

Speaker 6 (51:06):
And already a couple of tankers apparently have been turned around,
have turned around because they're nervous about getting caught up
in this American Spanish armada, which is throwing the Venezuelan
economy into complete and total turmoil, like it was already
deeply struggling under this like incredible tightening regime of sanctions

(51:30):
that we have going on there, as well as the
you know, collapse of oil prices over the last decade,
which was kind of propping up the cha Vista socialism project.
What that's going to do is create, like you said,
an outflow of migration as well as create like starvation

(51:50):
and suffering misery, and there's plenty of and create instability.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
Part of this. You know, there's a right.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
Wing movement going on now in South in Central America.
You've you've had you know, the right wing win elections
in Ecuador, Hondura's, Chile, Bolivia recently, and a significance, non
trivial amount of that is there were like eight million
Venezuelans who getting in the chill poured out of into

(52:18):
into lots of other countries. Of like a half million
or so came to the US, it's another seven and
a half million went elsewhere around and that and that
generally throughout world history has created kind of a right
wing poll. So I when I first saw this news,
I was like, Maduro, I want to call him a dictator.
Not he's offering to step down in exchange for like

(52:41):
lifting of the sanctions and not not drone striking him
and offering to let American oil companies come in.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
Like he's he's basically saying, what do you want?

Speaker 5 (52:50):
Well, he doesn't want what Trump is threatening to bring
down right now.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
He doesn't want to be killed. And so what what why?

Speaker 6 (52:58):
Like I don't understand why Trump will just say yes,
like okay, you get your regime change, you get the oil,
you get everything, but you don't get I guess a war.
The only thing I can think of is and this
is like, no, this can't be what he's doing. Like
maybe he misses a border crisis, like the border is
very calm right now, and maybe to Trump, he needs

(53:21):
a crisis at the border, and so he's like, Oh,
I need to create an enormous amount of instability and
suffering in Venezuela so I can drive more people to
the border and then in twenty twenty six point to
the caravans of the people at the border and be
like Democrats some you know, I don't know quite how
you finish that equation, but you know, Democrats, scary brown people.

(53:43):
You have to vote, you know, vote for me. It
hasn't worked in the past, like when you had the
big caravan in twenty eighteen, that didn't help him.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
What on earth is he doing well?

Speaker 5 (53:53):
Correctlyer, But Maduro has said his counter offer part of
it is allowing hiss like kind of him to hand
pick a successor who would ran a power for a couple.

Speaker 6 (54:03):
Of years, right, and while there's elections, Yeah, and that
successor would not run for reelection.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
Right.

Speaker 5 (54:08):
My guess is that if there was any chance of
Donald Trump himself cutting a deal with Moduro, that's probably
a brick wall in the negotiations.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
But I think that's a simpler You're just.

Speaker 6 (54:17):
Going to put the Nobel Peace Prize winning Machado Forcibly
on the throne.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Like no, but that's what she has no base.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
But that's what I was going to say.

Speaker 5 (54:24):
The simpler explanation is that you have to think about
this as President Marco Rubio as opposed to President Donald Trump,
and President Marco Rubio doesn't want like knows that the
United States, to paraphrase the Zelenski conversation, holds all the
cards here except for the American people largely not wanting this,
but wants to make a point and wants absolutely no quarter,

(54:48):
wants absolutely no remnant, which is impossible, but wants absolutely
no remnant of the left, the socialist left, or the whatever. Venezuela,
it's a country that has a left and has convinced Trump.
I mean, we saw just what a couple of days
ago Trump declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction, that

(55:09):
this could lay the groundwork for potential military action in Mexico.
Because if you're declaring fentanyl WMD, it's all kinds of
legal questions about what that actually means, what that actually does,
But that's laying the groundwork for Mexico that has nothing
to do. I mean, this is we're talking about cocaine
in Venezuela, and so.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
That's that's yeah.

Speaker 5 (55:30):
I think that's the best guesses is because Trump does
like making deals, but I think he's basically outsourced this
to Marco Rubio.

Speaker 6 (55:40):
And about half of So if we manage the transition,
then we can approve you know, who becomes interim president
leading into the elections, and then we can get somebody
who's friendly er to the United States. If we don't
manage the process, if we just drive some kind of
chaotic region change. About half of Maduro's deputies are much

(56:05):
friendly er to China.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
Than they are to US.

Speaker 6 (56:07):
Yeah, and that's why, and so you might get one
of them instead, which is why I.

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Think Rubio wants to do a total takeover.

Speaker 6 (56:15):
Again, though with what like who's going to like Machada
and what army like you're really going to like you're
going to occupy Venezuela.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
I don't know if it's the US army.

Speaker 5 (56:24):
Part of the Susie Wiles we'll talk more about this
in a second, but part of the Susie Wiles Vanity
Fair story. I'm sure this jumped out to you as well,
she's saying, we know who's on those boats.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
We have the CIA.

Speaker 5 (56:36):
I'm paraphrasing it, obviously, but she says that to Chris
Whipple and the Vanity Fair article, and with what army
is a great question, always has been a great question.
Could have learned that lesson during the Bay of Pigs.
But it's I imagine intelligence coming from the CIA, which
we know has been authorized to operate on the ground
in Venezuela by the President probably saying you can do.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
This, because that's what happens every damn time.

Speaker 5 (57:02):
You have the people, you have the weak links in
the military, you can do it.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
And that's my that's my best guess.

Speaker 5 (57:11):
As so why there's the full bravado for total, complete
and total regime change is that they're once again convinced
that it's doable and that anything short of that just
gives a foothold for or leaves a foothold for China
and Iran and the new Axis of Evil.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
And meanwhile, Trump is gonna get somebody killed in the
air put up C two. So for the second time,
civilian aircraft nearly collided, this time with a US Air
Force tanker. Because all of these American Armada planes are

(57:49):
flying around the Caribbean with their transponders off ye, not
communicating with air traffic controllers. And as he said, it's
the largest force maybe ever or that's been in there.
And so you have civilian aircraft constantly going through there.
You know, it's a big sky, and hopefully that none

(58:10):
of them go down. But this is extremely reckless and
dangerous and nobody is asking for it, and he hasn't
even bothered to try to lie much about it. This
whole like weapons of mass destruction ventanyl thing is like offensively,
like lazy, like this is what you like it is?

(58:32):
Maybe they just maybe it's not like we can do
whatever we want.

Speaker 5 (58:36):
Well, yeah, and I think the best way to think
about the Venezuela policy is just again President Mark Rubio.
I think Trump is not as interested as Mark Rubio
is and this Venezuela regime change. He's been brought on
board with it because he can use it from a
kind of pr perspective to say this is the crackdown
on drugs, even though that is going to be digested

(58:58):
by every most Americans to be related to fentanyl, and
this is clearly not related defentanyl. So anyway, all that
is to say the trip wires right now, when you
have CIA operating on the in the on the ground
in Venezuela, when you have the armada, as Trump put it,
that is we're we are in the middle of a

(59:22):
recipe for escalation and that Americans could be dying in
battle over Venezuela and.

Speaker 6 (59:30):
Americans and Americans like could crash into the sea.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Yes.

Speaker 6 (59:34):
Yeah, And they took out another drug boat, alleged drug
boat just recently. And meanwhile he Zeth is saying he
will not show the video that he is so proud
of where they executed these two survivors, and he says
absolutely the right battle decisions, keeps calling it a battle
and a battle.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
They don't.

Speaker 6 (59:54):
They're like basically unarmed and you're you're sitting in like
Florida hitting them with the drone.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
They're not coming and shooting an Americans. They are by
their own emission, what is their trafficking cocaine, allegedly trafficking
in cocaine.

Speaker 6 (01:00:10):
And without the outboard motors to get to the United States,
like they're they're going somewhere Surinam or wherever Mexico, somewhere
they're not going to the they're not making it to
the United States with that. Eventually, maybe they will a
lot of like cocaine users are hoping they do, right, bro, Like,
this is what we do here in the United States.

Speaker 4 (01:00:31):
Why are you killing our supliers to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Compare it to kinetic kinetic battle?

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
Right, And so he's so proud of it, and he
would make the decision a thousand times again. But no,
you can't actually see the footage of it. And oh,
we've destroyed footage of similar strikes.