12/4/25: Mass Job Losses, Trump's Corrupt Pardon, New Epstein Images, Dem Special Elections

Krystal and Saagar discuss mass job losses, Trump's corrupt pardon, insane new Epstein images, Dem special elections.

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Episode Transcript

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

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We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Have an amazing
show for everybody today or we have Crystal.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Indeed we do. We got some new numbers on the economy.
They are not looking good. We've also got a new
pardon from Trump. This one of a corrupt Democrats, a
little bit of a bipartisan corruption. Not that that's an
unusual thing here in Washington. It's like a look at
that one. This one impacts the House because this was
a this is a representati of the House. It was indicted. Anyway,
a lot of potential implications there. We've got new photos

(01:00):
in videos released by the House Oversight Committee of Epstein's Island.
We will show you that they are also attempting to
get more financial records that they could reveal to the public.
So some significant developments there. Taking a look at the
political fallout after this Tennessee election was closer than comfort
I guess for Republicans in that special and what they

(01:20):
are looking at heading into the midterms. There's a lot
of Republicans sort of maneuvering. Mike Johnson's getting thrown under
the bus, so we'll look at that, Hillary Clinton and
others letting it all hang out on Israel. CNN is
partnering with kelshi as we just send further into this
capitalist healthscape, and we've got some new details on those
boat strikes as Admiral Bradley does head to the Hill today,

(01:42):
So some significant movement there as well.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
That's right. Thank you. Everybody's been signing up Breakingpoints dot com.
If you can support our work over here, become a
premium member. By the way, it's been very cool to
see all of your Spotify raps. If we were in
your top we did record a little video for all
of you, and so thank you all very much. It
is very very cool to see and we were looking
we achieved significant growth actually some one hundred and thirty
percent in Greece apparently in our podcast. I was looking

(02:07):
at the stats that they sent over to us. So
thank you all very much. And that was just on
the Spotify platform. So if you are listening to this
as a podcast, please rate us five stars, share it
with the friend. Really helps other people find the show.
Apparently a lot of you did that this year, so
thank you all very much. Seriously, it does mean a lot.
It's very cool to see the numbers and it's also
kind of fun to see what other people listen to. Yeah,
I'm a very eclectic fan base. People listening to comedy

(02:29):
only news. It's kind of.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Amazing my last few months. It turns out we're very
dominated by K pop demon Hunt.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah you know.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
To me, my eight year old is also listening on
my bones.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
That's the funny thing is all my songs are just
songs that the kid will go to sleep too, right,
so it's all You're welcome from Mowana. Yeah, one song
I will.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Sit down to the Disney Age and and today.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
K Pop demon era me. Also, my podcast listening moments
went down by forty percent. So that's what fatherhood has done.
It's destroyed, it's destroyed my podcast listening time. It's all
worth it anyway, Thank you all very much, seriously, very gratifying.
I know YouTube has its own wrapped function as well.
It's also cool to see us on that. So let's
go ahead and start with the economy. Some troubling job

(03:12):
job numbers coming from ADP with an immediate reaction here
from CNBC summarizing how this was a major, unexpected, actually
job loss that hit Wall Street.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Let's take a listen, big miss on the ADP payrolls
the private payroll company saying private payrolls shed thirty two
thousand workers in November. That's the fourth negative number in
the past six months for this series. Take a look here.
The estimate was for forty thousand, so the Street was
off on this one. But the big story here and
I'll show you more detail on this is what's happening

(03:41):
with small business down one hundred and twenty thousand, medium
and large business doing okay, up fifty one to thirty
nine thousand, respectively. But take a look at this chart
here Virtually all of the job losses have come from
small business, which has been negative in six of seven
months since April. Without those losses, ADP numbers would actually
be positive. But you can't get rid of it. You

(04:03):
can't exclude small business, at least according to ADP additional
weakness in the job market and small business getting hammered.
And there is some information that some of this may
be coming from being hammered by the tariffs.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
So there you go. You can see saying some indication
in terms of the tariffs. But more importantly was the
miss in terms of the ADP numbers. The fourth negative
number in the past six numps and the estimate was
for that plus forty thousand. Let's go put a two
up here on the screen. Some interesting kind of firm
by firm data. Actually, what you see is that the
ADP losses is that most industries are doing layoffs. The

(04:38):
only ones still hiring are hospitality and healthcare.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Actually that explains a lot, right, So healthcare with this exploitive, insane,
destructive system. Hospitality is entirely dominated by the top ten percent,
and so that means that the rich can continue to
travel every again. If you're a sucker for this type
of lifestyle pornography. The Wall Street Journal every other day
is always like big hotels are booming than ever, or

(05:03):
like why Rich Carlton is more in demand than any other,
And I always click on them and I always read
them because there is just something to this like economy
where you've got top ten percent who spend fifty percent
of the money and so ninety percent of people overall
not doing either as well and not spending nearly as much,
and so that I think it's called K shaped right

(05:23):
in terms of the economy. But what you can see
very specifically is that those smaller to medium sized firms,
really the backbone of American innovation and of community is
really hurting. So there was a one to nineteen employees
for something like our company has a reduction of some
forty six thousand, and then the twenty to forty nine
employees down by seventy four thousand. So these smaller firms

(05:44):
are really having trouble. Larger companies are still hiring, but
quote a tough year for small business due to tariffs
and more selective spending from lower and middle class consumers.
And I think that you know, really hits it home
is the lower middle class consumer and other And if
you really think about you know, the Amazons of the worlds,
the Googles and even retail that goes after either everybody

(06:06):
and or can selectively make it so that they're very
desirable to that high income family, they're going to be fine,
you know, and something like this. In addition to the
big business, but if you're a smaller, medium sized firm,
maybe you do like services or something like that, doesn't
necessarily that goes to everybody, not necessarily to the top
ten percent. That's exactly who's struggling in this and that's
really that's you know, it sucks, right because if you

(06:27):
think about smaller, medium size maybe brick and mortar businesses
in towns and others where let's say your income is
below one hundred and fifty thousand per year in terms
of the median, that's that's going to be a tough
place to do business.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, well, it makes sense when you think about the
tariff impact. When we first had a quote unquote Liberation Day,
we covered a number of these small businesses that were like,
I have no idea how we're going to be able
to survive because even though they had a profitable business.
A lot of these small businesses like they're living sort
of month to month, you know, they don't have a
giant cash reserve so that they can wait until Trump

(07:00):
figures out what the hell is going on or the
courts get involved and he changes the rates and makes
it so that you can sustain yourself in that time.
You're bleeding, if not completely dying, So it makes sense
on that level. It also makes sense on the level
that you're not going to be the one that gets
to go to the Mar A Lago dinner, gets to
offer your gold bar in the White House to be
able to be saved by the king. So you know,
I think that's another element of why small businesses are

(07:24):
the ones being decimated. In particular, they're also not likely
to be the ones participating in the Great Ai Revolution
that is propping up so much of the economy at
this point, so you know, we're really starting to see
the effects. And the other thing, you know, we normally
in the past whe have necessarily covered the ADP Jobs
Report because we would have relied on the government numbers.

(07:44):
They don't put the numbers down anymore. Number one, I mean,
you know, during the shutdown, we didn't get anything. And
number two, I don't think anyone has any confidence in
these numbers whatsoever, So that has made the ADP numbers
that much more significant. There's another aspect of this, of course,
which is the political aspect. How is the administry messaging
all of this. Earlier in the week, Trump said that
affordability is a democratic con job. So that's what the

(08:07):
language coming from the President of the United States. And
you've got Scott Bessett who has now made this claim.
I think a couple of times that the best thing
you can do, and we covered this previously on the show,
the best thing you can do if you're worried about
inflation is move move to a red state because inflation
is lower in red states. Turns out that is not
true whatsoever. And he got called on it live. Let's

(08:27):
take a look at that.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
People in her district are having an affordability problem. I
should have said, well, she's in a red state. Affordability
is worse. I mean in a blue state, affordability is
worse than a blue state. We can debate that. No, no,
there's no debate that the number fifty basis points higher inflation.
The ten highest the inflation rates they are in blue cities.

Speaker 5 (08:54):
But just you know, because I went to look at this,
this is the Joint Economic Man since twenty twenty one.
The highest inflation of the past four years has been
in red states, especially from Florida. I'm talking about current
current current, not over the past four years today. Okay,

(09:16):
I would think four years would be a reasonable to
trend line to look at.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Just utterly observed. I mean, the thing is stupid to
start with, like, oh, just upwart your whole life and
move somewhere. We're not going to do anything. But if
you're worried about inflation, go ahead and uproot your whole life,
find a new job, sell your house, good luck getting
a mortgage at the same rate, and move to a
different place that has slightly lower inflation. Because we're certainly
not doing anything for you. And then even on the

(09:43):
merits of that that he's getting called out that like, well,
that's not actually really even true unless you have this
like very so well in the past thirty six days
in cities. Only then this actually works out just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
It is so stupid. Yeah, those where it's like, dude,
I mean, this is why him and there's what a
few others, Kevin Hassett and others like they are just
like the Biden officials who would go out in twenty
twenty two and they'd be like, actually, we're tackling inflation Bidenomics,
and it was met with, like, you know, it was
met with ridicule. I think correctly. But I mean not

(10:21):
just by Wall Street, but by I think everyday consumers.
And yeah, I mean fundamentally, what exactly is the message
like living in a red state is better? Like yeah, maybe,
I mean it depends on what you value, right, I
mean that's the whole point of living in different states. Yeah,
we all have. You know, every every state gets to
do things a little bit differently. For example, if you're
in Florida, you can live in a boomer hell where
they want to reduce property taxes. So you know, that's

(10:43):
your right as Americans. You can do that if you
would like you know, you certainly can. And then you
know you can also live in you can also live
in what what's the highest tax that California? You know,
some people they're like, sunshine is worth it to live
with a bunch of fence and all bums who are
living around me, no criminal justice. That's fine. You could
do that if you want to. That's America, all right.

(11:04):
So it's just one of those where well to choose.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
By the way, after Zorn's election, you know, there's all
the rich people are going to leave New York. Apparently
luxury real estate sales are actually up in New York,
so everybody relaxed.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
I wouldn't say that sense the rich.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
People are staying in New York City. If that was
a concern for you, yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
I mean, it was not never a particular guy. I
don't spend a lot of time thinking about the global
rich in New York City or a Los Angeles or
any of these other places. But yeah, I mean, and
this is part of what's so stupid, I think broadly
around the thing. And it also just gets to also
the being out of touch importantly with the economy whenever

(11:40):
it comes to these officials, affordability is a con job.
Just uproot and move if you would like. It also
just gets to the point of you know that we
always talk about with Trump is division, division, division, and
he's used that very very effectively. But the thing is
right now is that this idea of like in terms
of the red state versus the blue trying to pit

(12:01):
people against each other. What I think that misunderstands is
that on economic questions, people are actually a lot more
united than ever before. They're really not in a war
like in the same way they might be on culture
or anything else. Like, they are pretty united in saying
that housing and inflation are the two pillar problems. And
that's why I think that rhetoric like that really doesn't land,

(12:23):
and it actually makes light of a very serious situation
no matter where you live. And that's part of the
where the division strategy, which is very effective on culture,
I don't think it lands even close on economy or
on immigration, right, It's just not the same issues set.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, that's an interesting thought because certainly at other times,
like when Trump was in his initial political rise back
in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, there was more of a
sense of like, the cities are doing great, and thrust
of the country is getting screwed. Now the senses everybody's
getting screwed. We're all getting screwed. And you know, the
rich people are right in the rules. They're rigging the system,

(12:58):
they're sucking up everything, they're doing their ai thing. They're
you know, looking at being trillionaires, and meanwhile, you know,
we'll get to CNN now doing deals with Calshi so
that they can you know, get you further addicted to
gambling and exploit and abuse you even more. Like we're
just at this point of absurdity in terms of where
the capitalist system is. So you know, I mean, all

(13:20):
the stress signs are there. People are screaming loud and clear.
We do not feel like this economy is going well.
We don't think it's going to go well. We are
not hopeful about our future. We're not helpful about our
kids future. We don't feel like you're focused on the
things that you said you would be in the campaign.
Now whether or not they were right to think he'd
really be great on business, I mean think I think
it's reasonable to I think it's reasonable for an ordinary

(13:41):
piece person to be like, you know what, the economy
was better under his first administration. He's a business guy.
He's going to be focused on this. It's going to
be better for me and my family. And to feel
a genuine sense of disappointment and frankly betrayal that that
has not been his focus, and then the audacity to
tell you that affordability is a con job made up

(14:02):
by the Democrats while you're looking at him hanging out
with Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman and these other characters
giving them the world while they build out their data
centers and spike your electricity bills. Yeah, you're going to
be disgusted and you're going to The Republican Party is
going to pay a massive political price for abandoning people
at a time when they are increasingly feeling the squeeze.

(14:25):
These ADP numbers are just one more sign that, you know,
there was a lot of opium from the UH, from
MAGA insiders here that you and Emily both were speaking
to that they felt like, oh, you know, we're going
to do this tariff thing. There's going to be some pain,
but you know, a year from now things are going
to be turning around. When we're going into midterms, people
are going to be feeling like things are great now.

(14:46):
It seems like even they've abandoned that to you know,
falling back on well, just move to a different state
if you feel bad about things the way they are,
or you know, just to pretend like none of this
is a problem. Affordability is a con job just did
not the reality that you're living literally every single day.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
On the tariff question, if you think about it, it
was paired specifically with it's going to make America richer.
It's also going to bring back business that has just
simply not been the case. Why because as we said
a myriad times, there's no problem with tariffs. Tariffs are fine.
I support tariffs. You use them as a tool in uh,

(15:23):
you pair it with a lot not just industrial policy,
but a concerted bureaucratic strategic effort that says, these are
the types of things that we want to Now. Actually,
in some ways they have done that. It's just to
the benefit of only the AI industry. But if that
bubble pops, that's a big problem.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
And as I show, it's not something that really better.
I mean, there's some construction, like the construction industry is
doing okay because of the data center build out, but
in terms of long term jobs as data centers require
like fifty people. Yeah, techn minimal technology.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Is a power law business. The wealth vastly accumulates to
the founders and to the employeeses. That is literally the
story of Silicon Valley and of software engineering. That's why
it makes them all filthy rich. That's fine, but the
point is not to say that that should be the
basis of the entire United States economy. And in fact,
if you want you know, industrial policy or something, you
want to be able to support the other types of businesses,

(16:14):
to industries that don't have power law returns necessarily but
are really important to your overall industrial base, things like cars,
things like I mean, you know, metals. Again, we don't
even have to be woke about oil refineries if we
want to, nuclear power plants. All of these are highly
capital intensive businesses, but the returns are much more broad

(16:36):
based across society, and they actually help lift everybody up together.
We don't have a lot of that. And so that's
where I think the big failure is. And I also look,
it's December fourth. Trump has literally almost been president for
a year. What is eleven months now, I think almost
exactly to the day. So you've been president for eleven months.
And the same thing, you know, if you think back
to Biden, even Obama, Obama, things very much soured on

(16:58):
his term by this point in people's presidencies. Bill Clinton
is the same thing. It's very difficult actually to turn
around Once you're at this point, you can become kind
of a manager and just hope things go on the upswing.
But like that's not their style, and so in the
absence of that, you're gonna have issues. The last thing
I do want to mention is about this tariff stuff,
because this could create a new fresh round of craziness.

(17:19):
Let's go to the next part.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Please.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
This is best In at that same conference said that
the Trump administration will be able to replicate tariffs even
if it loses a Supreme Court decision. So, as we
had said here before, pretty it's pretty clear that the
Supreme Court is very skeptical of the Trump tariffs and
may even require refunds. But there are other longer solutions
where they would be able to implement the same tariffs.

(17:42):
They just have to go through more of a bureaucratic process,
which takes a little bit longer. But he's saying that
they are committed to doing that. I'm only saying this
because it means that you could have similar Liberation Day
style craziness in our markets and in our economy. But
this would be six to eight months from now, which
just happens to be around the time of the November elections.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
It also means that even if the Supreme Court rules,
then there's still no certainty, right, you know, it's not like, okay,
well we can't do this, so we're just not doing this.
Maybe they dis abandoned it, that's possible, or maybe they
try to, you know, go through a different process. Maybe
oh my god, they could actually work with Congress. But
I don't think Congress is going to give them what
they want at this point because Republicans, I mean Republicans

(18:24):
were never all on board with this direction to begin with,
and now Donald Trump has significantly weakened after the you know,
off your election losses. You one last thing to mention.
You're talking about, okay, well, what was what was promised
with the terrorists, Like what was the argument? The argument,
as we covered at the time, was incoherent and all
over the place.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Sometimes it was about fentanels, Sometimes it was about I'm
mad at Brazil over Bolsnaro's treatment, and sometimes the sort
of you know, if you give them the most charitable reading,
it was like, we're going to bring back American manufacturing.
We're going to have these good, you know, middle class
factory jobs are going to be back in America. Well,
we've now had our ninth straight month of manufacturing decline.

(19:05):
So you know, now maybe I mean, I guess you
could say, oh but over time, but there's just no
policy put in place that is going to actually rebuild
or encourage us manufacturing. In fact, the fallen has been
exactly what we predicted, which is that it's going to
create a lot more uncertainty and actually create incentives to
move that manufacturing elsewhere or do layoffs, et cetera. And

(19:27):
that is what we are seeing. And that's a shame
because you know, under the Biden administration got all kinds
of gripes with them, we've named them all here on
the show. Some of their industrial policy was actually working.
There was actually an increase in manufacturing activity, the first
time in the modern era that coming out of a
recession you actually had more manufacturing jobs created. You know,

(19:49):
the story of the last thirty forty years has been
whenever there's a downturn, manufacturing jobs go away and they
don't come back. So they had through this policy. That's
why when we say like terriffs can work when they're
done right, when they're targeted, when they're paired with industrial policy.
Biden was nibbling around the edges of that and it
was showing some results. And now all of that has

(20:10):
been completely wiped away, and we're going in the polar
opposite direction and betting the entire economy on this AI
future data center build out and inflating this gigantic bubble
that is either going to pop and be a disaster
or come to fruition and also be a disaster. I mean,
they're trying to rip up the entire social contract again,
not exactly what was sold on the presidential campaign to people.

(20:33):
And yet here we are Trump with another pardon this
one I would say surprising, apparently surprised in Mike Johnson,
and has direct impact on the Republican majority. This is
of Representative Henry Quaari represents a increasingly sort of right
trending South Texas district and I think the most conservative

(20:56):
Democrat left in the House at this point has been
more hawkish on things like border security and was indicted
him and his wife for alleged you know, fraud, money laundering,
just taking bribes and then doing the bidding of various
companies and various governments. By the way, let's go and
take a listen to Trump explaining why he decided to
pardon Quaar.

Speaker 6 (21:17):
Did you speak with House Republican leadership about your decision
to part it in Congressman Henry Quaar?

Speaker 1 (21:22):
And are you concerned that you made a vulnerable democrat
perhaps less vulnerable with that decision? It didn't matter that
he was. He's a respected person.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
He was treated very badly because he said that people
should not be allowed to pour into our.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Country, and he was right.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
What happened is he get indicted for speaking the truth?

Speaker 2 (21:44):
So indicted for speaking the truth? Well, in reality, he
was indicted because he allegedly funneled over six hundred thousand
dollars through sham consulting contracts, took money from a state
owned energy company in Azerbaijan and a Mexican bank in particular,
and was doing favors and for them in exchange for
that cash. Those are the allegations he's been indicted. He

(22:06):
has not been found guilty. This has obviously directed, I mean,
Trump has just been on this like pardon spree. He
apparently does not think white collar crime is actually crime.
We covered earlier in the week some of the other pardons.
We have some updates on that as well. But it
also has direct political implications because this is a swing
district at this point, a difficult one for Democrats to hold.

(22:27):
Quaar has, you know, strong standing in the district. People
know him, he's been there a long time, etc. And
so if you're rescuing him from his legal troubles, it
makes it more likely that Democrats will be able to
hold on to this seat. I don't think it's probably
going to matter anyway, because it looks certainly like a
midterm wave is building where Democrats are going to take
control of the House pretty handily and don't necessarily need

(22:48):
this seat in South Texas. But you know, this is
not certainly a help to Republicans. On the other hand,
I guess, as possible he's saying he's still going to
run as a Democrat. I guess as possibly flips parties.
He did issue a statement thinking Trump, we can put
B three up on the screen. With his reaction, he says,
I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership

(23:09):
and for taking the time to look at the facts.
I thank God for standing with my family and I
during this difficult time. This decision clears the air lets
us move forward for South Texas's pardon gives us a
clean slate. Noises gone, work remains. I intend to meet
it head on. Thank you, mister President. God bless you,
and God bless the United States of America. King Jefferies,
we got some bipartisanship here, saga, everybody coming together to

(23:29):
support the pardoning of this corrupt member of Congress who
abused his position of power to take cash for him
and his wife allegedly from foreigners in order to do
their bidding. Let's put before up on the screen. He says.
This is exactly Jeffries says, this is exactly the right outcome. Listen,
the reality is this indictment was very thin to begin with.

(23:50):
In my view, charges were eventually going to be dismissed,
if not at the trial court level, then by the
Supreme Court, as they've repeatedly done in instances just like this.
Put B five up on the screen as well. We've
got a list here. We've got twelve members of Congress
now who've been pardoned by Trump. So you know, if
you're an elite and you say things, or do things,

(24:12):
or give cash to the right person, you can do
insider trading. You can take money from foreign governments, you
can lie to the FBI, you can obstruct, you can
you know, if you're George Santos, you could steal identities
and lie about everything you could possibly imagine. Any of
this is just thought perfectly fine if you're an elite
and Trump likes you for some reason. So we have

(24:34):
twelve members of Congress pardoned or i guess commuted, and
those ten Republicans and two Democrats. The two Democrats are
now Quaar and Rod Blagoyevitch blast from the past there
with that name. So anyway, there you go. Trump just
letting white collar criminals go at a pace we have
never seen before. And as we've covered before Zager, certainly

(24:56):
Trump not the first to abuse the pardon power, but
the level shamelessness and the sheer scope and scale of
what he has done is truly without parallel.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, he just takes what is usually the quiet part
and then says it out loud. Sometimes his political strength
also just erupts it in your face. If you don't
remember the details, just let's go over them again. Between
December twenty fourteen November twenty twenty one, Congressman Kuaar and
his wife allegedly accepted six hundred thousand bribes from two
foreign entities, in oil and gas company wholly owned by

(25:27):
the government of Azerbaijan and a bank headquartered in Mexico City.
The bribe payments were allegedly laundered pursued to sham consulting
contracts through a series of front companies and milman into
shells owned by Imelda Quaar, who performed little to know
legitimate work under the contracts. In exchange for the bribes
paid by Azerbaijanny Oil and Gas, Quaar agreed to use
his office to influence US policy in favor of Ozzer Baijan.

(25:50):
In exchange for the bribes paid by a Mexican bank
commerce from Quar agreed to influence legislative activity and pressure
high ranking US executive branch officials regarding measures beneficial to
the bank. So that's the indictment that was actually leveled
there against mister Quaar, and there should.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Be to me, there should be elevated sentencing if you
are a public official that engages in some.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Of that is there's like a sentencing guideline. Yeah, it
comes to abusing your public trust. But we never even
got to trial like that ultimately.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
The problem, and I mean they are maybe it was
going to be thrown out by the Supreme Court because
they have they have basically made it so that corruption
and bribery is like by and large legal. They've taken
such a like narrow view of what actually constitutes crimes, uh,
you know, criminal acts of bribery and corruption. Maybe it
would have been thrown out, but it's so disgusting that

(26:40):
these people just get away with this. I mean what
it's it truly is an attack on our entire system
and the trust and faith that people put in you.
It's so grotesque to me. And then for them all
to be let off the hook on mass like this
is you know, it's it's it's beyond a slap in
the face. It's really disgusting.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Let's go to B six. Let's show everybody the next
particular one. So we covered this previously, this Ponzi schemer. Well,
the commutation issued to David Gentile actually wipes away all
further fines and restitution. He had been sentenced to seven
years for the one point six billion dollar scheme that
had defrauded investors, and prosecutors had been seeking some fifteen

(27:21):
point five million in forfeiture, so he has wiped away
all of that and so so.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
That's money that was meant to go to the over
one thousand victims of this man and his Ponzi scheme,
and now they get nothing. They get nothing. So he
was able to rob them and you know, through this
Ponzi scheme bullshit. Found guilty, right, so this is not alleged,
found guilty, and now the victims get nothing because Trump

(27:49):
came in and said, oh, I'm good with this guy,
go free, enjoy your life. Nothing to see here, that's right.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
And actually yesterday he actually commuted or pardoned someone that
his own DOJ indicted some five months ago. That's my person. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Well, and you know who had prosecuted this case against Gentile.
I think was that Emil Bove, who was like his guy, Yes,
and he was, you know, I think justifiably like proud
of putting this guy behind bars. And now he comes
in and oh, never minds we think this was you know,
we don't think this was correct. People were asking, okay,
why this guy and we still don't really know. You know,

(28:26):
many of these people who have gotten pardoned, they're sort
of obvious either, like political or they you know, they
gave money. We covered one of them who got pardoned
or had to send us commuted where mom had given
millions of dollars and raise money. And right after she
goes this dinner with Trump Wuell and behold the guy
gets left free. And then I think that was the
one that immediately started defrauding people again. And by the way,

(28:48):
a number of the people that Trump has pardoned have
already gone out and committed other crimes and offenses. So
you were literally letting criminals loose on the streets, mister
law and order. Case. People were like, I do you know?
We didn't. It wasn't immediately clear why this particular fraudster
got off the hook. He had a partner in crime
who did not get let off the hook. So it was,

(29:10):
you know, eyebrow raising, like what exactly is going on here?
There's one possibility it's been raised with a B seven
up on the screen. Apparently he had a bunch of
connections that were sort of like two degrees removed from
Rudy Giuliani is close with some of the people that
this guy. David Gentile was close too, So this is

(29:31):
Jacqueline Sweet did this reporting, She says, Trump commuted the
prison sentence for financial fraudsters with ties to Russian tycoon
allegedly linked to organized crime. This Russian tycoon, by the way, guys,
now lives in Israel and is also very close to
the entire Israeli government, number of whom were at his
daughter's wedding, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll just read

(29:51):
you a little bit of this and you guys can
make of it what you will. So, she says, Trump
inexplicably commuted the sentence of a billion dollar Ponzi schemer, scientologist,
private act wit Zech an accountant from Long Island, just
days into a seven year sentence, leading to widespread speculation
about why David Gentile is not just any financial fraudster. However,
his business history is long intermingled with former Russian oligarch

(30:12):
Michael Cherney, wanted by Interpol for alleged ties to Russian
organized crime, and Cherney's family and associates. Records reviewed by
Disaster Girl reveal Michael Churney has long worked with another
allegedly Russian mafia link figure, Eric Kisslin, whose uncle Sam
Kisslin is one of Rudy Giuliani's oldest friends and supporters,
who once reportedly helped Trump stave off bankruptcy, although it's
unknown exactly who advocated for Gentiles release. His business ties

(30:35):
bring him within two degrees of some of Trump's oldest
backers in the Ukrainian and Russian American business world and
the highest levels of the Israeli government. So could be
could be something going on with that that.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Kind of fits with everything I know about some of
these peoples. So, for example, the Honduran president, I was
finally reading into it, the US Roger Stone guy, right, No,
but it's also Matt Gay, so was Rogerstone. They kind
of bubble up the case. Then it gets into retwined
with the elections in the State Department. Starts to see
it's just like a Byzantine network to basically get up

(31:08):
to the favor of Trump. I mean, for example, this
entertainment lawyer who he just published pardoned a couple of
days ago. It's really crazy, Like this guy was indicted
by Trump's DOJ five months ago and then he was
just partnered and nobody really knows why. Like he was
the CEO of this entertainment group. Quote for orchestrating a
conspiracy to rig bidding process for an arena at a

(31:28):
public university in Austin, Texas. Nobody really understands how he
got to Trump. They do know that he was represented
by Trey Goudi, So that's kind of the only you know,
the only like connection really that anybody knows. Trey Goudi
is the former Republican congressman, the guy who did Benghazi,
and now he's on Fox News every once in a while.

(31:49):
Like that seems to basically be the way that this
all came about. But yeah, I mean, the whole it's
totally nuts, right, I mean, this is somebody who was
literally indicted by Trump's own DOJ. So to throw go
out and say the politicization just seems I mean, it's
a bit crazy, it's but that's how things are working
right now.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah. And then lastly, just to give you a sense
of the how different this is on a you know,
in terms of the scale versus what other presidents have done,
put me eight up on the screen. CNN compiled this data.
So here's the number of pardons by presidents in recent years.
So George W. Bush one hundred and eighty nine and

(32:27):
that was over his two terms. Obama two hundred and twelve,
also over his two terms. Trump in the first administration
one hundred and forty four, so sort of in line
with what others were doing Biden eighty and now Trump
twenty twenty five, fifteen hundred plus. So you know, I mean,
this is really kind of I guess typical of Trump

(32:51):
and especially Trump two point zero, where every president has
abused this pardon power. It really needs to go away,
It has to be performed, it needs to go away,
and should not have the powers of kings. But in
any case, bipartisan affair to abuse the pardon power. And
yet somehow Trump takes it and puts it on steroids,
and it's like, okay, well, we're just going to do

(33:11):
this to an insane degree. It's going to be brazenly
obvious the like corrupt ties that these people had to me.
It's going to be you know, it's just going to
be in your face and constant so that you can't
even keep track of all the all.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, we didn't even know about.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
The criminals that we're just setting free.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, I mean, like this one, he was the sports thing. Again.
I think it's so extraordinary is these are some people
in the Anti Trust Division who spearheaded this indictment that
went through and then somehow through Trey Goudi or whatever,
you can just get a full pardon from the United States,
just like outright corruption. It's totally crazy, but yeah, I
guess that's how the government works right now. Apparently all right,

(33:52):
let's get to Epstein. Going down to Epstein, some new
images of Epstein's island villa that were released by the
House Overside Committee. Let's go and put these up here
on the screen. Let's just keep this one up here
for a while. I just want everybody to sit with this.
It's like a dental chair and weird creepy masks that

(34:13):
are all around. There are some videos and images of bedroom,
but I mean.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
It's like faces of old men.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
You know, there's no for that. There's no innocent explanation. Also, yeah,
Larry Sell. Interesting when Larry is there, in terms of
his speed dial on his phone, these are some images.
This is like a bathhouse or it looks like a
steam room. Maybe not exactly sure. That was being used
for storage purposes that was on the island. We can

(34:42):
continue a little bit here in terms of what we
have from the island itself. Let's go to C two
just to walk through video walk through. I'd watched a
little bit of this previously. It's nothing explicitly groundbreaking, but
I guess really what it comes down to is these
images and others been released by the households like committee.
Some of these are inside of these so you know,

(35:03):
the Epstein files, the Epstein estate, and I really just
think we should all sit with like the image themselves
of let's say that that creepy mask stuff that was there.
You have the famous Bill Clinton painting, you have you know,
all of the insane, like weird sexual artwork throughout the
seventy first Street villa. You have cameras, you have the

(35:23):
design the mansion. Now we have the emails, and we
have personally read like thousands of the man's emails. Like
the level of psychotic disposition this guy had in terms
of his arranging massages and constantly like requesting photos from
his assistance of girls and just like constantly be like
she's too fat or something like that. It's gross, right,
So you put all this stuff together and uh yeah,

(35:46):
I mean, I don't know, it's just and by the way,
Like I said, having read through a lot of the
guy's emails, he micromanaged this estate to away like you
can barely imagine, Like he was constantly asking for updates
while the compound and the island was being built, and
he'd be like rejecting this and rejecting that, and so
like everything there is his own esthetic design and taste

(36:08):
as executed by Glene Maxwell, and it's like this empire
basically like from his own mind that was created. Combined
with the birthday book, it's just pretty disgusting. Yeah, it's really.
I mean again, I just I think we all have
to sit with like eyes wide shut was real, like
weird masks of old men on the walls. Like there's

(36:29):
no innocent explanation for that. I'm sorry, there's not, especially
when you put in the totality of everything else was
going on, all the houses and the book and the
emails and the underage girls, Like it's open and shut. Okay.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
There was also another photo that had.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
A blackboard to put that up there.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
You can see, Yeah, there's the blackboard and it's hard
to read those words, but it says power, truth, music, deception, intellectual, political,
and then there's presumably names here that are redacted by
the committee. So you know, who among us doesn't have
this sort of thing on a blackboard somewhere in our house?
I guess it's around the corner from the weird old

(37:07):
guy mask intentist chair room. Yeah, just just normal stuff.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Really nothing to see it lance deception. Uh yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
And here's the thing is, like, you know, if this
was just if that's it, that's all we knew about,
upstand I mean, Okay, he's a little he's a little weird, right, Okay,
But you know, this is part of a larger portrait
that we have at this point, based on you know,
based on the investigations into him, based on what the
survivors have said, based on the records that have been released,

(37:38):
based on things like what Donald Trump's that about, how
much he likes him young, and based on certainly the
recent email revelations that have been dug into, in particular
by Ryan Moss and Sager and other journalists out there
like Jason Leopold. That you know, gives you starting to
emerge a more complete picture of what's going on here.
And the other the other thing with this is this

(37:59):
continent needs to put pressure on the government and basically signal, look,
we're not gonna this is We're not going to let
this go. We pass a law. Now you have to
release what you have. You have thirty days to do that.
And you know, as you're preparing these files whatever you're
going to release, we are continuing to get information from
various subpoenas that we've used our power in Congress in

(38:22):
order to provide some level of transparency to the American public.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, what, let's go and put So the files thing
is very interesting, you know from the NBC News tearsheet
about asking for the status update, because remember the law
requires them to release it within thirty days, and this
was on November nineteenth that it was enacted, so we
really only have fifteen more days before this is all
supposed to come out. They say that the Justice Department

(38:47):
announced that our investigation quote into numerous figures, including Bill
Clinton and Larry Summers. In response to that request quote,
in the interest of transparency and clarity, we request a
briefing in a classified or class FID setting to discuss
the full contents of this new information. But no later
than Friday, December fifth, so that's tomorrow as of the

(39:07):
day that we're all recording this. The new law, remember, though,
could be thwarted if they are able to say that
they can cite an ongoing investigation and reaction and overall,
like just you know, the process that they've got about
doing this, which is extremely clunky and it makes it
seem as if there's a cover up. I also want
to say, like with the so called Epstein files, like

(39:29):
everyone needs to be careful, Like even what Ryan and
I and Ma's like, what we've all gone through, this
is a tiny fraction of what's in the Epstein estate. Okay,
that's nothing. We're just looking at emails from one particular
Gmail and Yahoo account from like five to eight. By
the way, again, as I reiterated in our segment, the
five email was created after the Feds or after the

(39:50):
police started looking into him. So what's in the pre
five emails? Right, What's what happened to that? And there's
a lot of them that have been deleted even inside
of this inbox. And so then what about after you know,
his conviction is Jillson's right, So there's a lot of
stuff that still hasn't come out.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Well, the email you reported on where he's coming up
with legal strategies and like, you know, drafting this email,
and he says, I have to assume the FEDS know
about probably twenty underage girls. Well, guess what would be
in the government files? What did they actually know? You know,
how much information did they have at the time when

(40:24):
they were convinced by you know, Epstein and his legal team,
including Alan Dershowitz, that like, you know, guys, this is
really not where they're going to handle at the state level.
You guys really don't need to worry about this. Like
how much information did the government have at that time
when they did kick it to the state level and say, Okay,
you guys down there, alex Acosta, do your sweetheart deal,
do your thing. Just as one example of the sort

(40:48):
of things that would be contained in the government records,
there's a lot there and we've only gotten a glimpse
of a tiny, tiny fraction.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yes, absolutely correct, And I do want to put C
four up here on the screen just to reiterate this.
This is I'm not a financial professional. I have gone
through a lot of his stuff, like the financial stuff
inside of the deals. I will say none of it
seemed all that sophisticated to me, Like you know all
the claims are about all these sophisticated hedge fund transactions.

(41:17):
Maybe there's a different email. I'm just saying from what
I saw, it was very standard, like Hi, Jeffrey, I'm
raising money for X, Y and Z and I could
use a few million, or somebody trying to buy some
shitty movie studio. A lot of it also was like
directing less Wesner charities, like nothing was very like, nothing explained.
Becoming a billionaire is really what I'm saying. And that's

(41:39):
kind of the mystery, right. And so what the Epstein
survivors have said is that they are supporting this Ron
Wyden bill which would force Treasury to turn over Epstein
bank records. And I do want to give credit to
Ron Wyden because he's actually beating this drum now for
a while. The banks and the Treasury departments are sitting
on over a billion dollars of activity reports that they

(42:01):
updated after Epstein's death. All of those like that is
the real stuff here, the wire transfers. Because we have
a very small slice which I've cited before. The New
York Financial Services Department put out a fine of Deutsche
Bank years ago at the back in twenty twenty, and
I did several monologues about it at the time. You
can go watch, but it details the exact scheme through

(42:24):
which he was wiring money to the Eastern Europeans. But again,
this is just one bank, and he had bank accounts
at JP Morgan Chase, at all of these other like
high finance institutions where he was moving billions of dollars.
That's literally one point one billion or so around in
ways that should have triggered like investigations by the federal government.
So then you're like, okay, well, why the bank's not

(42:45):
do anything about that? Like you know, you or I,
I mean, as anyone. Recently, I had to send a
wire transfer from our bank account for business purposes. It
takes forever. Yeah, they're like, are you sure? Are you authored?
You know, it's like and that's us like a small business.
You can't just move money around the world. It doesn't
work like that.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
When I try to ride in an uber in the
town I haven't been in for a while, frontler.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, you're like, froddler, you know what I'm saying, Like exactly,
like everybody like when you interact with the world and
the financial system, like I can't send a wire transfer
without having to call the bank and be like, yes,
I authorize this purchase and they're like, well, what's the
have you been contacted by fraud? And this guy just
gets to wire billions. Now, maybe that's just part of
the course for billionaires. It probably is, if we're being honest,

(43:30):
but at the very least, like when you're moving all
this money through these banks, like they have KYC know
your customer laws and stuff they have to determine, they're like, well,
where did this money come from? Is a legitimate purpose?

Speaker 4 (43:41):
Right?

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Are you money laundering? And so they clearly violated in
many cases because they've been fined for it and they've
been sued for it. A lot of their own internal guardrails.
So like that again, I know everybody wants to talk
about the Black Book, and you know this client list.
There's no client list any of that. The nextus of
it all. It's all in the money. That's the whole
story from the Intel. That's what made him useful, That's

(44:02):
what made him powerful. Is the money enabled everything else
get access to that. And that's when I think you're
actually gonna you'll take down some real people.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Well and we may we may get some progress on
that just in the coming days. So in addition to
these photos and videos, Robert Garcia, who's the Democratic the
ranking member on the Oversight Committee, says they're going to
be releasing financial more financial records in the days ahead,
So we could be getting some more information there today, tomorrow,
over the coming week. So that is something too to

(44:33):
keep an eye on. And again, I think it's important
to keep the pressure on. Listen, none of us, you know,
we're not Pollyanna here. We're not actually expecting the government
to completely come clean and release everything. But and we
know that they've spent lots of time and close to
a million dollars taxpayer dollars going through these things to
redact them and scrub them. I mean, I don't think
anyone expects them to release anything that's going to be

(44:54):
incriminating to the President of the United States because they
you know, they'll be out of a job if they
do so. But still like whatever comes out, whatever additional
pieces of the puzzle, if they're not about Trump and
they're about other people other that's you know, it's a
step forward. And so every time the House Oversight Committee
releases more tranches of documents. It keeps the story alive,

(45:17):
It keeps the pressure on, and it keeps the public
focused on putting pressure on the government to follow the
law that has now been passed by Congress and signed
into law by the president.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Exactly right. And yeah, everyone's like, oh, why do they
release this? Doesn't show anything new? I don't know. More
the better, Okay, the more you keep it alive, the
more that people take an interest in this. That's one
thing I have been very heartened by is that even
though Trump and Mega and all of them want to
move on, you know, we came, many of us came
to this long before Trump was ever in the picture.
It was never about.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Trump with long Democrats, Yeah, long before on it.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, by the way, you're the whole time when the
Dems were all like, it's a conspiracy. It is anti
semitic to say it was connected to never cared then
didn't care. Now we're just going to keep on keeping on.
And there, by the way, shout out to Pablo Torrea,
our friend. He's been doing some sports angles in the
Epstein story. Just oh really, yeah, he just did a
he just did a segment on it yesterday. It was
fascinating actually, and so he will. Actually I've been speaking

(46:13):
to him a little bit. He should have more stories
potentially soon on the sports angle. And so this is
the fun part is like, as this you know, goes out,
people with different niche areas can look into their own
like spheres of influence. Hollywood, for example, I pointed out,
this isn't my area of expertise, but I'm reading through
and I'm like, yo, Epstein's getting all these invites, all

(46:33):
these Hollywood premieres like Michael Clayton and the Sopranos and
all this stuff. I'm not a variety reporter, but some
Hollywood person should probably go dig into that.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
So I'm just looking at Israel and Israel intelligence and
the actual case. Yeah, whoever that person is. Yeah, although
I think I feel like Hollywood media is probably more
compromise than anybody else.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
That just my opinion, very possible.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Okay, let's get to twenty twenty six.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
So some interesting numbers here from CNN and Harry Enton
talking about how it looks very much like a massive
blue wave is coming and based in part on the
election results from this week in Tennessee. Let's go ahead
and take listen to that.

Speaker 6 (47:12):
Republicans should be running for the hills this morning because
the blue wave is building. My dear friend, mister Berman,
what are we talking about here, Well, Matt Vanips, the
Republican candidate, he won it by nine. But this is
a district that Donald Trump won by twenty two points,
fifteen points, seventeen points. This is a thirteen point gain

(47:33):
for the Democrats in terms of the margin. And excuse
time for Republicans is ova because I hear all about
these special elections. Ah, the turnout so low, it's not
representative of what happened in the midterm election. The turnout
last night in Tennessee's seventh district was equal to the
turnout in the twenty twenty two midterm election. I love

(47:54):
the people in Central Tennessee, but Central Tennessee is nothing
special compared to the rest of the country.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
But what we see happening is take.

Speaker 6 (48:00):
A look here. Okay, twenty twenty five US House special elections.
DEM's out running Kamala Harris. A lot of blue here,
a lot of blue, which is what I think the
nation might look like a year from now if these
results told Arizona seven can see a seventeen outperformance of
Kamala Harris twenty three points in Florida one, sixteen points
in Florida, six, thirteen points in Tennessee seven, twenty eight

(48:21):
points in Texas twenty eight and then seventeen points in
Virginia eleven. So we've seen it throughout the nation, whether
you go from the suburbs of Washington, d C. All
the way to southwest to the southwest in Arizona, whether
you're looking at Texas, whether you're looking at Tennessee, whether
you go down to Florida, we have seen the Democratic
outperformance off Kamala Harris happening.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Across the political map.

Speaker 6 (48:46):
We actually have history to show that what happens in
special elections doesn't just stay in special elections. It spills
over to the midterm resot special elections, in midtermersotes. I
just keep going to this. When a party out performed
in special elections since two thousan five out of five
times they went on to win a majority in the
US House of Representatives.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
So pretty interesting to see those numbers there. Let's put
the next element up on the screen. You can see
some aggregate in comparisons to prior years. So this has
overperformance and special elections. You've got seventeen and eighteen Democrats
plus six, nineteen and twenty Democrats plus two, twenty one
and twenty two Republicans plus four, twenty three, twenty four
Democrats plus two this time so far far Democrats of

(49:27):
plus eleven.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
I'd like to see the pre Tea party numbers. I
bet you was similar, right somewhere around nine. Yeah, I
think back to that time it was very similar to
the plus eleven.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
Yeah, that would be interesting to see. But I think
Entine points out what is the most sort of critical
component of the Tennessee results, which is, you know, the
cope from Republicans these special elections. You know, you've got
your Democrats have these high propensality voters. Now, it's not emblematic.
It's going to be different when we come to the midterms.
And no it's not a presidential year, but midterm turnout

(50:00):
is going to be a lot higher. Well, the turnout
in Tennessee was really high, and still they moved the
margin by thirteen points. If you managed to do that
across the country, I mean, it's a blood bat that,
you know, is I think beyond even what we saw
in the twenty ten. You know, tea party wave election.
If you truly had that result across the country, it

(50:23):
would be an extraordinary political reckoning. Now, can they pull
off thirteen points? That's very tall order. But that's the
reason why Republicans should be freaking out here is because
you didn't have you know, some sort of like Republicans
aren't paying attention and only the Demo, like the white
college educated liberals showed up. No, this was a high turnout,

(50:43):
mid term level turnout election. You had a literal socialist
as the Democrat, by the way, and you still had
a thirteen point shift towards the Democrats. I mean that
really is a red alarm.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah, it totally is an alarm. And the reason and
why is that, as you said, with that sample is
if it was low turnout, you can cope yourself away.
But also though even with midterm level turnout, if the
midterm turnout is going to be still so heavily democratic
and indicate some swing, that's a big problem. Now, obviously
it is Tennessee and it is a single election, but

(51:19):
these are pre These are basically midterms always are about enthusiasm.
When it comes to voters. Most people don't. At least
a lot of voters don't pay as much attention to
the midterms, and it's usually an opposition party. Now, let's
give the caveat cases Glenn Youngkin wins in Virginia. Right,
there's a clear view of a red wave that's coming.

(51:44):
Then Row versus Wight happens and it changes everything. So
like a lot could still change. It's a whole year, right,
I mean, have no idea. It could be a major
international incident. There could be a war in Venezuela, so
things could potentially go even more south, or maybe he
would ride some commander in chief wave. Nobody knows, all right,
but a lot of shit can happen in the next
eleven months. But as things stand right now, where things

(52:07):
also I think are trending, we can only live in
the moment that we are right now. It doesn't look
particularly promising. And I also think there will be a
lot of accountability at the Republican level for everybody but Trump.
No Republican can admit that it's Trump's fault. But already
the knife fighting, like we're about to show with Stephanic, Yeah,
people already know, like they like everybody knows and Mike Johnson,

(52:29):
he's not long for this world.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
Yeah, well, but D three up on the screen. So
at least Defonic has taken the knives out pretty aggressively
against Mike Johnson. Now she is running, she's you know,
New York representer, she's running for governor. She is down
like an extraordinarily large amount in the polls. And Trump
really screwed her over by embracing Zoron and you know,
taking any sort of heat out of the case she
was making against Hochel being close to Zoron and trying

(52:52):
to trying to make something of that. Not that I
thought that was that great of an attack to begin with,
but she was really betting a lot on that, and
that was sort of undercut by Trump. Anyway, It says
here Trump ally elis Staphonic attacks Speaker Johnson's leadership. She
called him an ineffector leader who is losing control over
the GEOP conference headed into the midterm elections. Quote, he
certainly would not have the votes to be Speaker if

(53:14):
there was a role call vote tomorrow, the New York
lawmaker said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal,
I believe the majority of Republicans would vote for new leadership.
It is that wide spread, and your read of it, Zaga,
is exactly my read of it. She can see things
are going south, they're going sideways. She wants to separate
herself from the Republican Party and say, I'm not like them,

(53:37):
I'm critical of them, I have my own way that
I would do things. I'm not like these people that
you hate right now. But she can't point the finger
at Trump. Who's the one who's really to blame. I mean,
is that Mike Johnson is nothing more than Trump's puppet,
like he's sort of irrelevant to the whole equation. But
so she decides that the person that it's safe for
her to go after is Speaker Mike Johnson. And I

(53:58):
think you will see other people certainly following in her
footsteps and pulling out the knives from Mike Johnson because
it's a similar way. I mean, you see this, saw
this thinking back to twenty ten with Democrats when things
were going well. They're like, okay, let me go after
Pelosi because that will signal that I'm not like the
rest of this Democratic Party that you hate. I'm different
from them. But and they also went after Obama too
at certain times as well. But Trump has this you know, stronghold.

(54:21):
He's very you know, the retribution from him. You don't
want to be on his bad side. You don't want
him coming in and messaging against you, et cetera, or
screwing you over in your you know, whatever you're trying
to do in your state. So that's the place where
she's trained her fire.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
And what it will mean is that the race, the
race for Republican leader will be fascinating. Like if they
wouldn't want, well, yeah, first of all, who would want
I think Steve Scalice would probably get it because it's
already the number two. Trump likes him, he's you know,
I mean, he's a little bit different from Mike Johnson,
but not all that. But I mean, there should be
enough holdouts some people could credibly say like, hey, you

(54:58):
guys were a disaster, like you were really bad at
your jobs, Like why would we reward you? And there's
enough shit stirs that somebody might actually do something about it.
I really don't know actually what's going to happen. But
the point I think that stands really with Stephanic and
the attack is that this is a preemptive ability to
distance yourself from very unpopular Republican Congress and in some ways, like, look, fundamentally, yeah,

(55:22):
they should attack Trump, but they're not wrong. Like the
healthcare thing is a huge problem. It's not even just
people like me saying it's Steve Bannon. I was just
reading this morning, Matt Boyle, like the bright Bart guys.
They're like, yo, we need to do something before December
is over and these premiums are locked. I mean, we
have what twenty something days, most of that's holiday. Everybody

(55:43):
knows the House of Representatives. By January one, we're all
in it, like we're in it together. Premiums go up,
and that's it. Like that is enough. That's seven million
people just on Obamacare. So yeah, that's not that many people,
but compounded to the private market with overall twenty five
percent increase. By the way, that's the other funny thing
about our byzantine health insurance system. How many people even

(56:06):
know whether their insurance is connected to Obamacare or not.
If it goes up because of the headlines, they're going
to be like, this is Trump's faultwer right, yeah, exactly,
Like regardless of whether it's employer sponsored or not. Because
of the health of the cycle. They're just going to
blame the administration. It's kind of.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Fair, though, I mean, you know, they we had a
whole shutdown fight over this. They refused to cave. Trump said,
remember when he was oh, we were on the verge
of announcing some healthcare plan. From what happened with that,
that's just gone. We're not talking about that anymore. So
it does I mean, that's fair to blame him for
these specific increases that are coming because do.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Sign to stop it. Yeah, I'm just saying, like in
terms of the point though, is just yes, shit you
know goes uphill whenever you're the president, and you are
going to suffer the consequence. So nothing right now looks
all that good. I do want to say. Representative Nancy
Mace has put D five on the screen. Here is
considering quote. This is from the New York Times. Nancy

(57:02):
Mace has told people she is so frustrated with the
Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he's run the House,
particularly how women are treated there, that she is planning
to huddle with MTG next week to discuss following her
lead and retiring early from Congress. And so it could
mean another early retirement there for the GOP, even further
in screwing over Mike Johnson, but also just showing how

(57:26):
dysfunctional and insane the entire thing is. So I would not.
I don't think things are going that well there for
Mike Johnson, and I think he will be one of
the shorter lived speakers in history, like he's not. I
don't think he's going to be long for this world