Ryan and Emily discuss Jerome Powell saying fed rates will remain high, Biden imposes sweeping tariffs on China, Mike Johnson and Vivek go to Trump trial, UNC cancels DEI program.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.
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Coverage that is possible.
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If you like what we're all about, it just means
the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show. All right,
good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints Emily. We've got a
little bit of housekeeping to start out with, right.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Yeah, that's right. So we have some exciting new updates.
Just make sure to stay tuned to your inbox because
those are going to be hitting your inbox next week.
Some new updates on the future Breaking Points, exciting stuff
coming down the pipeline. So again, just make sure you
stay tuned to your inbox and pay attention to the
show next week, and will.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Won't be in your inbox if you don't go to
Breakingpoints dot com and subscribe to this show on the
previeing version.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
That's all.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We presume that all of you are doing that, because
why on earth would you not be doing that. We've
got some exciting election developments from last night. Angela also
Brooks upset David Trone, the owner of Total Wine, who
spent at least sixty million dollars to lose the Democratic
primary for Maryland Senate. Money is not worthless. Though APAC
(01:15):
did manage to defeat the Capitol Cop Harry Dunn incredible.
Like so, Democratic voters were faced with a choice of
do we go with APAK or do we go with
the capitol cop who fended off the January sixth insurrection
in Baltimore, Annapolis's area. They went with APAK.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
You have to choose between MSNBC.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
And APAC, except, of course APAC didn't say, like do
you support genocide. If you support genocide, vote for Sarah Elfreth.
They just did a bunch of attack ads and you know,
spent millions of dollars supporting her.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
So those were primaries that were held last night. And
we have a great guest coming up, by the way,
on the Friday version of this show, Beto O'Rourke is
going to be on with us talking about immigration and
the border.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
We're very excited about that.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Tuned again that hits your inbox if you're a premium
subscriber Thursday nights. Otherwise for everyone else, it's out on
Friday mornings. Breakingpoints dot Com again though, if you want
to be premium, Beto.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Verus Emily on the border and immigration and me just
chiming and saying, why don't we just have completely open borders?
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Just three white people talking about the border.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
A bunch of irishmen.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Yes, yes, Actually, actually my grandmother's made name is McGrath,
so I think I kind of qualified.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, we're all we're all allowed to participate in this conversation.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Then perfect.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Well, we're going to start today on Today's show with
the economic news, because there's been a lot this week
between Biden's tariff announcement and actually Jerome Powell was giving
remarks yesterday about inflation and man, just some more depressing
news on the economy. That's where we're going to start today.
We're going to then move to Donald Trump's trial in
New York, where a flock of Republicans, a literal flock
(02:53):
of Republicans, came to offer their support. We have some
soundbites from Vivek grama spot.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Looking for the jury at launch to try to just
intimidate them into what I don't understand what's going on.
It's like a West criminal trials, but we don't usually
prosecute the former president, so it's not going to be normal.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
U n C University of North Carolina is refunneling all
of its money from DEI into safety public staff. Onions headline,
not an onion headline, but Ryan actually some interesting thoughts
on that. We have Bill bur versus Bill Maher and
then Ryan, we have some really we have a very
interesting guest that you have set us up with here.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, and they talked about this on the program yesterday,
but I reported on Monday that upwards of twenty medical staff,
you American medical staff, are currently stranded in Gaza because
Israel has closed the Rafa border crossing. They're running low
on water, some of them are on an IV drip.
There's massive dehydration, vomiting, diarrhea. And these are the American
(03:52):
medical professionals, which tells you just how brutal the conditions
must be for the general Palstingans who've been there for
months facing these conditions. And so we're gonna be joined
by nurse who lives in Oregons from Canada, but she's
currently in Gaza unable to get out Monica Johnston if
her Internet holds up and if the situation allows for
(04:14):
the interview, we'll be talking with her later in the program.
We spoke to her yesterday to get a sense of
what the conditions are and it's just utterly harrowing from
start to finish. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Absolutely, And then you have a monologue that you're going
to be talking about.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
More APEX stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, we uncovered some kind of secret a pac money
flowing into the Portland, Oregon primary. We're going to unpack
how they managed to do that and why they wouldn't
just spend and say, hey, we are apac heros roar.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
It's basically an episode of portlanda so stationed for that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
That's right, all right.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So let's start today with the FED, because Jerome Powell
was in Amsterdam yesterday at the Foreign Bankers Association's Annual meetings.
Were annual meeting where he commented on the future of
interest rates.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Let's take a look at what Jerome Powell.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Said question of.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Restrictive policy or as I mentioned, our policy is the
highest it's been in quite some time.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
The rate is at five and quarter to five and
a half percent.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Is high relative to recent history, so we think that
it's probably a matter of just staying at that stance
for longer.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Okay, so let's put this next element up on the screen.
This is from the New York Times. This is a
headline fed holds rate study noting lack of progress on infation.
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for a six
straight meeting and suggested that rates would stay high for longer.
Now again, a couple weeks later, on May fourteenth, just yesterday,
Jerome Powell. You could hear the frustration in his voice,
well to the extent that you can pick up on
(05:44):
any sort of emotional connotation from what Jerome Powell was
talking about.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Ryan, you could hear it. But yeah, it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
He was on this panel to glean from what he
was saying, that frustration that they have.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Did you catch the rest of us remarks there, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
He was saying, look, earlier in the year, we were
hopeful that we were going to be able to cut
rates before the end of the year. They maybe we
still will, He's still leaving open that possibility. But then
there were some economic indicators in the beginning part of
the year that showed running a little bit hotter than
they wanted to, and so they're keeping it at this rate.
He also said, look, when people hear that inflation is
(06:21):
coming down, they respond by saying, yeah, but prices are
still way too high. And he said that is what
is guiding them. And the White House is going to
hear that and be deeply frustrated because they want to
see a rate cut that gets the economy kicking again.
You've finally started to see a slowing of the economy.
(06:41):
But so much of this is using a tool that
was developed when the US had a different economy, a
more manufacturing based economy, and now so much of our
kind of frozen economy is related to real estate and
rent that it's really, in some ways the wrong tool.
(07:02):
JP Morgan, their top analyst, was arguing recently that keeping inflation,
keeping interest rates high at this point is actually driving
up prices and curious for your take on this. And
everybody has a take on this because everybody, everybody interacts
with the economy. Everybody's either a renter or a homeowner,
so everybody understands all of the different phenomena that we're
(07:24):
dealing with. But what he argues is that so many
people refinance their homes during homeowners finance their homes during COVID,
and now they're locked in these two point seven or
three percent interest rates, so they don't want to move,
so nobody's selling their homes. That means all of these
people are renting who would rather, who do have the
(07:47):
ability to buy, but can't because nobody's selling. So that's
pushing up rent prices. It's also holding housing prices artificially
high as a result. He's saying, if interest rates come down,
all of a sudden, you unlock the supply of housing,
and all these people who were waiting to sell are
all going to start to sell. Now there's an alternative
(08:08):
argument that says, well, there are so many people who
want to buy. What you would do is that you
would unlock demand and you would drive prices even further up.
So nobody actually really knows what would happen. Nobody knows
do you have more kind of pent up folks who
want to sell their homes or do you have more
(08:28):
pent up renters who want to burst into the housing market.
And the answer to that question would then decide whether
or not housing prices go up or down, and if
housing prices go down, rent goes down, inflation goes inflation
goes down. So that is the thing that is really
keeping these prices high at this point.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Another quote from Powell yesterday, he says, is inflation going
to be more persistent going forward? I don't think we
know that yet. I think we need more than a
quarter's worth of data to really make a judgment on that.
So not good news if you're one of like saying Ryan,
I mean, people are experiencing the economy differently. But if
you're somebody who's looking for interest rates to go down
for different reasons, many different reasons, that's really not what
(09:08):
you wanted to hear. It's definitely not what the Pie
administration wanted to hear on that point. But that's where
Jerome Powell is right now. And you know it's he said,
I don't know if you caught this part. I just
barely caught this.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
I almost missed it.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
He said something like, you know, we know this is
hitting people in different in like lower income brackets harder,
and they're looking for relief. And that's front of mine
something that of course it's not just people, but it
is disproportionately being felt The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Had a good now that you're talking about the like
huge surgeon prices from twenty twenty to over the next
couple of years, right, that really has sapped their spending.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Power inflation, right, yeah, basically, And it's just I mean
the New York Times had a story on that this week,
basically how you're feeling it differently if you are in
a low income bracket, but all around, I mean, it's
just bad news for everyone all around, basically, right.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Because yes, everything is just everything is much more expensive
than it was a couple of years ago, all your
basic expenses. Yeah, so by the time now, it used
to be like you're scraping to get to the end
of the month. Now it's like halfway through the month,
you're like, oh God.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
And like you said, it's a different economy. So I mean,
I think about all of the people graduating right now.
I mean it's may everyone graduating right now going into
the workforce and trying to start a life and own
a home. I mean, it just feels so completely unattainable.
And that's going to trickle into other areas of our
politics that aren't just economic. Obviously, it's going to express
itself in all kinds of different angsts and well founded
(10:34):
angst because it sucks.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, and a fascinating and difficult to actually measure. Part
of this has been the immigration surge. And we're going
to talk about this with Beto later on the Friday Show.
But you know, there was this massive labor shortage and
then you had this big surge of immigration. You're still
(10:58):
seeing wages going up even relative to inflation. Yeah, but
there's I think there are reasonable signs to say that
at some levels the wage growth has slowed. But a
lot of the inflation during the pandemic was related to
the labor shortage. Supply chains were broken, restaurants were charging
a lot more because like it couldn't get people to
come to work, Like there is an inflationary impact of
(11:21):
not having enough workers. So in some ways, if you
immigration grows the entire economy.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Well, he talked about that yesterday.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Too, Yes, yes, exactly, he actually mentioned yeah, right, he
actually mentioned like the influx of new work migrants, which
we probably disagree on that and we're going to get
to that in our conversation.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Question is whether they're productive economically, and a lot of
them are young, a lot of them are working age.
A lot of them are here to work. A lot
of them came here because they saw the stories of
high wages and labor shortages.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
The other big half of the economic news this week
actually was the Biden administration announcing these pretty significant new tariffs.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
And we can put this tear sheet up.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
This is a three from the Associated Press on the
tariff hikes that Biden has implemented. He gave a speech
at the White House earlier this week making the announcement
start traded some.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Shots back and forth with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Let's first start with what Biden said when he announced
these tariffs in the Rose Garden earlier this week.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
That's why to day, I'm announcing new tariffs and key
sectors of the economy that are ensured that our workers
are not held back by unfair trade practices. They clude saying,
I'm announcing today twenty five percent tariff on Chinese steel
aluminum products, and we'll counter China's over capacity in these industries.
And we're making major investments in clean American steel loom,
(12:46):
clean American steel allumin It's a big deal clean because
of the way we manufactured here. It's half as much
carbon as steel made in China. Last month, my administration
announced the largest investment in clean manufacturing in all of history,
up to one point five billion dollars and six clean
steel projects across in America, creating supporting thousands, thousands of
(13:09):
union jobs. Next one hundred percent TARIF and electric vehicles
made in China. People say wow, because we're not going
to let China flood our market making it impossible for
American model manufacturers to compete fairly. We're also implementing their
(13:30):
twenty five percent tarifying electric vehicle batteries from China and
twenty five percent tarifund critical minerals that make those batteries. Folks, look,
I'm determined that the future of electric vehicles will be
made in America by union workers period.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Trump said today, China is getting our LUNs.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
What are you saying, responts?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
He said, China is eating our luks. That's what Trump
said today.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
We've been being in a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
If you didn't catch that, said Johnald Trump has said
that China is eating our launch. Yeah, and Biden said
He's been feeding them for a long time.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Been feeding them for a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
And Trump makes us all dumber for having watched the
back and forth.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
So true. Trump said that outside.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
I think it was outside the courtroom earlier this week,
he said, transmitting her lunch to that, Biden says, well,
he's been feeding them for a long time, which is
it's kind of hilarious coming from Joe Biden. But these
are the tariffs on electric vehicles, as Biden mentioned, semiconductors,
lithium ion batteries, all kinds of stuff, syringes, needles, yeah,
solar components, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And the tariff on the EV's.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm curious what you think about this, Ryan, This is
like one hundred percent tariff.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
I think I think he hiked it from twenty five
to one hundred.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Yeah, it's one hundred percent increase in the tariff that
was up from actually like twenty seven percent. And this
is all happening under section three on one of the
trade backs of mid seventies piece of legislation. Pretty bold
decision from Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Those are rookie numbers though, on those evs. One hundred percent.
If China is producing evs that can sell for like
eleven to twelve thousand dollars, ye, that's what people are
saying about these and saying that these are nice little cars.
You're going to have to do more than one hundred
percent at eleven thousand dollars to make the American industry competitive.
So I probably have a pretty heterodox view on this.
(15:23):
I would say that we need serious protection of our
domestic solar, EV, clean and clean energy manufacturing industry. If
we are serious about having an industrial base, if we
want to be a country that makes things, we're going
to have to do this. But I think we shouldn't
(15:44):
do it in the sense of a war with China.
I think China should be congratulated like good job, Like
you guys are leading the world when it comes to
EV production, when it comes to clean energy production. But
but are.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
They leading the world by cheating via labor? I don't
mean cheating in terms of like the labor.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
But yeah, uh, you know, we have trade deals. Let's inspect,
inspect the labor conditions.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
You know. Obviously, the reason that American companies outsourced to
China over the last you know, thirty years was because
labor costs are much lower.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
A lot of businesses.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
The reason that we now need these tariffs because, for example,
like they would say this to you, I'm playing devil's
advocate here actually, Like you're the guy who wants all
of our plants to be unionized, and that's why we
now need this tariff.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
The end also protectionism. Yeah, go ahead, I'll protect them. Yeah,
it's gonna Look, I do want our workers to be
paid a living wage, yeah, and I want China's workers
to be paid a living wage too. And China has
done far more, frankly, to raise wages for their own
workers than we have over the last thirty years. You know,
they lifted like eight hundred million people. They had a
(17:02):
slit lower they had, Yeah, they had a lot more
room to grow, but it's been a miraculous rate of
economic growth. Like you can say, whatevery one about the
human rights condition and so on, although I think it's
that's exaggerated to some degree by like just our general
perspective on things. Though of course there's you know, there's
merit to some of the claims. But South America needs
(17:26):
EVS needs the products of a clean energy, you know,
manufacturing base that China has. Africa needs it, Europe needs it,
Russian needs it, Japan needs it. Like there's plenty of
people China can sell to go ahead, sell to the
rest of the world, and let's protect our industry and
see if we can build one. It might be the
case that we can't, that the United States of America
(17:47):
just doesn't know how to do industrialization anymore, like that
we just can't. Like the Inflation Reduction Act put like
fifteen billion dollars into like basically subsidizing solar production. It
was supposed to launch. Four plants were supposed to launch
so far. I think one of them said, you know what,
we're actually not launching it all. The other three are
kind of on ice. And all of those it's because
(18:10):
generally because the cheaper imports can't be competed with by
American production at this point, so you're you're in a
chicken and egg thing, like that's the that's the situation.
And if that's the current situation, we will never catch
up because these plants will all fail or they won't
even get off the ground, like they'll they'll just gobble
up a bunch of subsidies and then they'll do a
(18:32):
ribbon cutting and then they won't actually open the factory,
like which is what happened with at least one of these.
It might happen with all four. So if you want
to compete, you just have to basically just keep it out.
Did you see Jared and one hundred percent might not
even do it?
Speaker 5 (18:44):
Did you see Jared Paulus's reaction?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
No, what did he say?
Speaker 5 (18:46):
They flipped out on Biden?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Basically he's a neoliberal like this, this is this cuts
their core right.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
And yeah, exactly like that. It has been.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I mean, it has been a neoliberal freak out kind
of across the board. But when we look back, for example,
on BTO and we look back on NAFTA, and we
look back at the industrialization basically, and a lot of people,
even on the neoliberal side, we'll look back and say,
you know, we didn't do enough in the transition period
to help American workers and you know they were going
(19:14):
to lose these jobs anyway, or the economy was going
to change anyway, but we should have had some more
cushion to literally cushion the blow from the changing economy. Well,
the economy is changing again right now and in this direction,
and I actually kind of see these as like part
of the transition and if it's going to happen, if
it's inevitable, we should make the transition to the extent
(19:38):
that we can, you know, reindustrialize. That's great. I'm skeptical
of that, and I wish it were true. I hope
that it's true. I hope that I'm wrong. But to
the extent that we can give American workers something to
hold on to in a transition process, I think that's
what these do. But you know the Quirky World Socialist website, Yeah,
(19:58):
what are the trot Skuts.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Yeah, they're like, they're like they're recro sectarians who like
show up at every strike. Basically, if if WS whatever
it is is not funded by the bosses themselves, like
they then the boss they're getting a free ride.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So they had an interesting take on the tariffs, which
is basically that in lieu.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Of I'm on whatever, I'm on the opposite side of
it where it so let me, I want to hear
where these guys are.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Yeah, this one I'm bringing out curious.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
So they had this this really interesting take where they
were like, instead of actually cracking down on the financialization
of the economy, this is just kind of a life raft.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
To the robber barons.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Okay, yeah, okay, when when when they make like the
broad sweeping left wing arguments. Okay, that's fine, Yeah, I
mean yeah, it is sort of like nationalized Wall Street.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
So but meantime it's Biden like pasture of the camera
about union workers blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
But at the mean, like in the meanwhile, this is.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Not do industrialization, and you're also not going to be
the center of financial power and trying to compete with
us militarily. Then and then what what what are we doing?
Especially when China owns like half our farms.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Well, that's the any thing with like syringes and needle tariffs,
I mean, this is should be some common sense stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yes, and should we should be able to make syringes, yes, needles, yeah, yes,
it's that that that like the fact that we can't
produce those basic things should scare us. It should have
been should lead to some radical trade policy.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
And I actually think it's funny that most of the
headlines have been on Chinese evs have been on semiconductors,
when to me that's some of the biggest news is
that like Biden, actually that's a really really again anathma
in the circles that Joe Biden runs in, but like
a really obvious policy move that is a huge deal,
(21:50):
a huge deal and will create jobs here.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, and I don't know if we can do it, Like,
I don't know if the US has the ability to
see through an actual industrial policy, Like does Trump come
in and reverse these because they are Biden's tariff policies
And even though you know, nobody loves tariffs more than Trump,
but now if now, if they're Biden's, does he get
rid of them? Like, I just don't know if we
have a system that's you know, functionally capable of competing
(22:14):
with China's.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
This is the last thought that we have here.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Let's roll a five, because Biden basically opposed these tariffs
when Donald Trump was doing with them, and then in
a very like direct way, I mean, basically replicated what
Donald Trump did.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
Let's take a look.
Speaker 7 (22:29):
I know that these new tariffs are seen as more
targeted and strategic that the administration has chosen to keep
in place those Trump Ara tariffs on some three hundred
billion dollars worth of goods which Biden himself had signed
in twenty nineteen that Americans are paying. So why make
that decision to keep it in place? And aren't you
concerned that it's going to keep prices elevated.
Speaker 8 (22:47):
So first of all, let me say a couple of things.
In terms of the price that Americans paid for in
the previous era, some of that, maybe a lot of
it was about the chaos and unpredictability it created and
the escalation that resulted.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
Secondly, I think what I'm a trade lawyer by training,
and at USTR we are deep into the technical issues.
The Section three OHO one based review that we undertook
required us to look at a couple questions. One of
them was the effect of the practices on our economy,
and there you have our response, which is a targeted,
(23:26):
strategic response that is meant to work together with the
investments that we're making. The other aspect that we had
to look at was the effect of the tariffs on
changing China's behavior with respect to the IPR abuses and
the force tech transfer. There the findings in my report,
which you can find on the USTR website right here,
(23:47):
it's a serious report, is that not only have we
not seen the problematic practices subside in some areas, we
have seen them get worse. And in that light, there
is actually no reason for us and no justification to
relieving the tariff burdens on the trade with Beijing.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's a funny logic. There's and what she's saying there.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Catherine tis good who's great on trade, Like she's if
either party could get somebody like Trump generals great.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, there was this review that tested, okay, it is
China basically gaming the system by saying, like, okay, you're
not allowed to have a concentrated industry in a particular field,
solar panels all in one country, So are they forcing
transfer of property to like Malaysia and Vietnam and other places.
(24:41):
But it's actually just paperwork and it's fake and it's
all actually a Chinese controlled supply chain. And the resulting
review was like, yeah, they're busted like that, that is
actually what they're doing. Then she says, so we put
these tariffs on as a result of this legal process,
but their behavior didn't change, And then she says, therefore
(25:02):
we need to continue the tariffs because their behavior didn't change,
which is kind of a funny logic because on the
other hand, you don't I guess you don't want to say, well,
you've got to punish you, and you didn't change your behavior.
So we're not going to punish you anymore. Like that
also doesn't work. But the point is we don't really
have a policy lever that can play here because China
(25:23):
is extraordinarily powerful and effective, you know, economic giant astride
this planet right now. It just is. So what we
have to do is we have to boost our own manufacturing.
We have to compete with them. Like the idea that
we're going to be able to significantly change their behavior
I think is a relic of a of a soul
(25:44):
superpower period that we just have to get over well.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
And the idea that the American free marketers are going
to take care of our need for syringes right and needles.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Exactly, And so we can What we can do is
we can protect our own industrial domestic con to me, like,
we can do that, we can connect with that, we
can try to build plants. But we're not really going
to tell China what to do anymore. Even if they
are breaking the rules, yeah, I mean, which they are,
Like they were doing paperwork stuff to try to cover
(26:15):
for the fact that they were dominating the market. But
our answer has to be to actually push back and
produce things that we can sell to the American people
and around the world.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
So, Ryan, just as we're wrapping this segment, do you
see this as I know that you don't actually the
leading question, but the neoliberals thing one two punch basically
in the economy this week tough news for people all
around between Powell and the tariffs. How should people be
feeling about the economy right now after this time?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I mean, well, the stock market said that they're very
excited about the fact that Powell is not going to
raise rates. The recent jobs report at unemployment under four percent. Again,
wage growth was still at two point eight percent, which
is slightly above inflation. So if wages are growing faster
than inflation, and there are plentiful jobs and union density
(27:11):
is growing and militancy is strong in general, that is
a good thing.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Jobs potentially coming back there, you go, all.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Right, I mean, long way to go. The pandemic, you know,
ripped through the economy in a brutal way. That that
we're still recovering from the inflation of twenty one in
twenty two, but less so than anywhere else in the world.
Like you look at our like you know, I covered Pakistan,
they're still sitting at like seventy percent inflation incredible. So
(27:40):
to have single digits for two years was painful for people,
but relative to the rest of the world, we're still
out competing them, believe it or not. Notwithstanding what I
just said about China's productive capacity.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
And interest rates, still I think it's the highest in
twenty three years. Still sticking to that spot. Speaking of
Donald Trump, we have some footage from outside the courtroom
and the so called hush money Alvin Bragg trial in
New York where Republicans have devised a strategy of basically
(28:13):
flooding the zone going up to New York. I'm sure
it's great for fundraising on their end and speaking out
on behalf of their beliegered leader. Let's roll this clip
of Mike Johnson and Vivek Ramaswami in New York yesterday.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
They were also accompanied.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
By Doug Bergham, all kinds of different people.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
I think Byron Donald was there. Let's take a.
Speaker 9 (28:35):
Look, buddy, anybody here in the press, anybody at home,
anybody in MSNBC or the media afterwards, to clearly state
what exactly is the crime that Donald Trump committed.
Speaker 10 (28:48):
I'll wait, we have not heard a good answer to
that question. It has been vague until today.
Speaker 9 (28:54):
You heard Michael Cohen's testimony.
Speaker 10 (28:56):
After which I would say, it is less clear than
ever what that crime actually was. They'll say, falsifying business records. Well,
let's look at who do we learn falsified business records today?
Get what hour two hours felt like, because it's seven
hours of Michael Cohen talking about how he falsified business records. Okay,
so you have a guy who has been a perjurer
(29:16):
in the past that is now saying he falsified business records.
What is the crime that Donald Trump committed? Now it
appears to be what they might allege is some sort
of bookkeeping error or whatever. The real bookkeeping that we
need accounting of is Judge Merchant's own family member collecting
millions of dollars as a democratic operative, using the existence
of this trial as a fundraising employ for Democrats. This
(29:39):
is unconscroonable. Imagine if the same shoot fit the other foot.
Speaker 11 (29:42):
I'm an attorney, I'm a former litigator myself. I am
disgusted by what is happening here. What is being done
here to our entire system of justice overall? The people
are losing faith right now in this country, in our institutions.
They're losing faith in our system of justice, and the
reason for that is because they see it being abused
(30:02):
as it is being done here in New York. The
facts here are very important. Facts are always important in
a trial, or at least they're supposed to be. The
President's actions in this matter were previously reviewed and no
charges were filed. Why is that because there's no crime here.
Now eight years later, suddenly they've resurrected this thing. They
(30:24):
brought it back, And why is that, Well, just apply
common sense. Everyone can see it's painfully obvious. They were
here now six months out from an election day, and
that's the reason. That is the reason why they brought
these these charges here and across the country.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
So there's a lot of fatigue and exhaustion with Alvin
Bragg's decision here, even on the left. Ryan, I think
it's interesting, you know, Tommy Tuberville, Jamdie Vance, I think
Rick Scott went last week. Yeah, he did go up
last week to sort of go up to New York.
Have these moments like we just saw with Mike Johnson
and Deve Gramaswamy sort of relish the spotlight look like
(31:00):
they're you know, really.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
They have Donald Trump's back.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
From my perspective, you know, we just did a whole
segment on the economy. I find it very interesting that
people are sort of patting Mike Johnson continue to be
a real person.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
We can confirm on the.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Back for this when it's like the dude just flip
flopped on Faiza and he's doing this to like make
you feel like he's maga. Like this is again, like
the case is ridiculous, but Mike Johnson is going up here.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Other Republicans are going up here.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
They might not actually vote the way that you want
them to, but they're gonna do that and act like
they're super maga because this is a really easy opportunity.
I mean, even liberals in the New York Times are
in vain against Alvin Bragg at this point, saying, you know,
at first there was a not bad A couple weeks
THO was like, this is a grave mistake because he
had to upgrade because the statue of Statute of limitations.
(31:58):
He had to basically devise the strategy to say this
wasn't a misdemeanor, it was actually a felony because it
was about breaking federal campaign finance laws, which is really
unclear because if Donald Trump had classified the hush money
payments to a board star as something else, you know,
it also doesn't really make sense from a legal standpoint
(32:18):
that that's the argument. And even to say that it
was done to break federal campaign finance laws, he has
to prove that it was only about the campaign. There
were no personal reasons for hushing up somebody who is
alleging that they had an affair with you while your
wife was what pregnant.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
So it's just a.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Circus, right, because it's this interesting situation where nobody, nobody
seems to doubt that he did what he did from
beginning to end. Question as well as it's a crime.
And later in this program, we're going to talk about
how Apak is spending millions of dollars secretly in a
congressional race in order to influence it, using shell packs
(32:58):
in order to get around kind of disclosure requirements. Nobody's
remotely suggesting they're going to be prosecuted for any of that.
Nobody gets prosecuted for anything when it comes to campaign
finance law. The idea that this would be the one
thing that would get prosecuted, I think is the reason
that a lot of his supporters like, really, come on, yeah,
it's like hush money is legal, right and right it
(33:22):
is okay, So and then you're saying, okay, well, is
do we expect Donald Trump is like going over the
paperwork that's filed on his behalf, either to the fec
or to the like guy. And what good would that
even do? Donald? Can you imagine Donald Trump like going
over paperwork with a fine tooth comb, like it is
(33:46):
a criminalizing his existence, which I'm for well, but it's
hard to stand up stand up that on principle.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
So Michael Cohene was testifying yesterday obviously, and that was
a big media circus as well, the ne're Times rates.
When monthly checks to Cohen started arriving, most bearing mister
Trump's signature, they disguised the nature of the payments. Mister
Cohen testified the stubs described the checks as part of
a legal quote retainer agreement, but they were in fact
reimbursements for hush money that mister con had paid to
silence a porn star story of sex with mister Trump.
(34:16):
Mister Cohen said that mister Trump was present when a
plan to fictionalize the records was cooked up weeks earlier
in New York. The testimony marked a pivotal moment for prosecutors.
They charged mister Trump with falsifying the checks and other records,
and mister Cohen's were counting drove those accusations home. So obviously,
Michael Cohen was cross examined yesterday as well, and it
(34:37):
was admitting all kinds of.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Stuff left and right.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
This follows the week of Stormy Daniels testifying, and we
had David Pecker, who owned the media group behind the
National Inquirer, testifying, and you know, the cross examination of
Michael Cohen was, you know, basically what you would expect.
So for at one point, Cohen was asked whether he
knew whether he knew who he was who. Okay, this
(35:03):
is this confusing the way that I'm reading this, but
basically here's the CNN. Donald Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche began
his confrontation with Michael Cohen on Tuesday by throwing the
former fixer's language back in his face. Blanche confirmed the
two had never spoken, but asked Cohen whether he knew
who he was already since con quote went on TikTok
and called me a crying little shit just before the
trial began. Con responded, sounds like something I would say
(35:26):
just Trumpian all around, like the peak Trump for Trump's trial.
So he got grilled on the stand yesterday, but then
the prosecution also felt like they got real concessions or
got real emissions out of him that seal their case,
which is these checks coming from and again like if
you don't think Donald Trump did this that, I mean,
(35:49):
we all kind of know what happened here. In all likelihood,
we all kind of know what happened here.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
And then there's also the witness intimidation slash shenanigans that
Cohen testified to yesterday. You know, he called Trump and
after the FBI rated him, and Trump told him, according
to Cohen, don't worry. I'm the president of the United States.
There's nothing here. Everything's going to be okay, stay tough,
You're going to be okay. Messages then later relayed to
(36:16):
him sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places,
a very clear suggestion from Trump that look, I'm the president.
I'm not going to let you go down for this.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Yeah, if it's true, which again I think most people
would probably believe, but Michael Cohen has also lied. And
so just from the standpoint of the case strategy, this
is a case based on David Packer's Stormy Daniels and
Michael Cohen.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah. Also, the thing that comes through here is everybody
in the Trump world knows that Trump treats a lot
of people around him terribly. He probably treated nobody more
terribly than Michael Cohen. And now we know that Michael
Cohen was harboring Mount Vesuvius level resentment against him. Yeah,
(37:02):
that once Trump did not have is back as he
promised on. This has just erupted, right, And so on
the one hand, you say, well, he's flipping, he's telling
the truth on his old wretched boss, right, And you're
saying he would like nothing more than just to see
this guy convicted and go down, right, and it kills
him that Trump remains like a part of our national
(37:25):
politics and leading the presidential race.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
Right, Yeah, No, I mean absolutely, And Trump is facing again,
is facing prison over this. And I know we've talked
about this before.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
I'm not Yeah, it skeptical. I mean, it's a felony,
you know, thirty four felonies or whatever.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Right, I mean, it is a felony, and so the
former president of United States, the leading presidential candidate, facing
felony charges for this. There's a host of other cases
obviously as well, as much as both of us are
in favor of locking up white cott criminals personally, if
you're just we need to go after one party in
(38:03):
two sort of ticky tacky ways, I just think it's it's, obviously,
from my prospective, a very dangerous road to go down.
And every day we hear testimony from this trial about
whether or not Donald Trump was like wink wink nod
mafia style falsifying checks. It's like, is this really what
we're talking about with Donald Trump? Like you, why are
we doing this?
Speaker 5 (38:24):
Talk about something else?
Speaker 4 (38:25):
There's plenty to talk about when it comes to Donald Trump,
and instead he's in New York. Well, you know, we
have to listen to Michael Cohen and Stormy and Daniels
recount their various interactions with him over the years.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
The University of.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
North Carolina at Chapel Hill has voted via their Board
of trustees to divert to funnel a lot of money
that was spent previously on diversity equity and inclusion program,
so DEI.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Into public safety.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
This just happened this week, and we can put the
first element up on the screen.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
This is the headlin and from.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
The Guardian, a two point three million dollar DEI budget
now going to safety and policing. The chairman of the board,
his name is David Baliek, told the Raleigh News and
Observer that he expected jobs would be eliminated quote as
a result of the reallocation. He said, my personal opinion
is that there's administrative bloat in the university, and he
cuts an administration and diverting of dollars to rubber meets
(39:22):
the road.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
Efforts like public safety and teaching is important. Now.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
You and C became a somewhat of a flashpoint in
the greater encampment debate. Because we're going to skip ahead
with the elements here, we can put this vo up
on This is C three of the Fraternity Brothers protecting
the American flag after some protesters had tried to take
it down, according to reporting Fox News and replace it
(39:50):
with a Palestinian flag.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
This went massively viral.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
I think they got like a ten thousand dollars donation
from Bill Ackman on a gofund me, although there were
different fraternities who were getting nations and we're going viral
for doing things like this, But that again sort of
thrust this back into the spotlight for you. And see
obviously there've even been academic studies on this point. The
rolling back of DEI spending has kind of happened across
(40:13):
the board academia, It's happened in corporations. But you know,
I would argue, and have interviewed people in the who
watched this in the corporate space, some of it is
actually not really being rolled back.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
It's being rolled back.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
In name and then you know you're seeing it still
happen intentionally in other places, kind of being disguised, disguised
and obfuscated rather than fully abandoned. But in the case
of UNC here, it's actually really being fully abandoned. I
think jobs will be lost. Well, last thing I'll point
out Ryan before I toss to you, because you have
some interesting thoughts on this I'm excited to get to,
(40:48):
is that when the president of the board said that
they have administrative bloat, He's right. There was a Progressive
Policy Institute sort of ran would you describe them as
kind of.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Third Way e.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
So it is their length third Way.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
They're literally they're like third Ways Think Tank.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Yeah, they had a so by that way mean kind
of centrist. But they had a report looking at the
student to faculty ratio at the top fifty universities that
was released just last fall, so this is very recent.
They found that there are three times as many non
faculty members as they are as there are faculty per
student at the top fifty schools in the United States.
(41:25):
That's new, that's a shift, that's something that's happened over
the course of many years. So just a lot of
people's student loan is paying for some of the positions
that might be eliminated. And maybe rather than reallocating two
point three million dollars you want to give them to
public safety, you might want to give that back to students.
But actually, neighboring Duke has one of the worst non
(41:47):
faculty ratios to student ratio non faculty to student ratios.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
And when I say one of.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
The worst, they literally have more non faculty than students
at Duke. The ratio at UNC is three point five.
I have students to one non faculty. So that's administrative position. Basically,
obviously you need some of those positions. But part of
the reason that universities have been on this hiring spree
is because of the constant increase in student loan potential.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
I don't know if we even disagree on this, but basically,
when you have the massive subsidy in the form of loans,
students are able to keep affording colleges. Their college just
keeps marking up the prices. And that's definitely what's happened
across the board, and what they've done with a lot
of that money is higher administrators have gotten into this
administrative arms race. They've also had like the Lazy River
(42:39):
arms race, that's happened too. But you flagged an argument
from sam Adler Bell that I was really interested in
getting to as well.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yes, sam Adler Bell has been one of my Ninja
comrades over the years, and like fighting the kind of
pro DEI left from the left and Ninja is like
the attacks just keep coming, right and we're going to
just keep fending them off to that. So, these two
tweets are in response to NYU faculty and staff for
(43:11):
Justice in Palestine putting out a statement that said that
NYU is punishing arrested students by requiring them to complete
quote reflection papers and completion of quote integrity modules. And
so this is the kind of students are protesting against
what the DEI office is kind of punishing them with.
So Sam says, for what it's worth, I do think
(43:32):
this stuff should force the left to rethink its hostility
to the more sophisticated arguments against the deiification of university administration.
If this sounds to you like quote forced re education
and repudiation in response to thought crimes unquote, maybe we
should all reconsider the paradigms that have made this seem
an appropriate response to political speech. So what he is
(43:57):
saying there is that if you feel like you're being
lectured to and re educated by the administration just for
stating your political opinion that Palestinians deserve justice, that Palestinians
should not be the victims of an ethnic cleansing, that
the university ought to divest from the Israeli military industrial complex,
(44:21):
and they respond to you by this like insane, like
you know, making right reflection papers and telling you that
you've committed thought crimes. And what he's saying there is
that flip it over, flip it around. Think about that
from another perspective. You don't like it that the administration
is telling you that you're guilty of wrong thing, that
(44:41):
you're thinking the wrong things. You don't like that, do you?
You should be able to think for yourself. Apply that
to everybody. Take ownership of your own independent thought process.
Don't outsource it to administrators. Yeah, don't let them be
the art of what is good and what is bad.
(45:02):
What is right is what is wrong. And you know,
I'm old man yelling at clouds, But what I have
been yelling at this cloud for several years now is
that this empowering, this active empowering of administrators is counter
(45:23):
to the kind of freethinking, you know, people power that
the left is supposed to be about. Like back in
say the nineties and two thousands if or and before that,
people were protesting against the administration. The protests over the
last ten to fifteen years are demands that more administrators
(45:46):
be hired to cover particular areas and that more offices
be created and.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
Driven by by Obama or Title nine policies.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
And now those offices are being turned predictably as predicted
back against left. Yeah, yeah, I'll stop doing that.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
You're bankrupting working class people. You're bankrupting people on their way,
bankrupting people as they are on their way in the
course of upward mobility, supposedly as they're claiming their ticket
to the middle class. That higher education is supposed to
be punging people tens of thousands of dollars into debt
in large part to finance a thought regime basically, and
(46:28):
an inflexible thought regime at that. And I think it
took a lot of people on the left, and I
don't think the broader left is still cued into this basically,
but like it took people a little bit to realize
that these thought regimes actually are really restrictive. Not a
lot of sympathy for the conservative students who end up
on the wrong side of it and have for decades,
but especially over the course of the last decade post
(46:49):
Title nine Obama era regulations and post cancel culture and
all of that was a lot of sympathy for conservative students.
But this is actually wrong, is actually meant to advance
the interests of people who are using it as window
dressing for their basically neoliberal politics, and it's disgusting and
(47:13):
it's hollowing out. It's contributing to the hollowing out of
the middle class. We have people spilled blood to create
laws in this country that forbid discrimination on a racial basis,
sexual basis, that we have a lot of laws on
the books to do that. College campuses are unique environments,
I think, especially in terms of questions like sexual assault.
(47:34):
These are really serious conversations. But to say that these
administrations have become bloated as even an understatement. We have
just blown up universities in the name of not creating
thought restrictions, whatever that means.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
People.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
And meanwhile, not only is the budget now being sent
over to cops, which, like we said, earlis like an
onion headline, but the overreach has empowered the Stephen Miller's
of the world to then fight back against all efforts
to advance civil rights, in advance diversity in hiring, and
(48:10):
acceptance in general across the board. It's just getting the
baby is just getting thrown out with the bathwater. Because
I'm somebody who thinks that, Look, if you're grappling with
the legacy of racism, things don't just go away on
their own because you just want them to like it
takes actual affirmative action on the part of a society
to grapple with those legacies. And so even if that
(48:35):
means what the NFL called a roomy rule, which is like, look,
there is just a subtle there's a subtle sense in
the NFL back in the you know, it's not as
pronounced as it used to be at all. But for
years there were no black head coaches, and no black
head coaches were even getting no assistant coaches were even
getting interviewed for the jobs. So they create a rule.
(48:57):
It said, you have to interview somebody who's black or
who's not white. You know, we're not saying you have
to hire them, but for God's sake, just stop this
thing where you just call your four friends like you're
all your friends are white. And if you don't break
that cycle, that's just gonna how it's going to be
how it propels forward. And so the rules interview something
(49:18):
and then turned out like, oh, wow, this guy's really
good and we want to win, so we're hiring this guy.
And so even though he's not in our social circle,
he's not our friend. So you need you need, you
do need. I think if you're going to break the legacy.
And if you want a legacy to become a legacy
rather than the ongoing part of your culture, you need
some intervention like that. Instead, this kind of this uh
(49:40):
DEI at ideology metastasized and took over and became its
own thing, and it and then was rightly targeted by everybody,
and and some of the nefarious people like Miller are
gonna use it to toss everything out.
Speaker 4 (49:53):
It's definitely going to swing the pendulum or risks swing
swinging the pendulum back in a Yeah, like if I
if I'm on the left, yeah, I would have the
exact concerns that you do. And I even on the
right have concerns that there are people who will take
it too far. But this is, you know, probably not
an example of that. Although I would just give the
money back to the students in some way or another,
(50:15):
because two point three million dollars it's chump changed to
a university. But there's there's got to be a better
better use for it, certainly than the DEI administrators.
Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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If you like what we're all about, it just means
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Speaker 3 (00:20):
But enough with that, let's get to the show. All right,
good morning, and welcome to Counterpoints Emily. We've got a
little bit of housekeeping to start out with, right.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Yeah, that's right. So we have some exciting new updates.
Just make sure to stay tuned to your inbox because
those are going to be hitting your inbox next week.
Some new updates on the future Breaking Points, exciting stuff
coming down the pipeline. So again, just make sure you
stay tuned to your inbox and pay attention to the
show next week, and will.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Won't be in your inbox if you don't go to
Breakingpoints dot com and subscribe to this show on the
previeing version.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
That's all.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We presume that all of you are doing that, because
why on earth would you not be doing that. We've
got some exciting election developments from last night. Angela also
Brooks upset David Trone, the owner of Total Wine, who
spent at least sixty million dollars to lose the Democratic
primary for Maryland Senate. Money is not worthless. Though APAC
(01:15):
did manage to defeat the Capitol Cop Harry Dunn incredible.
Like so, Democratic voters were faced with a choice of
do we go with APAK or do we go with
the capitol cop who fended off the January sixth insurrection
in Baltimore, Annapolis's area. They went with APAK.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
You have to choose between MSNBC.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
And APAC, except, of course APAC didn't say, like do
you support genocide. If you support genocide, vote for Sarah Elfreth.
They just did a bunch of attack ads and you know,
spent millions of dollars supporting her.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
So those were primaries that were held last night. And
we have a great guest coming up, by the way,
on the Friday version of this show, Beto O'Rourke is
going to be on with us talking about immigration and
the border.
Speaker 5 (01:58):
We're very excited about that.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Tuned again that hits your inbox if you're a premium
subscriber Thursday nights. Otherwise for everyone else, it's out on
Friday mornings. Breakingpoints dot Com again though, if you want
to be premium, Beto.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Verus Emily on the border and immigration and me just
chiming and saying, why don't we just have completely open borders?
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Just three white people talking about the border.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
A bunch of irishmen.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Yes, yes, Actually, actually my grandmother's made name is McGrath,
so I think I kind of qualified.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, we're all we're all allowed to participate in this conversation.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Then perfect.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Well, we're going to start today on Today's show with
the economic news, because there's been a lot this week
between Biden's tariff announcement and actually Jerome Powell was giving
remarks yesterday about inflation and man, just some more depressing
news on the economy. That's where we're going to start today.
We're going to then move to Donald Trump's trial in
New York, where a flock of Republicans, a literal flock
(02:53):
of Republicans, came to offer their support. We have some
soundbites from Vivek grama spot.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Looking for the jury at launch to try to just
intimidate them into what I don't understand what's going on.
It's like a West criminal trials, but we don't usually
prosecute the former president, so it's not going to be normal.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
U n C University of North Carolina is refunneling all
of its money from DEI into safety public staff. Onions headline,
not an onion headline, but Ryan actually some interesting thoughts
on that. We have Bill bur versus Bill Maher and
then Ryan, we have some really we have a very
interesting guest that you have set us up with here.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, and they talked about this on the program yesterday,
but I reported on Monday that upwards of twenty medical staff,
you American medical staff, are currently stranded in Gaza because
Israel has closed the Rafa border crossing. They're running low
on water, some of them are on an IV drip.
There's massive dehydration, vomiting, diarrhea. And these are the American
(03:52):
medical professionals, which tells you just how brutal the conditions
must be for the general Palstingans who've been there for
months facing these conditions. And so we're gonna be joined
by nurse who lives in Oregons from Canada, but she's
currently in Gaza unable to get out Monica Johnston if
her Internet holds up and if the situation allows for
(04:14):
the interview, we'll be talking with her later in the program.
We spoke to her yesterday to get a sense of
what the conditions are and it's just utterly harrowing from
start to finish. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Absolutely, And then you have a monologue that you're going
to be talking about.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
More APEX stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Yeah, we uncovered some kind of secret a pac money
flowing into the Portland, Oregon primary. We're going to unpack
how they managed to do that and why they wouldn't
just spend and say, hey, we are apac heros roar.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
It's basically an episode of portlanda so stationed for that.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
That's right, all right.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So let's start today with the FED, because Jerome Powell
was in Amsterdam yesterday at the Foreign Bankers Association's Annual meetings.
Were annual meeting where he commented on the future of
interest rates.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Let's take a look at what Jerome Powell.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Said question of.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Restrictive policy or as I mentioned, our policy is the
highest it's been in quite some time.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
The rate is at five and quarter to five and
a half percent.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Is high relative to recent history, so we think that
it's probably a matter of just staying at that stance
for longer.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Okay, so let's put this next element up on the screen.
This is from the New York Times. This is a
headline fed holds rate study noting lack of progress on infation.
The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for a six
straight meeting and suggested that rates would stay high for longer.
Now again, a couple weeks later, on May fourteenth, just yesterday,
Jerome Powell. You could hear the frustration in his voice,
well to the extent that you can pick up on
(05:44):
any sort of emotional connotation from what Jerome Powell was
talking about.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Ryan, you could hear it. But yeah, it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
He was on this panel to glean from what he
was saying, that frustration that they have.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Did you catch the rest of us remarks there, Yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
He was saying, look, earlier in the year, we were
hopeful that we were going to be able to cut
rates before the end of the year. They maybe we
still will, He's still leaving open that possibility. But then
there were some economic indicators in the beginning part of
the year that showed running a little bit hotter than
they wanted to, and so they're keeping it at this rate.
He also said, look, when people hear that inflation is
(06:21):
coming down, they respond by saying, yeah, but prices are
still way too high. And he said that is what
is guiding them. And the White House is going to
hear that and be deeply frustrated because they want to
see a rate cut that gets the economy kicking again.
You've finally started to see a slowing of the economy.
(06:41):
But so much of this is using a tool that
was developed when the US had a different economy, a
more manufacturing based economy, and now so much of our
kind of frozen economy is related to real estate and
rent that it's really, in some ways the wrong tool.
(07:02):
JP Morgan, their top analyst, was arguing recently that keeping inflation,
keeping interest rates high at this point is actually driving
up prices and curious for your take on this. And
everybody has a take on this because everybody, everybody interacts
with the economy. Everybody's either a renter or a homeowner,
so everybody understands all of the different phenomena that we're
(07:24):
dealing with. But what he argues is that so many
people refinance their homes during homeowners finance their homes during COVID,
and now they're locked in these two point seven or
three percent interest rates, so they don't want to move,
so nobody's selling their homes. That means all of these
people are renting who would rather, who do have the
(07:47):
ability to buy, but can't because nobody's selling. So that's
pushing up rent prices. It's also holding housing prices artificially
high as a result. He's saying, if interest rates come down,
all of a sudden, you unlock the supply of housing,
and all these people who were waiting to sell are
all going to start to sell. Now there's an alternative
(08:08):
argument that says, well, there are so many people who
want to buy. What you would do is that you
would unlock demand and you would drive prices even further up.
So nobody actually really knows what would happen. Nobody knows
do you have more kind of pent up folks who
want to sell their homes or do you have more
(08:28):
pent up renters who want to burst into the housing market.
And the answer to that question would then decide whether
or not housing prices go up or down, and if
housing prices go down, rent goes down, inflation goes inflation
goes down. So that is the thing that is really
keeping these prices high at this point.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Another quote from Powell yesterday, he says, is inflation going
to be more persistent going forward? I don't think we
know that yet. I think we need more than a
quarter's worth of data to really make a judgment on that.
So not good news if you're one of like saying Ryan,
I mean, people are experiencing the economy differently. But if
you're somebody who's looking for interest rates to go down
for different reasons, many different reasons, that's really not what
(09:08):
you wanted to hear. It's definitely not what the Pie
administration wanted to hear on that point. But that's where
Jerome Powell is right now. And you know it's he said,
I don't know if you caught this part. I just
barely caught this.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
I almost missed it.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
He said something like, you know, we know this is
hitting people in different in like lower income brackets harder,
and they're looking for relief. And that's front of mine
something that of course it's not just people, but it
is disproportionately being felt The New York Times.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Had a good now that you're talking about the like
huge surgeon prices from twenty twenty to over the next
couple of years, right, that really has sapped their spending.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Power inflation, right, yeah, basically, And it's just I mean
the New York Times had a story on that this week,
basically how you're feeling it differently if you are in
a low income bracket, but all around, I mean, it's
just bad news for everyone all around, basically, right.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Because yes, everything is just everything is much more expensive
than it was a couple of years ago, all your
basic expenses. Yeah, so by the time now, it used
to be like you're scraping to get to the end
of the month. Now it's like halfway through the month,
you're like, oh God.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
And like you said, it's a different economy. So I mean,
I think about all of the people graduating right now.
I mean it's may everyone graduating right now going into
the workforce and trying to start a life and own
a home. I mean, it just feels so completely unattainable.
And that's going to trickle into other areas of our
politics that aren't just economic. Obviously, it's going to express
itself in all kinds of different angsts and well founded
(10:34):
angst because it sucks.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, and a fascinating and difficult to actually measure. Part
of this has been the immigration surge. And we're going
to talk about this with Beto later on the Friday Show.
But you know, there was this massive labor shortage and
then you had this big surge of immigration. You're still
(10:58):
seeing wages going up even relative to inflation. Yeah, but
there's I think there are reasonable signs to say that
at some levels the wage growth has slowed. But a
lot of the inflation during the pandemic was related to
the labor shortage. Supply chains were broken, restaurants were charging
a lot more because like it couldn't get people to
come to work, Like there is an inflationary impact of
(11:21):
not having enough workers. So in some ways, if you
immigration grows the entire economy.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
Well, he talked about that yesterday.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Too, Yes, yes, exactly, he actually mentioned yeah, right, he
actually mentioned like the influx of new work migrants, which
we probably disagree on that and we're going to get
to that in our conversation.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Question is whether they're productive economically, and a lot of
them are young, a lot of them are working age.
A lot of them are here to work. A lot
of them came here because they saw the stories of
high wages and labor shortages.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
The other big half of the economic news this week
actually was the Biden administration announcing these pretty significant new tariffs.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
And we can put this tear sheet up.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
This is a three from the Associated Press on the
tariff hikes that Biden has implemented. He gave a speech
at the White House earlier this week making the announcement
start traded some.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Shots back and forth with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Let's first start with what Biden said when he announced
these tariffs in the Rose Garden earlier this week.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
That's why to day, I'm announcing new tariffs and key
sectors of the economy that are ensured that our workers
are not held back by unfair trade practices. They clude saying,
I'm announcing today twenty five percent tariff on Chinese steel
aluminum products, and we'll counter China's over capacity in these industries.
And we're making major investments in clean American steel loom,
(12:46):
clean American steel allumin It's a big deal clean because
of the way we manufactured here. It's half as much
carbon as steel made in China. Last month, my administration
announced the largest investment in clean manufacturing in all of history,
up to one point five billion dollars and six clean
steel projects across in America, creating supporting thousands, thousands of
(13:09):
union jobs. Next one hundred percent TARIF and electric vehicles
made in China. People say wow, because we're not going
to let China flood our market making it impossible for
American model manufacturers to compete fairly. We're also implementing their
(13:30):
twenty five percent tarifying electric vehicle batteries from China and
twenty five percent tarifund critical minerals that make those batteries. Folks, look,
I'm determined that the future of electric vehicles will be
made in America by union workers period.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Trump said today, China is getting our LUNs.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
What are you saying, responts?
Speaker 3 (13:51):
He said, China is eating our luks. That's what Trump
said today.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
We've been being in a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
If you didn't catch that, said Johnald Trump has said
that China is eating our launch. Yeah, and Biden said
He's been feeding them for a long time.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
Been feeding them for a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
And Trump makes us all dumber for having watched the
back and forth.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
So true. Trump said that outside.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
I think it was outside the courtroom earlier this week,
he said, transmitting her lunch to that, Biden says, well,
he's been feeding them for a long time, which is
it's kind of hilarious coming from Joe Biden. But these
are the tariffs on electric vehicles, as Biden mentioned, semiconductors,
lithium ion batteries, all kinds of stuff, syringes, needles, yeah,
solar components, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And the tariff on the EV's.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm curious what you think about this, Ryan, This is
like one hundred percent tariff.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
I think I think he hiked it from twenty five
to one hundred.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Yeah, it's one hundred percent increase in the tariff that
was up from actually like twenty seven percent. And this
is all happening under section three on one of the
trade backs of mid seventies piece of legislation. Pretty bold
decision from Joe Biden.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Those are rookie numbers though, on those evs. One hundred percent.
If China is producing evs that can sell for like
eleven to twelve thousand dollars, ye, that's what people are
saying about these and saying that these are nice little cars.
You're going to have to do more than one hundred
percent at eleven thousand dollars to make the American industry competitive.
So I probably have a pretty heterodox view on this.
(15:23):
I would say that we need serious protection of our
domestic solar, EV, clean and clean energy manufacturing industry. If
we are serious about having an industrial base, if we
want to be a country that makes things, we're going
to have to do this. But I think we shouldn't
(15:44):
do it in the sense of a war with China.
I think China should be congratulated like good job, Like
you guys are leading the world when it comes to
EV production, when it comes to clean energy production. But
but are.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
They leading the world by cheating via labor? I don't
mean cheating in terms of like the labor.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
But yeah, uh, you know, we have trade deals. Let's inspect,
inspect the labor conditions.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
You know. Obviously, the reason that American companies outsourced to
China over the last you know, thirty years was because
labor costs are much lower.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
A lot of businesses.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
The reason that we now need these tariffs because, for example,
like they would say this to you, I'm playing devil's
advocate here actually, Like you're the guy who wants all
of our plants to be unionized, and that's why we
now need this tariff.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
The end also protectionism. Yeah, go ahead, I'll protect them. Yeah,
it's gonna Look, I do want our workers to be
paid a living wage, yeah, and I want China's workers
to be paid a living wage too. And China has
done far more, frankly, to raise wages for their own
workers than we have over the last thirty years. You know,
they lifted like eight hundred million people. They had a
(17:02):
slit lower they had, Yeah, they had a lot more
room to grow, but it's been a miraculous rate of
economic growth. Like you can say, whatevery one about the
human rights condition and so on, although I think it's
that's exaggerated to some degree by like just our general
perspective on things. Though of course there's you know, there's
merit to some of the claims. But South America needs
(17:26):
EVS needs the products of a clean energy, you know,
manufacturing base that China has. Africa needs it, Europe needs it,
Russian needs it, Japan needs it. Like there's plenty of
people China can sell to go ahead, sell to the
rest of the world, and let's protect our industry and
see if we can build one. It might be the
case that we can't, that the United States of America
(17:47):
just doesn't know how to do industrialization anymore, like that
we just can't. Like the Inflation Reduction Act put like
fifteen billion dollars into like basically subsidizing solar production. It
was supposed to launch. Four plants were supposed to launch
so far. I think one of them said, you know what,
we're actually not launching it all. The other three are
kind of on ice. And all of those it's because
(18:10):
generally because the cheaper imports can't be competed with by
American production at this point, so you're you're in a
chicken and egg thing, like that's the that's the situation.
And if that's the current situation, we will never catch
up because these plants will all fail or they won't
even get off the ground, like they'll they'll just gobble
up a bunch of subsidies and then they'll do a
(18:32):
ribbon cutting and then they won't actually open the factory,
like which is what happened with at least one of these.
It might happen with all four. So if you want
to compete, you just have to basically just keep it out.
Did you see Jared and one hundred percent might not
even do it?
Speaker 5 (18:44):
Did you see Jared Paulus's reaction?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
No, what did he say?
Speaker 5 (18:46):
They flipped out on Biden?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Basically he's a neoliberal like this, this is this cuts
their core right.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
And yeah, exactly like that. It has been.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I mean, it has been a neoliberal freak out kind
of across the board. But when we look back, for example,
on BTO and we look back on NAFTA, and we
look back at the industrialization basically, and a lot of people,
even on the neoliberal side, we'll look back and say,
you know, we didn't do enough in the transition period
to help American workers and you know they were going
(19:14):
to lose these jobs anyway, or the economy was going
to change anyway, but we should have had some more
cushion to literally cushion the blow from the changing economy. Well,
the economy is changing again right now and in this direction,
and I actually kind of see these as like part
of the transition and if it's going to happen, if
it's inevitable, we should make the transition to the extent
(19:38):
that we can, you know, reindustrialize. That's great. I'm skeptical
of that, and I wish it were true. I hope
that it's true. I hope that I'm wrong. But to
the extent that we can give American workers something to
hold on to in a transition process, I think that's
what these do. But you know the Quirky World Socialist website, Yeah,
(19:58):
what are the trot Skuts.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Yeah, they're like, they're like they're recro sectarians who like
show up at every strike. Basically, if if WS whatever
it is is not funded by the bosses themselves, like
they then the boss they're getting a free ride.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So they had an interesting take on the tariffs, which
is basically that in lieu.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Of I'm on whatever, I'm on the opposite side of
it where it so let me, I want to hear
where these guys are.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Yeah, this one I'm bringing out curious.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
So they had this this really interesting take where they
were like, instead of actually cracking down on the financialization
of the economy, this is just kind of a life raft.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
To the robber barons.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Okay, yeah, okay, when when when they make like the
broad sweeping left wing arguments. Okay, that's fine, Yeah, I
mean yeah, it is sort of like nationalized Wall Street.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
So but meantime it's Biden like pasture of the camera
about union workers blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
But at the mean, like in the meanwhile, this is.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Not do industrialization, and you're also not going to be
the center of financial power and trying to compete with
us militarily. Then and then what what what are we doing?
Especially when China owns like half our farms.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Well, that's the any thing with like syringes and needle tariffs,
I mean, this is should be some common sense stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yes, and should we should be able to make syringes, yes, needles, yeah, yes,
it's that that that like the fact that we can't
produce those basic things should scare us. It should have
been should lead to some radical trade policy.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
And I actually think it's funny that most of the
headlines have been on Chinese evs have been on semiconductors,
when to me that's some of the biggest news is
that like Biden, actually that's a really really again anathma
in the circles that Joe Biden runs in, but like
a really obvious policy move that is a huge deal,
(21:50):
a huge deal and will create jobs here.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, and I don't know if we can do it, Like,
I don't know if the US has the ability to
see through an actual industrial policy, Like does Trump come
in and reverse these because they are Biden's tariff policies
And even though you know, nobody loves tariffs more than Trump,
but now if now, if they're Biden's, does he get
rid of them? Like, I just don't know if we
have a system that's you know, functionally capable of competing
(22:14):
with China's.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
This is the last thought that we have here.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
Let's roll a five, because Biden basically opposed these tariffs
when Donald Trump was doing with them, and then in
a very like direct way, I mean, basically replicated what
Donald Trump did.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
Let's take a look.
Speaker 7 (22:29):
I know that these new tariffs are seen as more
targeted and strategic that the administration has chosen to keep
in place those Trump Ara tariffs on some three hundred
billion dollars worth of goods which Biden himself had signed
in twenty nineteen that Americans are paying. So why make
that decision to keep it in place? And aren't you
concerned that it's going to keep prices elevated.
Speaker 8 (22:47):
So first of all, let me say a couple of things.
In terms of the price that Americans paid for in
the previous era, some of that, maybe a lot of
it was about the chaos and unpredictability it created and
the escalation that resulted.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
Secondly, I think what I'm a trade lawyer by training,
and at USTR we are deep into the technical issues.
The Section three OHO one based review that we undertook
required us to look at a couple questions. One of
them was the effect of the practices on our economy,
and there you have our response, which is a targeted,
(23:26):
strategic response that is meant to work together with the
investments that we're making. The other aspect that we had
to look at was the effect of the tariffs on
changing China's behavior with respect to the IPR abuses and
the force tech transfer. There the findings in my report,
which you can find on the USTR website right here,
(23:47):
it's a serious report, is that not only have we
not seen the problematic practices subside in some areas, we
have seen them get worse. And in that light, there
is actually no reason for us and no justification to
relieving the tariff burdens on the trade with Beijing.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's a funny logic. There's and what she's saying there.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Catherine tis good who's great on trade, Like she's if
either party could get somebody like Trump generals great.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah, there was this review that tested, okay, it is
China basically gaming the system by saying, like, okay, you're
not allowed to have a concentrated industry in a particular field,
solar panels all in one country, So are they forcing
transfer of property to like Malaysia and Vietnam and other places.
(24:41):
But it's actually just paperwork and it's fake and it's
all actually a Chinese controlled supply chain. And the resulting
review was like, yeah, they're busted like that, that is
actually what they're doing. Then she says, so we put
these tariffs on as a result of this legal process,
but their behavior didn't change, And then she says, therefore
(25:02):
we need to continue the tariffs because their behavior didn't change,
which is kind of a funny logic because on the
other hand, you don't I guess you don't want to say, well,
you've got to punish you, and you didn't change your behavior.
So we're not going to punish you anymore. Like that
also doesn't work. But the point is we don't really
have a policy lever that can play here because China
(25:23):
is extraordinarily powerful and effective, you know, economic giant astride
this planet right now. It just is. So what we
have to do is we have to boost our own manufacturing.
We have to compete with them. Like the idea that
we're going to be able to significantly change their behavior
I think is a relic of a of a soul
(25:44):
superpower period that we just have to get over well.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
And the idea that the American free marketers are going
to take care of our need for syringes right and needles.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Exactly, And so we can What we can do is
we can protect our own industrial domestic con to me, like,
we can do that, we can connect with that, we
can try to build plants. But we're not really going
to tell China what to do anymore. Even if they
are breaking the rules, yeah, I mean, which they are,
Like they were doing paperwork stuff to try to cover
(26:15):
for the fact that they were dominating the market. But
our answer has to be to actually push back and
produce things that we can sell to the American people
and around the world.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
So, Ryan, just as we're wrapping this segment, do you
see this as I know that you don't actually the
leading question, but the neoliberals thing one two punch basically
in the economy this week tough news for people all
around between Powell and the tariffs. How should people be
feeling about the economy right now after this time?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
I mean, well, the stock market said that they're very
excited about the fact that Powell is not going to
raise rates. The recent jobs report at unemployment under four percent. Again,
wage growth was still at two point eight percent, which
is slightly above inflation. So if wages are growing faster
than inflation, and there are plentiful jobs and union density
(27:11):
is growing and militancy is strong in general, that is
a good thing.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
Jobs potentially coming back there, you go, all.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Right, I mean, long way to go. The pandemic, you know,
ripped through the economy in a brutal way. That that
we're still recovering from the inflation of twenty one in
twenty two, but less so than anywhere else in the world.
Like you look at our like you know, I covered Pakistan,
they're still sitting at like seventy percent inflation incredible. So
(27:40):
to have single digits for two years was painful for people,
but relative to the rest of the world, we're still
out competing them, believe it or not. Notwithstanding what I
just said about China's productive capacity.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
And interest rates, still I think it's the highest in
twenty three years. Still sticking to that spot. Speaking of
Donald Trump, we have some footage from outside the courtroom
and the so called hush money Alvin Bragg trial in
New York where Republicans have devised a strategy of basically
(28:13):
flooding the zone going up to New York. I'm sure
it's great for fundraising on their end and speaking out
on behalf of their beliegered leader. Let's roll this clip
of Mike Johnson and Vivek Ramaswami in New York yesterday.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
They were also accompanied.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
By Doug Bergham, all kinds of different people.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
I think Byron Donald was there. Let's take a.
Speaker 9 (28:35):
Look, buddy, anybody here in the press, anybody at home,
anybody in MSNBC or the media afterwards, to clearly state
what exactly is the crime that Donald Trump committed.
Speaker 10 (28:48):
I'll wait, we have not heard a good answer to
that question. It has been vague until today.
Speaker 9 (28:54):
You heard Michael Cohen's testimony.
Speaker 10 (28:56):
After which I would say, it is less clear than
ever what that crime actually was. They'll say, falsifying business records. Well,
let's look at who do we learn falsified business records today?
Get what hour two hours felt like, because it's seven
hours of Michael Cohen talking about how he falsified business records. Okay,
so you have a guy who has been a perjurer
(29:16):
in the past that is now saying he falsified business records.
What is the crime that Donald Trump committed? Now it
appears to be what they might allege is some sort
of bookkeeping error or whatever. The real bookkeeping that we
need accounting of is Judge Merchant's own family member collecting
millions of dollars as a democratic operative, using the existence
of this trial as a fundraising employ for Democrats. This
(29:39):
is unconscroonable. Imagine if the same shoot fit the other foot.
Speaker 11 (29:42):
I'm an attorney, I'm a former litigator myself. I am
disgusted by what is happening here. What is being done
here to our entire system of justice overall? The people
are losing faith right now in this country, in our institutions.
They're losing faith in our system of justice, and the
reason for that is because they see it being abused
(30:02):
as it is being done here in New York. The
facts here are very important. Facts are always important in
a trial, or at least they're supposed to be. The
President's actions in this matter were previously reviewed and no
charges were filed. Why is that because there's no crime here.
Now eight years later, suddenly they've resurrected this thing. They
(30:24):
brought it back, And why is that, Well, just apply
common sense. Everyone can see it's painfully obvious. They were
here now six months out from an election day, and
that's the reason. That is the reason why they brought
these these charges here and across the country.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
So there's a lot of fatigue and exhaustion with Alvin
Bragg's decision here, even on the left. Ryan, I think
it's interesting, you know, Tommy Tuberville, Jamdie Vance, I think
Rick Scott went last week. Yeah, he did go up
last week to sort of go up to New York.
Have these moments like we just saw with Mike Johnson
and Deve Gramaswamy sort of relish the spotlight look like
(31:00):
they're you know, really.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
They have Donald Trump's back.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
From my perspective, you know, we just did a whole
segment on the economy. I find it very interesting that
people are sort of patting Mike Johnson continue to be
a real person.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
We can confirm on the.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Back for this when it's like the dude just flip
flopped on Faiza and he's doing this to like make
you feel like he's maga. Like this is again, like
the case is ridiculous, but Mike Johnson is going up here.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Other Republicans are going up here.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
They might not actually vote the way that you want
them to, but they're gonna do that and act like
they're super maga because this is a really easy opportunity.
I mean, even liberals in the New York Times are
in vain against Alvin Bragg at this point, saying, you know,
at first there was a not bad A couple weeks
THO was like, this is a grave mistake because he
had to upgrade because the statue of Statute of limitations.
(31:58):
He had to basically devise the strategy to say this
wasn't a misdemeanor, it was actually a felony because it
was about breaking federal campaign finance laws, which is really
unclear because if Donald Trump had classified the hush money
payments to a board star as something else, you know,
it also doesn't really make sense from a legal standpoint
(32:18):
that that's the argument. And even to say that it
was done to break federal campaign finance laws, he has
to prove that it was only about the campaign. There
were no personal reasons for hushing up somebody who is
alleging that they had an affair with you while your
wife was what pregnant.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
So it's just a.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Circus, right, because it's this interesting situation where nobody, nobody
seems to doubt that he did what he did from
beginning to end. Question as well as it's a crime.
And later in this program, we're going to talk about
how Apak is spending millions of dollars secretly in a
congressional race in order to influence it, using shell packs
(32:58):
in order to get around kind of disclosure requirements. Nobody's
remotely suggesting they're going to be prosecuted for any of that.
Nobody gets prosecuted for anything when it comes to campaign
finance law. The idea that this would be the one
thing that would get prosecuted, I think is the reason
that a lot of his supporters like, really, come on, yeah,
it's like hush money is legal, right and right it
(33:22):
is okay, So and then you're saying, okay, well, is
do we expect Donald Trump is like going over the
paperwork that's filed on his behalf, either to the fec
or to the like guy. And what good would that
even do? Donald? Can you imagine Donald Trump like going
over paperwork with a fine tooth comb, like it is
(33:46):
a criminalizing his existence, which I'm for well, but it's
hard to stand up stand up that on principle.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
So Michael Cohene was testifying yesterday obviously, and that was
a big media circus as well, the ne're Times rates.
When monthly checks to Cohen started arriving, most bearing mister
Trump's signature, they disguised the nature of the payments. Mister
Cohen testified the stubs described the checks as part of
a legal quote retainer agreement, but they were in fact
reimbursements for hush money that mister con had paid to
silence a porn star story of sex with mister Trump.
(34:16):
Mister Cohen said that mister Trump was present when a
plan to fictionalize the records was cooked up weeks earlier
in New York. The testimony marked a pivotal moment for prosecutors.
They charged mister Trump with falsifying the checks and other records,
and mister Cohen's were counting drove those accusations home. So obviously,
Michael Cohen was cross examined yesterday as well, and it
(34:37):
was admitting all kinds of.
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Stuff left and right.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
This follows the week of Stormy Daniels testifying, and we
had David Pecker, who owned the media group behind the
National Inquirer, testifying, and you know, the cross examination of
Michael Cohen was, you know, basically what you would expect.
So for at one point, Cohen was asked whether he
knew whether he knew who he was who. Okay, this
(35:03):
is this confusing the way that I'm reading this, but
basically here's the CNN. Donald Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche began
his confrontation with Michael Cohen on Tuesday by throwing the
former fixer's language back in his face. Blanche confirmed the
two had never spoken, but asked Cohen whether he knew
who he was already since con quote went on TikTok
and called me a crying little shit just before the
trial began. Con responded, sounds like something I would say
(35:26):
just Trumpian all around, like the peak Trump for Trump's trial.
So he got grilled on the stand yesterday, but then
the prosecution also felt like they got real concessions or
got real emissions out of him that seal their case,
which is these checks coming from and again like if
you don't think Donald Trump did this that, I mean,
(35:49):
we all kind of know what happened here. In all likelihood,
we all kind of know what happened here.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
And then there's also the witness intimidation slash shenanigans that
Cohen testified to yesterday. You know, he called Trump and
after the FBI rated him, and Trump told him, according
to Cohen, don't worry. I'm the president of the United States.
There's nothing here. Everything's going to be okay, stay tough,
You're going to be okay. Messages then later relayed to
(36:16):
him sleep well tonight. You have friends in high places,
a very clear suggestion from Trump that look, I'm the president.
I'm not going to let you go down for this.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Yeah, if it's true, which again I think most people
would probably believe, but Michael Cohen has also lied. And
so just from the standpoint of the case strategy, this
is a case based on David Packer's Stormy Daniels and
Michael Cohen.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah. Also, the thing that comes through here is everybody
in the Trump world knows that Trump treats a lot
of people around him terribly. He probably treated nobody more
terribly than Michael Cohen. And now we know that Michael
Cohen was harboring Mount Vesuvius level resentment against him. Yeah,
(37:02):
that once Trump did not have is back as he
promised on. This has just erupted, right, And so on
the one hand, you say, well, he's flipping, he's telling
the truth on his old wretched boss, right, And you're
saying he would like nothing more than just to see
this guy convicted and go down, right, and it kills
him that Trump remains like a part of our national
(37:25):
politics and leading the presidential race.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
Right, Yeah, No, I mean absolutely, And Trump is facing again,
is facing prison over this. And I know we've talked
about this before.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
I'm not Yeah, it skeptical. I mean, it's a felony,
you know, thirty four felonies or whatever.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
Right, I mean, it is a felony, and so the
former president of United States, the leading presidential candidate, facing
felony charges for this. There's a host of other cases
obviously as well, as much as both of us are
in favor of locking up white cott criminals personally, if
you're just we need to go after one party in
(38:03):
two sort of ticky tacky ways, I just think it's it's, obviously,
from my prospective, a very dangerous road to go down.
And every day we hear testimony from this trial about
whether or not Donald Trump was like wink wink nod
mafia style falsifying checks. It's like, is this really what
we're talking about with Donald Trump? Like you, why are
we doing this?
Speaker 5 (38:24):
Talk about something else?
Speaker 4 (38:25):
There's plenty to talk about when it comes to Donald Trump,
and instead he's in New York. Well, you know, we
have to listen to Michael Cohen and Stormy and Daniels
recount their various interactions with him over the years.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
The University of.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
North Carolina at Chapel Hill has voted via their Board
of trustees to divert to funnel a lot of money
that was spent previously on diversity equity and inclusion program,
so DEI.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Into public safety.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
This just happened this week, and we can put the
first element up on the screen.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
This is the headlin and from.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
The Guardian, a two point three million dollar DEI budget
now going to safety and policing. The chairman of the board,
his name is David Baliek, told the Raleigh News and
Observer that he expected jobs would be eliminated quote as
a result of the reallocation. He said, my personal opinion
is that there's administrative bloat in the university, and he
cuts an administration and diverting of dollars to rubber meets
(39:22):
the road.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
Efforts like public safety and teaching is important. Now.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
You and C became a somewhat of a flashpoint in
the greater encampment debate. Because we're going to skip ahead
with the elements here, we can put this vo up
on This is C three of the Fraternity Brothers protecting
the American flag after some protesters had tried to take
it down, according to reporting Fox News and replace it
(39:50):
with a Palestinian flag.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
This went massively viral.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
I think they got like a ten thousand dollars donation
from Bill Ackman on a gofund me, although there were
different fraternities who were getting nations and we're going viral
for doing things like this, But that again sort of
thrust this back into the spotlight for you. And see
obviously there've even been academic studies on this point. The
rolling back of DEI spending has kind of happened across
(40:13):
the board academia, It's happened in corporations. But you know,
I would argue, and have interviewed people in the who
watched this in the corporate space, some of it is
actually not really being rolled back.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
It's being rolled back.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
In name and then you know you're seeing it still
happen intentionally in other places, kind of being disguised, disguised
and obfuscated rather than fully abandoned. But in the case
of UNC here, it's actually really being fully abandoned. I
think jobs will be lost. Well, last thing I'll point
out Ryan before I toss to you, because you have
some interesting thoughts on this I'm excited to get to,
(40:48):
is that when the president of the board said that
they have administrative bloat, He's right. There was a Progressive
Policy Institute sort of ran would you describe them as
kind of.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Third Way e.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
So it is their length third Way.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
They're literally they're like third Ways Think Tank.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Yeah, they had a so by that way mean kind
of centrist. But they had a report looking at the
student to faculty ratio at the top fifty universities that
was released just last fall, so this is very recent.
They found that there are three times as many non
faculty members as they are as there are faculty per
student at the top fifty schools in the United States.
(41:25):
That's new, that's a shift, that's something that's happened over
the course of many years. So just a lot of
people's student loan is paying for some of the positions
that might be eliminated. And maybe rather than reallocating two
point three million dollars you want to give them to
public safety, you might want to give that back to students.
But actually, neighboring Duke has one of the worst non
(41:47):
faculty ratios to student ratio non faculty to student ratios.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
And when I say one of.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
The worst, they literally have more non faculty than students
at Duke. The ratio at UNC is three point five.
I have students to one non faculty. So that's administrative position. Basically,
obviously you need some of those positions. But part of
the reason that universities have been on this hiring spree
is because of the constant increase in student loan potential.
Speaker 5 (42:16):
Right.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
I don't know if we even disagree on this, but basically,
when you have the massive subsidy in the form of loans,
students are able to keep affording colleges. Their college just
keeps marking up the prices. And that's definitely what's happened
across the board, and what they've done with a lot
of that money is higher administrators have gotten into this
administrative arms race. They've also had like the Lazy River
(42:39):
arms race, that's happened too. But you flagged an argument
from sam Adler Bell that I was really interested in
getting to as well.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yes, sam Adler Bell has been one of my Ninja
comrades over the years, and like fighting the kind of
pro DEI left from the left and Ninja is like
the attacks just keep coming, right and we're going to
just keep fending them off to that. So, these two
tweets are in response to NYU faculty and staff for
(43:11):
Justice in Palestine putting out a statement that said that
NYU is punishing arrested students by requiring them to complete
quote reflection papers and completion of quote integrity modules. And
so this is the kind of students are protesting against
what the DEI office is kind of punishing them with.
So Sam says, for what it's worth, I do think
(43:32):
this stuff should force the left to rethink its hostility
to the more sophisticated arguments against the deiification of university administration.
If this sounds to you like quote forced re education
and repudiation in response to thought crimes unquote, maybe we
should all reconsider the paradigms that have made this seem
an appropriate response to political speech. So what he is
(43:57):
saying there is that if you feel like you're being
lectured to and re educated by the administration just for
stating your political opinion that Palestinians deserve justice, that Palestinians
should not be the victims of an ethnic cleansing, that
the university ought to divest from the Israeli military industrial complex,
(44:21):
and they respond to you by this like insane, like
you know, making right reflection papers and telling you that
you've committed thought crimes. And what he's saying there is
that flip it over, flip it around. Think about that
from another perspective. You don't like it that the administration
is telling you that you're guilty of wrong thing, that
(44:41):
you're thinking the wrong things. You don't like that, do you?
You should be able to think for yourself. Apply that
to everybody. Take ownership of your own independent thought process.
Don't outsource it to administrators. Yeah, don't let them be
the art of what is good and what is bad.
(45:02):
What is right is what is wrong. And you know,
I'm old man yelling at clouds, But what I have
been yelling at this cloud for several years now is
that this empowering, this active empowering of administrators is counter
(45:23):
to the kind of freethinking, you know, people power that
the left is supposed to be about. Like back in
say the nineties and two thousands if or and before that,
people were protesting against the administration. The protests over the
last ten to fifteen years are demands that more administrators
(45:46):
be hired to cover particular areas and that more offices
be created and.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
Driven by by Obama or Title nine policies.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
And now those offices are being turned predictably as predicted
back against left. Yeah, yeah, I'll stop doing that.
Speaker 4 (46:03):
You're bankrupting working class people. You're bankrupting people on their way,
bankrupting people as they are on their way in the
course of upward mobility, supposedly as they're claiming their ticket
to the middle class. That higher education is supposed to
be punging people tens of thousands of dollars into debt
in large part to finance a thought regime basically, and
(46:28):
an inflexible thought regime at that. And I think it
took a lot of people on the left, and I
don't think the broader left is still cued into this basically,
but like it took people a little bit to realize
that these thought regimes actually are really restrictive. Not a
lot of sympathy for the conservative students who end up
on the wrong side of it and have for decades,
but especially over the course of the last decade post
(46:49):
Title nine Obama era regulations and post cancel culture and
all of that was a lot of sympathy for conservative students.
But this is actually wrong, is actually meant to advance
the interests of people who are using it as window
dressing for their basically neoliberal politics, and it's disgusting and
(47:13):
it's hollowing out. It's contributing to the hollowing out of
the middle class. We have people spilled blood to create
laws in this country that forbid discrimination on a racial basis,
sexual basis, that we have a lot of laws on
the books to do that. College campuses are unique environments,
I think, especially in terms of questions like sexual assault.
(47:34):
These are really serious conversations. But to say that these
administrations have become bloated as even an understatement. We have
just blown up universities in the name of not creating
thought restrictions, whatever that means.
Speaker 5 (47:47):
People.
Speaker 3 (47:48):
And meanwhile, not only is the budget now being sent
over to cops, which, like we said, earlis like an
onion headline, but the overreach has empowered the Stephen Miller's
of the world to then fight back against all efforts
to advance civil rights, in advance diversity in hiring, and
(48:10):
acceptance in general across the board. It's just getting the
baby is just getting thrown out with the bathwater. Because
I'm somebody who thinks that, Look, if you're grappling with
the legacy of racism, things don't just go away on
their own because you just want them to like it
takes actual affirmative action on the part of a society
to grapple with those legacies. And so even if that
(48:35):
means what the NFL called a roomy rule, which is like, look,
there is just a subtle there's a subtle sense in
the NFL back in the you know, it's not as
pronounced as it used to be at all. But for
years there were no black head coaches, and no black
head coaches were even getting no assistant coaches were even
getting interviewed for the jobs. So they create a rule.
(48:57):
It said, you have to interview somebody who's black or
who's not white. You know, we're not saying you have
to hire them, but for God's sake, just stop this
thing where you just call your four friends like you're
all your friends are white. And if you don't break
that cycle, that's just gonna how it's going to be
how it propels forward. And so the rules interview something
(49:18):
and then turned out like, oh, wow, this guy's really
good and we want to win, so we're hiring this guy.
And so even though he's not in our social circle,
he's not our friend. So you need you need, you
do need. I think if you're going to break the legacy.
And if you want a legacy to become a legacy
rather than the ongoing part of your culture, you need
some intervention like that. Instead, this kind of this uh
(49:40):
DEI at ideology metastasized and took over and became its
own thing, and it and then was rightly targeted by everybody,
and and some of the nefarious people like Miller are
gonna use it to toss everything out.
Speaker 4 (49:53):
It's definitely going to swing the pendulum or risks swing
swinging the pendulum back in a Yeah, like if I
if I'm on the left, yeah, I would have the
exact concerns that you do. And I even on the
right have concerns that there are people who will take
it too far. But this is, you know, probably not
an example of that. Although I would just give the
money back to the students in some way or another,
(50:15):
because two point three million dollars it's chump changed to
a university. But there's there's got to be a better
better use for it, certainly than the DEI administrators.
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