7/7/25: Texas Hit By Massive Floods, Elon Starts New Party, DOJ Says There Is No Epstein List

Krystal and Emily discuss Texas hit with massive floods, Elon starts new party, Trump DOJ says there is no Epstein list.

 

Jeremy Scahill: https://x.com/jeremyscahill 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good morning, everybody, Welcome to Breaking Points.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Sager is out.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I don't know if I can disclose the reason that
he's out.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
We can, oh, we can need just a message.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, he just respond So he's recording with Tucker right
now in Maine, reacting actually to the interview that Tucker
just dropped with the President of Iran. So Sager will
be back on Wednesday. So we've got the wonderful and
brilliant Emily Tchishinski in today for Sager.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
You're welcome everyone, No, I'm excited to hear all about
Sagers first. So I'm excited to listen to Sager's conversation
with Tucker and to hear all about what went on.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, indeed, And I'm going to try to get doctor
Parcion also to react to that interview once we've had
a chance to review it. But that certainly will be
in the show tomorrow a lot in the show today.
The death toll continues to rise after those horrific floods
in Texas, So we'll tell you the latest there, show
you some of the truly horrifying images and also all
of the questions over whether the response was impacted and
the death toll increased by those cuts made by Doge

(01:29):
at the beginning of this administration. Speaking of Elon, he
is officially launching the America Party, or at least he.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Says that he is. What will that mean politically?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
We also have this is sort of an Elon linked
story as well. Trump says Emily there is no Epstein conspiracy,
the Trump DOJ saying there was no client list. He
definitely killed himself releasing some video and a report. We
can all just put that to bed. Nothing to see here.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
We've now had what ten hours of video they released
last night. Yeah, so we'll get into it, but basically,
this was a Sunday night news dump to Axios for
some reason about how they're just fully closing the Epstein investigation. Yes,
six months into the Trump presidency. No, no information, everything's fine.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Right, No, no conspiracy, it's fine, it's fine. I don't
know why Glade Maxwell's in prison. Then if there was
no conspiracy, who was she trafficking to?

Speaker 4 (02:17):
I wish we will. That's not what Trump said a
few years ago. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Yeah, that's exactly what he said.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
And it's elon Links of course, because back when they
originally had their big blow up, he said Trump is
in the Epstein files, and that was sort of like
the nuclear bomb. And so now they're feuding again and
this is coming out and bb Nan Yahoo is in town, which,
by the way, later in the show, we're going to
talk to Jeremy Scalhill about the implications the potential for
a ceasefire, what's going on with Iran as BBE comes

(02:45):
back to town. We're also going to take a look
at a couple of media stories. Zoran Mondani being attacked
by the New York Times really interesting story.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
This one fascinating. Yeah, a lot of layers to peel back.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
There are, indeed, and this is all over the boxes
he checked when he was applying to Columbia University School.
By the way, he didn't even get into but there's
a lot going on there. We also have Tim Dillon
and Joe Rogan unhappy with the Trump administration over immigration specifically.
Rogan also talking a bit about Gaza, so really interesting

(03:17):
always to dig into that. And then Emily and I
are going to do an AMA Live.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
After this show.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
For those of you who are not premium members, if
you want to become premium members and be able to
access all of those AMAS Breakingpoints dot com. We so
appreciate all of your support. And with that, let's go
ahead and jump into the very latest out of Texas,
where we can put some of these images of the
flooding and the aftermath of the flooding in Texas Hill
Country right near San Antonio up on the screen. As

(03:45):
of this morning, we know the death toll is at
least eighty one. This marks one of the deadliest floods
in this country in a century.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
This is an area where flooding is not a known
but the rapidity and the extent of the flooding here
was absolutely catastrophic, made worse by the fact that you
had a lot of families on vacation in campers near
this river, and also tragically a girl's summer camp. You

(04:19):
can see here This is a father who is searching
amid the debris here for his eight year old daughter,
who continues to be missing. We know there are still
dozens of people who are unaccounted for, including ten from
this camp. I believe those were nine girls and one

(04:42):
camp counselor who continue to be missing from that camp.
And the death toll here obviously utterly devastating, and made
even more so by the fact that so many children
were impacted. We're going to get to some of the
political questions here, of course, and immediately people to into Hey,
you guys, Republican Trump administration, you just cut a bunch

(05:05):
of positions at the National Weather Service. You just cut
a bunch of positions at these local offices that are
not only supposed to handle the weather forecast but also
supposed to communicate with the community.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Is that part of why this death toll is so high?

Speaker 2 (05:19):
But before we get to that, Emily just your reaction
to the horror coming out of Texas right now.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
You know, I think, like a lot of people, I
spent the weekend basically trying to avoid these stories. The
father of the video of the father that we just
saw in particulars is still unimaginable. Yeah, that one just
stayed with me. We didn't hear it, but the audio
he says something to the extent of I know she
was here. And the fact that there are still ten

(05:44):
girls on accounting for, or ten people on accounted for
from the camp. Just thinking about what the families are
going through as you're sifting through debris from a flood
looking for little girls with the first responders whose job
it is to look for these little girls in the floodwaters.
Two of them, sisters were found clutching each other in

(06:07):
their arms. I mean, this is one of the worst,
one of the worst stories I think anyone can remember
reading in a long long time or living in a
long time.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Hopes are fading that they're going to find additional survivors
at this point, and the rescuers are concerned also because
there's war rain in the forecast, another significant rainfall in
the forecast for today, so you know, we are all
certainly thinking about those families who are impacted, those families
who are still holding out hope that their loved ones

(06:38):
will be found. And there was one remarkable rescue story
just recently, a young girl I think, who survived clinging
to a mattress, so you know, and there have been
obviously stories of absolute heroism from the rescuers. I know
one in particular rescue like one hundred and fifty girls
at this camp, so just absolutely horrific. At the same time,
as I said, you know a lot of questions here

(07:00):
what went wrong? And there's a lot of layers because
first of all, you have the question of, okay, the
forecast was wrong. The forecast underestimated the amount of rainfall
by about half, and so you're talking about very different
scenario when it's six inches of rain, still a lot
of rain, versus twelve inches, which is what ultimately fell.
You have questions about that, So that would be the

(07:20):
National Weather Service. You also have questions about, okay, well,
did the right warnings go out at the right time.
This was all complicated by the fact that this was
unfolding at nights, So of course you have people who
are asleep, so it may not necessarily be receiving all
of those alerts that are going out. And then the
other layer is okay, then you also have in these
local offices people whose job it is to communicate with

(07:40):
the community and make sure the community is prepared in
these events. So was that were those relationships still active?
Was that communication happening in the way that it could
so that the community community could fully prepare. Texas officials
came out pretty hot blasting the National Weather Service for
the inability to predict the amount of rainfall that actually

(08:04):
fell here. Let's go ahead and take a listen to
a little bit of fat.

Speaker 5 (08:06):
Original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National
Weather Service predicted three to six inches of rain in
the Concho Valley and four to eight inches of rain
in the Hill country. We worked with our own meteorologists
to fine tune that weather statement, and as many of
you know, and many of you in broadcast journalism indieurology,
you can go back and look at your own forecast,

(08:28):
and the amount of rain that fell in this specific
location was never in any of those forecasts.

Speaker 6 (08:32):
This rain event sat on top of that and dumped
more rain than what was forecasted on both of those forks.
When we got the report, it was about seven feet
or so on the South Fork, and within a matter
of minutes it was up to twenty nine feet and
all of that converged at the Guadalupe and that's where
we saw those very quick rise and flood.

Speaker 5 (08:52):
But listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service, right,
you all got it. You're all in media. You got
that forecast. It did not the amount of rain that
we saw.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
So Emily.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Look, sometimes weather forecasters sometimes they get it wrong. But
you also can't help but look at the fact that
the National Weather Service took significant hits from DOGE and
asked the question, would they have been better able to
estimate the amount of rainfall if they had full capacity here?
So what is your you know, what is your reaction

(09:24):
to that from these Texas officials, who, by the way,
I mean many of these Texas officials are Republicans who
supported the cuts. So the blame shifting here is also
a little bit rich.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, And in times like this, I always like to
go to people in the area who have some like
for Matt Lands as a meteorologist, a Texas based meteorologist,
and he posted on x in response to the Homeland
Security twitter feed. They posted this long thread about twelve
hours ago saying the mainstream media is deliberately lying about
the events leading up to the catastrophic flooding in Texas.

(09:55):
He responds and says the quote MSM isn't lying, They're
doing their job by asking completely and crucial questions since
the admin has proposed ring out essentially all NA research
in the twenty twenty six budget and as fire taken
by out some hundreds of NWS and boys in recent months.
He though, has an interesting take. He says, while the
local NWS office did good work during this event, the
reality is that these questions are perfectly valid and reasonable

(10:17):
given the circumstances, and yes, the office is still understaffed,
if not comparable to worse offices. He expanded on this
in a super interesting substack where he has basically complicated
meteorological language broken down in a more understandable way about
how you had just this. You had such a I

(10:37):
don't know, I'm trying to avoid using the first perfect storm,
but like, really that's what you had for something between
one and four in the morning to escalate like it
did in ways that just you can predict. But it's
such a when you have an area that's so prone
to flooding, you have like eight out of ten times
you get a flash flood warning, and sometimes it's bad,

(10:58):
but it's never this bad. And so he says, did
budget cuts play a role role? No, in this particular case,
we have seen absolutely nothing to suggests that current staffing
or budget issues with NAA and NW has played any
role at all in this event. Then he goes on
to say, in fact, weather balloon launchers played a vital
role in forecast messaging on Thursday night as the event
was beginning to unfold. But he said, use this event

(11:19):
as a symbol of the value of NAA and NWS
bring to society understanding that it's horrific and as this is, yes,
it could have always been worse. So where I find
myself as sort of I think the questions are entirely valid,
especially because Christal you alluded to this just moments ago.
It now seems like where the focus should be is
on what happened after the forecasting and as these warnings

(11:43):
were starting to hit. It's one in the morning, people
are asleep there's summer camps, there are children along the
river banks, was the message conveyed in ways that were reasonable.
I think these like these are entirely, entirely legitimate questions.
So we'll see as this comes out exactly what happened.
But when Republicans talk about cutting the administrative state, when

(12:06):
people like me talk about cutting the administrative straight administrative state,
and events like this happen, you always have to own it.
I mean, you'll always have to own it. When it
looks like there's a correlation. I don't know. I'm not
convinced that there is in this case. And I don't
have any particular position on whether the National Weather Service
was overstaffed, no idea, but you always end up politically

(12:27):
on the hook.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Yeah, let's go ahead and put the New York Times
up on the specifics regarding those vacancies in the local offices.
So they said, as flood's hit key roles were vacant
at the weather surface, crucial positions at the local offices
in the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall
inundated parts of Central Texas. Their San Angelo office, which

(12:51):
is responsible for some of the area's hit hardest by
Friday's flooding, they were missing a senior hydrologist, a staff forecaster,
and a meteorologist in charge. According to the legislative director
for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, that is the
union that represents those workers. The nearby San Antonio office,
which covers other areas that were hit by the floods,

(13:11):
also had significant vacancies, including and this is the one
that people have really focused in on, specifically, a warning
coordination meteorologist and science officer. THEFF members in those positions
are meant to work with local emergency managers to plan
for floods, including when and how to warn local residents
and help them evacuate. That office's warning coordination meteorologists left

(13:36):
on April thirty after taking the early retirement package. So
that was the member of the fork in the Road
email that went out from Elon from DOJE.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
So this guy took that offer.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
They used that offer, of course, to reduce the number
of federal employees.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Overall, and they did not rehire.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Someone, they go on to say, under the Trump administration,
so overall, the Weather Service, like other federal agencies, has
been pushed to reduce its number of employee.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
By this spring.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Through layoffs and retirements, the Weather Service had lost nearly
six hundred people. That's from a workforce that was only
four thousand, So six hundred down to four thousand is
a very significant cut. And so this individual in particular
who took the early retirement package, you know, I watch
videos of some of the local meteorologists talking about like,

(14:21):
this is the guy we know. This is the guy
we're constantly in communication with and talking about, you know,
and this is the person that the community knows. So
sometimes it is impossible to know what the impact is
ultimately of that person's departure, because even if you had
filled that slot, you don't have that individual who had
all of these relationships over all of those many years

(14:43):
and may have known to do something that was not
strictly inside of the protocol, but would have been thinking,
oh my god, this summer camp.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
I got to let them know.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
There's a lot of questions like that that I think
will probably forever be unanswered about the actual impact of
these cuts. Let's go ahead and put the local reporting
the next piece up on the screen here, just to
see how quickly this flooding escalated, which is horrifying. You
can see this chart here. This is from the Texas Tribune.
They say, in a Texas region prone to catastrophic floods,

(15:12):
questions grow about the lack of warning. And you can
see how quickly and how rapidly this escalated, with the
river reaching its peak of thirty six feet in height
at seven am on July fourth, leading to absolute devastation
and catastrophe. And so you know, Texas Tribune is not
just the New York Times and national outlets, it's also

(15:32):
you know, Texas Tribune that are asking some of these
same questions about whether or not these cuts played a
role in the absolutely devastating toll again worst one of
the worst floods in terms of death toll in a
century that unfolded here. And of course, you know there's
a climate change question to this as well, as we
see these catastrophic extreme weather events, these once in one

(15:56):
hundred year floods happening on now a decade by decade
more and more frequently. That's, you know, a big piece
of this.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
And then the other.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Part as well is you have the Trump administration not
only cutting FEMA, or sorry not in cutting the National
Weather Service, but also wanting to cut FEMA so that
in the wake of these horrific tragedies, you also have
a lesson ability to help people who have survived and
helped communities be able to rebuild. Let's go ahead and

(16:27):
go to a four. Trump yesterday evening got asked some
of these questions, both about FEMA and about whether the
cuts impacted the response and you know, created more death
and destruction in the.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Wake of these floods. Let's go ahead and take a
listen to that. Are you investigating whether some of the
cuts to the federal.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Government left tea vacancies of the National Weather Service or
the emergency For me.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
I did not.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
I'll tell you if you look at that that water situation,
that all is and that was really Biden set up.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
That was not our setup.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
But I wouldn't blame Biden for it either.

Speaker 5 (17:04):
I would just say, this is one hundred year catastrophe
and it's just so horrible to watch.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Are you still planning to phase out FEMA?

Speaker 6 (17:16):
Well, FEMA is something we could talk about later, but
right now they're busy working, so we'll leave.

Speaker 4 (17:23):
It at that.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Go ahead, and Emily, to me, it's particularly sick because
Trump ran aggressively on the response to Hurricane Helene, claiming
that the Biden administration didn't do enough there, which there
may well have been failures from the Biden administration, you know, FEMA.
I'm honestly not certain if there was more that they
could have done there or not. But he really positioned
himself in the closing days of the campaign as someone

(17:44):
who is going to be better on disaster preparedness and
disaster recovery, and then as soon as he gets in
office runs in the polar opposite direction. And not only
has he been talking about getting rid of FEMA altogether
and just sending it to the states, they're also diverting
FEMA funds too, for example building Alligator Alcatraz right now.
So again, you not only have the Doge chainsaw that

(18:07):
came in and cut the National Weather Service cut Noah,
this has been a long time Conservative priority. By the way,
it was in Project twenty twenty five. This didn't just
come out of nowhere. But not only do you have
the time, the way, Yeah, we can put that up
on the screen. This is something actually Soccer and I
were talking and I think you were talking about it too,
even before Trump got elected. When we were talking about
Project twenty twenty five. There's an ideological project, you know,

(18:30):
an attack here on the National Weather Service which comes
both out of an ideological commitment to just cutting the
government overall, but also out of ideological opposition to doing
anything about the climate crisis. And that's spelled on, you know,
quite clearly here that they feel the National Weather Service
is a key part of what they call the climate
change alarm industry. And so there was, you know, a

(18:54):
concerted effort to go after this, and so sometimes you know,
I think some of the Elon cuts, Doge cuts were
sort of random and haphazard. This one was planned out,
This one was messaged in advance, not that they talked
a lot about it on the campaign trail, but you know, Trump,
of course they're just shifting it to the side and saying, actually,
the water situation there is somehow Biden's fault.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
What's interesting also about this is people remember the leaked
video of russ vote talking about how the goal was
to demoralize bureaucrats. So we talked about some of the
cuts Crystal earlier this year affecting tornado warnings, and I
pulled up an Associated Press article from May that said,

(19:38):
as of March some of the Weather Service offices issuing
tornado warnings Friday and Sunday were above the twenty percent
vacancy levels that outside experts have said as a critical threshold.
So those are offices with twenty five nine thirty two
percent vacancy rate and for example Wichita. And what's interesting
about that vacancy rate, that's positions that are unfilled that

(19:58):
they are trying to fill. That is not positions that
were cut, which is really the sort of public marketing
of DOGE is that we are slashing, kind of permanently slashing.
The idea was the size of the federal government. These
are people who were, in all likelihood to the point
that we were just talking about in the Kervel area,

(20:20):
they were driven out of the work. It took early retirements,
they decided to go work in the private sector. And
so I think it does crystal reflect on DOGE overall
when you say these are positions that are actually not
being cut, they're just vacant. They're just completely like they're
some of these If it's a vacancy, that implies that

(20:41):
they don't want to get rid of the position because
they're still actively filling the position, which is very different
from just slashing the size of the offices totally.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
What also speaks to so for this individual in particular,
who was known for doing the local coordination and was
a veteran and took the early buyout.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
It also speaks to the fact that a lot of
the people that.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Were pushed out were some of the most effective, some
of the people that you would actually want to keep
and prioritize keeping. So all the language about doj oh,
we need to get back to merit, et cetera, et cetera,
but then the actual program that they used to go
about doing this was almost tailor made to push out

(21:25):
some of the most senior and most valuable individuals throughout
the federal government who would be the most difficult to replace.
And I went and look this guy up. He's on LinkedIn.
He's now doing Yeah, private consulting. Who went to private industry. Yeah,
that's exactly what happened here. And so those vacancies continued
to remain, But there's a hiring freeze at the agency,

(21:46):
so it's not like they have the possibility of hiring
it to fill these positions. Even and then they also
things like the member there was that freeze on any
sort of expense reimbursement so that there was an inability
to travel, to coordinate between you know, from the state
office to the local communities, et cetera. So you know,
I was telling you I was watching the This is

(22:08):
going to seem like a total diversion, but I promise
it connects. I was watching the Titan Submersible right documentary
on Netflix, And when you see that dude's Docton Rush
who went down with the ship, the way he went
about doing things, and just like there was no cost
to all of the like I'm not going to get

(22:28):
my submersible classed and inspected by the federal government. I'm
not going to play by the rules. I'm an innovator.
And he talked about how he molded himself after Elon Musk.
There were so many personalities similarities there where it's just
like these guys think that none of this stuff matters,
Like there aren't going to be any real world impacts

(22:49):
of their willingness to cut corners and do things however
they want to do them. I mean, you see it
with Elon too, with like the USAAD cuts. He's in
total denial that that has impacted anyone's life lives. Obviously,
even if you're someone who doesn't like USAID, you have
to be honest and admit, of course, when you pull
funding for medicine away from kids who need it, that's

(23:10):
going to impact people's lives. And so there were huge
warnings here about what this could ultimately mean for life
and death. The living heads of the National Weather Service,
all of the previous heads, they put out an open letter.
We can put this up on the screen. This is
a seven warning of exactly this. They said that NWS

(23:31):
staff will have an impossible task to continue their current
level of service. Some forecast offices will be so short
staff they may be forced to go to part time services.
Not only are there fewer forecasters, there are fewer electronic
technicians who are responsible for maintaining the critical nextroad radars.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Our worst nightmare.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed there
will be needless loss of life. We know that's a
nightmare shared by those on the forecasting frontlines and by
the people who depend on their efforts.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
So they weren't of this.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
There was actually a warning from a Florida forecaster, again,
a veteran meteorologist down in South Florida. That went viral
at the time and is now going viral again because
he also is sounding the alarm about what these cuts
could mean as we had right now we're already into
hurricane season. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

Speaker 7 (24:20):
When is it going to turn, John, It's not turning,
It's coming straight to us.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
It's going to turn.

Speaker 7 (24:27):
The turn will come Monday afternoon, Monday evening into Tuesday.
Remember that that was.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
About six years ago.

Speaker 7 (24:36):
That was Hurricane Dorian. As it was absolutely devastating the
northwest Bahamas as a Category five sat over that region
for two days. It was headed straight west. Lots of
people in Florida were concerned the hurricane was heading here. Confidently,
I went on TV and I told you it's going
to turn. You don't need to worry. It is going
to turn. And I am here to tell you that

(24:59):
I'm not sure I can do that.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
This year.

Speaker 7 (25:03):
Because of the gut cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack
on science in general. And I could talk about that
for a long long time. Let's talk about the federal
government cuts to the National Weather Service and to Noah,
did you know that Central and South Florida National Weather
Service offices are currently basically twenty to forty percent understaffed

(25:27):
from Tampa to Key West, including the Miami office twenty
to forty percent understaffed. Now, this type of staffing shortage
is having impacts across the nation because there's been a
nearly twenty percent reduction in weather balloon releases launches that
carry those radio signs, and what we're starting to see
is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded.

(25:50):
There's also a chance because of some of these cuts
that NAWA Hurricane Hunter aircraft will not be able to
fly this year, and with less reconnaissance missions, we may
be flying blind and we may not exactly know how
strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline, like
happened a couple of years ago in Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
What you need to do is.

Speaker 7 (26:12):
Call your representatives and make sure that these cuts are stopped.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Dire warning there that was I think back in February
from that South Florida forecaster, and you know the immediate
wake of these cuts, and there are a lot of
questions about what happened here. And I think it's fair
to say we don't know at this point whether the
cuts made a difference here or not, but a lot
of questions you can't help but ask, did the cuts
to the National Weather Service, these local offices, these vacancies,

(26:40):
these individuals who had longtime expertise in this community, longtime
relationships in this community. Could those people have made a
difference here if they hadn't been pushed out, if these
offices were not you know, understaffed, with these significant vacancies,
And it's horrifying to see. And certainly this won't be

(27:00):
the last time that these questions are raised, either with
regard to National Weather Service or anything else. And you know, Emily,
this is anecdotal, but I will say we were, you know,
we were at the beach last week. We try to
plan out like our daily schedule. The forecasts were the
worst I have ever seen.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
They were.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
I was looking on the weather app which gets all
of that information comes from the federal government, and it
was just like, wildly wrong every single day. Yeah, and
I look again, weather forecasts in the best of funding
times can be wrong.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
But I look at them.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Like this could be doge, Like this could the reason
that this is all wrong could very well be that
they just don't have the resources to accurately forecast the
way that they used to and it's you know, contributes
to the sense of it. Also, like the loss of
life here is obviously the critical thing to focus on
in the fact that this is a major possibility again

(27:50):
as we head into like the worst of hurricane season.
I think this is a dire warning for the country
about the track we're on.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
And it's also just this sense of decline.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Like things that we used to be to do, used
to be able to keep planes in there without like
you know, crashing into each other, crashing into a helicopter
or whatever. We can't forecast, we can't prepare the way
that we could even a decade ago. I mean that
is it's with horrifying and tragic consequences.

Speaker 4 (28:16):
Well, and I'm very curious to see if this creeps
into the abundance conversation at all, given that Texas is
such a focal point of the debate between Texas California
as an argument for abundance. Because Mike Baker the New
York Times runs down. Yeah, see he's been running down.
He has a thread on X Ray. He's running down
all of the apparent, ostensible local cracks that led to

(28:41):
the situation that transpired on Friday, And it's pretty interesting.
You know, the people didn't want to, for example, pay
for what they saw is way too expensive warning signs
or warnings sirens. So there are a lot of I
think important questions that are going to be asked because
of all of this. The quick thought on the political

(29:03):
component that we were just talking about. I mean, I'm
sure that there are defensible cuts to the National Weather Service.
I have no idea how many they are. I don't
even know what they look like. I'm sure you can
find an argument that there would be a more efficient
NWS or Noah whatever with a couple of precise cuts scalpel,
not sledgehammers, and not. What they ended up saying is
those was sort of teetering on the brink. But the

(29:27):
must mentality has probably damaged the project of making a
more efficient federal government for a generation because now it
is inextricably emotionally viscerally linked with everything that happens afterwards.
Sometimes it'll be fair, sometimes it won't be fair. But

(29:47):
either way, these the way that he I just wanted
to make that point about Stockton Rush that you brought up,
I think that's super incisive because it's this people who
come from the tech world, who are super online and
or the highest echelons of business, and you know, they're airs.
I think Stockton Rush was an air, right, like yeah,

(30:08):
it was yeah right, and just tinkering with life and
death in a way that I think lacks the gravity
and the consequence of the decision making, and that I
don't know the project of like actually shrinking the scope
of the federal government will ever recover from, at least
in the next couple decades, not to mention.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, Elan, I'll tell you, first of all, they
didn't save any money, no, no, none. They cost the
federal government money to make it worse. They made the
federal government worse and less efficient and it costs more money. Right,
And they just passed the big beautiful bill which is
going to blow up the den and the deficit. So
if there was any pretense of, oh, this is all

(30:48):
to get our spending under control, you know, because we
have such a large debt and deficit, I mean no,
you just you just made things worse.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
That's it. That's what you accomplished.

Speaker 4 (31:00):
That is the perfect segue into our next walk, which
is the America Party is now I guess official, Crystal.
We're going to learn more about filings and such in
the days ahead, but let's put the first element on
the screen. Elon Musk on the fourth of July tweeted
Independence Days of the perfect time to ask if you
want independence from the two party some would say uniparty system.

(31:20):
He started tweeting, like Trump, it's interesting, should we create
the America Party?

Speaker 3 (31:24):
You know, because just a pause on that. Sorry.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
One of my biggest pet peeves on the left, One
of my biggest pet paves is these people who all
will talk like Obama, Yes forever, Pete and Beato and
Corey Booker, and there's Josh Pier or whatever.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
On the right.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
The way everyone posts like Trump and tries to talk
like Trump is so annoying and grading, like can people
please have their own personality?

Speaker 4 (31:50):
It's not only annoying and grading, it is also, I
don't know, Crystal, a little homo erotic. I see a post.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
From how about all the Daddy posting about Trump? It's
how about that?

Speaker 4 (32:06):
It's a lot sometimes, but sometimes you see a post
from like I don't know, Charlie Kirk. He's really bad
about it. He posts like when Trump started getting more
and more popular back like ten years ago. Now his
style changed so conspicuously on Twitter anyway, this is entirely
beside the point. But like Elon is playing that game

(32:29):
as well now. But his poll results on x This
is another super Trumpian thing, right, Chris Well. Remember when
Trump during the twenty fifteen to sixteen debates against other
Republican candidates would constantly be citing Twitter polls, like in
the debates and in media.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
Does this time, remember he was citing that cat Turn poll.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Here you go by a factor of two to one.
You want a new political party, Elon Musk says, and
you shall have it because people who follow Elon Musk
on Twitter he apparently got one point two million votes,
said that they want a new political party. Now, that
is not a question that says they want an America
party necessarily, it says, you know, we live in a
one party system, not a democracy. So that could mean

(33:08):
a lot of different things. But it's really there's no
point in parsing the seriousness of this pole at social media.
But Trump responded to this and this is our next element.
This is B one B with a very long post
on X where he says, I am saddened to watch

(33:28):
Elon Musk or on True Social Elon Musk go completely
off the rails, essentially becoming a train wreck over the
past five weeks. He even wants to start a third
political party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded
in the United States. The system seems not designed for them.
Seems yes, excellent.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Never is an overstatement that anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Yeah, he is from the Republican Party, which third parties. Yes,
and then he goes on, I mean this is like
a three hundred word post on True Social. He goes
on to talk about the ev mandate. He says, my
number one charge is to protect the American public. So
they were trading barbs all weekend basically. Musk then went

(34:13):
on to say the Republican Party has a clean sweep
of the executive, legislative and judicial branches and still has
the nerve to massively increase the size of the government,
expanding the national debt by a record five trillion dollars. So, Crystal,
this all happened as promised after Donald Trump on the
fourth of July, he got his perfect ceremonial moment signed

(34:35):
the one big Beautiful bill at the White House on
the fourth of July. That is what Elon Musk said,
basically would be the infantos for the America Party. And
just very quickly the next element he is now saying
that he could target just two to three Senate seats
in eight to ten house districts by basically as this
person he interacts with a lot on ex Mario Naffal, Yeah, says,

(34:58):
skipping the national circuit hit where margins are razor thin.
Now that's actually a very smart political strategy.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
But it's a.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Smart political strategy if you want to hand Democrats those
two to three Senate stats in eight to ten house districts.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
There it is, Yes, that's what you That's exactly what
will in all likelihood happen.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
And by the way, Elon interacted with this post, which
gave me the sense that this was at least somewhat
in the ballpark of what is actually happening here. Because no,
Fall is not always the most reliable character and it
drives me crazy, like the so many digressions today, but
the downgrading of links in the Twitter algorithm has made
it so obnoxious so that you know, people like you
can't go and check easily what people are actually saying

(35:42):
with the used to be that you posted the links
so you can go actually see anyway.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
So the Trump post is still very interesting to me.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Because yes it's long and goes after Elon and says
he's gone off the rails or whatever. It still feels
so mild to me to what he says about you know,
I remember how humiliated Ronda Santas came to me in tears.
It is us and he needs just like he knows
how to absolutely humiliate people, and he doesn't really do

(36:13):
that in fact.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
To be honest with you, I'm.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
I you know, I don't like either of these guys.
I hope both of them fail. The points he made
about Elon were pretty reasonable. He's like, oh, he's mad
about his EV subsidies and he's mad that he didn't
get his like handpicked guy in t NASA so that
he could get whatever he wanted for SpaceX like.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
True, yeah, true, correct.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Perfectly reasonable points there, and so I don't know, it's
just interesting to me. And then this will tie into
the Epstein black too, since Elon had floated previously like hey,
Trump's on the you know, a pedo basically Trump's on
the Epstein clientless and then once they sort of like
calmed the waters, he deleted those posts and said he
had gone too far.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
So I don't know. But in terms of the America Party.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Do I think this is going to be some successful
effort to supplant either of the two main parties, which
is what a third party actually has to do in
order to find significant success. No, I don't think so,
especially because what is it even, Like what is the
ideology here? I mean I got he's talking, yeah, deficit reduction, Okay,
then like what are the other pieces that go along

(37:26):
with that? And very unclear because Elon's ideology has been
kind of all over the place. I saw we could
put just to steal man the argument for this sort
of like neoliberal austerity direction of a third.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Party, which is not a new idea.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
I mean, go talk to the no labels people, go
talk to the Third Way people like this is their
whole bag. And there's very little public support, while I
think there is massive public support for like, hey, we'd
like we're frustrated with this political system. We are frustrated
with these two political parties. We would like some options
other than.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
D or R. That would be great.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
But then when you actually get down to the details
of oh, it's going to be a neoliberal austerity party
run by and for a billionaire, then that seems like.

Speaker 4 (38:11):
A little money in China, right, a little.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Right the America Party by a billionaire who makes this
money in China. I guess that is American actually, But
in any case, you know, the public support for that
starts to dwindle pretty quickly once you get into that territory,
especially at a time when Elon Musk has completely nuked
his own personal favorability ratings, certainly with Liberals but also
with Republicans, with Maga Republicans. At this point, Nate content

(38:37):
analysis saying, hey, you never know, this was from a
little while ago.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
B five guys who could put this up.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
On the street, saying again, to steal me in the
case this is Nate Code's analysis. He says, listen, if
the two major parties truly go in this more populist
direction where you know, you're doing tariffs and you're doing
industrial policy, and you're doing you know, big spending, and
you know maybe the Democrats actually go in a sort

(39:05):
of like Zoron AOC direction.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
This was pree Zorn.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
But anyway, maybe the Republicans, you know, they actually go
in this more populous nationalist stee Bannon type direction, and
then you're left with these neoliberal business market types who
don't really have a home. Then maybe there starts to
be some logic for this centrist third party. But you know,
to me where that analysis falls apart. It's like, I

(39:30):
think neoliberals already have two parties.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Yeah, that continue to serve them.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
I mean, this giant bill that just passes a big
tax cut for the rich. You know, the tariffs have
ended up certainly not being the revolutionary change at this
point that Trump had originally advertised.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
These backed off the most maximums.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Position, and that's very responsive to the needs and desires
of billionaire oligarchs.

Speaker 4 (39:52):
By the way, Yeah, that was big news over the weekend,
right and it's unclear exactly what's going to happen as
of right now, but they moved the July ninth tariff
tariff deadline to August first, and they're saying many more
deals are going to come. So for they have the
UK Vietnam and China. But they right now are even

(40:13):
as we speak, actually like trying to do what they've
been doing since April at this point, right there was
a July ninth deadline, and now it's it's suddenly August first,
a couple of days beforehand. So it just underscores exactly
what you were saying.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, And then so there's both the fact that I think,
you know, neoliberals have plenty of places politically or not
politically homeless far from it.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
And we'll see what happens the.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Democratic primary in twenty twenty eight, whether there is any
sort of significanthit.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
I think it's possible.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
I think there's a real rupture over a kind of
actually litmus test around Gaza that may end up shifting things.
But that's another conversation for another day.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
But the other question is, like the public is done
with this.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
So, yeah, you may have a lot of like rich
business people, and this has always been the thing with
Third Way and with no.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Labels and whatever.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
The problem is not getting a bunch of rich business
people to be like, hey, let's have tax gets and
do regulation. The problem is that public support for that
at a time when the ideology of you know, standard
Reagan Clinton neoliberalism is so broken and failed, and what
people are desperately questing for is something different that is
actually going to work and be responsive to the concerns

(41:19):
of a modern age.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Well, and this is where I think Nate Cohn's analysis
the history of it was I think really helpful context.
But he says over the last few years a new
constituency has begun to emerge. For now does not have
a home in either party, and it's not clear that
either party will be able to easily accommodate its demands.
He says it favors things like deficit reduction, deregulation, free trade,
and high skilled immigration. And Chrystal, I do not think

(41:42):
that is a constituency that exists outside of Wall Street
and Silicon Valley, right, That is not a mass constituency.
And that's really the problem with quote unquote America Party.
It's not that most Americans are satisfied with the two
party system. Basically nobody is satisfied with the two party system.
That doesn't mean it's still the It doesn't win in

(42:03):
a lesser of two evils versus some type of different
system like UK or a lot of Europe. But at
the same time, this idea that there's a massive appetite
for what does keln say, deficit reduction, deregulation, free trade,
and high skilled immigration. This is also interesting because that's
basically the Republican Party that Donald Trump changed forever. Like,

(42:27):
if you can describe it like that deficit reduction, deregulation,
free trade, in high schilled immigration, that is what every
other twenty fifteen twenty sixteen Republican primary candidate was saying
that they were in favor of. Donald Trump created a
third party within the Republican Party essentially, and its success
is still post Trump up in the air, Like, we
actually don't know what's going to happen to the Republican

(42:47):
Party after Trump, and there's certainly no constituency for the
old Republican Party. So the idea that maybe a bunch
of billionaires, this is exactly what you're saying, could create AstroTurf,
another no labels or third way. Yeah, of course you can.
I mean you can pump a bunch of money into it.
You can maybe win a couple of Yeah, you can
win a couple of house races. Whatever. That doesn't mean

(43:11):
that he's breaking the third party system. I just think
that's the idea that that's actually gonna happen is obviously absurd,
but yeah, it's got a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Yeah, no, he does.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
And listen, my fondest hope would be for all of
the people that you mentioned to basically put themselves in
some fringe third party and consign themselves.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
To a relegancy and elect Democrats in the process.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Do that to go ahead.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
You gonna have Andrew Cuomo, you got Michael Bloomberg, you
have Mark Cuban. There's all speaking. Mark Cuban, put B
six up on the screen. He's very open to this.
Andrew Yang also, come on, Andrew, Andrew, Liz, I have
so much affection for Andrew m I absolutely do, and
I genuinely, you know, and I still still talk to
him like semi regularly, Like I genuinely think his focus

(43:56):
is like we need to change it, like this system
is not working. And so anybody who's like, let's let's
do with something different things is like, yes, let's do it.
But then Cuban, I mean, it's just too it's just
too perfect. Cuban is out there like, oh, I can
help you get ballid access.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Good, go for it, buddy, do it, do it well.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
See, this is one of the problems that con identifies
is that typically people who are dissatisfied with the two
party system don't agree unmuch. Therefore, there's never a route
really towards a third party because to cobble together the
people upset about left and right, you have to also
have some type of thread. You have to have some

(44:35):
type of unifying factor other than we just don't like
the other two parties. And if Musk thinks that it's
the national debt, that's insane, Like it's another thing that
people are upset about, of course, but it's nobody's priority, right.
Like again, if you polled most Americans and said, is
the national debt a problem? And do you not like
the two party system right now? People would be like, yeah,
I've got like, yes, don't like the two party system.

(44:56):
National debt is a big deal. We're you know, we
wish that the name should have had its fiscal house
in order. Most Americans would absolutely agree with both of
those things. That doesn't mean that it's their top voting priority. Well,
that they're going to be coerced into voting for a
third party when other people are speaking to their priority,
not to mention.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Okay, yeah, in theory just like those was kind of
popular at the beginning.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yeah. Oh, should we cut the spent sure?

Speaker 6 (45:21):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Should government be more efficient?

Speaker 1 (45:22):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Should we gut the National Weather Service and FEMA so
that you know, little girls die in a flood?

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Should we do that?

Speaker 4 (45:31):
Or should we push the most expense or the most
experienced people out out? Should we?

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Do you want your Social Security cut? Do you want
your Medicare cut? Because Musk again is a gigantic federal
government contractor with the with the Pentagon, So it's not
going to be the military budget, I can tell you
that much, which also did not happen underdos that were cuts.
Yes to National Weather Service, No cuts the military.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
We just put a bunch of money into the military.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
Right, That's exactly right, Which is why just to go
back to your point about Trump, you know, I think
it is both fair to say to change the Republican
Party and fair to say that there are a lot
of just ramping up the previous Republican Party priorities in Trump.
And I think BBB is the perfect example of that.
The one big beautiful bill where you get you know,

(46:17):
cuss the Social safetyment, very Paul Ryan, us cuss the
social safety net.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
You get very.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Paul Ryan tax CITs literally drafted by like Paul Ryan
and his accolyadtes tax cuts that predominantly benefit the wealthiest
among us. You get a massive escalation in the military budget. Again,
these are key Republican priorities, and you know, Republicans have
I think he has significantly upped the rhetoric and the

(46:45):
I would say cruelty surrounding the immigration and deportation program.
But that's also not entirely new to the Republican Party.
I think that is the part that maybe is the
biggest break from the Republican Party the past, because I mean,
making ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency, making that
budget larger than the military budget of many significant countries

(47:08):
like Brazil and Israel. Like that, I mean, that is
that is truly different now. I think things like the terriffs,
the difference different approach to China, those sorts of things
are a genuine break. But it also can be overstated
how much the Trumpian approach is truly a break from
the Republican pass When you've got cuts to social safety net,

(47:31):
tax cuts, for the rich and a giant national security state.
That seems pretty consistent with the you know, Reagan era
Republican Party all the way up till today.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
But Trump voters are probably not going to be super
satisfied with it, and that'll be interesting to see how
the Republican Party deals with going.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Forward trying to get on board with it.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
You know, Well, the Trump base is different, things like
the independence right, people who voted Trump or typical Republican
voter whatever it is, or people who went like Obama
Trump and are not big they're not going to the rallies.
But then they realize the man who promised not to
cut Medicaid now has a plan in place that requires
them to jump through all these hoops. Plus they lose

(48:10):
their medication something like that. Yeah, we'll see, because I
think that's one of the biggest unanswered questions open questions
in politics, is what happens after Trump to the Republican Party.
What does it is just revert because one big, beautiful
bill suggests potentially reversion in the future. Now, on the
other hand, we got to roll this clip B three

(48:30):
of Steve Bannon because this gets to the question what
happens to the Republican Party after Donald Trump. One person
who's not going anywhere is Steve Bannon, and he has
a new nickname, and it's Elmo the Mook.

Speaker 8 (48:41):
That's always human nature.

Speaker 4 (48:42):
This is what we have here in the United States.

Speaker 8 (48:44):
You have MAGA, you have the hardest core opposition to MAGA,
and you have a lot of people kind of in
the middle scene which way the buffoon, Elmo the Mook,
formerly known as Elon Musk, Elmo the Mock. He's today
in another smear and this only a foreigner could do this.

(49:07):
Think about it. He's got up on he's got up
on h on Twitter right now, a poll abt starting
an America Party, a non American starting an America party. No, brother,
you're not an American. You're a South African.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
And if.

Speaker 8 (49:24):
We take enough time and proved the facts of that,
you should be deported because there's a crime of what
you did among.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
Many and so christ Oll Bannon, I would say, is
arguably more so than Trump, uh the sort of primary
gatekeeper champion of what the mega agenda should look like
based on his sense of the mega base. And he
has been critical of Dough, She's been critical of one
big beautiful bill and you know, ultimately trusts Donald Trump,

(49:55):
as he would say, But at the same time it
is sort of signaling waving the red flag, the warning
flags and being like this is veering off course. So
the idea that Elon Musk, I mean, it all is
so naive. And I think this is a fair criticism
that Andrew Yang has gotten over the years. Like a
bunch of Mark Cuban, there are a bunch of guys

(50:16):
in the business world who for years have said, like,
we just need to run the country a little bit
more like a business. We need a break from the past.
We can do this cash infusion and disrupt and all
of that. But it's it's like turning the Titanic around.
And Elon Musk thinking that because Donald Trump sort of
surgically attached him to MAGA, meant that the MAGA base

(50:39):
wanted to prioritize austerity and actually putting the debt first
and foremost above anything else. That was just that was
always crazy, Like the idea of the Republican Party was
ever going to actually cut the debt is completely insane.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Well, and here's the other thing is Elon Musk is
not genuine about this. He doesn't have any problem with
his subsidies that he gets for the federal government.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
It says he does, but he doesn't, right.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
I mean, look, Obama rescued SpaceX and Tesla Tesla. Yeah,
and you know Elon is Look, I think the EV
credits are good. I think we should have the EV credits.
I think we should be doing industrial policy around electric
vehicles and the energy generation of the future.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
Like Elon and I.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Are aligned on that. But you know, these guys don't
actually want small government. They want a government that gives
them what they want. And that is exactly the problem
with the government is that is way too responsive to billionaires.
It has created these billionaires who have been able to
generate I mean most of these billionaires, they have been
able to rig the system and create monopolies. So it's

(51:39):
not like they really want a fair and competitive playing field.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Quite the opposite. Many of these people absolutely despise.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Lena Khan and her efforts to try to create actual
market competition. And the other big problem at the core
of this of this government that I'm talking about I'm
not just talking about the Trump administration now, I'm talking
about over decades, is that they have outsourced any sort
of values and principles to market logic and thought that

(52:06):
the markets would just figure it out for them, you know,
to the like extent that even the FAA basically like
the airlines regulate themselves. I mean, this is the sort
of thing that happened during the neoliberal era. We went
way too far in the direction of catering to the
Elon Musks and the Mark Cubans of the world. So
that's what people are revolving against. The idea you're going

(52:29):
to have any sort of grassroots, like, you know, mass
support for this type of effort. I think it's preposterous,
but that doesn't None of this is to say that
it can't have some significant impact when you're talking about Look,
what's the House margin at this point.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Is like three seats or something. It's very close. In
the House.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
There's another retirement, a guy in what Tennessee is retiring
something like that. Anyway, there's another House Republican retirement. It's
very narrow in the House. The Senate is also fairly narrow,
although there's a bit more of an edge for Republicans there.
If you field some candidates in a couple of key
seats that can absolutely be enough to take away let's say,

(53:08):
four percent from the Republican Party and hand some seats
to Democrats. So I'm not saying that it won't have
any impact. What I am saying is that it will
not have the impact that Elon Musk is purporting that
it will have.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
If it has impact, it will be disproportionate to the
actual national appetite for what he's calling for, because it'll
be like massive cash infusions that throw races in one
direction or the other, not that capture the imagination of
millions of Americans who want the debt to be prioritized
in their political lives.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Right.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
And it's one of the saddest things about the situation
our political leads have put us in is that you
now have, for example, Trump voters who are on Medicaid
who again, just as an example, let's say they think
the national debt is way too high. But at the poll,
you now have a billionaire demanding that they put this

(54:04):
abstract question of the national debt, which you know, I
agree with Elon Musk and others that it has a
serious effect on inflation. I don't think you can really
say it doesn't. It's like pretty obvious that the higher
the debt goes, the more that our budget is like
paying interest on the national debt. That yes, prices are
higher because of all this, and that is a significant problem.

(54:25):
But you're asking people then to table their immediate urgent interests.
It's the billionaire who can afford us, you know, to
feed his family even though it's massive, and put food
on his table and pay all of his bills, saying
that the American people should should table their immediate, every
day kitchen table issues in the interest of this like

(54:48):
abstract question of the national debt that just is not
a constituency that exists.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Well, and they're going to ask you to sacrifice they're
not going to well, yeah, of course they're not going
to sacrifice their federal government subsidies. They're not going to
be willing to pay any more. In tact, it's all
going to come out from the people who can afford
it the least, which is why it's such a thoroughly
should be a thoroughly discredited political project.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
And when they fuck up, they get bailed out. Silicon
Valley Bank. I mean, it's absolutely over and over again. Yeah,
so it's insane. Finally, Musk did complain, well, he's had
some a couple of interesting moments of self awareness, like
you could just see like a glimmer of self awareness.
A couple of times since he's gone back to posting
a bunch on X and one of them was him

(55:29):
saying that the chainsaw in retrospect actually looked like it
lacked empathy, no kidding, caancing around with the chainsaw at seapack.
But another one was him saying that Trump was happy
to have him when his poll numbers were higher, but
now that they're lower and Musk is less popular, you know,
Trump is less inclined to keep him around. And Nate

(55:50):
Silver does have an interesting net favorability of chart of ELM.
Muss dating back to before he endorsed Trump, starting in
twenty twenty four, and he is he does have a
higher net favorability. It was up around like at its
highest in twenty twenty four seven plus seven percent. In
January twenty twenty four, right before he endorses Trump, it's
like plus four percent, and it actually though declines after

(56:14):
the Trump term begins, so it sort of stabilizes between
the endorsement and the election, but after Trump takes office
and Doge becomes an actual government program, which it was
only supposed to be this outside advisory council. It starts
to dip precipitously, like that's when it starts. Is really
when Doge becomes real. So Musk, you know, kind of
has himself to blame for the situation he finds himself in.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
I would say so for sure.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
All right, So we talk about this latest with regard
to Epstein, because this is just you can't make it up.
And as I said before, it connects to Elin because
he threw out there. Oh, by the way, Trump is
on the Trump is in the Epstein files, which Trump
and Epstein were friends. Trump was on Epstein's plane multiple times.
Trump is pictured at parties with Jeffrey Epstein, so he
is in Epstein files. Exactly what that entails maybe another matter.

(57:04):
In any case, we now have gone from the Trump
administration promising doing their big photo op with the influencers,
remember this where they got their binders Epstein files Phase
one and Pambondy out there saying I've got the client
list on my desk, I'm reviewing thousands of hours of videos.
We're going to get you the truth to Now let's

(57:25):
put this up on the screen. They're saying, nothing to
see here, nothing to see here whatsoever. The DOJ and
the FBI conclude Epstein had no client list.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
There was no client list, no client list.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
He committed suicide.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
Absolutely no indication that he was killed and that he
had any sort of black mare material on any powerful people.
They sound say, specifically, investigators found quote no incriminating client
list of Epstein's.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
Pause right there. Yeah, the language, this is written by
lawyers the Department of Justice. No incriminating clientient list, which
is not the same thing as no client list. Incriminating
is a very subjective term, which could mean that there
are a bunch of names in the Epstein book. Basically,
we know this, and it's true that not all of

(58:17):
those people are incriminated by Jeffrey Epstein mingling with them
at a Harvard business fundraising lunch and taking their number down.
Absolutely absolutely, that is a hell of a wiggle word,
right there.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
So, no incriminating client list, no credible evidence that Epstein
blackmailed prominent individuals, and no evidence that could predicate an
investigation against uncharged third parties.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
And this there you go.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
As by the way, Pam Bondy said just a couple
of months ago that the Epstein client list was on
her desk. Now the DOJ is saying there is quote
no incriminating client list, which has been interpreted as them
saying there's no client list, understandably because you would think
that a client of Epstein would be not just a

(59:08):
financial client of Epstein. But it's implied when Pam Bondi
says she has the quote unquote client list on her
desk just a couple of months ago, that is sex
trafficking clients of Jeffrey Epstein. That's what she was implying
when she said it. So for the DOJ to now,
just a couple of months later say there's no incriminating
Epstein client list is an incredibly suspicious I don't even

(59:32):
need to say it, but it's an incredibly suspicious flip
flop that is being done with some careful language, and
absolutely nobody is buying it. People in MAGA world are
not buying it. Nobody is buying it. The question is
how important it is to the people who are not
buying it, And I think it's going to be pretty
damn important. You think so, yes, I think so, based

(59:54):
on what I've seen so far? What have you seen
so Robbie Starbuck, Mike Cernovich. A lot of these online
and MAGA influencers are absolutely furious. And of course they're
taking it out more on Pam Bondy than they are
on Donald Trump, more because Bondi has so far and
some of that actually might be reasonable. Julie K. Brown,
who has done some of the most important Epstein reporting,

(01:00:14):
posted back in February. It's interesting to note that Pam
Bondi was Florida's attorney general from twenty eleven to twenty nineteen,
a period of time when Jeffrey Epstein's plane records became public,
victim's lawsuits were filed, and a lot of new evidence
against Epstein's surface. So questions should be asked about why
she didn't take up the case or launch a probe
when she was attorney general in Florida. And this is

(01:00:37):
a persistent problem for the Trump administration. This happened, actually
the suicide, the quote unquote suicide of Jeffrey Epstein happened
on Trump. And by the way, Bill Barr's watch, Bill
Barr's dad was the first person to give Jeffrey Epstein
that job. At a private boarding school. Despite the very
strange qualifications he would have very very strange. It happens

(01:00:58):
on Bill Barr's watch. He is Attorney General of the
United States. Alex Acosta, donald Trump's first labor secretary, was
involved in the Sweetheart play deal in Florida and said
at the time he was told Jeffrey Epstein belonged to
intelligence and to leave it alone. Pam Bondi was ag
from twenty eleven to twenty nineteen. Trump himself was obviously,

(01:01:20):
as Crystal mentioned earlier, very friendly with Epstein.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Epstein said they were besties for a decade.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
It's the evidence is to suggest that there's something deeper
going on. My personal theory, Crystal is not that it's
related to Donald Trump himself. I think it's very unlikely
that Donald Trump himself was out there talking about how Epstein,
openly talking about how Epstein like quote unquote likes him
young and hanging out with him when NBC News was

(01:01:48):
profiling Trump at man A Lago. And this is personally implicated.
But the Bill Bar stuff goes way deep. I mean
we're talking like way decades. That stuff goes decades back,
So I think it might be more like Trump's orbit
and people that he's protecting that he's hired because it
comes back to him for having hired them, that it

(01:02:10):
happened on his watch. That they just released what footage
of surveillance cameras? I pulled up an Inspector General report
from twenty twenty three, the.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
NB two up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
This is the video from outside of Epstein's cell. They
released like ten hours of video that shows no one
going into the cell that is supposed to definitively prove
that he did, in fact, quote unquote kill himself.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
And this is the available footage that again an Inspector's
General report from twenty twenty three talked about. They said
the available recorded video footage from the one SAHU camera
captured a large part of the commentary of the Sahu
and portions of the stairways leading to the different tiers,
including Epstein's cell tier. Thus, anyone entering or attempting to
enter Epstein's tier from the commonary would have been picked
up by that video camera and Epstein's cell door was

(01:02:53):
not in the camera's field of view. And reviewed the
video and found that between approximately ten forty and six
thirty no one was seen entering Epstein cells here from
that commentary. So again, we've known this stuff since twenty
twenty three. The question is if Epstein cell door is
not on the camera's field of view, what is going on?
The question is why If you look at the letter

(01:03:13):
that the DOJ put out, they say that they are
not going to release any of the allegedly thousands They
say they have thousands of videos of Jeffrey Epstein and images,
some of which involve victims. They say they're not putting
any of it out because it would be inappropriate to
put basically this disgusting material into the public view, retraumatizing victims.

(01:03:36):
Absolutely true. But to say that we are literally closing
the case and you are not getting a single shred
of evidence from this trove that we apparently have, some
of which is just Epstein, I guess talking to a camera.
That's insane. Right, We don't even need to say that
it's insane, but it's worth saying, like, this is so insane.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Well, okay, so we've got a few things going on here.
We've got number one, the Trump Epstein connections, which you know, look,
Steve Bannon himself said he thought that Jeffrey Epstein was
the only person who could take Trump down. So there
you know, long relationship who knows okay, And you have
as Emily very effectively put out all of these different

(01:04:16):
Epstein connected people in the first Strump administration and in
this one. And you also have so you've got the
battle with Elon Musk erupting again and Elon had threatened
previously basically like oh, by the way, Trump's in the
Epstein files accusing him of being a pedophile. And then
you have baby Nottanyahu in town exactly. And there are

(01:04:38):
a lot of suggestions that what Epstein was really up
to is he wasn't just freelancing as you know, horrifying
sex trafficking, pedophile monster, but he was linked to masads
specifically and was trying to gather information about various powerful
people so it could be used to coerce and inflow

(01:05:00):
American policy and foreign policy around the world. We know that,
you know, he had connections with Ahod Barock, invested in
some Israeli defense startup. Glene Maxwell's father appears to have
been linked to massades. So there's that's always been sort
of I mean, the part about what powerful people were

(01:05:21):
in stare obviously that's important. This like criminal mass enterprise,
obviously that's important. But even more significant in terms of
our ongoing foreign policy and the type of tactics that
be deployed would be information around whether he was, in
fact and a massad asset, who was, you know, trying
to entrap people and coerce them and be able to

(01:05:43):
drive American foreign policy. So it was also not lost
on me that this nothing to see here, no incriminating
client list case closed comes the night before ving Yahu
arrives into town and at the time that he is
having this with Elon Musk. That timing seems so incredibly suspicious.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
It is also quite interesting that on a Sunday night
they gave Axios the exclusive on the story. It is
beyond bizarre. Alex Eisenstadt obviously good for him forgetting the scoop,
But on a Sunday night, the administration gives a memo
saying they're just closing up the Epstein file. To Axios,
they just have their big victory, one big beautiful bill,

(01:06:26):
generational piece of Republican legislation as they see it, that
they sign on the fourth of July. A couple of
days earlier, they have Netta Yahu coming on Monday. What
a great time if you're a political strategist to bury
a piece of news like this, or to attempt to
bury a piece of news like this, and the Masad
connections cannot be understated. I'm reading from the Times of

(01:06:48):
Israel here. The Times of Israel mentioned that Robert Maxwell,
who many people actually think was killed by Massad. But
we don't have to even go down that rabbit hole.
He's buried on Jerusalemsmount of Olives. Many members of the
Israeli intelligence community attended his funeral, so did Yitzak Shamir.
Israel's then Prime Minister. Shmir eulogized the British tycoon for

(01:07:09):
the political connections he brought to Israel during the nineteen
eighties and for the money he invested in it. That's
obviously Gillian Maxwell's father, as Crystal noted, is someone that
Jeffrey Epstein knew.

Speaker 7 (01:07:19):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
And for people out there who would say, okay, well,
if there's anything anything bad about Trump in this information,
why wouldn't the Democrats, why wouldn't have Joe Biden have put.

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
This out previously?

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
This is the answer is because they also I mean
First of all, it's a bipartisan affair, like we know
about Bill Clinton being on the plane and whatever as well, right,
But second of all, no Republican or Democratic administration is
going to want to reveal the truth if the truth
is in fact that Jeffrey Epstein is a Masad asset
or was a Masad asset. So I don't know, guys.

(01:07:55):
I mean it just to me too, just the political stupidity.
It's so so suspicious to be like on Eva bb Net,
noawho coming to town while I'm having this fight with Elon
and after my base has been really very interested in
this whole case, to just be oh, nothing to see here,
case closes, we're not giving you any evidence, and we're

(01:08:16):
moving on after. By the way, we didn't play this up,
but Pam Bonni had literally said just months ago, I
had the Epstein client list on my desk.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
She said it on Fox News.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
On Fox News she says this, and you know, it
indicates she's going through thousands of hours of material and
it's all going to be revealed in the influencer Binder situation.
That was just phase one, and she's going to get
to it. And now she's gone from client list on
my desk to there was no client list actually.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
And Cash Btel and Dan Bongino were pretty vocal members
of the oh yeah, MAGA community, insisting that there was
something weird about Epstein going on and that if they
were putting government implications, that will come in and we'll
be We're going to reveal the truth a parent and yeah,

(01:09:05):
tell the public.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Even though Trump himself was always very very squeamish, true
country yes question.

Speaker 4 (01:09:12):
Rachel Campos Duffy asked him that question on Fox News,
and you could see the squeamishist from Trump at that
point where he said he was going to be open
about RFK files and JFK files and MLK files and
then Epstein, well, they will take a look at it.
You'd have to go back and watch the video, but
it was conspicuous at the time, and they.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
Edited it to make it look like he was just
like yeah, but he goes, yeah, well we have to
look and private people may be involved, and that's a
tougher one.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
That's a tougher one.

Speaker 4 (01:09:41):
And he also people remember, as we're just like listing
all of the interesting moments and connections from Trump World
and Epstein world, he wished Gallaine Maxwell well when he
got a question about her being in prison. This was
I want to say, this was early twenty twenty, around
that time.

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
It was towards the end of his first administration.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
And then you have Cash Hotel going on, Joe Rogan
and Dan Bungeno and Cash Hotel doing that joint. I
think it was a Farm's News interview together looking like
they were ash and faced and pale and just insisting
that they absolutely there was nothing to see. No, they're there.
I mean, it's just it's Chris. You started this spot

(01:10:21):
by saying you couldn't write this. Technically, you could write this.
It's just that everyone would be like they couldn't. They
wouldn't be that dumb, right, It couldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Be that I do a little bit, a little bit
better than this.

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
You would think the strategy would just be to like
not just say you're working on it. Yeah, just over
and over say you're working on it, and it'll wear thin.
But it's not a two term administration in all likelihood,
just try to run out the clock. From a political
cynical political strategy perspective, I can't even do that incredible

(01:11:02):
boot to put