July 7, 2026 • 52 mins
Ryan and Saagar discuss Platner faces new accusations, USA loses To Belgium after Trump intervention.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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show for everybody today, Bro shows. Good to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Awkward day for a BRO show, but very.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, I was actually thinking about that. Here we are. Yeah,
we that may not necessarily be the best day for
a Bro show, but Bro show is what the schedule is. Yees, yeah,
this schedule is. We don't create the news. It's good
to see you, my friend. We do have an amazing
show for everybody today and it's definitely good to be back.
So you probably saw and we will give you a
full rundown here of the Graham Platner situation. A former
(01:04):
associated of his coming out and accusing him of rape.
In a CNN interview and Politico story, Platner is weighing
whether to pull out of the race. We're going to
break down the full situation, just give you what you
need to know and some of the fallout from that,
with many Democratic leaders calling for him to drop out
so that somebody else can replace it. We're else going
(01:24):
to talk about FIFA. The United States lost yesterday four
to one to Belgium, a humiliating display after Donald Trump
put as much of his thumb on the scale as
he possibly could. It Actually, Ryan, in my opinion, would
have been better if we lost when he was gone,
so we could just blame it all that. You've got
to have something. Yeah, we got to say it was rigged.
This only reason that we lost. Maybe Trump will say it.
(01:45):
He actually said that it was. He said he's going
to ritten about it if we lost. So when to
talk about aires? A new internal report in the United
States Treasure that is warning of an AI bubble. We
have some new polling, some other interesting data point and
Michael Burray for the I think umpty time is calling
the AI top. You know, it's always one big short guy,
even though he has, of course said it many other times.
(02:06):
Caroline Levitt, some of you may have seen this White
House Press secretary saying that gen Z kids were born
with silver spoons in their mouth and they're lazy. Now
trying to clean up her comments after a honestly massive
meltdown by a lot of younger voters and others who
took her comments not particularly well in this economy, especially
(02:27):
after a lot of the gen Z younger voters the speeches,
especially the young men, had voted for Donald Trump in
the last election. And then Mitch McConnell. Is he alive
or not? Nobody knows, literally, nobody knows anything about his health.
He hasn't been seen for three weeks. He hasn't been home.
His wife is in China. There's all kinds of rumors
swirling around Washington. We're going to break that down for everybody.
(02:49):
Seems that he suffered cardiac arrest, according to leaked he
at what the EMS police report here for people who
showed up. He's in the hospital. We don't know anything
about his condition, and there's some speculation that they may
be not telling the public the entire truth to prevent
a primary which would allow Thomas Massey to replace him.
So we're going to break all of that down, and
(03:09):
of course Ryan and I are going to be doing
the AMA live now. Speaking of the AMA, this is
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and do that, or you can support our show if
you want to. All right, so hard turn Ryan. Let's
break down the Platinorm situation.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
So his he he was dating on and off a
woman named Jenny Rassiko, who was featured actually in the
New York Times article that that made so much made
so many waves several weeks ago, where she said that
he had come over to her house uninvited, something happened
that made her think differently about him, and she basically
(04:47):
cut him off. She called his behavior at the time
reckless and unsettling. You might remember that moment, but at
the time she did not go on the record with
her full allegation, which is that he had unconsensuals with her,
that he raped her. He responded within I think six
minutes of the article dropping, they had put up a
(05:08):
video response. Let's roll that and then go through what
her allegation is.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false
allegations against me. Any accusation of non consensual behavior is
categorically false. Over the last ten months, I have been
deeply humbled by the faith maners have put in me.
You have welcomed me into your homes, into your places
(05:36):
of work, into your restaurants, into your houses of worship.
You have shown that a different kind of politics, one
that puts the interest of people over corporations, is not
just possible, but is inevitable, regardless of the inaccuracy of
the reporting, but mindful of political reality it will inflict,
we are taking the time to reflect on the best
(05:57):
path forward for the state that I love, that I love,
the movement I belonged to, and the goal of defeating
Susan Collins.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So that was the news that was in his two
minute video, which is that just if you didn't catch exactly,
regardless of whether it's true or not, he's saying he's
aware of the political impact that it's going to have,
and so he's evaluating the way forward. As of now,
he has not yet dropped out. The entire kind of
democratic political universes calling him the dropout, and people around
(06:28):
him suspect that it is a matter of when, not if,
at this point that his campaign is effectively over. There's
some discussion about who would replace him and what leverage
Platner would have in that decision, and we'll get to
that on the back half of this segment. But let's
go through some of her allegations, which she made both
to Politico and also in a sit down interview with
(06:52):
Jake Tapper at CNN. Let's roll a three here.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
I remember specifically him like grabbing at my chest and
I like hit his hand and I said, don't touch me.
And I remember that during the.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Altercation, basically he kept going.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
Yeah, and it was this weird mix of like coming
in and out of I don't think consciousness is a word,
but like coming to and kind of falling back into
that drunken but I don't know what I'm doing state
and yeah, and he just he would apologize in those
moments and then go back to doing what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So he was aware that he was doing something wrong, Yeah, saying.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Sorry, I feel like he was in moments.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Is there any.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Way that he thought this was consensual or no, just
because I.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Don't believe that you can think that that scenario was consensual.
You have to understand that that wasn't when somebody is repeatedly,
I mean, when somebody in the middle of it says,
don't touch me, like, that's obviously not consensual.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You're not coming forward because you have any political motivation.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
No, not at all. That was actually one of the
huge reasons that I didn't come forward and still struggled
like that was a huge moral conflict to feel like.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Because you'd like a Democrat to be in the Senate. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah, I like the things that he speaks about. They're important,
They're important to people. I'm one of those people.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
But at the end of the day, you feel he's
not being honest.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
He's not being honest.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
No, that y'all also offered some other details about how
he came over that evening and how it transpired. Let's
roll a three B here.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Him and I were texting back and forth and he
had taken something that I said as an invitation and
that's not how he meant it. And I quickly clarified,
and I realized. I remember it being an instant where
I had recognized that he wasn't listening to me. It
wasn't just that he wasn't hearing me or whatnot. And
(09:00):
then I recognized his level of intoxication, and I knew
in that moment I wasn't safe, and I don't think
I was. I don't think I was safe to physically
fight back. He's big, he's strong, and I just had
to evaluate my safety and come up with the least
worst outcome to this situation, and so I felt like
(09:25):
complying for my safety was the least worst option.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But that's not consenting.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
No, complying is not consenting.
Speaker 6 (09:34):
Complying is letting him, is getting it over with so
that he didn't I don't I don't know what this
person is capable of.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I don't you know.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
I don't think anybody does, And even people you know
for years and trust, you don't know the depths of
what they're capable of. And you were afraid for your safety, Yeah,
that was afraid for my safety.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Beyond not that rape isn't a horrific thing, but beyond.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Right, I didn't want to find out how unsafe I
could get that night, or how how harmed I could
be that night, So.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Soger, her allegation there is is pretty.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
It's graphic.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's graphic and very specific. So yeah, so effectively, she
says she reached out to him. He's maybe he's a
bar or whatever. He's obviously drinking. Whatever she said to him,
he took as an invitation to come over. She says, no, don't,
don't come over. Whether he saw that or not, he's
(10:38):
next thing, she knows, he's in her house.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Her house is unlocked. He shows up at her.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
He just shows up.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
She says, don't come here, right, he shouldn't be here, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
And then uh, and then she says she feels she's
he's so black out drunk looking that she feels afraid,
and so just she just complies, which Tapper then distinguishes
from consent. This so her version of the story. I
(11:09):
think as everybody hears it, everybody's like, yeah, that probably happened,
like that feels like that was definitely her experience of
how this went down, and she related to a friend
in I believe it was twenty twenty three. Yes, this
is which is very important because it's before his campaign starts,
(11:33):
and the friend is asking about him because she wants
to introduce a friend, a friend of hers, to him.
And she says, he can be charming and funny, and
he's a decently intelligent person. He's not all bad by
but I ended up in a bad situation with him,
and I will just very politely call him consensually careless
at times when drunk plus PTSD. And then she asks
(12:00):
because he forced himself on people, forces himself on people,
and she sends two responses. It appears that her response
to that is doesn't listen to you when drunk, and
so that to me is strong corroboration of her initial
(12:22):
claim that she reached out to him but then said no, no, no,
I don't actually want you to come over. He came
over anyway. She said I don't want to do this,
and then she was afraid he did it anyway. And
then she talks in the taper interview too about in
the morning, she says, so he slept over and in
the morning she says, do you even remember what happened
(12:44):
last night? And he says no, basically, and he had
tried to put his arm around her like and so
her impression is that he was just so blacked out
he doesn't remember any of it. She's like, I don't
ever want to speak to you again. He leaves. And
then a few weeks later, when she she wanted to
(13:04):
make sure she wasn't pregnant because he had against her wishes,
she she sends him an Instagram message saying like that
what you did was not over all right that night,
and then she waits for him to see it. It's seen.
He never responds, and then it's after he doesn't respond,
(13:24):
she like blocks him on Instagram, blocks him on text message.
Now that is her version because she's deleted her Instagram and.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
She says she did because she doesn't want to think
about it anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Right, as you can imagine, in a situation like this,
this is how our political system works at this moment.
Just it's just it's over, like the world, the world
just came down on him. You had everyone from kind
of Rocanna.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
To Rehab that A seven put that up there on
the screen. Congressman Conna, who was probably one of the
i would say the biggest supporters of Grand Platner, along
with Bernie Sanders. I've been very clear that sexual assault
or violence against women as a red line. These allegations
are very serious and credible. Grand Platner should drop out
from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement. And that
(14:18):
was paired with the probably more importantly for Platner's purposes,
was not just this, but we had Chuck Schumer and
Kristin Jilibrand, who's the head of the Democratic campaign to
elect senators, saying that they would pull money if he
did not drop out of the race, which is effectively
a death now. It means there would be no national
support in this competitive Senate race. So the Senate majority leader,
(14:39):
you also are the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer. You also
have Christian Gillibrand, you had a number of the super packs,
the big money efforts that were behind them. The main
Democratic Party leader also came out with a statement saying
that he should withdraw. So his political support in the
state and nationally has completely collab apps. He has yet
(15:01):
to announce that he is going to withdraw.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Right, And there's kind of two different things going on,
and he alludes to it or says references it directly
in his own statement. One is the litigation of the
allegations and there and what the consequences of those those
allegations should be. And then there's separately but obviously relatedly,
(15:23):
what the political impact of it is. And in our system,
it kind of doesn't matter like what you know, the
first doesn't matter for the second, because the second happens first,
the kind of the decision that this is over. And
I do think there's something troublingly kind of undemocratic about
having political campaigns getting you know, people get fired up,
(15:48):
and then if there is a damning story that comes
out in Politico and CNN together within an hour, everything
that all of those hundreds of thousands of people built
together blows up. And there's something I feel like as
a society we should be taking a beat on when
(16:11):
it comes to these questions. That's not the society we
live in.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, I mean this is really complicated, right, Like you
just said, it's two bros here who we're talking about it,
So it's a little difficult. We can only approach it
from our own perspective. Here's there's kind of like how
I would see it when I read this immediately, if
we're all being honest, there is not a ton of corroboration. Right,
we have the friend that persuisive, Yeah, in terms of
(16:34):
how she saw it, but in terms of she was
supposed to have told her therapist. The therapist did not
respond to request for comment, right, so that was supposed
to be an additional thing. The therapists did not back
up her story to Politico whenever she was asked, Okay,
I'm not impugning this woman in any way. I'm just
saying we have to evaluate these things on its face.
You're right. The Facebook messages and all of that exists. Now,
she says that there was some text message in which
(16:57):
he felt like he was invited over. We don't know
the content of the message because she deleted it and
he has not released.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
What was that message himself. And also, Jake Tapper, come on, yeah,
so you're interviewing this woman. The woman says, I sent
him a message that he interpreted to be an invitation
to come over. Right, you've been dating for two years.
What that message is is extremely It's very important, That's right.
We don't know what the Joon Tapper just blows right
past it.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, and look, this is part of the difficulty of
assessing all of these things, and you know, and I
think beyond all of it, because I'm trying to separate
it just from this story to the wholesome thing. In
my opinion, if you're truly not guilty and this is
an outrage, why would you consider even dropping out? Why
wouldn't you vigorously defend yourself? Right, And the fact that
(17:44):
he feels so contrite in the message. You can see
it in his face, right, he doesn't usually talk that way.
And the fact that he's saying, I'm assessing the future
of my campaign. And now there's all these leaks that
are coming out saying like, well, if Graham were to
drop out, he would have to be replaced with somebody
who's true to his values. Right, So there's some negotiation
in my again just my opinion, considering the vigorous defense
(18:05):
that he mounted after the original New York Time story
compared today night and day difference, which kind of tells me, hey,
at the very least, you know that something bad happened
that day. I also thought out there and that this
more so that was the second thing. And let's put
it in the totality then, of what we know about Platner.
This is not some Brett Kavanaugh fifteen year old situation
we're talking about. This was five years ago. I mean,
(18:27):
this show was around whenever this allegedly happened, which is
crazy saying, so this is very recent. This is literally
the lifetime of breaking points. And this is somebody who
admits to having a drinking problem PTSD, to engaging in
these inappropriate relationships, even both while he was married. So
not that long ago, only a year or so ago. Ultimately,
(18:48):
this is about bad judgment and bad character. Now I
am on the record talking about character judgment. I mean,
to be honest, all of this behavior fits with a
lot of the politicians that we know. You have to
baseicly be a raging narcissist to even want to do
this job. It also does what makes them good at it.
That's what makes you be a good communicator and then
barnstorm this state and get people fired up and all
(19:09):
of that. Right, I'm just being real in terms of
like the skill set, if you can read a history
book for how it generally seems to manifest itself. Now,
all of that said, the reason why I think Platiner
is loadsome is two things. Is that, beyond the separate incident,
so many people, you, Crystal, so many other people they
stuck their necks out for Platter. So I was in
(19:31):
Maine on vacation and I'm taking a walk in Portland.
It's seven thirty am. There are two guys in the
pouring it's pouring rain who are sitting there handing out
free ice coffee for Grand Platiner. All right, they don't
even have runcoats on. Maybe that's normal for me, it
was crazy. And I think about those kids because I'm like,
(19:51):
these guys they got themselves out of bed at seven
thirty am just to stop random bypassers and give them
iced coffee and say, let me tell you about the campaign.
That's who Platiner betrayed. And when I say betrayed, it's
not just in his behavior. It was his decision to
run and it was secondary. Don't forget that. In that
Politico story that broke a month ago, after Platiner meets
(20:13):
with the entire Democratic Caucus, Elizabeth Warren asked him straight up,
She's like, look, be honest here man, what else is
out there? And he said, there is nothing else that
is out there. There are no more scandals. And it
was based on that word which many of his supporters
took to the bank that if you knew that you
were doing some stuff like this, again, not twenty five
(20:33):
years ago, I'm talking about five years ago. If you
knew that you were rolling around blackout drunk, you know,
and very questionable sexual relationships with a bunch of different
women all across Maine. Dude, you don't you know this
is the post me too era, You who knew that
there was some stuff out there, and frankly especially, I
mean a message like that. The fact that you didn't
even respond, allegedly, according to her, that he didn't respond
(20:55):
to that, that's piece of shit behavior. That's right, at
the very least, you should say, I'm very sorry that
you felt that way.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I don't know, I mean something right, and it cuts
against his deeply narcissistic cut. It cuts against the story
that he's been telling of ofem redemption because if he
is finding redemption in community, which was the part of
the story that that's so kind of moved me that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Well, you knew him, so I'm curious for how you feel.
I mean, you've known him for a long time. I
can relate. I've also known politicians who you know, really
stab you in the back, you stick your neck out
for them, and then you, yeah, really you feel burned.
So I get it to not to.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Not respond to that message, to not just sit down
and have coffee, right and just hear her like, apparently
he doesn't remember any of this, right, then ask her
tell me what, like what happened? Like, let me let
me hear from you what happened? Like? To just completely
ignore cuts against this idea that he is.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
She's not on birth control, so she's sitting around Wayiam,
did I get pregnant? And I mean, God's horrific. I
mean that is that is terrific.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It's not good. And relatedly, and I bet he would
agree with this. When he moved back to Maine, he
starts oystering and he's starting to kind of find his
meaning and purpose. Guy should have quit drinking, and he
has talked about his problems with alcohol abuse. The problem
with talking about that is that he's still drinking exactly,
(22:19):
and it's not obvious that it's like under control. Certainly,
wasn't that night like that, There's absolutely no question about that.
To your point about the people who were so driven
to support him, when those people sort of dropping, it's
one thing when the politicians leave you because they have
(22:42):
their own self preservation to.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Think they hate him, they hated him anyways, Well.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yes that's true, but not all of them, in the
ones that liked him, have their they have their own
interests as well. The volunteers who are just there for
him and his movement, more particularly the movement and the
message that he's living, they were dropping very quickly. Put
this next elements. It's a six. This is from Nathan Bernard,
drop site reporter who's been covering the race for US
(23:09):
flagged a bunch of these. This is volunteered discuss Yes,
and like one person says, for instance, I don't necessarily
want Graham to win. I want his parentheses, our political
ideas to win. He is not coming back from this,
and we should find someone to carry the ideals now.
People can be flawed, This is the discord of the volunteers.
People can be flawed and become better, But hanging your
(23:32):
movement on the coattails of somebody credibly accused of sexual
assault is the exact thing we are trying to do
better than. Another person says, if this is all true,
I am obviously the most heartbroken for this poor woman
who lived through something no woman should ever have to endure.
But I'm also, to a lesser extent, heartbroken for all
the volunteers who believed in Graham, his message in his
(23:52):
campaign and really thought he was a vehicle for change.
And I'm ashamed I supported someone who could do something
like that. Again, waiting for more to come out and
not rush to a snap judgment. But this is my
gut reaction. Another person's Graham had great policies. I hope
someone whose characters character aligns with those policies steps up.
I mean, another person is I'm in so much pain,
(24:12):
and other says he needs to drop out now. And
the whole thing is really heartbreaking. And this was the
sentiment kind of across the across the volunteer chat, that
a feeling of betrayal, but also a commitment that what
they were fighting for was bigger than bigger than just
one one person. They very quickly started gravitating towards we
(24:36):
can put up the next element here. This is also
from Nathan Bernard. People saying this is very early on
good run. Guys back Troy Jackson. Another person says Troy
has virtually the same politics. I feel like he's the
obvious answer. Anyone else that reads has a more establishment
picked and we're definitely cooked. Honestly, somebody else says having
(24:59):
him into or someone like Troy could be an interesting
moment to see how this kind of politics polls without
any baggage. And in the Troy Jackson discord, people started
popping too because there is this is tell us about
Troy Jackson. Troy Jackson. So he's a really interesting case.
(25:19):
He You would actually like him because listen to this.
He got his start in politics. He was politicized as
an anti immigrant activist. Really wow, now there's some content,
there's some contours to this. He's a lagger from northern Maine.
(25:42):
So in the late nineteen nineties, Canada and Maine got
in a fight over over labor rights, and a bunch
of Canadian laggers started taking jobs at dangerous working condition
and lower pay from Maine laggers. And so when I
(26:04):
say anti immigrant, he's anti Canadian immigrants. Yeah, exactly, you know,
discriminate your anti immigrant. And so he is at the time,
basically not politically, he's in the Union of Laggers and
he participates in protests and even civil disobedience. After that,
they filed something like one hundred and thirty seven complaints
(26:27):
through different you know, OSHA labor boards and otherwise fighting
against what they saw as the Canadian exploitation of Canadian
migrant labor. And they were getting nowhere, so they started
engaging in civil disobedience as well. Then then he gets
into politics and he runs for the state legislature as
a Republican. That's what I'm saying, you really love him.
(26:50):
He loses a very close race against this very entrenched Democrat.
It's one of these rural main areas that had been
Democratic for decades. He then runs the next cycle as
an independent and beats the Democrat, so unseats this guy.
Over time, he converts then to a Democrat. He then
(27:13):
ends up becoming president of the Senate. Like so he
becomes like a significant figure in the state, as significant
as you can be in a small state like that,
but his president's Senate. He ran for a governor in
this cycle, and he came very close to winning because
the rank choice voting process, it looked like very much
(27:36):
had a chance even after election day to end up
end up with a nomination. He felt a little bit short.
Plattner endorsed him, he endorsed Platina. They kind of ran
together as this working class ticket, and people would often
say that Troy Jackson was what people thought Platner was
because Platner had this complicated background where his dad's a lawyer,
(28:00):
a rich kid. He spent a year at the Hotchkiss
right then he goes to the Marines, whereas Troy Jackson,
his mom was sixteen.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
It's like actual lagger.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
You mean he did.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
It's not for me to decide who's a real manor
but you guys can.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
His mom was sixteen when she had him. He went
to community college, and then he became a lagger, right like,
So that that's that's a that's a kind of more
straightforward understanding of what that.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
But the question now is, and this is part of it.
This is look, I mean, to your point, you're not wrong,
Like there is an undemocratic nature to this the current traction.
You tell correct me if I'm wrong. As I understand it,
main Democratic Party is considering doing some sort of super
delegate convention where they get to decide who the nominee
is going to be. I mean, I gotta be honest,
I do have a problem with that, like that is
(28:50):
a little bit like what happened with Biden and Kamalaw
and it's kind of a disaster. And so no, no, no,
it's not at all or sorry, no, you're right, because
there wasn't even a super delegate process, So you tell me.
I mean, I don't know the composition of the main
Democratic Party. Is it the similar nature? I mean, because
he's Janet Mills. Obviously it did not look like Platner
was beloved by the main Democratic establishment. He was a
(29:11):
total outsider who ran overwhelmingly won the primary. However, you know,
now you basically have the hands back in the establishment,
you know, for not just Janet Mills, but all these
super delegate people, and they're gonna choose like one of
the people apparently who's being floated is like well Biden's
CDC director. I mean, so it doesn't take a political
genius to say that may be a little bit of
(29:31):
a problem up in Maine, just my opinion.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Shot, yeah, yeah, yeah, which and which is funny. Somebody
somebody asked nerov Shaw on Twitter yesterday, is would you
take a pac money and Israel committing a genocide? And
immediately he's like they're committing a genocide, wouldn't take a
pac money. So it's funny like now you have political
candidates pandering in the opposite direction. Like I don't know
(29:57):
whether he believes that or not, but he clearly understands
that given the momentum that Graham Platner had, like you're
you're not You're not getting into this position with public support.
Maybe you can get it. The established could force you
on on the party, but you're gonna lose then at
that point.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Like you need Yeah, but it's one of those where
you know, it's is it? I look, I don't know anything.
So for me cc director under COVID, I'm like.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
No, it's I think that's ridiculous. Yeah, certainly he's in
the running. I think it would be ridiculous if if
he ran for governor as well, it didn't did not win,
it would be ridiculous if he if they go, if
they go with him, But but so they happen until
the thirteenth or fourteenth for Planner to drop out six days. Yeah,
(30:43):
and so he has leverage in that sense because if
he doesn't drop out, like then they lose the seat.
So he can he can say, look, I will drop
out in exchange. And this is my understanding of what's
going on. I will drop out in exchange for this Jackson,
maybe for accent or for a genuinely fair process that
(31:05):
allows the real grassroots energy in the party to pick
at a kind of shotgun rapid convention to pick a
nominee that and that's not just Janet Mills his team
picking somebody and a Mills. As far as I can tell,
nobody's interested in her being the nominee, and she's not
interested in being the nominee.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It seem I think she's not obtuse enough to try
to obtain it. But I mean, long story short, but
I yeah, go.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
So in twenty twenty four, even I was urging Democrats
to have this snap convention, like just have a three
week mini primary, fight it out on CNN, do the polls,
and then let the delegates vote. And yes, there's Superdells,
but there's also delegates. So a lot of these party
activists in Maine and part and county chairs and county
(31:52):
vice chairs like they liked Graham Platner a lot, they
didn't like Mills. Obviously, Mills lost, So maybe let that
process play out that has to happen I think by
the twenty sixth and seventh or something like that, so
the end, so it has to happen fairly quickly. But
you could then say, okay, here the you're off Shot
wants to get in, Troy Jackson wants to get in.
(32:13):
We go to the convention, and there will be polling
at the same time. So it's so even though it's
not a statewide vote, Like right there's a poll circulating
right now that shows Jackson beating Collins by five and
he's he has the highest gap head to head of
of any of the other ones that are being floated.
We're going to continue to see those polls get published
(32:35):
between now and the end of July, and that will
factor into how these these state party acts.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I will say, having just uh, you know, there is
a very competitive primary. Not a lot of signs. They're
like they're like like not just like no signs, like
no political side. It's nice still, thank you mainers.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It's like everyone's the weather's just so good. They're like,
forget about it, We're all just going to hang out.
You know, I'm curious. You know what you if you
want to go into any of it, just like how
should the left be thinking about because I think there's
probably a lot of people out there who are very heartbroken,
and you know, I mean, does it make you assess
like how how handle the Lindsay Fifield thing and good
(33:13):
questions about his care because to be honest, for me,
I thought that the New York Times story was bullshit.
And I'm not saying that about Lindsay. I'm saying this
is total he said, she said, this isn't the fact
that she's Republican, and you could say soger, but this
one is like that too, And I'm like, you're right,
but it's a little bit different, like when we're talking
about forcible rape versus like oh, he grabbed my arm
(33:35):
and a drunken situation. I mean, you have no idea
right in something like that, and this one, you know,
it's it's like the kind of the implications are so rim.
It's basically a crime, right, this being a led share
like a category one felony or whatever, classic felony. So
the question I think is, I mean, the red crumbs
were there, like when we put this one with the
rest of them, it does make sense and I think
(33:56):
that's the problem. It's like, yeah, drunken behavior, sexual philanderer, bad,
you know, bad judgment with the with the tattoo, which
can we all just acknowledge he knew it was a
Nazi tattoo. Ran he obviously when he got it.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Huh, he got it.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I think he learned at some point, dude, he knew
it was not everybody in the Marine Cop Here's here's
his defense. There are a bunch of Marine Corps guys
who have the same tattoo. All right, I mean I
don't particularly can't.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Bud said either.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Come on, like this is very good Marine scout snipers,
all these other people. They brag about it. They're like
it's a total cop tattoo for them. You know, it's
like they can give you a whole explanation about wafting
SS versus SS whatever. All right. You know at the
are they truly Nazis in their heart?
Speaker 5 (34:36):
No?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I don't think so. And like that's what it came
down to. But I'm saying his adrenaline adventure seeking total
you know, look, he joined Blackwater or whatever it was called.
He was an adrenaline junkie. He had bad judgment, He
was an alcoholic, like, you know, the signs were there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I'm kind of two minds of it. On the one hand,
the people who were saying there are red flags everywhere,
beware are obviously vindicated like that their their spider sense
went off. They sense something and now yeah, so they
can say I told you so. At the same time,
(35:13):
I do want to draw a line at where exactly
were you getting those red flags? If it's if it's
that he codes as this gruff kind of working class guy,
I do not want to concede that therefore he's probably
a rapist, right, and that we need and we need
(35:33):
to just kind of cordon off all of those people
from our from decent society. And so that's right. So
I do not regret at all drawing drawing that line.
You you meet people where they are, and then when
new information emerges, you evaluate that information. You do not
assume the worst about a person based on how they look.
(35:55):
Like this is America. We understand that for every gender
and race. We have to also apply that to white
working class men as well. Yes, So on the other hand,
when people are like, well, yeah, but if you look
at some of the Reddit posts and you get deeper
into them, you see some real dehumanizing language, and that
(36:16):
that is the red flag I'm talking about for somebody
who says that, I'm like, okay, you.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Know what, Yeah, that right, Remember that that's being born
as anecdot where he's like, I want somebody to break
in so I can rape them. Like it looks a
little different now, right, you know. It's like, and I mean,
I think you're right, is we have to meet people
where they are. His story was one of redemption. This
was five years ago. Man. I'm not saying you can't
redeem yourself, but it's like, dude, you're a full blown alcoholic. Obviously,
(36:40):
your problems, your PTSD. We can all understand that. You know,
anybody who has dealt with veterans. However, you know some
behavior is genuinely like it's bad, right, And it's one
of those, And.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It's also pretty deep into his redemption arc. Obviously, redemption
is not one day you wake up and you're a
good person.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
On the other hand, this is like an extreme violation
and it's pretty far into after having gone back and
doing the right he's alwaysterring. He's with his community, his family,
so and yeah, I do think it goes back to
the self medicating with alcohol and alcohol abuse. Yeah, and that.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Which is not an excuse for what he did not
at all. Yeah, we can see here. So I don't know.
I mean I really do because I met some of
them in Portland. They were so excited. That's where my platinum. Man,
You're lowesome because you fucked those people like you. They
went out there literally in the pouring rain to go
and to talk to people, and you told them nothing
(37:41):
else was coming, and you betrayed their trust. And a
lot of other people stuck their next out for you
and a lot of other people, And it's like, man
like that to me, there is no higher crime than
that as a politician, because people believe in and I
felt this way. You know, when you believe in somebody
and it's not that they stab you in the back
because they betrayed what they told you that they were
going to do. I mean, there's no there's no higher crime,
right especially on the fringes. At the same time, I
(38:03):
do want to say all these people, Pearl Clutching and Washington,
you better be real careful, all right, because you know,
I've heard plenty of stories about a lot of different
people who are you know, just because just because you're
doing it while you're wearing a tuxedo and you've got
the power broker behind you doesn't make it better, I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
And I do think as a society, I do think
we need to sit with this rush, this this very
fast rush to judgment that we do.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
It's yeah, I've always been anti me too. This is
it's because you know, it gets completely out of control.
I will say, though, you know, in the pantheon of
all of them like this, because this accusation is in
Weinstein territory, not a z's on sorry in territory right,
If you'll recall, there's a big different right, and so
(38:52):
there's breadcrumbs that were kind of a z'son sorry ish
to the middle, and I have this. It does make
it genuinely, gnuinely different. So there you go. That's our
our long take, and you know, I hope it was
helpful and for everybody thinking about it, we're going to
do a hard left turn. Let's go to FIFA. Turning
(39:13):
down to FIFA. For those of you who stayed up
late to watch Team USA lose to Belgium late four
to one, very late from Oh my god, all right,
let's put this one up here on the screen there.
It is four to one, one of which was a
humiliating goal against the United States. This all despite President
Trump's intervention on behalf of Team USA for this huge game,
(39:36):
which took place in Seattle yesterday we had I know,
you guys covered it, and Ryan you cheered it. I
cheered it on as well. For once you know you
use corruption to benefit the country.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I also think I defend it.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
You should defend and you know why, because you know
this is what look I mean, I'm not a huge
soccer president. Even before this, I did not watch a
lot of the World Cup. It was while I was off.
Some of my family were watching it and that kind
of you know, I got bitten by the bug and
this is a higher stakes knockout and all that. So
I started watching some more of the games and it
genuinely was fun, really fun to root for a team USA.
So I do actually think it was one of those
(40:09):
moments where you know, say what you will. Kamalo would
not have gotten the red card. Okay, we all know it,
like we know this, She's not making that call. She
would never make the call, and she would not win
the Viva Peace Prize, the most coveted prize that there is.
So here's Trump confirming. Yes, I mean, I guess we
should meditate here on the Trump curse because remember the
(40:32):
one Knicks game that he went to if they lost,
and now the one game where he put his thumb
on the scale we lost. Iet I forget who said
it's like a part in my take thing where they're like,
one of the reasons why you should never go to
automatic refing is because fans need something to blame, like
we need fee, you know, we need to be like
it was total bullshit balgain like it with the Regor,
(40:54):
we would have won that game. And now you're like,
I don't know, what can you say?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
It's a disa we need we need that hope.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
But here's Trump confirming, and I think you know this
isn't just gonna be about the Team USA loss. It's
actually about how Trump has opened up this can of
worms where now every major leader in the world is
trying to use their influence on FIFA and is actually
doing it to to some effects. So here's Trump talking
about his phone call with FIFA's Infantino, specifically about how
(41:27):
he pressured him to take the Balgan red card away.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
You're asking me about the whole suck.
Speaker 7 (41:32):
So, yeah, I did. I spoke to Johnny, who's highly respected.
I saw the play, and I'm a person that loves
sports and who's a good athlete, and I understand sports
really well, really well. And that wasn't a foul. That
wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running full
(41:54):
speed that happened to crash into each other. You can't
take your foot and properly place it on somebody else
his foot when you're going. No, these were two great
athletes that got tangled up. And this referee who is
a little bit suspect if you check his if you
(42:15):
check his past. I don't want to say that because
I don't like to create controversy, but very suspect. If
you'd like, I'll provide you with the past. He made
a call that nobody could believe, you know, even people
on the other side they say, oh, we got lucky, wow,
And it's very interesting. They say, they don't show him
(42:37):
in slow motion, And I never realized that I've never
heard of that before, that they're not allowed to review
in slow motion because it's so different, because you'll take
one little quarter of a second and you'll see that
a hand is touching a neck or you see something. Yes,
I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to
a man who's highly respected and by the way, whose
(42:57):
level of respect has gone up tenfold. This game would
have a big mark on it if we lost. If
we want no matter what happened, you have to let
them use their best players. And the game tonight's gonna
be amazing and we're gonna have a full team, and
Belgium is gonna have a full team. And you know what,
if they beat us, then they can be really proud.
(43:21):
The other way, if they beat us, we'll say it
was I say it was rigged, just like the election
was rigged in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
But Trump the athlete describing his his funk, I mean
he objectively, the red card was complete. Bs right, if
you have to agree, yeah, right. So what was funny
though about this was everyone in American leadership was very
high on the hog because they really believed this is it,
We're gonna win. And so for example, here's the Secretary
(43:48):
of State. Let's put this one up here on the screen.
Secretary of State Rubio he was at a meeting yesterday.
We'd play the audio for you, but it's really messed up.
He was a meeting at the State Department today. Him
and Trump are actually meeting with an Ankra with the
entire NATO delegation, and so he will come face to
face with the practice. I think it's Prime Minister right
of Belgium, and Rubio here says, maybe turning it into
(44:11):
an international incident. I don't know. Maybe we'll bring it
up at NATO tomorrow with the Belgians and everybody else. Quote,
if you're Belgium, why would you want to play a
game and win a match? And then everybody will argue
that you didn't really win it, right, And so yeah,
I agree, right, I mean, we should have had it
so that there we could all blame the fact that
he did not show up and we also had this
(44:32):
just some other hilarious stuff here. In terms of FIFA,
let's put B five up here on the screen. The
President of FIFA, Gianni Inventino. He says, I have seen
the public comments regarding the decision of independent FIFA Disciplinary
Committee related to the suspension of Valigan, and I would
like to reiterate a fundamental principle of FIFA governance. FIFA's
judicial bodies are independent. They operate autonomously, apply the disciplinary
(44:57):
code and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and
specific facts before them. Their independence is essential to the
credibility and integrity of football and this must always be respected. Yes,
I regularly discuss matters related to the FIFA World Cup
with the President of the United States, and on this
matter I did receive a call from President Trump, just
(45:18):
as I receive calls from heads of state, government officials,
football stakeholders and business executives from around the world on
many different issues. During our conversation, I explained that there
was an ongoing legal process involving FIFA independent judicial body
and that the case would be decided in due course.
That is how the FIFA system works and as a
principle I will always uphold. So, he says, I even
(45:38):
read the decision sometimes and I am surprised. Sometimes I agree,
and sometimes I disagree, And he says, Finally, respect for
independent institutions and the rule of law is what protects
the integrity of our competitions and the credibility of FIFA
at all times. And you will be shocked to learn
that even even step Bladder, who is one of the
(45:59):
most corrupt you know, FIFA officials literally of all time,
had said that you can't be doing this. So let's
put the B six up here on the screen, he says.
Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls. They
are overturned by rules, evidence and independent bodies. If a
US president intervenes with the FIFA president and a player
is suddenly cleared before a World Cup knockout match, the
(46:21):
question is unavoidable. I cannot say these were It was
a quo vadi FIFA. Football must never become a playground
for political power. So there you have it, right, set
Bladder is calling you out.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
You have a problem, you have so fun Well, first
of all, the credibility of FIFA is such a funny phrase. Yes,
getting exactly the credibility of FIFA. On the other hand,
I don't know whether or not the people in the
US understand like how this is perceived internationally, Like it's
(46:53):
just it just looks like the most kind of grotesque
and blunt bullying from a bull and a bull in
a FIFA China shop here, Like, also, I think you're
not supposed to get caught this blatantly trying to exert
political influence, Like you're supposed to like meet at the
(47:15):
Four Seasons and talk about a future contract that you're
going to give to whatever quote unquote independent judge is
on this football panel. See I remember it. Miraculously they
get this contract and all of a sudden they're living.
They've got a really nice vacation home in Greece somewhere
you don't but we're just so like Trump is just so,
(47:39):
he's corrupt from the chest.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
He's in this case though, don't even prefer it. You're like, yeah,
I called him. He's like, we're the host country. It's bullshit.
I'm the most powerful leader in the world. No, we
can't be having this soon.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
As soon the story came out, I knew, like, yeah, oh, well,
Suan Trump has the press conference, We're going to hear
all the details of disruption. If he was Nixon, he
would never talk about it, right, No Trump would know.
But if Trump were president in the seventies, You're like, yeah,
he's like, I want I sent the I sent my
guys into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office because he's crazy, and I
(48:12):
wanted to prove it to the American people. And the
DNC is trying to rig the economy and they're in
the watergate. So I sent my guys in there.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I mean yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Right, yes, that's it.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
That's it. That's it. But here's my favorite part is, now,
let's put B seven up here on the screen. Is
after this whole situation, the French of Football Federation has
now appealed to FIFA to rescind one of their players.
Yellow cards during the World Cup last sixteen win over Paraguay.
The star player was booked after an altercation who went
(48:44):
to ground holding his face, were replaced show he was
actually holding his shirt. And so the French are like, hey,
you know, we're pretty good. We're powerful. We have you know,
we have nuclear wet that we do. Hey, we really
we Soccer is our sport, right, you know, it's one
of our major sports. If you're handing out favors, let's
hand out a few. We also have this one. Let's
(49:05):
put B eight up here on the screen. Man, these people,
it's crazy. Honestly, again, I had no idea how much
influenc there was here, so apparently this just happened. Keir
Starmer helped stop an earlier kickoff between England and Mexico,
so the outgoing Prime Minister gave English players quote a
few extra hours to acclimatize to the Mexico City altitude.
(49:28):
FIFA wanted to reschedule England's football match in Mexico City
by several hours, keeping the kickoff set for one am
Monday morning UK time. FIFA had considered starting it at
seven pm UK time, friendlier for British viewers, but tougher
on English players, who had to acclimatize to Mexico City's
grueling high elevation. The departing PM was contacted by the
(49:51):
English Football Association to alert him before a full blown
diplomatic intervention by the government, because it is what is
like seven thousand feet up or something in Mexico City.
So now all of a sudden, you've got heads of
state again, You've got a nuclear arm power here. They're like, hey,
you know, we once ruled the Seas. It's like you
have to listen to us here Premier League and all
(50:12):
the half of our players are playing now currently here
in FIFA, so you got to listen, I think to
a little bit of us, But I think the overwhelming
consensus here is just a classic FIFA moment. As I understand. Again,
I'm very new to this, so please forgive me. I'm
doing my best. If Crystal were here, she would do
much better than I do. She watched like the entire
World Cup as I from what I know here. You know,
(50:35):
I watched the documentary about FIFA and Katar and all
of their insane corruption going back decades. Like this very
much fits with FIFA as a World Cup as to
how it all went down, the peace prize, Trump's overall intervention,
and then the poetic you know justice. I guess for
us is that we lost in humiliating fashion. So there
it is.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
So I guess we'll see does Norway have the juice
to rig the to rig it for them, because that's
why I'm rooting for now.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
I don't know about you, wrong, I might have even
been in that documentary. Were you in that documentary?
Speaker 1 (51:06):
You in everything? One of those coreat I was in
the Joe Loo documentary, which one of my favorite books,
Billion Dollars What is it?
Speaker 3 (51:11):
Billion dollar Dollar? Great book? The Yeah, because I did
this story about how the UAE devised this entire plan
to tank Cutter's currency and hold it and hold it
hostage Katari real, yeah, in order to then force them
to share the World Cup. It did it with Prince Andrew.
(51:34):
Prince then this print and this bank that Prince Andrew was.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I was going to high school in Qatar when they
got the World Cup and I was looking around. I
was like here. I was like, it's one hundred and
thirty degrees outside. I was like, how is anybody gonna
play here? This is I was like, you can't even
drink in this country, How's this going to work? I
was totally right, by the way.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
And this is why I got to sign up for
the news letter, because I'll put the link to that
article about the UA and Cutter in the World Cup
in the newsletter Ye breaking.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Points dot Com only in the newsletter Breaking Points dot Com. Great, wait,
ask who are you writting for? I'm going for Norway.
It's not about how long guy.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
I love this dude, but Norway. I would love to
see that.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
This is just his his Viking physiognomy.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
It's just so love it.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
It's hilarious. Uh and yeah, I mean English, and it's
like we got to see we got to see the
Vikings triumph, you know, over over the English and just just.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Just be really funny. It is really funny.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
You're ready for Spain, I think, so okay.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, but I would be I would be pleased to
see the Viking guy with yeah yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Mean for he needs it, you know, he's America loves
this guy. He's he's scoring cowboy hats and Texas is
great
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3 (00:39):
Awkward day for a BRO show, but very.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, I was actually thinking about that. Here we are. Yeah,
we that may not necessarily be the best day for
a Bro show, but Bro show is what the schedule is. Yees, yeah,
this schedule is. We don't create the news. It's good
to see you, my friend. We do have an amazing
show for everybody today and it's definitely good to be back.
So you probably saw and we will give you a
full rundown here of the Graham Platner situation. A former
(01:04):
associated of his coming out and accusing him of rape.
In a CNN interview and Politico story, Platner is weighing
whether to pull out of the race. We're going to
break down the full situation, just give you what you
need to know and some of the fallout from that,
with many Democratic leaders calling for him to drop out
so that somebody else can replace it. We're else going
(01:24):
to talk about FIFA. The United States lost yesterday four
to one to Belgium, a humiliating display after Donald Trump
put as much of his thumb on the scale as
he possibly could. It Actually, Ryan, in my opinion, would
have been better if we lost when he was gone,
so we could just blame it all that. You've got
to have something. Yeah, we got to say it was rigged.
This only reason that we lost. Maybe Trump will say it.
(01:45):
He actually said that it was. He said he's going
to ritten about it if we lost. So when to
talk about aires? A new internal report in the United
States Treasure that is warning of an AI bubble. We
have some new polling, some other interesting data point and
Michael Burray for the I think umpty time is calling
the AI top. You know, it's always one big short guy,
even though he has, of course said it many other times.
(02:06):
Caroline Levitt, some of you may have seen this White
House Press secretary saying that gen Z kids were born
with silver spoons in their mouth and they're lazy. Now
trying to clean up her comments after a honestly massive
meltdown by a lot of younger voters and others who
took her comments not particularly well in this economy, especially
(02:27):
after a lot of the gen Z younger voters the speeches,
especially the young men, had voted for Donald Trump in
the last election. And then Mitch McConnell. Is he alive
or not? Nobody knows, literally, nobody knows anything about his health.
He hasn't been seen for three weeks. He hasn't been home.
His wife is in China. There's all kinds of rumors
swirling around Washington. We're going to break that down for everybody.
(02:49):
Seems that he suffered cardiac arrest, according to leaked he
at what the EMS police report here for people who
showed up. He's in the hospital. We don't know anything
about his condition, and there's some speculation that they may
be not telling the public the entire truth to prevent
a primary which would allow Thomas Massey to replace him.
So we're going to break all of that down, and
(03:09):
of course Ryan and I are going to be doing
the AMA live now. Speaking of the AMA, this is
my first time I get to promote this, this incredible
product that we've been working on now for months. Here
behind the scenes, we're going to hire another persons to
Something that our premium members get access to is our newsletter,
which is a written version of our show. We work
so hard to make sure that this is something that's
(03:31):
actually very very useful to all of our premium subscribers.
But what's even better, I think for everybody else, is
that you can just go to Breakingpoints dot com and
you can sign up for free. The pop up will
be right there. You can put your email. You're going
to get the first top three stories we get access
to your email, we can send those to you and
some other updates here from the show, which I honestly
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(03:52):
the show, breakdowns, links, all these other types of things.
And today is actually a good example because Ryan, you
and I are not going to be doing that silly
YouTube thing where we try to replace our words when
we talk about a very very serious situation. You know,
you know we're gonna we're just gonna say what it
is that's gonna hurt us in the algorithm.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
We know that.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But that's why we need a direct We need direct
link with our audience. So please please do sign up.
It's for free Breakingpoints dot com. You can go ahead
and do that, or you can support our show if
you want to. All right, so hard turn Ryan. Let's
break down the Platinorm situation.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
So his he he was dating on and off a
woman named Jenny Rassiko, who was featured actually in the
New York Times article that that made so much made
so many waves several weeks ago, where she said that
he had come over to her house uninvited, something happened
that made her think differently about him, and she basically
(04:47):
cut him off. She called his behavior at the time
reckless and unsettling. You might remember that moment, but at
the time she did not go on the record with
her full allegation, which is that he had unconsensuals with her,
that he raped her. He responded within I think six
minutes of the article dropping, they had put up a
(05:08):
video response. Let's roll that and then go through what
her allegation is.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false
allegations against me. Any accusation of non consensual behavior is
categorically false. Over the last ten months, I have been
deeply humbled by the faith maners have put in me.
You have welcomed me into your homes, into your places
(05:36):
of work, into your restaurants, into your houses of worship.
You have shown that a different kind of politics, one
that puts the interest of people over corporations, is not
just possible, but is inevitable, regardless of the inaccuracy of
the reporting, but mindful of political reality it will inflict,
we are taking the time to reflect on the best
(05:57):
path forward for the state that I love, that I love,
the movement I belonged to, and the goal of defeating
Susan Collins.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So that was the news that was in his two
minute video, which is that just if you didn't catch exactly,
regardless of whether it's true or not, he's saying he's
aware of the political impact that it's going to have,
and so he's evaluating the way forward. As of now,
he has not yet dropped out. The entire kind of
democratic political universes calling him the dropout, and people around
(06:28):
him suspect that it is a matter of when, not if,
at this point that his campaign is effectively over. There's
some discussion about who would replace him and what leverage
Platner would have in that decision, and we'll get to
that on the back half of this segment. But let's
go through some of her allegations, which she made both
to Politico and also in a sit down interview with
(06:52):
Jake Tapper at CNN. Let's roll a three here.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
I remember specifically him like grabbing at my chest and
I like hit his hand and I said, don't touch me.
And I remember that during the.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Altercation, basically he kept going.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
Yeah, and it was this weird mix of like coming
in and out of I don't think consciousness is a word,
but like coming to and kind of falling back into
that drunken but I don't know what I'm doing state
and yeah, and he just he would apologize in those
moments and then go back to doing what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
So he was aware that he was doing something wrong, Yeah, saying.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Sorry, I feel like he was in moments.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Is there any.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Way that he thought this was consensual or no, just
because I.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Don't believe that you can think that that scenario was consensual.
You have to understand that that wasn't when somebody is repeatedly,
I mean, when somebody in the middle of it says,
don't touch me, like, that's obviously not consensual.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
You're not coming forward because you have any political motivation.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
No, not at all. That was actually one of the
huge reasons that I didn't come forward and still struggled
like that was a huge moral conflict to feel like.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Because you'd like a Democrat to be in the Senate. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Yeah, I like the things that he speaks about. They're important,
They're important to people. I'm one of those people.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
But at the end of the day, you feel he's
not being honest.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
He's not being honest.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
No, that y'all also offered some other details about how
he came over that evening and how it transpired. Let's
roll a three B here.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Him and I were texting back and forth and he
had taken something that I said as an invitation and
that's not how he meant it. And I quickly clarified,
and I realized. I remember it being an instant where
I had recognized that he wasn't listening to me. It
wasn't just that he wasn't hearing me or whatnot. And
(09:00):
then I recognized his level of intoxication, and I knew
in that moment I wasn't safe, and I don't think
I was. I don't think I was safe to physically
fight back. He's big, he's strong, and I just had
to evaluate my safety and come up with the least
worst outcome to this situation, and so I felt like
(09:25):
complying for my safety was the least worst option.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But that's not consenting.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
No, complying is not consenting.
Speaker 6 (09:34):
Complying is letting him, is getting it over with so
that he didn't I don't I don't know what this
person is capable of.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
I don't you know.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
I don't think anybody does, And even people you know
for years and trust, you don't know the depths of
what they're capable of. And you were afraid for your safety, Yeah,
that was afraid for my safety.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Beyond not that rape isn't a horrific thing, but beyond.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Right, I didn't want to find out how unsafe I
could get that night, or how how harmed I could
be that night, So.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Soger, her allegation there is is pretty.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
It's graphic.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
It's graphic and very specific. So yeah, so effectively, she
says she reached out to him. He's maybe he's a
bar or whatever. He's obviously drinking. Whatever she said to him,
he took as an invitation to come over. She says, no, don't,
don't come over. Whether he saw that or not, he's
(10:38):
next thing, she knows, he's in her house.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Her house is unlocked. He shows up at her.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
He just shows up.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
She says, don't come here, right, he shouldn't be here, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
And then uh, and then she says she feels she's
he's so black out drunk looking that she feels afraid,
and so just she just complies, which Tapper then distinguishes
from consent. This so her version of the story. I
(11:09):
think as everybody hears it, everybody's like, yeah, that probably happened,
like that feels like that was definitely her experience of
how this went down, and she related to a friend
in I believe it was twenty twenty three. Yes, this
is which is very important because it's before his campaign starts,
(11:33):
and the friend is asking about him because she wants
to introduce a friend, a friend of hers, to him.
And she says, he can be charming and funny, and
he's a decently intelligent person. He's not all bad by
but I ended up in a bad situation with him,
and I will just very politely call him consensually careless
at times when drunk plus PTSD. And then she asks
(12:00):
because he forced himself on people, forces himself on people,
and she sends two responses. It appears that her response
to that is doesn't listen to you when drunk, and
so that to me is strong corroboration of her initial
(12:22):
claim that she reached out to him but then said no, no, no,
I don't actually want you to come over. He came
over anyway. She said I don't want to do this,
and then she was afraid he did it anyway. And
then she talks in the taper interview too about in
the morning, she says, so he slept over and in
the morning she says, do you even remember what happened
(12:44):
last night? And he says no, basically, and he had
tried to put his arm around her like and so
her impression is that he was just so blacked out
he doesn't remember any of it. She's like, I don't
ever want to speak to you again. He leaves. And
then a few weeks later, when she she wanted to
(13:04):
make sure she wasn't pregnant because he had against her wishes,
she she sends him an Instagram message saying like that
what you did was not over all right that night,
and then she waits for him to see it. It's seen.
He never responds, and then it's after he doesn't respond,
(13:24):
she like blocks him on Instagram, blocks him on text message.
Now that is her version because she's deleted her Instagram and.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
She says she did because she doesn't want to think
about it anymore.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Right, as you can imagine, in a situation like this,
this is how our political system works at this moment.
Just it's just it's over, like the world, the world
just came down on him. You had everyone from kind
of Rocanna.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
To Rehab that A seven put that up there on
the screen. Congressman Conna, who was probably one of the
i would say the biggest supporters of Grand Platner, along
with Bernie Sanders. I've been very clear that sexual assault
or violence against women as a red line. These allegations
are very serious and credible. Grand Platner should drop out
from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement. And that
(14:18):
was paired with the probably more importantly for Platner's purposes,
was not just this, but we had Chuck Schumer and
Kristin Jilibrand, who's the head of the Democratic campaign to
elect senators, saying that they would pull money if he
did not drop out of the race, which is effectively
a death now. It means there would be no national
support in this competitive Senate race. So the Senate majority leader,
(14:39):
you also are the Senate leader, Chuck Schumer. You also
have Christian Gillibrand, you had a number of the super packs,
the big money efforts that were behind them. The main
Democratic Party leader also came out with a statement saying
that he should withdraw. So his political support in the
state and nationally has completely collab apps. He has yet
(15:01):
to announce that he is going to withdraw.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Right, And there's kind of two different things going on,
and he alludes to it or says references it directly
in his own statement. One is the litigation of the
allegations and there and what the consequences of those those
allegations should be. And then there's separately but obviously relatedly,
(15:23):
what the political impact of it is. And in our system,
it kind of doesn't matter like what you know, the
first doesn't matter for the second, because the second happens first,
the kind of the decision that this is over. And
I do think there's something troublingly kind of undemocratic about
having political campaigns getting you know, people get fired up,
(15:48):
and then if there is a damning story that comes
out in Politico and CNN together within an hour, everything
that all of those hundreds of thousands of people built
together blows up. And there's something I feel like as
a society we should be taking a beat on when
(16:11):
it comes to these questions. That's not the society we
live in.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, I mean this is really complicated, right, Like you
just said, it's two bros here who we're talking about it,
So it's a little difficult. We can only approach it
from our own perspective. Here's there's kind of like how
I would see it when I read this immediately, if
we're all being honest, there is not a ton of corroboration. Right,
we have the friend that persuisive, Yeah, in terms of
(16:34):
how she saw it, but in terms of she was
supposed to have told her therapist. The therapist did not
respond to request for comment, right, so that was supposed
to be an additional thing. The therapists did not back
up her story to Politico whenever she was asked, Okay,
I'm not impugning this woman in any way. I'm just
saying we have to evaluate these things on its face.
You're right. The Facebook messages and all of that exists. Now,
she says that there was some text message in which
(16:57):
he felt like he was invited over. We don't know
the content of the message because she deleted it and
he has not released.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
What was that message himself. And also, Jake Tapper, come on, yeah,
so you're interviewing this woman. The woman says, I sent
him a message that he interpreted to be an invitation
to come over. Right, you've been dating for two years.
What that message is is extremely It's very important, That's right.
We don't know what the Joon Tapper just blows right
past it.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Well, and look, this is part of the difficulty of
assessing all of these things, and you know, and I
think beyond all of it, because I'm trying to separate
it just from this story to the wholesome thing. In
my opinion, if you're truly not guilty and this is
an outrage, why would you consider even dropping out? Why
wouldn't you vigorously defend yourself? Right, And the fact that
(17:44):
he feels so contrite in the message. You can see
it in his face, right, he doesn't usually talk that way.
And the fact that he's saying, I'm assessing the future
of my campaign. And now there's all these leaks that
are coming out saying like, well, if Graham were to
drop out, he would have to be replaced with somebody
who's true to his values. Right, So there's some negotiation
in my again just my opinion, considering the vigorous defense
(18:05):
that he mounted after the original New York Time story
compared today night and day difference, which kind of tells me, hey,
at the very least, you know that something bad happened
that day. I also thought out there and that this
more so that was the second thing. And let's put
it in the totality then, of what we know about Platner.
This is not some Brett Kavanaugh fifteen year old situation
we're talking about. This was five years ago. I mean,
(18:27):
this show was around whenever this allegedly happened, which is
crazy saying, so this is very recent. This is literally
the lifetime of breaking points. And this is somebody who
admits to having a drinking problem PTSD, to engaging in
these inappropriate relationships, even both while he was married. So
not that long ago, only a year or so ago. Ultimately,
(18:48):
this is about bad judgment and bad character. Now I
am on the record talking about character judgment. I mean,
to be honest, all of this behavior fits with a
lot of the politicians that we know. You have to
baseicly be a raging narcissist to even want to do
this job. It also does what makes them good at it.
That's what makes you be a good communicator and then
barnstorm this state and get people fired up and all
(19:09):
of that. Right, I'm just being real in terms of
like the skill set, if you can read a history
book for how it generally seems to manifest itself. Now,
all of that said, the reason why I think Platiner
is loadsome is two things. Is that, beyond the separate incident,
so many people, you, Crystal, so many other people they
stuck their necks out for Platter. So I was in
(19:31):
Maine on vacation and I'm taking a walk in Portland.
It's seven thirty am. There are two guys in the
pouring it's pouring rain who are sitting there handing out
free ice coffee for Grand Platiner. All right, they don't
even have runcoats on. Maybe that's normal for me, it
was crazy. And I think about those kids because I'm like,
(19:51):
these guys they got themselves out of bed at seven
thirty am just to stop random bypassers and give them
iced coffee and say, let me tell you about the campaign.
That's who Platiner betrayed. And when I say betrayed, it's
not just in his behavior. It was his decision to
run and it was secondary. Don't forget that. In that
Politico story that broke a month ago, after Platiner meets
(20:13):
with the entire Democratic Caucus, Elizabeth Warren asked him straight up,
She's like, look, be honest here man, what else is
out there? And he said, there is nothing else that
is out there. There are no more scandals. And it
was based on that word which many of his supporters
took to the bank that if you knew that you
were doing some stuff like this, again, not twenty five
(20:33):
years ago, I'm talking about five years ago. If you
knew that you were rolling around blackout drunk, you know,
and very questionable sexual relationships with a bunch of different
women all across Maine. Dude, you don't you know this
is the post me too era, You who knew that
there was some stuff out there, and frankly especially, I
mean a message like that. The fact that you didn't
even respond, allegedly, according to her, that he didn't respond
(20:55):
to that, that's piece of shit behavior. That's right, at
the very least, you should say, I'm very sorry that
you felt that way.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I don't know, I mean something right, and it cuts
against his deeply narcissistic cut. It cuts against the story
that he's been telling of ofem redemption because if he
is finding redemption in community, which was the part of
the story that that's so kind of moved me that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Well, you knew him, so I'm curious for how you feel.
I mean, you've known him for a long time. I
can relate. I've also known politicians who you know, really
stab you in the back, you stick your neck out
for them, and then you, yeah, really you feel burned.
So I get it to not to.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Not respond to that message, to not just sit down
and have coffee, right and just hear her like, apparently
he doesn't remember any of this, right, then ask her
tell me what, like what happened? Like, let me let
me hear from you what happened? Like? To just completely
ignore cuts against this idea that he is.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
She's not on birth control, so she's sitting around Wayiam,
did I get pregnant? And I mean, God's horrific. I
mean that is that is terrific.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It's not good. And relatedly, and I bet he would
agree with this. When he moved back to Maine, he
starts oystering and he's starting to kind of find his
meaning and purpose. Guy should have quit drinking, and he
has talked about his problems with alcohol abuse. The problem
with talking about that is that he's still drinking exactly,
(22:19):
and it's not obvious that it's like under control. Certainly,
wasn't that night like that, There's absolutely no question about that.
To your point about the people who were so driven
to support him, when those people sort of dropping, it's
one thing when the politicians leave you because they have
(22:42):
their own self preservation to.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Think they hate him, they hated him anyways, Well.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yes that's true, but not all of them, in the
ones that liked him, have their they have their own
interests as well. The volunteers who are just there for
him and his movement, more particularly the movement and the
message that he's living, they were dropping very quickly. Put
this next elements. It's a six. This is from Nathan Bernard,
drop site reporter who's been covering the race for US
(23:09):
flagged a bunch of these. This is volunteered discuss Yes,
and like one person says, for instance, I don't necessarily
want Graham to win. I want his parentheses, our political
ideas to win. He is not coming back from this,
and we should find someone to carry the ideals now.
People can be flawed, This is the discord of the volunteers.
People can be flawed and become better, But hanging your
(23:32):
movement on the coattails of somebody credibly accused of sexual
assault is the exact thing we are trying to do
better than. Another person says, if this is all true,
I am obviously the most heartbroken for this poor woman
who lived through something no woman should ever have to endure.
But I'm also, to a lesser extent, heartbroken for all
the volunteers who believed in Graham, his message in his
(23:52):
campaign and really thought he was a vehicle for change.
And I'm ashamed I supported someone who could do something
like that. Again, waiting for more to come out and
not rush to a snap judgment. But this is my
gut reaction. Another person's Graham had great policies. I hope
someone whose characters character aligns with those policies steps up.
I mean, another person is I'm in so much pain,
(24:12):
and other says he needs to drop out now. And
the whole thing is really heartbreaking. And this was the
sentiment kind of across the across the volunteer chat, that
a feeling of betrayal, but also a commitment that what
they were fighting for was bigger than bigger than just
one one person. They very quickly started gravitating towards we
(24:36):
can put up the next element here. This is also
from Nathan Bernard. People saying this is very early on
good run. Guys back Troy Jackson. Another person says Troy
has virtually the same politics. I feel like he's the
obvious answer. Anyone else that reads has a more establishment
picked and we're definitely cooked. Honestly, somebody else says having
(24:59):
him into or someone like Troy could be an interesting
moment to see how this kind of politics polls without
any baggage. And in the Troy Jackson discord, people started
popping too because there is this is tell us about
Troy Jackson. Troy Jackson. So he's a really interesting case.
(25:19):
He You would actually like him because listen to this.
He got his start in politics. He was politicized as
an anti immigrant activist. Really wow, now there's some content,
there's some contours to this. He's a lagger from northern Maine.
(25:42):
So in the late nineteen nineties, Canada and Maine got
in a fight over over labor rights, and a bunch
of Canadian laggers started taking jobs at dangerous working condition
and lower pay from Maine laggers. And so when I
(26:04):
say anti immigrant, he's anti Canadian immigrants. Yeah, exactly, you know,
discriminate your anti immigrant. And so he is at the time,
basically not politically, he's in the Union of Laggers and
he participates in protests and even civil disobedience. After that,
they filed something like one hundred and thirty seven complaints
(26:27):
through different you know, OSHA labor boards and otherwise fighting
against what they saw as the Canadian exploitation of Canadian
migrant labor. And they were getting nowhere, so they started
engaging in civil disobedience as well. Then then he gets
into politics and he runs for the state legislature as
a Republican. That's what I'm saying, you really love him.
(26:50):
He loses a very close race against this very entrenched Democrat.
It's one of these rural main areas that had been
Democratic for decades. He then runs the next cycle as
an independent and beats the Democrat, so unseats this guy.
Over time, he converts then to a Democrat. He then
(27:13):
ends up becoming president of the Senate. Like so he
becomes like a significant figure in the state, as significant
as you can be in a small state like that,
but his president's Senate. He ran for a governor in
this cycle, and he came very close to winning because
the rank choice voting process, it looked like very much
(27:36):
had a chance even after election day to end up
end up with a nomination. He felt a little bit short.
Plattner endorsed him, he endorsed Platina. They kind of ran
together as this working class ticket, and people would often
say that Troy Jackson was what people thought Platner was
because Platner had this complicated background where his dad's a lawyer,
(28:00):
a rich kid. He spent a year at the Hotchkiss
right then he goes to the Marines, whereas Troy Jackson,
his mom was sixteen.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
It's like actual lagger.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
You mean he did.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
It's not for me to decide who's a real manor
but you guys can.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
His mom was sixteen when she had him. He went
to community college, and then he became a lagger, right like,
So that that's that's a that's a kind of more
straightforward understanding of what that.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
But the question now is, and this is part of it.
This is look, I mean, to your point, you're not wrong,
Like there is an undemocratic nature to this the current traction.
You tell correct me if I'm wrong. As I understand it,
main Democratic Party is considering doing some sort of super
delegate convention where they get to decide who the nominee
is going to be. I mean, I gotta be honest,
I do have a problem with that, like that is
(28:50):
a little bit like what happened with Biden and Kamalaw
and it's kind of a disaster. And so no, no, no,
it's not at all or sorry, no, you're right, because
there wasn't even a super delegate process, So you tell me.
I mean, I don't know the composition of the main
Democratic Party. Is it the similar nature? I mean, because
he's Janet Mills. Obviously it did not look like Platner
was beloved by the main Democratic establishment. He was a
(29:11):
total outsider who ran overwhelmingly won the primary. However, you know,
now you basically have the hands back in the establishment,
you know, for not just Janet Mills, but all these
super delegate people, and they're gonna choose like one of
the people apparently who's being floated is like well Biden's
CDC director. I mean, so it doesn't take a political
genius to say that may be a little bit of
(29:31):
a problem up in Maine, just my opinion.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Shot, yeah, yeah, yeah, which and which is funny. Somebody
somebody asked nerov Shaw on Twitter yesterday, is would you
take a pac money and Israel committing a genocide? And
immediately he's like they're committing a genocide, wouldn't take a
pac money. So it's funny like now you have political
candidates pandering in the opposite direction. Like I don't know
(29:57):
whether he believes that or not, but he clearly understands
that given the momentum that Graham Platner had, like you're
you're not You're not getting into this position with public support.
Maybe you can get it. The established could force you
on on the party, but you're gonna lose then at
that point.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Like you need Yeah, but it's one of those where
you know, it's is it? I look, I don't know anything.
So for me cc director under COVID, I'm like.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
No, it's I think that's ridiculous. Yeah, certainly he's in
the running. I think it would be ridiculous if if
he ran for governor as well, it didn't did not win,
it would be ridiculous if he if they go, if
they go with him, But but so they happen until
the thirteenth or fourteenth for Planner to drop out six days. Yeah,
(30:43):
and so he has leverage in that sense because if
he doesn't drop out, like then they lose the seat.
So he can he can say, look, I will drop
out in exchange. And this is my understanding of what's
going on. I will drop out in exchange for this Jackson,
maybe for accent or for a genuinely fair process that
(31:05):
allows the real grassroots energy in the party to pick
at a kind of shotgun rapid convention to pick a
nominee that and that's not just Janet Mills his team
picking somebody and a Mills. As far as I can tell,
nobody's interested in her being the nominee, and she's not
interested in being the nominee.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It seem I think she's not obtuse enough to try
to obtain it. But I mean, long story short, but
I yeah, go.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
So in twenty twenty four, even I was urging Democrats
to have this snap convention, like just have a three
week mini primary, fight it out on CNN, do the polls,
and then let the delegates vote. And yes, there's Superdells,
but there's also delegates. So a lot of these party
activists in Maine and part and county chairs and county
(31:52):
vice chairs like they liked Graham Platner a lot, they
didn't like Mills. Obviously, Mills lost, So maybe let that
process play out that has to happen I think by
the twenty sixth and seventh or something like that, so
the end, so it has to happen fairly quickly. But
you could then say, okay, here the you're off Shot
wants to get in, Troy Jackson wants to get in.
(32:13):
We go to the convention, and there will be polling
at the same time. So it's so even though it's
not a statewide vote, Like right there's a poll circulating
right now that shows Jackson beating Collins by five and
he's he has the highest gap head to head of
of any of the other ones that are being floated.
We're going to continue to see those polls get published
(32:35):
between now and the end of July, and that will
factor into how these these state party acts.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I will say, having just uh, you know, there is
a very competitive primary. Not a lot of signs. They're
like they're like like not just like no signs, like
no political side. It's nice still, thank you mainers.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It's like everyone's the weather's just so good. They're like,
forget about it, We're all just going to hang out.
You know, I'm curious. You know what you if you
want to go into any of it, just like how
should the left be thinking about because I think there's
probably a lot of people out there who are very heartbroken,
and you know, I mean, does it make you assess
like how how handle the Lindsay Fifield thing and good
(33:13):
questions about his care because to be honest, for me,
I thought that the New York Times story was bullshit.
And I'm not saying that about Lindsay. I'm saying this
is total he said, she said, this isn't the fact
that she's Republican, and you could say soger, but this
one is like that too, And I'm like, you're right,
but it's a little bit different, like when we're talking
about forcible rape versus like oh, he grabbed my arm
(33:35):
and a drunken situation. I mean, you have no idea
right in something like that, and this one, you know,
it's it's like the kind of the implications are so rim.
It's basically a crime, right, this being a led share
like a category one felony or whatever, classic felony. So
the question I think is, I mean, the red crumbs
were there, like when we put this one with the
rest of them, it does make sense and I think
(33:56):
that's the problem. It's like, yeah, drunken behavior, sexual philanderer, bad,
you know, bad judgment with the with the tattoo, which
can we all just acknowledge he knew it was a
Nazi tattoo. Ran he obviously when he got it.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Huh, he got it.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I think he learned at some point, dude, he knew
it was not everybody in the Marine Cop Here's here's
his defense. There are a bunch of Marine Corps guys
who have the same tattoo. All right, I mean I
don't particularly can't.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Bud said either.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Come on, like this is very good Marine scout snipers,
all these other people. They brag about it. They're like
it's a total cop tattoo for them. You know, it's
like they can give you a whole explanation about wafting
SS versus SS whatever. All right. You know at the
are they truly Nazis in their heart?
Speaker 5 (34:36):
No?
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I don't think so. And like that's what it came
down to. But I'm saying his adrenaline adventure seeking total
you know, look, he joined Blackwater or whatever it was called.
He was an adrenaline junkie. He had bad judgment, He
was an alcoholic, like, you know, the signs were there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I'm kind of two minds of it. On the one hand,
the people who were saying there are red flags everywhere,
beware are obviously vindicated like that their their spider sense
went off. They sense something and now yeah, so they
can say I told you so. At the same time,
(35:13):
I do want to draw a line at where exactly
were you getting those red flags? If it's if it's
that he codes as this gruff kind of working class guy,
I do not want to concede that therefore he's probably
a rapist, right, and that we need and we need
(35:33):
to just kind of cordon off all of those people
from our from decent society. And so that's right. So
I do not regret at all drawing drawing that line.
You you meet people where they are, and then when
new information emerges, you evaluate that information. You do not
assume the worst about a person based on how they look.
(35:55):
Like this is America. We understand that for every gender
and race. We have to also apply that to white
working class men as well. Yes, So on the other hand,
when people are like, well, yeah, but if you look
at some of the Reddit posts and you get deeper
into them, you see some real dehumanizing language, and that
(36:16):
that is the red flag I'm talking about for somebody
who says that, I'm like, okay, you.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Know what, Yeah, that right, Remember that that's being born
as anecdot where he's like, I want somebody to break
in so I can rape them. Like it looks a
little different now, right, you know. It's like, and I mean,
I think you're right, is we have to meet people
where they are. His story was one of redemption. This
was five years ago. Man. I'm not saying you can't
redeem yourself, but it's like, dude, you're a full blown alcoholic. Obviously,
(36:40):
your problems, your PTSD. We can all understand that. You know,
anybody who has dealt with veterans. However, you know some
behavior is genuinely like it's bad, right, And it's one
of those, And.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It's also pretty deep into his redemption arc. Obviously, redemption
is not one day you wake up and you're a
good person.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
On the other hand, this is like an extreme violation
and it's pretty far into after having gone back and
doing the right he's alwaysterring. He's with his community, his family,
so and yeah, I do think it goes back to
the self medicating with alcohol and alcohol abuse. Yeah, and that.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Which is not an excuse for what he did not
at all. Yeah, we can see here. So I don't know.
I mean I really do because I met some of
them in Portland. They were so excited. That's where my platinum. Man,
You're lowesome because you fucked those people like you. They
went out there literally in the pouring rain to go
and to talk to people, and you told them nothing
(37:41):
else was coming, and you betrayed their trust. And a
lot of other people stuck their next out for you
and a lot of other people, And it's like, man
like that to me, there is no higher crime than
that as a politician, because people believe in and I
felt this way. You know, when you believe in somebody
and it's not that they stab you in the back
because they betrayed what they told you that they were
going to do. I mean, there's no there's no higher crime,
right especially on the fringes. At the same time, I
(38:03):
do want to say all these people, Pearl Clutching and Washington,
you better be real careful, all right, because you know,
I've heard plenty of stories about a lot of different
people who are you know, just because just because you're
doing it while you're wearing a tuxedo and you've got
the power broker behind you doesn't make it better, I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
And I do think as a society, I do think
we need to sit with this rush, this this very
fast rush to judgment that we do.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
It's yeah, I've always been anti me too. This is
it's because you know, it gets completely out of control.
I will say, though, you know, in the pantheon of
all of them like this, because this accusation is in
Weinstein territory, not a z's on sorry in territory right,
If you'll recall, there's a big different right, and so
(38:52):
there's breadcrumbs that were kind of a z'son sorry ish
to the middle, and I have this. It does make
it genuinely, gnuinely different. So there you go. That's our
our long take, and you know, I hope it was
helpful and for everybody thinking about it, we're going to
do a hard left turn. Let's go to FIFA. Turning
(39:13):
down to FIFA. For those of you who stayed up
late to watch Team USA lose to Belgium late four
to one, very late from Oh my god, all right,
let's put this one up here on the screen there.
It is four to one, one of which was a
humiliating goal against the United States. This all despite President
Trump's intervention on behalf of Team USA for this huge game,
(39:36):
which took place in Seattle yesterday we had I know,
you guys covered it, and Ryan you cheered it. I
cheered it on as well. For once you know you
use corruption to benefit the country.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
I also think I defend it.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
You should defend and you know why, because you know
this is what look I mean, I'm not a huge
soccer president. Even before this, I did not watch a
lot of the World Cup. It was while I was off.
Some of my family were watching it and that kind
of you know, I got bitten by the bug and
this is a higher stakes knockout and all that. So
I started watching some more of the games and it
genuinely was fun, really fun to root for a team USA.
So I do actually think it was one of those
(40:09):
moments where you know, say what you will. Kamalo would
not have gotten the red card. Okay, we all know it,
like we know this, She's not making that call. She
would never make the call, and she would not win
the Viva Peace Prize, the most coveted prize that there is.
So here's Trump confirming. Yes, I mean, I guess we
should meditate here on the Trump curse because remember the
(40:32):
one Knicks game that he went to if they lost,
and now the one game where he put his thumb
on the scale we lost. Iet I forget who said
it's like a part in my take thing where they're like,
one of the reasons why you should never go to
automatic refing is because fans need something to blame, like
we need fee, you know, we need to be like
it was total bullshit balgain like it with the Regor,
(40:54):
we would have won that game. And now you're like,
I don't know, what can you say?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
It's a disa we need we need that hope.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
But here's Trump confirming, and I think you know this
isn't just gonna be about the Team USA loss. It's
actually about how Trump has opened up this can of
worms where now every major leader in the world is
trying to use their influence on FIFA and is actually
doing it to to some effects. So here's Trump talking
about his phone call with FIFA's Infantino, specifically about how
(41:27):
he pressured him to take the Balgan red card away.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
You're asking me about the whole suck.
Speaker 7 (41:32):
So, yeah, I did. I spoke to Johnny, who's highly respected.
I saw the play, and I'm a person that loves
sports and who's a good athlete, and I understand sports
really well, really well. And that wasn't a foul. That
wasn't even an infraction. That was two guys running full
(41:54):
speed that happened to crash into each other. You can't
take your foot and properly place it on somebody else
his foot when you're going. No, these were two great
athletes that got tangled up. And this referee who is
a little bit suspect if you check his if you
(42:15):
check his past. I don't want to say that because
I don't like to create controversy, but very suspect. If
you'd like, I'll provide you with the past. He made
a call that nobody could believe, you know, even people
on the other side they say, oh, we got lucky, wow,
And it's very interesting. They say, they don't show him
(42:37):
in slow motion, And I never realized that I've never
heard of that before, that they're not allowed to review
in slow motion because it's so different, because you'll take
one little quarter of a second and you'll see that
a hand is touching a neck or you see something. Yes,
I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to
a man who's highly respected and by the way, whose
(42:57):
level of respect has gone up tenfold. This game would
have a big mark on it if we lost. If
we want no matter what happened, you have to let
them use their best players. And the game tonight's gonna
be amazing and we're gonna have a full team, and
Belgium is gonna have a full team. And you know what,
if they beat us, then they can be really proud.
(43:21):
The other way, if they beat us, we'll say it
was I say it was rigged, just like the election
was rigged in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
But Trump the athlete describing his his funk, I mean
he objectively, the red card was complete. Bs right, if
you have to agree, yeah, right. So what was funny
though about this was everyone in American leadership was very
high on the hog because they really believed this is it,
We're gonna win. And so for example, here's the Secretary
(43:48):
of State. Let's put this one up here on the screen.
Secretary of State Rubio he was at a meeting yesterday.
We'd play the audio for you, but it's really messed up.
He was a meeting at the State Department today. Him
and Trump are actually meeting with an Ankra with the
entire NATO delegation, and so he will come face to
face with the practice. I think it's Prime Minister right
of Belgium, and Rubio here says, maybe turning it into
(44:11):
an international incident. I don't know. Maybe we'll bring it
up at NATO tomorrow with the Belgians and everybody else. Quote,
if you're Belgium, why would you want to play a
game and win a match? And then everybody will argue
that you didn't really win it, right, And so yeah,
I agree, right, I mean, we should have had it
so that there we could all blame the fact that
he did not show up and we also had this
(44:32):
just some other hilarious stuff here. In terms of FIFA,
let's put B five up here on the screen. The
President of FIFA, Gianni Inventino. He says, I have seen
the public comments regarding the decision of independent FIFA Disciplinary
Committee related to the suspension of Valigan, and I would
like to reiterate a fundamental principle of FIFA governance. FIFA's
judicial bodies are independent. They operate autonomously, apply the disciplinary
(44:57):
code and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and
specific facts before them. Their independence is essential to the
credibility and integrity of football and this must always be respected. Yes,
I regularly discuss matters related to the FIFA World Cup
with the President of the United States, and on this
matter I did receive a call from President Trump, just
(45:18):
as I receive calls from heads of state, government officials,
football stakeholders and business executives from around the world on
many different issues. During our conversation, I explained that there
was an ongoing legal process involving FIFA independent judicial body
and that the case would be decided in due course.
That is how the FIFA system works and as a
principle I will always uphold. So, he says, I even
(45:38):
read the decision sometimes and I am surprised. Sometimes I agree,
and sometimes I disagree, And he says, Finally, respect for
independent institutions and the rule of law is what protects
the integrity of our competitions and the credibility of FIFA
at all times. And you will be shocked to learn
that even even step Bladder, who is one of the
(45:59):
most corrupt you know, FIFA officials literally of all time,
had said that you can't be doing this. So let's
put the B six up here on the screen, he says.
Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls. They
are overturned by rules, evidence and independent bodies. If a
US president intervenes with the FIFA president and a player
is suddenly cleared before a World Cup knockout match, the
(46:21):
question is unavoidable. I cannot say these were It was
a quo vadi FIFA. Football must never become a playground
for political power. So there you have it, right, set
Bladder is calling you out.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
You have a problem, you have so fun Well, first
of all, the credibility of FIFA is such a funny phrase. Yes,
getting exactly the credibility of FIFA. On the other hand,
I don't know whether or not the people in the
US understand like how this is perceived internationally, Like it's
(46:53):
just it just looks like the most kind of grotesque
and blunt bullying from a bull and a bull in
a FIFA China shop here, Like, also, I think you're
not supposed to get caught this blatantly trying to exert
political influence, Like you're supposed to like meet at the
(47:15):
Four Seasons and talk about a future contract that you're
going to give to whatever quote unquote independent judge is
on this football panel. See I remember it. Miraculously they
get this contract and all of a sudden they're living.
They've got a really nice vacation home in Greece somewhere
you don't but we're just so like Trump is just so,
(47:39):
he's corrupt from the chest.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
He's in this case though, don't even prefer it. You're like, yeah,
I called him. He's like, we're the host country. It's bullshit.
I'm the most powerful leader in the world. No, we
can't be having this soon.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
As soon the story came out, I knew, like, yeah, oh, well,
Suan Trump has the press conference, We're going to hear
all the details of disruption. If he was Nixon, he
would never talk about it, right, No Trump would know.
But if Trump were president in the seventies, You're like, yeah,
he's like, I want I sent the I sent my
guys into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office because he's crazy, and I
(48:12):
wanted to prove it to the American people. And the
DNC is trying to rig the economy and they're in
the watergate. So I sent my guys in there.
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I mean yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Right, yes, that's it.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
That's it. That's it. But here's my favorite part is, now,
let's put B seven up here on the screen. Is
after this whole situation, the French of Football Federation has
now appealed to FIFA to rescind one of their players.
Yellow cards during the World Cup last sixteen win over Paraguay.
The star player was booked after an altercation who went
(48:44):
to ground holding his face, were replaced show he was
actually holding his shirt. And so the French are like, hey,
you know, we're pretty good. We're powerful. We have you know,
we have nuclear wet that we do. Hey, we really
we Soccer is our sport, right, you know, it's one
of our major sports. If you're handing out favors, let's
hand out a few. We also have this one. Let's
(49:05):
put B eight up here on the screen. Man, these people,
it's crazy. Honestly, again, I had no idea how much
influenc there was here, so apparently this just happened. Keir
Starmer helped stop an earlier kickoff between England and Mexico,
so the outgoing Prime Minister gave English players quote a
few extra hours to acclimatize to the Mexico City altitude.
(49:28):
FIFA wanted to reschedule England's football match in Mexico City
by several hours, keeping the kickoff set for one am
Monday morning UK time. FIFA had considered starting it at
seven pm UK time, friendlier for British viewers, but tougher
on English players, who had to acclimatize to Mexico City's
grueling high elevation. The departing PM was contacted by the
(49:51):
English Football Association to alert him before a full blown
diplomatic intervention by the government, because it is what is
like seven thousand feet up or something in Mexico City.
So now all of a sudden, you've got heads of
state again, You've got a nuclear arm power here. They're like, hey,
you know, we once ruled the Seas. It's like you
have to listen to us here Premier League and all
(50:12):
the half of our players are playing now currently here
in FIFA, so you got to listen, I think to
a little bit of us, But I think the overwhelming
consensus here is just a classic FIFA moment. As I understand. Again,
I'm very new to this, so please forgive me. I'm
doing my best. If Crystal were here, she would do
much better than I do. She watched like the entire
World Cup as I from what I know here. You know,
(50:35):
I watched the documentary about FIFA and Katar and all
of their insane corruption going back decades. Like this very
much fits with FIFA as a World Cup as to
how it all went down, the peace prize, Trump's overall intervention,
and then the poetic you know justice. I guess for
us is that we lost in humiliating fashion. So there
it is.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
So I guess we'll see does Norway have the juice
to rig the to rig it for them, because that's
why I'm rooting for now.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
I don't know about you, wrong, I might have even
been in that documentary. Were you in that documentary?
Speaker 1 (51:06):
You in everything? One of those coreat I was in
the Joe Loo documentary, which one of my favorite books,
Billion Dollars What is it?
Speaker 3 (51:11):
Billion dollar Dollar? Great book? The Yeah, because I did
this story about how the UAE devised this entire plan
to tank Cutter's currency and hold it and hold it
hostage Katari real, yeah, in order to then force them
to share the World Cup. It did it with Prince Andrew.
(51:34):
Prince then this print and this bank that Prince Andrew was.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
I was going to high school in Qatar when they
got the World Cup and I was looking around. I
was like here. I was like, it's one hundred and
thirty degrees outside. I was like, how is anybody gonna
play here? This is I was like, you can't even
drink in this country, How's this going to work? I
was totally right, by the way.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
And this is why I got to sign up for
the news letter, because I'll put the link to that
article about the UA and Cutter in the World Cup
in the newsletter Ye breaking.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Points dot Com only in the newsletter Breaking Points dot Com. Great, wait,
ask who are you writting for? I'm going for Norway.
It's not about how long guy.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
I love this dude, but Norway. I would love to
see that.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
This is just his his Viking physiognomy.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
It's just so love it.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
It's hilarious. Uh and yeah, I mean English, and it's
like we got to see we got to see the
Vikings triumph, you know, over over the English and just just.
Speaker 3 (52:19):
Just be really funny. It is really funny.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
You're ready for Spain, I think, so okay.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, but I would be I would be pleased to
see the Viking guy with yeah yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
Mean for he needs it, you know, he's America loves
this guy. He's he's scoring cowboy hats and Texas is
great
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