8/12/25: Cuomo Crashes Out, "Shrinkflation" of prices at stores, Pete Buttigieg's pathetic answers on Israel

Krystal and Ryan discuss Pete Buttigieg's pathetic answers on Israel, Trump tapping an unqualified crony for Labor data, "Shrinkflation" of prices at stores, Cuomo attacking Zohran's rent controlled apartment, and the unsavory meme Don Jr. posted about the WNBA.

 

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com

Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
and we are so excited about what that means for
the future of the show.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the only place where you can find honest
perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
not exist anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So if that is something that's important to you, please
go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media, and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Let's go ahead and move to There's a lot of
significant economic news and including let's put this first element
up on the screen. Trump has now nominated a new
head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of many
reasons why I hate Donald Trump is now I have
to worry about who is the head of the Bureau
of Labor Statistics. So his name is E. J. Anthony,

(00:56):
chief economist at Heritage Foundation. Apparently a longtime critic of
the agency's approach to collecting data. And you know, I
think he's basically exactly who you think he is, Justin
Wolfer is tweeted.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
In terms of his qualifications, he finished grad school five
years ago at Northern Illinois. No obvious distinction is dissertation
is met involved no research on labor markets or data collection.
He's never published a paper. His life work has earned
him one citation. This record would be insufficient to earn
a job as a junior staffer at BLS. And so
basically he's put in there because he is a Trump

(01:32):
supporter and he is an ideaolog. I mean, he's the
kind of guy Ryan that's been interviewed on Steve Bannon's
War Room podcast. This is who we're we're talking about here,
and you know, it definitely raises questions about you're. One
of the things that is truly different about the Trump administration,

(01:53):
especially Trump two point zero, is even if the government
has never been perfect at you know, maintaining in these
bureaucers is a sort of like political neutrality. There was
an assumption that that should be the aspiration, that the
head of the BLS, for example, should just be really
trying to compile the data in the best possible way

(02:15):
and putting it out in you know, the most neutral
way possible, and that assumption has just been completely blown up.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
And this guy is you know, the latest example of that.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
Yeah, I think there was some hope among you know,
Wall Street bigwigs that the pushback that they gave to
the firing of the BLS chair would be enough to
get Trump to put in another bureaucrat type of person
like an academic who is you know, just widely respected

(02:47):
across the spectrum is and is going to call you know,
economic balls and strikes, because that is really important to
Wall Street. You know, Wall Street considers that Wall Street
wants to continue to be the place where if you
are multinational corporation or you're a billionaire, you're an oligarch,
that you trust that your money is not going to

(03:08):
be stolen, that it's not a that it's not a
corrupt stock market. Like the one of the biggest things
holding China back, for instance, is this belief among the
kind of international business community that they're not quite sure
if the regulators are you know, up to the task,

(03:28):
if and if they're going to be fair when it
comes to the stock market, whether the stock prices or
you know, reflect reality, whether the numbers that are in
the disclosures are made up or whether they connect to
something on the ground, and whether or not, in particular, say,
the jobless numbers and the growth and economic growth numbers
in China are are accurate. Uh, you know, you can

(03:52):
agree or disagree with that critique, but it's an open
critique and it and it hampers China's ability to attract
international investment and to grow on the on the world stage.

Speaker 6 (04:00):
There.

Speaker 5 (04:01):
You know, they're doing quite well in spite of that,
but it's it's it's a hiccup. The US previously did
not have that problem.

Speaker 7 (04:08):
Now they do.

Speaker 5 (04:09):
And Wall Street was hoping that, yeah, there would be
somebody with credibility that would be brought into this position.
This is a worst case scenario for Wall Street because
this is a pure ideologue.

Speaker 7 (04:22):
Who you You.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
Simply cannot tell yourself with any honesty that you think
that this guy's going to give you the straight numbers,
whether they're are good or bad for Trump. There's just
nobody's going to believe that. So therefore, what do the
numbers mean? Now you have to get into this, guess
is kremlinology?

Speaker 4 (04:43):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (04:43):
The BLS says that the unemployment rate ticked down to
three point nine percent this month. Well, now we have
to factor in a zero point four percent cushion, and
then you might have Goldman might say that they think
he's lying by point four percent.

Speaker 7 (05:00):
JP.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
Morgan's going to say they think he's lying by point
six percent because they still want to try to figure
out what the actual numbers are and they're going to
use his input as kind of one data point, but
they're going to then color it with their skepticism.

Speaker 7 (05:13):
That he's lying.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
And know that that is that's a drag on the
American economy.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, well, maybe what it will mean is that people
actually have to pay attention to how ordinary Americans feel
about the economy.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Then I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
That that will, you know, be a boon politically for
the Trump administration, because they feel incredibly squeezed and incredibly stressed,
and if you look at you know, levels of consumer debt,
all time high, housing prices still wildly unaffordable, you know,
the sense that you can achieve middle class stability, Obviously
that's been you know, utterly decimating. Continues to be so

(05:48):
as we also head into now the impacts of whatever
is going on with the tariffs at any given moment,
and let's put C one be up here on the screen.
So their ongoing negotiations with China, that tariff deadline, like
what was supposed to happen was they were the tariffs
were supposed to snap back into place, like the really

(06:09):
really one hundred and whatever percent terraffs was just ridiculous.
We're supposed to snap back in place. Trump has now
extended that China tariff deadline by ninety days, so there
are lower rates of terraffs, but still significant. I mean,
we're still talking about sometimes Ryan, it seems like because
we didn't do the one hundred and forty five percent
tariff for whatever it was supposed to be, that this
is all no big deal. But in fact, you are

(06:31):
starting to see in the economic numbers, both in terms
of inflation, in terms of unemployment, in terms of business
investment pullback, you are starting to see the impact of
these tariff rates that have come.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
Into place and consumer The CPI number for July is
out today and it has it rising at two point
seven percent, which is a little bit under I was
expected rise of two point eight percent by economists, and
that has a lot to do with whether or not.

Speaker 7 (07:00):
The Federal Reserve is going to.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
You know, is going to move interest rates. But they
also take into account, you know, BOLS data.

Speaker 7 (07:09):
And so.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
When Trump now in the future tells you that, look
at all of these great numbers, all Democrats have to
do is say, you're making those numbers up.

Speaker 7 (07:20):
How do you feel about the economy?

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Right?

Speaker 7 (07:22):
It's lying to you.

Speaker 5 (07:23):
How do you feel? It is a tremendous gift to Democrats.
Whether or not whether they can make something of it,
I don't know. Do you think do you think Democrats
will understand what a gift this is to them?

Speaker 8 (07:33):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (07:34):
No, probably not, because that's all they have to say.
It is like they're too busy finding anti semitism, Like how.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
Do you feel about the economy, and how you feel
about the economy?

Speaker 7 (07:43):
Go with that?

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Because Trump is lying to you. He put in his
stooges to lie to you about the numbers. So just
and the and then so for for Trump, he has
to then make people feel good about the economy. And
you know, good luck with that.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, there's been no indication that he has something interest
in actually making people feel good about the economy, and
judging by his major accomplishment at this point, which was
the one big beautiful bill quote unquote, which is stripping
healthcare away from millions in order to fund attacks, get
for the bridge, among other things. But that's kind of
the big picture of what's going on there. I was
always also curious Ryan to get your take on put

(08:17):
C two up on the screen. So we've got a
piece here from the Wall Street Journal about how the
US is marching towards state capitalism with American characteristics. President
Trump is imitating the Chinese Communist Party by extending political
control ever deeper into the economy and specifically, you know

(08:38):
what the jumping off point for this opinion piece is
is Trump's demand that Intel's chief executive resign the fifteen
percent of certain chip sales to China that Nvidia and
Advanced micro Devices will share with Washington, and he says
the quote golden share, Washington will get a US steel
as a condition of nip On Steel's takeover. So you know,

(08:59):
it is a very extraordinary I mean, this is part,
in a way of a shift back towards industrial policy
that we saw under the Trump's first administration, continued under
Biden's administration, and now a flavor of it in Trump's
second administration. What I would say is, you know, the

(09:20):
reason that the Chinese economy has been truly a marvel.
I mean, it really is an extraordinary the number of
millions of people they've been able to lift out of poverty.
And also, you know, the way that they've been incredibly
strategic about investments in certain industries, the way they've intentionally
gone about, you know, dealing with their own housing bubble,
the way they've intentionally gone about like making it so

(09:42):
that not all the smart kids are just going into
sort of like you know, financial speculation. Is that there's
been strategic, intelligent, long term thinking that is not just
about serving the needs interest, political whims and greed of
one individual. Trump's version of it, I would say, looks

(10:02):
quite a lot different from what is going on in
China right now.

Speaker 7 (10:07):
Yeah, I think that's right.

Speaker 5 (10:08):
If yeah, and if Trump wants to start doing you know,
industrial policy and actually kind of directing the commanding heights
of the economy, I think the left agrees with doing
that in principle and saying, yeah, sure, get allow the
public a lot more involvement in the economy so that

(10:30):
it's it's not just left too, you know, scam artists
on Wall Street and Silicon Valley to just you know,
siphon money out of people's pockets. But yeah, it doesn't
seem like he's doing it in the in the public interest.
It's kind of funny here nobody cares about the Constitution.

Speaker 7 (10:49):
But there is the export clause.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Just looking it up, Article one, Section nine, Clause five,
no tax or duties shall be laid on articles exported
from any state. Now you can tax income from exports.
And he'll maybe he's calling this voluntary, but on its
face it seems like just blatantly unconstitutional. But you know whatever, Yeah,

(11:14):
it's not like the it's not a top ten crime
against the Constitution from this administration.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
So yeah, no, it barely ranks pally in the top
fifty at this point. So yeah, it's it is wild, though,
do that, I know. But you know, and I feel
like sometimes I'm so irritated with these people e turning
me into like a Tea Party era conservative with my
pocket constitution.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
You know, but some of these things are actually important.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
You know, some parts of the Constitution I do actually
support and think make you know, like freedom of speech,
for example. I think a part of what do make
this country a unique and remarkable place.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
But what are you going to do? I guess we're
export it all out.

Speaker 7 (11:50):
Yeah, I'm not going to the barricades for the export clause.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
And I might be more you know, more excited about
some of this constitutional trampling if I did have any
faith at the Democrat would pick it up and be like, Okay, well,
we are going to do like, you know, capitalism with
Chinese care or whatever they call it, you know, state
capitalism with American characteristics, and we're going to do it
and like really pursue an industrial policy, and we are
going to go in and you know, change these agencies

(12:15):
in a way that actually delivers through people. And but
I just I don't have a lot of confidence that
they are going to actually seize the powers that have
been laid out by this president. But I guess we
will potentially find out in the future. Speaking of Ryan
the you know, the what we're left with if you
can't trust any of the economic statistics coming from this

(12:37):
government and certainly from the BLS, what you are left
with is, you know, how people say they themselves are doing.
But Bill Maher hosted George Will to say, you know,
we really shouldn't trust that either. Let's go ahead and
take a listen to that.

Speaker 9 (12:51):
I keep reading things like half the country cannot survive
like a four hundred dollars disaster in their life, Like
they don't have four hundred dollars in the bank if something,
if the car breaks or something, and the other half
are buying Taylor Swift and Beyonce tickets for eighteen hundred dollars, okay,
And I pay every year more than half. The government

(13:12):
makes more than half. Where does it go if it's
not helping and fixing the people who are one paycheck
away from disaster? Where is this money going?

Speaker 3 (13:22):
First of all, that's probably a made up statistic because
it serves a political agenda to say that about people. Remember, Bill,
this is a country people are literally dying to get into.
So are you're going to go to work?

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Just like the heights of being out of touch? I
often have the opposite thought, which is like, given how
low wages are and how expensive everything is, especially you know, housing, education, healthcare,
it is mind boggling to me that as many people
get by and make it work as they do, so

(13:55):
to say, oh, I don't believe this thing about how
many Americans are living paycheck to pay is just so
utterly absurd to me.

Speaker 5 (14:02):
Ryan, Yeah, there's this whole cottage industry of actually dudes
who really hate this statistic and you know, Will try
to present you all sorts of economic data to tell
tell people that actually you're fine and you're not and
you're not paycheck to paycheck, and you know, people feel

(14:22):
like they are and don't. I don't understand how you know,
kind of browbeating them otherwise is going to change that.
And George Will's final argument there is also absurd. He saying,
like this is a great country. People are beating down
the bushes to get in. All that tells you is
that it's much worse elsewhere, which is fair, Like that

(14:43):
is true in a lot of other countries things are worse.
That doesn't mean things are great for you know, fifty
plus percent of the country here. And in fact, if
we want to put up this next one, people are recognizing,
you know, how this is going on around them. They've
been a couple of good tiktoks that have gone viral
pointing out the way that inflation creeps in by just

(15:05):
shrinking the amount you get.

Speaker 7 (15:07):
Let's roll ce four.

Speaker 10 (15:08):
Have you noticed bacon is no longer in the one
pound containers, but they're selling most brands for twelve ounces.
They've shrunk by four ounces from eighteen fluid ounces down
to fifteen fluid ounces, but bigger size, better value. Gleenexes
one hundred and sixty sheets in a box two one
hundred and forty four twenty fluid ounces difference between these two.

(15:29):
This one is forty eight ounces, this one is twenty
eight ounces.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
That is wild.

Speaker 10 (15:33):
There's always some sticker saying new size, like it's an
exciting things.

Speaker 9 (15:38):
What it is?

Speaker 10 (15:38):
Two hundred and fifty grams down from three hundred grams.
This person said they went to the grocery store. Remember
they're running low on one of their favorite decaftees. They
had changed the box, but didn't really think that much
of it until they opened it up. The new boxes.
Not only how fewer tea bags used to have fifteen
now there's twelve, but these are also smaller, so there's

(15:58):
one point eight per tea bag versus three point two grams.
They drank one, hoping it would be good, but it's
very weak and not worth buying anymore. Apparently, this container
of Pringles was two hundred grams compared to this one
at one hundred and sixty five grams. In addition to
the problem of them always having like this top half.

Speaker 5 (16:18):
Completely empty, so Americans getting served literal weak tea.

Speaker 7 (16:23):
Five is a good one too. Let's roll see five.

Speaker 11 (16:26):
They've been removing all the perforated price tags from the
clothing and jacking the prices up, trying to keep the
consumers from realizing how far they went with the prices.
And I was like, surely they're not doing that. Now
we see all these price tags, See how all the
preforated ones are gone, and this says these are twelve

(16:46):
ninety eight.

Speaker 9 (16:47):
You see that.

Speaker 10 (16:48):
You see that, but look.

Speaker 11 (16:49):
They missed one where to go right there? Look at that.
They increase this. I'll show you this, the same exact
shirt on the same exact wreck. Then now says twelve
ninety eight. They increased five dollars.

Speaker 5 (17:05):
Yeah, and I saw one going around recently too, where somebody,
you know, because you know a lot of people have
electronic records of you know, their Walmart purchases from you know,
five six years ago, you can go back and actually
find them. We've been using an app and so she
went back and took just a random days purchased from
like twenty twenty twenty nineteen, and it came up to

(17:28):
like I forget one hundred and eleven dollars or something
like that, and then just went into the website and
bought all of those products again and it was almost
double wow, like what it for the exact same products
And it was just a random day. It's like, people,
it's it's real, Like the the prices aren't not coming down,

(17:50):
and so this like, okay, this month's up two point
seven percent annually, So that's that's less than it was
expected to go up, and that's less than it was
up before. Still up, and so people are are people
are noticing. And so then and Trump putting in the
putting in his cronies to rig the stats, it's not

(18:10):
going to work for him.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, no, I don't think that is going to persuade
this lady who's at Walmart like people, Oh no, actually,
things are going things are going great for me. The
dear leader says that the numbers are perfect, So my
life is going good. I mean, I just think about
it in this way like soccer, and I actually covered
the way that wage growth has been particularly stagnant in

(18:33):
recent months and years for the lowest wage workers. And
so when you think of that, obviously there you know,
in many instances, not keeping pace with inflation. So you
have that, then you have the cost of food, the
cost of housing, the cost of healthcare, the cost of education.

Speaker 4 (18:51):
Like we know these things.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
So I don't know why it would be at all
surprising to people that there are tens of millions of
Americans who are one emergency away from complete and utter disaster,
because that is also just the basic mechanics of how
our economy has been set up to operate. Like that's
not an accident, you know, that's the purpose of all

(19:14):
of the union busting, for example, that's been going on
for decades because business owners, like big corporations want you
to be desperate so that you you know, have no
other choice than to work for poor wages and poor conditions.
And oh, by the way, now we also can throw
into the mix the threat of you know, AI replacing you,

(19:34):
not just some other desperate worker out there.

Speaker 5 (19:36):
I think it's a good segue to Cuomo because the
question of whether not Democrats are going to be able
to capitalize on this comes down to whether or not
Democratic Party leaders really understand how the economy works and
you know, how the government can be used, you know,
with people to make it better for those people. And
Cuomo is considered to be one of the great talents

(19:59):
of the Demoocratic Party. So yeah, they acknowledge you got
got a little handsy and had to be pushed out,
you know, amid the moral panic of me too.

Speaker 7 (20:07):
But you know, but he's otherwise a political.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
Genius and really has his finger on the pulse and
he's got his fingers on other things too, But so
he's the guy, he's one of the guys that is
supposed to be able to channel this kind of populist
energy and you know, he phoned it in in the
primary and so you know that that can be forgiven.
But in the general he's really going to bring the

(20:30):
heat and he's going to show that the Democratic Party establishment,
you know, has lost has not lost it.

Speaker 7 (20:36):
You know, they they've still got it. They can still
bring it.

Speaker 5 (20:38):
And this that's why I think it's important to cover
this back and forth that he's been having with zor
On Mamdani about about rent control.

Speaker 7 (20:45):
You put up put up d one, you know, this.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
It started with you know, Cuomo realizing or remembering from
the debate or something that Mam Donnie had said that
he lives in, you know, lives in a one bedroom
efficiency in Queens that he pays twenty three hundred a month.

Speaker 7 (21:03):
For and that it's you know, rent stabilized.

Speaker 5 (21:05):
And so he then adds together Mam Donnie's assembly salary
plus his wife's salary, I think it like a nonprofit
and suggests that you know, they're making at least two
hundred thousand dollars. So he calls him quote a rich person,
and he then he says, you are actually very rich,

(21:26):
which you know, a lot of Cuomo's donors probably made
two hundred thousand plus and do not consider themselves rich
in New York. So then he says, you know, basically
he needs to move out of this. Uh needs to
move out of his apartment. Let's play D two here.

Speaker 12 (21:43):
Rent stabilized units when they VAK should only be rented
to people who need affordable housing, not people like Zoran Mandanami.
You don't need to be renting rent stabilized unit so
wealthy people. Otherwise, what you're doing is you're using the system.
I'm going to propose not rent that apartment by law

(22:06):
per steps to a person who actually needs affordable housing.
And I'm going to call it Zoran's law because it's
an abuse of the system.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
So he wants to make this race about rent control
and rent and so he comes out with this Zoran's law.
So let's put up D three here. Under Quomo's proposal,
when a rent stabilized apartment becomes vacant, the incoming individual
income would be capped so that the annual rent makes
up at least thirty percent of that income. For example,

(22:34):
if an apartment rents for twenty five hundred dollars a month,
the new tenant's income could not exceed one hundred thousand dollars.
And so we can get to Mam Donnie's great response
in a moment. But Crystal, I used to live in
New York and actually lived in a rent stabilized apartment.
One of the things you learn there is that the

(22:55):
landlords want nothing more than to get you out of
the rent state abilized apartment because when when they get
you out, they can then bump the rental price to
the market condition a lot. In some cases, it stays
rent stabilized but you have a new floor. Now it's
the new market rate, and then it can only move
by this slight percentage or zero if Mom Donnie gets

(23:17):
his rent freeze through. In other cases it's it's taken
out of rent stabilization and becomes a pure market rate apartment.

Speaker 7 (23:24):
So in either case, the landlord wins.

Speaker 5 (23:26):
So they're constantly desperately trying to get people out of
out of these apartments, and the renters are constantly playing
a cat and mouse game of trying to stay.

Speaker 7 (23:35):
In the apartments.

Speaker 5 (23:37):
Here comes Cuomo squarely on the side of the landlords,
saying that you know, once you know, he's going to
kick out people who don't meet these income requirements, and
once it becomes vacant, there's going to be these onerous
restrictions that you have to make.

Speaker 7 (23:52):
You know, very you know you have to.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
In New York hundred grand otherwise you know you're not
Eligi for this apartment.

Speaker 7 (24:00):
What did you make of this? And we do want
to get to Mom Donny's lappeck.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
Would you make of Cuemo's bant brilliant gambit here?

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Well, the irony is, as I read it, Zorn's law
quote unquote wouldn't even apply to Zoron because when Zoron
was able to obtain this apartment, he was only making
forty four thousand dollars a year, so he would have qualified.
And the law does not actually say, now we're going
to kick out people who exceed this threshold, because that
would be politically insane, like the number of you know,

(24:30):
because I mean, just think about what that would mean
for your average person. Oh, you do a little bit better,
you get to raise at your job, and now you're
getting kick down to your apartment.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
That's that's horrible. That's absolutely horrible.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
And now you're out there in market rate, you know,
New York City, and it's just you've taken a step
forward in your career and like ten backwards in terms
of your living standards. Like that would be absolutely insane.
So somebody realized, Okay, well we can't actually do that.
That would be really bad and politically it would be
completely toxic. So instead he wants to implement the is
new income standards that would essentially mandate that everyone who

(25:05):
ends up in a rent stable aze apartment is like
rent burdened, like officially rent burdened. So it's it's ridiculous.
It's utterly ridiculous all the way around. And you know,
also highlights an issue which is rent affordability and housing
affordability that is one of Zoron's strongest possible issues. So

(25:27):
there's that, I mean, there's also just like outside of
this Zoran's Law fiasco situation, Cuomo is like melting down
on Twitter.

Speaker 4 (25:37):
I don't know, there's all sorts of weird posting.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
There's speculation about they may be using bots to like
automatically reply to people. He's clearly brought on a new
consultant team that is trying to craft this new Twitter
troll persona for Andrew Cuomo.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
And actually I just saw.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
A new poll in the Copan in the mayoral race
and Zoron continues to win, to lead by a healthy margin.
Here this is from Sienna. This is with the five
way race, Zoron at forty four, Quomo at twenty five,
Sliwa at twelve, Atoms at seven. So you can see,
you know, increasingly desperate tactics as we get closer and

(26:15):
closer to election day, and the polls don't really seem
to be moving in Cuomo's favor, and no one else
seems to be dropping out. And even if they do,
I mean, what the polls again reflect at this point
is even if it was head to head Zoron versus Cuomo,
Zoron still wins in that scenario. So I guess that's
why Cuomo's resorting to also desperate tactics like reportedly calling
Trump and begging for him to come in and offer

(26:36):
some sort of assistance, which I don't think is going
to go over too well in the heavily democratic city
of New York City.

Speaker 5 (26:41):
No, and as those polls consistently show, his disapproval numbers
are so high, he's got a huge ceiling.

Speaker 7 (26:47):
So even if he could get this.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Mystical, fantastical one on one race with Mom Donnie in
the general, get everybody else out, people don't like him,
Like these number of people don't like him. Too many
people don't like him, And you've already.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
A lot of people do like Zoron.

Speaker 5 (27:03):
And he's at forty four already in a five way race.
So here's Mamdani responding to Cuomo's rent proposal.

Speaker 13 (27:13):
What Andrew Cuomo is proposing, be it the rent control
he cited, the rent stabilization he intends to speak about
is in many ways reflective of the fact that I
live rent free in his head. There are important conversations
to be had about housing, But this is not what

(27:35):
he's seeking to lead. He's not looking to reflect on
the fact that he eliminated more affordable housing than he created.
He's not looking to reckon with his cutting of a
voucher program that was then followed by a significant increase
in homelessness in New York City. He's not looking to
reckon with any of that. He's just looking to answer
the question of how he lost.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
I deliver rent free in his head. That's perfect. You
should have come up with that. That was there for
the taking.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
It was right there. It was right there. Oran's rent
free in your head. But yeah, so he got him.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
I mean, I've been thinking about, you know, in Buffalo
this this tactic worked against India Walton where she won
the Democratic primary, and then the guy that she had defeated,
who was the mayor old incumbent, he comes in and
runs third party in the general election, and it actually works.
And I think it is a testament to a very
different political climate now for one, and a sort of

(28:33):
more radicalized Democratic base. And I think it also is
a testament to just Zoron's appeal. You know, in that poll,
I was just referencing he's head and shoulders above any
other candidate with independent voters too. So it's not just
that Democrats are like, Yeah, we like this guy, and
we don't really care what Keem Jeffreys or Chuck Schumer
has to say about it. We're going to vote for
the Democratic nominee. You also have independent voters who were like, yeah, okay,

(28:56):
run affordability and focusing on New York City instead of say,
for example, Israel. That seems like a pretty good like
let's let's try that. Let's see how that, Let's see
how that works out for us. And then you also
have the historic unpopularity of Eric Adams, the you know,
sort of run of the mill Democratic establishment unpopularity of
Andrew Cuomo. And you've you know, got the likely result

(29:17):
that we're going to see here, regardless of whether Trump
tries to pull some funny business or not.

Speaker 5 (29:23):
And I wonder how you feel if you're Chuck Schumer
and who is the leader of the Senate, not just
a New York senator, He's a leader of the Senate
and Hakeem Jeffries, who's not just a Brooklyn member of Congress, but.

Speaker 7 (29:37):
The House Democratic Leader.

Speaker 5 (29:39):
Both of these guys standing in mom Donnie's way and
he's just barreling them over. They have still refused to
endorse him. How do you think that, How do you
think they.

Speaker 7 (29:52):
Are reflecting on what their position is with party voters
at this point.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
I don't see evidence that there's that kind of reflection
for hers.

Speaker 5 (30:03):
You know, there's a new poll out that I saw
this morning. It was asking about support for Israel's war effort.
The number among Democrats was eight percent. There's not much
that gets you down to eight percent, and it like
the gap between that and Democratic leadership has to be

(30:25):
the widest of any issue.

Speaker 9 (30:31):
This is what's.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
Crazy to me.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Ryan and I genuinely don't understand it. And actually we
could transition and talk about the peat pod save interview,
because I think this fits with this conversation and his
response on on some basic questions about where you stand
on Israel and Palestine at this point, like if you're
John Fetterman or you're Richie Torres, and you're just like

(30:53):
I'm the Apac guy and I'm all about that life.
And I'm going to cape for Israel no matter what,
and I'm going to make sure that money's coming in
on my side. Okay, I think it's disgusting. I think
it's morally atrocious. I hope history judges you quite harshly
for that. But I can at least understand a political
logic to that. The one that is perplexing to me

(31:16):
is the people who will go halfway, you know, they'll vote.
For example, Bernie offered two amendments that you could vote,
you know, for blocking offensive weapons. One of them was
assault rifles and the other one was like bombs. You
had some Democrats who would like vote for one and
not the other. What are you doing with that? The

(31:36):
Israel lobby people, they're gonna hate you, like APAC is
not gonna support you if you diverge even one inch.
And people who see this correctly as a genocide being
perpetrated with our tax dollars and are horrified by babies
being starved to death are not going to be too
impressed with you, being like, well, you can't have the
assault rifles, but you can have the bombs, or this

(31:58):
position that you know a see and others have tried
to lay out as well, we're going to support the
defensive weapons but not the offensive weapons. People who are
animated by this issue, which is increasingly I think a
large driving factor within the Democratic base and completely one
sided at this point, as you're pointing out of the
polls in favor of we have to stop this, like

(32:21):
not only we have to stop funding this, like we
need disanction is or we need totally different.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
Approach to all of this.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
They're not going to be impressed with your like, well,
the offensive weapons no, but the defensive weapons yes, And
well I'm concerned, but maybe it's not a genocide and
actually it's just Netanya. And if we could just get
amount of there, you know, I just I don't know
who that is, Like who is that for?

Speaker 9 (32:42):
Who?

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Who is what is the put it the morality aside,
like what is the political benefit from trying to position
yourself in this manner? And it just doesn't make any
sense to me. And it's crazy to me that there's
no obvious twenty twenty eight candidate for the Democrats who
are just it's like occupying the Zorn lane of I'm
in favor of BDS, I am an avowed anti Zionist.

(33:06):
I'm not afraid to talk about it. I think it's
a genocide. I think we should arrest at Yahoo if
he comes to the country. It's mind boggling to me
Ryan that there is no one who is occupying that
lane at this point.

Speaker 5 (33:19):
Yeah, ro Kana probably getting the closest to it. But yeah,
you were referencing the Pete Buddha Judge interview with Podsave yesterday,
which actually kind of dunked on him for and Buddha
Judge was trending after this interview because it was so bad.
So let's play and we'll do a little trivia for

(33:40):
viewers here. We'll play this clip and you tell us
what Pete Buddha Judge thinks it should be American.

Speaker 7 (33:48):
Policy towards Israel. This is B seven. Sorry to be
out of order here.

Speaker 6 (33:53):
More than half of Senate Democrats just voted to oppose
the sale of over half a billion dollars worth of
US bombs and guns to Israel. Would you have voted
to oppose sending those weapons.

Speaker 8 (34:02):
I think we need to insist that if American taxpayer
funding is going to weaponry that is going to Israel,
that that is not going to things that shock the conscience.
And look, we see images every day that shock the conscience.
So much of this is complicated, but what's not complicated
is that if a child is starving because of a

(34:25):
choice made by a government, that is unconscionable. And I think,
especially including voices who care about Israel, who believe in
Israel's right to exist, who have stood with Israel in
response to the unbelievable cruelty and terrorism of October seventh,
I think there's a reason why so many of those

(34:47):
voices are speaking up now too, because this is not
just something that is on its face and in itself
a moral catastrophe, it is also a catastrophe for Israel
for the long run.

Speaker 6 (35:00):
Do you think the next administration should handle our relationship
with Israel? Do you think it should change based on
what Netanyah, who has done the last several years.

Speaker 8 (35:07):
Well, certainly, net Yah, who can't be the only voice
or kind of the only compass for what should happen
in the US Israel relationship. And you know, no matter
how strongly or especially because of how strongly you might
believe in Israel's right to exist and defend itself, you
don't have to make excuses for the choices that Netanyah

(35:31):
who is making, especially because they are often made not
only in the name of the Israeli people, but in
the name of a US alliance. I think that we,
as Israel's strongest ally and friend, you put your arm
around your friend when there's something like this going on
and talk about what we're prepared to do together, and

(35:53):
it cannot be, certainly cannot be what we see right
now from this administration and this president talking about beach
front property in Gaza before he's prepared to talk about
human suffering in Gaza.

Speaker 5 (36:04):
So the questions started a kat So the question started
with sending weapons to Israel. So trivia question pop quiz,
how does booda judge feel about weapons to Israel?

Speaker 4 (36:18):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (36:19):
The truth is, I think we do know from the
non answer. I think if the answer was yes, we
should block the weapons, we would have gotten that answer.
The truth is he wants to He understands, because Pete's
not a stupid guy, as we all know, he understands
where the democratic base is and wants to sort of

(36:39):
signal his empathy for that position without actually taking a
position that would put him at odds with you know
where some of his donor bases and you can only
you know when I asked the question like who.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
Is this for?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
In Pete's example, we know who exactly who it's for.
This is donor maintenance. That's what he's doing here. And
he thinks, because he's a very slippery operator that at
this point he can get away with sort of like
restating the question and evincing empathy for the position without
actually explaining where he is. And I think I hope

(37:12):
what he and I hope everybody else is learning is
that is not going to cut it. And there's so
much about his answer Ryan that just discuss me. First
of all, Palestinis are being murdered every day, and we
still have to center what's good for Israel. Can we
just care that babies are being starved to death and
that our government is complicit. Can we just care about

(37:35):
the fact that you know, people are being massacred just
trying to seek aid every day in the Gaza strip
Is that okay? Or do I need to worry first
and foremost about how Israelis are feeling about this and
what this means for the future of Israel. I find
that posture to be morally grotesque.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
At this point.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Second of all, and it ties into that, you know,
moral atrocity. In my opinion, is this idea that But
it's just Natan Yahoo who's the problem. And he can't
be the only voice here. Oh really, well, he's not
the only voice. Every poll you look at says, you
know what, Israeli society. They're on board with us by
and large. Now there are some that, okay, how should

(38:14):
we approach the hostage to what are There is some descent,
but by and large do they care about what is
being done to Palestinians? By and large the answer is no.
Not to mention the people who are really driving the ship,
oftentimes in terms of his coalition are the most psycho
extremist Ben Gavern Smotrich. Not to mention the you know,
so called opposition figures who are supposedly more moderate, say

(38:36):
equally horrific and genocidal things like this idea that liberals
love to hold on to. That, Oh, it's just the
fascist net Yaho's the problem. If we just got him
out of there, then every thing could revert to normal.
Is a lie, I mean, I would I can't even
say it's a fantasy, because I don't believe that he
believes that it's just a total and complete lie that

(38:57):
he thinks allows him to maintain what is now a
completely untenable position of thinking that liberalism and Zionism can coexist.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
And to that point, in polls for the next Israeli government,
of the top four you got Neyahuo and then three
the three below that the three below are two net
Ya Who's right? So this idea that like you're you're
gonna you know modern that that he doesn't represent the
full spectrum is just not accurate. A bunch of things

(39:31):
jumped out in that quote. One of them was this
fear he has of naming.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
Israel all this passive language.

Speaker 5 (39:39):
One of his quotes was if a child is starving
because of a choice made by a government, a government,
which government which? And I think I've seen you make
this point, and I'm seeing normy Democrats who gase is
who not a top issue for them making it also,
which is that they want to see somebody good on
this issue because they don't want children starved, But more importantly,

(40:03):
they want somebody who has moral fiber, and they believe
that this is a proxy that if they're willing to
stand up against the special interests that are pushing them
to be bad on this issue, and they're still good
on it. They're still willing to stand up. Then that
means they're going to be willing to stand up for democracy.
They're going to be willing to stand up for people.

(40:23):
Tanasiko has had the great line and says, you know,
if you can't draw the line at genocide, why should
I trust that you're actually going to stand up for democracy?
And I think that it's exactly right when people hear
him say a child starving because of a choice made
by a government. You sound scared, You sound weak, and
we don't want scared and weak people now. And your

(40:46):
point about restating the question is is a.

Speaker 7 (40:49):
Good one too.

Speaker 5 (40:50):
And in the next clip he does precisely that I
hadn't noticed that tick until you mentioned it. But here
let's play B seven B where he's asked about recognition
of a Palestinian state.

Speaker 6 (41:02):
Do you think it's time to recognize a Palestinian state?

Speaker 8 (41:05):
I think that that's a profound question that arouses a
lot of the biggest problems that have happened with Israel's survival.
Israel's rights to survival in the diplomatic scene, and many
of the people who have taken that step historically have
done so for different reasons than what we see happening

(41:26):
with European countries. I think we need to step back
and we need to do whatever it takes to ensure
that there is a real two state solution and that
no one, not even likes in Thatta YAHUU can veto
the international community's commitment to a two state solution where
you have Palestinians and Israelis living with safety, with security,

(41:47):
with rights. I believe that can happen, but we have
to actually show some commitment to it.

Speaker 7 (41:52):
So that's a profound question.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
Yeah, is so vindicated. It's so vindicated.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yeah, it's a profound question that arouses a lot of
the biggest questions. Ryan, that's what that is.

Speaker 7 (42:06):
That's what that is.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
Cool. Thanks.

Speaker 5 (42:08):
So Rocanna, who has been floated as a twenty twenty
eight candidate, did not appreciate that response.

Speaker 7 (42:15):
You can put up the next element. He says, I
respect Pete.

Speaker 5 (42:19):
He diverges from you there, he says, I respect Pete,
but we need moral.

Speaker 7 (42:23):
Clarity, not status quo. Yes.

Speaker 5 (42:26):
John Favreau Dems should have voted for the Sanders Amendment.
So there's an answer to the question, Yes, Dems should
join my letter recognizing a Palestinian state. Again an answer
to the question, Yes, Trump and Biden disastrously failed on Gaza,
and we need a new human rights centered division. So
if you believe that Kanna is testing the waters for

(42:48):
twenty twenty eight, he seems his political sensibilities are sensing
here that there is a lane here that you can
go after Trump and Biden here, and you can stand
up here, you can go after other Democrats, and that
Democratic voters will be with you. You think he and
I can't think of anybody else who's kind of dipped

(43:09):
their toes in these waters who's being more clear than him,
which is kind of disturbing.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, And you know, and I think I personally think
Roe needs to go farther. I think he needs I
think he needs to acknowledge the international consensus that it's
a genocide. So even with him, you know, I think
people to your point, they don't want to see you
tiptoeing around, right, They don't want to feel like they're
getting weasley slippery answers, which is what you get overwhelmingly

(43:39):
with Pete and rowe Is Miles better like, it's not
in clused. I think you're right, he is leading in
terms of the candidates who are sort of positioning themselves
for twenty twenty eight. In his approach of this issue,
it seems to have some understanding of the way that
this is functioning as a moral litmus test, even above
and beyond the horrse that we see with Gaza. But
you know it also, I think what is notable in

(44:01):
particular about rose tweet is not just he directly answers
the question. That's kind of nice, but then he says
it's Trump and Biden. And I do think part of
the reason that some Democrats are tying themselves into knots
and not wanting to, you know, take these votes or
give direct answers or whatever, is because they're implicated and

(44:24):
they don't and they don't want to say, you know what,
they were right, Biden and Harris were complicit in a genocide.
I mean, that's a that's a tough pill for them
to swallow. And then they have to go back and
look at, well, what votes did I take during that
time period, and what is my responsibility to make right
from my own complicity here, and I think that is

(44:47):
a you know, a part separate apart from the money
and the influence of that which is obviously very very real.
I think there's also a lack of desire to look backwards,
take account on ability for one's actions, and critically to
have responsibility for ending this going forward, because if you
say it's a genocide, then that would indicate as someone

(45:11):
who is in an elected position of power, you have
a lot of responsibility, especially given our government support for
that genocide, to go above and beyond the call of
duty to try to end these horrors. And I think
that many of these Democrats don't want that responsibility on
their shoulders, that historic weight, because that's what it is
to rest on their shoulders.

Speaker 5 (45:32):
And from a pure cynical political perspective, the numbers make
it not difficult.

Speaker 7 (45:37):
I mentioned that eight percent earlier. We can put up
be nigh here.

Speaker 5 (45:41):
Here's a tweet from Nel Shalein, who is one of
the State Department resignees to resign in protest thirty So
this is thirty two percent of Americans approving of Israel's
military actions. Among Democrats, the numbers down to eight and
among independents the number is twenty five percent, and you
know what people who among Republicans it's seventy one percent.

(46:05):
If you look at young Republicans, it's way way down
among that twenty five percent of independence, You're going to
have a decent number of people who are older Republicans
but call themselves independence, and polsters understand this phenomenon. There's
the same with Democrats, like you'll there's a portion of
people who call themselves independence who operate just like partisan Democrats,

(46:29):
and same with part of the Republicans. So true independence,
you're the number is going to be much less than
twenty five percent, But among Democrats eight percent eight percent
support that is you know, politans are always looking for
seventy thirty issues or eighty twenty issues. It's rare they
get a ninety two to eight issue where most of

(46:51):
their opponents or their adversaries in the primary are with
the eight percent.

Speaker 7 (46:58):
Yeah, this is the chance.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
To be with the ninety to chance of a lifetime
or someone.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
There's such a thing as political gravity that is going
to bring this all down at some point.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
I feel like that.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
I do feel like that, And you know, there's a
kind of a built way conventional wisdom that of foreign policy,
it doesn't really matter. People don't vote based on foreign policy.
I don't really know how you live through the fallout
from the Iraq War and continue to hold that view,
let alone, I mean prior to our time the Vietnam
War and still feel, Oh, people don't really care about

(47:31):
foreign policy because not only is it important in terms
of you know, international stability and young men in particular
being sent off to fight and die in these wars
by you know, mostly rich people sitting in Washington, d c.
But it does speak to these larger moral questions. And

(47:52):
on the Democratic side, it really exposes the hypocrisy about
a party that tries to position itself as the champion
of democracy, liberal human rights, that you're still standing in
lockstep with this rogue nation committing genocide and you know,
bombarding all of its neighbors in this hyper aggressive fashion,

(48:12):
that we're actively you know, supporting and participating it. And
on the Republican side, it really exposes the hypocrisy of
the idea that this is administration would be America first,
and that American interests would be the priority first and
foremost so. And in both instances. It really serves as
a litmus test for who is willing to have a
shred of integrity or stand on principle even when there

(48:35):
is organized money and other you know, social and cultural
interests that are aligned against you, and you know, so far,
the overwhelming number of politicians in both parties at this
point are are failing that test. All right, let's skip
forward to the much anticipated gender portion of the show

(48:59):
and this wnbation, which I only recently became. I guess
this has been going on for a while, so Ryan,
I don't know if you follow this, but basically, there's
some crypto company that decided it would be a fun
stunt to start throwing. By the way, content warning if
there were kids watching this show, I don't really think
kids should watch the show, but anyway, if their kids
watching the show, this is not really appropriate content for them. Anyway,

(49:19):
this crypto company decides it'd be a fun stunt to
get putublicity for them by throwing dildos a very sporting events,
and they claim that they did this at other sporting
events as well, but the ones that got the most
attention were when they started throwing these neon green like
brat summer colored dildos out at WNBA games. This became

(49:39):
a whole thing, and you know, became incredibly even more
politically relevant when Don Junior shared this meme of his
dad standing on the roof of the White House, which
was something he did recently, throwing one of these green
dildos onto the floor of the WNBA game that is
miraculously below the the White House here. So you know,

(50:03):
I guess embrace ultimately here of the phenomenon. And the
reason I wanted to cover this is because, first of all,
I think there's a lot going on that hasn't been
discussed with gender dynamics on the right that I think
are worth exploring. Second of all, as you pointed out earlier,
you know, the Republican Party has really wrapped itself around

(50:23):
this idea that they're the champion of women's sports, so
a little bit at odds with that. And third of all,
there is a saga online betting angle of this as well,
which you could put E three up on the screen.
You can now bet on what color dildo via polymarket
gets thrown onto the WNBA court. You can bet on this.

(50:46):
So of course people say, oh, well, why don't I
just sneaking. Why don't I just bet a lot of
money on the purple dildo getting thrown out and sneak
in a purple dildo and throw it onto the court.
That is now a thing that is possible, which I
think speaks to obviously, this is incredibly degrading for these
professional athletes who are extraordinary, who for the first time

(51:09):
are really getting like a lot of attention. You know,
ticket sales to WNBA games are up, like the WNBA
is actually having a moment. This is obviously like extraordinary
degrading to them. And to have the President's son like
embracing this, and then it's also like it's degrading to
women's sports, but the betting aspect of it makes it clear.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
Like this is degrading to all sports.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
And in the same way that the the BLS numbers
rigging just sort of like makes you feel like, oh, well,
I can't really take any of these numbers that are
coming from the government seriously anymore. They're all just being
like hyped to please Trump. It starts to feel like
that about all of these sporting events, where it's like,
all right, well, who's cashing in, who's being paid, what,

(51:53):
which refs are on the take to you know, make
this call or make this play or miss this free
throw or whatever, because you can bet down to these
individual outcomes, and it just really does degrade your sense
that there's anything real about these sporting events at all.

Speaker 5 (52:08):
Yeah, and Trump at his press conference yesterday announcing that
he's going to bring the National Guard out, by the way,
he seemed a little off like even for him at
that press conference, But even in that one, he veered
off into you know, his his defense of women's sports
and you know, you know, which are under threat from

(52:30):
the transgenders. So let's let's roll e two for that.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
That's why they want men playing in women's sports.

Speaker 13 (52:36):
That's what they why they want transgender for everybody, everybody transgender.

Speaker 5 (52:41):
So I genuinely don't think I'm curious for your take,
Cristle in his mind that he actually sees the hypocrisy
or a contradiction between at you know, you know, his son,
you know, posting this this meme that encourages the debasement
of women's sports with his constant invocation of his support

(53:03):
for women's sports, because I think in his mind he's
not serious about the latter, and so therefore now it's
it wouldn't even occur to him.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Well, and this is that, like I don't even know
if Trump is aware that this meme got posted, right,
but certainly Don Junior is also involved in all the
hand ringing about you know, the integrity of women's sports.
And it's also always been total and complete bullshit, like
these would be the same people who would denigrate women
athletes have never shown any sort of interest in actual
like female athletics. And I say this as a former

(53:34):
you know, female athlete myself, Division one swimmer myself. These
are not people who ever cared. I mean, they always
like this would be the type who would complain about
the requirements that women's sports receive equals funding to male
sports at colleges and those sorts of things. So there's that,
and then you know, I I wanted to also, I

(53:55):
think that the other element here that deserves you know,
deserves just ushion is the WNBA is overwhelmingly black women,
and it's overwhelmingly LGBTQ. So it's overwhelmingly like queer women,
black women and black queer women, and I think that's
part of what makes them such a target by individuals

(54:17):
like Don junior for derision, where out of one side
of their mouth they can talk about, oh the integrity
women's words blah blah blah, and not the other side
outside of their mouth be incredibly denigrating. And I just
have to tell you, like, as as a woman, I
I do feel like just outright hatred of women is
becoming increasingly normalized. And I don't think that's just You've

(54:42):
got the whole manosphere direction.

Speaker 8 (54:46):
You have.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
You know, this like ideology that women should just be
which is coming both from the like degenerate right, like
the Andrew Tate right, and from the like evangelical Christian
right that women should just be like controlled by men.

Speaker 4 (55:00):
And it's of you.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Just to make it clear, I'm not just being sort
of like delusional and hysterical about this. It's a view
that's being embraced by people who are at the highest
levels of power in our government, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,
who recently who goes to a church that has very
extreme views on gender, including apparently the head pastor believing
that women should not really be able to vote. And

(55:26):
heg Seth recently reposted and shared a segment from CNN
obvious people talking about how the Nineteenth Amendment should be
repealed and women should not be allowed to vote. Let's
go ahead and take listen to a portion of this
segment that Hegseth shared and elevated.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
Wilson says, in his vision of a Christian society, women
as individuals shouldn't be able to vote. His fellow pastors
Jared Longshore and Toby Sumpter agreed.

Speaker 6 (55:51):
In my ideal society, we would vote as households, and
I would ordinarily be the one that would cast the vote,
but I would cast the vote having discussed it with
my household.

Speaker 11 (56:01):
But what if there's a your wife doesn't want to
vote for the same person as you, right, well, then that's.

Speaker 7 (56:06):
A great opportunity for a good discussion.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
There are some who have gone so far as to
say that they want the nineteenth Amendment repealed.

Speaker 12 (56:12):
I would support that, and I support it on the
basis that the atomization that comes with our current system
is not good for humans.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
And we can see the way that attitudes are shifting culturally.
To ryanf we put E six up on the screen
so we can see in these surveys of tenth and
twelfth grade boys, that there's a cultural shift away from
just basic liberal views of gender equality. One of the
questions is a woman should have the same job opportunities
as a man. You can see the dramatic decline here

(56:45):
in the number of boys who agree with this, again
basic liberal sentiment. And this other one that says men
and women should be paid the same amount of money
if they do the same work, also significant decline, so
that those levels are below where they were in nineteen
ninety when I was nine years old.

Speaker 4 (57:05):
This to me is very disturbing.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Ryan, And I don't know what you know if you
think about you have daughters also you just you know,
care about gender equality as a matter of principle as
well wife that you care about who's actuarily accomplished, Like,
I don't know, do you see this happening And where
do you think this comes from?

Speaker 4 (57:22):
And what do you think it means?

Speaker 5 (57:23):
Yeah, I saw I saw these numbers a couple of
days ago, and they are really stark. And I'll be
a man and man explained you had said tenth and
twelfth just for the viewers, eight is eighth their eighth
and tenth, sorry, which is doesn't change the meaning here.
Twenty eighteen seems to be this inflection point here, you know,

(57:45):
where you see this real drop off, less of a
drop off, and so twenty eighteen, of course it's the
height of the me Too movement, and interestingly, you see
you don't see much.

Speaker 7 (58:01):
Increase in like it.

Speaker 5 (58:04):
Oftentimes, if you're going to see a backlash like this,
first you'll see an increase in support, but you don't
really see that like you see just an immediate fall off.
You can put let's put that element back up on
the screen so people can see it again. You you
do see an increase in support for a woman should

(58:24):
have the same job opportunities as a man, starting you know,
little after twenty ten. This this is the period of time.
They call it a great awokening. So while people are
reconsidering you know, gender and race and sexuality in the culture,
you see you see an uptick there, but me Too

(58:45):
itself doesn't translate here to any gains at all and
instead starts to starts to push the numbers off the cliff.
It's and it's so it's hard.

Speaker 7 (58:57):
You know. This is also.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
Around the time I guess that young men start drifting
towards Trump. So yeah, I think this these are really
profound numbers and I think say a lot about our politics.
What's what's your thought on the on the connection to
twenty eighteen.

Speaker 4 (59:17):
I think it's a reasonable possibility.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
I point more to you know, because you see this.

Speaker 7 (59:24):
Like it's all one big bundle, but go ahead, yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
And also I mean I think for everybody, but for
men in particular, where the cultural value proposition for men
is basically like, you know, what what makes you a
man is you can provide, right, you have the job,
you can you can provide for your family and buy
the house, And that's been taken off the table right

(59:48):
for so many people. And I think when you have
a population that is very stressed economically stressed about what
the future looks like, which is not only economics, but
you know, the most clear cut example is like material
conditions and possibilities, I think it makes it very easy
to present a zero sum picture and to scapegoat. And

(01:00:11):
I think that scapegoating, you know, again, it connects to
like the women's force thing, Like we know what the
who the scapegoats are. It's like trans people, it's immigrants,
and it's women. So I think there is a zero
sum portrait of well, if these if these women are
getting ahead, then you're that's taking away from you. And

(01:00:31):
if you have a population that's doing well, that's not
going to hold a lot of water, that's not going
to have a lot of appeal. But if you have
a population that's really stressed, then they're going to be
more open to those arguments of like, geez, the reason
I can't get a decent job, the reason it's because
these all these women. You know, schools are designed for women,
and all these women going to college, and you know,
women are instead of being where they should be in

(01:00:54):
the house, they're they're taking the job that should rightfully
be mine. I think it just makes people more open
to that sort of zero sum scapegoating, which again is
not just expressed in terms of regressive views towards women,
but is also expressed in terms of you know, immigrants,

(01:01:14):
in terms of trans people, in terms of anyone who
could be picked, you know, portrayed as like an other
who's taking away from from you something that you truly deserve.
So that's sort of my larger analysis of what's going
on there, and you know, the me too backlash plan
to that possible. But the reason I don't point my
finger directly at that is because you see this trend

(01:01:36):
across groups, not just with regard to women. And by
the way, I see the attack on transgender people as also,
you know, not just being about those individuals who are
easy to portray as like different, weird, other, degenerate and
all these sorts of things. I also see that as
an attack on women and controlling, like the bounds of

(01:01:57):
what you can be is what it looks like to
be a woman. And we've seen examples of this where
someone who doesn't present, you know, in the like classic
feminine way scrutinizes like, oh, you're not allowed to be
in this bathroom, and it creates, you know, these tighter
gender prescribed gender roles when you go after trans people

(01:02:20):
in this way as well.

Speaker 7 (01:02:22):
Yeah, and the questions here are just wild.

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
Put the element back up on the screen, if we
have a second, just to be clear that the two
things that people are agreeing and disagreeing with here a
woman should have the same job opportunities as a man,
and then the other one is men and women should
be paid the same money if they do the same work.
And you know, for that latter one, only fifty seven
percent of these eighth and tenth grade boys agree completely

(01:02:50):
that men and women should be paid the same money
if they do the same work.

Speaker 7 (01:02:54):
Now somewhat agree, It gets you up to eight and ten. Okay, good,
But what's what's somewhat here?

Speaker 5 (01:03:01):
Like, what is the circumstance right where a man does
the job and gets paid more than a woman doing
the job and the same a woman should have the
same job opportunities as a man. Agree completely is down
to forty five percent, So you get you add somewhat,
it gets you up to seventy two percent, But what's
the what's the circumstance here in these kids mind where

(01:03:27):
the opposite should be the case. It's it's just it's
dark that that this is where these boys are.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Yeah, and I think it ties into this cultural sense
I have that values that were kind of taken for granted,
you know that I thought were just like we all
kind of accepted are And you know that the you know,
the women should be in the kitchen idea or whatever like,

(01:03:57):
or even just that it's good to be humble, it's
good to care about your fellow human. These things that
I just thought were sort of like baked into society
at this point more or less, you know, it's like
aspirational values that they've just been in many instances turned
on their head, or that there's been tremendous backsliding, and
that was I guess what disturbed me the most about this.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
Chart is.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
The fact that in nineteen ninety we had young boys
had better just like basic quality of gender values than
in the year twenty twenty five. That is profoundly disturbing
to me because it just speaks to the possibility of like, Okay,
well where does this end?

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
And that's why, again to tie back to the p
hext thing, when you see the Secretary of Defense being
like pretty much co signing the view that women should
just not be allowed to vote, it may seem preposterous,
but a lot of things that I would have thought
were preposterous have been put back on the table, which
is why I'm trying to make a concerted efver to
pay more attention to these Yeah, I can't even call

(01:05:03):
it a warning sign. Was the freaking Secretary of Defense,
who has a lot of sway over you know, the
way women are treated, for example, in the military, and
what possibilities and jobs are open to women in the
military and whether they are being paid the same as
an equally qualified man in that role.

Speaker 4 (01:05:17):
So so in any.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
Case, I guess I'll just wrap it all in a
bow and say I find it to be part of
a larger cultural phenomenon of basic you know, value and
morality backsliding, and I find it to be deeply disturbing
because I don't know where the bottom is.

Speaker 5 (01:05:33):
Yeah no, those those numbers are pointing straight down. It'd
be one thing if that's where they stopped. But yeah,
there's no indication that a year from now that dot's
not going to be significantly lower.

Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
All right, guys, Well, thank you so much for hanging
out with us today, as we had a very I
would say it was quite a widely varied show today, Ryan,
That's how I would describe it. If there was too
much Commue takeover for you today, don't worry. What we
affectionately tongue in cheek called the fascist takeover will come

(01:06:10):
in tomorrow with Soccer and evely after the Commue takeover today,
So we discussed explicitly with them. They're going to cover
the DC National Guard crime story as well. So you
can sort of choose your own adventure with whether you
want the lefty or the right wing perspective on what's
going on there. As always, we really appreciate you, guys.

(01:06:31):
Thank you so much to premium supporters who make all
of this possible and have made the expansion possible. If
you want to become a premium subscriber Breakingpoints dot com,
you get our live Ama, you get the full Friday
show and lots of other good stuff in between. Ryan,
always fun, my friend.

Speaker 7 (01:06:47):
Always good to see you, and we'll

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
See you guys very soon