Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump fires head of stats after jobs report, AI bubble props up economy, Ghislaine transferred to club fed, mystery third figure in Epstein tapes.
Jasper Nathaniel: https://x.com/infinite__jaz
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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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. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. Have an amazing
show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Indeed, we do a lot of interesting things happening in
the world. So Trump fires the statistician who gave him
in jobs report numbers that he was not too happy about.
So we'll talk about those numbers and also the fallout
from that firing. Trump is also contemplating a Galaine Maxwell pardon,
and she has been moved to a cushy club fed
in Sager's hometown.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's right town that I was born in I've got
all the lowdown on that. I'll try I'll try to
get some inside scoop on her and Elizabeth Holmes relationship.
I'll try to report back.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
In addition, bunch of updates with regard to Israel. But
we had Mike Huckabee, Steve Whitcoff, and Mike Johnson all
visiting Israel, so we have some updates there. They are
issuing an ultimatum to Hamas as the starvation continues, TikTok
is installing a former IDF sensor on their platform. As
the all out assault on campus free speech continues from
(01:27):
the Trump administration, Tim Dillon making some pretty uh I
would say, very incisive comments about Bary Weiss's free press
and the reason that she is garnering the valuation for
her company that she has been able.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
To order billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, okay, We've got a lot to say about that.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
One having a little bit of knowledge about media companies
and what their actual value is, so we'll dig into that.
And we also have a fantastic gas Jasper Nathaniel who
has been relentlessly focusing on what is going on in
the West Bank. Of course, while all rise have been
on Gaza understandably, the project of annexation, he says, in
the West Bank basically complete. And you'll call this was
a key campaign promise from Trump directly to Maria Maddilson,
(02:06):
who gave him one hundred million dollars, and they were
making good on that pledge to her.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So a lot to get to there.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
But we also considered just blowing up the whole show
so Sager could express his extreme discuss for two hours
at the Rose Garden. I want the potential in the
Gilded ballroom also, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I desperately wanted to go off one day, perhaps that
I will have a guest on from the White House
Historical Association or something. These are things that absolutely zero
buddy a zero other people care about, but are deep
are right about that, I hope, so listen. I would
hope that Americans have a veneration for aesthetics, for history,
for the way that our White House should look to
(02:44):
the world, and to not turn it into a mar
A Lago or Saudi Arabian style of state. But you know,
I don't know. I've started to give up in terms
of that, But perhaps you're right, Perhaps, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
We can negative Garden is just like it just is grot.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Maybe we can negatively polarized liberals into caring about some
of these things. I'm fine, you know, it's a big tent.
It's a big tent, and welcome anybody else in there.
Before we get to that, we do have the show
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You want to share it there on Facebook, if you're
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(03:19):
And before you know as well, we have the show
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(03:42):
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(04:04):
tremendously helpful to us with that list. With the economy,
as Crystal said, so Donald Trump, the president has now
fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, go
and put this up there on the screen, removing the
official quote overseeing jobs data after a dismal employment report.
So you may ask, what the hell is going on here?
And so all of it stems back to report on Friday,
(04:28):
after a new BLS report on jobs, which showed some
precarity in the US economy as well as some previous revisions.
And so this is a big question. It showed just
seventy three thousand jobs added last month, two hundred and
fifty eight thousand fewer jobs were created in May and
June than had previously an estimated. Quote. The report then
(04:49):
suggested the economy had sharply weakened during Trump's tenure, a
pattern consistent slowed down with economic growth during the first
half of the year, and an increase in inflation during
June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by
the President's tariff. So who was this person? She was
nominated by Biden in twenty twenty three, became the commissioner
of the BLS in twenty twenty four January of twenty
(05:11):
twenty four. They usually serve four year terms. The Senate
confirmed her eighty six to eight. Jd Vance did vote yes.
In case anybody is wondering, much of this is about
these revisions, and you know, just to explain a little
bit behind this, because I think it's actually fair for
people to be like, how does this all happen? The BLS,
the Census and all of this, they're not the most
(05:33):
efficient agencies, and in some ways it's almost difficult to
blame them. You are trying to get a full survey
of the US economy using statistical sampling and all of
these very outmoded ways. Now, the Census in particular is
the most outmoded because it's constitutionally mandated the way that
they do it, and in fact, there was an effort
to revitalize and change the way that the BLS conducts
(05:56):
its employment data. Would anyone like to tell me what
happened to that agency in that effort. Oh right, it
was fired by Hard Lutnk in his first week while
he was in office. And so that's what happened over
at the BLS. Just in case anybody's wondering, the ability
to actually modernize the data was dozed within the first
week of the Trump administration. Yeah, it's very efficient, so
that now we have inefficient data. But people are like,
(06:17):
how does this continue happening? And again it's largely because
the snapshot that they get after that month, after more
accurate payroll data and other comes in causes revisions. This
happened during the Biden administration, It's now happened during the
Trump administration. The wild swings are actually more reflective of
the wilding changer nature of our economy. I'm not defending
the numbers themselves. I agree it's ridiculous that we don't
(06:39):
necessarily have such a quick snapshot at the same time.
So you know, three hundred and thirty million people fifty
different states. It's the biggest economy in the history of
the world. It's not Liechtenstein. It's not so easy to
just be like, oh, how much money do we make today?
Or something right, right, So this is a very inefficient system.
But part of the thing is and that it has
been deviled presidents since all time. But I am laying
(07:00):
it out. I'm trying to as fairly as possible to
say the revisions themselves wild, wild and crazy are not
necessarily inconsistent with the wild and changing nature of all
of our economic policy over the last two years, if.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I could build on that.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So in addition, in the same way that there is
a lower response rate to polls making it more difficult
to pull what they rely upon for the core of
the data that they collect to compile these jobs numbers
is surveys that go out to businesses and also you know,
public institutions, et cetera. And so the response rate has
gotten lower over time. And you know, so initially when
(07:37):
they report those numbers out, it's not like they've gotten
all of their survey data back. So revisions they always
do revisions, that's nothing new. The extent the size of
these revisions is no doubt notable. And I think the
things that I saw pointed to are number one, this
is just sort of like, you know, the quality of
the data is degrading over time.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
That's number one.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Number two was pointing out a lot of actually the
later survey results to come in were from public institution,
public sector institutions, and they had taken a job hit
because of DOGE and because of all the cuts and
government spending, et cetera. So that may have added to it.
And then number three just the fact that the economy
(08:19):
is so topsy.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Turvy right now.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
All of the late survey data that came in after
the original numbers all pointed in a more negative direction,
whereas typically it'll be sort of mixed. You know, what's
coming in after the fact, you know, some of it
will be more up, some of it will be more down,
so more or less even out. So that's from my
understanding of reading into it why there was such a
significant revision on these particular jobs numbers. And I mean,
(08:44):
it does just kind of make a logical sense when
you think of how all over the place Trump has
been with the tariff policy in particular, that that would
make it more difficult to be able to ascertain exactly
what the impacts are and why businesses would perhaps drag
feet in sending in their own information to the government.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So I feel cool understanding because we were selected as
part of the business survey, and I completed it promptly,
even though it was a pain in the ass. Yeah,
that's I told you that. Yeah, we were part of
the I think we were a part of the annual survey,
and yeah, it was. Honestly, it was a huge pain.
So I understand why business owners out there don't want
to do it. But thank you for podcast representation to
the United States government for including breaking points in your
(09:26):
in your survey. But with all of that being said,
here is Donald Trump for his explanation for why he
wanted to fire the BLS. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Why don't you fire the head.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because I think her
numbers were wrong, just like I thought her numbers were
wrong before the election, right on.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
The monthly drive before going forward. Why should anyone.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Trust the numbers? You're right, No, you're right. Why should
anybody thrust numbers? You go back to election election day,
Look what happened two or three days before with massive
wonderful job numbers trying to get him elected or her elected,
trying to get whoever the hell was running. Because you
(10:08):
go back and they came out with numbers. They were
very favorable Da Kamala, Okay, they're trying to get him elected,
trying to get her elected. And then on the fifteenth
of November or thereabouts, they had an eight or nine
hundred thousand overstatement reductions right after the election. It didn't
(10:29):
work because you know who won, John I won.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So that's what the new Trump administration line. Here here
is here's White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett kind
of talking more about that that eight hundred thousand revision
that came after Joe Biden withdrew from the race, but
it was before the election. Actually, let's take a listen.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
There was an eight hundred thousand and eighteen eight hundred
and eighteen thousand revision making the Joe Biden job record
a lot worse that came out after he withdrew from.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
The presidential campaign.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
A bunch of patterns that could make people wonder. And
I think the most important thing for people to know
is that it's the president's highest priority that the data
be trusted and that people get to the bottom of
why these revisions are so unreliable.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So again, I mean much of this as you so
you laid it all out. It is also apparently COVID
destroyed the response record. And I don't want to sit
here and defend BLS or any of this data, CPI data,
all of it. It is very spotty. People have accurately
criticized it for years, but it's kind of what we have.
And so from that, of course, it has tremendous impact
(11:34):
on the overall US economy, projections for business, investment, for
the Federal Reserve, for the way of course that people make,
you know, investment decisions. The S and P five hundred
stock market. The stock market, by the way, reacted terribly
to those jobs numbers. Possibly why you see why President
Trump fired that person. But let's go and put this
up there on the screen and just shows here the
(11:54):
actual revision for where it looked from the original numbers
and where they came down to. Now, obviously, if you're
the president and let's say in April, you have a
pretty decent number, as you can see there, over one
hundred thousand, and then you see a revision down dramatically
after so called Liberation Day, may not be so good
(12:16):
for you. Actually, And in fact, those two months after
Liberation Day, which were the most volatile during tariffs of
course now show a revision dramatically down, and even a
modest increase from that point forward is probably more because
of the you know, the pause that we saw in
the majority of the tariff policy. Of course August first,
just a couple of days ago, a number of other
(12:36):
terroriffs did go into effect. It is remaining unclear. But
the point actually that I want to make is that
beneath the surface, this was all happening no matter what's
going on with all of the bls. There's all kinds
of other data out there. It's also hilarious to me
watching Republicans be like, see the GDP numbers are good.
I'm like, hey, the gd numbers were good under Biden.
(12:56):
Does anybody think the economy was good? We're talking about
the S and P. The S and P was at
all time high as of a couple of days ago,
and you know, the S and P had two record
years under Biden. Did the economy get better under Biden?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
No?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
I mean, you know, and this is where the disconnect
between everyday living conditions. We're going to do this in
a little bit. We're going to talk about poor job
growth and others that come to the you know, so
called blockbuster parts of the economy. And one of the
major insights is that AI spending in particular is responsible
for so much of our current GDP growth. But that
(13:33):
again is not the US economy. That's not manufacturing, that
is not jobs or people who are working at lower wages.
That has no impact whatsoever on your ability to purchase
a house. There's a big chart going viral right now
on the right about you know, the average thirty year
old and the ability to buy a house and all that.
It still remains one of the most fundamental questions, like
(13:54):
really of our time. But the point not.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Only on the right that's going viral. By the way,
Oh good, yeah, I'm glad very much of my time.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I wanted to go everywhere. Everyone should be aware of it,
everyone should say, hey, what the hell is going on here?
I was actually just looking at a current forecast. You know,
even with all of this too late pal stuff, even
with the federal reserve cut, the forecast or twenty twenty
five interest rate is like six point two five percent.
That's still double what it was just five years ago.
Are we ever going back to three? Probably not, but
you know four or five would be nice. Certainly can
(14:21):
save people thousands and thousands of dollars. Yeah, whenever they're
trying to do that. So you can just look at
the carrying costs they buy, the purchasing price. Home price
has still remain very very high. Market is a disaster.
Interest rates and all of that are problem. That's the
numbers to me that matter as along with wage growth.
The S and P doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Let's just stick on the firing of the BLS commissioner,
like it's deeply disturbing. Obviously they had no issue with
this lady when she was when the jobs numbers that
were coming out they thought benefited them. And in fact,
part of why Trump was so hard hit by these
revisions is because, first of all, it really.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Does complete the picture.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I mean, there was a lot of weirdness in the
economy of like, okay, debt levels are at consumer debt
levels are at an all time high, inflation ticking up,
you see, consumer confidence is quite low. Like you see
all these negative signs, but then the jobs numbers are
hanging in there. It's like, how is that happening? And
now it's like okay, now it kind of all makes sense. Yes,
the economy is just as bad as people feel that
(15:18):
it is. This fills in the blanks. So prior to
this moment when these negative jobs numbers comes out, Trump
had no issue with her.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
So, I mean, it just.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Is really clear he didn't like the numbers. So he's
firing the lady who put out the numbers. Now, just
so people understand, and maybe this is a little comforting,
he makes it seem like she just gets out like
a pen and pad and is like, here you go,
this is what she actually doesn't even know what they
are before the announcement happens. Now there are and it's
not like just a one plus one. There's all sorts
(15:49):
of statistical modeling and analysis that goes into this. And
what I was reading is that, you know, there are
all these little micro decisions that you could sort of
push in one way or the other that over time
could influence the job numbers one way or another. So
the next person that they put in who was this
lady's deputy by the way, so this is another like
career official. This is not someone who you know, they
(16:11):
didn't like, put Janine Piro in there or something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
She's busy. Now she has been confirmed for her other job.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
But in any case, this is a you know, career statistician,
another like longtime career bureaucrat who's been put into this position.
But if you're her or him, I'm not sure, male
or female, if you're anyone else throughunt the government, you've
got this in your head now, like if I give
the president some news that he doesn't like, my ass
is grassed, Like I'm going to get fired. So does
(16:37):
that impact the way that you go about your job?
Does it impact those little micro decisions that get made
about how the statistical model is created. I think that
the comment Trump made there where he said why should
anyone trust numbers? Was very revealing. And you know, I
mean it harkens back to stop the steal. It harkens
back to his fundamental ability and desire to reshape reality
(17:04):
to his liking and to destabilize reality. I mean, really
is a very postmodernist presidency where it's like, what even
are facts in reality?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
And so this is just sort of the logical.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Endpoint of a man in an ideology that really doesn't
actually care about what the facts and the reality are.
He cares about what's going to serve his personal interests.
At any given time. So you know, this is sort
of like a classic I guess like cult leader technique
or tactic. The more that you can just sort of
create and assert your own reality, obviously, the more power
(17:39):
you're going to have over your followers, the people that
believe you. So you know, I think it's also significant
in terms of Trump's psychology and the way that he
approaches power.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And we have a supercut here of Trump previously talking
about how much he liked the BLS numbers. Let's take
a listen.
Speaker 7 (17:55):
The numbers were much better, as you know, than projected
by the media.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
In three months, we have created three hundred.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And fifty thousand jobs.
Speaker 7 (18:05):
Think of that, a bun of jobs that we created.
That's what happened this morning.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That was before the revisions. But now let's go and
put the next one up there on the screen. A
six journal actually did a very good job here, and
I'll just read directly from them. Job market data gets
revised every month, but rarely are the revisions as negative
as the ones in Friday. Now, what they say is
that the last time there was such a large revision
to the change over employment was in April of twenty
twenty the height of the pandemic. Quote. Worryingly, revisions have
(18:34):
been consistently negative in twenty twenty five. The lower the
Labor Department now lowering its initially reported job count every
month through June. So what happened monthly payroll came from
the Labor Department's BLS statistics. The BLS has a voluntary
monthly survey of one hundred and twenty one thousand businesses
and government agencies that employ twenty six percent of all
non farm employees. It extrapolates the responses to produce estimates
(18:56):
for the whole workforce. In a typical month, they will
hear back from sixty percent. However, an economist said that
the collection rate in June was just fifty nine point
five percent, so that's part of the problem. Government agencies
were then overrepresented amongst us payrolls to the bs pylS
styb from survey. Then the revision to May and June
were due to public schools, which employed some one hundred
(19:17):
and ten thousand fewer people in June than BLS believed
at the time. But quote the late responses from other
industries all stewed negative. After incorporation all of these weaker numbers.
Weakness was then spread back through May due to statistical
methodology called concurrent seasonal adjustment, and most of the revision
in May is due to the quote routine recalculation of
seasonal factors. Again, I do not want to, you know,
(19:39):
CAPE for this insane system. I am just telling you
that is the way it has always worked. And you
should always, of course believe to take some a grain
of salt for any of these things, because snapshot statistics
are always wildly inaccurate, at least in my opinion, from
the overall economy. Even the GDP numbers, you know, you
really have to dig deep on them, and they even
they get revised all the time as well. The last
(20:01):
part here, let's put this up there on the screen.
This was an interesting statement from the previous commissioner of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who actually was nominated and
served under Donald Trump in twenty seventeen. He says, quote,
today President Trump called into question the integrity of the
employment Situation report that the BLS re pleased. He accused
the commissioner of deliberate reporting false numbers to reflect poorly
(20:22):
on the administration. Quote this baseless, damaging claim undermines a
valuable work and dedication of BLS staff who produced the
reports each month. This escalates the unprecedent attack on the
independence and integrity of the federal statistical system. The presiden
seems to blame someone else for unwelcome economic news. The
commissioner does not determine what the numbers are, but simply
reports what the data shows. The process of obtaining them
(20:43):
is decentralized by design to avoid opportunities for interference, and
they use the same proven, transparent, reliable process to produce
estimates every month. Every month, the BLS revised prior two
months employment estimates to reflect slower arriving more accurate information.
So that's what we have from somebody who's literally nominated
and worked from Trump previously. By the way, can I
just say this, mister Lutnik, please undoze the commission to
(21:06):
modernize the BLS statistics and let's do that. Except the
problem is now you're going to be tainted by the
fact that they fired the current BLS commissioner, and then
the business community and others are going to say, I'm
not so sure about this. You know, who really knows
what the numbers are? And in fact, perhaps that's parted
by design, is if you have uncertainty within the numbers,
then nobody can firmly trade or make decisions based on them.
(21:29):
But to be honest, you know, we're more worse off
for it because lack of confidence in those numbers. I
know this all sounds very squishy, but we are the
capital of the global empire, the world's reserve currency, our
federal reserve another, I mean literally all of our monetary
policy decides the fate of the globe. And I don't
even think that that's really an exaggeration. Well, that's the
(21:49):
type of stuff they make their decisions on. I'm not
saying it should work that way, but it does. It
has immense impact for our economy, stock market, firing, etc.
And so lack of confidence within that it's just one
more step down, in my opinion, in a batter action.
And so with that, I don't know, Yeah, I don't
know how it was a workout. Maybe it could be fined,
but you know, it doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I mean, it does harken back to like, you know,
the Soviet Union, where it was like they didn't want
to convey negative results to the leadership, so they would
just make stuff up and then you're unable to like, actually,
you know, plan, And there was also a sense of like, oh,
we don't were in this competition with the US. We
don't want to expose any of our dirty laundry, so
we want our like the public facing numbers to look
(22:29):
really good. And yeah, what happens is then no one
can make good decisions, no one can plan, there's no
sense of trust in anything that's coming out of the government,
and it's not a.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Good place to beate.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So, you know, this is part and parcel not only
with Trump's reality distortion, it's also with the way that
he has made the even the baseline assumption that the
government should be a sort of neutral entity. He has
thrown that out the window. And that might be one
of the most revolutionary things that he has done. And
(22:59):
I'm that in a negative way in this context since
coming back into power. And that's not to say that
there weren't government agencies that were politicized in the past,
but those were considered scandals. And one offs with the
you know, the assumption that when treating, you know, tax
designations and certainly BLS jobs numbers, that these things were
(23:20):
being crafted by bureaucrats who were meant to be approaching
it in a politically neutral manner. This will come up
again when we do our free speech conversation about the
all an assault on the university system over quote unquote
anti semitism. Trump has decided to use all of the
federal government as a political weapon and explicitly politicize every
(23:41):
single agency as much as he possibly can. And so
this also fits in, you know, that direction where he
has taken the federal government.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So let's get to a bigger economic story. This is
one again part of the reason why the numbers, or
at least other numbers that we can look to, are painting,
you know, kind of a dire picture. And everyone's you know,
on the tariff thing. Initially, the Trump and the MAGA
response was, look at all of these pannikins, they were wrong.
(24:11):
The jobs numbers are fine, The GDP numbers are fine.
And then the job numbers get revised and everybody's very silent.
Right now, everybody's actually a BLS, a BLS scholar in
terms of the way Chimath I'm looking at you. Let's
go and put this one up there on the screen
from the Financial Times. Well, this is Federal Reserve Bank
data from Atlanta says quote wage growth for the lowest
(24:33):
paid quartile of workers, people earning roughly less than eight
hundred and six dollars a week, slowed to an annual
rate of three point seven percent in June, down from
a peak of seven point five percent in late twenty
twenty two, when post pandemic labor shortage in industries such
as hospitality were most acute. Wage growth has also slowed
for higher earners, but to a lesser extent. Pay for
(24:54):
the top twenty five percent is up four percent four
point seven percent in the year to June, and for
overall workforce by four point three percent. Those in the
highest quartal earn more than eighteen hundred dollars per week.
But the figures come after the president Office course sacked
the head of the country's labor statistics agency. But this data,
which links again to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta,
(25:14):
just says that the lowest paid workers are suffering a
sharper slowdown in wage growth than their richer peers. And obviously,
not only is this an inequality problem, but really I
think it is a story of where you know you
can always see both patterns of political like basically, economic
precarity always leads to some sort of political radicalism. Much
(25:38):
of that has been MAGA in the past. Don't forget
you know, many of these people actually did vote for
Donald Trump. I'm not going to say the vast majority,
but lower quintile. You know, it's not an insignificant number
of people who actually voted for Trump. We're making less
than one hundred thousand dollars per year, and obviously, when
we broadly look at kind of where that is going
for wage growth, what you want to see is wage
growth continue to actually go down, So you want the
(26:01):
percentage increased to always be at the lowest quintile and
up from there to the middle class. So the problem
that I see here is that it's like poor people
are getting poorer compared to their richer compatriots. And also
that you see the way that the economy is now
currently structured, which we'll get to in a little bit
around AI and others, is vastly accruing to the top
(26:24):
five to ten percent of the public. It's an American
story now of what the last twenty five years, but
it is just getting worse. And that's the.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Problem I would say even I mean, the AI boom
is really I mean top one percent, top point one percent.
I mean, the consolidation of wealth that is likely to
be achieved through the AI revolution is going to be
more uneven than I think anything we've ever seen in history.
And so when you have this poor wage growth at
the bottom bottom quintile here, it means that in many
(26:56):
instances they're not keeping up with inflation, so it continues
falling further and forth they're behind. And then when you
think of how much housing costs go up, education costs
go up, healthcare costs go up. You know, if you
look specifically at those baskets of goods that really make
up that sort of stable middle class life, you can
see how people are just screwed and helpless. And yeah,
it is going to fuel political radicalization. I mean, I
(27:18):
think probably nothing has been more destabilizing to this country
than the vast inequality, level of inequality that has exploded,
especially since like you know, eighties nineties timeframe when we
had the the embrace of neoliberalism by both parties, and
so you know, we're we're living through the consequences of that,
and the really dire warning here is that it is
(27:40):
about to very likely get much much worse.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, and that fits actually with this next one. Let's
come put the next one please up on the screen.
This is actually probably even more troubling. This is about
the unemployed Americans enduring longer job searches in a cooling market.
And what they say is that quote number of people
unemployed for at least twenty seven weeks now tops one
point eight million, with one person saying quote, I'm considering
myself semi retired at this point, and this fits with
(28:07):
some of those job numbers earlier. Job seekers are out
in the cold this summer, especially ones who've been hunting
for a while. Behind headline grabbing top line numbers in
the Jobs report is a striking piece of data. The
number of people unemployed for at least twenty seven weeks
is now nearly two million, the highest level since twenty seventeen.
Not counting the pandemic unemployment surge, The median length of
(28:29):
unemployment in the US has ticked up from a seasonally
adjusted nine point five weeks to ten point two just
last month. Job hunting highlights a significant undercurrent in labor market,
jolted by tariffs and cautious businesses, and the latest numbers
showed job growth has been sluggish for months, while the
unemployment rate at four point two percent remains low by
historical standards. This is always the issue with unemployment rate.
(28:50):
I remember this during twenty twelve when Obama would be like, look,
we drop the unemployment rate. And actually one of the
ways that Robney was correct. He's like, yeah, but that's
because a ton of people are dropped out of the
labor force and are just not working anymore. That's bad, right,
especially if they don't have any money and they're descending
into poverty or losing their house. Same problem that we
see here. So the more people that drop out of
(29:11):
the labor force or are not seeking work, or are
seasonally adjusted for longer periods in unemployment considering themselves like
semi retired. I mean one of the people we're talking
about it, he's like a forty six year old person,
years ahead if they want to and if they don't
have the finances to continue work. I would also say
that you're going to continue seeing this for colleges because
we've had a full summer now of graduation, and from
(29:34):
what I've heard and some of the data backs this
up as well. New graduates are having a very tough
time mostly because a lot of bose you have cautious businesses,
And second, a lot of entry level work is bullshit,
and you know what is really good at bullshit AI? Like,
in fact, I was talking with somebody who works in
consulting and they were like, you know, a lot of
the early grut work is just familiarization and you take
(29:56):
minutes of meetings and you do stuff like that and
you schedule, et cetera. Guess what Microsoft teams with open
AI is really good at. Yeah, you know, they don't
need you anymore and they don't necessarily want need to
add somebody pay healthcare benefits. So you have those two
things that come together over summer, and it's a big
question for a lot of these new graduates. What are
you going to do and how's that going to work?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:16):
No, I mean I used to work in government consulting
when I first came out on college, and the first
thing I did was work on like a help desk
for you know, it was the US federal courts when
they would have issue with their enterprise software. And the
other thing I would do is just is like yeah,
spreadsheet jockey like you know, analysis of this or that
and compiling in the data and create a presentation like
(30:36):
That's exactly the sort of thing AI can do. And
for many of these companies, even if they haven't fully
implemented AI, they're looking at the landscape and they're figuring
out how so they're reluctant to bring in those new hires,
those entry level individuals, not only because of the insanity
of the you know, terra regime all over the place,
(30:56):
but also because they're trying to figure out, Okay, how
can I use AI to render these people irrelevant? And
you have CEOs out there who say they're very excited
to be able to lay people off. They're very excited
to work with robots insteads of human beings because they
don't take sick days, they don't require vacation, they don't
organize labor unions. So that's very you know, I think,
I think those factors are really going to play into
(31:17):
the unemployment rate among new college graduates. We're also at
a point now with these jobs numbers where we can
start to assess, okay, the stated goals of the tariff
regime versus the results, and one of the stated goals,
there were a variety of stated goals that has always
been sort of all over the place, but one of
the stated goals was to bring back manufacturing jobs. And
(31:39):
over the past in the past three months, every single month,
we have lost manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Most of the job growth that did occur was actually
in healthcare because we have a population that's getting older,
so that's where the you know, most of the job
growth came. And effectively in every other sector you've seen
job losses over the past three months. So you know,
that's not exactly what was sold as the promise of
the new Golden Era, the new Golden age for America
(32:06):
and the rebirth of American manufacturing and reality we're going
in the polar opposite direction, and that is actually different
from under Biden. There was there was an improvement in
manufacturing jobs gains through the industrial policy of the Infrastructure
Act and the Chips Act. So not a good sign
there for the direction that we're heading in.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, exactly. And last piece, here, can we put please
a eleven on the screen. This is kind of the
thing I was flagging about GDP and AHI, so you
can look here from Derek Thompson. I love this graph.
AI capex as in capital expenditure now accounts for a
larger share of GDP than basically any technology since the
(32:47):
railroad in the eighteen hundreds. Basically it's a mini wartime economy,
he says. But the guns are chips and the tanks
are databases. Yeah, one point two percent of all infrastructure
capex as a percent of US GDP is now literally
AI data center. Also, there are some crazy stories across
the country right now that I encourage everybody to tune into.
(33:07):
I'm talking about people who live near meta data processing
centers that can't get water anymore because of cooling, or
people who live near data centers are seeing massive spikes
in electricity prices. I mean, it's crazy that. Let alone
the fact that farmland and all these other things all
of a sudden have wildly different valuations because people are
(33:30):
willing to come in and they're like, oh, no zoning
rags or any of that. I can build whatever the
hell I want. Here. We're talking about massive, big data
centers on top of that. So look, if we don't
get some cheap and abundant energy aka nuclear anytime soon,
this is going to be a serious problem. And of
course what's the investment timeline on that. It takes ten
years you know to get a reactor online. I don't
(33:51):
see a single progress, by the way, despite some promises
on that. And so in the interim, Oh my god,
if you're living in Texas and you're on that Soul
power grid, good luck folk. Yeah, because there is you're
going to see some on top of the deregulated market
down there, plus all those data centers. It's going to
be brewed, not on top of the one hundred and
ten degree heat you know during the summer it's bad.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I mean between with the water and the power. You know,
who's going to get prioritized.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, of course it's not going to be you.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
It's going to be these AI data.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Centers, you know, with these multi billion dollar investments, and
you know, they're their bet. We talked about this last
week with that Samultman I view Von interview. Their bet
is that they don't completely stuck up all the resources
and the electric you know, the energy before AI figures
out how to do like fission energy or something. That's
(34:41):
basically their bet is that they can build these things
out fast enough and develop the AI quick enough that
it's going to just miraculously solve all of these problems
for us. I mean it feels like more of a
religious faith than a science, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, it's it's dangerous stuff out there. All right, let's
get too the Epstein story. Trump continues to keep the
door open for his Galleen Maxwell pardon. He says, I'm
allowed to do it. We know you're allowed to do it.
The question is are you gonna do it. Let's take
a listen. Is clemency on the table for her in
(35:14):
exchange for testimony.
Speaker 7 (35:15):
I'm allowed to do it, but nobody's asked me to
do it. I know nothing about it. I don't know
anything about the case, but I know I have the
right to do it. I have the right to get pardons.
I've given pardons to people before. But nobody's even asked
me to do it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Nobody's questioning that. It's not true. Nobody's asked you to
do it, Glleen's Maxwell's team has certainly asked you to
do it. We're going to get to that in a second,
but before we do, we of course have to play
this clip of Trump, will you pardon Diddy and listen
to the justification he gives. Let's take a lesson Sean
Diddy Combs, right, would you consider pardoning him?
Speaker 7 (35:48):
Well, he was essentially, I guess, sort of half innocent.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
I don't know what they do.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
He's still in jail or something, but he was celebrating
a victory, but he seems I guess it wasn't as
good as a victory. Probably. You know, I was very
friendly with him. I got along with him great, and
it seemed like a nice guy. I didn't know him well,
but when I ran for office, he was very hostile.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
He said some nice things about him.
Speaker 7 (36:17):
Yeah, and it's hard, you know, like you were human
beings and we don't like to have things cloud our judgment, right,
But when you knew someone and you were fine, and
then you run for office, and he made some terrible statements.
So I don't know, it's it's more difficult. It makes
(36:37):
it more I'm being honest, it makes it more difficult
to do.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
But more likely a no for Combs would say, okay,
got it. And some of it is about nasty things
for Trump, that's the put.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I mean, it's just wild that he just out and
out and it's like, well, he didn't support me, so
I don't think I'll probably give him more. Like it
just is it's so naked. He doesn't even pretend that,
oh he was on usly prosecutor to know. It's like, well,
you know, we used to be friends, but then he
was said some nasty things about me. So I don't know,
I'm not really feeling that way.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
It's just it's just insane.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And there's a bunch of new reporting too for The
New York Times about just like the brazen corruption, including
the payoffs, the bribes in order to secure these pardons,
and people around Diddy are trying to work the system
right now, trying to get in with various MAGA figures
and like payoff whoever they need to effectively to try
to secure this part. And I mean, this is just
the way this White House functions. It's it's crazy to see.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So with that and the Glaine story, let's continue. Let's
put this up there on the screen. Gallaine Maxwell has
now been moved moved to quote a cushy new club
fed prison as she pushes for a deal to tell
all on Epstein that prison is in Brian, Texas, the
town I was literally born in and it is a
minimum security prison camp. For those of you not familiar,
(37:52):
these prison camps are like the lowest level security in
the federal system. They barely even have like fences or
security measures. Like there's photos of Elizabeth Holmes running around
the track just just to show you. People like photographers
can get close enough to take pictures of Elizabeth Holmes,
a therenose woman who is in the facility. Now there's
a lot of actually open questions about how she even
(38:13):
got this number one. She wasn't supposed to be transferred.
Glane was previously housed at a Federal Correctional Institute low
security prison, which is traditionally where you're supposed to do
with sex offender. Sex venders are not supposed to be
moved to federal prison camps because it's a privilege to
be able to be housed there. So it's an open
question for why the BOP felt the need to trans
an open question. I'm just saying, though, I mean, listen,
(38:34):
all right TOOYA guys, by the way, FOYA people out there,
let's get some records. This is all out you know,
should be there in the open. Who ordered it, you know,
was it the head of the BOP the Department of Justice,
in exchange for what Because this all gets to what
is the deal being struck here between Glaine and the
Trump administration in these extraordinary proffer sessions or whatever where
(38:56):
she's naming some one hundred individuals. Who are those individuals?
To what end are you naming these people? The Glen
Maxwell team obviously is saying, you know, we want our
whole conviction thrown out. They're trying to appeal to the
Supreme Court. Well that Justice Department fight her on that.
That's still an open question. So listen, I mean, this
is all like very sketchy behavior because if the door
(39:18):
is now open to a pardon, and let's say she
comes out and she has a lot to say, but
none of it is about Donald Trump, can anybody really
trust you know that this is legitimate? And see that's
the problem. This is why you need a independent special prosecutor,
somebody with no skin, like actual political skin in the
game to ensure that this stands up to some sort
of legal scrutiny, because if this lady walks free, it
(39:40):
will be one of the craziest things I've ever seen
in mid.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, it's disgusting. She's a monster.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
She shouldn't even be in this prison.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
No, not at all. I mean she shouldn't be there.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
By the way, typically these sorts of transfers are done
by US marshals. It was done directly by your prisons
officials instead. So just you know, another anomaly here. But no,
I mean we can I see what's happening. It's happening
right in front of our eyes. They had that meeting,
you know, there were those leaks to the Wall Street
Journal which may have come from Glaine and her team
about the birthday book and whatever. Then immediately the Todd
(40:12):
Blanche meets with Glaine and lo and behold, next thing,
you know, she's getting moved to this cushy like I mean, listen,
I don't think being in federal prisons ever like really
some vacation the way it's portrayed. But the places that
they portray as like club fed this is the type
of place, right, It's the best you can get within
the federal prison system. Not saying that that's like a
great experience for anyone anyway, But you know, that session,
(40:36):
that proffer session was not just about Okay, what do
you have on other people? Because I don't think Trump
cares about what do you have on other people? What
he cares about is what do you have on me?
What do you have on me? And the fact that
she had enough to apparently at least secure this little
nice transfer for herself over the you know, the protocols
(40:57):
like she should not have been transferred. She was not
actually eligible to be transferred. They had to make an
exception for her to get this transfer. Means she had
something that made him nervous enough that like, okay, well,
let's at least go this far and then we'll see
if she actually gets the pardon, if the federal government
stops fighting her appeal at the Supreme Court. But you know,
I think we can all see what's happening, like what's
(41:20):
happening on the surface level, and interpret what is going
on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
It's just more sketchy than anything else, especially whenever you
have Trump continuing to open the door for a pardon.
So yeah, that's where we are all currently at. Galaine
is sitting pretty in the federal prison camp system and
the so called club FED. Let's go ahead and go
to the next one. Please, let's put it up there
on the screen. The FBI has redacted Trump's name now
(41:47):
in the Epstein files. This is from Jason Leopold. Jason Leopold,
just so people don't know, is really one of the
pre eminent kind of FEYA reporters of our time. If
anybody recalls on this Epstein story, I previously referenced the
CIA Inspector General who was covering up, you know, sex
crimes and pedophilia. That was all because really of Leopold's work,
(42:07):
through a tremendous amount of FOYA victory that he had
actually over the CIA and eventually getting his hands on
those documents. So what he was able to find in
the report is basically how they were redacting Trump's name
along with by the way, several other names. Would be
nice to know who some of those people were, but
officially it's the redaction that is from he was able
(42:30):
to learn through FOYA. Not only that, but the order
itself came down from this current administration. And it's one
too where in a certain way I think they made
he was his own They were really their own worst enemy,
because what happened prior, based on everything I've read now
so far in the open record, is these one hundred
(42:51):
thousand documents were scattered all over the government. Nobody had
actually compiled them together. So Cash, Patel and these other
people were like, all right, put it all together. And
then slowly but surely they're like, yeah, you know, Trump
is in here. Just so it starts to float up
to the White House as of two months before the
memo comes in, and then the order at some point,
you know, gets it. Hey, let's go and miss you, redactions,
(43:11):
et cetera. And somewhere around that time of redaction and
knowledge by Trump that his name is in there, that
is when the infamous memo comes out from the administration
of nothing to see here, killed himself. We will do
no more further releases. And look, you can draw your
own conclusions. And again, part of the reason why I
think this is so foolish decision by the administration is
(43:32):
that what's happening now are all of these leaks from
inside of the DOJ. The birthday book, it only came
from two places. Came from the FBI, or came from Galane.
I still think it came from the FBI because they
haven't released the letter. And the only reason not to
release the letter is because it's scanned, and they have
me even acknowledging the story down in the fiftieth paragraph
(43:53):
or so, that the scans of the book are available
in the Epstein files, and that's one of the ways
that you'd be able to get it. But similarly with
some of the other letters that they didn't release of
Bill Clinton and others, same thing, they referenced scans being
made of that. Of course it could be available to
Gleane's legal defense team, so you know that's certainly possible
as well. But if you look at other stories, like
(44:14):
at the New York Times, the scans of the book
where Trump wrote to Epstein in nineteen ninety seven, same thing.
It's a scan, it's not a picture of the actual book.
And they say again, if you read further, scans of
the book are available in the Epstein file. So it's
just open season in terms of leaks on the administration.
And he's currently the only story on it, and it
could be one hundred and fifty other stories. But you know,
(44:34):
I guess he's scared of whatever that story is, or
you know, is just doing a stupid job at covering up.
You can answer that problem at any time by actually
releasing it. And killing this entire story. But that's what
they've chosen not to do.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, well, and at this point it's really too late because,
like you said, you could never trust what came out
of them from them at this point, like, there's no
way that you're going to be able to get some
sort of full accounting from these people because they've invested
a whole lot in a cover up, and we're going
to cover the also some video irregularities too, and that
that video that they really because remember when they put
out the memo the he killed himself, nothing to see here,
(45:07):
we're moving on case clothes, Prince Andrew, you're vindicated. When
that memo went out, the only proof that they offered
was this video evidence, which was the post to demonstrate
conclusively to all of us that no, there there was
no funny business on the night that Jeffrey Epstein was killed.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
It was just.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
A you know, series of unfortunate incidents where the cameras
were not functioning and the guards were asleep, and you know,
here's the video and let's all move on.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Right, Okay, let's get to that then. So CBS News
actually did a great job. They did almost ten minute
investigation into this and they compiled some of the stuff
that we've talked about here about the camera angles and
all this, but they did a very good job of
showing some of the graphics, and they brought in some
more metadata analyzes to show both a third person that's
available and visible in the video actually down in the background,
(45:55):
and just a debunk colt preposterous. The one released by
the DJ is let's take a listen.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
CBS News has reviewed the tape and this is what
it shows. The primary entrance is here. The pathway from
the entrance to the stairs is completely out of view
of the camera, leaving ample room for someone to enter unseen.
This is the last time Epstein is believed to have
been seen on camera, but we don't see him walking
up the stairs to his cell. Bongino also said none
(46:21):
of this video was doctored. It was the original, raw
footage from the camera.
Speaker 7 (46:25):
We're going to give the original so you don't think
there are any shenanigans.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
But a review by multiple video forensic experts found several
indications this may not be raw footage. For example, at
eleven twenty one PM, a cursor appears briefly indicating the
video may have actually been a recording of a computer screen.
Experts told CBS News the videos metadata, which tracks how
a file is created and changed, shows it's made from
(46:49):
two clips edited together. Then at eleven fifty eight PM,
the video suddenly jumps to midnight and the aspect ratio
shifts and every night should have the same missing. So
we're looking for that video to release that as well,
showing that a minute is missing every night. But a
government source familiar with the probe told CBS News the
FBI and other agencies are in possession of a copy
(47:11):
of the video that records with no interruption.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Well, what do you got? All right? I mean, it's
pretty convincing to me. Do you think funny how you.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Never released that video showing, oh, every night, the same
minute is missing.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
We're going to get that to you.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
So what do we talk about? We talked about it.
It's like, it is theoretically possible that some nineteen nineties
EERO system does that, But then you're going to have
to release a lot of evidence. And as I mean again,
the metadata there doesn't lie, as they show they also
have this recording, It's like, what are we doing potato
quality now from the government where we're going to record
our photos. He's like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 3 (47:45):
You know, It's just.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
That's like, that's the Boomerius move.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I've ever heard the degradation in this government to not
even be able to do the basis of an effective
cover up soccer. I thought about thee what have we
come to?
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Thought?
Speaker 1 (47:58):
What we come? I kept thinking about that in the
whole land Guido thing, I'm like, what, we can't even
do it.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
We can't even do it coup. It's our own best
sell American coup, and I want to just want.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
To kill him and put the guy on the thing.
We don't need to recognize some fake government orright, let's
let's all just do it properly.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I don't know if you saw this as well.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
I think it was from CBS too, because they did
the most thorough analysis. There's also a part where you
see a like mystery figure.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
In orange exactly yes, which is also.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Really significant because they claim, oh, there's no one in
this video, and then there is that appears at a
certain point, and I think another outlet had reported sources
indicating that no, this whole like, oh there's always a
minute missing thing.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
It's just bullshit. That's just not true.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
So and not to mention this camera angle, and this
is part of what CBS is pointing out, doesn't even
show what they purport to show. Like they claim that
this if you know, if you're you have your eyes
on this camera, this means no one could go in
or come out of this cell without you seeing it there,
And that's also just not true.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
So the way they portrayed.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
The video was a lie. The you know, the explanation
that this is raw footage and this hasn't been altered,
that's a lie. The idea there was no other figures in,
that's a lie. The missing minute thing, that's a lie.
So you're like, okay, well, so what are you hiding here?
Given that this is the only piece of evidence, Like,
it's completely legitimate for people to parse this minute by minute,
(49:19):
since the only piece of evidence that the government has
put out to back up their claim that there was
nothing to see there, nothing untoward happened on the night
that Jeffrey Epstein quote unquote killed himself.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
And lo and behold, we've now got.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
You know, increasingly a lengthy list of inconsistencies and question
marks and lies about this one video they put out.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yes, that's exactly right. And finally P. Six please, what
do we have here from the Maxwell Prison? The new
prison in Texas quietly that she's been transferred to prohibits
cameras and recording devices, very few surveillance and footage, no
public visibility. They moved her into facility where transparency is
actually signific only reduced quote banned by design, right as
(50:01):
he starts cooperating with the d o J. So let's
see you know, good luck are Let's keep our eyes open,
shall we? Down in my hometown of Brian, Texas. Okay,
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
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show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Indeed, we do a lot of interesting things happening in
the world. So Trump fires the statistician who gave him
in jobs report numbers that he was not too happy about.
So we'll talk about those numbers and also the fallout
from that firing. Trump is also contemplating a Galaine Maxwell pardon,
and she has been moved to a cushy club fed
in Sager's hometown.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
That's right town that I was born in I've got
all the lowdown on that. I'll try I'll try to
get some inside scoop on her and Elizabeth Holmes relationship.
I'll try to report back.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
In addition, bunch of updates with regard to Israel. But
we had Mike Huckabee, Steve Whitcoff, and Mike Johnson all
visiting Israel, so we have some updates there. They are
issuing an ultimatum to Hamas as the starvation continues, TikTok
is installing a former IDF sensor on their platform. As
the all out assault on campus free speech continues from
(01:27):
the Trump administration, Tim Dillon making some pretty uh I
would say, very incisive comments about Bary Weiss's free press
and the reason that she is garnering the valuation for
her company that she has been able.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
To order billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, okay, We've got a lot to say about that.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
One having a little bit of knowledge about media companies
and what their actual value is, so we'll dig into that.
And we also have a fantastic gas Jasper Nathaniel who
has been relentlessly focusing on what is going on in
the West Bank. Of course, while all rise have been
on Gaza understandably, the project of annexation, he says, in
the West Bank basically complete. And you'll call this was
a key campaign promise from Trump directly to Maria Maddilson,
(02:06):
who gave him one hundred million dollars, and they were
making good on that pledge to her.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
So a lot to get to there.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
But we also considered just blowing up the whole show
so Sager could express his extreme discuss for two hours
at the Rose Garden. I want the potential in the
Gilded ballroom also, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I desperately wanted to go off one day, perhaps that
I will have a guest on from the White House
Historical Association or something. These are things that absolutely zero
buddy a zero other people care about, but are deep
are right about that, I hope, so listen. I would
hope that Americans have a veneration for aesthetics, for history,
for the way that our White House should look to
(02:44):
the world, and to not turn it into a mar
A Lago or Saudi Arabian style of state. But you know,
I don't know. I've started to give up in terms
of that, But perhaps you're right, Perhaps, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
We can negative Garden is just like it just is grot.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Maybe we can negatively polarized liberals into caring about some
of these things. I'm fine, you know, it's a big tent.
It's a big tent, and welcome anybody else in there.
Before we get to that, we do have the show
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are asking, so we've got links down in the description.
You want to share it there on Facebook, if you're
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(03:19):
And before you know as well, we have the show
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(03:42):
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(04:04):
tremendously helpful to us with that list. With the economy,
as Crystal said, so Donald Trump, the president has now
fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, go
and put this up there on the screen, removing the
official quote overseeing jobs data after a dismal employment report.
So you may ask, what the hell is going on here?
And so all of it stems back to report on Friday,
(04:28):
after a new BLS report on jobs, which showed some
precarity in the US economy as well as some previous revisions.
And so this is a big question. It showed just
seventy three thousand jobs added last month, two hundred and
fifty eight thousand fewer jobs were created in May and
June than had previously an estimated. Quote. The report then
(04:49):
suggested the economy had sharply weakened during Trump's tenure, a
pattern consistent slowed down with economic growth during the first
half of the year, and an increase in inflation during
June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by
the President's tariff. So who was this person? She was
nominated by Biden in twenty twenty three, became the commissioner
of the BLS in twenty twenty four January of twenty
(05:11):
twenty four. They usually serve four year terms. The Senate
confirmed her eighty six to eight. Jd Vance did vote yes.
In case anybody is wondering, much of this is about
these revisions, and you know, just to explain a little
bit behind this, because I think it's actually fair for
people to be like, how does this all happen? The BLS,
the Census and all of this, they're not the most
(05:33):
efficient agencies, and in some ways it's almost difficult to
blame them. You are trying to get a full survey
of the US economy using statistical sampling and all of
these very outmoded ways. Now, the Census in particular is
the most outmoded because it's constitutionally mandated the way that
they do it, and in fact, there was an effort
to revitalize and change the way that the BLS conducts
(05:56):
its employment data. Would anyone like to tell me what
happened to that agency in that effort. Oh right, it
was fired by Hard Lutnk in his first week while
he was in office. And so that's what happened over
at the BLS. Just in case anybody's wondering, the ability
to actually modernize the data was dozed within the first
week of the Trump administration. Yeah, it's very efficient, so
that now we have inefficient data. But people are like,
(06:17):
how does this continue happening? And again it's largely because
the snapshot that they get after that month, after more
accurate payroll data and other comes in causes revisions. This
happened during the Biden administration, It's now happened during the
Trump administration. The wild swings are actually more reflective of
the wilding changer nature of our economy. I'm not defending
the numbers themselves. I agree it's ridiculous that we don't
(06:39):
necessarily have such a quick snapshot at the same time.
So you know, three hundred and thirty million people fifty
different states. It's the biggest economy in the history of
the world. It's not Liechtenstein. It's not so easy to
just be like, oh, how much money do we make today?
Or something right, right, So this is a very inefficient system.
But part of the thing is and that it has
been deviled presidents since all time. But I am laying
(07:00):
it out. I'm trying to as fairly as possible to
say the revisions themselves wild, wild and crazy are not
necessarily inconsistent with the wild and changing nature of all
of our economic policy over the last two years, if.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I could build on that.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So in addition, in the same way that there is
a lower response rate to polls making it more difficult
to pull what they rely upon for the core of
the data that they collect to compile these jobs numbers
is surveys that go out to businesses and also you know,
public institutions, et cetera. And so the response rate has
gotten lower over time. And you know, so initially when
(07:37):
they report those numbers out, it's not like they've gotten
all of their survey data back. So revisions they always
do revisions, that's nothing new. The extent the size of
these revisions is no doubt notable. And I think the
things that I saw pointed to are number one, this
is just sort of like, you know, the quality of
the data is degrading over time.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
That's number one.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Number two was pointing out a lot of actually the
later survey results to come in were from public institution,
public sector institutions, and they had taken a job hit
because of DOGE and because of all the cuts and
government spending, et cetera. So that may have added to it.
And then number three just the fact that the economy
(08:19):
is so topsy.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Turvy right now.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
All of the late survey data that came in after
the original numbers all pointed in a more negative direction,
whereas typically it'll be sort of mixed. You know, what's
coming in after the fact, you know, some of it
will be more up, some of it will be more down,
so more or less even out. So that's from my
understanding of reading into it why there was such a
significant revision on these particular jobs numbers. And I mean,
(08:44):
it does just kind of make a logical sense when
you think of how all over the place Trump has
been with the tariff policy in particular, that that would
make it more difficult to be able to ascertain exactly
what the impacts are and why businesses would perhaps drag
feet in sending in their own information to the government.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So I feel cool understanding because we were selected as
part of the business survey, and I completed it promptly,
even though it was a pain in the ass. Yeah,
that's I told you that. Yeah, we were part of
the I think we were a part of the annual survey,
and yeah, it was. Honestly, it was a huge pain.
So I understand why business owners out there don't want
to do it. But thank you for podcast representation to
the United States government for including breaking points in your
(09:26):
in your survey. But with all of that being said,
here is Donald Trump for his explanation for why he
wanted to fire the BLS. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Why don't you fire the head.
Speaker 5 (09:36):
Of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because I think her
numbers were wrong, just like I thought her numbers were
wrong before the election, right on.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
The monthly drive before going forward. Why should anyone.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Trust the numbers? You're right, No, you're right. Why should
anybody thrust numbers? You go back to election election day,
Look what happened two or three days before with massive
wonderful job numbers trying to get him elected or her elected,
trying to get whoever the hell was running. Because you
(10:08):
go back and they came out with numbers. They were
very favorable Da Kamala, Okay, they're trying to get him elected,
trying to get her elected. And then on the fifteenth
of November or thereabouts, they had an eight or nine
hundred thousand overstatement reductions right after the election. It didn't
(10:29):
work because you know who won, John I won.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So that's what the new Trump administration line. Here here
is here's White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett kind
of talking more about that that eight hundred thousand revision
that came after Joe Biden withdrew from the race, but
it was before the election. Actually, let's take a listen.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
There was an eight hundred thousand and eighteen eight hundred
and eighteen thousand revision making the Joe Biden job record
a lot worse that came out after he withdrew from.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
The presidential campaign.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
A bunch of patterns that could make people wonder. And
I think the most important thing for people to know
is that it's the president's highest priority that the data
be trusted and that people get to the bottom of
why these revisions are so unreliable.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
So again, I mean much of this as you so
you laid it all out. It is also apparently COVID
destroyed the response record. And I don't want to sit
here and defend BLS or any of this data, CPI data,
all of it. It is very spotty. People have accurately
criticized it for years, but it's kind of what we have.
And so from that, of course, it has tremendous impact
(11:34):
on the overall US economy, projections for business, investment, for
the Federal Reserve, for the way of course that people make,
you know, investment decisions. The S and P five hundred
stock market. The stock market, by the way, reacted terribly
to those jobs numbers. Possibly why you see why President
Trump fired that person. But let's go and put this
up there on the screen and just shows here the
(11:54):
actual revision for where it looked from the original numbers
and where they came down to. Now, obviously, if you're
the president and let's say in April, you have a
pretty decent number, as you can see there, over one
hundred thousand, and then you see a revision down dramatically
after so called Liberation Day, may not be so good
(12:16):
for you. Actually, And in fact, those two months after
Liberation Day, which were the most volatile during tariffs of
course now show a revision dramatically down, and even a
modest increase from that point forward is probably more because
of the you know, the pause that we saw in
the majority of the tariff policy. Of course August first,
just a couple of days ago, a number of other
(12:36):
terroriffs did go into effect. It is remaining unclear. But
the point actually that I want to make is that
beneath the surface, this was all happening no matter what's
going on with all of the bls. There's all kinds
of other data out there. It's also hilarious to me
watching Republicans be like, see the GDP numbers are good.
I'm like, hey, the gd numbers were good under Biden.
(12:56):
Does anybody think the economy was good? We're talking about
the S and P. The S and P was at
all time high as of a couple of days ago,
and you know, the S and P had two record
years under Biden. Did the economy get better under Biden?
Speaker 3 (13:10):
No?
Speaker 1 (13:10):
I mean, you know, and this is where the disconnect
between everyday living conditions. We're going to do this in
a little bit. We're going to talk about poor job
growth and others that come to the you know, so
called blockbuster parts of the economy. And one of the
major insights is that AI spending in particular is responsible
for so much of our current GDP growth. But that
(13:33):
again is not the US economy. That's not manufacturing, that
is not jobs or people who are working at lower wages.
That has no impact whatsoever on your ability to purchase
a house. There's a big chart going viral right now
on the right about you know, the average thirty year
old and the ability to buy a house and all that.
It still remains one of the most fundamental questions, like
(13:54):
really of our time. But the point not.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Only on the right that's going viral. By the way,
Oh good, yeah, I'm glad very much of my time.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I wanted to go everywhere. Everyone should be aware of it,
everyone should say, hey, what the hell is going on here?
I was actually just looking at a current forecast. You know,
even with all of this too late pal stuff, even
with the federal reserve cut, the forecast or twenty twenty
five interest rate is like six point two five percent.
That's still double what it was just five years ago.
Are we ever going back to three? Probably not, but
you know four or five would be nice. Certainly can
(14:21):
save people thousands and thousands of dollars. Yeah, whenever they're
trying to do that. So you can just look at
the carrying costs they buy, the purchasing price. Home price
has still remain very very high. Market is a disaster.
Interest rates and all of that are problem. That's the
numbers to me that matter as along with wage growth.
The S and P doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Let's just stick on the firing of the BLS commissioner,
like it's deeply disturbing. Obviously they had no issue with
this lady when she was when the jobs numbers that
were coming out they thought benefited them. And in fact,
part of why Trump was so hard hit by these
revisions is because, first of all, it really.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Does complete the picture.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
I mean, there was a lot of weirdness in the
economy of like, okay, debt levels are at consumer debt
levels are at an all time high, inflation ticking up,
you see, consumer confidence is quite low. Like you see
all these negative signs, but then the jobs numbers are
hanging in there. It's like, how is that happening? And
now it's like okay, now it kind of all makes sense. Yes,
the economy is just as bad as people feel that
(15:18):
it is. This fills in the blanks. So prior to
this moment when these negative jobs numbers comes out, Trump
had no issue with her.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
So, I mean, it just.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Is really clear he didn't like the numbers. So he's
firing the lady who put out the numbers. Now, just
so people understand, and maybe this is a little comforting,
he makes it seem like she just gets out like
a pen and pad and is like, here you go,
this is what she actually doesn't even know what they
are before the announcement happens. Now there are and it's
not like just a one plus one. There's all sorts
(15:49):
of statistical modeling and analysis that goes into this. And
what I was reading is that, you know, there are
all these little micro decisions that you could sort of
push in one way or the other that over time
could influence the job numbers one way or another. So
the next person that they put in who was this
lady's deputy by the way, so this is another like
career official. This is not someone who you know, they
(16:11):
didn't like, put Janine Piro in there or something like that.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
She's busy. Now she has been confirmed for her other job.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
But in any case, this is a you know, career statistician,
another like longtime career bureaucrat who's been put into this position.
But if you're her or him, I'm not sure, male
or female, if you're anyone else throughunt the government, you've
got this in your head now, like if I give
the president some news that he doesn't like, my ass
is grassed, Like I'm going to get fired. So does
(16:37):
that impact the way that you go about your job?
Does it impact those little micro decisions that get made
about how the statistical model is created. I think that
the comment Trump made there where he said why should
anyone trust numbers? Was very revealing. And you know, I
mean it harkens back to stop the steal. It harkens
back to his fundamental ability and desire to reshape reality
(17:04):
to his liking and to destabilize reality. I mean, really
is a very postmodernist presidency where it's like, what even
are facts in reality?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
And so this is just sort of the logical.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Endpoint of a man in an ideology that really doesn't
actually care about what the facts and the reality are.
He cares about what's going to serve his personal interests.
At any given time. So you know, this is sort
of like a classic I guess like cult leader technique
or tactic. The more that you can just sort of
create and assert your own reality, obviously, the more power
(17:39):
you're going to have over your followers, the people that
believe you. So you know, I think it's also significant
in terms of Trump's psychology and the way that he
approaches power.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And we have a supercut here of Trump previously talking
about how much he liked the BLS numbers. Let's take
a listen.
Speaker 7 (17:55):
The numbers were much better, as you know, than projected
by the media.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
In three months, we have created three hundred.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
And fifty thousand jobs.
Speaker 7 (18:05):
Think of that, a bun of jobs that we created.
That's what happened this morning.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That was before the revisions. But now let's go and
put the next one up there on the screen. A
six journal actually did a very good job here, and
I'll just read directly from them. Job market data gets
revised every month, but rarely are the revisions as negative
as the ones in Friday. Now, what they say is
that the last time there was such a large revision
to the change over employment was in April of twenty
twenty the height of the pandemic. Quote. Worryingly, revisions have
(18:34):
been consistently negative in twenty twenty five. The lower the
Labor Department now lowering its initially reported job count every
month through June. So what happened monthly payroll came from
the Labor Department's BLS statistics. The BLS has a voluntary
monthly survey of one hundred and twenty one thousand businesses
and government agencies that employ twenty six percent of all
non farm employees. It extrapolates the responses to produce estimates
(18:56):
for the whole workforce. In a typical month, they will
hear back from sixty percent. However, an economist said that
the collection rate in June was just fifty nine point
five percent, so that's part of the problem. Government agencies
were then overrepresented amongst us payrolls to the bs pylS
styb from survey. Then the revision to May and June
were due to public schools, which employed some one hundred
(19:17):
and ten thousand fewer people in June than BLS believed
at the time. But quote the late responses from other
industries all stewed negative. After incorporation all of these weaker numbers.
Weakness was then spread back through May due to statistical
methodology called concurrent seasonal adjustment, and most of the revision
in May is due to the quote routine recalculation of
seasonal factors. Again, I do not want to, you know,
(19:39):
CAPE for this insane system. I am just telling you
that is the way it has always worked. And you
should always, of course believe to take some a grain
of salt for any of these things, because snapshot statistics
are always wildly inaccurate, at least in my opinion, from
the overall economy. Even the GDP numbers, you know, you
really have to dig deep on them, and they even
they get revised all the time as well. The last
(20:01):
part here, let's put this up there on the screen.
This was an interesting statement from the previous commissioner of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who actually was nominated and
served under Donald Trump in twenty seventeen. He says, quote,
today President Trump called into question the integrity of the
employment Situation report that the BLS re pleased. He accused
the commissioner of deliberate reporting false numbers to reflect poorly
(20:22):
on the administration. Quote this baseless, damaging claim undermines a
valuable work and dedication of BLS staff who produced the
reports each month. This escalates the unprecedent attack on the
independence and integrity of the federal statistical system. The presiden
seems to blame someone else for unwelcome economic news. The
commissioner does not determine what the numbers are, but simply
reports what the data shows. The process of obtaining them
(20:43):
is decentralized by design to avoid opportunities for interference, and
they use the same proven, transparent, reliable process to produce
estimates every month. Every month, the BLS revised prior two
months employment estimates to reflect slower arriving more accurate information.
So that's what we have from somebody who's literally nominated
and worked from Trump previously. By the way, can I
just say this, mister Lutnik, please undoze the commission to
(21:06):
modernize the BLS statistics and let's do that. Except the
problem is now you're going to be tainted by the
fact that they fired the current BLS commissioner, and then
the business community and others are going to say, I'm
not so sure about this. You know, who really knows
what the numbers are? And in fact, perhaps that's parted
by design, is if you have uncertainty within the numbers,
then nobody can firmly trade or make decisions based on them.
(21:29):
But to be honest, you know, we're more worse off
for it because lack of confidence in those numbers. I
know this all sounds very squishy, but we are the
capital of the global empire, the world's reserve currency, our
federal reserve another, I mean literally all of our monetary
policy decides the fate of the globe. And I don't
even think that that's really an exaggeration. Well, that's the
(21:49):
type of stuff they make their decisions on. I'm not
saying it should work that way, but it does. It
has immense impact for our economy, stock market, firing, etc.
And so lack of confidence within that it's just one
more step down, in my opinion, in a batter action.
And so with that, I don't know, Yeah, I don't
know how it was a workout. Maybe it could be fined,
but you know, it doesn't look good.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I mean, it does harken back to like, you know,
the Soviet Union, where it was like they didn't want
to convey negative results to the leadership, so they would
just make stuff up and then you're unable to like, actually,
you know, plan, And there was also a sense of like, oh,
we don't were in this competition with the US. We
don't want to expose any of our dirty laundry, so
we want our like the public facing numbers to look
(22:29):
really good. And yeah, what happens is then no one
can make good decisions, no one can plan, there's no
sense of trust in anything that's coming out of the government,
and it's not a.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Good place to beate.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
So, you know, this is part and parcel not only
with Trump's reality distortion, it's also with the way that
he has made the even the baseline assumption that the
government should be a sort of neutral entity. He has
thrown that out the window. And that might be one
of the most revolutionary things that he has done. And
(22:59):
I'm that in a negative way in this context since
coming back into power. And that's not to say that
there weren't government agencies that were politicized in the past,
but those were considered scandals. And one offs with the
you know, the assumption that when treating, you know, tax
designations and certainly BLS jobs numbers, that these things were
(23:20):
being crafted by bureaucrats who were meant to be approaching
it in a politically neutral manner. This will come up
again when we do our free speech conversation about the
all an assault on the university system over quote unquote
anti semitism. Trump has decided to use all of the
federal government as a political weapon and explicitly politicize every
(23:41):
single agency as much as he possibly can. And so
this also fits in, you know, that direction where he
has taken the federal government.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
So let's get to a bigger economic story. This is
one again part of the reason why the numbers, or
at least other numbers that we can look to, are painting,
you know, kind of a dire picture. And everyone's you know,
on the tariff thing. Initially, the Trump and the MAGA
response was, look at all of these pannikins, they were wrong.
(24:11):
The jobs numbers are fine, The GDP numbers are fine.
And then the job numbers get revised and everybody's very silent.
Right now, everybody's actually a BLS, a BLS scholar in
terms of the way Chimath I'm looking at you. Let's
go and put this one up there on the screen
from the Financial Times. Well, this is Federal Reserve Bank
data from Atlanta says quote wage growth for the lowest
(24:33):
paid quartile of workers, people earning roughly less than eight
hundred and six dollars a week, slowed to an annual
rate of three point seven percent in June, down from
a peak of seven point five percent in late twenty
twenty two, when post pandemic labor shortage in industries such
as hospitality were most acute. Wage growth has also slowed
for higher earners, but to a lesser extent. Pay for
(24:54):
the top twenty five percent is up four percent four
point seven percent in the year to June, and for
overall workforce by four point three percent. Those in the
highest quartal earn more than eighteen hundred dollars per week.
But the figures come after the president Office course sacked
the head of the country's labor statistics agency. But this data,
which links again to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta,
(25:14):
just says that the lowest paid workers are suffering a
sharper slowdown in wage growth than their richer peers. And obviously,
not only is this an inequality problem, but really I
think it is a story of where you know you
can always see both patterns of political like basically, economic
precarity always leads to some sort of political radicalism. Much
(25:38):
of that has been MAGA in the past. Don't forget
you know, many of these people actually did vote for
Donald Trump. I'm not going to say the vast majority,
but lower quintile. You know, it's not an insignificant number
of people who actually voted for Trump. We're making less
than one hundred thousand dollars per year, and obviously, when
we broadly look at kind of where that is going
for wage growth, what you want to see is wage
growth continue to actually go down, So you want the
(26:01):
percentage increased to always be at the lowest quintile and
up from there to the middle class. So the problem
that I see here is that it's like poor people
are getting poorer compared to their richer compatriots. And also
that you see the way that the economy is now
currently structured, which we'll get to in a little bit
around AI and others, is vastly accruing to the top
(26:24):
five to ten percent of the public. It's an American
story now of what the last twenty five years, but
it is just getting worse. And that's the.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Problem I would say even I mean, the AI boom
is really I mean top one percent, top point one percent.
I mean, the consolidation of wealth that is likely to
be achieved through the AI revolution is going to be
more uneven than I think anything we've ever seen in history.
And so when you have this poor wage growth at
the bottom bottom quintile here, it means that in many
(26:56):
instances they're not keeping up with inflation, so it continues
falling further and forth they're behind. And then when you
think of how much housing costs go up, education costs
go up, healthcare costs go up. You know, if you
look specifically at those baskets of goods that really make
up that sort of stable middle class life, you can
see how people are just screwed and helpless. And yeah,
it is going to fuel political radicalization. I mean, I
(27:18):
think probably nothing has been more destabilizing to this country
than the vast inequality, level of inequality that has exploded,
especially since like you know, eighties nineties timeframe when we
had the the embrace of neoliberalism by both parties, and
so you know, we're we're living through the consequences of that,
and the really dire warning here is that it is
(27:40):
about to very likely get much much worse.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Yeah, and that fits actually with this next one. Let's
come put the next one please up on the screen.
This is actually probably even more troubling. This is about
the unemployed Americans enduring longer job searches in a cooling market.
And what they say is that quote number of people
unemployed for at least twenty seven weeks now tops one
point eight million, with one person saying quote, I'm considering
myself semi retired at this point, and this fits with
(28:07):
some of those job numbers earlier. Job seekers are out
in the cold this summer, especially ones who've been hunting
for a while. Behind headline grabbing top line numbers in
the Jobs report is a striking piece of data. The
number of people unemployed for at least twenty seven weeks
is now nearly two million, the highest level since twenty seventeen.
Not counting the pandemic unemployment surge, The median length of
(28:29):
unemployment in the US has ticked up from a seasonally
adjusted nine point five weeks to ten point two just
last month. Job hunting highlights a significant undercurrent in labor market,
jolted by tariffs and cautious businesses, and the latest numbers
showed job growth has been sluggish for months, while the
unemployment rate at four point two percent remains low by
historical standards. This is always the issue with unemployment rate.
(28:50):
I remember this during twenty twelve when Obama would be like, look,
we drop the unemployment rate. And actually one of the
ways that Robney was correct. He's like, yeah, but that's
because a ton of people are dropped out of the
labor force and are just not working anymore. That's bad, right,
especially if they don't have any money and they're descending
into poverty or losing their house. Same problem that we
see here. So the more people that drop out of
(29:11):
the labor force or are not seeking work, or are
seasonally adjusted for longer periods in unemployment considering themselves like
semi retired. I mean one of the people we're talking
about it, he's like a forty six year old person,
years ahead if they want to and if they don't
have the finances to continue work. I would also say
that you're going to continue seeing this for colleges because
we've had a full summer now of graduation, and from
(29:34):
what I've heard and some of the data backs this
up as well. New graduates are having a very tough
time mostly because a lot of bose you have cautious businesses,
And second, a lot of entry level work is bullshit,
and you know what is really good at bullshit AI? Like,
in fact, I was talking with somebody who works in
consulting and they were like, you know, a lot of
the early grut work is just familiarization and you take
(29:56):
minutes of meetings and you do stuff like that and
you schedule, et cetera. Guess what Microsoft teams with open
AI is really good at. Yeah, you know, they don't
need you anymore and they don't necessarily want need to
add somebody pay healthcare benefits. So you have those two
things that come together over summer, and it's a big
question for a lot of these new graduates. What are
you going to do and how's that going to work?
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:16):
No, I mean I used to work in government consulting
when I first came out on college, and the first
thing I did was work on like a help desk
for you know, it was the US federal courts when
they would have issue with their enterprise software. And the
other thing I would do is just is like yeah,
spreadsheet jockey like you know, analysis of this or that
and compiling in the data and create a presentation like
(30:36):
That's exactly the sort of thing AI can do. And
for many of these companies, even if they haven't fully
implemented AI, they're looking at the landscape and they're figuring
out how so they're reluctant to bring in those new hires,
those entry level individuals, not only because of the insanity
of the you know, terra regime all over the place,
(30:56):
but also because they're trying to figure out, Okay, how
can I use AI to render these people irrelevant? And
you have CEOs out there who say they're very excited
to be able to lay people off. They're very excited
to work with robots insteads of human beings because they
don't take sick days, they don't require vacation, they don't
organize labor unions. So that's very you know, I think,
I think those factors are really going to play into
(31:17):
the unemployment rate among new college graduates. We're also at
a point now with these jobs numbers where we can
start to assess, okay, the stated goals of the tariff
regime versus the results, and one of the stated goals,
there were a variety of stated goals that has always
been sort of all over the place, but one of
the stated goals was to bring back manufacturing jobs. And
(31:39):
over the past in the past three months, every single month,
we have lost manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Most of the job growth that did occur was actually
in healthcare because we have a population that's getting older,
so that's where the you know, most of the job
growth came. And effectively in every other sector you've seen
job losses over the past three months. So you know,
that's not exactly what was sold as the promise of
the new Golden Era, the new Golden age for America
(32:06):
and the rebirth of American manufacturing and reality we're going
in the polar opposite direction, and that is actually different
from under Biden. There was there was an improvement in
manufacturing jobs gains through the industrial policy of the Infrastructure
Act and the Chips Act. So not a good sign
there for the direction that we're heading in.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, exactly. And last piece, here, can we put please
a eleven on the screen. This is kind of the
thing I was flagging about GDP and AHI, so you
can look here from Derek Thompson. I love this graph.
AI capex as in capital expenditure now accounts for a
larger share of GDP than basically any technology since the
(32:47):
railroad in the eighteen hundreds. Basically it's a mini wartime economy,
he says. But the guns are chips and the tanks
are databases. Yeah, one point two percent of all infrastructure
capex as a percent of US GDP is now literally
AI data center. Also, there are some crazy stories across
the country right now that I encourage everybody to tune into.
(33:07):
I'm talking about people who live near meta data processing
centers that can't get water anymore because of cooling, or
people who live near data centers are seeing massive spikes
in electricity prices. I mean, it's crazy that. Let alone
the fact that farmland and all these other things all
of a sudden have wildly different valuations because people are
(33:30):
willing to come in and they're like, oh, no zoning
rags or any of that. I can build whatever the
hell I want. Here. We're talking about massive, big data
centers on top of that. So look, if we don't
get some cheap and abundant energy aka nuclear anytime soon,
this is going to be a serious problem. And of
course what's the investment timeline on that. It takes ten
years you know to get a reactor online. I don't
(33:51):
see a single progress, by the way, despite some promises
on that. And so in the interim, Oh my god,
if you're living in Texas and you're on that Soul
power grid, good luck folk. Yeah, because there is you're
going to see some on top of the deregulated market
down there, plus all those data centers. It's going to
be brewed, not on top of the one hundred and
ten degree heat you know during the summer it's bad.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I mean between with the water and the power. You know,
who's going to get prioritized.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, of course it's not going to be you.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
It's going to be these AI data.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Centers, you know, with these multi billion dollar investments, and
you know, they're their bet. We talked about this last
week with that Samultman I view Von interview. Their bet
is that they don't completely stuck up all the resources
and the electric you know, the energy before AI figures
out how to do like fission energy or something. That's
(34:41):
basically their bet is that they can build these things
out fast enough and develop the AI quick enough that
it's going to just miraculously solve all of these problems
for us. I mean it feels like more of a
religious faith than a science, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Yeah, it's it's dangerous stuff out there. All right, let's
get too the Epstein story. Trump continues to keep the
door open for his Galleen Maxwell pardon. He says, I'm
allowed to do it. We know you're allowed to do it.
The question is are you gonna do it. Let's take
a listen. Is clemency on the table for her in
(35:14):
exchange for testimony.
Speaker 7 (35:15):
I'm allowed to do it, but nobody's asked me to
do it. I know nothing about it. I don't know
anything about the case, but I know I have the
right to do it. I have the right to get pardons.
I've given pardons to people before. But nobody's even asked
me to do it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Nobody's questioning that. It's not true. Nobody's asked you to
do it, Glleen's Maxwell's team has certainly asked you to
do it. We're going to get to that in a second,
but before we do, we of course have to play
this clip of Trump, will you pardon Diddy and listen
to the justification he gives. Let's take a lesson Sean
Diddy Combs, right, would you consider pardoning him?
Speaker 7 (35:48):
Well, he was essentially, I guess, sort of half innocent.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
I don't know what they do.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
He's still in jail or something, but he was celebrating
a victory, but he seems I guess it wasn't as
good as a victory. Probably. You know, I was very
friendly with him. I got along with him great, and
it seemed like a nice guy. I didn't know him well,
but when I ran for office, he was very hostile.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
He said some nice things about him.
Speaker 7 (36:17):
Yeah, and it's hard, you know, like you were human
beings and we don't like to have things cloud our judgment, right,
But when you knew someone and you were fine, and
then you run for office, and he made some terrible statements.
So I don't know, it's it's more difficult. It makes
(36:37):
it more I'm being honest, it makes it more difficult
to do.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
But more likely a no for Combs would say, okay,
got it. And some of it is about nasty things
for Trump, that's the put.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I mean, it's just wild that he just out and
out and it's like, well, he didn't support me, so
I don't think I'll probably give him more. Like it
just is it's so naked. He doesn't even pretend that,
oh he was on usly prosecutor to know. It's like, well,
you know, we used to be friends, but then he
was said some nasty things about me. So I don't know,
I'm not really feeling that way.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
It's just it's just insane.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
And there's a bunch of new reporting too for The
New York Times about just like the brazen corruption, including
the payoffs, the bribes in order to secure these pardons,
and people around Diddy are trying to work the system
right now, trying to get in with various MAGA figures
and like payoff whoever they need to effectively to try
to secure this part. And I mean, this is just
the way this White House functions. It's it's crazy to see.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
So with that and the Glaine story, let's continue. Let's
put this up there on the screen. Gallaine Maxwell has
now been moved moved to quote a cushy new club
fed prison as she pushes for a deal to tell
all on Epstein that prison is in Brian, Texas, the
town I was literally born in and it is a
minimum security prison camp. For those of you not familiar,
(37:52):
these prison camps are like the lowest level security in
the federal system. They barely even have like fences or
security measures. Like there's photos of Elizabeth Holmes running around
the track just just to show you. People like photographers
can get close enough to take pictures of Elizabeth Holmes,
a therenose woman who is in the facility. Now there's
a lot of actually open questions about how she even
(38:13):
got this number one. She wasn't supposed to be transferred.
Glane was previously housed at a Federal Correctional Institute low
security prison, which is traditionally where you're supposed to do
with sex offender. Sex venders are not supposed to be
moved to federal prison camps because it's a privilege to
be able to be housed there. So it's an open
question for why the BOP felt the need to trans
an open question. I'm just saying, though, I mean, listen,
(38:34):
all right TOOYA guys, by the way, FOYA people out there,
let's get some records. This is all out you know,
should be there in the open. Who ordered it, you know,
was it the head of the BOP the Department of Justice,
in exchange for what Because this all gets to what
is the deal being struck here between Glaine and the
Trump administration in these extraordinary proffer sessions or whatever where
(38:56):
she's naming some one hundred individuals. Who are those individuals?
To what end are you naming these people? The Glen
Maxwell team obviously is saying, you know, we want our
whole conviction thrown out. They're trying to appeal to the
Supreme Court. Well that Justice Department fight her on that.
That's still an open question. So listen, I mean, this
is all like very sketchy behavior because if the door
(39:18):
is now open to a pardon, and let's say she
comes out and she has a lot to say, but
none of it is about Donald Trump, can anybody really
trust you know that this is legitimate? And see that's
the problem. This is why you need a independent special prosecutor,
somebody with no skin, like actual political skin in the
game to ensure that this stands up to some sort
of legal scrutiny, because if this lady walks free, it
(39:40):
will be one of the craziest things I've ever seen
in mid.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Yeah, it's disgusting. She's a monster.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
She shouldn't even be in this prison.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
No, not at all. I mean she shouldn't be there.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
By the way, typically these sorts of transfers are done
by US marshals. It was done directly by your prisons
officials instead. So just you know, another anomaly here. But no,
I mean we can I see what's happening. It's happening
right in front of our eyes. They had that meeting,
you know, there were those leaks to the Wall Street
Journal which may have come from Glaine and her team
about the birthday book and whatever. Then immediately the Todd
(40:12):
Blanche meets with Glaine and lo and behold, next thing,
you know, she's getting moved to this cushy like I mean, listen,
I don't think being in federal prisons ever like really
some vacation the way it's portrayed. But the places that
they portray as like club fed this is the type
of place, right, It's the best you can get within
the federal prison system. Not saying that that's like a
great experience for anyone anyway, But you know, that session,
(40:36):
that proffer session was not just about Okay, what do
you have on other people? Because I don't think Trump
cares about what do you have on other people? What
he cares about is what do you have on me?
What do you have on me? And the fact that
she had enough to apparently at least secure this little
nice transfer for herself over the you know, the protocols
(40:57):
like she should not have been transferred. She was not
actually eligible to be transferred. They had to make an
exception for her to get this transfer. Means she had
something that made him nervous enough that like, okay, well,
let's at least go this far and then we'll see
if she actually gets the pardon, if the federal government
stops fighting her appeal at the Supreme Court. But you know,
I think we can all see what's happening, like what's
(41:20):
happening on the surface level, and interpret what is going
on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
It's just more sketchy than anything else, especially whenever you
have Trump continuing to open the door for a pardon.
So yeah, that's where we are all currently at. Galaine
is sitting pretty in the federal prison camp system and
the so called club FED. Let's go ahead and go
to the next one. Please, let's put it up there
on the screen. The FBI has redacted Trump's name now
(41:47):
in the Epstein files. This is from Jason Leopold. Jason Leopold,
just so people don't know, is really one of the
pre eminent kind of FEYA reporters of our time. If
anybody recalls on this Epstein story, I previously referenced the
CIA Inspector General who was covering up, you know, sex
crimes and pedophilia. That was all because really of Leopold's work,
(42:07):
through a tremendous amount of FOYA victory that he had
actually over the CIA and eventually getting his hands on
those documents. So what he was able to find in
the report is basically how they were redacting Trump's name
along with by the way, several other names. Would be
nice to know who some of those people were, but
officially it's the redaction that is from he was able
(42:30):
to learn through FOYA. Not only that, but the order
itself came down from this current administration. And it's one
too where in a certain way I think they made
he was his own They were really their own worst enemy,
because what happened prior, based on everything I've read now
so far in the open record, is these one hundred
(42:51):
thousand documents were scattered all over the government. Nobody had
actually compiled them together. So Cash, Patel and these other
people were like, all right, put it all together. And
then slowly but surely they're like, yeah, you know, Trump
is in here. Just so it starts to float up
to the White House as of two months before the
memo comes in, and then the order at some point,
you know, gets it. Hey, let's go and miss you, redactions,
(43:11):
et cetera. And somewhere around that time of redaction and
knowledge by Trump that his name is in there, that
is when the infamous memo comes out from the administration
of nothing to see here, killed himself. We will do
no more further releases. And look, you can draw your
own conclusions. And again, part of the reason why I
think this is so foolish decision by the administration is
(43:32):
that what's happening now are all of these leaks from
inside of the DOJ. The birthday book, it only came
from two places. Came from the FBI, or came from Galane.
I still think it came from the FBI because they
haven't released the letter. And the only reason not to
release the letter is because it's scanned, and they have
me even acknowledging the story down in the fiftieth paragraph
(43:53):
or so, that the scans of the book are available
in the Epstein files, and that's one of the ways
that you'd be able to get it. But similarly with
some of the other letters that they didn't release of
Bill Clinton and others, same thing, they referenced scans being
made of that. Of course it could be available to
Gleane's legal defense team, so you know that's certainly possible
as well. But if you look at other stories, like
(44:14):
at the New York Times, the scans of the book
where Trump wrote to Epstein in nineteen ninety seven, same thing.
It's a scan, it's not a picture of the actual book.
And they say again, if you read further, scans of
the book are available in the Epstein file. So it's
just open season in terms of leaks on the administration.
And he's currently the only story on it, and it
could be one hundred and fifty other stories. But you know,
(44:34):
I guess he's scared of whatever that story is, or
you know, is just doing a stupid job at covering up.
You can answer that problem at any time by actually
releasing it. And killing this entire story. But that's what
they've chosen not to do.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, well, and at this point it's really too late because,
like you said, you could never trust what came out
of them from them at this point, like, there's no
way that you're going to be able to get some
sort of full accounting from these people because they've invested
a whole lot in a cover up, and we're going
to cover the also some video irregularities too, and that
that video that they really because remember when they put
out the memo the he killed himself, nothing to see here,
(45:07):
we're moving on case clothes, Prince Andrew, you're vindicated. When
that memo went out, the only proof that they offered
was this video evidence, which was the post to demonstrate
conclusively to all of us that no, there there was
no funny business on the night that Jeffrey Epstein was killed.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
It was just.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
A you know, series of unfortunate incidents where the cameras
were not functioning and the guards were asleep, and you know,
here's the video and let's all move on.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Right, Okay, let's get to that then. So CBS News
actually did a great job. They did almost ten minute
investigation into this and they compiled some of the stuff
that we've talked about here about the camera angles and
all this, but they did a very good job of
showing some of the graphics, and they brought in some
more metadata analyzes to show both a third person that's
available and visible in the video actually down in the background,
(45:55):
and just a debunk colt preposterous. The one released by
the DJ is let's take a listen.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
CBS News has reviewed the tape and this is what
it shows. The primary entrance is here. The pathway from
the entrance to the stairs is completely out of view
of the camera, leaving ample room for someone to enter unseen.
This is the last time Epstein is believed to have
been seen on camera, but we don't see him walking
up the stairs to his cell. Bongino also said none
(46:21):
of this video was doctored. It was the original, raw
footage from the camera.
Speaker 7 (46:25):
We're going to give the original so you don't think
there are any shenanigans.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
But a review by multiple video forensic experts found several
indications this may not be raw footage. For example, at
eleven twenty one PM, a cursor appears briefly indicating the
video may have actually been a recording of a computer screen.
Experts told CBS News the videos metadata, which tracks how
a file is created and changed, shows it's made from
(46:49):
two clips edited together. Then at eleven fifty eight PM,
the video suddenly jumps to midnight and the aspect ratio
shifts and every night should have the same missing. So
we're looking for that video to release that as well,
showing that a minute is missing every night. But a
government source familiar with the probe told CBS News the
FBI and other agencies are in possession of a copy
(47:11):
of the video that records with no interruption.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
Well, what do you got? All right? I mean, it's
pretty convincing to me. Do you think funny how you.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Never released that video showing, oh, every night, the same
minute is missing.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
We're going to get that to you.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
So what do we talk about? We talked about it.
It's like, it is theoretically possible that some nineteen nineties
EERO system does that, But then you're going to have
to release a lot of evidence. And as I mean again,
the metadata there doesn't lie, as they show they also
have this recording, It's like, what are we doing potato
quality now from the government where we're going to record
our photos. He's like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 3 (47:45):
You know, It's just.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
That's like, that's the Boomerius move.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I've ever heard the degradation in this government to not
even be able to do the basis of an effective
cover up soccer. I thought about thee what have we
come to?
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Thought?
Speaker 1 (47:58):
What we come? I kept thinking about that in the
whole land Guido thing, I'm like, what, we can't even
do it.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
We can't even do it coup. It's our own best
sell American coup, and I want to just want.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
To kill him and put the guy on the thing.
We don't need to recognize some fake government orright, let's
let's all just do it properly.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I don't know if you saw this as well.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
I think it was from CBS too, because they did
the most thorough analysis. There's also a part where you
see a like mystery figure.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
In orange exactly yes, which is also.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Really significant because they claim, oh, there's no one in
this video, and then there is that appears at a
certain point, and I think another outlet had reported sources
indicating that no, this whole like, oh there's always a
minute missing thing.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
It's just bullshit. That's just not true.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
So and not to mention this camera angle, and this
is part of what CBS is pointing out, doesn't even
show what they purport to show. Like they claim that
this if you know, if you're you have your eyes
on this camera, this means no one could go in
or come out of this cell without you seeing it there,
And that's also just not true.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
So the way they portrayed.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
The video was a lie. The you know, the explanation
that this is raw footage and this hasn't been altered,
that's a lie. The idea there was no other figures in,
that's a lie. The missing minute thing, that's a lie.
So you're like, okay, well, so what are you hiding here?
Given that this is the only piece of evidence, Like,
it's completely legitimate for people to parse this minute by minute,
(49:19):
since the only piece of evidence that the government has
put out to back up their claim that there was
nothing to see there, nothing untoward happened on the night
that Jeffrey Epstein quote unquote killed himself.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
And lo and behold, we've now got.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
You know, increasingly a lengthy list of inconsistencies and question
marks and lies about this one video they put out.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yes, that's exactly right. And finally P. Six please, what
do we have here from the Maxwell Prison? The new
prison in Texas quietly that she's been transferred to prohibits
cameras and recording devices, very few surveillance and footage, no
public visibility. They moved her into facility where transparency is
actually signific only reduced quote banned by design, right as
(50:01):
he starts cooperating with the d o J. So let's
see you know, good luck are Let's keep our eyes open,
shall we? Down in my hometown of Brian, Texas. Okay,
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!