April 15, 2021 • 19 mins
If you have money invested in cryptocurrency, you most likely had a good day Wednesday. Coinbase, the largest exchange for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies became the first major crypto company to go public and surged in its first day in the stock market. With Coinbase going public, it pushes cryptocurrency into the mainstream as something to seriously invest in. Paul Vigna, reporter at the WSJ, joins us to break it down.
Next, we are learning a little more about the investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz and a trip he took to the Bahamas with some associates and at least five young women. This trip is a key focus of the DOJ in their investigation. We also learned that Matt Gaetz’s phone was seized last winter as federal agents were looking into him. Marc Caputo, national political reporter at Politico, joins us for new details.
Finally, the CDC is studying cases of Covid “vaccine breakthrough.” There have been hundreds of cases reported in Florida, Michigan, and Washington about people getting infected with coronavirus after getting fully vaccinated. Experts say that this is expected as no vaccine provides 100% coverage, but are also looking into whether these are cases of being exposed to high levels of the virus or variants. Rob Stein, health correspondent at NPR, joins us for more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Thursday, April. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles, and
this is the Daily Dive. If you have money invested
in cryptocurrency, you most likely had a good Wednesday. Coin Base,
the largest exchange for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, became the
first major crypto company to go public, and it surged
(00:22):
in its first day in the stock market. With coin
based going public, it pushes cryptocurrency into the mainstream as
something to seriously invest in. Paul vigna reporter at the
Wall Street Journal, joins us to break it down. Next,
we're learning a little more about the investigation into Representative
Matt Gates and a trip he took to the Bahamas
with some associates and at least five young women. This
(00:45):
trip is a key focus of the DJ investigation, and
we also learned that Matt Gates's phone was sees last
winner when federal agents were looking into him. Mark Caputo,
national political reporter at Politico, joins us for new details.
By only, the CDC is studying cases of COVID vaccine breakthrough.
There have been hundreds of cases reported in Florida, Michigan,
(01:06):
and Washington about people getting infected with coronavirus after being
fully vaccinated. Experts say that this is expected as no
vaccine provides coverage, but are also looking into whether these
are cases of being exposed to high levels of the
virus or variants. Rob Stein, health correspondent at NPR, joined
us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's dive in.
(01:32):
So as bitcoin has grown, as the price over the
last chicks eight months has has gone up just exponentially,
coin Base has gotten a lot of attention and a
lot of new users, and that's translated into a lot
of revenue and really large profits for them. Joining us
now was Paul vigna, reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for joining us, Paul, I'm very glad to be here.
(01:52):
Thanks for having me. There's a new listing out there
for coin based on the UH that's started publicly trading
on Wednesday. It's drawn renewed attention to cryptocurrencies. And if
you have, you know, any money in in anything really bitcoin,
etherory um, even dodge coin got a big bump. You know,
you woke up to some increased numbers for your portfolio. There.
(02:13):
So Paul tell us a little bit about coin base.
It's the first major crypto company to go public, and
it's just basically an exchange for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
But it came out pretty big on Wednesday, right, yeah,
look it came out. It came out really big. It's
it's in the afternoon. It came off the highs. But
coin based one of the best known names in the sector,
(02:35):
in the crypto sector, and they're big exchange based here
in the United States. And from the start, they've kind
of been a firm that was very much focused on
working with banks, working with regulators, trying to make bitcoin
accessible to mainstream users. In the early days of crypto.
That was really kind of a big difference between them
(02:55):
and most of the other exchanges, and they grew and
grew with that goal in mind. Right, we're gonna make
bitcoin accessible to the mainstream. So for a lot of
people who get interested in bitcoin, they say, well, how
do I get bitcoin? People say, go to coin base,
and they do, and it's it's an easy platform to use.
You know, you go there, you sign up, you have
to give them some identifying information, you like your bank
(03:17):
account to it so that you can fund your your
balance and you can buy and sell bitcoin. So as
bitcoin has grown as the price over the last six
eight months is has gone up just exponentially. Coin Base
has gotten a lot of attention and a lot of
new users, and that's translated into a lot of revenue
and really large profits for them, and it seemed natural
(03:37):
that eventually they were going to tap the public markets,
and that is what happened today. Point based, as you
mentioned some of your articles, they're mostly tied to Bitcoin
and the ups and downs that they go through, but
they do exchanges in in a lot of other cryptocurrencies
as well. They make a market in about fifty cryptocurrencies.
Obviously Bitcoin is the biggest one of those, but like
(03:59):
he said, they're all are other ones. And what's interesting
is that while their revenue is so closely tied to
trading and most of it's from transaction fees, they do
kind of see that they need to expand from that,
and they're trying to build out sort of broad suite
you would say, of financial services. They want to come
up with all kinds of products. They want to people
to come in and start with trading, but then they
(04:21):
want to come up with other financial products to sell them.
Any kind of brokerage house would really or any kind
of large bank would They're not a bank. I should
point that out, but I mean that's what they're kind
of going. They're kind of trying to become this this
sort of all one stop shop for anything you'd want
to do related to cryptocurrencies. How has cryptocurrency and bitcoin
been doing throughout the pandemic. We've been seeing a ton
(04:44):
of stories about, you know, record highs. Bitcoin hit a
high on Wednesday when coin based went public, so they've
been doing pretty well. They look at bitcoin has been
doing great. There are two things really that happened. Is one,
during the pandemic, like a lot of things, people were
stuck at home and they were looking for things to
do online. They were board and a lot of people
just started trading bitcoin. Robin Hood, PayPal some other of
(05:07):
the online trading apps opened up their platforms to trading crypto,
so a lot of people got involved. The other thing
was that you've had a lot of institutional money come
in and that sort of signaled that this is an
okay arena for people to play in. Not that it
isn't speculative and not that you can't lose money in it,
but just that it's not exactly this anarchistic killed the
(05:30):
bankers kind of world that it is something more responsible
still have to point out very speculative, very you know,
high chance that you can lose money if you get
to you know, you're probably wrong. But so you had
this sort of institutional nest signal that it's okay. So
your institutional money coming in, your retail money coming in,
so you had a lot of money coming in at
(05:50):
a time where people were looking for things to do,
and that kind of drove this big surgeon. What is
and has been a small market when you compare to
the rest of the capital markets. It's gotten bigger, blest
year obviously, but it's still a relatively small market. So
small market, a lot of people come in and it
just drove the price up and that just becomes this
sort of self sustaining cycle. The higher the price goes,
the more people get interested, the more people come in,
(06:13):
the more that drives the price, and it's you know,
it is just build on itself. So final thing, you know,
as I mentioned, you know Bitcoin dodge coin rallied by
a bunch even though coin based doesn't offer you know,
it's not trading in it, but they still got a bump.
Everything really kind of got a bump today. So other
than coin based, coin public and you know, a lot
more people maybe having some access to it. You know
what changes right now for the cryptocurrency market. When you
(06:36):
think about crypto, you have to realize that so much
of it is driven by momentum and sentiment. So the
coin based listing, now, the coin based is part of
the public market, and just the hype alone around that
and the signal that it sends to people that this
is part of the mainstream. This is part of the
real world quote unquote using air quotes. Can't see about amusing. Yeah,
(06:58):
you know this is not just some weird anarchist project.
This is an actual asset class. This is something you
can invest in. You know that the message that this
listing sends just bolsters that momentum and that sentiment. Doesn't
mean that this is never going to turn. And bitcoin
has a very well defined history of going up by
quite a lot and then coming down by quite a lot,
(07:18):
so it can happen again. But this listing in this
moment just sort of it really feeds into that momentum
and that sentiment driven trading. Paul Vignat reporter at the
Wall Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah,
thanks for having me. I won't be intimidated by aligning media,
(07:44):
and I won't be extorted by a former d o
J officials and the crooks he is working with. The
truth will prevail. Joining us now is Mark Caputo, national
political reporter at Politico. Thanks for joining us, Mark, Well,
thanks for having me. Prett it. The investigation into Representative
Matt Gates continues. He hasn't been charged with any crime
(08:05):
just yet, but still things don't seem to be looking
very good for him. We're getting some more details about
a trip that he took to the Bahamas, which kind
of is at the center of the investigation that at
least relating to him. So Mark, help us with some details.
What are we learning about this. We're learning that in September,
Matt Gates, two friends of his who are men and
(08:27):
at least five women, flew to the Bahamas a resort
we don't know which island, we don't know which resort,
and they came on two separate planes, two separate private planes,
and a commercial plane. Met Gates apparently flew commercial and
this was just kind of a bash where there are
lots of young women and older men, not ancient men,
but older men, and federal prosecutors are looking into this
(08:49):
because there's some suspicion that some of the women might
have been escorts, so that money might have changed hands
in return for sex. That is, there might have been
some sort of prostitution activity, and it might have violated
this old all called the Man Act, where it's essentially
illegal to transport someone across state lines for purposes of
engaging in prostitution. So that's what the federal prosecutors are
(09:10):
looking at on the Bahamas side of things. On the
more state side of things, and the more serious charge
is whether the congressman had had sex with a minor,
a seventeen year old girl who had allegedly been sex
traffic to buy a friend and ally of the Congressman
of Matt Gates, who at the time was a county
(09:31):
tax collector in Florida, guy named Joel Greenberg. Joel Greenberg
is indicted for that as well as a host of
other crimes. Now investigators are looking into whether Gates had
had sexual relations with her or had furthered this alleged
sex trafficking with Joel Greenberg before the young woman or
before the team turned eighteen. Most records indicate that she
(09:51):
turned eighteen in late December of and so those are
kind of the the two separate silos. Now, the connection
between the two outside Matt Gates is the young woman
the team at the time. She not only is involved
or allegedly involved in the sex trafficking case that Greenberg
faces that they're also investigating with Gates when she was eighteen,
(10:12):
according to our sources, she also was one of the
five women who went along on this trip to the
Bahamas where it sounds like it was kind of a
sex filled bash a party. And that's kind of the
common tie between those two alleged crimes, if indeed they
are crimes. So the thinking is she was already eighteen
for this trip, but they probably had a relationship before
(10:33):
that that they might have. Yes, from my reading of
this too, you know a lot of these women that
he might have come in contact with represent of Matt
Gates and his associate Joel Greenberg, a lot of it
came through this kind of sugar daddy website seeking Arrangement
dot com. Correct, as you said, it's a sugar daddy website.
From what we gather and from what's been told is
(10:53):
Greenberg was kind of a heavy user of it or
a frequent sugar daddy, and he was the one who
would kind of meet the women and draw him into
the orbit, and then they would wind up meeting the congressman. Understand,
at the times we're talking, Matt Gates was becoming a
nationally recognized figure in Republican politics. He was on TV
all the time, the President was named checking him, he
(11:15):
had the President's here. Joel Greenberg was just the Seminole
County tax collector in Florida, right, so there was much
more of an imbalance of power. Or Matt Gates was
kind of the alpha dog in that relationship between him
and Greenberg, so allegedly Greenberg kind of worshiped him, look
up to him, and want to do get the congressman
what he wanted, which were a beautiful young women. I know,
(11:36):
people in Matt Gates orbit right now are pretty concerned
because Joel Greenberg might be close to cutting some type
of plea deal something like that in which, you know,
to lessen his sentence. He's facing like thirty three federal
charges with regards to all this. You know, he's hoping
to get his sentence reduced. He's in jail right now,
so he really wants to get some type of deal done.
So Matt Gates, uh, you know, it's kind of concerned
(11:59):
about what I can lead you. Of course, now, Gates
does not have a lot of friends. He does not
have a lot of allies, and he's sort of bragged
about that. So this will not be any surprise when
I say that this guy didn't go to Congress to
make friends. But the reality is is he's been very
consistent on this ever since the allegations Anonymous first surfaced.
He said two things. I never had sex with the
(12:22):
seventeen year old except when I was seventeen. And Matt
Gates said he never paid for or engaged in prostitution.
So he's been consistent throughout now. That leaves open the
door for all of these other arrangements, which, as you
point out, he has said that he's helped take care
of women, etcetera. So, so far, if anyone's looking to
bust Matt Gates in an inconsistency in what he said,
(12:44):
then in the facts currently in how they square so
far they've lined up. That doesn't say he's innocent. But
the real question here is what does this woman, now
twenty one, at the center of this case say. What
is she saying to prosecutors of anything? We don't know?
And that's really, by and large and heavily what this
(13:04):
case is going to revolve from. Mark Caputo, national political
reporter at Politico. Thank you very much for joining us. Well,
thank you for having me. I appreciate it. There have
been hundreds of cases reported around the country, as you mentioned,
(13:25):
and so you know, so far most of the cases
seem like they're pretty mild, but in some cases people
do get pretty sick, and there have even been some
test reports. Joining us now is Rob Stein, health correspondent
at NPR. Thanks for joining us, Rob. My pleasure you
know now is more and more people are getting vaccinated.
You know, the numbers are in the millions now. We
(13:45):
are starting to see a lot of these more you know,
rarer occurrences. Obviously we've been hearing about things with Johnson
and Johnson and their vaccine and these very rare instances
of blood clots. Will see all that figured out. But
we're also starting to see some breakthrough cases of COVID
people who have gotten vaccinated and still get COVID nineteen.
Still the numbers are pretty low, but we're seeing states
(14:07):
like Michigan, Florida, I think, and Washington report a few
hundred cases of this, and the CDC is looking into
it to see why this might be happening. So Rob,
tell us a little bit about what we're learning. That's right,
as you said, you know, the vaccine has been administered
to something more than seventy million people have now been
fully vaccinated the United States, and it's unclear how often
(14:29):
this phenomenon occurs, a vaccine breakthrough, but there have been
hundreds of cases reported around the country, as you mentioned,
and so you know, so far most of the cases
seem like they're pretty mild, but in some cases people
do get pretty sick, and there have even been some
test report so it's something that's not unexpected, but it's
something that scientists would like to know more about to
figure out this way to prevent them happening. And these deaths,
(14:52):
as you noted in the article, they have been in
older Americans that you know, we know the virus attacks
them in a different way, so some of those instances
of death have been in elderly people. And you know
the reason why we talk about these things is you
see a lot of headlines. They can be misleading sometimes
and you have to kind of dig into it to
see how rare it is and how expected it is.
(15:14):
You know, when we talk about the efficacy of vaccines,
especially with fiser and maderna, they were up in the
high nineties the mid nineties, a real world test they said,
you know, right about but that's not a hundred percent.
So these reinfections, these breakthroughs are expected. No vaccine is perfect.
Every vaccine fails in some cases, so nobody was expecting
(15:35):
this vaccine to be a d percent protective or there.
In fact, you know, the study show that they work
really well. They seem to protect people against infection about
eight percent another time, they protect people against getting really
sick or even dying in excess of percent at the time,
but that's not a hundred percent of the time, so
you know, it doesn't work in every single case. And
so what's reassuring is that even when people do seem
(15:57):
to get infected when they've been vaccinated, it does seem
like infections tend to be more mild for the most part,
so it does perhaps offer them some protection, but as
you said, you know it doesn't always work, and so
it's not just trying to figure out, you know, if
there is anything that we've done to boost the effectiveness
even higher. And so there's a variety of possibilities. One
possibility is maybe some people just don't mount as robust
(16:19):
immune responses other people. That could be especially to an
older people who we know don't tend to respond to
strongly to vaccinations, So it could be why we're seeing
that happen more in that population. It could be that
maybe it's the amount of virus that people are exposed
to initially. If they're exposed to a high amount of virus,
maybe it's so much that overcomes the protection that the
vaccine provides. And the third possibility are you know, the variants,
(16:41):
which we know are for sure more con changeous, and
there's some evidence that they may be able to evade
the vaccines more easily. It's unclear how often that happens,
but it could be a possibility that that's what's going
on in some cases where it could be a combination
of all those factors, right, viral load versus variants seems
to be where you know, a lot of the focus
will problem be because as people get vaccinated, they feel
(17:02):
a little more comfortable, maybe not wearing the mask, letting
their guard down a little bit. But you could be
in a situation where the viral load is especially high
in your surroundings, or as you mentioned, the variants constantly
changing and could be evading some of the vaccines. But
you know, just to kind of approve the point of
some of these real world studies that have been done
so far, there was a study done in you see,
(17:23):
San Diego where they looked at healthcare workers who were
fully vaccinated and between December to February there was thirty
six thousand healthcare workers they looked at. Less than one
percent got reinfected, and as you mentioned earlier, the cases
were more mild than you know, if they had not
been vaccinated. In your story, you did talk about an
(17:43):
elderly woman who who got reinfected. Tell me a little
bit about her story. Yes, yes, as I said, it's
important point to make that if if these break to infecting,
the current the stinking right now is they are very
very very rare, and then for most people there is
some protection. But yeah, I did speak to a woman
her name is ginger Eat. When she's seventy three, she
was in Dallas, Georgia. You know, she got two shots
(18:05):
of the Fisor vaccine and she thought she was protected
and did have anything to worry about. But she continued
to be careful, you know, she kept wearing her mask,
she kept using hand sanitizer, she kept wiping down the
grocery carts with wipes. But a few weeks after a
second though, she started to feel a scratchy throat and
then she got contested, and then she started coughing, and
she ended up getting a test after she lost her
sense of smell, and it turned out it came back positive,
(18:27):
you know, and she was really surprised and she thought
she was good to go. But you know, lucky for her,
she didn't get that sick. She was only sick for
about ten days and then she recovered. And she's still
very grateful that she got vaccinated because she had some
friends in her church who did not and weren't so lucky.
They got infected and they ended up dying from COVID. So,
you know, she's trying to get the message out that
these vaccines aren't perfect, but it's better to get vaccine
(18:48):
events than not. But you have to still be careful
even if you are vaccine and I think it's important
also to make these things machine getting infected and reinfection.
Is no evidence of people who have been vaccinated can
get infected twice. There's some evidence of they could get
infected for the first time because the vaccine just didn't
work for in their case, but it is you know,
the message is consistent that people should even if they've
been in actuated, they shouldn't let the other guards that
(19:09):
should keep wearing those masks that you keep socially distancing.
You know, they have some protection, but they're not completely protected.
Rob Stein, Health correspondent at NPR. Thank you very much
for joining us. Thanks for having me. That's it for today.
(19:31):
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Follow us on I Heart Radio, or subscribe wherever you
get your podcasts. This episode of The Daily Divers produced
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Ramirez and this was her Daily Dive
It's Thursday, April. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles, and
this is the Daily Dive. If you have money invested
in cryptocurrency, you most likely had a good Wednesday. Coin Base,
the largest exchange for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, became the
first major crypto company to go public, and it surged
(00:22):
in its first day in the stock market. With coin
based going public, it pushes cryptocurrency into the mainstream as
something to seriously invest in. Paul vigna reporter at the
Wall Street Journal, joins us to break it down. Next,
we're learning a little more about the investigation into Representative
Matt Gates and a trip he took to the Bahamas
with some associates and at least five young women. This
(00:45):
trip is a key focus of the DJ investigation, and
we also learned that Matt Gates's phone was sees last
winner when federal agents were looking into him. Mark Caputo,
national political reporter at Politico, joins us for new details.
By only, the CDC is studying cases of COVID vaccine breakthrough.
There have been hundreds of cases reported in Florida, Michigan,
(01:06):
and Washington about people getting infected with coronavirus after being
fully vaccinated. Experts say that this is expected as no
vaccine provides coverage, but are also looking into whether these
are cases of being exposed to high levels of the
virus or variants. Rob Stein, health correspondent at NPR, joined
us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's dive in.
(01:32):
So as bitcoin has grown, as the price over the
last chicks eight months has has gone up just exponentially,
coin Base has gotten a lot of attention and a
lot of new users, and that's translated into a lot
of revenue and really large profits for them. Joining us
now was Paul vigna, reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for joining us, Paul, I'm very glad to be here.
(01:52):
Thanks for having me. There's a new listing out there
for coin based on the UH that's started publicly trading
on Wednesday. It's drawn renewed attention to cryptocurrencies. And if
you have, you know, any money in in anything really bitcoin,
etherory um, even dodge coin got a big bump. You know,
you woke up to some increased numbers for your portfolio. There.
(02:13):
So Paul tell us a little bit about coin base.
It's the first major crypto company to go public, and
it's just basically an exchange for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
But it came out pretty big on Wednesday, right, yeah,
look it came out. It came out really big. It's
it's in the afternoon. It came off the highs. But
coin based one of the best known names in the sector,
(02:35):
in the crypto sector, and they're big exchange based here
in the United States. And from the start, they've kind
of been a firm that was very much focused on
working with banks, working with regulators, trying to make bitcoin
accessible to mainstream users. In the early days of crypto.
That was really kind of a big difference between them
(02:55):
and most of the other exchanges, and they grew and
grew with that goal in mind. Right, we're gonna make
bitcoin accessible to the mainstream. So for a lot of
people who get interested in bitcoin, they say, well, how
do I get bitcoin? People say, go to coin base,
and they do, and it's it's an easy platform to use.
You know, you go there, you sign up, you have
to give them some identifying information, you like your bank
(03:17):
account to it so that you can fund your your
balance and you can buy and sell bitcoin. So as
bitcoin has grown as the price over the last six
eight months is has gone up just exponentially. Coin Base
has gotten a lot of attention and a lot of
new users, and that's translated into a lot of revenue
and really large profits for them, and it seemed natural
(03:37):
that eventually they were going to tap the public markets,
and that is what happened today. Point based, as you
mentioned some of your articles, they're mostly tied to Bitcoin
and the ups and downs that they go through, but
they do exchanges in in a lot of other cryptocurrencies
as well. They make a market in about fifty cryptocurrencies.
Obviously Bitcoin is the biggest one of those, but like
(03:59):
he said, they're all are other ones. And what's interesting
is that while their revenue is so closely tied to
trading and most of it's from transaction fees, they do
kind of see that they need to expand from that,
and they're trying to build out sort of broad suite
you would say, of financial services. They want to come
up with all kinds of products. They want to people
to come in and start with trading, but then they
(04:21):
want to come up with other financial products to sell them.
Any kind of brokerage house would really or any kind
of large bank would They're not a bank. I should
point that out, but I mean that's what they're kind
of going. They're kind of trying to become this this
sort of all one stop shop for anything you'd want
to do related to cryptocurrencies. How has cryptocurrency and bitcoin
been doing throughout the pandemic. We've been seeing a ton
(04:44):
of stories about, you know, record highs. Bitcoin hit a
high on Wednesday when coin based went public, so they've
been doing pretty well. They look at bitcoin has been
doing great. There are two things really that happened. Is one,
during the pandemic, like a lot of things, people were
stuck at home and they were looking for things to
do online. They were board and a lot of people
just started trading bitcoin. Robin Hood, PayPal some other of
(05:07):
the online trading apps opened up their platforms to trading crypto,
so a lot of people got involved. The other thing
was that you've had a lot of institutional money come
in and that sort of signaled that this is an
okay arena for people to play in. Not that it
isn't speculative and not that you can't lose money in it,
but just that it's not exactly this anarchistic killed the
(05:30):
bankers kind of world that it is something more responsible
still have to point out very speculative, very you know,
high chance that you can lose money if you get
to you know, you're probably wrong. But so you had
this sort of institutional nest signal that it's okay. So
your institutional money coming in, your retail money coming in,
so you had a lot of money coming in at
(05:50):
a time where people were looking for things to do,
and that kind of drove this big surgeon. What is
and has been a small market when you compare to
the rest of the capital markets. It's gotten bigger, blest
year obviously, but it's still a relatively small market. So
small market, a lot of people come in and it
just drove the price up and that just becomes this
sort of self sustaining cycle. The higher the price goes,
the more people get interested, the more people come in,
(06:13):
the more that drives the price, and it's you know,
it is just build on itself. So final thing, you know,
as I mentioned, you know Bitcoin dodge coin rallied by
a bunch even though coin based doesn't offer you know,
it's not trading in it, but they still got a bump.
Everything really kind of got a bump today. So other
than coin based, coin public and you know, a lot
more people maybe having some access to it. You know
what changes right now for the cryptocurrency market. When you
(06:36):
think about crypto, you have to realize that so much
of it is driven by momentum and sentiment. So the
coin based listing, now, the coin based is part of
the public market, and just the hype alone around that
and the signal that it sends to people that this
is part of the mainstream. This is part of the
real world quote unquote using air quotes. Can't see about amusing. Yeah,
(06:58):
you know this is not just some weird anarchist project.
This is an actual asset class. This is something you
can invest in. You know that the message that this
listing sends just bolsters that momentum and that sentiment. Doesn't
mean that this is never going to turn. And bitcoin
has a very well defined history of going up by
quite a lot and then coming down by quite a lot,
(07:18):
so it can happen again. But this listing in this
moment just sort of it really feeds into that momentum
and that sentiment driven trading. Paul Vignat reporter at the
Wall Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us. Yeah,
thanks for having me. I won't be intimidated by aligning media,
(07:44):
and I won't be extorted by a former d o
J officials and the crooks he is working with. The
truth will prevail. Joining us now is Mark Caputo, national
political reporter at Politico. Thanks for joining us, Mark, Well,
thanks for having me. Prett it. The investigation into Representative
Matt Gates continues. He hasn't been charged with any crime
(08:05):
just yet, but still things don't seem to be looking
very good for him. We're getting some more details about
a trip that he took to the Bahamas, which kind
of is at the center of the investigation that at
least relating to him. So Mark, help us with some details.
What are we learning about this. We're learning that in September,
Matt Gates, two friends of his who are men and
(08:27):
at least five women, flew to the Bahamas a resort
we don't know which island, we don't know which resort,
and they came on two separate planes, two separate private planes,
and a commercial plane. Met Gates apparently flew commercial and
this was just kind of a bash where there are
lots of young women and older men, not ancient men,
but older men, and federal prosecutors are looking into this
(08:49):
because there's some suspicion that some of the women might
have been escorts, so that money might have changed hands
in return for sex. That is, there might have been
some sort of prostitution activity, and it might have violated
this old all called the Man Act, where it's essentially
illegal to transport someone across state lines for purposes of
engaging in prostitution. So that's what the federal prosecutors are
(09:10):
looking at on the Bahamas side of things. On the
more state side of things, and the more serious charge
is whether the congressman had had sex with a minor,
a seventeen year old girl who had allegedly been sex
traffic to buy a friend and ally of the Congressman
of Matt Gates, who at the time was a county
(09:31):
tax collector in Florida, guy named Joel Greenberg. Joel Greenberg
is indicted for that as well as a host of
other crimes. Now investigators are looking into whether Gates had
had sexual relations with her or had furthered this alleged
sex trafficking with Joel Greenberg before the young woman or
before the team turned eighteen. Most records indicate that she
(09:51):
turned eighteen in late December of and so those are
kind of the the two separate silos. Now, the connection
between the two outside Matt Gates is the young woman
the team at the time. She not only is involved
or allegedly involved in the sex trafficking case that Greenberg
faces that they're also investigating with Gates when she was eighteen,
(10:12):
according to our sources, she also was one of the
five women who went along on this trip to the
Bahamas where it sounds like it was kind of a
sex filled bash a party. And that's kind of the
common tie between those two alleged crimes, if indeed they
are crimes. So the thinking is she was already eighteen
for this trip, but they probably had a relationship before
(10:33):
that that they might have. Yes, from my reading of
this too, you know a lot of these women that
he might have come in contact with represent of Matt
Gates and his associate Joel Greenberg, a lot of it
came through this kind of sugar daddy website seeking Arrangement
dot com. Correct, as you said, it's a sugar daddy website.
From what we gather and from what's been told is
(10:53):
Greenberg was kind of a heavy user of it or
a frequent sugar daddy, and he was the one who
would kind of meet the women and draw him into
the orbit, and then they would wind up meeting the congressman. Understand,
at the times we're talking, Matt Gates was becoming a
nationally recognized figure in Republican politics. He was on TV
all the time, the President was named checking him, he
(11:15):
had the President's here. Joel Greenberg was just the Seminole
County tax collector in Florida, right, so there was much
more of an imbalance of power. Or Matt Gates was
kind of the alpha dog in that relationship between him
and Greenberg, so allegedly Greenberg kind of worshiped him, look
up to him, and want to do get the congressman
what he wanted, which were a beautiful young women. I know,
(11:36):
people in Matt Gates orbit right now are pretty concerned
because Joel Greenberg might be close to cutting some type
of plea deal something like that in which, you know,
to lessen his sentence. He's facing like thirty three federal
charges with regards to all this. You know, he's hoping
to get his sentence reduced. He's in jail right now,
so he really wants to get some type of deal done.
So Matt Gates, uh, you know, it's kind of concerned
(11:59):
about what I can lead you. Of course, now, Gates
does not have a lot of friends. He does not
have a lot of allies, and he's sort of bragged
about that. So this will not be any surprise when
I say that this guy didn't go to Congress to
make friends. But the reality is is he's been very
consistent on this ever since the allegations Anonymous first surfaced.
He said two things. I never had sex with the
(12:22):
seventeen year old except when I was seventeen. And Matt
Gates said he never paid for or engaged in prostitution.
So he's been consistent throughout now. That leaves open the
door for all of these other arrangements, which, as you
point out, he has said that he's helped take care
of women, etcetera. So, so far, if anyone's looking to
bust Matt Gates in an inconsistency in what he said,
(12:44):
then in the facts currently in how they square so
far they've lined up. That doesn't say he's innocent. But
the real question here is what does this woman, now
twenty one, at the center of this case say. What
is she saying to prosecutors of anything? We don't know?
And that's really, by and large and heavily what this
(13:04):
case is going to revolve from. Mark Caputo, national political
reporter at Politico. Thank you very much for joining us. Well,
thank you for having me. I appreciate it. There have
been hundreds of cases reported around the country, as you mentioned,
(13:25):
and so you know, so far most of the cases
seem like they're pretty mild, but in some cases people
do get pretty sick, and there have even been some
test reports. Joining us now is Rob Stein, health correspondent
at NPR. Thanks for joining us, Rob. My pleasure you
know now is more and more people are getting vaccinated.
You know, the numbers are in the millions now. We
(13:45):
are starting to see a lot of these more you know,
rarer occurrences. Obviously we've been hearing about things with Johnson
and Johnson and their vaccine and these very rare instances
of blood clots. Will see all that figured out. But
we're also starting to see some breakthrough cases of COVID
people who have gotten vaccinated and still get COVID nineteen.
Still the numbers are pretty low, but we're seeing states
(14:07):
like Michigan, Florida, I think, and Washington report a few
hundred cases of this, and the CDC is looking into
it to see why this might be happening. So Rob,
tell us a little bit about what we're learning. That's right,
as you said, you know, the vaccine has been administered
to something more than seventy million people have now been
fully vaccinated the United States, and it's unclear how often
(14:29):
this phenomenon occurs, a vaccine breakthrough, but there have been
hundreds of cases reported around the country, as you mentioned,
and so you know, so far most of the cases
seem like they're pretty mild, but in some cases people
do get pretty sick, and there have even been some
test report so it's something that's not unexpected, but it's
something that scientists would like to know more about to
figure out this way to prevent them happening. And these deaths,
(14:52):
as you noted in the article, they have been in
older Americans that you know, we know the virus attacks
them in a different way, so some of those instances
of death have been in elderly people. And you know
the reason why we talk about these things is you
see a lot of headlines. They can be misleading sometimes
and you have to kind of dig into it to
see how rare it is and how expected it is.
(15:14):
You know, when we talk about the efficacy of vaccines,
especially with fiser and maderna, they were up in the
high nineties the mid nineties, a real world test they said,
you know, right about but that's not a hundred percent.
So these reinfections, these breakthroughs are expected. No vaccine is perfect.
Every vaccine fails in some cases, so nobody was expecting
(15:35):
this vaccine to be a d percent protective or there.
In fact, you know, the study show that they work
really well. They seem to protect people against infection about
eight percent another time, they protect people against getting really
sick or even dying in excess of percent at the time,
but that's not a hundred percent of the time, so
you know, it doesn't work in every single case. And
so what's reassuring is that even when people do seem
(15:57):
to get infected when they've been vaccinated, it does seem
like infections tend to be more mild for the most part,
so it does perhaps offer them some protection, but as
you said, you know it doesn't always work, and so
it's not just trying to figure out, you know, if
there is anything that we've done to boost the effectiveness
even higher. And so there's a variety of possibilities. One
possibility is maybe some people just don't mount as robust
(16:19):
immune responses other people. That could be especially to an
older people who we know don't tend to respond to
strongly to vaccinations, So it could be why we're seeing
that happen more in that population. It could be that
maybe it's the amount of virus that people are exposed
to initially. If they're exposed to a high amount of virus,
maybe it's so much that overcomes the protection that the
vaccine provides. And the third possibility are you know, the variants,
(16:41):
which we know are for sure more con changeous, and
there's some evidence that they may be able to evade
the vaccines more easily. It's unclear how often that happens,
but it could be a possibility that that's what's going
on in some cases where it could be a combination
of all those factors, right, viral load versus variants seems
to be where you know, a lot of the focus
will problem be because as people get vaccinated, they feel
(17:02):
a little more comfortable, maybe not wearing the mask, letting
their guard down a little bit. But you could be
in a situation where the viral load is especially high
in your surroundings, or as you mentioned, the variants constantly
changing and could be evading some of the vaccines. But
you know, just to kind of approve the point of
some of these real world studies that have been done
so far, there was a study done in you see,
(17:23):
San Diego where they looked at healthcare workers who were
fully vaccinated and between December to February there was thirty
six thousand healthcare workers they looked at. Less than one
percent got reinfected, and as you mentioned earlier, the cases
were more mild than you know, if they had not
been vaccinated. In your story, you did talk about an
(17:43):
elderly woman who who got reinfected. Tell me a little
bit about her story. Yes, yes, as I said, it's
important point to make that if if these break to infecting,
the current the stinking right now is they are very
very very rare, and then for most people there is
some protection. But yeah, I did speak to a woman
her name is ginger Eat. When she's seventy three, she
was in Dallas, Georgia. You know, she got two shots
(18:05):
of the Fisor vaccine and she thought she was protected
and did have anything to worry about. But she continued
to be careful, you know, she kept wearing her mask,
she kept using hand sanitizer, she kept wiping down the
grocery carts with wipes. But a few weeks after a
second though, she started to feel a scratchy throat and
then she got contested, and then she started coughing, and
she ended up getting a test after she lost her
sense of smell, and it turned out it came back positive,
(18:27):
you know, and she was really surprised and she thought
she was good to go. But you know, lucky for her,
she didn't get that sick. She was only sick for
about ten days and then she recovered. And she's still
very grateful that she got vaccinated because she had some
friends in her church who did not and weren't so lucky.
They got infected and they ended up dying from COVID. So,
you know, she's trying to get the message out that
these vaccines aren't perfect, but it's better to get vaccine
(18:48):
events than not. But you have to still be careful
even if you are vaccine and I think it's important
also to make these things machine getting infected and reinfection.
Is no evidence of people who have been vaccinated can
get infected twice. There's some evidence of they could get
infected for the first time because the vaccine just didn't
work for in their case, but it is you know,
the message is consistent that people should even if they've
been in actuated, they shouldn't let the other guards that
(19:09):
should keep wearing those masks that you keep socially distancing.
You know, they have some protection, but they're not completely protected.
Rob Stein, Health correspondent at NPR. Thank you very much
for joining us. Thanks for having me. That's it for today.
(19:31):
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Ramirez and this was her Daily Dive
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