Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar3/24/25: Elon Gets Billions In Gov Contracts, Trump Israel Aid Folds Amid Gaza War, Billionaire Trump Sec Laughs At Social Security Breakdown
Saagar and Ryan discuss Elon set for billions in Gov contracts, Trump Israel aide folds to lobby, billionaire Trump Sec laughs at missed Social Security checks.
To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com
Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com.
We're calling this block corruption.
The back half of it that we'll be talking about is a much more obvious We've got the President of the United States involved in a just straight up pump dump cryptoscheme. But first the less obvious but still kind of in your face element of Elon Musk's companies being poised to reap billions more in federal contracts than they've gotten in the past. And curious to get Sager's take on this, because I think there is a there is a defense of it on one level, but on another level, it's just not how we do government to have the CEO of a company that is getting money from the government be the one doling out the government contract. So we can put up this New York Times investigation by this is Eric Lipton is one of their investigative reporters. When The Times wants to do something that that leaves a mark, they will give somebody like Lipt in a couple of weeks to call up his sources and do a sweeping peace that I don't I don't listen to The Daily anymore, but I bet you know it gets pushed out on their various this show is available.
Yeah, something about Michael Barbarrow's voice. It just doesn't work for me. I gotta be honest. But yeah, no, you're exactly right. The theory behind all this stuff is, oh, it's more efficient. And you know the funny thing is, if Elon wasn't in government, I'd be like, yeah, it's obviously more of it. But the problem is is that the appearance of corruption and is just as dangerous as corruption itself. So like the details you're saying, the Commerce Department is now saying that Starlink will be eligible for the federal government's forty two billion dollars royal broadband push. Now, it's pretty obvious that royal broadband by the government was an epic disaster, literally didn't work and actually had Derek on and that's one of the main things you mentioned. It is like, this is a huge failure. Starlink seems like the logical option, but you know, it's one of those where it's like, well, it's like, should you really be the person there who's also got their hands in there? And then in terms of like what portion of federal funding, is it really a fair process?
Right?
I mean, it reminds me of the Halliburton stuff during Bush. I would say that's probably a little bit more self dealing. But I remember people like, but brown and Root are the best available option for this. It's like, yeah, but the vice president is still the guy who's running the war, so it's still pretty bad.
Yeah, right, And I think you and I probably both agree that starlink is a better solution. Charling's cool, Yeah, it works broadband than royal broadband, like just just a complete mess. The government has failed to get that done. But then you're right, you're left with all right, or do we trust that Elon Musk is going to cut a fair deal with Elon Musk on behalf of the taxpayers or on behalf of Starlink. I mean he is obligated by law to maximize profits for his different corporations. Like that's that's the system that we have in place. Like, if you're not doing that, you are in violation of different fiduciary duties that you have to your shareholders. So is he required by law to rip off the American taxpayer?
That that's actually a great point, is that.
Yeah, if you're looking out for SpaceX's business interests, you want to secure as much money as possible, and legally, are you looking to the government's interest you want to secure as less at least amount of money.
There are criminals and there are criminal statutes on the books that relate directly to this. If you are a government employee and you are involved in government action that you know will increase your bottom line, that is a crime.
It's a straight up crime.
Time it's not often prosecuted because it's hard to usually prove in these cases.
It's like, WHOA, Well.
This is the thing about Elon that drives me crazy.
Any normal employee of the government, and I know many you know who have had to work in the government. You have to at some points even sell off like individual stocks before you come work there. Let's say that you are, yeah, working in the Anti Trust. You're a staffer, not even appointee, You're just a staffer. You're making So let's say eighty thousand dollars a year, and you bought some Google stock, blue chip stock, Fortune five hundred company. You obviously have no inside information. You still have to sell it if you want to work, or you can't at least buy anymore. And you have to report everything that's there where. And again you know, the idea that some eighty twenty six year old working at the FTC is really going to have a massive implication on Google not the case.
I mean.
Even in the private sector, as I understand it, if you work at the banks, or if you work in finance at all, you're not even allowed to trade period like I think you can only buy like etf stand or Mutrient funds.
You're not even allowed to do that.
That's in a private sector appearance of corruption because they don't want to deal with you know, trials, et cetera. Now Here we're talking about again Elon and the SpaceX competing specifically for a government contract, and something Eric actually pointed out. They have four current pending requests with the FAA the Pentagon to build new rocket launch pads and so basically the military building something for them.
And in federal protected land.
In federal protected land, the FAA has moved to now approve one of those deals which had been pending. Now, maybe it should again, maybe you shouldn't. It should always have been approved, you asked me. It probably shouldn't have been approved. I think SpaceX and All is really cool company. I think they do a lot of cool work. But here it's about the appearance second they go. The first of the awards that was approved this month is specifically after the head of the FCC was supported by Elon. Now I know Brendon Carr. I don't think he's corrupt. I don't think that he's somebody who's been influenced by Elon. But the point is is that it still has to raise the question because this is one about radio frequency. And again, I know this is brain dead, but billions of dollars move on this stuff. I've been in this town long enough to see qualcomm and them spend un goodly amounts of money trying to get the right five G frequency approved for them by the FCC.
So, yes, it sounds stupid.
And it makes me one of those like, oh, maybe it's the right thing, but you really need to comprehend how much federal how many lobbying dollars are spent trying to influence this overall process. And it's just look, even if it's a bad look, a bad look is enough for me, you know, especially if we're going to criticize, you know, all these other people democratic like Nancy Pelosi's husband, day Trading stocks. Yeah, I think it's grotesque, right, It's the same here.
And Brendan Carr is a good example.
He's yeah, like you said, he's not personally like on the take, but he's very allied with Elon Musk, and so.
I think that's ideological. Like I said, I've known Brendan for a long time. Is genuinely not like as a strong core beliefs around how the FCC should function, around big tech censorship, et cetera. This goes back probably a decade. But you know, it's really not about him. It's more about and the supporting of him and then the approval of said contracts. Again, it's probably the right decision, you know, to be able to speed things up, cut red tape, et cetera. But it's really more about the corruption and the appearance on his side than anything else.
And it's just funny to see this, this huge oligarchy taking shape layered over a federal government that is like, on a micro level, like pretty corruption free in the sense that you try to take like a federal worker out to lunch. Oh as you what we're saying, yes, like they won't they won't go to like events that where it might be free food.
Yes, what is it twenty five dollars?
Yeah, And it's like to have like all of that happening, which is, you know, you travel somewhere a lot of other places around the world. You know, you're shelling out money to government officials and cops and everything like you want to get even in Washington, DC, like you when it gets something approved, you increase this here and there. Like the corrosiveness of individual micro level corruption is a thing.
Are you a side quests? Are you an f C A believer? Do you think that that's a good thing?
I do because so f c P a Corrupt Practices Act.
So the and here is my argument for it, Like, the thing that breeds insurgency and extremism and violence in countries around the world is corruption, and people don't.
Really understand that.
That link Afghanistan, for instance, it was the Taliban's willingness to root out the corruption of those drug lords.
It was financial and it was kind of like not I'm not gonna say sexual, but like they were instilling sexual morality.
I guess in lieu of how things.
They would say, well, it's talent, we don't we don't really like what they stand for, but what but they stand for.
What they say, and that's all over the all over the world.
The thing that will feed this instability and this violence is these people are ripping me off and I hate them and I want them to die. So I'll give the counter case.
Look at the Arab spring.
The Arabs.
The first guy that immolated himself did it because he was pissed off at a fruit vendor inspector who was trying to shake him down for bribes.
And dismiss.
I mean, I'll give the difference. So for people who don't know, Trump tried to suspend the FCPA, which basically prevents the US businesses from dealing with and corrupt practices abroad.
But by the way, Rubio just sanctioned the former president of Argentina, Christina Kirshner, for corruption corrupt practices. It's like, bro, like two weeks ago, you said corruption's fine. So how are we sanctioning a former president for something that we say it's fine for our.
I agree, I totally agree with that. I don't even know why we'd be sanctioning people for corruption because what's center less social So it just sends up. But I mean, how are you supposed to do business?
Right?
Like, how are you supposed to do business in many of these foreign countries like India famously one of the places where you really have to grease if we want our companies to be able to do business, Like, aren't they at a strategic disadvantage? What the Chinese people aren't paying people off? I mean, if we want to if we want to engage, and let's say East Asia, look no offense east Asia. But been around long enough to read exactly about the fusion of the Samsung and Panasonic and all this stuff. You can call it corruption or you can call it legalized corruption, but it's something, right, So, how are we supposed to do business? Let's say in a country where you have to give gifts and that's literally part of their business calls.
You send McKinsey consultants and you tell them how to so you just cut.
It out, like yeah, but that's what I mean.
We're doing it anyway, so you might as well just make it, you know, instead of adding a bunch of legal red tape. It's like, yeah, we can't be corrupt here, but if other places are corrupt, like, what are you supposed to do?
It's not like they don't find we thoroughly corrupt too.
It's just that we've legalized it and we call it lobbying and we call it campaign spending.
Right exactly. So are we are we just being a little hypocritical there?
Yeah?
We're better than you. Yeah, we definitely. Okay, good, I'm glad you agree with me.
All right, let's get to the Trump truth thing. This is also important. Let's put this up there on the screen from Donald Trump. I love Trump, so cool, the greatest of them all, Trump being trump coin. Trump Coin, of course, launched famous lots of questions coffee Zilla has pointed out about pump and dump schemes and others. You can actually see at the pump and dump that happened. Let's put that on the screen. Immediately after he tweeted or truthed or whatever about it, the coin shot up to twelve twenty five immediately lost overall dollar value. But I mean, part of the issue here with the transparency is, you know, you don't know who owns this thing. You have no idea who are some of the people who had it, who some of the wallet holders are. There's so much anonymity behind it. And just to have you know, the Trump and the thing is the Trump family has made it clear that not only do not have no problem with this as part of their business strategy, like Don Junior and others are literally partnered with what's that called World Liberty Financial. I think it is just a crypto organization behind that all sort of all Steve Wickoff's.
Son, by the way, it's just hilarious.
It's all a family business.
So my point is is that you can clearly see I think that the more you see this type of stuff and especially become people aware of it, you even have like Dave Portnoy people like that who are calling it out.
They're like, yeah, this is too much.
You know, there's just something about this which rubs people the wrong way. And that's where with the Starling thing, I come back to. The defense will be oh, but it's the right company. It's like, yeah, maybe it is, but that's not the point. The point is is it's about the appearance itself. And I do think that's starting to become very politically potent around the.
Country, and it becomes more potent if things are going poorly in the country.
Oh absolutely, Like if.
As you and I remember that Haliburton was a household name in through six, everybody knew about Halliburton and Dick Cheney and what was it? What was the pharmaceutical company that Rumsfeld is like Gilead Fund.
I'm serious, Like, guys.
Years ago, people who were the breaking points viewer of twenty years ago was aware of all of this stuff, and especially right I rock War caught no bid contracts and all of that. In the federal government, there was a real feeling that not only that this war is, you know, killing America's troops, sons and daughters for something that we didn't necessarily want or sign up for. But it was also a pretext for bilking the American taxpayer.
It was a very politically powerful message.
And when the war's going okay, then the yeah people were like, oh, Alburton, they're doing a good job.
Right.
The second that it turns then you have then you have a plausible and legitimate scapegoad. It'd be like, oh, you, you corrupt bastards, can't even wage the war.
Right.
So the parallel would be Trump's handling of the economy. So if he can get prices down, keep unemployment low, get mortgage interest rates down, interest rates down, and have people feeling good about the economy, then be like, I, you know, have your fun with your Trump coin. Yeah, and all of this, like this weird thing where you've got like a three time CEO as your like special advisor with the kid on his shoulder, Like that's fine because I'm doing well.
Yeah.
If if you start seeing job loss month over month, unemployment going up, and you get stagflation with prices still going up, then people are gonna be like, get enough of this.
Stop. You don't get to rip us off while we're suffering.
You can rip us off if we're doing well, so if we're all in this together, we're all making money, then it's fine.
Then that's the best deal.
Yeah, it's like win win win, in words of Michael Scott's all right, look it's we're on.
We got to watch it.
And I do think that this will eventually become not only it's not just politics, because I've also been thinking about Elon. If you are and this is going to be, Oh my god, can you imagine if the Democrats win the House of Representatives in twenty twenty six, the number of hearings for Elon and for SpaceX, It's going to be unbeliev the amount of subpoenas, the amount of government scrutiny, the I mean, look, you know Elon and them accused the Biden administration of lashing out at them. Good luck if a Democrat ever wins the White House again, if you're Tesla SpaceX and all that, as we all know, it's very influenced by government contracts, you know, it's one of those where and then not to mention the whole brand hit that you were taking. This is like literally an existential risk. And everyone was applauding him, saying, oh he had it took an existential risk. It's like, yeah, it'll work out for four years, but like that's not really how the American government works, so good luck.
Yes, he's acting like he feels like there will never be an opposition takeover.
I think we are one eighteen months away, you know, when the Democrats, or let's say if the Democrats take especially in the House because they have subpoena power. I mean, the amount of legal red tape. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars just in legal fees, compliance oversight Committee, House Transportation Committee, specific writers, and every bill that exempts Elon Musk's companies from participating a federal I mean, you could see some serious, like serious serious ramifications for Elon himself. And remember, I mean, was it Bannon went to jail for contempt. Like this is not a joke, Like they sure they'll refer to the DJ under Trump and they won't do anything.
But Trump may not be around forever.
Like you could easily see in two years from now or four years from now when Trump is out of the White House and whoever the Democrat is, let's even a Norman Democrat, I don't know, like Ruby Diego. Yeah, Ruby Diego, John Assen, any of these folks.
Of course they're gonna do.
This is gonna be a core ask of mace, you know, in the same way like pardon j Sixers and all that stuff for for for Trump voters. This is gonna be I think a core demand of a lot of the liberal base going forward.
So yeah, I don't know.
And then the more self dealing you are and the more government contracts you are, the more attack vectors that the future has for you. You actually want to and you'll government proof yourself if you're gonna do so.
Right, And this is before they've you know, broken soul security or Medicare, like whatever, whatever calamity may befall this administration between now and then hasn't hasn't come yet.
Maybe there will not won't be one and all the.
Checks will go out, yes, but if if they don't look out, all right.
Steve Witkoff, tell us what's going on.
So this Steve Witcoff, middiast envoy who you know famously browbeat Yahoo into the the January twentieth ceasefire, which moved into which was supposed to move into phase two between February and March, instead has resulted in Israel relaunching its assault on Gaza. You had Witcoff joined Tucker Carlson for a very long and interesting interview, but also do the rounds some of the rest of the media in which he kind of reverts back to the Biden administration argument that actually this is all Hamas. Let's roll a little bit of witcough here.
I know that you've said Hamas has been unreasonable in trying to respond to another round of the next phase of a ceasfire.
Where do we go from here?
What are the odds you get them back to the table and get these hostages home.
Well, I certainly hope we get everybody back to the table and get the hostages home. I was I was in a Doha. I met with many of the Arab leaders at the Arab summit. I thought we had a deal, an acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that's just me getting getting you know, duped, but I thought we were there, and evidently we weren't. So this is on Hamas. The United States stands with the State of Israel. There's just us that's a one hundred percent commitment, and we've expressed that Hamas had every opportunity to demilitarize, to accept the bridging proposal that would have given us a forty or fifty day cease fire where we could have discussed demilitarization and a final truce. There were all kinds of opportunities to do that, and they elected not to, and this becomes the alternative, and it is unfortunate. Do I think if would we be amenable to reach out from Hamas, of course, we would be no different than in the Russian conflict.
We want to end the killing, but.
We need to be clear who the aggressor is here, and that is Hamas.
It feels almost impossible for people here in the United States to have any clear sense of what on earth is going on because we're so propagandized about this. If you want to have a better idea what's going on, you read the Israeli media. So there's the Times of Israel article. And this is the kind of a right leaning publication. This is not a retz like left leaning one. This is Times of Israel article. They say, quote Hamas has insisted on sticking to the original terms of the deal, which was supposed to begin its second phase at the beginning of March for a month, though Israel refused to end talks on the specific terms of Phase two, as the stage's general framework requires it to fully withdraw from Gaza and agree to a permanent end of the war. In submitting his Bridge proposal earlier this month, Witkof accepted Israel's aversion to Phase two.
So this is what happened. They struck a deal.
The US guaranteed it, and then Israel insisted on breaking the deal. And that is according to the Israeli pressed and also according to reality. Like, that's actually what happened, and Witkoff knows every detail of that.
I think we can only assume that this is the same movement that took out Adam Bohler Witcoff for people.
Again, I need people to understand this with Wicoff, he has been the target of more assault on a Trump appointee than any single other individual. His temerity was what he asked BB.
To work on.
Shabbati agreed to a c smart You.
Think I'm joking that they cannot tolerate this, like any sense of America is the superpower here? No, Oh, that's why Bowler he was disappeared, right, he might he's he's an Il Salvador.
Along with all those other guys. You're never even gonna see him again. The same with the Wickoff.
Like the thing that they decided on is that he's a Katari asset number one and then number two, which is which is so ridiculous. Again, I tweeted that I think he saw it as well, where I was like, really, like the people who are in the Israel lobby are going to accuse people being funded by a foreign government, like do you have no shame?
Like?
Have you no shame?
As as we speak, Netanya, who's sent inner circle is under investigation for taking bribes, food cuts her.
It can't make it up.
You literally cannot script it. And yet here in Washington, like you said, we can't talk about any of this now.
The other things you will learn if you follow the Israeli press, but not the American press, although if you follow breaking Points, you hear about it.
Why did net Ya.
Who refused to go into phase two? Why did he choose this time? A couple of different things. The head of the shin Bet was instigating net Yahu, so he fired fired first time in Israeli history that this happens, and he needs political support to do that. He has to finish a budget by the end of this month, and to do that he needed Zoe Smoch and Benjy Gevier, you know, back in his coalition. And so in order to do that, he had to restart the genocide on on Gaza. There were protests against the firing of the shin bet Head.
Huge, really real like James Comey level, as.
Well as massive protests on behalf of getting the remaining captives out of out of Gaza, and net Yaho's corruption trial was moving forward launching the bombing.
When he did allowed the trial to be delayed.
I feel like you say this stuff out loud, you sound like a crazy person.
It's like, this can't this can't be true.
This can't be why hundreds and hundreds of people are getting are getting killed right now so that Ho can could get his budget passed and can avoid his corruption trial and can and can suppress these protests and the investigations into himself. Right Yet, that is precisely and explicitly what is happening.
Right But that's you know, not enough.
And Wick Cough, like I said, he has just changed his tune completely on the Hamas question.
Remember Bowler.
He's like, yeah, they're afraid that we might find out they're good guys, you know, like that born and he's like, I understand why they're upset, but we're not a client of Israel. Oop oops gone black bag clearly over his head. Here's Wick Cough, you know, basically sounding off on Tucker Carlson. Same stuff we've heard a million times. Let's take a listen. This is Southern Command of Israel. Then showed me a film of what happened on October seventh, yep. And the film is horrific. Yes, it is about mass rapes.
He talks about the head of babies and stuff. Is like, I haven't seen this forty seven minute video that they have. You show could the people have been people have been very clear about what's in it, and none of that is in it. That's just it's just a lie. Like it's just untrue that that video includes any of that.
Just it just doesn't.
But yes, it does show how chastened he is from Uh, you know, Bowler getting getting knocked on his heels and so what is the consequence for people on the ground in Gaza? Uh we put up D three here. So Nasar hospital. So this is, by the way, that's that is a tent. There's a tent encampment. These are these are like two thousand pound bonds being dropped on tents and what what Israel has been doing that's not hospital.
We'll talk about that in a second.
Is after they have acknowledged that they were responsible for that air that air strike that that you saw on the on the tent encampment there that they said there was a Hamas figure who was in one of the tents, and that therefore that's why they believe that they the you know, the moral and legal right to kill all of the people that were anywhere near them.
It is crazy. Just linger on that. Not that long ago.
There's a whole Wolf Blitzer segment, you know, talking about ten the first tent bombing it. Remember Blitzer asked him about even he criticized he's a former APAC employee, all this other thuff.
Even he's like, hey, guys, like, what are we doing here?
Nowadays?
It's not even a headline anymore, it's just reality. It's just the day, you know, of the business. Like you said, if this is done for a purpose, like you know, if you think back to the Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and Japan. The purpose, at least ostensibly we can argue about it, you know, probably forever is what is to destroy the war machine of Germany and the ability and the will of the German public and the war machine of Germany. Here though, they're like, oh well, we need to kill every last terrorist, and you're like, okay, but you know, by your own admission, like this has not worked. He's done this for two years. Rockets are launched from Goda onto was it Tel Aviv?
Some city in.
Israel, just like a last week, which is one of the core competencies that you said that you were going to wipe out, which is actually proof that it's not working right now.
You would think that you would.
Adjust strategy here in Washington during the Second World War whenever we see you know, we would do bombing assessments wherever, like, Okay, this didn't work, We've got to change to this. We're gonna try this. We're gonna try that. We're going to do a change of tactics. We need to change all It's it's almost like that the strategy, the strategic goal is non existent because it's tied to their political ends at home exactly.
And it goes back to what we were just saying. The strategy has nothing to do with the war. It's all about these domestic political interests. It would be as if FDR was bombing Berlin because FDR had a corruption trial on Tuesday and he's trying to fire like the head of the OSS, because the OSS is looking into FDR, and he's also on the take from Cutter, which didn't exist yet or Yeah, So that that that explains why then none of it makes sense from a strategic or even a tactical perspective because it's not actually aimed to make any sense.
And so.
There are two this and the last piece we showed you there was Nasar Hospital that was the second floor of Naser Hospital directly targeted by it in Israeli airstrike. Earlier yesterday, Ferro Saidwa and Mark Permutter were on CNN from Nasser Hospital talking about the crimes that they were seeing being committed by Israeli forces. Perlmutter, you famously may recall, was one of the authors of that New York Times article talking about how the the Israeli forces were targeting children, snipers, headshots, shot.
In the heart.
It became this thing where the Israeli defenders said this is all made up. Then they started you started having people online like you know, parsing the different x rays and so times that looked back in It was like, no, we ran this by like dozens of other medical experts and what they are saying is true. So these are high profile critics who had been in Gaza before left Gaza. American doctors now are back in Gaza in Naser Hospital and are going back on CNN criticizing the Israeli war machine. And later that day, a missile targets the second floor of the hospital. They claim they were targeting some Hamaska. According to the medical staff there, there was a seventeen year old who was going who was supposed to be going in for surgery.
As a result of this attack, he died.
He wasn't he didn't he wasn't killed directly from it, but he couldn't get the surgery that he needed and as a result died. We're still sorting through exactly you know what the what the other casually as are.
You can put up D five. This is from this is from drop site News.
Doctor Sidwah told us that the explosion hit either the hospital building.
Or just outside of it.
This was in the fog of the early moments, and the front of the hospital is on fire, he said. A patient it was about to be transferred from the ICU to the operating room, is now and hold it almost certainly going to die unquote that patient. That patient did in fact, ie, you can put up D six as well. This is a report from the scene. You can see the fire and that and the hell of Delpartaris says, this is not the first time nor the second time that hospitals have.
Been directly targeted.
Israeli occupation forces are directly targeted, so the surgical department inside not certain medical complex directly target with the wounded patients and medical staff all inside of the complex. And it reminds me very early in this what turned out to be a genocide. There was this weeks long debate here in the United States about that whether or not Palaestdinian Islami Jahad rocket or an IDF rocket had targeted a particular hospital.
And since then.
Israel has hit every single medical facility in Gaza, and hit many of them multiple times. Earlier this week, they detonated, planned, planned demolition of the only cancer treatment facility in Gaza. And you compare that with this furious denial that they had attacked this one hospital back in like November of twenty twenty three. It shows you, like where the world has gone in the time since, because that was outrageous when it happened, to the point where they had to deny that they did anything, and all these ocent people doing this for there are forensic work on it, and now they're like, yeah, we hit that hospital with the American doctors in it.
Uh huh, what about it? What are you going to do? We're like, not could do anything. Actually, nobody's gonna do anything.
I think what is stunning to me about wick Cough was his is his clear about face. And it's just clear the political forces at work that are trying to move everything. The chessboard is clear to anybody who can watch it all happen. The Pentagon is developing these war plans. So wick Cough wins in the early days, the first fifty days, I would say he's the victor. Adam Bohler is the high water mark of anybody who wanted to see a departure. But his problem is he said the wrong the quiet part out loud. We are not a client's meet of Israel. Boom lopped. What happens a week later Yemen? Who the bomb?
Right?
Because what?
Because people can finally point to the Adam Bohler Wick Coff sees fire and all and say no, this is not working. The convinced Trump and the people around him who are neo cons and others so like, see, we have to be strong, right, So we start to bomb Yemen and the who thies and that leads to what more of a policy on Iran, which is, oh, well, we previously Trump said let's have a deal.
I want to talk to you, like, let's have a diplomat.
Now they're like, oh, Iran will be held responsible for every Yemeny rocket. And then at the same time, what else happens? Oh, the Gaza war breaks out again, which means that the increase in the attacks in Yemen and or stability all around the region is going to increase. And as all of this starts to tick up, the divergence of that time becomes more clear. This is the policy apparatus and decisions that they want. They want an environment where it's much more likely to go to war with Iran to quote unquote be strong with Iran, to bring critics and all those like Quick Cough and others to heal. And they want to get away from any reality where Trump.
I think Trump did want them. I mean he liked being the peacemaker.
I think he also really likes the idea of talking to the Iatola signing a great Iran deal.
But it's going is right.
I mean, look, I'm gonna hold I hope for the stake of all of us that it does happen that way. But I'm watching the chessboard right all move where you know, one year, two years, you never know. It just takes one event and things pop off like that.
The only hope remaining is also in the Tucker Carlson Witcoff interview, and it's Witcof talking at length about how important a deal with Iran and a broader Mid East deal is to Trump. And as Witkoff says accurately, it all runs through Gaza. Like the Abraham Accords, fundamental flaw was that it pretended the Palestine question could just be completely ignored. Now people like Witcoff and Trump understand that's not the case. You want Saudi Arabia, the amiradis Iran all to kind of come to an actual accord. You got to figure out what you're doing with Gaza and with the West Bank.
Interesting tweet Ryan just now minutes ago from JD Vance. Steve Whitkoff is a great guy, doing an incredible job. The people sniping and Naim are mad that he's succeeding where they failed for forty years. Turns out a lot of diplomacy boils down to a simple skill. Don't be an idiot. What do you make of that? That seems like a that's.
A bat signal? Good?
You know?
JD Vance has a powerful faction within particularly the Pentagon, but also the broader foreign policy apparatus that is America First Pieces, much more realist. He's oriented right, and that he's stepping in.
I can't tell.
Well, so he's that bat that's a bat signal for something? It could be on Ukraine. We'll probably cover that tomorrow. We don't have time to get into it all today because Steve also made quite a few controversial comments on Ukraine. If you're a Ukraine firster here in Washington, basically saying, yeah, we're gonna have to have territorial concessions, and they're like, oh my god, you freaking out about it. But I do think that that's a subtle way of also signaling against some of these neo kan attacks. But unfortunately, I'm just I'm not sure. I think it might be too late because at this point, you know, with Wikkoff, if you're going in public, you know, basically embracing the Israeli line of where the war is and sidelining out of Bowler and instead letting Mike Walton all these other guys who are just straight up Neil Cohns back into the decision making. It doesn't seem like it's a situation that's going to go in the direction that we would have hoped, let's say, in the first month or so the Trumpetinustry.
Yeah, the best hope would be that he just understands, particularly after the Bowler situation, these are the words you say, Yeah, no matter what happens, you blame hamas right and you say Israel has the right to defend itself.
Now he does have magic words.
If he doesn't have publiclyans still breaks Babe. Behind the scenes, I'm fine with.
It, okay, Right, he's he's still an American, so he has to say the magic one.
Yeah, yeah, so maybe fault, that's right. Do you condemn Hama?
Do you condemn Hamas for Israel striking the NAS hospital? Come like absolutely, Yeah, outrageous on the part of Mamas.
That's a good way. I like it. Let's get over to the economy block.
We had to cover this, so Secretary Lutnick over at the Commerce Department.
Yeah, I do have I like Howard.
Lud too, just because he is he's just built for this moment in terms of the absolute chaos, where he's got the smile on his face, believes nothing, a pure just a pure opportunist. Jettisoned himself to the top of the United States government by being the Trump co chair of his campaign. Do you remember during the campaign when he put himself in the speaking slot before or after j D. Vance, Like he put JD up there, and then it was Lutnik and then Elon and then Trump and everyone was like Lutnick, like.
Why is he getting a star billing at this time?
He's the one and he's still upset, Howard Lutning get still upset that he's not the US Treasury Secretary. He thinks it's a downgrade that he's the head of the commerce, right. Yeah, no, he is well ish because remember commerce powerful with terrors. Anyway, Howard Ludnik sits down with the All In podcast crew, Chamath, Polyhopatia, and Friedberg in this crazy set that they use sometimes over at the White House.
And in the Magisty, in the majesty.
Of the Imperium of the White House, the capital of the global Empire. He starts to make some pretty unhinged comments about Social Security.
Let's take a listen.
I describe it to people this way. Let's say Social Security didn't send out their checks.
This month.
My mother in law, who's ninety four, she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn't. She thinks something got messed up and she'll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining. And if all the guys who did PayPal, like Elon knows this, my heart right, anybody who's been in the payment system and the processed system knows the easy way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen. Because whatever screams is the one's stealing because my mother in law's not call it.
I mean, come on, your mother.
Eighty year olds, ninet year olds. They trust the government that trusts. Okay, maybe got screwed up, big deal. They're not gonna call it scream at someone, but someone who's stealing always does. So what happens is we need to get to so the people who are getting that free money, stealing the money inappropriately getting the money, have an inside person who's routing the money. They are going to yell.
And scream, right, Yeah, that totally makes sense.
You know.
The other reason that his mother and Lama may not scream is that Howard's worth one point five billion. Yeah, and that tends to help.
You know, you don't have to worry about your six hundred dollars a month check.
Yeah.
You know why I scream when companies who you know, like you know, we run a business here, sometimes vendors or whatever the people don't pay on time. It's because you know, I have employees to pay, right, so you got to make payroll or you know whatever. The what's the alternative if your maybe need to pay this thing called rent? Howard, I know you haven't paid that in a long time mortgage.
You know, these are.
Things that we more mere mortals are lucky to deal with in the case of a mortgage rent, you know, in the case of let's say somebody who's living on this little thing called a fixed income. Ryan, you talk what I need to find the exact stats on the number of people realize only on socier security, And it's a lot.
And it makes to me absolutely zero sense that the fraudster.
Usually the fraudster.
Would be the one who is going to take as much money quietly as they can, and then when their fraud is busted, they slink on to the next fraud. Like you don't sit there and throw yourself a parade and invite a lot of extra extra scrutiny. That yes, And but to your point, yeah, if I were if my son in law was worth a billion and a half dollars, then yeah, I probably would not be sweating my social Security check either.
It's like, lady, are you really even relying on Social Security? Lady, you don't manage your own finances.
Let's just call it for what it is when her social Security check comes or what the value of it is, right, why would she be weird?
Yeah?
It would be weird. Right.
It's like if you if you've got a billion and a half, you know, son in law, I would hope, at least where I come from, he's taking care of your bills.
He's not helping her out if she's relying on her.
That's actually a whole other meta commentary of which we I hope to get to one day.
But mother in law, clearly he hates her.
But while you look at that, let's jump real quick to E four because this is this is related to it. At the same time that you've got Howard Lutnick out there acting like the Republicans are never going to see another voter again, you have the Social Security Administrator acting one doing these same doing a very similar thing. He threatens that he's going to shut down the entire Social Security Administration and not send out checks because he's mad at a judicial ruling and he's trying to make a point. And the point was, Oh, this judge thinks that he can run Social Security better than I can. Let's let's let him try, and I'll go into the it SYSM. I'm just going to shut the whole thing down and that'll show him. So he's sort of threatening like malicious compliance with this judicial order.
The judge cracked down.
On him, and as you saw now that now he's saying, he says, IDTK says, I Am not shutting down the agency. But think about where the Republicans are, if they're at the point of their quote, is I am not shutting down the agency? Yeah, if you're explaining that you're not actually going to shut down Social Security Administration, you've somehow gotten yourself into weird political terrain.
So yeah, something like half of elderly people.
I've got it here, of those aged sixty and older, are quote very reliant on Social Security. There is at least I'm indication from twenty twenty that forty percent of older Americans depend entirely on Social Security. So what's the average Social Security payment?
What is it?
Like one thousand dollars a month, thirty six thousand a year maybe, yes, okay, so twenty two thousand a year, that's I mean, that's not a lot of money right now. Not so if we got let's see what is the average Social Security payment in the US, that's it.
That's that's what you got.
Okay, So nineteen hundred dollars a month and they're supposed to make. Let's see, they're supposed to pay tax, at least some income tax on that. I guess if you're only making that year that you're not paying, you're not going to pay any income tax. You have to make rent food mortgage and or rent food prescriptions prescriptions because Medicare is not going to.
Cover or astra medicare premiums. Yeah, yeah, you're right.
It's nineteen Oh my, I can't even imagine this one nine hundred and seventy six dollars.
That is crazy.
I mean that's after the cost of living adjustment that previously went into place from January of twenty two. I remember that was a nine percent increase on what there already was.
So that's nothing, all right.
So if you've got nineteen hundred dollars a month, that's effectively poverty. Which reason this exists is not to have poverty, you just have to think, like use your brain cells for having a billionaire commerce secretary going around telling people, Oh, if you miss your payment, that's not a big deal. The average American is a blown tire away from complete bankruptcy. Like five to six hundred dollars emergency payment. They don't have it. I mean that, and we're not even talking about retirement. People are like retirement, that's a dream. I don't even know what you're talking about. So if you put all this stuff together, I mean, you're looking at a situation where you're basically just taunting people to.
Vote against you.
I can't think again even the optics there, it's like this Roman style stage and look, no offensey all in guys. But you know Tamath and Friedberg are filthy rich. I know he's a billionaire. I don't know if he's a billionaire's probably a hundred million whatever. Yeah, he's doing fine. All right, So you know, you got three year billionaire and or billionaires on a stage talking about social Security and about how have you complained about that?
You're a fraudt rate.
Whereas any normal person who's ever been in somewhat financial distress, if you've ever even had a paycheck come a couple days late, it's a problem. It's a serious problem, especially when yeah, like we run a business.
You know, we literally have to make payroll.
You know, you or others probably at some time in your life at least had sometimes where somebody didn't pay you or whatever on schedule. They're like, dude, I need this money to pay my rent. The amount of financial stress that it can cause in your life is.
Immense, and is that really a society you want to live in?
With old people feeling that way, that's where the program exists in the first place.
So I thought it was preposterous.
I want to pair that though, with one of my favorite stories that I've seen in quite some time. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This is the state of America right now. Door Dash and Klarna have signed a deal where customers can now choose to pay for food delivery in interest free installments. So you guys, remember Klarna, it's the buy now, pay later app that bnpl where this type of debt is actually very hard to track. We don't have exact numbers. What we do know is that this amount of debt is actually is not counted in overall debt figures, and it is estimated that there are tens of billions of dollars of Americans who are on these buy now, pay later plans which are not registering in credit cards. Right it doesn't actually show up as pure credit card debt even though it is money that you do. Oh well here with respect to Klarna, seeing this now applied not just to clothing and all of that, which is in my opinion bad enough, but now you've got it apply to food delivery, and it's.
Just so perfect because.
Food delivery itself is a luxury right, It's already one where it's not only a luxury good going back for forever, but it's also one where the door dash Uber eats and all that model is.
Yeah, it's convenient, but you may not notice.
Stuff on there is like three times more expensive, let's say, than it used to be. So between food inflation, delivery fees, process fees, etc. Everybody's the only people win in our door Dash and Klarna here. The restaurant they get what of whatever the actual order is, so they got to jack their prices up just to be able to make that the consumer is paying more for the food the driver.
Let's not even get started on that.
In terms of how much they're getting out of this entire thing, and now we're financing the order, that is like the worst, literally of all worlds. It actually also shows you how the promise of these apps was ease. It's like, yeah, ease, is great if you're rich, if you can afford it. Ease is you know, also comes with a cost. There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's only trade offs. Well, now we see higher food prices for everybody. We see drivers and all that who don't even work for a company getting paid like the old pizza delivery guy, now solely reliant on contracts except you know, contract basis getting paid a middling.
Amount or whatever per hour.
And now the consumer who is ordering this has to pay or is in such financial distress over the increased prices of everything they have to finance this across time.
And so as people know, I'm a fan of Dave Ramsey.
This was his uh, this was his reaction to the to the story let's put E three please up on the screen.
The picture of himself.
There is something very horseshoe for me to see Dave reacting to a more perfect union tweet. So there they have more in common, you know, than you might think. But there is something about this which is just so dystopian, and we can make fun of it all we want, but also you and I know Ryan, this is going to be a very financially product, and that is the That is the true black pill of it all.
And the only other thing I'd add to that is the waste, my god. Like the delivery order comes, it's the foods in a plastic bowl with a plastic lid, in two plastic bags, and then they put plastic utensils in there too. It's like, you send it to my home. You think I don't have a fork?
Some places you have to check, and they still put it in there.
Oh okay, all right, because the last thing they ever want is somebody complaining.
The customer is always right. But yeah, it's like we have forks at home. Come on, everybody's gonna fork.
This is where European sensibilities are starting to come in, right.
Think about it, Think about the scale of it. I don't disagree with where is the all this is going to go?
Yeah, but what's the cost?
Right?
The cost of the cost of the business is much higher. One person complains.
Exactly and then Klarina like okay, they tell you that there's going to be no interests and yeah.
Okay, folks, how do you think Klarna makes money? If you think they're just giving this away to you for free. No, it's a non profit. They know you're not going to pay for it. Yeah, let me look up their revenue actually, right, so right.
If you don't pay within thirty days, then they're going to then they start hitting you with the fees and the fines.
And they're also.
They're now introducing like these different two dollars service charges here, and they're one of their big things has always been, you know, no service charge, no fees like this is and now like guess what, like once they've got you hooked, they're going to find ways to add the junk fees in and you know what, go ahead and call the CFPP and complain. You're going to get a busy signal there because the people who are funding these types of companies made sure that the CFPP is not going to be around to check the abuses of companies like this.
So here's what we've got. Klarna's revenue surged twenty four percent. This is just from two days ago. They're actually filing for IPO. They're going public gradulations. Congratulations, that's right. Media reports suggest they are aiming to raise more than a billion or fifteen bill between one, exceeding evaluation of some fifteen billion dollars. The BNPL market is projected to surpass one hundred and sixty billion by twenty thirty two. Klarna's revenue just last year is two point eight one billion dollars, compared to a two point two billion dollars a year ago.
It earned some twenty one million.
Dollars, which actually kind of low, showing that they're investing a lot of that back into the product, some one cent per share compared to losses. So it's a profitable company and they are making two point two eight billion dollars. No, no fee, not based on you, because it's like the credit card, they know you're not going to pay it. I had no idea until I started listening to Dave. Seventy seven percent of people just don't pay their credit card, which is wild. I have no idea. I didn't you know there was an option. Just basically I was raised. But it's like, yeah, some people just don't just don't pay it, And you're like, oh, okay, so now it's oh so that's what. Yeah, so seventeen percent, you know, APR, and that stacks up and.
It keeps going and it goes and it goes and it goes.
And no wonder people are in thousands of dollars in credit card debt. So this whole by now pay later model like this, it's proven if they the product wouldn't exist if they didn't make any money.
Yeah, people paid, if people paid on time, they wouldn't make two billion dollars a year. We have no fees, but we have two billion in revenue.
How'd that happen? It's devastating, weird. It's not good.
It's really it's bad.
And it's just more about people, you know, sinking into a money hole thinking that they're getting something convenient. Yes, I think the consumer and all that should do due diligence, et cetera. But there's something just really gross, you know, about all of this being just so ever present. It's just never been There's never been an easier time in humandustry to get cripplingly in debt and ruin your life. I really believe that between you got hooked on credit cards and buy them now pay later, and up charges and food delivery fees and all of it's just like the entire ecosystem is just designed.
To part you with whatever dollars that you happen to have.
The VC is very cleverly got the whole country. You hooked on cheap delivery.
True, very true.
It was like basically free and subsidized right by this by the VC billions, and then just gradually they start turning the temperature up on the cost of it, and now you're you know, you're hooked on getting it delivered.
Yep.
Sorry, guys, we didn't have time to talk about the soda story.
Really wanted to, but we went along with Glenn and I think that's probably a lot more beneficial to the audience and hearing about this. So don't worry about it. You're gonna get it all on Tuesday. We will see you all then
With speak Pat
