8/5/24: Kamala VP Pick Imminent, Trump Flails Attacking Polls As Fake, US Floods Troops To Middle East, Global Stock Freefall, Olympic Boxer Controversy, Explosive Flint Coverup
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Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed we do. It is a very big and frankly, very scary week. Today or tomorrow, we're going to learn Kamala's VP picks. So there's been fevered speculation. We'll tell you what we know, where everybody stands and who is lobbying for who. It's gotten very, very interesting. We're going to learn Kamala's VP picks.

We also have some new polls revealing the current state of the race that are quite interesting. The gender divide, actually a little bit smaller than I expected given it's just one poll though, and very close race. I think that's the bottom line. We are in truly toss up territory. We also are taking a look at what is a terrifying situation in the Middle East.

everybody waiting to see what the Iranian response is going to be to that assassination that occurred by Israel on their soil. Dr. Trita Parsi is going to join us to talk about what we could be facing this week. We also have stock markets crashing around the world, a huge sell-off, Japan's index dropping the

largest single drop in a day. This comes on the heels of a very poor jobs report here in the U.S. and some indications that we could be heading into a recession. So very scary signs to take a look at there. Sagar and I are going to dig into this Olympic gender controversy. I know Sagar's very excited to talk about this. Yeah, super pumped.

It'll be fun. We'll give everybody the details. Yeah, of course. We'll just, you know, break down the politics of it, how this whole thing took off, what we know, what we don't know, because there is a lot of fiction to sort through with regard to this boxer in the Olympics. And we also have Jordan Sheridan on. He wrote a new book about the

poisoning of Flint, which obviously very relevant, um, continues to be with Michigan being a battleground state. And also given the fact that, you know, this isn't the only place that has been poisoned in America with little repercussions and, uh, little, little, uh, sort of, uh,

compensation for the victims of said poisoning. So we'll have a look at that as well. Yes, that's right. Thank you to all of the people who signed up. You took advantage of our promotion for a free month trial of our premium subscription. We really appreciate all of those who did. It was certainly a thank you to our tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of new watchers and listeners. So we really appreciate you. If you didn't get to take advantage of that, perhaps we'll bring it back.

But BreakingPoints.com, if you want to check it out, we are going to continue delivering our service to the premium subscription. You get to watch everything uncut. You get the AMA and all those other benefits. So if you still want to take advantage, BreakingPoints.com. And we will certainly bring it back sometime in the future. Stay tuned for that. Let's go ahead, though, Crystal, and begin with the VP speculation, which we've only got a limited amount of time before we may even learn who it is.

Yeah, we actually put this block first in the show because this could leak out. The news could leak out at any time. So we wanted to record this and get it out before it becomes outdated. Let's put this first piece up on the screen. So we know that she has sort of narrowed her list to six.

In particular, you've got Governor Andy Beshear of Kentucky, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appear to be the final six. However, among those six, there appear to be three that have the edge that Kamala met with personally yesterday in D.C. That would be Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, Mark Kelly, Senator

Senator of Arizona, and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. So first of all, Sagar, any sort of wild speculation that you want to make here at the top about who you think the pick might be? I'm just going to go Shapiro. I'd probably give it like a 55% shot.

Which shows, by the way, that I'm not all that confident. I mean, it would perhaps behoove Kamala just to pick somebody else just to try and get as big of a media pop. But the fundamentals of the race are still there. Pennsylvania is the most likely tipping point state, overwhelmingly popular governor. The other two don't necessarily come from states that Kamala is in the same must-win category. At the same time, a vice president usually doesn't matter, as we've said here before.

But given his popularity in the state and perhaps in the machine and other things that he might be able to bring to bear, when we're talking about margins of just a couple of 10,000, 15,000 votes, which is really what's happened, a couple hundred thousand votes really in 2016 and 2020, you need all the help that you can get. So just given the math and given the way that all the models look and how 2016 and 2020 played out, I think Pennsylvania just seems like the most likely bet.

Yeah, I think it's probably Shapiro as well, although I'll give you a few reasons in a moment why possibly she would be leery of picking the governor of Pennsylvania at this point. Now, this has developed into a real sort of like ideological battle within the left and within the Democratic Party. You had Joe Scarborough coming out along tweet thread defending Josh Shapiro and advocating for him and, of course, smearing his critics as what else? Anti-Semites.

Let's put this up on the screen from Joe Scarborough. He says, Josh Shapiro is governor of the most important state in this election. That part is true. He's the most experienced leader and gifted orator of the remaining strong candidates. Gifted orator, if you love a knockoff Obama impression. He would present voters with the most dynamic ticket since Clinton Gore in 92. Wow, as dynamic as Al Gore, soccer, incredible. And will be ready to serve

On day one, he goes on from there. He says the whisper campaigns against Josh Shapiro have dark undertones. Breaking news, he's Jewish. But just as Thatcher was identified as a game-changing force in politics instead of a woman, Josh Shapiro's strengths and talents would easily transcend bigotry and identity politics. And then he continued on, don't understand the recent attacks on the strongest VP contender. Well, it's a toxic mix of...

anti-Semitism, extremist views on Gaza, and jealous colleagues who don't want to be blocked out of the presidential sweepstakes for the next decade. That last part is almost certainly about John Fetterman, who interestingly has come out against Josh Shapiro. They have a sort of like in-state rivalry. I'll show you that in a moment.

You know, Shapiro has become a bit of a lightning rod in terms of this VP pick because ideologically, he has been the most vocal and the most extreme in terms of his rhetoric with regard to Israel and specifically with regard to campus protesters. We showed you last week him comparing

pro-Palestine protesters to the KKK. Since then, his college writings about Palestinians and how they're too, I think it was battle-minded for peace have come out. Now, I don't think anyone should be judged by whatever the hell they were saying in college. I don't think that's fair whatsoever. But the problem is there's not a lot of indication that he has actually changed his views with regard to this.

And so, you know, the charge of anti-Semitism here, first of all, ignores the fact that J.P. Pritzker, also on the list, also Jewish. In addition, the same people who are arguing against Josh Shapiro are the people who literally lionized Bernie Sanders, who is also Jewish.

So it's a convenient, you know, scapegoating of the left attempt to dismiss legitimate criticism, which isn't only centered around Gaza, but also has to do with his support of charter schools. That's why the labor movement is not a fan of him. He's called for corporate taxes to be cut. And the reason I think, the two reasons why I think she could correct

could potentially pass on Shapiro. Number one, this has opened up one of the fissures within the Democratic Party that Kamala Harris had a chance to somewhat move past, right? A lot of people on the left who were not going to vote for Genocide Joe are a little bit open to Kamala Harris because she doesn't seem like so much of an ideologue on Israel. And that's the best you're going to get in the Democratic Party is someone who is not an ideological Zionist who's willing to pay a political price in service of

that ideological position. The best you can hope for is someone who is malleable, and that's why there's a little bit more openness to Kamala Harris.

Josh Shapiro seems to fit much more in the Biden model where he is actually ideologically committed to the cause. And so, you know, she could just from a risk aversion standpoint, not want to open up those rifts in the Democratic Party when so much of her bump in the polls actually comes from reconsolidating a Democratic base among young people and others that had drifted away. That's number one. Number two, there are a couple of things that could come up in the vet that are potentially problematic.

One of them has to do with this old case where a woman's death was ruled a suicide, even though she had 10 to 15 stab wounds. And Shapiro is accused of having sort of sat on this case. And he had a campaign contribution from the individual who could be a murder suspect in that case.

you know it's the type of thing that you could see you know an ad maker really picking up and running wild with so there's that and there's also the allegations of cover-up of sexual harassment within his office

So it's possible. And then the last thing, I guess there is one other thing, which is he does read as very ambitious, right? And his people around him have really tried to create this aura of inevitability to his pick as the VP. And it's possible that she doesn't like the vibe of that, feels that he's going to, you know, overshadow her, feels that he's not going to be a team player, really be interested, you know, primarily in his own advancement, right?

Like I said, I still think it's most likely that Shapiro is chosen. But if he's not, I think it would be more likely one of those reasons than like, you know, that she actually has an ideological issue with him or wants to please the left because nobody at the top of the Democratic Party wants to do that.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. I mean, look, let's be honest, you know, other contenders also have significant bases. So we've been covering here organized labor, UAW President Sean Fain, who endorsed Kamala Harris, has come out in favor of other candidates. So why don't we take a listen to what he had to say? We've really broken down these candidates, really looked at them. And I'll tell you, my favorite's Andy Beshear from Kentucky. I mean, the man stood with us

You know, on the picket line, he's been there for workers throughout every bit of our walk. And, you know, he's won in a state where Mitch McConnell's from. I mean, it's been a red state traditionally. He's won twice there. And I just believe he brings a huge dynamic. And I believe a Harris and Beshear ticket would be unbeatable. I believe both of them would just be such dynamic candidates. But we really like Tim Walls from Minnesota also. I think he's an awesome guy for labor, 100 percent behind labor.

And those would be our top two if we had to pick any. - So I think that's significant, you know, nonetheless with the auto workers specifically, if we think about Michigan and the industrial Midwest, that could certainly come down. At the same time, he did endorse Kamala Harris already, so it's already on board with the ticket. Nonetheless, you know, certainly something that we should look to, especially with some of the war between who she is going to pick. I still think though, my foremost point stands whenever we just look

Pennsylvania the tipping point status and just what he potentially could bring to that ticket. And just all you have to do is drive out, you know, 0.5% more of the vote. And in Pennsylvania, you're so much more have an outsized influence. That's why I just think the fundamentals are really strong there.

Yeah, it makes sense that Sean Fain would be a big fan of Andy Beshear because the state of Kentucky, there's quite a bit of auto manufacturing. They have a large Ford truck assembly plant there. They've got a lot of UAW members. They were involved in that stand-up strike that was so successful. There's also been part of why Andy Beshear is so popular in the state of Kentucky is he's brought a lot of

of manufacturing jobs into the state, including union EV battery jobs in the state. So that's why he's got a close partnership and comfort with Andy Beshear. And Beshear also came in in the wake of the teacher strike wave, and that was very important to his election. So, you know, in the state of Kentucky, even though it's a red state, quote unquote, very pro-union, very pro-labor, and Andy Beshear has been very consistent.

pro-union and pro-labor. The other candidate that he says he likes is Tim Walz, former high school teacher, who has also been really consistently pro-labor and has become a real favorite of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party because of how strong his record has been in the state. And also, I think he's really won people over with how effective he is in terms of his communication. Let's go ahead and skip ahead to A5 because this was

something that gave the Walls heads out there a lot of hope. Apparently, Nancy Pelosi is leaning in Tim Walls' favor. He's a former, in addition to being the governor of Minnesota, he actually served in the House for quite a while. And this was an article from The Hill that quoted her as saying,

quoted those around her as saying she's always especially fond of former house colleagues when asked about Harris's running mate, a nod to Walls. And other members of the house who had served with him also were sort of like pushing him and in favor of him as well. Apparently Joe Biden really likes him cuz he just thought he was fun to be around for whatever that's worth. Classic. So everyone's hoping that Nancy's gonna pull off another coup here and get Walls on the ticket. If anyone could do it, I guess it would be her. The other thing, Sagar, go back to A4, guys.

This is the Fetterman thing that I was talking about, which is kind of, you know, this interstate party rivalry situation. Fetterman has concerns about Shapiro for VP. The bottom line here is he is privately relayed that he, Shapiro, is sort of overly ambitious. And there was a specific rub there.

between the two of them about the commutations board. There were two prisoners being held in the state who were convicted, always maintained their innocence. There was a dispute over whether they should be released or not. Fetterman thought that Shapiro resisted releasing them initially because of his own political personal ambition. Later, they did make it through that commutation board and were released. So in any case, his bottom line is sort of like,

I guess they've never liked each other. There's a sort of in-state rivalry and he's telling the Harris team that he thinks this guy is overly ambitious and more interested in his own political prospects than anything else. Hey, yeah, reading it, I was like, well, the fact that they got commuted anyway tells me a little bit that I don't think you would

really care and that's just some, you know, like leak the best that you could possibly get. It does sound more like he doesn't want to be overshadowed in his own home state, just given what we know a little bit about Jon Fetterman also, you know, in the wake of the last year or so in the way that he has comported himself. So he wants to be the star.

He really enjoys the national profile and it's not good whenever somebody else in your state is going to upstage you. You know, he probably was the foremost national Pennsylvania politician and now Josh Shapiro certainly would overtake. So I always describe the cynicism whenever it comes to those people. That's what I make of the Fetterman situation at least. Yeah, fair. I mean, even though Fetterman in this instance happened to come out on the same side of this issue as I do, I agree with you wholeheartedly about what his motivations are here. So, yeah.

Moving on, let's put A7 up on the screen here. This is about Andy Beshear. He's apparently cleared his Tuesday calendar. Now, the reason that this is significant is because we know Tuesday Kamala is going to do a rally in Philadelphia, which again made people think, oh, it's definitely Shapiro. But it's going to be with whoever her VP pick is.

And so Andy Beshear has apparently cleared his Tuesday calendar, which made people think, oh, maybe there's something going on here. Who knows? Everybody's just trying to read the tea leaves at this point. Who knows if that means anything at all? The case for Andy, I think, is sort of like a moderate pick that won't

piss off anyone in the party, right? You know, he is obviously got a great track record running and winning in a very difficult state twice and having a very high popularity, highest popularity of any Democratic governor in the entire country. He's proven himself to be an able communicator in his little cable news audition that all of these guys did as part of this VP process, which is

been kind of funny to behold. But I sort of feel like he's like the low risk option. You know, she doesn't want to ruffle feathers by picking Shapiro and opening up that rift, but she doesn't want to, you know, throw the left a bone here with Tim Walls and all of his progressive bona fides in terms of his record in Minnesota. Perhaps Andy Beshear ends up being kind of the safe, don't rock the boat, do no harm pick. And like I said, he does bring assets

to the table in terms of being able to effectively communicate. He's got a great Southern accent, you know, Democrats are suckers for, for people who kind of play against type and he's got that going for him. So that would be kind of the case for Andy Beshear getting the nod here. I could see, look, I mean, I can make a jujitsu case, I think for all of these, he's not terrible. Uh,

He's a very popular Democratic governor, but I just don't see the electoral calculus at the end of the day. I mean, this is somebody who is from a R+30 state and he's a very unique person. That's part of the reason why these types of candidates very rarely do well in the National Democratic Party because their uniqueness doesn't necessarily suit to the overall ticket. Now, their argument could be made he could help with Appalachian voters, but I don't see that same case happening here because a lot of those people are already just pro-Trump.

you know, at the end of the day, they're not swing state in the way they used to be. Really, the people, the vote that it's all gonna come down to is white working class, but older voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And that's not necessarily the same demographic that might have been up for grabs, let's say, in 2016. So anyway, the way that I kind of have been looking at each individual characteristic

electorally just, again, seems to come back to Shapiro. But, and I think this is one thing that you can't underestimate and you've been highlighting, you also need to get along with the person, perhaps if you're a commoner. She had a terrible time as vice president. That is not abnormal historically. Usually vice presidents are marginalized. They're very rarely brought into the inner circle. They're usually very ambitious and that always sets up like a loggerhead's

type of strategy, but you also know that you're kind of picking your anointed successor. In a certain case, you know, if Shapiro, it remains to be seen whether he knows how to be the number two and basically just eat it for potentially four to eight years before he could run. At the same time, you know, he's a young man, so perhaps he could make that calculus.

Yeah, and I do think that the VP pick here is very consequential. Oh, goodness, the dog has showed up. I think it's consequential, number one, because Kamala is, even though she's been on the national stage for a while now, she's been untested. Number two...

Because this is very likely if Kamala and this person, whoever they are, lose this time around, it's very likely your Democratic nominee next time. And if it's not next time, if they do win, and then it'll, you know, very likely the time after that.

So that's why the stakes in terms of the direction of the Democratic Party are very high with this pick. And so I think that's why the battle's been fierce. It's also been funny to watch it play out just because it's such a condensed timeline. Like everyone dispensed with the sort of niceties of pretending and just were like out there making the case for themselves and different coalitions. There were a bunch of progressives who put on a like a memo about the case for war.

walls and you got union leaders like Sean Fain going out and making the case and Joe Scarborough making the case, et cetera. So it's been the most direct jockeying for this position that I've ever seen, which I actually kind of appreciate. Like, why beat around the bush? You want the position? Like, go out there and make your case for it. And, you know, the last thing I'll say, with regard to Andy Beshear, they could really like the way that he was very effective in his campaign running on abortion rights in the state of Kentucky. Yeah, true.

And with regards to Tim Walz, they could really like the fact that, I mean, his weird characterization of the Republican Party really became instantly central to the Kamala Harris campaign. So he definitely proved himself in terms of his communication abilities.

We'll see what the personal fit is like and who she ends up going with at the end of the day. I think it's still very much open. Listen, it could be one of the ones we talked about a little bit less too, like Pete Buttigieg, et cetera. So a lot of things, a lot of possibilities still on the table here. Well, remain, stay tuned. And we'll, of course, bring you the breaking news here at Breaking Point. So for all of our premium subscribers and others, you can keep your eyes glued to the channel.

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Let's move on to the polls. There has been significant movement in the polls, just dramatically shifting the race. We all just have to sit and meditate. It's only been like 15 days since Kamala Harris actually became the Democratic nominee. And yet in that time, we have seen a complete reversal of many of the gains that Donald Trump had made against Joe Biden. Let's start with the first one, perhaps the most significant. Let's put this up there on the screen. Nate Silver's now election model shows Kamala Harris with a 50.5% chance of

of winning the presidential election with Donald Trump dropping to 48.8. What's especially amazing is you can watch the narrowing of the gap there from July 29th, the day then that Joe Biden drops out of the race on July 30th,

And now we see exactly what has happened since, or sorry, since the day that Nate Silver turned on his model. And since then, July 30th, you've seen the streams, the so-called blue line and the red line actually cross. Now, nobody should delude themselves because 50.5 is still quite literally a toss-up and there is still some, you know, 90-some days to go till election day. But a lot

of the movement in that direction should have the Trump campaign really questioning their strategy now so far. Let's put this up here, please, on the screen, what we have here. Kamala Harris has now taken the slight lead in the RCP five-way average. This might actually be even more significant to me, Crystal, because it shows Kamala Harris with a 0.2% edge in the recent average of polls. Now, the reason why I say it's more significant is that

RCP does not do weighting in their polling average, while FiveThirtyEight and Nate Silver's model does. Nate Silver's model takes past performance of polls and incorporates them, whereas the RCP is the raw average, perhaps, of even junky polls that are not particularly good. And so when we even have Rasmussen, for example, let's say a

Polls have generally been favorable to Trump in the past and perhaps even accurate in 2016. If they're only Trump plus one and then you take the average of the others and you take it together at 0.2, this again just shows up in a toss-up territory where previously Donald Trump just had such a significant advantage in the polls where Republicans already have some 2% edge in the popular vote.

whenever it comes to a national election because of the way that the electoral college works. But when you take the point two, it erases some of that previous benefit that you had and lets things move to the complete margin, literally day of turnout territory for deciding the presidential election. I mean, clearly where we are today is as toss up a toss up race could possibly be. I saw, I think Nate Silver tweeted about this result that if you take like

A performance that's a little better than Hillary in 2016, a little worse than Joe Biden in 2020. You end up with a true, you know, electoral college toss up, which is what you're looking at in his model. And I think that probably fits where we are right now. Now, the question is, does the trend continue? Is this a honeymoon phase for Kamala Harris? And she comes back down to earth. Her skyrocketing favorability has been wild.

wild to behold. I don't know if you've seen some of the numbers among young people in particular, just in terms of how they feel about Kamala Harris herself. The swing has been immense, like I'm talking a 30-point swing in terms of favorability ratings of Kamala Harris among young voters. So is she able to maintain that? Does the trend continue where she just continues to gain ground as Republicans continue to sort of spin their wheels and fail to make an effective argument?

You know, is she able to, with her VP pick, and then you head into the DNC, continue to pick up momentum? I think those are the real questions for the future in terms of where this race is headed. But as you said, soccer, no one should delude themselves. You know, because the polls have moved so quickly, it's easy to feel like,

Kamala Harris has a huge edge now. She does not. You know, if you look at the battleground polling, it's still really, really close. In plenty of battleground states, you still have Trump coming in with a bit of an edge. I think this race is just about as razor-thin margin as it could possibly be right at the moment. And the big question is just what's the trajectory from here? Yeah, two months from now, we could say this was the top. This was as good as it got. She does a couple interviews. It's a disaster. On the other hand, she could just continue this. She's getting a free pass. She's going to get probably...

a ton of media coverage whenever it comes to the VP pick. It's been 15 days, she hasn't done any interviews, maybe she can go a month with no interviews. So I can really see it either way. Let's put this up there on the screen, CBS News with a very, very good poll, likely voter poll nationally from YouGov. Nationally, you see exactly what we're talking about here. You have 50% national, 50% Kamala, 49% Donald Trump. This is a plus or minus 2% in the margin of error. In the battleground states, they quite literally have it tied.

50-50. Let's go to the next part, please, because this also breaks down the gender gap. Choice for president amongst men, 45% Kamala Harris, 54% Donald Trump. Basically, exactly even, 54% there for women, and then 45% for Donald Trump. Not as big of a gap as previously we have seen in American politics. If we go to the next part, we again start to see where the breakdown happens. Would their policies help women? And this is perhaps where I think Kamala's got the biggest

edge because Harris's policies amongst female registered voters, they say 70% yes, 43% yes for Donald Trump, but with no on Harris's policies, it's only 30%, 57% there. So the enthusiasm amongst women voters, I think is one that we will have to grapple with if Kamala does end up winning just because abortion again comes back to salience.

Next part, please, and we continue with the demographics. This is amongst black registered voters. Would their policies help black people? Harris's policies is 80 yes, Trump's policy is 20 no. No for Harris, 20 and 80 for Donald Trump. So you can see there's a high level of polarization, although-

historically, Democrats do win 90% of the black vote. So if 20% actually does vote for Donald Trump or says favorable things about Donald Trump, that actually still would be quite a historic result if that were to materialize. That's kind of how I'm looking at those two things. Nonetheless, the comparison to Joe Biden is the one that really matters. And the comparison to Joe Biden, Crystal, is where she clearly shines with

these suburban women voters on abortion and amongst black voters, which means a higher edge in turnout. And of course, it all comes down to turnout, as the meme literally says. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. And who prioritizes what? Yeah, you know, we saw an election in 2022 that people were very upset about the economy. We're going to talk later in the show. Economic numbers looking really bad right now. Taking a turn for the worst. That could be a really a huge drag on Kamala Harris as that becomes more salient. And Donald Trump continues to have an edge in

in terms of his economic policies. So that could be incredibly salient. You could see abortion rights being incredibly salient. You could see just, you know, vibes like, I don't like Donald Trump. I don't really want to go back to the time when he was president. I think in 2022, not only abortion, but the sense of sort of fringe extremism were incredibly important to the result. But of course, Donald Trump wasn't actually on the ballot in 2022. And I think one thing that we've seen is

No one really pulls off Trumpism except Trump. So it is a very different deal when he's on the ballot. But it's difficult to predict.

which issue typically you'd say, oh, it'll be the economics that'll control. But I think it's going to be a more complicated calculus given how much people have reacted to this sense of their rights being taken away. And Donald Trump was the guy who put those people on the Supreme Court. And it's very clear in the numbers about women voters, how they feel about how he would be for women versus how Kamala Harris would be. Here, I think her gender is a tremendous asset. The fact that she has more credibility on the issue, not only just because of

her gender, but also because of her ideological positioning over the years versus Joe Biden. She is a much better messenger on that issue than he was. And I fully expect that whether it's

Shapiro or Walls or Kelly or Bashir or whoever it is, they're also gonna be very effective messengers on this issue too. - Yeah, no question. I mean, all Democrats have basically learned how to speak the language of that. And I think I said this before, Jay, if you go to Josh Shapiro's TikTok account, basically every single post is just about abortion. So these people know where their bread is buttered politically. Let's put this last part up here on the screen. This shows personal finances and this highlights what you were saying.

If Harris wins, people, registered voters, say that only 25% think they would be financially better off. 45% if Donald Trump wins. Financially worse off, you actually have 44% that say yes for Harris, 38% for Donald Trump. And stay about the same is 31% for Kamala, 17% for Donald Trump. So clearly, there is at least a slight plurality of people who believe they're going to be financially better off.

if Donald Trump wins. I will remind everyone that in 2020, the trust on the economy percentage ended up being far more predictive than any of the national polling. Donald Trump still continues to show a major edge whenever it comes to handling of the economy and this question of financially better off. Now, let's remember though, the economy was not

a predictor of the 2022 outcome. All economic predictions related to polls would have said that there would have been a large Republican gain. So this can be overcome when social issues become very, very hot button.

But the question is exactly as you said. What are people going to be feeling on Election Day? So we have some signs of a slowing down economy, of reducing stock market, people's retirement. People are going to start getting jumpy. Now, that's a very, very different situation than where we've been previously where, yes, inflation is horrible and bad. But it's been more of a slow decline rather than a rapid one.

So if we do have a rapid downturn in the U.S. economy, I actually do think the race could significantly shift and perhaps in Donald Trump's favor. And then finally, if we put this up here, what we see is the Trump campaign polling analysis, though, is they are now trying to play the, quote, unskew the polls game.

And basically, any time somebody puts out a statement like this, where the Trump campaign is calling the CBS News poll a manipulated result and saying that they're oversampling people. I've seen this game before from Democrats. I've seen this game before from Republicans.

almost always whenever you are trying to point to individual problems in polls, you're just, you know, you're playing the wrong game. This is one where it generally reflects you being on the back foot. And when you're on the back foot, that's just not a good place to be with respect to the national media.

and generally in terms of your campaign messaging. So clearly, as we showed in the economy and even the brief, we didn't have time necessarily to go through the border numbers, but on both of those two issues, immigration and the economy, that's what you should be putting out press releases. That's all you should really be talking about. And if you can't win on that, I don't really know what to tell you because clearly it's such a huge edge with that. Right, Crystal?

Yeah, well, here's what I would say about the unskew the polls thing. It brings back Mitt Romney in 2012. That was sort of the original unskew. There was actually an unskew the polls website and that guy was on Fox News all over the place and people really bought it. And, you know, the right was the Republicans were,

absolutely shocked to the point of, you remember the famous moment with Megyn Kelly on Fox News where she was having to talk them down from the, you know, Ohio's not lost, it's not lost. She was like, I think it's lost. You know, these are fake numbers that you're trying to pull together. And then Joe Biden just recently, total denial, you know, kept in this little cosseted bubble told by his advisor, Donald Trump,

that, oh, no, your numbers are great, sir, and not letting any contrary information in. And, oh, if there are polls that show you down, those polls are wrong. They're lying. That's not true. It's, you know, of course, you're a wonderful, great leader who could vote against you, et cetera, et cetera. No, these were not winning campaigns. Joe Biden was headed to a massive, massive defeat.

And so it's not a good sign for the Trump people that they're out there doing the unskewed the polls thing. The last thing I'll say with regard to the entire electoral picture of those soccer is one thing we haven't talked about, which we are about to talk about with Dr. Trisha Parsi is the threat of a massive war in the Middle East that we would be deeply entangled in. And so while, you know, foreign policy, right,

It rarely is the number one deciding factor at a time when we could be facing direct threats to our troops and insane chaos and continued horror in the Middle East, but on a much broader scale, that could end up being incredibly salient in a way that is difficult to anticipate.

So given that you have an economy that is clearly on the brink and some really dire signs there, that you have an entire region of the world with nuclear armed powers that is on the brink, there's a lot of potential problems

terrifying dangers. And in terms specifically of the political horse race, which of course is the least important point here, but in terms of the political horse race, a lot of fraught danger for Kamala Harris ahead. So I know they're feeling good right now. They should be feeling good about where the polls are versus they were just sort of like locked into, doomed to defeat in November when it was the Biden ticket. Now they've got a shot, but there are a lot of

a lot of risk for them. And they're also in a very bad position on that because they're not in charge. Joe Biden is in charge. But not only is he literally ailing and fading before all of our eyes, he's also ideologically committed to us to the defense of Israel and to a potentially massive war in the Middle East while also being incredibly weak and not being able to bring any of the powers

to bear, both the Israelis, the Iranians, the Jordanians and others. So we have a power vacuum in the Middle East, which is the worst possible place you could be in. So in some sense, you're totally right. I mean, if you have hundreds of US troops that are killed months before the election, that's a totally different situation, not to mention tens of thousands in the Middle East, rockets going all over the place, and who even knows what the hell would be going on.

The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know and those you'll be hard pressed to forget. I did something in '88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh gosh, the US Olympic Trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes, we're going out there smashing into each other full force.

Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before.

Masmerizing.

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new scandal.

content for your eyes for your ears for your hearts for your minds well suit up gladiators grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes listen to unpacking the toolbox on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts I've been thinking about you I want you back in my life it's too late for that I have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do

One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Donald Trump showing us some old 2020 ways and how he certainly is being as normal for him as possible, returning to the state of Georgia and deciding to attack Brian Kemp, the popular GOP governor who he tried to defeat unsuccessfully in the primary in 2022. Let's take a listen to what he had to say about the state's popular governor. Kemp doesn't want to end it because he's a bad guy, he's a disloyal guy, and he's a very average governor.

Little Brian, little Brian Kapp. Bad guy. But think of it. I got this guy. Just think. And then that's it. I got this guy nominated. I then got him elected. Without me, he doesn't get nominated and he doesn't get elected. He had no chance of winning either one. And all he had to do is...

signed something where the Senate would like to look at election integrity. This is an honest man. That's an honest man. They were all honest. They were looking at something very legitimate. And this bad guy said, I'm sorry, sir, I can't do it. I called him and I said, Brian, they're looking at election integrity. Is there anything you can do? I'm sorry, sir. I can't get involved in that.

I said, but Brian, you don't understand. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. I'm sorry, sir. I can't get involved. I've had you up to here, Brian. I've had you up to here. He's a bad guy and he's not doing this country a good service. All right. Well, Donald Trump certainly back right back to his old ways. It certainly hasn't been changed by anything. And just sticking with the sheer electoral consequences of this.

Imagine in October 2020, I tell you, there will be two Democrats who will represent the state of Georgia in the United States Senate. There will be a primary challenge backed by Donald Trump against two GOP officials. And not only will the Democrats win, but then those Republicans who stood up to Trump will actually have an electoral advantage at the ballot box in Georgia, which we previously thought of all

as a red state. And Joe Biden actually won that state in 2020. So it's very clear that this is an electoral massive loser in the state of Georgia, regardless of whether Trump believes it or not. And as we all learned at the ballot box with Brian Kemp and Brad Rafferty,

Raffensperger, the Secretary of State, Republican voters, yes, Republican voters did not even care as much about these issues because Kemp defeated, what was his name, David Perdue, the former senator, by the way, with huge name recognition, by some 70% margin. He went down massively. And Brad Raffensperger won as well, which people were even shocked

by. So at this point, Donald Trump clearly is consumed by his own petty grievances about personal loyalty and is very willing to risk a margin in a state where maybe under Joe Biden, he could get away with this. But under Kamala Harris and with the tolls where they are right now, only 2% plus advantage in the state of Georgia shouldn't be messing around. This is Trump really at his worst. Brian Kemp, I just looked it up, has a 63% approval rating in the state of Georgia. Yeah, right.

That's crazy. He's very popular. He's way more popular than Donald Trump is in the state of Georgia. It's just like not even close. And, you know, part of, this is something Zajalani's been tweeting about, who I believe it lives, he's from Georgia. I think he lives in Georgia again, right? Yeah. He's been tweeting about the fact, I mean, Kemp has governed very conservatively. You know, he's very much in line with like, you know, the Trump direction of the party in terms of his ideology. But because, you know,

he's seen as being oppositional to Trump. That has actually given him a lot of credibility with moderate voters in spite of his pretty hard right ideological leaning, which just is a long way of saying so much of our politics is just about like vibes and how you feel about the singular figure of Donald Trump. And that is certainly the case here. But I also felt like watching this all unfold, sometimes you give Trump way too much credit. We

There is no universe in which this makes any sense electorally, where it is anything other than shooting yourself in the foot. Electorally, we saw this last time in Georgia Saga. We talked about this so much because he cast so much doubt on mail-in ballots. He lost out on Republican votes.

in the state of Georgia because they weren't able to bank those mail-in ballots ahead of time. And that alone was probably responsible for that thin margin that he lost by in the state of Georgia. So it wouldn't be the first time that he shot himself in the foot and undermined his own electoral chances in a critical now swing state. So it's just like,

it reminds you how foolish this man can be and how sometimes he's just preternaturally gifted in terms of sensing a political moment and political opportunity. And sometimes he is the dumbest person politically on the face of the planet. I think Donald Trump is like the most high variance person that's ever existed. When he's good, he's great. And when he's bad, he's so horrible. And you just never know what...

you're going to get. This is also, you know, testament to the fact that sometimes you want a more middle-of-the-road person whenever you have this slight advantage because you want to make things a little bit less or more predictable and you want to run on the fundamentals, which a lot of the American people actually do say that they want out of politics now that they're generally exhausted in this political moment. Nonetheless, you do still have the MAGA base who very much

is with him. But the real lesson of 2022 is that the base can only get you so far even in Republican primaries and that the base and its own predilections can be so repellent to the general public whenever it's backed up by something like Stop the Steal that many people will put their

own economic concerns aside, and they will come out specifically to vote against you. You see this in the problems with Carrie Lake in Arizona, where she continues to trail a lot of the MAGA candidates that lost in 2022. And it is a significant electoral problem in a race where you have it very, very tight. And in a state like Georgia, where you have massive influx

of the suburban voters from all across the country. I mean, Atlanta is booming, open for business. Part of the reason Brian Kemp is so popular. You have a major population influx. All the fundamentals are there for a huge change and takeover in the state's economy.

But, you know, and they would be very willing to vote for a normal Republican like a Brian Kemp, as we have seen, you know, in his electoral tally. The problem for Trump is that he actually single-handedly makes it a toss-up. And let's put this up there on the screen, too. You just don't want this going into the election. You have Brian Kemp here responding to Trump's truth. Keep this up because I'm going to read.

Trump put out a true social post. He says, Brad Raffensperger has to do his job, make sure this election is not stolen. Brian Kemp should focus his efforts on fighting crime, not fighting unity in the Republican Party. His crime rate is terrible. His crime rate in Atlanta is the worst. His economy is average. He's making unity, not retribution, especially against the man that got him the nomination through endorsement and without whom he never would have beaten Stacey Abrams.

He and his wife don't even think he could win. I said, I'm telling you, he goes on to a story about Brian Kemp's wife, how she won't endorse him. He says, well, I don't want her endorsement. I don't want this. They're the ones who got Fannie Willis and her boyfriend all jazzed up and ready to go. He could have ended that travesty with a phone call, but he doesn't want to end it because he's a bad guy.

So that's both about Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp. Kemp responds, my focus is on winning this November and saving our country from Kamala Harris and the Democrats, not engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past. You should do the same, Mr. President, and leave my family out of it.

And I can just tell you very clearly that all the evidence says that Brian's message there is 10 times more popular than Donald Trump. So this really is the worst of Trump. And it also shows you everyone always talks about discipline, etc. I think Trump has been around long enough now at this point that there is no such thing as the disciplined Trump. I think Trump is still having a very difficult time adjusting to Kamala in the race. And psychologically, I can understand

I can understand it. You had so much confidence that you were going to win. You had the coach, you know, you had the wins at your back in a way for almost two years now that he has been in the race since he launched it. You've had some setbacks where you were relatively confident. And then the span of just two weeks, everything has changed. And he's always had difficulty calibrating, changing his message and more.

And given the sheer insanity of the last month or so in American politics, it is understandable that doesn't make it any less toxic at the ballot box for him. Yeah, it smells desperate. I mean, it just seems like he is completely sort of melting down and has lost his sense of what to do in this race and how to do it and is just randomly lashing out.

I totally agree with you. All right, well, we got Trita Parsi on standby to talk about the situation in Iran. Let's get to it. As we've been discussing in the wake of multiple assassinations conducted across the region by Israel, we are now on the brink of a very dangerous escalation. Everyone's sort of waiting to see what Iran is going to do in response. So as we await that, we're bringing in Dr. Trita Parsi from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft to tell us where we are and where we could be headed. Great to see you again, doctor.

Good to see you, sir. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. Let's go ahead and put this first element up on the screen that just sort of summarizes everything. This is from journalist Joyce Karam. She says, update, Iran attack scene as early as Monday. U.S. forces arriving in the region, CENTCOM chief Israel tomorrow per Barak Rabid. Israel says plans in place for nationals leaving Lebanon, Hezbollah and allies coordinate response, strikes in Gaza, Houthis target ships.

That's sort of the top line of where we're at. Just give us a sense of how we got here and what you expect. Well, we've spoken about this numerous times, that the Israelis, particularly the Prime Minister Netanyahu, has for years

tried to push the United States to go to war with Iran and choosing to assassinate Hamidiyah during the inauguration of Pesach Kion, the new Iranian president, in Tehran, whereas the Israelis clearly had the ability to do so while he was in Doha,

since he lives there, is a clear indication that they were trying to do something that would be as escalatory as possible. The question is, will the Iranians now walk into that trap? And the signal that they're sending is that they will retaliate

and that if the Israelis respond, then they will continue it. And they've essentially told foreign diplomats that they have a right to retaliate if it leads to war. Essentially, it's on Israel, not on Iran. In some ways, the Iranians have trapped themselves in an escalatory cycle. They took a lot of, absorbed a lot of hits from Israel over the years. Numerous scientists that were assassinated. The head of the Iranian nuclear program was assassinated.

The Iranians did not retaliate openly. After the attack against the Iranian embassy in Syria, they decided to do so. And as a result, now, after this assassination, that is not necessarily worse, much worse than previous assassinations, they're in a corner in which they have to, in their view,

retaliate, otherwise their efforts to restore deterrence has completely collapsed and failed, which is again, part of the risk of retaliating in the first place. You put yourself in a position in which you constantly have to respond if the Israelis are not deterred, which in this case, clearly they've chosen that they're not.

Right. So, Dr. Parsi, what we've learned is that there was a meeting in which apparently the Iranians told the Arab, the Gulf Arab states, they said, we don't care, you know, if this does lead to war. Now, how much of this is bravado? How much of it is reality? And what are the political constraints within the regime itself that might drive their decision makings in the next 24 hours?

I think much of that is bravado. I think the Ibanez are going to respond in such a way that it's...

minimizes the likelihood that it will lead to a significant escalation and a war. But still, it will be more than what we saw in April. In April, they went out of their ways to avoid any casualties on the Israeli side. That's not likely going to be the case this time around. I think they will actually try to draw blood this time around as a way of restoring that deterrence, so to say.

The risk, obviously, is that you have a prime minister in Israel that actually wants escalation and as a result will use that as an opportunity to be able to escalate further. And I think it's in that regard that the Iranians are saying they don't care if it goes in that direction. I think they do.

But I don't think that they will abide by what appears to have been American messages to Tehran of what the U.S. would consider to be acceptable response from Iran. I think the Iranians are likely going to go quite a bit beyond that, but perhaps not so far that it will give the Israelis a very clear justification for further escalation. Yeah.

So the U.S. Secretary of Defense immediately jumped out and said, you know, the U.S. will have Israel's back. We are now getting, we can put this next element up on the screen, the umpteenth version of the Biden is having tough conversations and is really mad at Bibi Netanyahu behind the scenes. Biden realized that Netanyahu was lying to him about the hostages.

Per Haaretz, he's not saying it publicly yet, but in the meeting between them, he specifically told Bibi, stop bullshitting me. So that's the leaks that are coming out of the latest meetings. You know, just reflect a little bit on that and also how the calculus may have changed for Bibi, given that Biden is now a lame duck and Kamala Harris is the top of the Democratic ticket.

I think the White House's efforts to try to signal that they actually are tough with Netanyahu leaves them in a position in which they're portraying themselves as quite pathetic. They're trying to say that we are being tough

by leaking this information about what is being said behind the scenes. But reality is that if that is actually what is being said and Netanyahu is not responding, it clearly shows that Biden is choosing not to use the actual leverage he has, which is to actually stop the arms supplies to Israel. And as a result,

Netanyahu has absolutely no reasons to listen to Biden or take his threats or his harsh words in these mythological conversations behind the scenes particularly seriously.

And this is part of the reason why we are in this situation now. We would not be in the situation if Biden actually had used America's leverage from the outset. He could have forced a ceasefire much earlier on. He chose not to. And even in April, when he actually for the first time did use some leverage against the Israelis and prevented them from escalating further,

Nevertheless, it wasn't successful because here we are. Two, three months later, Netanyahu did something even more provocative than he did when he bombed the Iranian embassy, consular section of the embassy in Damascus. It clearly shows that Biden's strategy of never actually being tough with the Israelis has been a complete disaster for U.S. national interests because this

war, if it breaks out in that large format, very likely will drag the United States into another war. And I think Netanyahu came back from Washington after being here last week, realizing that the White House was quite a bit in a disarray as a result of Biden not really happily

abdicating the ticket and as a result saw an opportunity to escalate dramatically and by that force a conflict and a crisis on the next president of the United States, whether it is Trump or whether it is Kamala Harris. Yeah, Dr. Parsi, how does Hezbollah factor into this? So there's, of course, an Iranian response, but there are also Iranian allies like Hezbollah and others. They themselves are on the brink of a war. We have many,

diplomatic nightmare right now with Lebanon, all US citizens being urged to leave, there's canceled flights, everybody is bracing. So even if there is a quote unquote tempered response from the Iranians directly, what still holds on the front between Israel and Hezbollah? So I think it's a very important question you ask. And I think it's important to bear in mind that

When the Israelis took out the head of Hamas in Tehran, that happened just hours or days after they had taken out the number two in Hezbollah in Lebanon. And the world was bracing itself for a potential escalation between Hezbollah and Israel. And in that moment where everyone was hoping that there would be de-escalation,

The Israelis decided to kill Haniyeh in Tehran, clearly indicating that their desire actually is to escalate and bring about some larger war. If there is an attack, and I think there's an extremely high likelihood that the Iranians will respond, it will likely be a coordinated response from Hezbollah, Iran, Iraqi Syrian militias, as well as the Houthis in Yemen. Part of the risk of that is that some of these elements are far more eager to actually fight

move towards a larger war than the Iranians are. The Iranians have been very calibrating and cautious. They've had plenty of opportunities to escalate. They've chosen not to. But the Houthis, for instance, have a very different calculation. They have publicly complained that the Iranians are trying to hold them back. Some of the Iraqi and Syrian militias have also complained about the unhappiness of Iran trying to restrain them.

So if we end up in this larger war and at some point there is a serious effort to deescalate, the question is, will there be discipline within the ranks of these different groups that are aligned with Iran to actually go along with such a deescalation? Or will we have a very chaotic situation in which some of them may be willing to deescalate and others will not? And as a result, we may not get the actual deescalation that may be desired in certain parts. So this is a very significant risk now. As a result...

of this major deliberate escalation that Netanyahu has brought about.

Dr. Parsi, in that same article where, you know, an aide is leaking that Biden told Bibi this is bullshit and he realized finally that Bibi was lying about the hostages. It's obviously long been clear that Bibi Netanyahu had no interest. Took him 10 months, apparently. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's just preposterous. But in that same article, this official says the U.S. is preparing to help Israel in the face of Iran and Hezbollah's response.

However, they made it clear there would be no American backing for moves that would further expand the scope of the conflict. Do you give that any credence? Because it is very hard for me to believe that we would actually, you know, allow Israel to face Iran Hezbollah alone, that we wouldn't once again jump to their rescue.

Well, this is what Biden said last time as well. You know, we'll come in and defend you this time, but don't escalate further. And guess what? Two, three months later, Netanyahu escalated dramatically and much further than he did the first time around. As long as Biden constantly comes to Netanyahu's aid, despite all of these leaked stories about being angry behind the scenes, the reality is he's given Netanyahu a blank check or he's

He has been so weak in his response that Netanyahu is treating it as if he's gotten a blank check from Biden. To come now and say, we'll help you this time, but don't escalate further. Well, that's exactly what was said three months ago. And here we are. At some point, either Biden needs to put down his foot

use the leverage that he has to put a stop to this, or he's going to be responsible for the United States getting dragged into yet another disastrous war in the Middle East. Yes, and Dr. Parsi, the U.S. posture right now is one that is signaling war. We have the Carrier Strike Group there. We have several thousand U.S. service members that are already in the region. Previously, we had seen, obviously, we dedicated enormous resources to the United States, Great Britain, Jordan, and others. And so,

if there is some sort of bigger conflagration. Do you have any doubt that the U.S. would get involved here?

I absolutely know that the United States will be doing exactly what it did last time in terms of shooting down Iranian missiles, etc. The question is, will the U.S. go beyond that? Will it use fighter jets? Will it use other things to start directly targeting, whether it is Iraqi militias, Hezbollah, or even Iran itself? At this point, I find that

Not very likely, at least in the early stages of this. However, the way this may play out is that the Iranians strike Israel together with some of these other groups. It will cause damage. It will cause casualties. And then the question is, what will Israel's response be? If the Israelis then respond, and if they respond particularly disproportionately, the message Iran has sent is that they're ready for numerous waves of attacks against Israel under those circumstances.

particularly if Israel is taking very significant hits, I find it unlikely that the Biden administration in particular will be able to resist the pressure to get directly involved in that war. And that's when the United States will be at full scale. Dr. Parsi, always invaluable to have your insights, especially in such an important and fraught time. So thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's our pleasure.

The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know, and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget. I did something in '88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh, gosh. The US Olympic trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes. We're going out there smashing into each other full force.

Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox, where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show. To officially unpack season three of Scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three. Mesmerizing. But also,

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance.

And it was Peak TV. This is new scandal content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's turn now to the very troubling news with the U.S. economy and global economy and put this up there on the screen just breaking out this morning. Markets around the world are having a massive slowdown after two significant events here in the United States, a very disappointing unemployment report which showed unemployment rising and the Federal Reserve deciding not to cut rates.

both of those twin fears have triggered a massive sell-off in the Japanese market, with the largest single-day drop in the Nikkei since 1987 following U.S. data and also significantly changing their own policy with respect to their currency, the yen. This simultaneously came on

the heels of a big slowdown in tech stocks, fears that the AI craze may itself have been a bubble and a significant change in the way that people are looking at the fundamentals of the US economy. Let's put the next one, please, up there on the screen. This was the original event which triggered some of the initial sell-off, which is now extending into Monday, US hiring falling sharply in July, quote, unexpected setback

for the economy and stoking recession fears. Now, there's been a lot of debate around recession, whether we're in one or not now for almost two and a half years or so. But all of it is indicative of two separate things, which is we've had the inflation problem, which the Federal Reserve has responded to by increasing or keeping high interest rates relative to where they were previously, and then debates around whether they are putting their boot too far on the neck

of the US economy and preventing it from quote unquote running hot. The fear amongst stock markets and consumers and everywhere else, businesses, small businesses up to large businesses is that by their refusal to cut rates as some European countries have now decided to do, they have actually waited now too long and simultaneously put pressure on an economy which is itself facing pressure from that unemployment. And then of course, because we are the preeminent leader in the global economy,

You have other countries like Japan, China, and others which are reliant on U.S. consumers and buying manufactured goods in their economy, which then significantly drop as a result. So it's a global slowdown, Crystal. We've got high inflation, and now we're getting higher unemployment, much like the stagflation days of the 1970s. And what we have on our hands is potentially a very real mess.

Oh, no doubt about it. And I think it's becoming increasingly clear the Fed screwed up. You know, there was a lot of premature celebration about a quote unquote soft landing because inflation had come down and employment had still been quite strong. But as we've been saying for quite a while now, these tools that the Fed uses are

of hiking interest rates are very blunt tools. And it is a real guessing game, and it takes a while before those tools show up and really bite.

So the fact that they waited so long to reverse course and begin cutting interest rates is right now at this moment looking like a tremendous mistake. Because this jobs report that just came out was an, I mean, it was an utter disaster in terms of the hike in the unemployment rate, the very low number of jobs that were purchased.

created. And now it is triggering this massive global freakout because the U.S. economy had been somewhat unusually strong and really bolstered kind of world prospects and world economic sentiment. So with the rug being pulled out from under that, we don't know where this freefall ultimately ends. You add to that another thing that we've been covering is

is this possibility that all the AI euphoria is another tech bubble a la the, you know, late 90s internet bubble. Not to say it's not an important innovation, not to say it won't be game-changing in certain important respects, just as the internet was, but you can still have this irrational exuberance all of

this money pouring into ventures that don't make a lot of economic sense. And it seems like we may be in that position as well. You add to that, you've also got huge drops in terms of Bitcoin and other crypto. So this is a very chaotic situation that we're looking at this morning. It'll be quite frightening to

see where the U.S. indexes end up at the end of the day here, too. Yeah, the stock market index that tracks Wall Street fear known as the VIX is at the highest level since it's been since April of 2020. As of this morning, let's put this up there on the screen because we literally just did a segment about

not only about U.S. economic data, but what they mention here in The Guardian is market turmoil from a potential war in the Middle East. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that missiles flying all over very critical airspace and in naval waters, which are critical to transporting large petroleum and natural gas shipments, could significantly spike global prices and put even more pressure, very much like they did in the 1970s with the OPEC

So all of the fundamentals there are literally around for a complete catastrophe in the next several months. We talked previously about the potential horse race implications, but economically it's probably never been worse since that time just because we have

a housing crisis in terms of the stickiness of overall home prices that's still affected by supply and demand. In fact, I just read this morning that they're actually going to be increasing the standards for lending, further restricting the amount of capital that's out there for people who want out mortgages. This is from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You've also got the geopolitical tensions and pressure, Russia, Ukraine, now the Israel situation with

Iran. Then you've got the unemployment fears, and now you've got some misguided Federal Reserve policy. Let's put D3, please, up on the screen. This is another indicator data-wise of where we may be. This is the official chart showing the quote-unquote SOM rule has been triggered.

This is the real-time recession indicator that was developed by an economist, Claudia Assam. Historically, quote, this indicates the economy is in the early stages of a recession. It's possible quirks of the post-pandemic recovery mean we could still avoid that.

But this is concerning, as Heather Long notes. Now, I wanted to previously raise one of the things that made the Federal Reserve move so puzzling is that was actually in contrast to other central banks. Let's put this up there. For example, from the Bank of England, just days ago, actually lowered its interest rate by 0.25% to 5%, first cut in over four years. Some people were expecting that. Now, it seems that the earliest possible rate cut from the Federal Reserve may come in September.

September, but that is, of course, you know, a little bit of time to wait, and there could be significant sell-off in the interim period, Crystal.

Yeah, and you have a lot of Wall Street types analysts saying, hey, we need an emergency rate cut and we need it right now. I know you shared with our group chat this morning, you had Jeremy Siegel from Wharton saying, we need a 75 basis point emergency cut in the Fed funds rate with another 75 basis point cut indicated for next month at the September meeting. And that's minimum. That gives you a sense.

of the level of concern that we could be entering this sort of doom spiral now with the Fed having waited way too long to begin cutting interest rates. So it's a very scary morning out there. And I think

The big trigger was this very poor jobs report came in way under expectations and triggered the SOM rule. And officially the SOM rule holds that if unemployment has jumped 0.5%,

from the low of the past year. And that's soccer, as you were pointing out, that's what this chart shows here. Now there could be mitigating factors. The economy has been really weird. So, you know, maybe the fed is able to act quickly. Maybe they're able to forestall the worst of potential consequences. Um,

But I don't think there's any doubt that they waited too long to act and to change course here. I think that's pretty clear this morning. Yeah, and it appears the markets are pricing in some emergency rate cut. Certainly possible. But anytime you just have that, it just indicates chaos amongst decision makers. It does look like a huge amount of this comes back to Japan. But a lot of it also has its roots, as I'm reading in the Financial Times, in Asia.

And we've done several segments here previously just about how much of the quote-unquote magnificent seven stocks or Nvidia or others compromise the S&P 500 and how you might have a lot more exposure just given the significant growth in those stocks.

Even if you do or are invested just in a very standard S&P 500 index, you will have much more exposure than you previously might have thought just to technology stocks, which itself have expended tens of billions of dollars on expected AI returns, which we know have not yet materialized. Doesn't mean they may not. It could take

a couple of years, but in the immediate term, which is what the stock market is generally kind of interested in and what future quarterly returns, et cetera, that's not the best place to be in. So with contracting stock prices, you always have liquidity problems at different companies. You're also seeing a major slide at Bitcoin, as you said, probably indicative of people having to take risk off in their portfolios. And there was also, I'm still trying to get my head around it,

But apparently it was a very popular trade on Wall Street that involved the Japanese yen. I am not smart enough exactly to understand it, but it had something involved with interest rate and it was called a carry straddle. But anyways, the Bank of Japan has blown that trade up, which apparently was one of the most popular trades on all of Wall Street for the last six to 10 months.

blowing that up overnight, which also is a problem because it triggers a sell-off. And of course, it always filters down to us because when companies have problems, they take it out on their workers. Yeah, I also saw tweets about that and also was incapable of really, I didn't take the time to wrap my head around that one yet. I'm not smart enough to understand the carry straddle. I know it exists. That's the best I could possibly do. If I spent a day like really digging into it, maybe, but yeah, just based on a tweet, nope.

Wasn't going to get that one wrapped into my head this morning. But, you know, as we're recording this, Dow futures are down 1,000 points. So buckle your seatbelt. This could get extremely ugly. The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget. I did something in 88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh, gosh. The U.S. Olympic trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes. We're going out there, smashing into each other full force.

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All right, speaking of extremely ugly, we have a big old culture war fight that normally Sagar and I typically avoid these like the plague, if we're being totally honest. However, this one has been embraced by the top of the GOP ticket, both by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. And I have to tell you, it is one, we're gonna try to have a non-stupid discussion about it. It is actually a topic that I find challenging and intellectually interesting. So let's go ahead and dig into it. There was a

women's boxing match in the Olympics. We can go ahead and put some of these images up on the screen. We have an Italian boxer, Angela Carini versus an Algerian boxer, Amani Khalif. And, um,

This match ended very quickly. The Italian boxer took a couple of blows and then she forfeited the fight. She came out tearfully and we can actually put her comments up on the screen immediately afterwards and talked about why she decided to withdraw. Here are her comments in full. She said...

My face and nose were hurting. I couldn't breathe anymore. I thought about my family. I looked at my brother in the stands and I went to my corner to retire. I've never been hit with such a powerful punch. She added that the withdrawal was not a premeditated move. All this controversy, she said, makes me sad. Later on, she said this and she said she wanted to apologize to Imani for the controversy. And the controversy is...

that after this withdrawal, a bunch of people online, including JK Rowling, began speculating that Imani was actually a man. Now, first of all, they were saying she's transgender. She is 100% not transgender. We can put E4 up on the screen that has some of the details of this fight and what happened. So she was born a woman, woman on her passport, raised a woman, et cetera. However...

There was another boxing organization that at one point had disqualified Imani.

and another fighter is not meeting their gender criteria. Now, this boxing organization has come under a lot of scrutiny. It's called the International Boxing Association. The Olympic Committee actually kicked them out from regulating the sport and took over the sport because they had all kinds of corrupt dealings. One of the guys that was running it was this Russian mob boss. Another person was super close to Putin, and it

Called into question this test that had allegedly found that Imani and another boxer who's also competing at the Olympics did not meet the gender criteria. And just to give you the backstory, I went too deep on this. But anyway, to give you the backstory here, Imani had just defeated a Russian fighter who at that point had been undefeated and was this very promising amateur coming up.

So Imani's been fighting, no problem, in the women's category, raises women, etc., etc. She beats this Russian boxer, and all of a sudden, this very closely Russian-tied organization disqualifies her and this other boxer for failing to meet their gender criteria.

They told a Russian state-sponsored news organization that it was because she had an XY chromosome. However, since then, they haven't been willing to verify what the test was or really speak about it. The Olympic Committee is standing by Imani's classification as a woman. We haven't heard really from Imani herself her full side of the story.

In any case, this sparked a whole political freakout and really a kind of like online mob going after her for her, number one, not looking sort of traditionally female. Number two, this is just a total lie that she was transgender and sort of tying it into that debate. And then number three, wild speculation about things that we really don't know.

You know, it is possible that she has DSD, differences in sexual development, or she's, the other word for that is intersex. That is possible. That could have been indicated by this test. We don't know for sure. It's possible that she has some sort of a hormonal disorder, could be from DSD, that causes her to produce more testosterone. We don't know that either. So what you've ended up with is just a bunch of wild speculation. And what I've found, you know,

sort of offensive and has struck me as a former female athlete myself, difficult about it and disturbing about it, is the way that so much of it is just based on her appearance

as not conforming to sort of traditional female beauty standards. And then just the fact that they're just completely lying that she's transgender when she is not in fact transgender. Okay, I will say this. I blame that Italian lady because she's the one who heavily implied that she lost as a result of her opponent being transgender. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and justify J.K. Rowling immediately coming out and not doing enough research. This is part of the problem is that people wanna sling takes and they wanna take things at face value. And now all of a sudden, you know,

you know, they take, they're like, oh, well, the IBA said it, the International Boxing Association. Nobody knows anything about the background. And of course, there's a political incentive in order to portray that. I guess one of the only reasons I'm willing to cut some slack here is that there have been instances previously in college athletics and elsewhere where transgender athletes were allowed to compete in women's sports. And they're obviously, well, I mean, it's a reality that was created that made it believable in the first place. That is not

Justifying people who are coming out and pushing these out because I am not satisfied that there is any real evidence that this woman even has. While you're talking about the, what was it, DSD? As I understand it, she passed the quote-unquote gender test at the International Olympic Committee. I do understand, though, that the IOC and many of these countries have significant incentives sometimes to game the system, not just on gender, but for testosterone, hormone levels.

therapy, et cetera. As we all learned, it's so cheap. Countries are literally willing to go to extraordinary efforts to try and to deceive the Olympic Games. So I saw it within the context of people thought it was believable simply because it has literally happened.

you know, previously, not only in combat sports, but also in other, you know, competitive athletics. I do feel bad for her though, certainly, because just because somebody's created a reality where such an event would be certainly believable doesn't mean that she deserves to be victim of it.

Yeah, you know, it made me think a lot. And we've actually talked a little bit offline about this case of Kastor Semenya, who is a sprinter and a runner. She's an extraordinary athlete. And she faced similar scrutiny.

And it came out and now, you know, I actually in some ways prefer to talk about Castor's case because we actually know the details. Whereas with Imani, we genuinely don't know the details here. There's just rampant speculation. One thing we do know, she was identified female. Transgenderism is literally illegal in the country she's from, right? She was identified female at birth. So she has the visual genital appearance as a female apparently. Love having to talk about these things.

She was raised as a girl. There's pictures of her as a very girly looking little girl with giant pink earrings. And in fact, she had huge obstacles to being able to train as a boxer because her dad didn't approve of girls boxing. She and her mom, she came from a very poor family and a very conservative part of Algeria.

She and her mom sold scrap metal and would cook and sell the food to raise money for her training, which she hid from her father because, as I said, he didn't approve because she was the girl. So it is heartbreaking to see the way that she has been unfairly attacked, smeared, lied about, etc., etc.,

But you know, the case of Kastor Semenya, it does raise really difficult questions because she is intersex or has DSD. She visually, you know, if you just were looking at the external bits, she looks like a woman. However, she doesn't have some of the internal bits, fallopian tubes, ovaries, et cetera. And because of the way she was naturally born,

she naturally produces more testosterone than is the quote unquote normal range for women. So what do you do with that? You know, this is like, this is a woman by most metrics, but she naturally produces more testosterone than your average woman.

Okay, well, on the one hand, you say, okay, well, maybe that's not fair. But then you also think about there are many competitive advantages which don't seem particularly fair. I'm sure Michael Phelps' competitors didn't feel it was particularly fair that he's like, you know, built like a fish with this insanely freakishly long wingspan and double-jointed ankles that allow him to get more propulsion out of his kick and his body doesn't produce as much lactic acid as other athletes could.

He's another sort of genetic outlier, which of course, when you get to elite athletics, you're going to find almost everybody who's competing at this level is going to be some sort of a genetic outlier.

So I guess part of what I, I don't have any easy answers for this, by the way. I think it's actually a very difficult question to figure out where you draw the line. Because no matter where you draw the line, it's going to be unfair to someone, right? There is really no perfect answer. I think the answer also probably varies sport by sport. Like, for example, in boxing, you know, we've obviously decided it's not fair to have some giant person fighting against some tiny person. So they instituted weight categories.

because it's not just, you're not just losing a race, you're in the possibility of getting injured, getting hurt. And so that adds a level of care and concern about unfair advantages

that could be dangerous to your competitor. So I think it could be different sport by sport. But I guess my big takeaway here is that a lot of the discourse on the right is very simplistic, just like women should be fighting women and men should be fighting men. In cases like Castro-Semenya, and potentially, although we don't know, cases like Amani Khalifa shows that

nature doesn't actually draw a really clear and obvious line. Usually, yes, in 99.9% of cases, it's very obvious, but especially in elite athletics, you're gonna have these edge cases, these borderline cases that are really difficult and aren't really black and white. So just- Yeah, but I think it's a very different case. Here you have somebody who's born naturally. Again, we don't know, okay? The IBA apparently claimed that they say they have evidence. I don't know, they should release it, okay? Yeah.

Maybe the IOC should come out and clarify the situation too, just to make it very clear. But it's very different when you're born naturally and then when you're taking exogenous hormones. Or if you're not taking exogenous hormones and you just happen to identify as female and you compete in female athletics. I think it's a totally different situation. And that's what people are reacting to.

And I get, I mean, again, to be fair, this literally happened. The whole Leah Thomas situation. We have sprinters and other situations that happen here in the United States. So people are primed to believe it because it's a reality that was created, frankly, you know, by elite liberalism who thinks that this is somehow possible.

justifiable. So my line is quite simple. If it's natural, I mean, I guess, you know, if it's natural, it's within the conversation. If it's not natural, then no, I don't think it should be in the conversation. I don't think exogenous hormones should be legal, really, period. You know, whenever it comes to elite athletics, Lance Armstrong is a good example of why, you know, you have somebody naturally who had a quote unquote advantage, but then gets disqualified for taking exogenous substances. Now, Michael Phelps, you know, like

I forget exactly what his genetic mutation was, but it is something that is born of nature. And so I just think it's quite a simple conversation, I guess, within this. And the reality is, is that there was an entire thing created over the last decade of if let's say this woman was transgender, then I think the left would be like, yeah, that's completely fine or they would ignore it. So in a sense, I don't know if it's necessarily the same controversy.

Well, it's definitely not the same controversy, except that people lied about this person and said she was transgender to try to fit it into the same controversy, right? Sure. Yeah, I agree. I don't think that was responsible. I mean, here's why it is...

related, though, because you're talking about, you know, innate characteristics and where is the line that you're going to draw between the two genders. And so I don't know that anyone would argue. Maybe there's some person out there that would argue it, but I certainly wouldn't argue. I don't know anybody else on the left that would argue. It would be enough to just say, you know, oh, I feel like I'm a woman now and, you know, get to compete in female athletics.

The conversation is about, okay, is there a process by which if you transition over a number of years and you are, you know, suppressing your testosterone levels and you, you know, it's been a certain period of time.

Is there a time period in which, okay, now it's all right for you to compete? Or is it just if you went through puberty as a biological male, do you have too much of a competitive advantage to ever, you know, forever to be fair for you to compete against women? And I do think that that's a difficult, because it wouldn't be fair to just say, no, that's it. You just can't compete, period, end of story, you're done, right? Right.

And on the other hand, I think that certain sports... Like, for example, I think... What was it? It was like a pool player or something who quit because she was up against a transgender woman. It's like, this is... Your gender doesn't even confer any sort of advantage. So in certain sports...

You know, yes, I think that it's like boxing, I think, would be one of them where if you went through puberty as a biological male, you probably have advantages that even if you've been taking, you know, hormone suppression and medically transition for years, that you're not going to be able to just totally put in the in the background. But there are other sports where it may not make as much of a difference. That's why I'm saying it's a complicated sport.

question and also why it could vary sport by sport and why the fact that you have these natural, naturally occurring edge cases makes it really clear that it is not a black and white question that sex, even, you know, just naturally occurring differences create these edge cases that actually when you come down to it makes it very difficult to draw that line of, you know, who goes in which category, etc.,

Yeah, but this is a yes, but question. So yes, there are 0.00001 occurrences, people like this, in which it will manifest in elite athletics. But the puberty conversation, the data is incredibly clear. If you went through puberty as a biological male-

then the natural differences that you have are immense. There has been tons of research on this. It doesn't matter if you've been on hormone blockers for five years, just in terms of your muscle development, the amount of testosterone that you had that could contribute to growing larger, et cetera. Friend of mine, Derek, More Plates, More Dates, has done extensive research on this and put out a lot of videos

that are on the subject, you can go and watch them for yourself. So I really just think it's totally different, Crystal. I mean, we're talking here, I mean, we're almost, it seems like, well, just because there's a 0.001% edge case, that means that the modern phenomenon of transgenderism and trance ideology isn't somehow comparable. I don't think that's the case at all. And then that also, I mean, when you say difficult,

question, then that even raises the idea that you can put puberty blockers in a child and not allow them to go through puberty in their natural gender, which I think is frankly disgusting and abhorrent. I would personally be for banning it if I could. I don't know if the public would necessarily be on my side. I know that in Europe, they've certainly gone in a different direction. So I don't think

that this conversation is really related in any way to a natural phenomenon and then the specific choice, frankly, by parents who are deciding to plug children and chemically castrate them with chemicals. I mean, that is just not even in the same league of conversation to me.

So to stick with the conversation about the athletics, I mean, the other thing I would say is just this has been made into such a top political issue on the right, and it hasn't succeeded in terms of, I think, on the public opinion, it's succeeded. If you poll people, majority will say, yes, I don't think that transgender women should be able to participate in women's athletics.

But there were a lot of candidates who really leaned into this topic in the midterms, and it was not successful. And so it was sort of dropped for the agenda. Now it's been picked up, you know, because of this debate about this Olympic women's

boxing match has been picked up by JD Vance and Donald Trump, who very much do want to make it about transgender women, even though this woman is not transgender at all. So they've been using this rhetoric on the campaign trail. This is, what do we have here? E3. Let's go ahead and run this thought. We think it's weird that the far left wants to allow biological males to beat the living crap out of women in boxing.

I used to use the barbells. I said, now all you have to do is look at the boxers. This young girl from Italy, a very a champion boxer. She got hit so hard she didn't know what the hell hit her. It's a person that transitioned. He was a good he was a good male boxer. Yeah, he was a good male boxer and she didn't even go down. He hit her with two jabs and she said, I'm out.

So anyway, that's all just, that's a lie. She did not transition. She was not a gray male boxer. She was born a woman. She has competed as a woman. There is this question about the test. We don't know the details, but that is all a complete lie. So there's the political aspect of this. But, you know, I'll just say with regard to part of why I don't think the transgender sports debate has been the

politically salient issue that Republicans at one point thought it would be and why I take these two examples once again of like them sort of flailing around and not really knowing how to run against Kamala Harris at this point. In fact, I saw someone online who tweeted like Donald Trump is losing so they had to make up that this boxer is transgender. But part of why I think that this has not been salient is because like

Look at the Olympics now. You know, Katie Ledecky is the dominant female swimmer. She's a woman. This looming threat of destroying female athletics, et cetera, et cetera. Like, it just hasn't come true. There have been a few cases like Leah Thomas that I think have been, you know, nationally very sensational. Leah Thomas isn't at the Olympics, right? So as a salient issue that impacts people emotionally,

frequently in their lives, you've got states that are passing bans on transgender athletes that have like one transgender athlete in their entire state. So I think it's a much greater threat to women's athletics to the extent that any of these people actually care about that at all outside of like creating this culture war issue. I think the greater threat is stoking these online lynch moms to judge women

by their appearance and hold up whether or not they meet the standard that they think that they should look like, and then smearing them internationally accordingly. Crystal, the reason Leah Thomas is not in the Olympics is apparently because she lost in the world aquatics governing court of our arbitration that would have not allowed her to compete. So it's not that she wasn't competing against Katie Ledecky. It's because she legally was not allowed to compete in the Olympics. Katie would kick her ass.

But anyway, maybe I don't know. I mean, look, she's got the top 20 fastest times in the 1500 freestyle that have ever existed. Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't. I think seeing her, him, whatever up on the dais, frankly, is disgusting. And that is something that I deeply object to. Now, on the transgender point. Now, the reason I don't think that it was politically salient is because it was in the context of abortion in a vacuum. As you said, polls dramatically agree that.

that transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. And in some governing bodies where they have been allowed to compete, you had the grotesque outcome of people like Leah Thomas and weightlifters and others that are competing against women. You've had athletes like Riley Gaines and others who have spoken out about this, and by the way, face significant social consequences as a result of that. Riley Gaines is a superstar.

Yeah, after she quit, you know, and had to make this her. Now, by the way, I don't recommend making this your whole identity. You know, there's a reason that I conduct myself the way that I do, but if forced to discuss, you know, certainly will. The vast majority of the American public agrees on this issue. And by forcing, you know, people like Leah Thomas and others, you just frankly create this grotesque spectacle, which sets back

as I have told my gay friends, the quote unquote gay marriage polling numbers that we have seen within the GOP. Now, abortion is always going to be a lot more salient issue. Now, after that's solved, maybe we can tackle the puberty debate. And I think it's going to be very different on the polling and political salience with abortion off the table. But of course, I mean, there's a ton more women who exist in America. So it's going to be a lot more politically important. But in a vacuum, I don't think it's nearly as unpopular as you're laying out.

I didn't say it was unpopular. I'm just saying that people don't care that much. Yeah, they don't. Frankly, you shouldn't care that much. I don't particularly care that much. There's so few instances. And that's the thing. That's what I'm trying to get at, Sagar, is look at the Olympics. Look at the female stars. Sha'Carri Richardson, Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky. Like, none of these people are threatened by transgender athletes. There was, there is one, just to throw another wrinkle in this, there actually is one self-identifying,

transgender male who is boxing but hasn't taken hormones or whatever and just changed their pronouns and is boxing as a woman. I think I'm getting these details right. But there's very few transgender athletes even at the Olympics. So again, my point is not that this, you know, I actually think...

Probably the most fair thing, if you had sufficient numbers, is you have separate categories for transgender athletes. But I think that's practically difficult because of the few numbers. Because I agree with you that I think if you go through puberty as a biological male, it does convert certain advantages that even if you've been taking hormone suppressants for many years are not going to just magically go away. I just object to this being such a like,

fixation and focus and the demonization of, you know, this boxer or now apparently anyone who doesn't, there's another boxer, by the way, who's in the same category, anyone who doesn't fit this ideal. I just find that to be so gross. And I do take it kind of personally just because, you know, I'm a former athlete. I wasn't going to the Olympics, but I was a division one swimmer. I was a big part of my identity. And, um,

When you are a high level athlete, oftentimes as a woman, you do have some characteristics that are not traditionally feminine. If you look at the swimmers, right? Really broad shoulders, flat chest because you're more aerodynamic.

Big lats. I've always been able to put on a lot more muscle than other women. And so if you're creating a situation where now there are these like online lynch mobs of people judging whether you're feminine enough, like they did to Kassar Semenya, Duti Chand, Amani Khalif now, to me, that's far more damaging to women's athletics than these, you know,

very few cases of transgender athletes that I also, like I said, I also have issues with and have questions about. But, you know, it's sort of, they're sort of killing the, they're doing more damage to the thing that they're claiming to protect.

And I do wonder what you make of like the Trump comments where he just like lies about her. I mean, do you think that this is a smart political direction for Trump and J.D. Vance to go in embracing this culture war question over the Algerian boxer? I don't think people will really care. I mean, the American people are on their side, regardless of whether this is true or not. If it was a transgender athlete, then yeah. I mean, most people, look, it is not all that politically salient. Like I said, if forced to discuss, I'll lay out

what I think is a pretty clear case of why this is gross. I don't think that is nearly as damaging. The left created a reality where men are literally allowed to compete in women's sports, biological men. So then you can't get upset when people are like, hey, is this a biological man or not? And then if they were- Well, of course you can when the information is there and you're just flat out

But if it was a biological man, people would say, oh, what a great celebration, you know, that this is an amazing outcome of, you know, transgender equality. It's like he can't simultaneously cheer on like bearded guys in dresses and then say like, oh, we shouldn't be able to criticize people.

whatever, like female aesthetics. I mean, this is a reality that was created literally by modern liberalism post Obergefell, which I think was a massive mistake as we look at the political polling that has now happened both on gay marriage and on the transgenderism issue. So I just certainly, I almost feel frankly like gaslit on this conversation because if you create an entire reality where everything is questionable and then people ask questions, you can't get upset about that.

But there was, it was readily apparent. It was readily available information that this is not a transgender person. How can, I just don't think it's fair to just give a pass to these big accounts and J.K. Rowling and the freaking former president of the United States. Like, well, it's not his fault because somebody else, you know, did something that he didn't like once.

The facts exist out there. You are able to, you know, absorb them and read articles about what's going on and assess it accurately and have empathy for this person and not just go on this nasty, like, demonization kick and make her into some sort of political fodder. So I think just, like, excusing them as, oh, it's not really their fault.

I'm not preposterous. But the last thing, just to tie up what we know about this and the reaction from the Italian boxer who, you know, going back and reading her initial comments, I know a lot of people and you were saying like you really blame her for sort of sparring.

I don't know that that's really fair because all she said is just like she'd never been hit that hard. She didn't say that Imani shouldn't be able to fight or she was a man or whatever. So I don't know if it's really fair to put it all on her. But in any case, we have her final comments

where she was talking about how she would actually apologize to Imani. She says, it wasn't something I intended to do. Actually, I want to apologize to her and everyone else. I was angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke. She added, if she met Khalif again, she would embrace her. So in any case, just kind of a wild situation that really touched a cultural nerve and has now been embraced by the former president of the United States in spite of the fact that some of the very basic statistics

of the situation have been nothing but lies and innuendo. - All right, well, let's see what the developments are. Maybe a gender test. I believe that people are demanding she take a gender test. So maybe we'll see. Perhaps we'll get the truth. I don't know, did they have to pass a gender test to even compete in the IOC? This is where I'm confused. This governing body, like what are the rules? What do they even say?

Yeah, so I think that the Olympic Committee, as best as I was able to understand, they don't conduct chromosomal tests. And they, so typically, again, this is my layman's understanding of doing one day of research. Yes. Typically, I believe they allow these various sports governing bodies to sort of legislate themselves.

So previously, they had been relying on this International Boxing Association. However, there were all kinds... It was legitimately a very sketchy organization and, like, you know, tied into the drug trade and, like, you know, Russian mobsters, whatever. It was kind of a mess. So they banned them from...

allying with them and the Olympic Committee themselves put together a temporary committee to adjudicate these types of questions. From my reading, it was not entirely clear to me what they based their assessments on. The thing that they said is that she was born a woman, she's a woman on her driver's license, woman on her passport, et cetera. And so I don't know if, I don't think that they have like a testosterone limit and I don't know that they conducted these same sort of potential chromosomal

Now, in track and field, where this was relevant for castrosemania, they decided that for certain events, not all events, but for certain events, high levels of testosterone were a sufficient advantage that they regulate, they set a maximum bar for

for what your testosterone levels can be, even if you're in all other respects, you know, present as a female. So Kastor Semenya, in order to compete in some of her top events, was forced to take testosterone suppressants

in order to be able to compete. And she's written about how it really, it made her really sick and she hated doing it. And ultimately she stopped taking those testosterone suppressants. So different sports, it seems like have different criteria. And I guess one question I have for you is, okay, so let's say that she does have DSD and she does have XY chromosome, even though, you know, she, you know, physically presented as a female, right?

do you think that she should compete as a woman or not? I don't think so. I just think that the risk is too high for people in boxing. Whenever you're literally hitting somebody else in the head, that's just, that's the red line, you know? And running actually, I would switch it from track and field to anything where you could potentially harm somebody. I actually agree with that. But then I was thinking about if you reverse it, let's say you have someone who presents as a male,

but who has, so they have, you know, the male bits externally, but they have XX chromosome. Do they get to compete as a female? Is that possible? I don't think that is.

I'm not sure. I know that there are 30 different... My elementary biology is starting to come back to me. There are 30 different ways of being intersexed, so is that one of them? I can't say I'm 100% sure. But, you know, again, that's why I think it varies sport to sport. I think it's very difficult. I tend to think I disagree with the Castro-Sebanian decision. I think...

her naturally high levels of testosterone. I think that's just a natural genetic advantage in the same way that many athletes have natural genetic advantages and no one's getting hurt to your point. But I agree with your point that in fighting,

that's why you have different weight categories. There's an added level of, we need to protect these, you know, individuals as much as we can. And so, you know, an advantage, like if you have an elevated level of testosterone, which is probably going to occur more often. Like I bet if you tested a lot of these women competing in Olympic boxing, like they're probably at the high end of normal or beyond the high range of normal because it is an advantage there.

So, you know, maybe you have, in addition to the weight classes, maybe you have like a high testosterone class. Maybe that's the most fair thing to do here. I know at least amongst men, there's like physiological doses and there's like super physiological. So somebody who is far more well-versed in hormones can weigh in here. We do have Jordan Sheridan standing by though, Crystal. So we should get to him. All right, let's get to that.

The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know, and those you'll be hard pressed to forget. I did something in '88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh gosh, the US Olympic trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes, we're going out there smashing into each other full force.

Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox, where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show. To officially unpack season three of Scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three. Mesmerizing. But also,

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new Scandal content.

content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up gladiators, grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to unpacking the toolbox on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do.

One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So as you may recall, an entire city, Flint, Michigan, was poisoned. And much of the media has forgotten about that and let many of the politicians who had their hands all over this horrific act off the hook.

But one person who never did is journalist Jordan Cheriton, founder of Status Quo and author of an incredibly important and revelatory new book about the Flint water cover-up called We the Poisoned. With a forward, I should add, by Aaron Brockovich. Welcome, Jordan. Hey, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's our pleasure. So talk to us about why Flint.

this crisis still continues to be so relevant to Americans and not just in Flint, Michigan, but, you know, we see echoes of this in crises like that of East Palestine, Ohio. Yeah. I mean, red, white, progressive, conservative, water is one thing we could agree about. 10 years later, the water is still contaminated in Flint. Residents are still posting pictures of brown water and the playbook, uh,

for this coverup is now being copied in other communities like East Palestine. There's situations in Kalamazoo, Michigan, East Chicago, Indiana. I mean, it would take too long to name other cities with water contamination where the federal government in coordination with state officials

are basically just kind of checking some boxes, doing some testing, cherry picking data to claim everything's fine. Meanwhile, residents are receiving dirty or smelly water, getting rashes. And in the case of Flint, cancer is surging. Some cancers are up 300 to 500%.

And meanwhile, you know, nobody is being held accountable. And my book kind of reveals a massive cover up. I mean, we're talking the federal government, the state government, local government and Wall Street all kind of together. That is still ongoing. Reminder, no one has been criminally convicted.

So, Jordan, we have some passages. Let's put this up there on the screen that you pulled out for us. Maybe you can explain a little bit about what's in front of us, about Todd Flood, some of the quotes that you were able to unveil.

Yes. Todd Flood was a special prosecutor for the investigation, kind of like Robert Mueller on the local level. He was interviewing Richard Baird. I think Richard Baird is kind of like Tony Soprano's consigliere. He was the right hand man for former Governor Rick Snyder, known as his fixer.

And my reporting, which is shown in the book, indicates that Richard Baird, apparently with the governor's knowledge, was going around throughout Flint and offering sick residents who happened to be getting media attention deals, you know, pubs.

payments from the state government with strings attached that you can't say anything and you can't say who's paying for it. And in this passage, the criminal prosecutor caught wind that a resident suddenly got enough money to replace her busted service lines, the water pipes that deliver water into the home. They were damaged by the Flint River water pipeline.

cash from the state. And he asked the governor's right-hand man about that. Do you know anything about this cash to this resident? And he simply answered, I guess I have to answer that. Wow. What are the echoes that you see? What is the kind of the playbook that was utilized in Flint that is now being utilized in other places like East Palestine?

Yeah, so in Flint, essentially, they told you don't believe your lying skin, your ashes, don't believe your lying eyes, the brown water. It's just, you know, it's just an aesthetic thing. It's not a health thing. They told the residents we're working on it. It's safe. The EPA was getting complaints but didn't actually step in to take over, which they do have the legal right to do in a case of an emergency.

And then it was residents and activists, not politicians, screaming and literally doing their own testing. They secured independent researchers to help them test that they blew the lid off the scandal. Same thing is going on in East Palestine, for example. The EPA is doing testing, even though they've acknowledged that their equipment cannot find certain levels of contamination.

And they're saying we're not finding certain contaminants. Meanwhile, residents that I speak with have shown me also they're getting rashes. I mean, residents are having seizures and strokes in East Palestine. They're still passing blood, some of them through their bowels, through urinating. I got sick in East Palestine. I mean, it's a chemical petri dish, just like Flint.

It was very apparent just through walking in houses that the water was contaminated because it was breaking washing machines, it was breaking dishwasher machines. It was coming through the walls. But the government simply told them everything's fine and media simply, in both cases, regurgitates what the government says.

So that's kind of the playbook being used. And in the case of Flint, it was a privatization scheme that caused this. And in the case of East Palestine, you have a multibillion-dollar railroad company that blew up toxic chemicals unnecessarily, by the way, and now the government is allowing them to oversee the response.

So, Jordan, with all of the criminal investigation now and all the stuff that we've learned throughout your book, does it still stun you that there was no justice eventually done over the mass poisoning of the city? You know, not a lot of things stunned me, but in this case, yes, because you would have to think that if an American city with 100,000 people at the time this happened was poisoned –

at least some low-level person would be thrown under the bus. I mean, this is so severe that literally the attorney general that came in, who happens to be a Democrat, he took an unprecedented step to

restart the investigation, I believe unnecessarily, dismiss all the charges. Now she is refusing to provide me documents, particular documents that would expose the financial scheme that caused this involving Wall Street banks. I

I believe they basically swept this all under the rug because if it went forward in criminal court, the full scope, which is revealed in my book, particularly the Wall Street part of this, I believe it would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party because it would show there's a lot of privatization and for-profit schemes involving complicated bond deals and things like that that

communities don't know about that are endangering their health. That's actually the backdrop of what caused the Flint water crisis. It's stunning that nobody is above the law justice system, that 10 years later, no one has even seen a jury. And as of now, it doesn't even seem anyone will ever be convicted.

I think there's also a deeper story that you're effective in telling here about who matters in the country and who doesn't. And that's another parallel between East Palestine and Flint, Michigan. These are both industrial Midwestern places that have been really sort of forgotten and left behind by political class in both parties. In one instance, you have majority poor black

city. In another instance, you have a majority poor white area in the country. And you can only imagine that the response and the political discussion around this would be much different if it happened in like, you know, McLean, Virginia, which is where all the rich people around D.C. live.

Well, we don't have to imagine because when this happened, an hour down the road from Flint is Ann Arbor, Michigan. That's where former Governor Rick Snyder lived. And they preemptively, without a problem, replaced all the lead pipes. Meanwhile, in Flint, 10 years later, they have not replaced all the lead pipes. That's insane. That is insane. Jordan, tell people where they can get the book and support your work.

Yeah, a book will be available in all major bookstores. You can order also on Amazon, Barnes & Noble. It will be available on audio in September. And definitely, definitely, the book not only details after the water switch, it details the cover-up and the fraud that caused the water crisis in the first place, which has not been reported. I also exclusively got testimony of former Governor Rick Snyder under oath that has never been released.

where he seems to contradict his congressional testimony, particularly on what he knew and when he knew about the deadly Legionnaires outbreak. So definitely I encourage people to get the book. And we need to un-normalize the poisoning of an American community, any community.

So yeah, it'll be available in all bookstores as well as audio in September. And you can support my work at Status Quo on YouTube, C-O-U-P. We cover this, East Palestine, and many other important stories. Very nice. Jordan, congrats on the book and thank you for staying on this story always. Thank you guys so much for watching. We have a great show for everyone tomorrow and we will see you all later.

The podium is back with fresh angles and deep dives into Olympic and Paralympic stories you know, and those you'll be hard pressed to forget. I did something in '88 that hasn't been beaten. Oh gosh, the US Olympic trials is the hardest and most competitive meet in the world. We are athletes, we're going out there smashing into each other full force.

Listen to The Podium on the iHeart app or your favorite podcast platform weekly and every day during the games to hear the Olympics like you've never quite heard them before.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And we're the hosts of Unpacking the Toolbox, the Scandal Rewatch podcast where we're talking about all the best moments of the show. Mesmerizing. But also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for an even more behind-the-scenes Scandal.

stories with Unpacking the Toolbox. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.

wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.