3/25/26: Ryan Smeared For Cuba Aid Trip, Newsom Flips On Israel Apartheid, Blackouts Imminent In US, Mortgage Rates Spike

30:20You have to put helium, which costs a lot, in every few months. And we got this opportunity. We bought the new system. So we're bringing it to Cuba. We're finding how. We don't know how. A humanitarian, a convoy. Let's see. But then the problem is you can't have an MRI scanner without electricity. So now we're launching a campaign to receive donations similar to what we did with the ventilators and COVID. And we're going to have some friends are trying to collect money. And we want to buy a generator and we want to buy oil tank. Meanwhile, Nick Terse over at The Intercept is reporting that the Pentagon has revealed the attacks in Latin America are just beginning with, quote, Quote, Operation Total Extermination and Trump's Threats Against Cuba.

31:12Expect more U.S. military strikes in the region, Terse reports. So you go read that full report over at The Intercept. Now, Operation Total Extermination looks technically like it's referring to the Noboa operation in Ecuador. But if you look at the testimony in the House Armed Services document that Terse links to, It says the joint effort named, quote, Operation Total Extermination, referring to what happened in Ecuador, is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S., setting the pace for regional deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

31:52So whether or not they're going to apply, quote, Operation Total Extermination just to cartels in Ecuador or it'll be more broadly interpreted as even including Cuba as part of Latin America, we will see. But certainly escalating by the day. And did you see the New York Times report, by the way, this one here? Yes, I did. So the New York Times sent reporters out, good for them, give them their flowers when they deserve it, to the site of a U.S. bombing in Ecuador that they had said was a drug cartel training camp or something. Turns out it was a dairy farm. Total extermination. Yes. And so remember this when they're telling you that their intelligence on boats is 100 % rock solid.

32:41If they can't nail down their intelligence on an immobile dairy farm, like why are we so sure that they're exactly right about all of these boats that are moving around? Separately, Naboa? Just Google Daniel Naboa, drug trafficker. His family, he's the scion of this banana export business. Their boats are constantly getting found to be stashed with cocaine. Yeah. This is the president of Ecuador who we are allegedly teaming up with to do a drug eradication campaign. I'm starting a team. It's going to be Juan Orlando Hernandez, Daniel Noboa, and Bukele. Drug war. Yeah. Yes. Iveem is built for losing weight and moving forward.

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34:19Individual results vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medications may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.com.

34:59Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please feel the love of everything good in this world. Stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just$15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three-month plan, equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Ryan, you went on Newsmax just last night on Rob Schmidt's show, And he asked you basically to defend this trip we've been discussing.

35:40So Juan David Rojas pointed out, he posted a really, I thought that he put it really well. He reports for Compact and other news outlets from all over Latin America. You probably remember him having been on the show several times. He says, earth to anti-imperialist fundamentalists. This is the most honest and effective way of advocating for the Cuban people. Ryan doesn't talk about, quote, participatory democracy or the regime's righteousness. He talks about the real world consequences and double standards of our despicable policies. Better yet, he asks how any of this benefits Americans. This method is so effective the interviewer concedes multiple times.

36:16One Daveed adds, the difference between Ryan and Piker or Ben Norton is his first, second, and third priorities are normie Cubans, not the PCC oligarchy staying in power. Ryan, I do feel as though you, maybe it's your reporter background, are very careful in how you cover Cuba. And I thought that came out in this conversation with Rob Schmidt, where nowhere do you ever or did you and your reporting from Cuba defend the regime, which is a very easy thing not to do. And I will defend the quote unquote regime in the sense of when I think they're being unfairly criticized. The media is getting a story wrong.

36:52Yeah, right. Exactly. But if you consider that to be like a defense of imprisoning a thousand political prisoners, that's not the same. Right. And also, it's important to just understand the reality of who is actually causing the suffering. It is the sanctions. It's the embargo, blockade, the state sponsor of terror desolation. In this interview, we didn't get into kind of the details of it. But as you saw from the last segment, like Cuba is blocked from purchasing MRI machines for the most part or getting helium to keep their MRI machines running. They can't buy anything that has a minimum of 10 percent of U.S.

37:41parts in it. even when they end up buying, they bought a 3D printer to try to get around this so that they could produce medical supplies, these unique medical supplies that people needed. It broke down. The German company said they can't send a tech out because of the U.S. sanctions. And they said, actually, that's not true. Like there's an EU law that says, and Michel Valdez Sosa relayed this story to me. He was on the phone with the vice president. He said, there's an EU law that says you're not allowed to follow US sanctions. Because it's EU sovereignty means that you have to make your own decisions.

38:18You cannot be driven by US sanctions. And the guy told him, yeah, I know that law is on the books. We do a lot of business with the United States. We don't do much business with Cuba. I'm sorry that you bought a million dollar 3D printer from us. We're not gonna be able to fix it. And so it's just sitting there collecting dust. So we didn't get into a lot of those details about the way that the sanctions and the embargo play a primary driver of the immiseration of the island. But the point I did make to him is, if you think that's not true, and the system is so flawed and unable to succeed, let it try.

38:56And make inroads with them so they don't turn to Russia and China. Then there you go. Yeah. And it's a, yeah, we don't have to keep doing it. Also, yeah, I haven't seen Schmidt calling for regime change in Saudi Arabia over, like, the human rights abuses and the lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia make Cuba look like Switzerland. Well, this is a great back and forth. I think it draws out some important contrast. So, without further ado. Here we go. Ryan on Newsmax. Dropside news reporter Ryan Grimm also traveled to Cuba as well, reporting on all this. He's seen in this photo here. And Ryan joins us tonight.

39:29and it's good to have you back on the show. The Trump administration is trying to end a 70-year regime. It looks like these guys, along with you there, are trying to help it survive. Am I missing something? Wait, they're trying to do what? Trying to help this regime survive. Who is? Piker, most of the people there. I'm wondering if yourself, along with them, are included in that. Yeah, the group that went along brought about 50 tons worth of medical supplies and solar panels. That's right. Medical supplies and solar panels and a lot of sympathies for the regime that controls the country, I imagine.

40:07So let me let me try to help out your your viewers a little bit here. How how do you feel about the fact that when Americans travel to a foreign country, in this case, Cuba, they are told specifically a list of hotels that they are allowed to stay in in another country? I went through it because when I went and stayed there, it was the same I stayed in an Airbnb. I think if you have a country trying to squeeze our country, what do you think of that? I think our country's trying to end a regime that's been torturing people for a very long time and they don't want to fund it. They don't want us funding it by paying money to a communist owned entity like a hotel.

40:44So if this if their system of government is so awful, why not just let it fail on its own? Why do we have to blockade them? And how do you think they won't leave? They don't have elections. They won't leave. power. How do you think the United States economy would do if we cut off fuel for three straight months? No fuel has basically gotten into Cuba since the Venezuela operation. Yeah, but I was there and I was there in 2019, Ryan, and it was still a horribly impoverished country. But we're cutting off fuel to try and get this leadership out, get them the hell out of there because they won't leave.

41:17They won't have an election. They won't leave. Why do you why do you want to why Why do you care about who's in charge in Cuba? Who elected you to do that? It's such a bizarre... There aren't enough problems in the United States here for you to worry about. That's another side of it. I can't even get my mind to a place where I would think it's my call. Who runs Cuba? Who runs Haiti? Who runs Mexico? Who runs Iraq? Who runs Iran? That's a fair criticism. That's a fair criticism. But do you think it's better? Do you want this regime to continue to run this country against the wishes of the people that are all impoverished?

41:52It's not up to me. I live in Washington, D.C. I vote in Washington, D.C. elections, and I vote in federal elections. Where do you live? You live in... Where do you live? I live in New York. Why should you vote? What do you have to do with Cuba? I think the prosperity of that country that's only 90 miles away from our border can't be a bad thing. What I'm asking you is... Then why not let them import oil? It's fine. It's not America first. Let's put it there. But do you think that that regime should be running the country? Why does it bother you if Mexico sells oil to Cuba? You live in New York.

42:29In what world is it a New Yorker's responsibility to stop Mexico from selling oil to Cuba? That's OK. Fair criticism right there. My question to you is, why did you travel there? If you don't care, why did you travel there to try and support the regime? I'm a journalist, and the United States is literally killing people. Like, we are killing people. I toured two hospitals. One was a pediatric hospital. We implemented a new rule in February that says that if you're a private business, you can import oil. You can import fuel. So the hotel where we were required to stay is allowed by the United States government to have fuel.

43:13Hospitals, because they have a publicly run health care system, are not allowed to have fuel. I heard a lot of people complaining that the hotel still had power, but the hospitals didn't. Not understanding, apparently, that it is a U.S. rule that blocks the hospitals from getting fuel. I toured the pediatric hospital. You know what the nurses and doctors there told me? They said when the power goes out, they immediately turn on their phone lights and race to the babies on ventilators. Let me ask you this. Because there's a gap. And I hold on. I understand. There's a gap between when the power goes out and when the generator kicks in.

43:52That can be up to like five or six, seven minutes. A baby can die in that time on a ventilator. So they have to take their phone, turn the light on, race and hand pump the ventilator because all because the United States has decided that Mexico can't sell oil and fuel. Let me ask Cuba. What does that have to do with the United States? Well, that's fine. If you want to say it's not America first, that's fine. But let me ask you this. How many tens of thousands of people have died over the last 30, 40 years as this country has lived in extreme poverty? 88 % of the people live in extreme poverty.

44:24The government will not allow any kind of capitalism in to bring these people up, to bring the quality of life up. How many thousands and thousands of their own people has that government killed? We're trying to strangle out a government here. And yes, there's going to be ancillary, there's going to be some negative impacts of that, like you just described. That's fair. But you've, I mean, how many people have died because of the government in power? I interviewed the number three guy in Cuba. I will let you have the interview. You can air the entire thing. He said, Cuban nationals, Americans are welcome to invest in Cuba.

44:58He said they are open to, in a holistic negotiation, compensating Americans for property that was seized during the revolution. What they want is what they want. No, they offered that in the 1960s. The United States refused it because we thought we were going to do regime change. So why take a deal if we're just going to do regime change? We didn't overthrow the government. We failed over and over and over. We tried to assassinate Fidel Castro like a dozen plus times. We tried an invasion of Bay of Pigs. It didn't work. Every other country, Italy, France, Spain, they all took compensation for what was nationalized.

45:34So they're saying, you can invest here. We will compensate you for what was nationalized. All we're asking is that you lift the sanctions and leave us alone. Why is that a bad idea? Leave Cuba alone. Leave the regime alone and let the people continue to suffer. I mean, did you see the people there? The misery of the people that live in that country under these a-holes? It's horrific. The misery is unspeakable. It's been that way for a long time. It's a lot worse. The people who were there in December and people who obviously lived there are telling me it's noticeably worse. You know how you have people, like starvation and homelessness wasn't really a thing.

46:15There was poverty. It wasn't like a rich country. But even a few months ago, it wasn't the level of homelessness. 90 % of the people live under$2 a day. I mean, that's nobody in America lives under$2 a day. Not a single person. I got to leave it there. I really do. You're a good sport for coming on. Ryan Grimm from Dropside News. You got it. Good to see you. Ryan, my favorite part of that clip is the picture of you guys outside the hospital where Newsmax circled your faces like it was a true crime documentary. Incredible. It was like your face and Hassan's face. You can almost hear the music that would be playing in the true crime documentary there.

46:52Yeah. That was good stuff. Good stuff. I agree with Juan. So I'm glad that Rob Schmidt had you on. Sure. This was a fun conversation. Always happy to go on Newsmax. Yes. Well. I'm sure they'll have me back, right? That was kind of a good TV for them. I thought it was great TV. All right. Let's talk about APAC. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who completed the IVM weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds.

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49:10So if you want to know where the center of the Democratic Party is, it's always useful to study Gavin Newsom. And he has gotten himself into a very interesting pickle when it comes to his posture towards AIPAC and to Israel. You might remember when friend of the show Van Lathan had him on, he was like, you're going to take AIPAC money? He just kept saying, that's an interesting question. Interesting, interesting that you would ask it. Never thought about that before. Interesting, interesting. He's now saying he won't take AIPAC money. recently said that Israel is an apartheid state. And we should have had a timer up, counting down the days or minutes until he walked that back.

49:48We can end that timer at his lunch with Jonathan Martin of Politico. So Jonathan Martin asks him straight up about this, and this is Newsom's response. Do you consider yourself a Zionist? Do I consider myself Zionist? I believe, I revere the state of Israel. I'm proud to support the state of Israel. I deeply, deeply oppose Bibi Netanyahu's leadership, his opposition to the two-state solution, and deeply oppose how he is indulging the far right as it relates to what's going on in the West Bank. Do you regret using the word apartheid to describe Israel? I used it, I do in this context that I said it and I referenced why I used it, a Tom Friedman article in that same sentence where Tom used it in the context of the direction that BB is going.

50:39Not the current state. And the concern, correct. Okay. And that is a legitimate concern I have that I share with Tom that that direction, if that vision and that direction of the far right that BB is indulging, that if they see the full annexation of the West Bank, then that's not something. And that's a word you may hear others use. So, Emily, the reason I say that this is an interesting pickle is because it's a real test of whether an obviously very talented politician can play both sides on this question. I think the answer is going to be no, and that even the most talented gymnast can't stretch this far.

51:14Because the question of apartheid itself is interesting. It's like if you are a Palestinian born in the West Bank, you have there's certain laws about whether or not you can vote. You can't who you can marry, where you can move if you if you get married, what your what your travel is, where where you can work. If you are arrested, you go to military courts. If you are Jewish, an Israeli citizen born in the West Bank, you have civilian courts. It's you can you can marry and move. You can you have free travel restrictions like you can drive on different roads like it's apartheid. The only way that they get around saying it's not apartheid is, well, they don't have legal control of the West Bank.

52:00They're just they're occupying it and they have basically they exercise sovereignty over it. But we don't recognize that the West Bank is part of Israel yet. So therefore, it's not part of the state. So therefore, technically, it's like, good luck trying. But more to the point. Well, also, and if you're Jewish, you do have privileges about whether you can be a resident and come and move to Israel and the like. Right. Exactly. Sure. Yeah. Which is, I mean, I think there are important distinctions because usually when people hear apartheid, it's used to invoke South Africa. And there's a distinction, of course, being that there are Palestinian members of the Knesset, Muslim members of the Knesset.

52:40that there are, there's, it's not exactly South Africa, but there are also distinctions where you see people being treated differently on the basis of religion and ethnicity. And the big problem for Gavin Newsom, correct me if I'm wrong here, is that people don't think he believes anything. Now, I think people, a lot of Democrats who believe that are still willing to support him if they think that his new positions that he's claiming to believe are something that he'll fight for you know what i mean like they're beyond caring even if like he has a soul or if he believes in these things but just show me that you'll fight for whatever you're claiming you believe in now and he's going to be forced to waffle back and forth on this through the entire campaign if he is unwilling to make a stand and so this thing of like, oh yeah, it's apartheid, but it's not.

53:36I regret saying that. Is just going to make him look like a 1990s era politician who just doesn't believe in anything. And I think it's going to be a major problem for him. Yeah, because when you imagine this out in the campaign trail, Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, you're talking to people at fairs and at pancake breakfasts, and you are going to be in a Democratic primary in 2028 every single day in and out berated with this question. Does it backfire and some, you know, normie voters get sick of it? Maybe, but you need the party's grassroots. You need the base and to show up for you in a small state like New Hampshire or Iowa.

54:14So he's going to have to, I mean, this is, this is his best answer right now. You can see it, how he kind of repeats the question. He's ready to launch. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, he's, he's preparing his launch and it's, uh, this answer is, is clearly like well thought out from their campaign perspective or their strategic perspective. And even then, it's not going to cut muster when you're getting constantly hounded by people over and over again. And the smartphone videos are pinging around the internet. And Jennifer Welch has kind of driven a lot of this because these candidates, these mainstream candidates keep coming on her program and getting pressed on this exact question.

54:50Let's roll, let's jump to D4, where she had Cory Booker on. And you You might remember this viral moment from the fall of 2025. And there's a reason we're showing you this. So here's Welch and Booker. I'm one of a handful of people that don't take corporate PAC money. What about APAC money? You take APAC money, don't you? That's a minuscule percentage of my resources. I raised like 800 ,000. Yeah, but that's a lifetime number. When you did your 25-hour speech, I was like, go, Corey. I love this. That is amazing. And then there's a photo shoot with you with Benjamin Netanyahu. And I was just like, what in the actual f**k?

55:29Like, how can he do that? It was heartbreaking. I felt betrayed. I felt like it diminished your 25 hours. That's how it felt to me. Do you think he's a war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu? Do you think he's a war criminal? Again, these are questions that a lot of people think are the important litmus tests that are loaded and hot. My urgency is to be an effective leader in bringing an end to this crisis. And I get these questions all the time that, to me, undermine my urgency. I think the thing that Democrats get so frustrated with, where we are right now, where you see, like, the Zoran Mondani's and the Graham Plattener's rise up, because they can go on podcasts and you can say, do you think Benjamin Netanyahu's a war criminal?

56:10And they just say, yes. I love what a delightful collection of words that is coming out of us now. Yes. These questions undermine my urgency. I think he said underline. Oh, the underline? I think he said he was either they underline. It doesn't matter because the words aren't supposed to mean anything. They're just supposed to fill space. Yeah, don't worry about it. You saw him backing away slightly from this. You put up D2, this hilarious picture that circulated of when Cory Booker went to. There he is. Cory Booker hiding behind a bunch of other senators when he's meeting with Netanyahu. We did to him what they did to you on Newsmax outside the Cuban hospital.

56:41But this is a little bit fairer because he actually does seem to be hiding back there. Yes. But now we can roll D2. Cory Booker, guess what? Just like Gavin Newsom, he went from getting embarrassed in an interview to saying, you know what? Okay, I'm not taking APAC money. Now, what he smartly did is he rolled it out with this pledge that he's not going to take any PAC money, including APAC money. Smart. Now, when you're running for president, here's what people don't quite know. corporate PAC money is capped at what,$5 ,000? It's not much. If you're a House member, for them, corporate PAC money is helpful because you can rack up half a million of it very easily with a couple of dinners in Washington, D.C.

57:29You get, you know, get 100 corporations around and they give you five grand. Boom. Like that's that adds up fast. That's not enough for a presidential campaign. For that, you need billionaires or regular people. Cory Booker's, you know, needs billionaires and who are going to drop massive checks. So he can say no to corporate PAC money running for president and it's not actually going to hurt him that much. And so what he's doing then is smuggling in. I'm also not going to take APAC money. Right. Cory Booker is one of the lead champions of APAC's agenda in Congress over the years. For him to understand that it's too toxic to take is a watershed moment for APEC.

58:11I will say that. Now, let's put D5 up on the screen. Ryan, can you take us through this? The NBC News report here, APEC super PAC funded Illinois group. We went through all of this after the results last week, but there's a quote here. UDP was happy to support these local committees along with Chicago donors to make sure pro-Israel voices would have their voices heard, according to Patrick Dorton to NBC News on Friday. What does that mean? And so UDP is United Democracy Project. That's APAC's Super PAC. You're like, what does that name mean, by the way? Because according to them, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

58:46And we are here, United States, we're a democracy. We are united democracies. And so that's where their Super PAC name comes from. Just wanted to highlight this because in case there's anybody out there that doesn't believe me. We've been reporting for many weeks that it was APAC money that was funneling through these what they call local committees. And those, quote unquote, local committees were they're called Elect Chicago Women, Affordable Chicago Now, and one other progressive something something. there were fake pop-up PACs that would then be funneled, that would then be funded by UDP, APAC, Super PAC, plus a bunch of APAC donors.

59:27And then you don't learn that officially until after the campaign is over. So ridiculous. And when we report based on our sourcing and our, or just doing journalism about what's going on in Chicago, when we report, oh, no, this is actually AIPAC money, you get people saying that's bigoted and you're trafficking in tropes. And then after the campaign, they're like, oh, yeah, that was us. And with one of the races, they even won the race with this candidate, Donna Miller. AIPAC put out a tweet saying, big win for AIPAC. They had not endorsed her or admitted that they were even spending on her behalf.

1:00:10and still publicly then took credit for winning the race, which I feel like that, you can't do that. Like, okay, you won, we'll acknowledge it, but you don't get to claim, like, publicly, you don't get to do the victory lap. No, you would think. You would think. Now, speaking of victory laps, quite a scene down in the, I think it's the town of Palm Beach is included in this district. There's West Palm Beach, there's the town of Palm Beach, there's Palm Beach itself. Last element here, headline from NBC News, Democrat flips Republican-held Florida State House District. That includes Trump's Mar-a-Lago.

1:00:49Emily Gregory, according to NBC, quote, narrowly won the special election for the district Tuesday night, according to AP projections. Trump carried this district in 2024. Gregory got 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for the Trump-endorsed candidate in that race. that had a, I was just watching this come in on X last night. It had a lot of Dems feeling pretty good, Ryan. I think it's fun for them to just win Mar-a-Lago. Well, they're going to do like tiki-taki. Now they're going to do all like tiki-taki like municipal stuff. Run Mar-a-Lago to mess with them. Yeah. Well, they can, I mean, it would have to go through the House, but.

1:01:27And another one, it's now official. It wasn't official last night, but it's in a Senate, a Republican Senate District 14. I don't know where that is. You need to look it up. Democrats flipped that one too. Guy Brian Nathan beat Josie Tomcow, a Republican. So they flipped, Democrats flipped two seats in Florida that had been Republican held before. I think the Republicans had won Trump's Mar-a-Lago seat by 11 points before. So if you're a Republican, it's another sign of this roughly, that's a 13 point swing that we've been seeing somewhere between 10 and 20 points in all these special elections.

1:02:07If that holds, this Texas gerrymander where they put people, put Republicans in districts where they kind of won by like eight, nine points may go down as one of the funniest own goals ever, because what they've done is they redrew all these Texas districts to actually now put them within reach for Democrats. Whoops. It's insane. All right. Well, quickly, Ryan, let's go to AI blackouts. We've got a guest coming in just one moment. Some breaking news on this, by the way. According to Brian Metzger, as of just this morning, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are planning to introduce the, quote, AI Data Center Moratorium Act at a 4 p.m.

1:02:50press conference over on Capitol Hill. So expect that to come down later today. But why might they be pursuing this? Well, one reason, first element, we can toss up on the screen here per Tom Winter over at NBC News. Electrical grid, this is according to his NBC News report, quote, electrical grid at increasing risk of blackouts due to surging demand. Then he asked, could there be blackouts in NYC? How serious is the threat nationwide? wide. The fact that that question is even being asked, Ryan, is all the evidence you need for why populists on the left might be considering introducing a moratorium on the data centers.

1:03:30Now, I look forward to people asking their phones, Grok, is it true that I'm in a blackout caused by you? That is so dark. That is so dark. Let's take a look actually at this video from an interview that was done in Kentucky really recently. It was making the rounds. This is a Kentucky family being interviewed. I think this was the local news about a data center. Let's roll it. It's my way. I'll stay and hold and feed a nation. 26 million doesn't mean anything. Some people might find it hard to understand how Delcia Bear can turn away a$26 million offer to buy some of her land until you spend a little time with her walking the dirt road she grew up on and in the house her daddy built.

1:04:16My grandfather and great-grandfather and a whole bunch of family has all lived here for years, paid taxes on it, fed a nation off of it. So what do you say to the people who are in town that say, hey, this is going to bring jobs, this is going to bring economic prosperity? I say they're a liar and the truth ain't in them, is what I say. It's a scam. For Delcia, scam or not, she says she's connected to her home like Scarlett O 'Hara was in Gone with the Wind. As long as she was attached to that land, her spirit never would die. That's the exact same thing for me right here. As long as I'm on this land, as long as it's feeding me, as long as it's taking care of me, there's nothing that can destroy me if I've got this land.

1:05:04I actually just watched Gone with the Wind again a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure Scarlett O 'Hara is the comparison she wants to make in this case, but you see how deeply fell. We'll allow it. Brian will allow it. In the interest of whatever, we'll allow it. Meanwhile, this is another one of these AI updates that just casually pops into the discourse. And it's so massive. You can't even do it justice through coverage. Because, again, like it's casual things that AI guys are saying. This is Jensen Wang of NVIDIA over with Lex Friedman. He says we've achieved AGI. We could roll the clap. I think it's now.

1:05:40I think we've achieved AGI. You think you can have a company run by an AI system like this? Possible. And the reason for that is this. You said a billion, and you didn't say forever. And so, for example, it is not out of the question that a claw was able to create a web service, some interesting little app that all of a sudden, you know, a few billion people used for 50 cents. The robots are now on our level. Casual little. Now, he has his own motivations for saying that. Right, because he's the only guy making any money here because he's selling all these chips. Everybody else is losing money.

1:06:27that's the new definition of AGI that you can make an app like that that an agent can make an app that people might like okay I thought we were I thought AGI was supposed to mean something a lot deeper and more profound than that but whatever yeah now finally uh about where this is going and again to the point about why Bernie and AOC are teaming up on this moratorium which by the way Like, I don't, I get the thrust of the moratorium policy. I'm not necessarily advocating that that's the right thing or the wrong thing. I have to think about it more. But you can see the politics of it from a country mile, why it's important for them to be on this side of the issue.

1:07:06And we can put the New York Times tar sheet up on the screen here. Young graduates face the grimmest job market in years. I don't know if they invoke grim intentionally, but listen to this. Copyright. The unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 soared to 5.6 percent at the end of last year. That is we are going back to the New York Times has a chart included in this article. We're going back to roughly Great Recession levels of unemployment for people with college degrees. And this is a spring. A lot of people right now looking for jobs, finding that they're probably hitting an impasse, hitting a wall in those searches.

1:07:46The Times article says that this is not necessarily, they say, although AI may be replacing some entry-level jobs on the margins, there's little evidence it's the main culprit yet. But some of it is from this, quote, low hire, low fire dynamics in the labor market, or most of it is what the Times report says economists are convinced. On that note, what this tells us is next year, year after, what we could be looking at is low hire, low fire dynamics and an AI, potentially an AI bloodbath of entry-level positions. So what that actually is telling us is the worst may be yet to come. Right. And people expect that we're heading into very uncertain territory.

1:08:24And so as a result, they're not hiring. So that which becomes a self-fulfilling thing. It is bleak. It's bleak. Even in China, by the way, I was looking at it up there. They're seeing an increase to unemployment among people in their 20s. So this is this is a trend that isn't unique to us. Yeah. Maybe they should do a little moratorium over there, too. There you go. They don't have the same energy problems, though. They can fire away. On a similar note, let's break down some economic indicators. iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing results.

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1:09:46Individual results vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medications may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. Why have I asked my HVAC guy I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube? I was so amazed at how we replaced our air ducts. I knew I could trust him to change Pop Pop's tube. I think we should call a doctor. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pros for all your home projects at Angie.com. We all have different styles. I may be into Levi's and you may be into Fendi or Mew Mew. But we all should be into Poshmark.com.

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1:11:02U.S. economy and everybody else around the world. It's based significantly on a Deutsche Bank report that concluded, quote, the huge strategic importance of the Middle East to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency should not be underestimated. The current conflict could test the foundations of the petrodollar regime, unquote. Now, when Deutsche Bank had floated this as a risk of the looming conflict in Iran back in January, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson lashed out at them, basically saying, how dare you? Now that the war has come to pass, we're seeing the Iranians allowing oil tankers to go through the Strait of Hormuz as long as they trade in yuan.

1:11:45And you're seeing a lot of questioning of the value of the relationship. The petrodollar effectively, Emily, as you know, means the deal is these Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia most particularly, will sell its oil in dollars. We will offer them protection as a result of that. And with their dollars, they will invest that back in the United States and global economy in dollars, particularly buying U.S. Treasury bonds, which allows us to keep our interest rates down and allows us to keep our debt load at what it is. If that breaks down, you're looking at a completely different era for the U.S.

1:12:32And we put up F1. There had been some hope. Mortgage interest rates had been coming back down to earth. There was some hope that people who were locked into their mortgage would be able to start, would be able to sell, that people who've been waiting forever to buy a house, would be able to buy. In the last couple of weeks, we're now surging 7 % again. You know, could be in sight if these trends continue. We're up over, back over 6 % and put up F2. People are not feeling so good about Donald Trump's handling of the economy. Man. If you're just listening to this, you're not getting to see the blood on this chart.

1:13:17It looks like Donald Trump's approval rating got hacked. By Joe Biden. It's just straight down. And by Joe Biden. It shows Trump's approval of the economy finished at around 50%. Now compare that to where he was in his first term. Look at that. Yeah. He used to be, people used to love him. His handling of the economy at least. Biden, it tanked under Biden. Spiked at the beginning. under Trump and is now down to 29 percent of people approving of the economy. I mean, this is a midterm year. This is a midterm year for Donald Trump. And, you know, he looks at the markets and he says, well, the markets are up.

1:14:03So that's the economy. What's wrong with voters, right? He keeps musing. What's wrong with the people? What's wrong with the voters? And obviously, the American people are not feeling that the economy is good because the markets are good. So if you see the markets as the economy, that would be a very confusing figure. Like, wait a minute. Why am I not messaging this right? And I mean, we can just go ahead and toss this element up on the screen. This is from the well, actually, we'll save it. We talked about this earlier in the show, so we don't have to get back to it. But The New York Times new article that we talked about moments ago on the New York on the college graduate situation.

1:14:43People are saying it's the uncertainty that's in the economy. It's not necessarily AI yet. But Liberation Day, pedal to the metal on AI, this is just the first year. This is just the first year. Yeah, this is dark. And this is before the collapse, before the crash that everybody knows is coming. Well, and remember when this was the Scott Besant letter where he said, quote, Trump will pursue a weak dollar policy rather than implementing tariffs, weakening the dollar early in the second admin would make U.S. manufacturing competitive, a weak dollar in plentiful cheap energy could power a boom. What?

1:15:21Is this what we're witnessing? I don't know. I guess so. So to find out how voters are thinking about this, let's bring in State Representative Chris Robb, who is running for Philadelphia's open congressional seat. Robb was recently endorsed by Justice Democrats. And so giving him a real shot in the arm in this kind of open race that has like, you know, 72 different people running for it. Because if you get elected to this Philadelphia seat, one of the most progressive bastions in the United States, you know, you're going to be, you know, people think if you get it, you're going to be in there.

1:16:01It's going to be difficult to dislodge you. So State Representative Rob, thank you so much for for joining us. My pleasure. And the election is in the middle of May. So this is coming pretty rapidly around the corner. In New York, Mayor Mamdani came up with this innovative idea, apparently, innovative in American politics, that he would actually talk about how difficult it is for people to live day to day and that people might respond to that. It was kind of people like, that's crazy. You're going to talk about people's material concerns and you think they're going to respond to a politician. This is crazy.

1:16:47And now he's mayor. So since then, we've seen a lot of Democrats adopt his language around affordability, but not often connected to concrete ways that he's going to actually make your, that Democrats are going to make your life more affordable. So I'm curious, as this, as people have really come to the conclusion that this economy sucks, what are you seeing on the campaign trail from people? And what is, what are you finding is resonating with them? And what isn't? Well, sure. So I've been on the campaign trail for several months now. And it's a very unique moment for us in Philadelphia, because it's the first time in 35 years that there's no incumbent on the ballot in this race.

1:17:3435 years. So we literally have voters who were not born the last time there was no incumbent on the ballot. It's also, like you said, the bluest congressional district nationwide of all 435 seats. It's number one. It is also an aggressively young district. So it's all within the city of Philadelphia. Over half of voters are millennials and younger. It is also a majority Black district with a lot of ethnic diversity and a number of universities. So it is a unique space to be campaigning. And as someone who never takes corporate PAC money, that's one of the first questions people ask, particularly folks who are on social media, because they see that there's a corrosive influence of money in politics, and they assume that any viable candidate, be they Democrat or Republican, is somehow mired in that system.

1:18:35And they are shocked and pleasantly surprised that I don't take corporate PAC money and that I've never taken it. And that also relates to how I message on issues that are of concern to people, because I have opponents who will not say we should tax the ultra wealthy because they receive money from ultra wealthy insiders. They will not mention Gaza because they have support from folks who want the war in Iran. And that's connected to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. There are folks who are not going to talk about Medicare for all in the most meaningful ways, because they're receiving money from folks who do not want universal health care in this country.

1:19:15And so people are finding that refreshing. It's Mondani put it on the map and did it masterfully. It also helped that there was ranked choice voting in New York, which I'm the prime sponsor of in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania legislature, and also that there's public financing of elections, which is also huge, which I think a lot of people appreciate because it reduces the influence of the wealthiest members of the donor class so that we can actually have races that are not pandering to folks closest to the Epstein class, essentially. So one of the, I think, questions that's always valuable to ask people who are out campaigning in the field is, what are you hearing?

1:19:59I mean, this is, as you mentioned, a very deep blue area. What are you hearing from voters? And then how much do they care about the issues that you're hearing about? Because one of the big questions in a midterm cycle is how the coalition turns out on election day, how energized people are to go vote, whether it's the economy, maybe for some people it's Gaza, Iran. But what are you hearing about most and what is your sense about how deeply people are bothered by those issues? Yeah, so I think it's a twofold kind of view. One is when I'm meeting folks for the first time and they don't know anything about me, they want to kind of test how authentic I am.

1:20:39Right. So they'll say, do you take corporate PAC money? Assuming that I do because, you know, I'm viable. And it's like, no. And they're like, oh, all right. Where are you on Palestine? I'm like, well, I believe there's an ongoing genocide in Palestine and that needs to be addressed. And they're shocked that I even used the word. And then they'll say, well, what about ICE? And I said, well, we should start with abolishing ICE, but we should also dismantle the immigrant detention centers, which were born out of bipartisan complicity. And that's when I pivot into talking about critiquing my own party because I'm running in the Democratic primary.

1:21:18So while everyone likes to take shots at Trump because it's so easy, unless and until we can hold our own party to account, it really doesn't matter about anything else until we've done that. And so one of the things I do is I say I am not an establishment Democrat. I've never been, even though I'm a five term incumbent, I've never been endorsed by my own political party, even though I have received more votes than any state representative in Pennsylvania history, because I'm an independent thinker who does not, I'm nobody's rubber stamp. And people seem to respond well to that in this moment because establishment politics is why we got here.

1:21:57Centrism is why we got here. And centrism is not going to be the solution for systemic issues that people are crying out to be addressed in the most bold and humane ways. It's fascinating that they're going through these series of litmus tests to determine how anti-establishment you are, which is entirely fair. Right. It is because if I think people are thinking like if you're not willing to say these basically obviously true things, then you're not going to fight on it. You're not going to fight on anything else. And in that respect, your race caught some national attention on the flip side. When your lead opponent, Alice Stanford, made some extraordinarily like bizarre and eyebrow raising comments that went in the complete opposite direction.

1:22:38we'll play it in a little clip here which is actually from Sunrise Movement Philadelphia which has endorsed this is a climate group but showing the kind of valence and the strength of the question of this genocide in Gaza for the Sunrise Movement that seems to be a proxy as well for your willingness to fight on the climate because I think Ta-Nehisi Coates said if you're not going to draw the line at genocide how can I trust you to fight for democracy? Same is true, I think, for everything else, climate included. So let's quickly, let's roll this sunrise clip here. If you're in Philly, you got to hear this.

1:23:17Ayla Stanford, who's running to be our next congressperson, just compared using the word genocide to using the N-word. Acknowledging the fact that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians is not the same as using a slur that has been used to harm black people throughout this nation's history. But I guess that's the kind of loyalty that over a million dollars from pro-Israel groups can buy from you, huh? If you want the kind of candidate who has the courage to say, Well, then you'd be in good luck because the Sunrise Movement is supporting this dude, Chris Rabb, who's running for Congress.

1:23:53You can help us put him there by signing our Sunrise for Rabb interest form or donating to his campaign in order to get a uncompromised progressive leader in Congress. Let's be APEC. So has there been any fallout for Stanford for that comment saying, I don't want to describe what's going on in Gaza as the G word, because to me, that's for some people, that's too similar to the N word. What has been the kind of reaction locally to that? I mean, it is such a bizarre and problematic statement. the response from Jewish people has been overwhelming. Like, how dare you put it, make us a monolith and conflate APAC with Judaism or Jewish identity.

1:24:46That's, that's offensive to, to, to connect an actual genocide with a term used by white supremacists to dehumanize Black people over centuries. Like, it is so deeply problematic. But here's where it matters most. This super PAC, 314 Action, on the surface is about empowering and supporting folks with STEM background to run for Congress. Right. But the reality is, 314 Action received millions of from a United Democracy project, which is a front group for AIPAC. But it's worse because the six Democratic physicians currently in Congress who are endorsed by the same super PAC are not folks who are on the Medicare for All bill.

1:25:40They are not one of the over 110 co-sponsors of the Medicare for All bill. And why does that matter? Because in this election, in this campaign trail, rather, All of us claim to be for universal health care. But I'm the only one who says I would co-sponsor the Medicare for All bill, which is very different and is very precise. And my opponent's not doing that. And if you have a super PAC that now has given over two and a half million dollars in support of her candidacy and their track record is only supporting Democrats who are physicians who do not support Medicare for All, that's problematic and that does not pass the smell test among folks who are outraged at this this awful statement and also being funded by folks who are not human beings like this should just I only get money from human beings I'm old school that way and I think that's important people want to see that I'm not accountable to anyone but the people and I remind people that my biggest donor is my mommy.

1:26:45And just to do a little back padding, 2024, I did the reporting on this race in Oregon. Was it Oregon? No, Seattle, Washington. Seattle. Where Maxine Dexter, who is now a member of Congress, who's also a physician, was backed by this called Super PAC called 314 Action, which backs doctors and scientists, or says they back doctors and scientists. I reported that, in fact, AIPAC was using it as a shell to secretly funnel money in it because they opposed Sushila Jayapal, who was Pramila Jayapal's sister. Pramila Jayapal had been critical of Israel. They didn't want her sister coming to Congress. They furiously denied it, called me all sorts of names, bigot, et cetera.

1:27:28And then after the election is over and she wins, they publicly have to now do their filing and it's, oh, yep, it was APAC the entire time. And so now every time that 314 action jumps into these races in a significant way, people are asking, where did this money come from? And to me that, because sometimes it's not APAC money with through 314 actions, sometimes it is. If they're putting in a huge amount, It's probably a pack money. How are they over a million for her at this point? Or what are they throwing? I think it's over 2 million at this point. Wow. They're being inundated. And I can tell you from reporting on this group over the years, this is a not a new group.

1:28:11314 has been around for a while. They're the kind of super PAC that usually comes in and spends six low six figures in a race. Because while doctors and scientists are doing well in the United States, they're the kind of people that will write$5 ,000 and$10 ,000 checks. They don't own stadiums and baseball teams. And so they're not the kind of people that can write multimillion-dollar checks. So if they're spending$2 ,000 plus million in this race, the chances that that's APAC money are very high because it's just outside of the pattern of what they've done over the years. Yeah. Anyway, were you going to say something?

1:28:53No, I just I was kind of wondering in my own mind how Iran the war in Iran has changed, if at all, the race. It seems like something that would shake things up. Good question. Yeah, it should. But only if you have you show the nexus between what's happened in Palestine and the interest like this is Netanyahu's war. Right. This is Netanyahu's war. Trump is doing the bidding of Netanyahu. So if you support, if you have issues with Netanyahu, then you should have deep issues with what's happening in Iran. So everyone is against the war in Iran in this race, but they're not connecting the dots between the interests of folks who want to level Gaza and the folks who believe in regime change and do not believe in multilateral diplomacy.

1:29:44Right. And that's a problem. And that's what I'm trying to connect the dots for. The other thing is a lot of people are concerned about this, but they're also concerned about putting food on the table and, you know, filling up their gas tanks. And my job is to connect the dots to say every bomb we drop on civilians in Tehran is money that could go to free child care, social housing, universal basic income, any number of these so-called radical ideas that are adopted in other industrialized nations with far less financial wealth than what we have. And so that's how I connect the dots. And it's important.

1:30:23But there are opponents of mine who do not want those dots connected because they're going to be against the war in Iran, but they're for what Netanyahu is seeking to do in Palestine. And that is deeply problematic and hypocritical. Well, Chris Rabb, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate we'll continue to follow this race. Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to have to look in a little closer to see if we can nail down for certain whether this is APAC money going through 314. But appreciate you joining. My pleasure. That's going to do it for us on today's edition of Breaking Points. As a reminder, hit up breakingpoints.com for a premium subscription to support our independent journalists to support journalists like Ryan Grimm going to Cuba.

1:31:08That ain't cheap. Actually, it was barely cheap. $700 for three nights. Reasonable. That was like also the visas. You get breakfast. Whoa, you got breakfast. The visa was$90. Oh, okay. That goes straight to Cuba. There you go. Well, please go to breakingpoints.com. Support the show. One of your, one Breaking Points premium sub pays for a visa. I was going to say, it's like we were about to do the ASPCA. Plus$10 left over. Yeah, we should zoom in on Ryan's face and have him look like a sad puppy. Send Ryan to Cuba. Buy me another visa. All right, well, thanks so much. We'll see you on Friday, for the Friday show, premium half of the Friday show.

1:31:44Have a great afternoon, everyone.

1:32:01iVeam is built for losing weight and moving forward. iVeam is built for feeling your best and seeing results. iVeam is a medical weight loss program built for you. Their approach is individualized, virtual, integrative medicine. 99.2 % of patients who completed the IVM weight loss protocol achieved meaningful change, dropping an average of 45 pounds. IVM built for your wellness journey. IVM built for real life. When you sign up right now, you can get a one-month free trial. Start your personalized plan in minutes by visiting IVMHealth.com. That's IVMHealth.com. Subscription required medication labs and supplements not included.

1:32:44Results based on patients who completed the full IVIM protocol over 68 weeks. Individual results vary. Not all patients are eligible. Prescription medications may carry risks and should be used only as directed by your provider. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades.

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