10/24/24: GOP Crushes Early Voting, Abercrombie CEO Indicted For Model Trafficking, BBC Debunks IDF, Saagar On How To Vote
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So one thing that we've been paying close attention to and reading into it, whatever you can, is the early vote results. And no state have they been more striking than the Sunbelt State of Nevada. Let's put this up on the screen. Nevada also benefits from the fact you got John Ralston, who everyone agrees is like legit...

analyzing the early vote. So he updates every day his early voting blog. And at this point, shocking given previous historical trends, Republicans actually have an advantage in terms of the early vote. So they have successfully convinced their voters to vote

vote early. There's been a huge surge in terms of the, uh, rural areas in particular. In fact, he's describing this time normally talks about a Clark County, which is Las Vegas, uh, firewall for Democrats. He's talking now about a rural firewall, um, a massive Republican advantage where there's been extremely high turnout, um, in those rural, heavily conservative areas. Um,

In Washoe County, which I believe is where Reno is, it's a swing urban county. Republicans have a four-point lead that's just above their registration average. In Clark County, the firewall is at just 5,000 votes, just two and a half points in a place where Democrats have a nearly 7% registration edge. So, so far, and again, it's early days, none of this reads into which way the

large number of independents are going to vote. None of this reads into obviously what's going to happen on election day, but the early indications for Republicans are quite strong. I think in Nevada is stronger than in any of the other states where we have significant early vote to take a look at. And one of the theories

for why Republicans could be outperforming in Nevada in particular comes down to the issue of housing. Let's put this up on the screen. Obviously, this is something we've been focused on for a long time. Just how much of a pain point the unaffordable housing market has become for so many voters. New York Times did a great write-up here. They said, as Harris courts the Sunbelt housing costs stand in her way. And they compare...

The skyrocketing housing costs, not just to buy a home, but also rents, which is driven and fueled by a number of factors. They compare that to a similar political earthquake as the exodus of steel companies or auto manufacturers that left workers reeling in industrial Midwestern states. So I do think if you see a big divergence between the type of results

that come out in the Sunbelt States, Nevada in particular, versus those quote unquote blue wall states in the industrial Midwest, I do think housing is gonna be a big part of that story. - I love that story, super interesting. A couple of takeaways. Number one is actually inside the story they court and talk.

about people who are specifically pissed off in Vegas about California implants. And it made me think about this kind of blue influx theory and whether the, you know, people are like, oh, these states are all going to turn blue, but they could actually have like an interesting net effect where you have a blue voter come in, but that makes people really hate them and get

angry and then vote Republican. And if you think about it, it's actually a real like elite versus non-elite dynamic where you have people who are predominantly at least a lot more rich than the average citizen in Nevada, Texas, wherever coming in, driving up housing prices. And then those people feel a lot of the displacement, the anger, and they could very much respond in the

same way that the blue wall voters did whenever they voted against Democrats on NAFTA, on trade policy, immigration, etc. I actually really could see a similar dynamic there. What would probably change things is you still have enough traditional blue voters and others

Who could offset that. But the tension means that it's a real class dynamic that comes down to the most fundamental question of housing. I also found the trouble for Harris here was when voters were presented by this New York Times reporter about Harris's housing proposal. There's a deep cynicism where they're like, I don't think any of that's going to happen. I mean, and look, are they wrong? Especially if there's a divided government. I'm going to do a whole monologue about this.

You need an act of Congress to have that. What do you think is going to, the U.S. Senate full of Republicans is going to pass that? No, it's not going to happen, right? The best you can hope for is some Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, whatever, like loosening of regulations and maybe some stuff through the Housing and Urban Development Agency. But that's about it.

Right. Yeah. I mean, listen, if we're if we're comparing just the policy landscape, Harris has talked about real page. The Biden administration is going after real page, which is the cartel that has helped to spike rents in places like Las Vegas and other places around the country. She has talked a lot about this plan to help people with that down payment, which has become a major.

major stumbling block for people who don't have intergenerational wealth to be able to go to mommy and daddy and be like, hey, help me with my down payment. So she does have specific plans, but

But I think the deeper problem for her is just like people are unhappy now with how things are and the Democrats are in power. Like it doesn't go deeper than that. And, you know, I guess the flip side of this is we did just look at polling that says that voters in general trust her more on housing and the.

type of working class voter that you have overwhelmingly in Las Vegas and in Nevada in general tends to be the service sector workers who that's like the, as Matt Karp called them, the quote unquote, like democratic working class versus the like industrial manufacturing hard hat type of, um, of workers, which is why Nevada has, um,

stayed in the Democratic camp for all these years, even as a lot of the working class has realigned. So those would be some of the things that they're hopeful about. But when you think about housing and how much the escalating prices have squeezed people, there is maybe no place in the country that has been harder hit than Las Vegas. Because they, I don't know if you guys remember, after the Great Recession,

massive housing bust there, just utter devastation. Then you had all of this permanent capital come in and buy up a bunch of these homes, turn them into rentals, jack up the prices. Then you had the brutal

hit that they took in particular during the pandemic, which meant that people's incomes were lower than they were before. Many of those people feel like they really never recovered from the hit the service sector took during the pandemic. So you have a lot of economic turmoil concentrated specifically in this state. And again, you know, you could talk about like and you

And they did interview someone here who was like struggling with all of these things, but was like, I think Kamala is the person that would be better positioned to turn these things around. So I'm sure that sentiment does exist among some. But if you've been dealt a rough hand over these past four years and it was Democrats in charge, you can see how that's a compelling argument on the Trump campaign side. It gets to people, you know, when people are like, well, Kamala, people trust Kamala more in housing. Very few people are like, I'm going to the ballot box because my house is too expensive. They're like,

well, housing makes me pissed off and I'm pissed off. And that makes me distrust the party in power. Right. So they don't think directly in terms of that. And that is, you know, that's really comes down to the whole like vibe conversation. I do understand it. I really do, you know, for in terms of the frustration, especially in Nevada and in North Carolina too. We've talked here about Asheville and the explosion there, but you know, I always say Raleigh and Charlotte are

Two of the most booming cities in the United States. Atlanta, you know, Georgia today is a battleground. Atlanta, the amount of influx they've had from New York and from a lot of the East Coast is astounding in terms of the population change in Georgia. In the entire Sunbelt, you know, Florida included. We're talking about some of the biggest internal migration since World War II that we've seen. So these places have changed dramatically in the last five years. Where I'm from, Texas, you don't even recognize it. Austin in particular.

So, you know, there's almost like a reverse dynamic in the Montana Senate race, which is John Tester is the Democratic incumbent and the most endangered Democratic incumbent. Most of the polls seem to indicate like he's not going to hang out, but you never know. His opponent, what's his name? Tim Sheehy? Yeah, Sheehy. Is his first name Tim? I'm making that up. Anyway, Sheehy. Yeah.

He got caught. We talked about this before. This has been on the record before. He claimed he had sustained like a war wound and been like shot in battle in Afghanistan, I think. And it turns out he shot himself accidentally in a national park. I didn't know. Which we know because they had to file an incident report because you're not allowed to discharge a firearm in a national park. And.

And the park ranger just came out and went on the record to be like, yeah, I was there. This is what happened. Like he did not, he was not wounded in battle. He shot himself when he was in a national park. So anyway, you never know what's going to happen in that race is the bottom line. But to get back to my original point about housing, Montana has seen. Oh, huge. They call it Boz Angeles or whatever. Huge influx.

But it's largely conservatives who have moved into the state. And Sheehy is one of those people who was part of the influx into the state. Now, of course, he frames this as like, listen, I wish I was born in Montana because I love Montana. But, you know, I'm a business owner and I'm creating jobs in the state, blah, blah, blah. And Tester is who's

you know, long time born and raised. He's a farmer. He's a big boy. He's got, you know, several fingers that he lost in like a farming accident. You know, he's legit. He's a legit Montana, which is why he's able to hang on to the state as long as he has. He's making the case of like these outsiders, like people who are from Montana really understand Montana. Like they trust me. And that's why, you know, I'm going to represent your interests. And he represents all these people who are coming in and changing your way of life. So it's kind of an interesting, like reverse dynamic going on there in that state. Yeah.

By the way, I love Montana, too. It's one of the only states I've never been to. Oh, my God, God. I would like to go. It's on my list. It's stunningly beautiful. It is, natural beauty-wise, it's all up there with California. They have so many incredible national parks. I highly recommend it. But don't shoot yourself at one of those. Sure. And the people there, though, I think they make it known. They're like, stop coming here from California. They're like, we're sick of you. And they only have like a million people who live there. It's amazing.

there. Yeah, but it's like, it's like, because a lot of the people who transplanted there are like right wing Californians who are disgusted with the like liberal direction of this. I mean, if I were them too, I'd be mad. You know, you live in this pristine wilderness and such great. And you have all these rich people who come in and buy all the land. I know there's a lot of beef between like private landowners and hunters because it's long time been like a big

- Well, the housing cost is huge too. - Which I understand. Yeah, no, exactly. And actually, if you look at the most desirable places in Montana, it has some of the most expensive real estate in the entire country, for those of you who also like to troll Zillow and Dreamboat.

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All right, let's go and move on to this story that we just wanted to put on your radar because there are new charges that just dropped against three individuals associated with Abercrombie and Fitch. But the former CEO in particular, Michael Jeffries, has been charged along with his longtime partner, Matthew Smith, and their sort of enabler, James Jacobson. Let's go and put this up on the screen from the Department of Justice.

They say in the headline, former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch and two others charged with sex trafficking and interstate prostitution. Let me tell you, the details here are as horrifying as you can imagine. I'm going to summarize, but effectively, the allegations are that over decades—

These three ran a sex trafficking ring where effectively they would lure in these young, aspiring male models.

and promised them jobs with modeling with Abercrombie and Fitch, which is a big deal for a model who's struggling and trying to make it. But they would hold out to them that in order to have all of these career prospects, they would need to engage in a variety of sex acts, even

Even beyond that, they would threaten them with ruining their career if they didn't comply. They required all of them to sign nondisclosure agreements so that they felt like they couldn't possibly come forward saying anything.

According to the indictment on more than one occasion when men did not or could not consent these men violated their bodily integrity by subjecting them or continuing to subject them to invasive sexual and violent contact by body parts and other objects Some of the other details here are I mean, it's just it's exactly what you imagine Yeah, these young men who are desperate who are trying to make it who are often financially incredibly stressed and

This is the, they think this is like the make or break moment for them. And the first person they meet is this guy, Jacobson, who apparently, and a number of the men in a BBC investigation told a very similar story. Their first meeting would be with him and he would coerce them into oral sex. And they would think, okay, well, that was horrible, but that's probably like, it's probably just this one creep. And I got past that. Now I have my opportunity to meet with the CEO.

This is going to be where my, you know, modeling aspirations come to fruition. And then they go to one of these events and it's even what they're subjected to and forced into is even worse. And, you know, Saga is an iconic brand, iconic brand. And we've been hearing some, you know, like rumors about what was really going on there. Because I don't know, I'm obviously I'm significantly older than Saga. I remember when like the catalog would come out for Abercrombie & Fitch. And even at the time you'd be looking at it and you're like,

These people are not even wearing clothes like this, all like naked men. What's going on here? How are they even? And that was their whole thing. And obviously, from a financial perspective, they made a huge impact on the culture. There were a lot of allegations already about discrimination in terms of basically they wanted a specific like white preppy look.

even for their sales associates in the stores, if you were black or brown or Muslim and wearing a headscarf, that was not allowed at all. You weren't allowed to have dreadlocks. They were very particular about and discriminatory in wanting this very specific look. But obviously the allegations here go far beyond that.

what we had learned specifically from this Abercrombie and Fitch documentary that came out previously. The documentary gave a lot of this stuff away. And you read from some of the indictment. We have it there. You should go read it for yourself. It is horrifying. And honestly, the only thing I'm surprised is that

It took a long time. And I do think it's important because what it does is it highlights like so much of the, you know, there's a lot of nostalgia these days for the old days and like, oh, things were better in the 90s and the 2000s. By and large, I do mostly agree with that. But there was a dark side to the culture and to all of it. We actually have some of the testimony from some of these people. Let's go ahead and play D3, please.

You know that you're getting close. Winter hit with the smell of Abercrombie. The nightclub beats and bare-chested guys. It was such a pop culture phenomenon. It was an all-American look. I think he's a deviant. I think he's a predator. And I don't think that's what the public has seen. I was overwhelmed. Like, I mean, I've never seen anything like this. What I'd like to talk about is being lied to, tricked, and traded like a commodity. Hey! Ho, ho!

MeToo has empowered women to speak out about sexual abuse. Now these men say they want to be heard too.

I think it's rarely considered that men could be a victim of anything. They face a double stigma, and I don't think that men have quite had their Me Too movement. So you can see, you know, in terms of the testimony, it was terrible in terms of the way that they were treated, and there was definitely a lot of different way of discussion. I'm sure everybody's been seeing on Netflix, there's this has all come to light again from the

Menendez case, you know, and all the discussion around sexual assault and how it involves men and the way that cultural attitudes have shifted and changed around them. Because it does say something that this wasn't even taken seriously or investigated or thought about at the time. And I mean, this was just the 2000s or 1990s. They were obviously tried in the 1980s. So it is certainly it's it's really sad.

And what it does show us too was the way that they got away with that for so long inside of the industry and it was such an open secret. We were talking about Diddy yesterday. We talked about Weinstein. And I think that's the part that really gets me is about how open of the knowledge is and it's still allowed to perpetuate. And worse, there's just more victims. These are 18, 19-year-old guys and you don't even read some of the awful stuff that they also had to go through. They were getting forcibly injected.

you know, at some point. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. One who was interviewed, we can put this BBC investigation up on the screen, said the experience, I think it broke me. I think this stole any ounce of innocence I had left. It mentally messed me up. But with the language I now have today, I can sit here and tell you I was taken advantage of. And I think even today, yeah, it takes a lot of courage to come forward against, especially, I think, as a man and say, you know, I was raped. I was assaulted. I was taken advantage of. And I

I was thinking the same as you, Sagar. Diddy ran this criminal enterprise where similar levels of threats, coercion, similar promises of like, hey, baby, this is going to make your career. My friend Toray reported on R&B singer Cassie, who was in that horrible video being beaten and dragged in a hotel hallway. He put on ice.

her album for like a decade just to sort of string her along of like, oh, you know, of course it's coming. Of course it's going to be great. And stole from her so much. Obviously, you know, the abuse is horrifying, but also he stole from her the prime years of her career. And you see a similar dynamic here where you've got these three men

who are saying to these young guys, like, I hold the keys to the kingdom and just do what I want you to do and it's all going to be fine. And using that position of power to enable decades and decades of abuse. Very similar thing with Harvey Weinstein, right? Very similar thing where, you know, yeah, the casting couch, right? You come in, you do what I want you to do, and I'm going to put you in a movie. And if you don't, by the way, I'm going to ruin your life

And I have the level of power that can make that happen. Also say, did you watch the Nickelodeon documentary? - Oh yeah, I will some of it. - They didn't.

They alluded to, and there were some specific things that happened there in terms of like sexual abuse of these kids. But again, it's like, hey, this is kid central. Your kid is going to be a star. They're going to be famous. Your family's going to be fine using that position of power. And it also reminded me, of course, of Jeffrey Epstein, who part of how he would lure in young girls is through his association with Les Wexner, who was with Victoria's Secret. And he held himself out as

I'm a modeling agent and, you know, I'm scouting these girls. And that was part of how they recruited. The modeling industry just seems to be an absolute cesspool. But so many of these industries where you have a massive disparity between the power of the people at the top and the aspirants who want to get who are so desperate to get in this industry, so desperate to make it, et cetera. It just makes it rife, rife for abuse. And that's really the portrait that emerges here. Certainly.

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Get up to 58% off your first year at Norton.com slash secure. That's Norton.com slash secure. We wanted to highlight for you some of the latest horrors coming out of the Middle East. So this was actually a video that was highlighted by Congressman Thomas Massa. We could put this up on the screen. This is an apartment building being just completely demolished by Israel in Beirut, in Lebanon. And

And Massey said, along with this video, who's a Republican, he's like the only Republican who's said anything reasonable on this conflict, in my view, in terms of elected officials, quote, if Israel insists on destroying civilian targets in Lebanon, let them buy and build their own weapons. American taxpayers should not be funding this. So this is not in Gaza. This is in Lebanon, in a major city where they are just fighting.

utterly destroying a massive apartment building there. At the same time, you know,

The IDF had put out this propaganda video we talked about before, which alleged that Hezbollah had a bunch of their financial assets that were hidden under a hospital. It's very eerily reminiscent of some of the propaganda videos that they had put out in advance of attacking hospitals in Gaza. So we were all, well, here we go again. This is just their attempt to justify yet another assault on another country's medical system.

But one thing that's different in Lebanon, unlike Gaza, is that you have access. Journalists have access to be able to actually go to the hospital and look around and say, OK, well, is it true what they're saying? And TLDR, no, it was a total and complete lie. Here is the BBC underneath said hospital where supposedly the evil lair existed, finding absolutely nothing. Let's take a look at that.

Well, we're on level minus two in the Al Sahel Hospital. The area just behind me is where medical waste is stored. Even that was opened up for us to have a look. The morgue was opened up. All of the drawers were opened to show us there was nothing inside. Doctors have been opening piles of surgical scrubs, boxes of equipment,

very, very keen to show us everything there is to see and to prove that there is nothing here. Well, I'm just coming now from the basement on minus two up to minus one. We've been brought around the hospital by doctors. We've also been allowed to move around on our own.

Doors have been opened for us in every area, cupboards. We've been allowed to see what there is to see. Now, the hospital staff are adamant that there is no hidden bunker here containing millions of dollars of cash or gold, as the Israelis have claimed. They say this is just a hospital where patients were being treated last night.

and where they had to be evacuated from the emergency area at great speed because doctors were worried for the lives of the patients and also worried for the staff. So in addition to obviously the significance of just exposing this was

Not shockingly, a total and complete fabrication and lie. I think Zagreb also shows something that Israel has known because they have launched an all out assault on journalists and journalism since the, you know, post October 7th and many would say even before. It really matters to have journalists have access to the war zone to be able to adjudicate like, OK, they're saying this. Let's go check it out. And in Gaza, access has been almost completely closed off.

Any sort of Western outlet that wants to go in has to abide by all of the IDF's rules. Censorship, yeah. They have to be invited in, yeah. They have to be subject to that censorship. They get taken on basically like a guided tour of the things the IDF wants them to see. And the only outfit that, outsider outfit that has been able to have any access is Al Jazeera, which Israel has accused of being Hamas, has stripped their broadcast licenses.

seized their equipment and raided their office and shut them down. And I think this little piece of journalism from the BBC exposes why they have seen that journalism as such a threat to their

to the project of annihilation that they're engaged in. The journalism piece is really important and that's actually, it's funny because didn't the idea, they were like, go look at it for yourself and then they did and they're like, well, that's kind of an issue for you. I mean, part of the issue is also that even though they have the access that our outlets are still not going there. It's coming from the BBC. Right. But I haven't seen any of

I mean, I get it. We're 12 days from election. You know, there's a lot. But it is important if you're going to check these. Yeah, absolutely. And to the point about the all out assault on journalism, their latest effort, the Israelis latest effort, we can put E4 up on the screen. They've accused these six Al Jazeera journalists of being Hamas terrorists.

Put E5 up on the screen. Of course, Al Jazeera strenuously denies this. And this comes in the context of, you know, I don't even know how many journalists they've killed in Gaza at this point. As I said, Al Jazeera says this was fabricated evidence. As I said before, you know, Al Jazeera, they're really the only

outlet that has been able to operate. So they're the only ones who have been able to go into hospitals, to go to the site of these massacres, to really report on the ground what is happening. And a number of their reporters have already been killed.

by Israel in the context of trying to report on this war. So New York Times writes, the channel's correspondents are some of the few remaining reporters on the ground in Gaza to document the devastating impact of Israel's operations there. Israel has largely barred the international press. Again, this is from the New York Times, from entering the enclave except

on closely monitored tours accompanied by the Israeli military. Al Jazeera called the accusations a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide. And I would just say, listen, obviously, I think these charges are total and complete bullshit, completely made up. They've offered, they made up the whole UNRWA, these are terrorist thing. They never provided the evidence that they said that we're gonna back up

those claims that there is no reason whatsoever to take the Israeli government at face value with this. But I would also say, hey, if you don't like these journalists, open it up so that any outlet can go in and report. If it's going to be so validating to you of what a moral army you are and how great the situation is on the ground, why don't you let in more journalists to be able to actually report on the war and your efforts as it exists? Yeah, that's a good point.

Can we go to the next part? You found this, I found it so interesting about the realignment that's currently happening. Iran is saying that it's planning to hold its first joint military drills with Saudis in the Red Sea. And this really goes counter to the entire theory of the Middle East that the Trump administration had going into the Abraham Accords, which was to consolidate the Emirates and the Gulf powers against Iran, but through normalization of relations.

with Israel, but what's happened instead is that now the Palestinian question has been forced so much to the front, especially with the Arab populations, that they're finding themselves aligned against Israel and obviously also against the United States, which is this predominant backer. So the first time here. I mean, to see two

armies do first military drills. Somebody showed me this. The Ayatollah, when he died in his last will and testament, included this whole thing about how the house of Saud was evil and how there needs to be regime change. I mean, these were, you know, blood, this is a true blood feud, not to mention the entire religious dynamic of Sunni and Shia. So to see this happening is absolutely extraordinary. And it's one of those where, you know, look, the entire region is really aligning against us. And

And you should ask yourself for what? You know, this isn't even for Iraq war. This is for a conflict that we're not even in, but we're funding the entire thing and it's causing a huge amount of blowback. So I think we are going to pay for it sometime. Yeah. No, this is literally the first time this has ever happened. And it should also go not go unnoted that this was a deal brokered by China.

So, you know, as the region is aligning around the Palestinian question against us and Israel, it's, you know, China that is serving the role as diplomats and peacemakers amongst these longtime enemies. So definitely extraordinary development worth keeping an eye on. At the same time, we can put this up on the screen. You had

I mean, this is just too perfect. So you had Tony Blinken questioning Bibi Netanyahu about this quote unquote General's plan, which is basically we're going to seal off northern Gaza. We're going to starve everybody that's inside and we're just going to assume that they're all Hamas militants. Blinken

questioned Netanyahu about this, U.S. officials told Bibi there is a perception that Israel is pursuing a strategy of isolating the north, telling people that if they don't leave, they're effectively targets and denying food to go in. Bibi and his top aide, Ron Dermer, responded that this was absolutely not our policy. And the fact that this perception exists has been deeply damaging to us. U.S. officials then said, okay, so why don't you go out and say that publicly? Uh,

But the Israelis refused to make such a commitment, which, you know, it just shows you behind closed doors. Oh, of course not. We would never do that. We can all see the reports that are coming out that they are literally executing exactly what is described in the general's plan. And so privately, they'll reassure us. No, no, we're not doing that whatsoever. Of course not. We would never do that. OK, fine. We'll go out and say that publicly.

Yeah, not going to do that because number one, we actually – that is actually our plan. And number two, we – this is popular with our political base in particular. And so, no, we're not going to go out and tell our political base that we're not doing the thing that they want us to do, you know, just to – as –

An indication of the reality of this plan being implemented in northern Gaza, we can put this scene up on the screen. This is a bread line, people desperately, desperately scrapping to try to get a loaf of bread, such as the level of desperation that has taken hold throughout Gaza. But in northern Gaza in particular, where now I just saw this morning,

Even the Israelis are acknowledging that no food aid, no aid entered northern Gaza for weeks in early October. They are acknowledging basically that they have blocked aid, something that our administration has pretended to not be able to figure out whether or not they're doing. We also know that there's been, we played for you on the last show, the forced

You might call it a death march, evacuation of northern Gaza. Once again, we also know that some of the people who have tried to evacuate northern Gaza have been shot at and at times killed. So, you know, this is the reality of the policy that our government is funding and supporting and pretending to have no idea what's going on.

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Get up to 58% off your first year at Norton.com slash secure. That's Norton.com slash secure. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? One of the weird parts about doing this job is every once in a while, someone will come up to me and ask, how should I vote? I usually answer it in the same way. Well, what do you care the most about? Sometimes the answer is staying out of war. Sometimes it's the rich person. They say, I don't want to pay any taxes. Sometimes it's the service worker who wants health care. Based on that, I interrogate it a bit more and I go,

well, what can you live with? What can't you? What are the best chance of actually happening that you do care about? It's a very useful exercise. I noticed a lot of people don't actually do it. For example, we recently played a clip of someone asking Trump how he was going to improve the quality of his kids' school in New York City. Now, I understand it was probably bigger than that, but many people just appear not to know about 95% of that control is state and local. Or you're going to see other voters, quote, on the cost of groceries with a very vague understanding. How can the president even affect

that. So I thought I would do a monologue here about my theories of the American presidency, the varying degrees of things that actually they control. Let's start with arguably the most important issue, least often considered, war and peace. The president as commander in chief has near absolute power to decide the fate of our nation through his or her conduct of foreign policy.

While they cannot declare war, the imperial presidency has evolved since the time of LBJ and George W. Bush gives them the authority to launch literal missile strikes on foreign nations even without a declared war by Congress. When Trump says it is okay, for example, for Israel to launch missile strikes,

on Iranian nuclear facilities, or Kamala says Ukrainian victory is a necessity for US security, you should very clearly understand their 100% ability to follow through and directly impact your life. Now, outside of foreign policy, it's very different, especially on the economy.

We can divide economic impact of the presidency into two areas, those that require agencies and those that require legislation. Most of the high-profile things that you hear from Trump and from Kamala, like no tax on tips or housing subsidies, would not be something they can do on their own. It would require Congress, which we will return to. In reality, especially if there is a divided government, you should look to agency power.

This is where both can have tremendous impact. For example, through the EPA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the FTC, as we've seen under Lena Kahn, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, they make rulings that massively impact the U.S. economy. But ultimately,

only within the scope of defined responsibility. Ironically, their power has actually been lessened for both presidents, especially Trump, after the repeal of the Chevron Doctrine by the Supreme Court. But nonetheless, through agency power, they can affect the price of oil, whether new things get approved for building, perhaps most importantly, tariffs within a very defined scope. It would take Congress for Trump or Kamala to have an across-the-board tariff as he's proposed. But

A Commerce Department under national security designations can implement some tariff to the tune of hundreds of billions on select items without congressional input. But I want to point out there are still some major limits to this. Back in the Trump years when I covered the White House, he tried very different things to try and divert from, from the Pentagon to build the border wall. It had huge legal hurdles it had to jump through. In the end, it mostly just didn't work. At one point, it set up a showdown between Trump and Congress that he ended up losing to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

Now on the congressional front, it's actually pretty simple. The likelihood of some major flagship items touted by Trump and Kamala have very little chance of passage. If Kamala actually did win, she would almost certainly have at least one chamber of Congress that was Republican, meaning that when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires in 2025, what they would have a say over, what replaces it. From Democrats that I've spoken to,

The bargain that will most likely happen is this: Republicans would get an extension of corporate and income tax bracket reductions, while Democrats would get some version of a child tax credit. That in and of itself, of course, would be a big bargain. But most of the rest of her so-called plan is probably just dead on arrival. For Trump, even if he had united government, I do not see a world where a majority of the Republicans would back no tax on tips and certainly not no tax on Social Security benefits.

In all likelihood, what would pass is an extension of the tax cuts from 2017, in addition to probably some big business-friendly tax cuts and perhaps some deficit offset by repealing environmental tax credits passed by the Biden administration. So if you are majorly affected by any of those policies and they're the most important for you, you need to very heavily consider that when you're voting.

Turning to immigration, this is another area where the president both has major control and is also very limited. Now, as we saw under Biden, interpretation of executive authority can allow literally millions of illegals to come into the country. At the same time, under Trump, we saw very similar problems with border crossings, and it was only quelled by a remain in Mexico, which did not address the underlying problem of asylum law and processing issues that Border Patrol had.

The only way I see the immigration question majorly affected under Trump or Kamala is, again, with congressional action of literally rewriting laws, which can only happen with the United Government. Otherwise, when it's divided, the likelihood of a grand compromise is very low because of a theory called thermostatic public opinion. This theory basically says that when the left is in power, the country moves right. When the right is in power, the country moves left.

In other words, on immigration, you should understand the likelihood of what you were voting for is interpretation of today's immigration laws, not some pie in the sky vision that people are selling you. And finally, and potentially the biggest impact outside of war, the president has control over is the Supreme Court. Trump, of course, appointed three justices on the U.S. Supreme Court while he was in office. If he were to assume office again, it is a safe bet Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would resign, giving the conservatives a decades-long solid majority on the

court. This would have impacts of interpretations from law and social to economic. Conversely, if Kamala won, the actuarial tables tell us she'll probably have at least one appointment, right? And thus could change the makeup of the court in the long run. It's not a sexy thing to think about, but the impact is gigantic and it is worth considering both of these if you are going to vote. So I will end with this general heuristic of whatever issue that you care about.

Be real with yourself. Ask yourself, does the president actually have the ability to control this? And then what judgment you think that they would use for it. If they can't control it, ask yourself what the likelihood of what you want happening will get through Congress. Yeah, I know it's depressing, but it's better. You should be clear-eyed about what you're voting for rather than to vote and then get disappointed.

Finally, I'll just say this. It doesn't have to be this way. My favorite presidents are those who have transcended the dynamic I just laid out. They actually forced Washington and the country to really move with them. FDR is one of the best presidents specifically because he harnessed the power of the executive and public popularity to force Congress to radically shift America's relationship.

with government. Teddy Roosevelt was the very first to do so. He took a job that mostly only had power over foreign affairs and war and turned himself into a real public advocate, changed the country forever. LBJ inherited a job that, again, it was stuck almost entirely in the realm of just the Cold War. Use the force of power and expertise to push through massive social legislation that had not been seen in 100 years. In both cases, I'm sorry to tell you, I don't see much of that on the ballot today. My expectations are set very much accordingly.

I hope this helps you if you're considering how to vote. I do hope that you will still participate because if you don't, the likelihood of things getting even better, they're still not that high. So there you go, Crystal. That's my heuristic. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at BreakingPoints.com.

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