The Jackpod: Where the roads lead
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I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, and this is The JackPod, where On Point news analyst Jack Beattie helps us connect history, literature, and politics in a way that brings his unique clarity to the world we live in now. Hello there, Jack. Hello, Meghna. We are at episode 69, and your headline? Where the roads lead. Where the roads lead, and where do they lead, Jack?

Well, to hear Nancy Pelosi tell it, quote, with him, all roads lead to Putin. I don't think there's any question who the him is, but in case, she's speaking of the president. She was speaking in June of 2020 when the New York Times in a bombshell story said that our intelligence people thought the Russians were paying attention

$200,000 bounties to Taliban members who killed American soldiers. And Trump had not at that point reacted to this rather stunning news.

And she said, this is a new low. I can't understand it. What do they have on him? What personally? What financially? What politically? What can explain how a president of the United States would not go ballistic with

over the news. And it was unclear that this was so. And since then, the intelligence people have put it on, you know, moderately possible, but it's not by any means proven. But anyway, there was the big headline. And instead of Trump saying, my God, how could this be? He apparently said nothing. So with him, all roads lead to Putin. And, you know, that's been much in our minds, the world's minds, really, since the

dramatically since last week's imbroglio, mugging really, of Zelensky in the Oval Office. And where both the president and the vice president, according to numerous sources, were speaking Russian talking points to Zelensky. They were actually regurgitating things Russian propaganda emphasizes.

And it was a moment of shocking, as people say, but not surprising when it comes to Trump. And in all the comment that this has drawn, I've been struck by just two comments from European sources. One is from Lech Walesa, the Nobel Prize winning Polish journalist.

well, labor leader first, and who led the challenge as the leader of Solidarity Union to Russian communist control of Poland. So it was kind of a culture hero in Eastern Europe. Anyway, along with 20 other people who had been political prisoners in Poland,

He said it was horrible and disgusting what Trump and Vance did. And he said, the atmosphere in the Oval Office reminded us of that which we remember well from interrogation by Poland's communist secret police. The prosecutors and the judges working on behalf of the omnipotent party political party.

police also told us that they held all the cards and we none. And of course, Trump, you know,

scolded, yelled at Zelensky, you don't have any cards. So he's picking up exactly on what that moment was like. So there's someone who'd been a political prisoner likening what happened there to the kind of grilling

political prisoners received in Poland by the Communist Party, Opraczec. Wow. And this is from a French senator, Claude Mallorot. And he says, Washington has become Nero's court with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a jester high on ketamine.

We were all set with a dictator. We are now at war with a dictator backed by a traitor. He's speaking of Trump. However, if he's a traitor, a traitor certainly to NATO, it appears, technically can't be a traitor to the United States since we're not at war. Far from it.

You know, I think there was a criticism that I read of the media, Jack, where this person was, this was on Twitter of all places, but was kind of outraged that, you know,

in talking about what happened in the Oval Office, that not enough members of the media were also reminding folks that in terms of the way in which Donald Trump, President Trump, has treated Ukraine has actually been unfortunately consistent because that was why he got impeached the first time.

around, right, for trying to extort Zelensky into digging up dirt about Joe Biden in exchange for U.S. weapons to support the Ukrainian army. And the only reason why I point that out is that all of the evidence, to your point about where the roads are leading, has been around for a long time. It just seems that right now...

No one's even trying to hide it anymore, right? Like just in the past, what, week, couple of weeks or since the beginning of this administration, it seems like almost every day there's yet another example of

Yes, and Politico, they chart 29 times Trump has sided with Putin just in his first month in office, 29 times. And the 29th time is Trump flirting with the idea of changing the Constitution so he can have a third term, which is what Vladimir Putin did in Russia.

So that's number 29 on their list. In addition, over the last couple of weeks, Rachel Maddow on her show said,

has simply highlighted headline after headline and then given context about connections, about sort of the back roads that are leading to Putin taken by administration officials, not necessarily Trump. And Axios has its own list of these. I can't by any means do all of them, but here's just a flavor of this article

capitulation, more than that, this almost serving Putin, the Justice Department has limited the enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Now, this was a way that people found to be working for Russia could be prosecuted and there was some deterrent effect to it.

They've limited that. They've disbanded the task force to fight foreign interference in elections. Sort of saying, bring it on, it would seem, to Putin for the next election.

And they have closed the Justice Department's klepto-capture unit, which was trying to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs. And we've shut it down. And, of course, the shutdown of USAID, this was a scourge in Putin's side. I mean, there's a headline from the Moscow Times saying, you know,

Putin, you know, delighted that USAID has gone away. He drove it out of the country in 2012 because he

It was aiding democracy groups there and trying to, you know, kind of a Trojan horse within Russia. And so out with them. And so he's wanted to get rid of them for a long time. Apparently, so does President Trump. The Defense Department, of course, we know now they've stopped sending weapons, weapons that have already been in the pipeline and just stopped sending.

to Ukraine. And we know that they have stopped sharing intelligence, that was just yesterday or earlier, with Ukraine. We have sided with Russia

and of course North Korea and Belarus on a UN resolution condemning on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion. And we earlier objected to a communique from the G7

that spoke of "Russian aggression." We didn't want that. Trump didn't want that in the communique. There we are. There have been mass firings of the FBI counterintelligence capacity. Counterintelligence. The people charged with monitoring what Russia is trying to do to us. We have invited Russia to reopen its embassy in Washington and all of their consulates around the country.

And of course, we know that Hexeth has stopped offensive cyber operations against Russia. The Treasury Department has been asked to seek to remove the sanctions on Russia.

And, you know, the question is, all this has been done for Russia. Have we got anything? Well, there's a headline in the Daily Beast that says everything. Speaking of the three-hour meeting that the Trump envoy, Steve Witkoff, a former longtime real estate pal of Trump's, he had a three-hour meeting with Putin this week, I believe. And the headline in the Daily Beast read, Trump out.

can't name a single concession Russia will make in peace deal. So we've given away...

just about everything you could imagine. And he couldn't name a single concession they were willing to make for peace. Now, you could defend all that appeasement of Russia as a way to buy them off. You know, OK, we'll do all these things, but agree to give up some of that Ukrainian territory or whatever it might be. No, we're not asking anything.

Jack, I'm glad you mentioned that point, because for the sake of intellectual and journalistic rigor, let me ask you this. There is a substantial number of people, of President Trump's supporters, who see all of these actions that you so carefully laid out as...

Right.

It's a withering remnant of a war that supposedly is long past us now so that the only way for the United States to make itself safer is to have some kind of diplomatic relationship with Russia and not constantly be on this, you know, this edge of still, you know, mutually assured destruction. And to do that, you offer a carrot, you know, to Russia and therefore the United States becomes safe.

safer. This is something I actually have heard from people. And, you know, what would you think about that? Well, carrots, but Trump has really offered a farm. I mean, the whole, all the vegetables are going to Putin. And this is a different situation. I think that logic applies really in the first term. I mean, yes, the Russians had moved into Crimea in

But as even Trump himself pointed out, and I think rightly there are a great many Russian speakers in Crimea, not that the majority of people were happy about that, but these things, even there you could have imagined saying, okay, we're going to swallow hard and deal with this person nevertheless. But the aggression against Ukraine, unprovoked aggression, to let that stand...

And it would be to license really criminality in international relations from now on. It would be saying it's the war of all against all. There aren't any – there are no –

borders on sacrosanct and sending a message to China about Taiwan that couldn't be clearer. So any effort to help Putin now can only seem like the most abject appeasement. You know, of course, this leads to the question of why, right? Why all these things, especially when you point out things like, OK, why would we –

The U.S. government under Trump now disbanded the DOJ's klepto capture unit, right? Here's a unit that's designed to stop criminal activity from foreign oligarchs in the United States. What do we have to gain by ending that kind of law enforcement in this country? So do you, I mean, not just specifically that, but overall, Jack, what is your theory as to why?

Well, I don't have a theory. It puzzles me profoundly. But Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, he has a rough but resonant theory of what's going on. Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Murphy led with a shocking, as we keep saying, but not surprising judgment.

The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin. Every single day, you hear from the national security advisor, from the president of the United States, from his entire national security team, Kremlin talking points. For the last week, the White House has been pretending as if Ukraine started this war. That's essentially saying that Poland invaded Germany at the beginning of World War II. There are still facts in this war.

And the fact is this: Vladimir Putin is a brutal dictator. Russia started this war. And the entire pretext for that meeting yesterday was an attempt to rewrite history in order to sign a deal with Putin that hands Putin Ukraine. That is disastrous for U.S. national security. That means that China will be on the march. Putin may not stop. America may be at war with a nuclear power.

And for what? For what? OK, so that's Senator Murphy on CNN. And actually, Jack, I understand we have a little bit more of that because he has an answer to his own question. Donald Trump wants us to have our closest relationships with despots all around the world because that makes it easier for him to.

to transition America into a kleptocratic oligarchy where Elon Musk and Donald Trump rule and steal from the American people. If we were allied with democracies, that would be harder. But if the United States' closest partner is Russia, then it makes it a lot easier for Donald Trump, Elon, and their billionaire pals to steal from the American people, to steal our data, to steal our Medicare, to steal our Medicaid in order to enrich themselves.

Okay, Jack. So as you noted, that is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut on CNN. You know, can I just offer a quick thought here, Jack? Sure. Sure.

Because as I hear Senator Murphy describe his answer to the reason for what, I have to recommend to everyone listening to this podcast that they should read Anne Applebaum's book Autocracy, Inc. And we had her on the main On Point hour, too. So you can look in the podcast feed, look for Anne Applebaum. Because I think he describes it perfectly. What Applebaum writes is that

Half century ago or more, autocratic rulers, despotic rulers did have some fealty to at least an ideology, right?

And now she argues that they don't even have that. Their only fealty is to each other, right? To other autocrats, other strongmen, other oligarchs and their continual desire to amass power. And they take actions. They have their countries take actions to simply protect other oligarchs. I mean, or autocrats, I should say.

And that's their only ideological commonality is preservation of self-interest, of like-minded rulers. It sounds a little bit like that's what Senator Murphy is talking about. Yes. And interestingly, connecting it with our domestic politics and with what you could call the politics of oligarchy that connects.

Somehow, the turn toward autocracy abroad, the embrace of it, is a way of licensing it at home. And the purpose of it at home is to loot the American fisk, to essentially, as Musk seems to be doing, feather your own nest with fisk.

all the contracts you can get out of the government, cut hundreds of thousands of federal employees, give that money in tax cuts to the richest Americans, and on we go in a kind of war of all against all here, or at least of the few against the many. You know, there's a kind of coalition of the corrupt, if you will, a sort of peer group.

If our allies in this new world order that Trump seems to be building are going to be the sorts of countries that voted on that UN resolution, that would not, you voted against it because it condemned Russia, that would be North Korea, Belarus, Russia, Syria. And Trump seems to want to return to the sphere of influence, power politics,

of the 18th century, really, and the early 19th century, where the great powers just kind of carved up the world. You have your area, I have mine. And the signal to China on Taiwan could not be clearer. You know, Jack, when you talk about Donald Trump, and in a sense, perhaps returning to a great powers view of the world, just carving up the world, I do want to say that it's

The United States has been, in my mind, consistent in its sort of quasi-imperialist approach to foreign policy since forever. I mean, because I actually think I recall that, you know, when Putin first invaded Ukraine and there was an outcry from the United States that, you know, one of the comments was,

Coming from both Putin and from pro-Russia talking heads in this country was, well, the United States invaded Iraq. So, you know, we don't have a leg to stand on in terms of criticizing Russia. But, you know, on the other hand, hearkening back to the past, does it give us any sense as to what may come in the future, Jack? Yeah.

Well, it may. And, you know, there is the prophecy of Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America. He ends this magisterial chapter with this comparison of Russia and America. He said, this is 1835, there are at present two great nations in the world, which starting from different points in

but seem to tend to the same end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans." And then he goes on, a long paragraph to make a series of contrasts. I'll just go to how he ends. He says, "The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people.

The Russian centers all authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the American is freedom, of the latter servitude. Their starting point is different, yet both seem marked out by the will of heaven to sway the destiny of half the world. Well, folks,

Simply put, my question for you this week is, where do you think all roads with President Donald Trump lead? And what do you make of all the massive changes just in the past six weeks or so that the Trump administration has made regarding various aspects of U.S.-Russia policy? So that's what we want to know. So hop on your phones and go to the On Point Vox Pop app and let us know what you think. If you don't already have it,

You should go and get it. Search for On Point VoxPop in whatever store you get your apps at. And actually, I really hope you do, especially if you haven't been a contributor thus far, because maybe you'll be like Brian from Eugene, Oregon. I have listened to every episode of The Jackpot and wondered about when I would be moved to use the VoxPop app again.

and send you a comment. Jack, I'm dying to know what it is because I wasn't here when you and senior editor Dori Scheimer did an episode of The Jack Pod. So we've got to take a quick break and then you'll satisfy my curiosity on the other side of it. We'll be right back.

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OK, Jack, we are back. And as I mentioned for the last episode of the pod, you had the pleasure of speaking with senior editor Dori Scheimer. And you talked about what Democrats can do in the Trump administration to uphold democracy. And you referenced Timothy Snyder, the award winning Yale historian, because he had talked about that Democrats should have a kind of shadow cabinet. And you and Dori got a ton of responses from listeners who thought that suggestion is a good one.

I think Jack's idea of a shadow cabinet for the Democrats is an excellent idea. The idea of a shadow cabinet is a really fantastic one. Jack's idea of employing a shadow cabinet is a good one. If it worked in England, why couldn't it work here? We should have experts in areas like defense, fraud, waste and abuse.

particularly to verify the doge claims of things they've cut. It can't just be explaining what is happening. It has to offer an alternative that people could rally around. It is clear that the Democrats either have no knowledge of Dr. Snyder's brilliant idea, or they are totally ignoring it. I choose to believe the former.

OK, so that was Joe from Duluth, Minnesota, Violet in Unadilly, New York, Mark in Providence, Rhode Island and Constance in Cheshire, Connecticut. So, Jack, what do you think is stopping the Democrats?

Oh, gosh, I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, it is something, isn't it, that one of the things that they were proud of in the president gave the address to Congress the other night, one of the things the Democrats apparently were proud of was that they boycotted the escort committee.

That's the committee that escorts the president down the aisle. You usually have Democrats, Republicans all in the same. No, the Democrats said, we're going to boycott that. And that was their gesture. And literally nobody noticed. Right.

Nobody noticed. And, you know, and according to a new poll, 40 percent of people polled say the Democrats have no strategy. And another 24 percent say, yes, they do have a strategy and it's a bad one. So they need every possible suggestion. And I thought Tim Snyder's suggestion was just so practical, really.

And it gets to the issue of breaking the silo, the silo between the informed and the low information voter over whom Trump has such a cast such a spell. The way to break through that is to do something dramatic now.

And even theatrical. And maybe this is a way. I did think that Senator Slotkin of Michigan in her response, that showed a new kind of direct engagement with the voters. So maybe the Dems can learn from her. You don't think that the signs they held during that joint session was theatrical enough, Jack? Oh, gosh.

I'll leave it at that. Your oh gosh says everything. OK, so here, let's move on. This is Alan from Indiana. And here's his suggestion for Democrats. We need to stop loving Democrats and start loving America. That's what we need to tell the world. We are the party that loves our country more than our party. We've always been full of disagreements. Republicans, on the other hand, are the lockstep party. They love their party more than America.

This hyper-partisanship is really hard on the nation. We have to be the ones to stand up against that.

OK, so that was Allen in Indiana. And here is Austin Earl Derrick in Austin, Texas. And he says for Democrats to get off the mat, he believes they need to change their priorities and focus on big issues instead of small battles. The Republicans were able to tap into this dissatisfaction that Americans on both sides have about our government and how it functions. It's not a secret that a lot of people feel there is a lot of fraud, waste and abuse. The question is, how do we go about fixing it?

What Trump is doing right now is his attempt to fix it, but he'll more likely break things because he's not actually getting at the root of the problem, and he's bringing in his own form of corruption to boot.

If Democrats want to get off the mat, they'll need to pick a grand view policy that may take a long time to bear fruit, but will ultimately yield better small d democratic results for free and fair elections in the future. Oh, I think this is so good, Jack, because we didn't get here overnight with the radical transformation of the Republican Party. Right. I mean, this has been something that the party has been moving towards for 40, 50 years, right?

So Austin's call there about picking a grand view policy that may take a long time and sticking with it, I think is right on the money. Yeah, I think he's got something there. I mean, Trump is a master of that kind of communication. They're poisoning the blood of the country. Get rid of the immigrants. Get rid of the gangs. He just says it, says it, says it. And public opinion changes about immigration. He did that. His propaganda did that.

Democrats should do the same. And I think they're going to have an opening when Trump tries to renew the 2017 tax cuts. Those were a giveaway to the richest Americans. There were things in there, you know, for ordinary people, child allowance increase and so on. All of those are good things.

And I think the Democrats, Harris, if she had been elected, would have said, yeah, we're going to keep those things for the middle class and we're going to stop the giveaway to the rich. Trump wants more giveaways to the rich.

And my way of, you said it before, but I'll say it again, the crystallizing damning detail from that tax cut is that each of the Koch brothers, there were two then, there's only one now, each of them stood to gain a half a billion or more dollars more each year from that bill. There can be no justification for that.

of that massive giveaway to the oligarchy. And remember, we have Aristotle putting it very simply. Oligarchy is when the men of property have the government in their hands. Mm-hmm.

So, Jack, we started off this section of the pod with that chorus of voices of people who really agreed with the ideas you and Doria presented in the last episode. There were some people who did not. Here's Ethan Palmer in Arlington, Virginia. He's just not convinced that any of the strategies discussed are going to make a difference in changing the trajectory that the country is already on.

I think Jack raises some good points about what Democrats can be doing to win back control of the House and Senate.

The issue is that it won't matter. Trump is going to run roughshod over the House, Senate, and the country with his executive orders, and he has a compliant Supreme Court that will essentially go along with whatever he says. So at this point, Congress is useless and irrelevant, and winning back control of the House or Senate won't matter. Okay. What do you think, Jack? Oh, boy.

I mean, that's the danger. I mean, we just heard from Senator Murphy. He said, you know, we may not have democracy, may not have six months. And so it may be the change of the election in 20, if the House changes, it may be too late. It may be that we're already into what Steve Levinsky on writing in Foreign Affairs, you know, who wrote How Democracies Die, and

what he calls competitive autocracy, in which, like Hungary, there are elections, but the foreign interference in them, and we have just discovered, heard that the FBI has, I mean, yeah, the Justice Department has stopped their looking into foreign interference in our elections. It's not going to be our problem.

With massive interference in the election by the government and by foreign force agents, it may be the Democrats won't even won't be able to prevail against that at all. So that it may be too late and it may be too little.

Okay, I can't help it. My American optimism is raging right now, Jack. Because all due respect to Ethan, and I'm glad, Ethan, that you called in and shared this thought, but I, to me, that kind of fatalism does nothing but hasten the end.

I really get it, that it seems very, very dark and gloomy now. I don't deny that. But on the other hand, saying that winning back control over the House won't change a single thing, I disagree. Because that point of view carries with it the presumption that the desire and will of, let's say, 50.001% of the people, which is all that it would take,

It just doesn't matter. It's like those folks don't even exist. Well, that's not true. They do. And, you know, a couple of weeks ago, we did a conversation about the health of U.S. democracy, and we spoke with a long-term journalist and political scientist who studies democracies. And he said one of the main differences is, in terms of the U.S., is I will—

say the U.S. has moved towards autocracy, is that unlike other countries that have fallen very quickly into autocratic rule, the U.S. has a two and a half century long tradition of democracy. So people actually know what they stand to lose. And that is a big, big difference. And so I just, I don't know, I don't, I can't countenance that kind of fatalism and saying nothing will matter, Jack. Yeah.

I'm so glad you bring out that comparison. You know, democracy is our, that's our tradition. That's our, you know, and it's something, you know, what is that Lincoln line? Sooner or later, people will return to the better angels of their nature. Maybe it'll happen before then. On the other side, here's a new poll. Will Trump obey a court order, meaning the Supreme Court? 58% say no, he will not. Hmm.

Well, then, of course, the question is what happens next? But no, I'm not going to ask you to answer that one, Jack. I am not. I've already made you sigh at my questions one too many times in this episode. All right, let's go back to Brian Reed. He's in Eugene, Oregon. You heard him before saying he's listened to every single episode of the Jackpot.

And he hadn't contributed until now. And he says the question about your ideas, Jack, for what the Democrats could do to reverse their slump in the polls, that question is exactly something that he's been avoiding these days. Despite being a self-described political junkie, Brian says right now most political coverage just simply isn't helpful. I am not listening to many of the podcasts that I used to...

Because this is the content, it's speculation or outrage. I'm just keeping my head down, taking care of myself, my family, the people around me, and letting Washington and, you know, the effects of this campaign of arson that the Trump administration is so engaged in, I'm letting that just be out of sight, out of mind, except when I'm listening to the jackpot. Jack, what do you think?

Well, I'm so glad he makes an exception for us. And, you know, there's such sanity in that, isn't there? I mean, the world is too much with us. And my hero in English literature, Samuel Johnson, actually had a comment on this. He said, how small of all that human hearts endure, that part which laws or kings can cure cannot.

Still to ourselves in every place consigned, our own felicity we make or find. Amazing.

Jack, I blush to follow after a Samuel Johnson quotation, but there's one thing that Brian said that I just want to really encourage him and support him and give him a hear-hear on. And that is he's just taking care of himself and his family. And I fully believe...

That in the long run, we cast our votes when we want. We try to stay informed. But how we are raising the next generation of Americans is...

whether directly or indirectly, that is possibly the biggest difference that people can make right now. So I just wanted to say here, here to that, Brian. All right. Here is a couple more. You know, this section of the jackpot keeps getting longer and longer because there's so many good comments keep coming in. So this is Mel Berman from Madison, Wisconsin. And Mel says Democrats' problem is not their messaging. The reality is you need to tear down a wall.

And the wall is the ignorance and the bot-generated misinformation that people are just buried or trapped under. I don't know how you do that.

But it isn't the content of the message. It's the fact that it does not get heard at all by a large segment of the American population. So that was Mel in Wisconsin. There's one more kind of along those lines, actually. I heard that in the last episode, Jagu and Dory somehow –

failed in your duty to bring the pod to a conclusion with a note of American optimism, Jack. But there's at least one listener who is challenging me to find it today. And this is Sandra Reid in Swansea, Massachusetts. I feel we are in the situation of preaching to the choir. How many Trump supporters do you think are listening to this podcast or similar podcasts?

They get their information and news from Fox News, and we all know what they hear there. So I want Democrats to start talking and talking in plain English. Support every single sentence with actual examples.

So, Jack, I'm going to let you respond, but I do want to just say something to Sandra that I actually completely agree with both her and Mel about a massive part of the problem that we have now as a functioning democracy are the very narrow information silos and the manipulated media that people can sort of, you know, consume like a fire hose 24-7. It is endless high-octane propaganda for sure. And I...

That's a that that's a in sense, it's an old problem made new and worse by technology. And I don't know what the solution is to that. But to Sandra's point about encouraging Democrats or wanting Democrats to start speaking plainly and supporting their sentences with actual examples, I agree, too. But.

Somehow, even when they do it, it doesn't stick, right? You played that tape from Senator Murphy, and I think he was speaking pretty plainly and pretty factually, but it doesn't have the stickiness that the things that Donald Trump tends to say does, Jack. Right.

No, you're right. That's why I think some theatricality is necessary, some dramatic point. But this idea of their speaking plain English, you know, Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii has spoken to this. And he said, you know, he appraised Vice President Harris. She ran a good campaign. But he said she said things like this, quote, I'm going to center the concerns of the working class. And Schatz said, I don't know anyone in the world who

who says center, as in centering the needs or making space for, or all of that, it's a clear indication you are not normal, unless you're a member of some, you're in a faculty lounge. He's got such a point there. The language, I am going to center the concerns of the working class. No normal human being outside of a progressive society

you know, coffee clutch speaks that way. And the Democrats have got to purge

their language of this kind of these of this jargon which it just makes those the walls of the silo thicker and thicker well jackpot listeners i welcome your response to what jack said on that about uh about uh jargon but with that note jack i'm so glad to be back dory did a wonderful job thank you dory and it's always a pleasure to speak with you jack thanks so much

Thank you so much. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, and this is The Jackpot from On Point.