Insurrection indictments, human rights in the US and abroad, groundbreaking MS study and more

The episode opens cold, with the hosts ribbing Friedberg for sitting back with popcorn and chili-roasted pistachios to watch what they treat as a rematch, joined by the usual mock intro titles. The banter sets up a contentious top story they say they have tried to record several times.

The hosts argue over why the segment keeps getting scrapped, with one accusing another of a cavalier attitude and the other blaming the first for acting hysterical. The jostling continues until they finally agree to lay out the background. The exchange is personal sparring rather than analysis.

Sacks says he called January 6 a disgrace, an embarrassment and wrong, but accuses the other host of inflating it in classic Washington threat-inflation fashion. His first objection is that focusing on it takes the country's eye off issues he says Americans actually care about: inflation, the economy, COVID, crime and schools, rather than a riot from over a year earlier.

He predicts that if Democrats keep dwelling on it on MSNBC to the exclusion of those issues, they will be slaughtered in the midterms in a landslide, framing this as his own prediction. His second objection is that threat inflation justifies expanding surveillance and prosecutorial powers to pursue so-called domestic terrorism, which he argues will infringe on civil liberties much as the post-9/11 expansion did.

Sacks acknowledges the Oath Keepers should be prosecuted, calling the 11 at the rally a small number of knuckleheads, and jokes about their lack of credibility. He compares them to people he characterizes as domestic terrorists on the other side, and argues that while they are guilty of breaking into the Capitol and their leader said intemperate things, he does not think it amounted to a coup.

The other host responds that on the number-one tech podcast he does cover inflation, the economy and the rest, and that one can walk and chew gum. He then reads the news: the FBI arrested 11 members of the Oath Keepers on seditious-conspiracy charges, and the House committee subpoenaed Facebook, Google, Reddit and Twitter after insufficient responses on January 6. He describes the Oath Keepers as an organization claiming over 30,000 members, primarily in the military and police.

Sacks counters that if this was their moment to stage a coup, only 11 of the claimed 30,000 showed up. The host clarifies that 11 were indicted, not that only 11 were present, and says the count is not yet known. He adds that there is now proof of a coordinated attack, which Sacks disputes, saying that is not what he said and that the other host cannot rewrite the prior week's segment.

Amid repeated complaints about interruptions, the host reads from the Justice Department filing: while some Oath Keepers breached the Capitol grounds and buildings, others remained stationed outside the city in quick-reaction-force teams with weapons, having transported firearms into the area in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power. He notes, as his own aside, that law enforcement skews Republican.

He continues that some of the Oath Keepers' communication occurred on Signal, an encrypted app, and quotes messages he attributes to the group's leader Rhodes, including that they would not get through this without a civil war and that followers should prepare for a bloody and desperate fight. These are read as quotes from the filing.

Sacks reiterates that he sees January 6 primarily as a media story: a genuine disgrace and black eye for the country that he is not defending, but in his view a bunch of loudmouths in a riot rather than a super-organized effort to take over the government. He says if there was more planning, the court case will bear it out, and he has no desire to defend them.

He argues the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, with MSNBC running it all the time, and predicts again that if Democrats focus on it for the next ten months, including stories about whom Roger Stone was photographed with, the red wave in November will be even bigger because it is not what the average voter cares about. Another host agrees with that electoral read.

A host says MSNBC is focused on January 6 while Fox is focused on what he calls fake voter fraud, and that the hosts disagree with both extremes. Sacks pushes back on the voter-fraud framing, saying the person obsessed with voting right now is Biden, who gave an intemperate speech suggesting that opposing his voting-rights act puts one on the side of Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis.

A host argues Biden gave that speech partly to bolster an effort to change the filibuster in the Senate, playing a weak hand, and that his own party, in this case Kyrsten Sinema, said no. With Sinema and Manchin unwilling to amend the filibuster, the hosts call the bill dead on arrival, something they say they predicted after Build Back Better collapsed and the pivot to voting rights came to change the subject.

Sacks says there is something Biden could have done on a bipartisan basis: reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887. If one is worried about Trump's attempt to influence Pence to stop the counting of electors, he argues, the fix is that antiquated law, which has bipartisan support and backing from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Asked to explain it, a host says the Electoral Count Act governs how electors are counted and certified so an election is certified. He cites a David Brooks New York Times piece, shared by Chamath, arguing the problem is not the voting but the certification, and that social science suggests the convenience rules both parties fight over, like voter ID laws, do not much change turnout, so the real issue is certification of the electoral college.

Asked what he thought of Trump's plan, Sacks says Trump had a right to air his grievances in court, but once the courts threw out his claims and the Supreme Court denied cert, it was over, since the Supreme Court has the final word on legal matters. He states plainly that Pence never had the authority under the Electoral Count Act to reject the counting of electors, that the process is ceremonial, and that the plan was wrong.

The fact that it is even a question, Sacks argues, is reason to fix the 1887 act, and he believes Biden could have gotten 60 votes for that, calling it very doable. He adds Biden could also get votes to stop insider trading by members of Congress.

Sacks asks why Biden does not focus on things where he can actually get a bipartisan majority, citing the infrastructure bill with Republican support as his one big legislative success, which a host calls a pretty big win. Instead, Sacks says, Biden gives speeches casting anyone who disagrees with his voting-rights agenda as a Bull Connor figure.

A host says Biden's recent COVID remarks sounded incoherent and scary, and claims he is in cognitive decline. Another host says he voted for Biden to get Trump out, which he considered an existential risk, but that Biden is declining quickly. These are the hosts' own characterizations.

The hosts turn to an interview by CDC head Rochelle Walensky, asking why it took two years into the pandemic to state what they say was anecdotally known. They relay her saying that about 75% of COVID deaths were among people with at least four comorbidities. A host adds a caveat that this was one study and may have been a subset, such as vaccinated deaths, but that significant comorbidities among those who died was essentially the conclusion.

A host asks Friedberg whether, had the comorbidity data been known earlier, the response could have shifted to masking and mostly normal life while people with four comorbidities, the elderly or the immunocompromised stayed home, leaving the country in a very different place. He grants Jason's point that Biden's recent speeches sounded tight, and references a Quinnipiac poll.