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Speaker 2: Welcome to podcast two hundred and eighty seven for June fourth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Patrick Basham, founder of Democracy Institute, discusses
Speaker 2: their recent poll on whether Donald Trump is fixing the
Speaker 2: American economy or otherwise, and I have to say that
Speaker 2: some of the stats are somewhat interesting. We then engage
Speaker 2: in discussion on the most critical issues, while some of
Speaker 2: the most critical issues on the planet Iran and their
Speaker 2: nuclear developments, Ukraine's successful drone strike on Russia, the South
Speaker 2: Korean and Polish elections, and by the way, the amount
Speaker 2: of CCP Chinese Communist Party interference in South Korea and
Speaker 2: their election is well, it's almost terrifying. Then we have
Speaker 2: the mail room and at the back end of two
Speaker 2: eight seven some commentary on stupidity and net zero and
Speaker 2: yes they go very well together. But in a moment,
Speaker 2: Patrick Basham. Buccolan is a natural oral vaccine in a
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Speaker 2: systems persist. Farmer Broker Auckland now from Democracy Institute in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. Once again, Patrick Masham, it's great to talk
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 3: Great to be with you late in your fine audience.
Speaker 3: Always look forward to it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, Patrick, you a few days ago you released the
Speaker 2: results of a poll that you did on Trump's popularity. Yes,
Speaker 2: why did you do that? At this point?
Speaker 3: Are we episodically you know, test the waters in terms
Speaker 3: of the president's approval and the general sense of how
Speaker 3: things are going in the country. So you know, we
Speaker 3: did this episodically well Biden was president or Trump was
Speaker 3: in his first term. And it's something that most you know,
Speaker 3: most posters do and it's they don't usually they're not
Speaker 3: usually exciting figures, but when you look at the trends
Speaker 3: over time, it can be quite revealing. And historically even
Speaker 3: there's no perfect yardstick for how a president will do,
Speaker 3: say in the upcoming election, but generally a president's approval
Speaker 3: rating has been a pretty good guide. So, you know,
Speaker 3: crudely put, if a president is around or above fifty
Speaker 3: percent approval come nearing an election, he's usually re elected
Speaker 3: if he has that opportunity, and if he's you know,
Speaker 3: in the low forties or below, he's usually defeated. Obviously,
Speaker 3: in Trump's case, he doesn't have any more elections to come,
Speaker 3: but so that's that's why we do it, and we
Speaker 3: did it at a time when there's been a lot
Speaker 3: of discussion in America about Trump's approval because most of
Speaker 3: the legacy media pollsters have found in recent or had
Speaker 3: found in recent weeks and months that Trump's approval was
Speaker 3: quote unquote down. Most of those ourselves included, who were
Speaker 3: the more accurate ones in twenty twenty four, had and
Speaker 3: have found his approval is quite fine. So there's that
Speaker 3: there's that contrast that was in existence, you know, throughout
Speaker 3: much of the twenty twenty four campaign between within the
Speaker 3: polling community.
Speaker 2: All right, so let's look at the figures. Is Trump
Speaker 2: fixing or breaking America? Was the title of it? You've got, well,
Speaker 2: why don't you deliver?
Speaker 3: So it's it's memory Services fifty one saying that he
Speaker 3: is fixing and thirty seven saying he's breaking the country,
Speaker 3: with you know, a healthy number the remainder saying neither.
Speaker 3: Neither is the case. They don't really have a fixer
Speaker 3: upon that, they don't have a strong sense of whether
Speaker 3: he's making the country better or worse. It's a it's
Speaker 3: a sort of simple crude, but we think effective way
Speaker 3: of just capturing how people think he's doing overall, given
Speaker 3: that most people who voted last year, whoever they voted for,
Speaker 3: thought that things weren't as they should be. Now, you know,
Speaker 3: many of them blamed Biden and Harris, but a good
Speaker 3: number thought that the problems that America faced, particularly the
Speaker 3: sort of larger our problems, were because of Trump and
Speaker 3: his ilk, threatening democracy and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: So most people thought there were there were the change
Speaker 3: was necessary, the country needed to be fixed. And so
Speaker 3: we asked whether Trump was how he was doing on that,
Speaker 3: and we found that, you know, by a fair distance,
Speaker 3: given how tightly divided American politics are, is that most
Speaker 3: people think, yeah, despite the media's best efforts to spin
Speaker 3: things otherwise, Trump is actually you know, making some progress,
Speaker 3: making some headway.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm intrigued with the with the next set, So
Speaker 2: just just running through that again, fifty one percent say
Speaker 2: that he is fixing the country or the economy, thirty
Speaker 2: seven percent say breaking twelve percent neither. Then you get
Speaker 2: to Trump's actual approval rating, and you've got fifty You've
Speaker 2: got fifty two percent approve. Disapprove is forty six. So
Speaker 2: it's a you can look at it two.
Speaker 3: It in isolation, one would say that's a very good number,
Speaker 3: and I believe it is, and it's it's on on
Speaker 3: a par with the other better numbers for Trump out
Speaker 3: there from other poles, and in start contrast to the
Speaker 3: polls that show him down five or ten points on
Speaker 3: the approval disapproval question instead underwater in negative territory. But
Speaker 3: if you're if you look at it next to or
Speaker 3: following the question we've just discussed, it begs then the question, well,
Speaker 3: why if only thirty seven percent think he's breaking it
Speaker 3: to forty six percent disapprove Exactly What that reveals is
Speaker 3: that when you ask people questions that either directly or indirectly,
Speaker 3: explicitly or implicitly get to the issue of issues of
Speaker 3: tangible change, and most people think of it interest They
Speaker 3: think of in terms of the country as a whole,
Speaker 3: but most people think first and foremost tangible change in
Speaker 3: their own lives, the lies of those around them. Then
Speaker 3: you get a less negative response because two thirds of them,
Speaker 3: you know, only a third of the country really thinks
Speaker 3: that things are not getting better, or at least they're
Speaker 3: not getting worse. But when you ask exclusively about Trump himself,
Speaker 3: as president. A president's you know, personal qualities or perceptions
Speaker 3: of his personal qualities are always going to affect that number,
Speaker 3: And of course Trump is the epitomizes how it can
Speaker 3: do in ways, you know, positive or negative. So when
Speaker 3: people are asked exclusively about Trump and not his policies,
Speaker 3: then you get a much more reflexive default response from
Speaker 3: you know, almost half the country, which is, well, I
Speaker 3: don't like Trump. I wish he wasn't president. So I'm
Speaker 3: going to say I disapprove of his presidency to this point,
Speaker 3: even though, as I say, a slice of that, a
Speaker 3: significant slice of those who disapprove of him as president
Speaker 3: actually recognize that he's not doing such a terrible job.
Speaker 2: Is there is there a strong possibility that a significant
Speaker 2: number would have voted for him as well those who disapprove.
Speaker 3: Uh, those that some some some, yeah, some would have
Speaker 3: been some some would have stayed home. You know, that
Speaker 3: was one of the problems that Democrats had if Harris
Speaker 3: didn't enthuse enough enough folks on that side. Uh. And
Speaker 3: where whereas Trump had the opposite effect. You know, he
Speaker 3: was able to squeeze out every every possible vote where
Speaker 3: Harris wasn't. And so yeah, you have people who didn't vote,
Speaker 3: who couldn't bring himself they would never vote for Trump vote,
Speaker 3: we may never vote for a Republican perhaps most likely
Speaker 3: they you know, they just sort of said, well, I just,
Speaker 3: you know, wake up on our election morning and I
Speaker 3: hope Harris is one, but you know, I just can't
Speaker 3: bring myself to actually vote for uh uh. And now
Speaker 3: that Trump's president, they wish he wasn't and they're willing
Speaker 3: to say so, but they're not moved sufficiently to say
Speaker 3: anything particularly enthusiastic about the other side.
Speaker 2: Let us take a side road just for a moment.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Harris. She was Did you know that she
Speaker 2: was down in Australia just last week?
Speaker 3: I did. Yes, It's got a little bit of play
Speaker 3: in this part of the world.
Speaker 2: That's more than that deserved. She was she was appearing
Speaker 2: at a real estate conference in Queensland. In Queensland, did
Speaker 2: you see any of her speech?
Speaker 3: Just literally just like a SoundBite or two.
Speaker 2: The well, let's put it this way, Sky News Australia
Speaker 2: just took the took the bat to her. Is she
Speaker 2: just what on earth was she doing there? Why on
Speaker 2: earth did she come? What did they get it down?
Speaker 2: For for heaven's sake, word salad all over again.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It was just the same, just exactly the same same
Speaker 2: approach that she used just before. Nothing's changed. She's got
Speaker 2: no show of ever becoming president.
Speaker 3: No, no, she's incapable of learning, doesn't really want to learn.
Speaker 3: Still doesn't understand why she lost, expected to win, and
Speaker 3: you know, fair chance to run for governor of California,
Speaker 3: and if she does, she probably wins, because you know,
Speaker 3: someone like her wins in California and in her own head,
Speaker 3: the last presidential election will just be this inexplicable blip
Speaker 3: in her career. But yeah, it's you have been I mean,
Speaker 3: I say, I haven't didn't see the whole speech, but
Speaker 3: where you know, the exposure that she's had since so
Speaker 3: many people comment on how especially relieved they are how
Speaker 3: the election went when they are reminded of who would
Speaker 3: have been president if it had gone another way. Rights,
Speaker 3: it's something that is, you know, implicitly helping Trump. It's
Speaker 3: the contrast with Biden, but but with what Biden was.
Speaker 3: And there's also the contrast with what Harris would have been.
Speaker 3: And you know, sometimes you're very unlucky with your opponents
Speaker 3: or enemies, and sometimes you are quite lucky, and Job
Speaker 3: was quite lucky in the end that it was Biden.
Speaker 3: And then Harris, so.
Speaker 2: I think this is the first time we've spoken since
Speaker 2: since the election night. And and then we all, you know,
Speaker 2: in this part of the world, we went on holiday,
Speaker 2: and what have you. I'd like your personal opinion, not
Speaker 2: your official one, your personal opinion on how Trump is doing.
Speaker 2: How would you rate him? I don't care how you
Speaker 2: approach this on various matters, but overall, what do you say.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd give him. I give him an A plus
Speaker 3: for effort to this point, and I'd give him an
Speaker 3: a to anus in terms of outcomes. And as a
Speaker 3: sort of general statement, I based it on the fact
Speaker 3: that second terms, which of course this is usually underwhelming,
Speaker 3: maybe unkind, but they tend to be more of a
Speaker 3: victory lap or a legacy lap than anything else. And
Speaker 3: Trump could have taken his foot off the gas, as
Speaker 3: they say, you know, you know, vengeance or endorsement of
Speaker 3: him belatedly after what happened in twenty twenty. But no,
Speaker 3: he has approached his second term in a way that's
Speaker 3: even more impactful than he attempted in his first and
Speaker 3: more impactful and I think ultimately consequential. The most presidents
Speaker 3: do in their first terms, to say they blew out
Speaker 3: of the gate is putting it, you know, mildly. I mean,
Speaker 3: they were so prepared, They were so much better prepared
Speaker 3: this time. He and those around him clearly learned so
Speaker 3: many painful lessons from twenty seventeen eighteen especially, And while
Speaker 3: he hasn't got it all right in terms of personnel,
Speaker 3: and I don't think he's made all the right moves,
Speaker 3: I think most of the movie have been have been
Speaker 3: very positive. Most of the people that he has put
Speaker 3: around him are far superior than the one His team
Speaker 3: is far superior than the one he had in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: And the enormous number of areas that he's attempting to,
Speaker 3: you know, initiate really significant structural reform. You know, it's
Speaker 3: always said that, I mean prime ministers often don't have
Speaker 3: that in parliamentaris and have that much leeway and two
Speaker 3: or three issues may do it. But with presidents, especially
Speaker 3: American presidents, you know, two or three things you can
Speaker 3: focus on and hope to get a fair bit of
Speaker 3: what you're looking for in your first term. And Trump
Speaker 3: is just you know, throwing out that playbook, especially for
Speaker 3: a second term, and just going for it, you know,
Speaker 3: across the board. And this is this is I think
Speaker 3: it's two very strong positives politically out of this. One
Speaker 3: is it has really pleasantly surprised, impressed, reassured most of
Speaker 3: those who voted for him that he was serious about
Speaker 3: the things he was said he wanted to do. And secondly,
Speaker 3: it has totally depressed the opposition. It is because they
Speaker 3: one hoped he wasn't serious as they had hoped in
Speaker 3: his first term, but they would thinking, well, you know,
Speaker 3: first month, he'll try this, second or third month, he'll
Speaker 3: try that, and they'll be able to do their usual
Speaker 3: you know, pounce on it, go push back on it,
Speaker 3: media attacks, all of that. But of course he's been
Speaker 3: ann he was announcing this first hundred days, you know,
Speaker 3: new policies, not his every day, but every hour on
Speaker 3: a whole host of different issues. So they have just
Speaker 3: been completely bewildered, just spinning around like you know, tops
Speaker 3: out of control, which is meant that the it's been
Speaker 3: very very hard for the opposition, the criticism of any
Speaker 3: of these individual policies to get enough attention to even
Speaker 3: potentially stick. And it's really meant that the Twite House
Speaker 3: has been on the front foot. The Democrats have been
Speaker 3: very much on the back foot, and so it's I
Speaker 3: think it's just very very encouraging.
Speaker 2: Would you say that the Democrats picking up the pieces
Speaker 2: and making progress in the direction they'd like to?
Speaker 3: No, I wouldn't. I don't they have been. I'm actually
Speaker 3: surprised at how poorly they've they've dealt with it. They
Speaker 3: are still clueless as to what happened. They now accept,
Speaker 3: they acknowledge now that you know that yes, a lot
Speaker 3: of young people voted for Trump, and that you know
Speaker 3: a lot of Hispanics did, and a surprising number of
Speaker 3: black people, particularly black men, and there's all these poor
Speaker 3: people who voted for Trump. They now accept that, which
Speaker 3: they always resisted in twenty sixteen, after twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 3: again after twenty twenty, But they don't have the first
Speaker 3: idea why. You're right, there's still very much of the
Speaker 3: mindset that Trump and Musk and the other mysterious figures,
Speaker 3: other nefarious figures, somehow we're able to conn all these uneducated,
Speaker 3: unsophisticated people to vote for him, and they the notion
Speaker 3: that their message was wrong, their candidates candidate was wrong
Speaker 3: about all of that, and they're having real trouble coming
Speaker 3: to terms. I mean, it's always difficult and you lose
Speaker 3: to actually look in the mirror and go, you know
Speaker 3: a lot of it was my fault. But they're not
Speaker 3: even close to doing that. So you know, that's you know,
Speaker 3: that's really good news for Trump and the Republicans. Of course,
Speaker 3: you know, come the mid terms, come the next presidential elections,
Speaker 3: as usual, it will probably be more about the incumbent
Speaker 3: party and the won't be the incumbent president, but you know,
Speaker 3: if it's the vice come and vice president, then it
Speaker 3: will be about the opposition. So if things have seemed
Speaker 3: to go poorly over the next two or three years,
Speaker 3: then even if they don't get their act together, they
Speaker 3: may slip in again, you know, because they're but like
Speaker 3: you know, the Labor Party did in England in the UK,
Speaker 3: because they're not the unpopular incumbent. But at the moment,
Speaker 3: it looks like things will really have to go off
Speaker 3: the rails for the Trump administration for the Democrats to
Speaker 3: have a good chance next time around.
Speaker 2: Depending depending on the media that you that you attend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you could be forgiven for thinking that lots and lots
Speaker 2: is going wrong with the Trump adminstration.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean things the media tells us,
Speaker 3: has told us from day one. I mean it's incredible.
Speaker 3: I mean, inflation is up, the economy is crashing, the
Speaker 3: stock market's trashing. Trump is even more unpopular in his
Speaker 3: second term with foreign leaders and foreign electorates than he
Speaker 3: was in this term. He has really incompetent in people. Really,
Speaker 3: the visive cabinet secretaries. The policies aren't thought out, they're
Speaker 3: they're coldheartedly callously firing you know, wonderful government public service workers,
Speaker 3: willy nilly. Uh, it's just I mean just taking a
Speaker 3: wrecking ball to important programs. I mean, this is you know,
Speaker 3: this has been the word from day one, and that
Speaker 3: there's two problems with that in terms of getting an
Speaker 3: audience or getting an audience, you know, a sort of
Speaker 3: majority audience, critical mass to to go with that. One
Speaker 3: is when any of any of those claims or at
Speaker 3: tax or investigator that they're demonstrably untrue or you know, inaccurate. Uh.
Speaker 3: And also the media, you know, is even less trusted
Speaker 3: than it was four years ago, uh, you know, the
Speaker 3: trend line continues down is the legacy media is just
Speaker 3: you know, the first thing a lot of people think
Speaker 3: when they see a CNN headline or a New York
Speaker 3: Times headline, they think, oh my, be the opposite then, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just they've just cried wolf, told too
Speaker 3: many lies too many times. So at the moment, it's
Speaker 3: it's just not paying off. But as I say, you know,
Speaker 3: things turn you know, figuratively south in terms of policy outcomes,
Speaker 3: then more people will think the media is onto something.
Speaker 3: But you know, most people know the media is going
Speaker 3: to attempt to destroy Trump's second term the way they
Speaker 3: it is. First, I mean, there was a statistic I
Speaker 3: just earlier today from the Media Research Center on you know,
Speaker 3: they regularly update the nature of the coverage of any
Speaker 3: given president, and Trump's coverage so far in his second
Speaker 3: term is something like ninety one or ninety two percent negative,
Speaker 3: whereas Biden's was something like sixty five seventy percent positive.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's you know, that's just the way
Speaker 3: it is in America. Fortunately, as I say, increasingly people
Speaker 3: don't believe legacy media, and also the independent alternative media
Speaker 3: is thriving. And so there are other sources more generally
Speaker 3: more reliable, and certainly contrasting that more and more people
Speaker 3: actually pay more and more attention to.
Speaker 2: If I want to suggest that the situation that the
Speaker 2: Democrats find themselves in has a great deal to do
Speaker 2: with their collective low IQ, you would say.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say I personally, I pretended to say yes,
Speaker 3: I mean professionally, I would say they are incredibly, almost
Speaker 3: unbelievably uninformed and ill informed. It's to the point where,
Speaker 3: in terms of the politicians, you have to ask yourself,
Speaker 3: do they actually believe what they're saying or is it
Speaker 3: simply a con right? You know? Is it just a
Speaker 3: means to an end when it comes to ordinary folk
Speaker 3: who loyally vote for them and will tell you how
Speaker 3: terrible Trump is and all the rest of it, a
Speaker 3: lot of it is. I think it's just it's just
Speaker 3: lack of quality information. But you you know, I would
Speaker 3: I would. I would say the IQ of the iriage
Speaker 3: democratic voter is probably quite a bit higher than the
Speaker 3: IQ of the ariage democratic politician. It appears if ifyone
Speaker 3: takes them at their word, that they are well intentioned,
Speaker 3: well meaning, and you know, genuine people I'm.
Speaker 2: Just wondering about your your reference to information, getting bad information,
Speaker 2: wrong information, et cetera. And if you and if you
Speaker 2: equate that to IQ, surely the two go hand in hand.
Speaker 2: In most cases, if you've got a low IQ, you
Speaker 2: don't even know you're getting bad information or or or
Speaker 2: you or you're treating it as a weapon even even
Speaker 2: though you recognize it. So you're you're not only not
Speaker 2: only trying to fool your voting public, but you're actually
Speaker 2: having yourself on a bit as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, there's say something of that. And I think
Speaker 3: another thing that plays into this in America. I mean
Speaker 3: very a lot of the West, but America is the
Speaker 3: probably the best example, is there are so many well educated,
Speaker 3: formally well educated, very well educated people who are actually
Speaker 3: actually know very little about things. Right there, we become
Speaker 3: such a credentialed society. This is this is This is
Speaker 3: across the board, but it's especially on the left. Right,
Speaker 3: you have so many people and it scus excus female
Speaker 3: and excus minorities. There's something like sixty five seventy percent
Speaker 3: of black women in Black American women with degrees work
Speaker 3: for the government. Right, and what that means if you
Speaker 3: drill down is they work in human resources and communications
Speaker 3: and this, et cetera, et cetera, and they've been educated
Speaker 3: in a way that is not helpful to learning how
Speaker 3: the world really works. And you know, they continue along
Speaker 3: that path in their careers and in their voting habits.
Speaker 3: So it's you know, you have a lot of people.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying this to counter what you said late,
Speaker 3: but just to sort of flesh it out a bit
Speaker 3: from my end, I think you have a lot of
Speaker 3: people on the left who believe that they are very
Speaker 3: bright because they have never been they never been, never
Speaker 3: failed anything, because they've been allowed to fail. They've always
Speaker 3: been passed, pushed on, passed through. And they think that
Speaker 3: their degrees and certificates on the wall and their business
Speaker 3: cards entitle them to be really good judges, to have
Speaker 3: very good judgment when it comes to what's good and
Speaker 3: bad information, when in fact it's the opposite. You know,
Speaker 3: they they are they are so deferential when it comes
Speaker 3: to the experts, that is, the approved experts, that they're unquestioning.
Speaker 3: And of course this is what you want. If you
Speaker 3: want a controlling, top down kind of ideology, take route
Speaker 3: which it has you know, massive parts of the country.
Speaker 3: And so it's whether there is it that they're really
Speaker 3: not very bright, or is it just that they're poorly educated,
Speaker 3: or is it some combination of the two self deceit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's yeah, there's definitely a lot of that. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, there's there's plenty on the other side too,
Speaker 3: But it's not they don't tend to they don't tend
Speaker 3: to be politically, they don't tend to be as influential
Speaker 3: to to have these sort of key roles, not in
Speaker 3: you know, in in government, in Congress, in terms of
Speaker 3: the staff and advisory roles you think of, you know,
Speaker 3: the Clinton administration, especially the Obama the Biden administration, many
Speaker 3: of these people were the same. But you have in
Speaker 3: the Obama and Biden administrations so many of these twenty
Speaker 3: thirty somethings, graduates of Ivy League universities, you know, dictating
Speaker 3: foreign policy and tax policy and health policy, who clearly
Speaker 3: demonstrably knew very very little about what they were talking about, right,
Speaker 3: But they spent all day talking to each other and
Speaker 3: to those in the academy and in the NGOs and
Speaker 3: the think tanks of the same background profile and views,
Speaker 3: and continued every day waking up every day thinking that
Speaker 3: they were the brightest people on the planet and we
Speaker 3: were all should be very grateful that they're willing to
Speaker 3: spend some time each day telling us how we should
Speaker 3: live our lives.
Speaker 2: Where would you put Harvard these days?
Speaker 3: As far out of America as I could get it,
Speaker 3: It's I mean, it's Harvard most of the Ivy League.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's so it's completely different to what it
Speaker 3: used to be. But I mean, these the more elite
Speaker 3: the educational institution in America, the further it is fallen,
Speaker 3: it appears as a sort of general statement, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: they're so politicized, they're so cowardly, they're so ideological, and
Speaker 3: they're also so money or money centered, which you know,
Speaker 3: you've got a Harvard with its tens of billions of
Speaker 3: endowment money doesn't need a penny from a student or
Speaker 3: a government forever. But boy, they're you know, they're going
Speaker 3: to sue the federal government if they're taking away the
Speaker 3: billions that the federal government the taxpayers give them every year.
Speaker 3: It's it's quite remarkable. And we know that the Harvards
Speaker 3: of this world have been the incubators of so much
Speaker 3: of the crazy wokeness that is not not only threatened
Speaker 3: to destroy the universicities themselves, but of course put the
Speaker 3: corporate world and especially the political world. So I mean,
Speaker 3: what what Trump is doing attempting to do with the
Speaker 3: likes of Harvard is something that Democrats fall into the
Speaker 3: trap of the of of countering and defending the institute,
Speaker 3: the university, not realizing that for most people, what Trump
Speaker 3: is saying and what he's demonstrating, you know, makes complete sense.
Speaker 3: But the Democrats it seemed just to sort of slightly
Speaker 3: circle back late for a moment. One of the probably
Speaker 3: the thing that's most going in Trump's favor, you put
Speaker 3: aside anything he is or isn't doing, what the outcomes
Speaker 3: may or may not be at the moment, what's most
Speaker 3: helpful to him is that for the time being, at least,
Speaker 3: the Democrats appear to have decided that they are going
Speaker 3: to hang their hats on defending federal bureaucrats, foreign aid recipients,
Speaker 3: particularly those in the NGOs at home, domestically illegal immigrants,
Speaker 3: and transgender people, and they seem to be very very
Speaker 3: enthusiastic about defending, supporting protecting those four groups. And the
Speaker 3: problem is that to say those four groups don't constitute
Speaker 3: electoral majority or appeal to one. It's putting a very
Speaker 3: very gender So as long as they keep doing that,
Speaker 3: they will remain in sort of pretty poor spot.
Speaker 2: Well buried in that commentary you've just delivered is a
Speaker 2: very good explanation of why an ex prime minister of
Speaker 2: this country found yourself employed at Harvard. Yes, now, based
Speaker 2: on what you've said, I'm going to ask you to
Speaker 2: extend your commentary to deal with the judiciary, and that
Speaker 2: is that is specifically the Supreme Judiciary, but at further
Speaker 2: down if you if you choose to go, but can
Speaker 2: I make a suggestion to try and stir you on,
Speaker 2: And that is that the amount of authoritarian attitude, if
Speaker 2: I can put it that way, or some might even
Speaker 2: call it tyranny. If not, if not yet, then on
Speaker 2: its way judicial tyranny is having a very big influence
Speaker 2: on the progress of the administration. Right or wrong?
Speaker 3: Oh? Absolutely, right, one and ten percent right.
Speaker 2: But I is the judiciary right, Yes, absolutely, and I
Speaker 2: would put it.
Speaker 3: I would place it in the following context if I may,
Speaker 3: which is that the opposition to Trump, that sort of
Speaker 3: big umbrella I'm including the politicians, the media, the judiciary,
Speaker 3: the bureaucracy, all of the institutional opposition to Trump from
Speaker 3: the very beginning right. So in twenty twenty, they decide
Speaker 3: they can impeach him, try to impeach him and prevent
Speaker 3: him from running for a second term. That doesn't work,
Speaker 3: so they stuff enough ballots to stop him from having
Speaker 3: a second term. And then when he protests that, they
Speaker 3: try to impeach him to stop him from being able
Speaker 3: to run again. That doesn't work, so they try to
Speaker 3: bankrupt him through the courts. Then they try to imprison
Speaker 3: him through the court of That works, and then coincidentally,
Speaker 3: I'm sure twice he's there's attempts to assassinate him. None
Speaker 3: of it works. He's back in. And I think many
Speaker 3: people on both sides assumed and hoped that that would
Speaker 3: be it. Oh well, somehow if you didn't like him,
Speaker 3: this crazy guy's back in. We only got to put
Speaker 3: up with it for four years. And on the on
Speaker 3: the on the Trump side, it's like they've shot every
Speaker 3: bullet they had. There's nothing else they can do. Well,
Speaker 3: guess what they had more ready and waiting, And of
Speaker 3: course what they had waiting was the judiciary, and so
Speaker 3: what has happened since the very moment Trump was sort
Speaker 3: of reinaugurated, uh in late January, was that the judiciary
Speaker 3: has taken upon itself to be the most disloyal opposition
Speaker 3: and to do everything to not eliminate Trump, but to
Speaker 3: eliminate any possible progress on the polar side that he
Speaker 3: could make. And where this really comes, where this is
Speaker 3: playing out, it's playing at the federal level. Because there's
Speaker 3: a federal system. There's a Supreme Court that everybody knows about.
Speaker 3: And then you think, of course at the state level
Speaker 3: or local level, but there are federal courts that are
Speaker 3: that are divided regionally in America that supposedly Supreme Court
Speaker 3: justice as they each have a number of them to
Speaker 3: sort of oversee. Those courts are the ones that are determining,
Speaker 3: at least in the short term that you name the
Speaker 3: policy of Trump, it's unconstitutional slash illegal. So Trump can't
Speaker 3: close the Department of Education, according to the court, Trump
Speaker 3: can't close USAID. Trump can't fire federal workers. You know,
Speaker 3: Trump can't attempt to broke a piece in the Middle
Speaker 3: East or Ukraine. Trump can't raise tariffs. You know, it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what it is some court somewhere has said
Speaker 3: he can't do it, and one of the really, I mean,
Speaker 3: we know, we know why it's happening because these judges,
Speaker 3: and they're not all Democrats, but those that are Republican
Speaker 3: are anti Trump Republicans, and the judicial mindset and psychology
Speaker 3: across the board conservative, liberal, Republican Democrat tends to be
Speaker 3: And this is just gets back to something you touched
Speaker 3: on in your introduction to the question, Laton, which is
Speaker 3: there's an authoritarian mindset. Okay, these folks are very deferential
Speaker 3: to power in an institutional sense. They are pro establishment,
Speaker 3: they're pro big business, they're pro big government. They will
Speaker 3: enormous all cases. Their default position is to go with
Speaker 3: the powerful force and to not be sympathetic to the contrarian,
Speaker 3: the little guy, the outsider, all that. And that's I mean,
Speaker 3: you could say always been the case. But when you
Speaker 3: get to figure the ultimate outside of like Trump, with
Speaker 3: the entire system against him, these folks don't see themselves
Speaker 3: as arbiters of justice. They see themselves as instruments of
Speaker 3: the system because in their minds, the just outcome is,
Speaker 3: of course, to limit Trump's power. And so this is
Speaker 3: what's been playing out now. It's been allowed to play
Speaker 3: out because the Supreme Court, which is led by a
Speaker 3: Chief Justice in Roberts, who is off of this ilk
Speaker 3: even though he's quote unquote a conservative Republican. They they
Speaker 3: didn't take their opportunity to sort of cut this stuff
Speaker 3: off at the pass, and it's going to come back
Speaker 3: to them and they're going to have to decide one
Speaker 3: way or another. And also, these courts, they're all congressionally mandated.
Speaker 3: There's nothing in the Constitution that says that we should
Speaker 3: have is a Supreme Court, but there's nothing about all
Speaker 3: these federal courts. And so they are a product of Congress,
Speaker 3: which means Congress can do something about it. They can
Speaker 3: impeach the judges, all these things. These are all things
Speaker 3: that may happen, but we're looking at a situation where
Speaker 3: it could be before too long if the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: continues to act in a cowardly way or actually rules
Speaker 3: in an irrational way, a logical way, where Trump is
Speaker 3: going to be faced with either complying with this madness
Speaker 3: or simply saying as some of his predecessors have done
Speaker 3: in which is sorry, you know, not doing it, you know.
Speaker 3: And so this is it's a really scary time, but
Speaker 3: one which is blatantly getting some attention. But you know,
Speaker 3: this is where we find ourselves.
Speaker 2: How uncomfortable does that make you feel?
Speaker 3: Very It's another example of how a historically traditionally pillar
Speaker 3: of American society, American American way of life, he has
Speaker 3: been watered down, harmed. Uh And and so many people
Speaker 3: are just so surprised and literally shocked, bewildered and then
Speaker 3: really offended by what's going on. And of course some
Speaker 3: people are asking, well, did this happen yesterday or is
Speaker 3: this something that's been going on for years or decades?
Speaker 3: Uh And Unfortunately, the more one drills down, the uglier
Speaker 3: the answer has become. Because as I'm sure you know you,
Speaker 3: and I know you know late, and I'm sure many
Speaker 3: of your audience does, as what much of your audience
Speaker 3: does as well, that most of the things we object to,
Speaker 3: the really serious things in the world these days, they're
Speaker 3: not something that was thought up yesterday morning. There were
Speaker 3: mostly things that were forced up and first acted upon
Speaker 3: last century at least, that are now coming. You know,
Speaker 3: they're they're now coming to a fruition. And the judicial,
Speaker 3: the real the way in which the the perversion of
Speaker 3: the judiciary, at least at the federal level. Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: it's coming to the four And it's as I say,
Speaker 3: is that they weren't out of bullets. They still had
Speaker 3: a couple left in the in the chamber.
Speaker 2: Funny. It's funny how things turn up, you know, because
Speaker 2: all I had to do was reach out and pick
Speaker 2: this up. You mentioned bullets, big bank boss urges America
Speaker 2: to stockpiled bullets, not bitcoin. I that was. That was
Speaker 2: Jamie Diamond, by the way. Yeah, who's had a lot
Speaker 2: to say over the over the weekend, not all of
Speaker 2: it encouraging. Now if I or did you want to
Speaker 2: comment on.
Speaker 3: That, No, No, it's just I mean, it's a sort
Speaker 3: of sidebar on Jamie Diamond. The thing that I was
Speaker 3: pleasantly surprised about the price about with his comments is
Speaker 3: that he really explained some a little bit of reality
Speaker 3: on immigration to his alliance, which was quite shocking, talking
Speaker 3: about how insane it had been to have had such
Speaker 3: numbers come into the country and what had it done
Speaker 3: in terms of worsening the quality of life material quality
Speaker 3: of life of lower income Americans, and you know how
Speaker 3: something had to be done about this I mean in
Speaker 3: say any of this before, but it's better he says it.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to know he thinks it, and it is
Speaker 3: good that he's saying it now.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I don't want to spend too much time on
Speaker 2: the media because we've we've done plenty of that over
Speaker 2: over a period of time, and we've we've already mentioned
Speaker 2: that a little today. But as this individual is part
Speaker 2: of the media, I'm going to throw them in here.
Speaker 2: Jake Tapper, Yeah, the only thing that I want to say,
Speaker 2: really is how does this irresponsible individual think that he
Speaker 2: can lie the way that he is at the moment,
Speaker 2: that he knew nothing, and that try and launch the
Speaker 2: responsibility back on the on the on the White House
Speaker 2: in itself because he had no idea. I don't believe
Speaker 2: it where that guy says, I have not for a
Speaker 2: very long time. He's just proven it for me.
Speaker 3: I think it's because he and those of his ilk
Speaker 3: have succeeded to this point saying whatever they wanted, whether
Speaker 3: it was untrue or it was the complete opposite of
Speaker 3: what they'd said yesterday and the opposite of what they'll
Speaker 3: say tomorrow, and there's been no there'll be no consequences right,
Speaker 3: their careers sored. They continue, they make all this money,
Speaker 3: they get these great book contracts, and they live in
Speaker 3: such a bubble that you know, they they never called
Speaker 3: out on the carpet. And so someone in his case,
Speaker 3: like many others, but most obviously him, who would not
Speaker 3: hear one word about Biden's obvious cognitive and physiological decline
Speaker 3: until Biden was out of the Oval office, turns around
Speaker 3: and produces this expose book, explaining to the great Onwash
Speaker 3: that Biden had been too lappy the whole time and
Speaker 3: aren't I the brave journalists for you know, speaking truth
Speaker 3: to power? And it's I mean, it is mind blowing,
Speaker 3: the hypocrisy of it, the goal of it. And as
Speaker 3: one of my friends reminds me frequently, whether you're talking
Speaker 3: about the media, the legacy media, or your democrat, the
Speaker 3: average democrat, and if they didn't have double standards, they
Speaker 3: have no standards at all, And it is just it
Speaker 3: is simply remarkable. Fortunately, it is so obviously ridiculous that
Speaker 3: this person is trying to portray themselves as a discoverer
Speaker 3: of truth that you know, there's at least a mixed response,
Speaker 3: and the book itself is not selling, so we have
Speaker 3: to hope that at least, you know, he's not rewarded
Speaker 3: further for this. But it's yeah, I mean, the media
Speaker 3: is just it's not it's not just a joke, the
Speaker 3: legacy media. But it's actually dangerous when you consider not
Speaker 3: only what they tell us that isn't so, but the
Speaker 3: things that they simply ignore and refuse to tell us
Speaker 3: that would have been helpful, to put it, malvedly to
Speaker 3: know at the time.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I've heard commentators say that critical commentators say they'll
Speaker 2: be making He'll be making millions out of the book,
Speaker 2: and I thought, no, he won't because no one's going
Speaker 2: to want to read it. On very few.
Speaker 3: Now, he may have. He may have got a good advance,
Speaker 3: in which we know a lot of these that that's
Speaker 3: how mean. It's just like you know, most most of
Speaker 3: the politicians their books, it's all about the advance. Very
Speaker 3: few of them actually sell a lot of books that
Speaker 3: pay for the advance. So he may have had a
Speaker 3: good deal, but you know, hopefully not.
Speaker 2: Let's turn our attention to to overseas the South Korean election. Yeah,
Speaker 2: as we record this, what's your take, Well, if the
Speaker 2: polls are accurate.
Speaker 3: Then at the moment, it's advantage mister Lee, the liberal
Speaker 3: left wing candidate and mister Kim the conservative candidate. Looks
Speaker 3: like it's an uphill battle to succeed mister Yun, the
Speaker 3: recently displaced president from the same Conservative party. It's no,
Speaker 3: it's it's a fascinating and potentially, i think for people
Speaker 3: on the right of the spectrum, frustrating election because you know,
Speaker 3: the context is the President Yun in descent, the conservative
Speaker 3: you know, won the election three years ago against mister Lee.
Speaker 3: He's you know, pro American, tough on North Korea, tough
Speaker 3: on China, tough on the nuclear proliferation, you know, really
Speaker 3: a lot of emphasis on the good US South Korean relationship.
Speaker 3: But then in December he decides that you know, he
Speaker 3: used to declare martial law. The fixes in against him,
Speaker 3: and it all goes pair shape, right the parliament, the
Speaker 3: parliament votes against him, the people seemingly, you know, figuratively
Speaker 3: revolt against him, and then what April, the Constitutional Court
Speaker 3: threw him out. So what appears to have happened is
Speaker 3: that a race that otherwise would have been highly competitive,
Speaker 3: maybe even advantage the Conservative has turned around because of
Speaker 3: this obviously very important thing that happened. It's one thing
Speaker 3: that's happened because there appears to be in in South
Speaker 3: Korean society right now an incredible what fear of a
Speaker 3: k They feel they've been a chaotic period for a
Speaker 3: few months and that continuing if the Conservative succeeds ex
Speaker 3: President Un. Whereas Lee, who was one of those who
Speaker 3: sort of very much went to the forefront to protest
Speaker 3: what the previous president was attempting to do, is seen
Speaker 3: as a more steady, at least in this context, a
Speaker 3: more steady pair of hands. And what seems to have
Speaker 3: hurt the Conservatives as a party putting forward a candidate
Speaker 3: is that the kind of elites of the party, the
Speaker 3: establishment wanted someone less associated with the outgoing president. Mister Kim,
Speaker 3: I think was the labor Minister and has been one
Speaker 3: of his staunchest defenders and has really gone out of
Speaker 3: his way not to explicitly criticize ex President Yun, and
Speaker 3: but the sort of the base of the party, the
Speaker 3: members wanted him, and they chose him, and he's seen,
Speaker 3: rightly or wrongly, is not the strongest candidate probably in
Speaker 3: under the circumstances, and so have a situation we have
Speaker 3: this quite left wing chap in Lee, you know, who's
Speaker 3: very much about playing nice with North Korea and China,
Speaker 3: not too concerned about the relationship with America, and of
Speaker 3: course America you know, potentially is going to dump this
Speaker 3: huge tariffs on them within days. And Lee's got personal
Speaker 3: and business history with North Korea. It's you know, he's
Speaker 3: gone against US and UN sanctions by funding North Korea
Speaker 3: to tune of several million. And it's a you would think,
Speaker 3: under quote unquote normal circumstances, whatever mister Kim on the
Speaker 3: Conservative sides weaknesses are, mister Lee would not be the
Speaker 3: strongest opponent, but the peers not to be playing out
Speaker 3: that way. I mean, the betting markets, I think make
Speaker 3: it a lot closer than the opinion polls. But the
Speaker 3: betting markets are not always I mean, you know, sometimes
Speaker 3: they're far more accurate in the polls, and sometimes they're not.
Speaker 2: Let me bound something off you, and I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you my source right from the get go.
Speaker 2: I have found myself of recent times, very recent times,
Speaker 2: of paying a little attention to Steve Bannon's War Room podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and over the weekend I heard commentary from, amongst others,
Speaker 2: the American Ambassador to South Korea m h. They were
Speaker 2: talking about the amount of control that the CCP, the
Speaker 2: Chinese Communist Party now has in in South Korea, the
Speaker 2: influence it's got, and the cheating that is going on,
Speaker 2: and they described the ways of cheating that they they
Speaker 2: claimed were correct, including pre pre filled out voting forms
Speaker 2: and dropping them off and et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: What do you say, Yeah, no, the the one one
Speaker 3: of the you know, one of the issues that has
Speaker 3: come up of late, has gotten a lot of discussion
Speaker 3: in America of late, is this issue of election integrity,
Speaker 3: voter integrity. And you're right, Steve Bannon has been at
Speaker 3: the forefront of shining a spotlight. You know, there's this
Speaker 3: voter integrity team, the ambassador, former ambassador, I think a
Speaker 3: couple of senior retired military figures from America are over
Speaker 3: there and they are very concerned about, as you say,
Speaker 3: these apparent case numerous cases of ballots being filled in.
Speaker 3: They're very concerned about the electronic voting being being able
Speaker 3: to be interfered with, and they're doing the rounds of
Speaker 3: a lot of the conservative, alternative independent media podcasts, etc.
Speaker 3: So of getting the word out. And yes it's being
Speaker 3: tied not simply too well the opposition party you know,
Speaker 3: is all behind this, but actually it being as you say,
Speaker 3: more of a CCP, more of a a Beijing thing.
Speaker 3: And if you're on, if you're not on the lee
Speaker 3: left side of this election, then you've got this concern
Speaker 3: double concern of not simply that the Chinese might be attempting,
Speaker 3: perhaps successfully to interfere with the election, but you've got
Speaker 3: a apparent as all well, an apparent winner of the
Speaker 3: election or to be who's someone who is by very
Speaker 3: it's very nature and history open and sympathetic to that side.
Speaker 3: That that's part of you know, that far left part
Speaker 3: of the political spectrum all the way you know, from
Speaker 3: China itself. So there's plenty to be We don't know
Speaker 3: a lot in terms of the sort of the bottom
Speaker 3: line here, the tangible stuff, but there's a lot to
Speaker 3: be anxious about at this very late stage.
Speaker 2: The suggestion is that there's a practice run for Taiwan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it could it could, It could well be.
Speaker 3: I mean this is how do you given you know,
Speaker 3: what's happened in Asia and what's happening in the rest
Speaker 3: of the world, and how the Chinese approached these things.
Speaker 3: How could you rule that out.
Speaker 2: Indeed, so the Polish election, that's that's turned out a
Speaker 2: different way, thank goodness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've had the Trump explicitly Trump endorsed candidate, populist
Speaker 3: anti EEU candidate win. You know, mister Nevrocki pulled it off.
Speaker 3: The polls had him twenty points down not that long ago,
Speaker 3: and the polls up to the election, most of them
Speaker 3: had him losing by several points, you know, close to
Speaker 3: double figures, some of them more than double figures. The
Speaker 3: exit polls on the night had him losing narrowly, but
Speaker 3: had him losing. And guess what, the people spoke differently.
Speaker 3: He won, you buy a couple of points, and even
Speaker 3: though his opponent declared victory as soon as the exit
Speaker 3: polls were announced, which is a little difficult to retract.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, you have someone who I mean, we
Speaker 3: were told that, you know, the stitch up in Romania
Speaker 3: and the stitch up in Germany, and we were told
Speaker 3: that the Musk endorsements and the Trump endorsements and these
Speaker 3: quote unquote European mega mega style candidates, they just there
Speaker 3: just wasn't. There just wasn't an audience for it in
Speaker 3: sophisticated Europe. But in this case, and an election that
Speaker 3: appears to have been comparatively free and fair, apparently there was.
Speaker 3: And uh so the globalists, the globalist candidate, the pro
Speaker 3: EU sophisticated and centrist likes lots of you know, internal migration,
Speaker 3: in inward migration and all the rest of it that
Speaker 3: everyone in Brussels hoped, assumed expected to win didn't. So
Speaker 3: this is rather a black eye for the Eurocrats and
Speaker 3: the globalists and rather rather puts a smile on the
Speaker 3: face I think of populist and nationalists, anti EU types
Speaker 3: throughout Europe, which I would argue is actually the majority,
Speaker 3: and of course gives the White House nice, nice little
Speaker 3: boost as well.
Speaker 2: So turning attention to well, there's a couple of other
Speaker 2: places we might visit, but to Ukraine and the drone
Speaker 2: attack over the weekend, what sort of reaction might you expect?
Speaker 3: Do you mean both separately from America and from Russia
Speaker 3: that sort.
Speaker 2: Of No, I'm thinking of the reprisal from Russia.
Speaker 3: Well it is, I mean I think it was a
Speaker 3: these attacks are I think at this stage I logical
Speaker 3: and irrational and counterproductive. If from the Ukrainian point of view,
Speaker 3: forget about sort of a wider picture, wider view of
Speaker 3: what's going on in the world and in Europe, they
Speaker 3: certainly risk a sort of large response, asymmetrical response from
Speaker 3: the Russians. I mean, it's one of the things, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm saying this. Probably most of your audiences
Speaker 3: think I'm crazy for saying it, and certainly most people
Speaker 3: do when I say it, whatever side of the political
Speaker 3: fence they're on. But you know, the assumption all along
Speaker 3: has been that if only Putin wasn't so, you know,
Speaker 3: totally in control of everything in Russia, then all the
Speaker 3: other saner heads would apply and things wouldn't be as
Speaker 3: tough on Ukraine. When I have always argued that perversely,
Speaker 3: you have to be glad it's not Putin and not
Speaker 3: somebody else, because things would have gone quite differently if
Speaker 3: they've been the case. And I think this is a
Speaker 3: time where maybe my theory we put to the test.
Speaker 3: It's going to be hard for Putin not to you
Speaker 3: might say, overreact given domestic pressures, but I don't think
Speaker 3: he wants to, because I think he sees the larger
Speaker 3: picture in his own in his country self interest, and
Speaker 3: I think he is at least open to whatever Trump
Speaker 3: will advise him. And we know that Trump will advise
Speaker 3: him not to, you know, get carried away in the moment.
Speaker 3: And so you've got it's interesting what's happening in America,
Speaker 3: and it's just in terms of trying to predict and
Speaker 3: fear what the Russian response will be. I think most
Speaker 3: people in America on both sides that is a Republican
Speaker 3: democratic side, Trump's side. Other side is they assume that
Speaker 3: the Russians are going to go heavy following this, and
Speaker 3: the Trump supporters really fear that this is going to
Speaker 3: make it so hard for Trump to get out of
Speaker 3: you get America out of Ukraine, and get this thing
Speaker 3: over with in a reasonable period of time without you know,
Speaker 3: it's therefore going to have negative consequences for him politically.
Speaker 3: And then you've got the folks, the anti Trump folks,
Speaker 3: who are actually hoping that put and Ova reacts because
Speaker 3: then this thing can keep going right and we can
Speaker 3: keep pushing, you know, we believe in the in the
Speaker 3: right direction, and that's very much the view, you know,
Speaker 3: in the corridors of power in Western Europe, So which
Speaker 3: makes you the cynical among us think, well, this is
Speaker 3: irrational and logical thing that Ukraine did at this point.
Speaker 3: Maybe they weren't the ones deciding what was going to
Speaker 3: be done. It would be the first time in the
Speaker 3: last three years. So yeah, I mean all to be decided, obviously,
Speaker 3: but it's a I think really unnecessarily is that we're
Speaker 3: in an unnecessarily precarious moment when it looked as if
Speaker 3: we were going to get somewhere to ending this madness
Speaker 3: sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2: I'd suggest that I'm not saying anything that I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody else was thought of, to be honest, but
Speaker 2: I'd suggest this war is, if it wasn't at the beginning,
Speaker 2: has become a fast How can you how can you
Speaker 2: be holding peace talks at the same time as you
Speaker 2: as you're bombing the proverbial out of out of your opposition.
Speaker 2: It's it's just, it's just it's not horrific, it's not horrendous.
Speaker 2: It's absurd.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely absolutely agree.
Speaker 2: More it's like something that that they make out of
Speaker 2: a Hollywood movie from the past anyway as a send up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely absolutely has a it has a it has
Speaker 3: a sort of Peter Seller's quality to it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's yeah, you hit, you hit the nail
Speaker 2: on the head. So the last remaining I think a
Speaker 2: major issue is is what's going on and has been
Speaker 2: going on for so long in the Middle East, in
Speaker 2: and around Gaza in America the Jewish folk are getting
Speaker 2: a really rough time, and there is there is a thought,
Speaker 2: of course that it's only going to get worse, which
Speaker 2: which it could. I have friends who who are Australian
Speaker 2: who are in the same position and very concerned about
Speaker 2: where where things are at. So who is holding the
Speaker 2: strings here or pulling the ropes? And why is it
Speaker 2: still unresolved? Now there's an easy question.
Speaker 3: You just are you are you? Are you looking for
Speaker 3: more comment on the American side of it or in
Speaker 3: the in the Middle East side of it, or are
Speaker 3: the two so intertwined.
Speaker 2: It's exactly they are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, it's yeah, it's it's a it's a combination
Speaker 3: on both sides, isn't it. I mean, in terms of
Speaker 3: the opposition to what Israel has done and been doing
Speaker 3: for what is it eighteen months now, that's a combination.
Speaker 3: And obviously you've got your your your your Palestinian sympathetic
Speaker 3: our world Muslim world. And you've got your Palestinian sort
Speaker 3: of on the on the ground. But in terms of
Speaker 3: the political you know, mojo that that keeps them operating
Speaker 3: as you're talking about Western Europe and North America and
Speaker 3: there it's you've got a combination of the sort of
Speaker 3: progressive lehard left that there's always disliked Israel for all
Speaker 3: kinds of reasons, particularly the fact that Israel, you know,
Speaker 3: the same reason the Soviet Union turned on Israel. Everybody
Speaker 3: thought that Israel would be a kind of socialist country
Speaker 3: and it kind of looked that way or while we
Speaker 3: are and then the Israeli has made a decision they
Speaker 3: were going to go, you know, and go on the
Speaker 3: American route rather than the Soviet route. The Soviets never
Speaker 3: forgave them, and a lot of the Western you know,
Speaker 3: intellectual left never forgave them either. And there's that for sure.
Speaker 3: Then you've got your young college you know, support the downtrodden,
Speaker 3: the oppressed, in this case identified as the Palestinians. You've
Speaker 3: got that which has been very very powerful politically, I
Speaker 3: mean numerically. You put those groups together and the other group. Well,
Speaker 3: the other group is in those two groups, but also separate.
Speaker 3: And that is just a straight anti Semitic, anti Jewish sentiment, right,
Speaker 3: just often crude, often more sophisticatedly expressed. You put all
Speaker 3: those groups together, they make a lot of noise, and
Speaker 3: they can get a crowd out, and they can block things,
Speaker 3: and they can kill people and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: But they're not that many. They don't carry a lot
Speaker 3: of sort of numerical weight. That's because most Americans, and
Speaker 3: we sort of ask these questions all the time, most
Speaker 3: Americans continue to be inherently pro Israel. The Americans are
Speaker 3: much more ambivalent about how this has gone since the
Speaker 3: initial attacks on Israel and then how these radius responses going.
Speaker 3: But they are not sympathetic to the Palestinians in a
Speaker 3: way that they are automatically sympathetic to the Israelis. And
Speaker 3: that is the thing that you know, carries the day
Speaker 3: with most politicians, even most Democrats national on the national stage.
Speaker 3: And you know where it gets interesting, of course, right now,
Speaker 3: is you bring Trump back into it, and there's a
Speaker 3: couple of things going on there. You know, Trump is
Speaker 3: very pro Israel, but his priority has been and is
Speaker 3: and will remain peace in the Middle East, you know,
Speaker 3: hence his very successful outreach to the Arab nations, particularly
Speaker 3: in the Gulf uh and all of that. And so
Speaker 3: what that what that does is it it makes it
Speaker 3: less les given that whatever Israel does, Trump will just
Speaker 3: say great because Trump actually thinks that they have they've
Speaker 3: had that's the right to defend themselves, obviously, but what
Speaker 3: they do on any given day may not necessarily be
Speaker 3: in their own long term self interest. And this gets
Speaker 3: even more complicated by the fact that net Naiu, who
Speaker 3: is very popular on the American right as seen as
Speaker 3: a you know, defender of Israel and a sort of
Speaker 3: holding the line against you know, Muslim extremism and all
Speaker 3: this rest of it, and it's very popular with evangelical
Speaker 3: Christians and who have, you know, remained quite influential in
Speaker 3: American politics. But Trump and Nett Naiu have a have
Speaker 3: an interesting relationship. And one, you know, Trump's someone he
Speaker 3: doesn't forget, he doesn't forget things. And when Biden was
Speaker 3: declared the winner in twenty twenty, the first foreign leader
Speaker 3: to rush to the microphone to say Trump's gone, it's Biden,
Speaker 3: Let's move on, was with him was was Bbe and
Speaker 3: that didn't go over so well. So Trump is at
Speaker 3: a point now where he's starting to lose He's sympathetic,
Speaker 3: very sympathetic Israel's position, but he's started to lose patience
Speaker 3: with the Israeli leadership. And so it's not of it's
Speaker 3: not a given that whatever Israel does going forward is
Speaker 3: going to be robber stamped by the White House the
Speaker 3: way that under Biden, rightly or wrongly, correctly or incorrectly,
Speaker 3: it was viewed generally by the anti Israeli folks as
Speaker 3: but why does Biden, why does she just go along
Speaker 3: with whatever Israel says? And it's it's just like with
Speaker 3: Ukraine and Russia. Trump's priority is to end what he've
Speaker 3: used a sort of end the madness and the madness,
Speaker 3: and he may take some interesting turns rhetorically and substantively
Speaker 3: to try to get things closer to where he thinks
Speaker 3: they should be, which might end up surprising a few
Speaker 3: folks when it comes to Israel and Gaza.
Speaker 2: There was a comment from your ambassador, the American Ambassador
Speaker 2: to Israel. There was made i think overnight our time.
Speaker 2: Most recently, it was that if the French are so
Speaker 2: because the French had taken a turn against Israel again,
Speaker 2: which is not unusual, but the French have suggested again
Speaker 2: that there has to be a Palestinian state, and the
Speaker 2: ambassadors whose name escapes me, the ex governor of Mike
Speaker 2: Huckabee Huckerbye, thank you that Huckaby has suggested that if
Speaker 2: France is so keen for the Palestinians to have their
Speaker 2: own state, they should carpet out of the Coke de jeur.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought that was really thought that was a beautiful,
Speaker 2: beautiful way to deal with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I mean you can understand where it's coming
Speaker 3: from because you've got, you know, for a long time
Speaker 3: the notion of a two state solution Israel Israel and
Speaker 3: then you know Land put set aside for the Palestinians
Speaker 3: would be the way. You know, most sophisticated people thought, well,
Speaker 3: that makes sense. Everyone gets most of what they want,
Speaker 3: and we can you know, peace will be every rain
Speaker 3: and we can just move on. But of course it's
Speaker 3: become blindingly obvious in recent decades and years that two
Speaker 3: state solution there is not going to work because the
Speaker 3: side you'd be giving the second state to the past
Speaker 3: of the inside is not really interested in there being
Speaker 3: two states. They want one state that doesn't include Israel.
Speaker 3: Whether you think that's historically valid or not, that's you know,
Speaker 3: that's that's their extreme position, which most Palestinian support. And
Speaker 3: you can see, you can you can you can understand
Speaker 3: appreciate Huckaby's frustration at sophisticated you left the Europeans lobbying
Speaker 3: rhetorical barbles at Israel but not being willing to do
Speaker 3: anything about it and not really being the ones who
Speaker 3: kind of seriously deal have to deal with the blowback
Speaker 3: in all kinds of ways. And I think also further,
Speaker 3: I was just saying about Trump's sort of evolution on
Speaker 3: israel Is, it's a way the Americans can keep the
Speaker 3: Israelis off balance because see Hackebe's an eel, very serious
Speaker 3: evangelical Christian and that's his political base in America and
Speaker 3: why he was He's been a very successful politician in America,
Speaker 3: and so he is a natural diplomat in that spot,
Speaker 3: in that context, in the current context too very much
Speaker 3: stand shoulder to shoulder with Israeli government and reassure them
Speaker 3: that America's ultimately got their back. Well, Trump, from time
Speaker 3: to time is appearing to sort of maybe take a
Speaker 3: step or two to the side, and I suspect that
Speaker 3: this kind of thing will continue. And it's both It
Speaker 3: both reflects I think Huckerby's own opinions and Trump's own
Speaker 3: opinions which aren't which overlap a lot but aren't identical.
Speaker 3: But it also it plays to Trump's what I would
Speaker 3: view as one of Trump's strengths in foreign policy, which
Speaker 3: is he by design likes to keep everybody unsure of
Speaker 3: what he's actually thinking and doing. I mean, he gave
Speaker 3: during the election. Right at the end of the election,
Speaker 3: he had this long two three hour interview with Joe
Speaker 3: Rogan the Huge podcast in America, and in talking about
Speaker 3: foreign policy, Trump said, you know, basically, I'm paraphrasing whatever
Speaker 3: I say publicly about the negotiations going on and this
Speaker 3: kind of thing. I'm never going to tell you publicly
Speaker 3: what I think or what I'm going to do. It's
Speaker 3: always disguised, right, which some of us think is very
Speaker 3: sound strategy. Other people find out bizarre that he wouldn't
Speaker 3: just show his cards for you. You know, the opposition
Speaker 3: sees the cards or whatever it might be, guesses the cards.
Speaker 3: So this this kind of this good cop bad cop,
Speaker 3: which I think is developing visa of the Israel from
Speaker 3: the White House, and you will see more of it. Howker,
Speaker 3: beyond the ground, it's easier. It's harder for him to
Speaker 3: say difficult things when he's there. It's easy for Trump
Speaker 3: to do it from a distance. And I think this
Speaker 3: sort of tag team will will continue very good.
Speaker 2: A couple of things to wind it up, and I'm
Speaker 2: springing this on you, sorry, but I am. When I
Speaker 2: finished this question, I want to know the first thing
Speaker 2: that comes to mind if anything, is there something or
Speaker 2: anything that is working its way into the world's immediate
Speaker 2: future that is not getting attention?
Speaker 3: Mmmm? That's that's that is a good question. I think that,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, anything, anything I say is getting
Speaker 3: it attention to some extent. But I think in terms
Speaker 3: of relative weight, I would say, are going to be
Speaker 3: pulled this way. AI is and will be super important
Speaker 3: for good or for ill, but it's getting tons and
Speaker 3: tons and tons of attention. I think that financial freedom,
Speaker 3: that bucket of issues, is getting attention, but nothing like
Speaker 3: as much as it should. You know, what happens with crypto,
Speaker 3: what happens with the digital currencies, what happens about financial privacy,
Speaker 3: All of the stuff that's been going on and every
Speaker 3: now and then pops up, but it's really really important
Speaker 3: to how everyone leaves, lives, their daily financial lives. All
Speaker 3: of that. Some of it's going in a good direction,
Speaker 3: some of it isn't. I mean, most of us going
Speaker 3: in terrible direction for a few years, I would argue
Speaker 3: in most parts of the world, all of that wrapped
Speaker 3: up with the old you know, Chinese social credit scores,
Speaker 3: which some of our European and North American friends, you know,
Speaker 3: Mark Karney and the you just love that stuff. You
Speaker 3: can't get social credit scores going. And that, of course
Speaker 3: is all tied in with your financial score as as
Speaker 3: decided by government bureaucrat. So all of that that bucket
Speaker 3: of how you how you're allowed to spend your money,
Speaker 3: account for your money, receive your money. Who does you know?
Speaker 3: Is it? Is it? Do you have autonom financial autonomy
Speaker 3: as an individual anymore? Should you will the government? Governments
Speaker 3: determine uh your access to your money? What is the relationship?
Speaker 3: Is the relationship with your financial institution more of one
Speaker 3: where they are the messenger for the government or are
Speaker 3: they also autonomous and you, You and they have a
Speaker 3: relation have relationships with the government. You know, So which
Speaker 3: way the arrow is going? This is not very sexy
Speaker 3: answer late, and I apologize, but I think that all
Speaker 3: of that is going to have a tangible impact on everyone,
Speaker 3: and it's just not getting enough play, partly because it's
Speaker 3: not sexy enough, and a large part because most of
Speaker 3: the media is either ignorant of it, unable to understand it,
Speaker 3: and those that are actually quite happy with the notion
Speaker 3: of more control from the top and less autolemy at
Speaker 3: the bottom. And so therefore, why write about something that's
Speaker 3: actually moving in the right direction.
Speaker 2: I have to tell you you're wrong in what you
Speaker 2: say about it being not sexy or boring or whatever.
Speaker 2: It is one of the most important things that I
Speaker 2: congratulate you on targeting it, and in fact, at some stage,
Speaker 2: and they're not too distant future, we might do a
Speaker 2: podcast on that and some surrounding matters. The other thing
Speaker 2: is so thank you for that. The other thing is
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here listening to you and thinking, why doesn't
Speaker 2: this man write a book? What's the answer? I mean,
Speaker 2: why why aren't you?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 2: Why when are you going to write a book? Then well,
Speaker 2: I have I have.
Speaker 3: I put my hand up. I've actually written co written
Speaker 3: a number of books, most of them on I say,
Speaker 3: esoteric toss topics, but very specific, you know, policy regulatory topics,
Speaker 3: with with one one exception, not to bore you here,
Speaker 3: belabor it. Twenty early twenty sixteen, I wrote a book
Speaker 3: on a sort of strategy book on American foreign policy
Speaker 3: as a kind of guide to it. Then there's the
Speaker 3: sixteen people running for the Republican nomination praying that one
Speaker 3: of them would would make it through, and it's it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's a it's a critique of Obama
Speaker 3: and Clinton foreign policy. And then they're like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is I think, how this is what makes sense?
Speaker 3: You could do it better? But no, it's I thought
Speaker 3: about it more recently in terms of the recent elections
Speaker 3: and all that's, all the changes, all the popular culture changes,
Speaker 3: or the polling we've done, all of that. I haven't
Speaker 3: probably had my excuses. I haven't had the time to
Speaker 3: really zero in on what makes the most where I
Speaker 3: could offer the most value, and where the greatest interest
Speaker 3: would be whether those two could cross paths, and so
Speaker 3: we haven't been there yet. But I appreciate you you
Speaker 3: thinking that at this stage I have it in me.
Speaker 2: Since I've said that, everyone listening is saying the same thing,
Speaker 2: because your bank of knowledge and wisdom in many cases is.
Speaker 3: Right up there. And as always lead You're very kind.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking up at my bookshelf at the moment
Speaker 2: I see the deaths of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yes, sorry, and just does a circle back cash,
Speaker 3: you know, the plot to eliminate from our lives. That's
Speaker 3: one of the huge battles that's massively underreported.
Speaker 2: Patrick. I've been on that case for a decade at least,
Speaker 2: and I agree with you entirely, and I have and
Speaker 2: I have, I might say had I believe a small
Speaker 2: amount of influence here in convincing people that they should
Speaker 2: always have cash with them, and that well the blackout,
Speaker 2: of course in Spain has led weight to that as well, hugely.
Speaker 3: As soone much wiser than me has told me, always
Speaker 3: remember Patrick, never in writing, always in cash. I love it.
Speaker 2: So once again you've excelled. Thank you kindly, and I
Speaker 2: trust that we shall talk soon. You're going back to
Speaker 2: the conference where you go we'll have been going the
Speaker 2: last few years in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will be. I'll be at the Future Investment
Speaker 3: Initiative Conference in Read in October. In late September, I
Speaker 3: will be uh at a speaking at a business conference
Speaker 3: in Dubai.
Speaker 2: I find that interesting. I expect you to expect you
Speaker 2: to carry a bed or a sign that says cash
Speaker 2: is king.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Well, the thing is when you when you're in
Speaker 3: a when you're in a Middle Eastern bazaar, the haggling
Speaker 3: is you know, is is essential to the whole experience,
Speaker 3: and so cash cash often is king. Fortunately, refreshingly, reassuringly.
Speaker 2: Indeed, Patrick, once again, thank you heaps, and we'll talk
Speaker 2: in the not too distant.
Speaker 3: It's been my great pleasure to lighton my good wishes
Speaker 3: to you and your fine audience. Thank you so much, missus.
Speaker 2: Producer. Are you ready later?
Speaker 4: I'm all he is.
Speaker 2: Podcast to eighty seven the mail Room and it's been
Speaker 2: a holiday weekend. You can tell now from Barry. I
Speaker 2: listened to podcasts to eighty six with much interest. Nigel
Speaker 2: and Justin were suitably engaged or engaging as you did
Speaker 2: quite well yourself. I love won't won't I won't anybody
Speaker 2: put in brackets for what it's worth here are some
Speaker 2: of my thoughts which followed from the discussion. The development
Speaker 2: of AI has been predicted for many years, often the
Speaker 2: basis of some very good sci fi themes. It's an
Speaker 2: inevitable evolution of human development, something to which we adapt,
Speaker 2: else we become irrelevant. By the way, I'm seventy six
Speaker 2: as I write this, Gosh, you're getting on a bit.
Speaker 2: Simply put, some all jobs will go and new ones
Speaker 2: will emerge, a timeless cycle. Carefully developed and managed AI
Speaker 2: should be a highly valuable tool for humankind. However, there
Speaker 2: are obvious pros and cons, as with anything of significance,
Speaker 2: so some pros that are evident. The ability of AI
Speaker 2: to rapidly sift through data is a clear advantage, time
Speaker 2: wastage minimized with increased chances of breakthrough discoveries. Neutrality, a
Speaker 2: dispassionate AI review of data could be useful With the
Speaker 2: human emotions and bias absent, here's the butt. Would all
Speaker 2: programmers avoid bias? Could judges become AI? That might be
Speaker 2: a pro or a con. A pro risk management an
Speaker 2: AI ability to scan and consider a situation or incident
Speaker 2: prior to the deployment of humans who might otherwise be
Speaker 2: injured or killed is a big plus potentially that would
Speaker 2: apply domestically as well as militarily. On the subject of
Speaker 2: the military, I can imagine that the structures of conflict
Speaker 2: will change, and certainly weapons will keep pace. Instead of
Speaker 2: smashing an opponent to a mass of bodies in rubble,
Speaker 2: an AI assisted victory might see a collapse of the
Speaker 2: loser's systems and societal structure, with the victor taking over
Speaker 2: from there. Domination would properly follow tradition, though subjugation, new laws,
Speaker 2: new taxes, indoctrination, then the disappearance of trouble makers and
Speaker 2: so on cons really depend on one's imagination. Human nature
Speaker 2: means that we can expect a CD side to emerge
Speaker 2: as well as illegal activity. Criminals seek power and fortune
Speaker 2: as though they will adapt and turn the technologies to
Speaker 2: their advantage when they can. Others will simply seek power
Speaker 2: and control because they desire such things as Goebils infamously remarked,
Speaker 2: propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated a
Speaker 2: confident that they're acting on their own free will. In closing,
Speaker 2: carefully considered regulation is essential, ideally agreed across international boundaries.
Speaker 2: I apologize for the length of this email, Laton, thank
Speaker 2: you again for these fascinating discussions. I am already looking
Speaker 2: forward to the next issue with warm regards to missus
Speaker 2: producer from Barry.
Speaker 4: That's so nice, Barry, Thank you, Laton. Bill says your
Speaker 4: AI podcast with Nigel and Justin was probably the most
Speaker 4: important and incredible podcast of yours I've heard, and just
Speaker 4: Layton as a side note, I know not of Justin,
Speaker 4: but Nigel was our news editor and a journalist back
Speaker 4: in the day, and a very very very fine news
Speaker 4: editor and journalist. He was too, and an incredibly nice man,
Speaker 4: so it was so nice to hear that. And then
Speaker 4: Bill goes on to say, and I'm a regular listener
Speaker 4: although this this is the first time I have emailed you.
Speaker 4: What clever, interesting, knowledgeable and insightful people. I had no
Speaker 4: idea about any of this, not at all. That is
Speaker 4: why your podcasts are so critical. We all need to
Speaker 4: know about this. So I have passed on the podcast
Speaker 4: to others. Please have them back regularly the next few years.
Speaker 4: Sounds scary, and Bill goes on to say, I have
Speaker 4: a lovely longtime wife. I don't need an AI companion.
Speaker 4: But it is obvious from what Nigel and Justin said
Speaker 4: we are all in for intrusion from AI. Thank you,
Speaker 4: says Bill. I can't stop thinking about it. I had
Speaker 4: no idea.
Speaker 2: Don't lose any sleep, Bill, it's not worth it. But
Speaker 2: it's a good letter. Speaking of speaking of such things,
Speaker 2: I got a very loud complaint, shall we say, from
Speaker 2: Australia from someone over it. I said, well, write a letter,
Speaker 2: haven't received it. Maybe they're all just mouth What were
Speaker 2: they complaining about about the about the AI?
Speaker 3: What was their complain?
Speaker 2: Well, some people are and some people are inclined to
Speaker 2: be bizarre and some people are entitled to people. What
Speaker 2: were they wanted to hear? Do you know didn't get
Speaker 2: the letter? Okay, that's queerest folk. The fact that he's
Speaker 2: a friend of mine doesn't make any I wondered when
Speaker 2: you might pass that one on now? From John? When
Speaker 2: will they face reality sections of the media? I mean
Speaker 2: good piece by Carl Defraye and Spectator on the seventeenth
Speaker 2: of May and from James Allen. Carl points to New
Speaker 2: Zealand newspaper circulation figures declining to an embarrassing extent. Then
Speaker 2: he goes on and mentions a few things that I
Speaker 2: just might leap out finishes up referring to somebody who
Speaker 2: works in the media, in the paper media, if he
Speaker 2: had any intellectual or moral probity, which is doubtful. He
Speaker 2: knows who the dunces are. Thank you, John.
Speaker 4: Leyden Jin says in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Much he wasn't talking about me.
Speaker 4: Leyden Jin says. In twenty twenty two, Matt Walsh released
Speaker 4: what was possibly the most important documentary in our lifetime,
Speaker 4: What Is a Woman. Within just one year, the documentary
Speaker 4: hit over one hundred and eighty million views. Matt's documentary
Speaker 4: hit the nail on the zeitgeist's head in an age
Speaker 4: where women must shut up while men became women and
Speaker 4: wiped womanhood out of existence. Fast forward to twenty twenty five,
Speaker 4: we have reached another zeitgeist, an age where AI is
Speaker 4: replacing the very essence of humanity. AI is permeating everything
Speaker 4: we do, constantly listening. AI is permeating everything we do,
Speaker 4: constantly listening, constantly learning, constantly growing into an electric showcase
Speaker 4: of the best and worst of humanity combined. I love
Speaker 4: the dynamic feel of your first ever podcast duet with
Speaker 4: Nigel Horricks and Justin Matthews. They really got me thinking
Speaker 4: that AI might well be the alien life form we've
Speaker 4: all been searching for, and they've been rewiring our brains
Speaker 4: while we happily consumed their algorithms in the form of news, entertainment,
Speaker 4: and social media. Just today, in their Creative Machinist substack,
Speaker 4: they talked about the tragic death of Seawell, a fourteen
Speaker 4: year old boy who committed suicide after forming an intense
Speaker 4: emotional bond with an AI chatbot model on a character
Speaker 4: from Game of Thrones. The company behind this AI chatbot
Speaker 4: even tried to argue that their chatbots should be protected
Speaker 4: under the First Amendment. Insane, isn't it. We may well
Speaker 4: have slipped quietly into World War III, except that this
Speaker 4: time round AI is the weapon, our minds the battlefield,
Speaker 4: and our humanity the price. If the long March through
Speaker 4: the instant took fifteen years, the long March through the
Speaker 4: minds will only take three to five years or less.
Speaker 4: Perhaps it's time for Matt Walsh to wield his magic
Speaker 4: again and release the next most important documentary of all
Speaker 4: time and call it What Is a Human? This time
Speaker 4: we rediscovered what it means to be human again. Without
Speaker 4: chatch ept's help.
Speaker 2: Is that good? There are? Yeah, there are things that
Speaker 2: are falling into place, predictions and what have you that
Speaker 2: have I mean, who was it that said it's been around?
Speaker 2: I read that's been around for or in the making
Speaker 2: for a long time? Was on incoming if you like?
Speaker 2: There are plenty of things that are incoming, and they're
Speaker 2: not all good, just saying so from Craig. By the way,
Speaker 2: for those of you who write niceties that I might
Speaker 2: not read, don't think they're unappreciated at all. Your podcast
Speaker 2: on AI was an eye opener and touched on the
Speaker 2: same human interaction challenges that I have just finished presenting
Speaker 2: on At an engineering conference, I had a hilarious interaction
Speaker 2: with Facebook's meta AI on a topic very dear to
Speaker 2: you and I, climate change. The responses absolutely underwrote the
Speaker 2: inherent bias possible with AI as raised in your podcast.
Speaker 2: I have included the screen snaps of my conversation, but
Speaker 2: I don't expect you to read them out, as I
Speaker 2: am a bit sweary. Here is the summary. I started
Speaker 2: out reading an article about the collapse of a glacier
Speaker 2: in the Swiss Alps. AI offered an explanation of why
Speaker 2: the event happened, so I clicked on it out of interest.
Speaker 2: Of course, AI walked straight into the trap, blaming mankind
Speaker 2: climate change, which got my hackles up. I decided to
Speaker 2: challenge it. So me, he says me him, Why do
Speaker 2: you quote climate change? This is just an ideological construct.
Speaker 2: AI responded that it provides evidence based information, quoting IPCC, NASA.
Speaker 2: No A me, so what about sea level rise? AI
Speaker 2: responded with the fact fact that sea levels have risen
Speaker 2: eight to nine inches since eighteen eighty. I responded again, BS,
Speaker 2: show me one location where this level of rise has occurred.
Speaker 2: AI suddenly backtracked and said it is complicated and quoted projections.
Speaker 2: It admitted it could not find a specific location. This
Speaker 2: is an explosive admission. A globally powerful AI search engine
Speaker 2: could not find one actual occurrence of sea level rise.
Speaker 2: I responded with, so you disprove your eight dash nine,
Speaker 2: don't you. AI then changed its story that it was
Speaker 2: quoting general information. I responded with, you're talking BS and
Speaker 2: claiming it as facts. I apologized for me. It was
Speaker 2: revealing a little like trying to reason with Chloe issual
Speaker 2: break try it yourself sometimes. I did, actually with the
Speaker 2: aforementioned Chloe, try it sometime. It is cheap entertainment. What
Speaker 2: it does underline, though, is the dangerous effect of bias
Speaker 2: in the AI world. Craig, I'm going to say, that's
Speaker 2: a real great commentary. Thank youss producer. We're done.
Speaker 4: We're done late for another week, so thank.
Speaker 2: You next next week. Yes, I was going to say.
Speaker 3: Next you run out of run out of puff all day.
Speaker 2: No, I'm fine, thank you, But I tell you what,
Speaker 2: I really just leave you with this sort. I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed today with Patrick Basham. Yes he's always good. I
Speaker 2: just thought today he was good plus excellent, he excelled. Yes,
Speaker 2: he's always good. We like Patrick, we do. Thank you, Flater,
Speaker 2: Layton Smith and so to net zero and other matters
Speaker 2: with regard to climate. Some time ago I decided that
Speaker 2: the word stupid should get greater exercise, because the word
Speaker 2: stupid is much under utilized, especially regarding some most important
Speaker 2: matters like power supply. A number of events and announcements worldwide,
Speaker 2: in fact, have exposed the stupidity that still exists in
Speaker 2: this so called enlightened era CO two climate debate. Paris Accord.
Speaker 2: Just to begin, lev he repeats CO two the climate
Speaker 2: debate Paris accord. Every country has its percentage of stupidity.
Speaker 2: The Australian Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen would fall
Speaker 2: into the ranks of world leader stupid. He and his
Speaker 2: PM are intent on destroying the Australian economy willingly or otherwise,
Speaker 2: or should I say knowingly or otherwise. The following is
Speaker 2: a comment by doctor David Phillips, who is a former
Speaker 2: research scientist and the founder of Family Voice Australia. He
Speaker 2: published in The Spectator this current Week an article on
Speaker 2: mad about the Climate. This is the conclusion of his piece.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal. Australia abandons cheap, reliable coal generated electricity
Speaker 2: required by what's left of our manufacturing industry in pursuit
Speaker 2: of net zero by twenty fifty. We export vast qualities
Speaker 2: of coal to countries that don't care about CO two
Speaker 2: emissions for them to use cheap coal generated electricity to
Speaker 2: expand their manufacturing industry. In echo of George Orwell's nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty four all CO two emissions are equal, but omissions
Speaker 2: in some countries are more equal than in others. If
Speaker 2: you can make sense of this, dear reader, you're a
Speaker 2: better man than I am. Gonga Din. The great English
Speaker 2: scientist Sir Isaac Newton once said, I can calculate the
Speaker 2: motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
Speaker 2: Australia seems to be mad about the climate now. In
Speaker 2: a parallel piece in The Spectator, Rebecca Wiser writes, referring
Speaker 2: to the aforementioned Chris Bowen, Bowen claims the silent majority
Speaker 2: backs his ned zero fantasy, Yet he was the one
Speaker 2: who was silent during the election after the Prime Minister
Speaker 2: abandoned the powering Australian modeling that it took to the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two election that underpinned its joke promise joke
Speaker 2: promise to cut power bills by two hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five dollars a year by twenty twenty five and by
Speaker 2: three hundred seventy eight by twenty thirty. The only energy
Speaker 2: policy Labour discussed during the campaign was Peter Dutton and
Speaker 2: Ted O'Brien's plan to build seven nuclear plants on coalsites,
Speaker 2: costed by Labour add a staggering six hundred billion to
Speaker 2: hit net zero by twenty fifty. Now that is a
Speaker 2: prize piece of scare nomics, she writes. Yet Dutton and
Speaker 2: O'Brien failed to explain the reality as countries like Finland
Speaker 2: and Korea have shown the cost would be far lower.
Speaker 2: The first plant might cost fourteen billion, with each subsequent
Speaker 2: unit ten to twenty five percent cheaper, so the total
Speaker 2: closer to eighty to ninety billion. Yet the deeper floor
Speaker 2: in O'Brien's plan was accepting the net zero by twenty
Speaker 2: fifty target at all. Labour cleverly refused to cost its
Speaker 2: own plan, But according to the Net Zero Australia project
Speaker 2: run by the Universities of Melbourne, Princeton and others, its
Speaker 2: renewables back scheme would cost seven to nine trillion by
Speaker 2: twenty sixty, an eye watering one hundred and ninety four
Speaker 2: to two hundred and fifty billion a year from twenty
Speaker 2: five to sixty, that is twenty sixty. It is this
Speaker 2: that makes nuclear cheap by comparison, this mad scheme involves
Speaker 2: tripling the national electricity market and carpeting sixty eight million hectares.
Speaker 2: Imagine this carpeting sixty eight million hectares about nine percent
Speaker 2: of the country with one point nine t w of
Speaker 2: solar one thirty two GW of onshore wind, forty two
Speaker 2: GW of offshore wind, and ten thousand kilometers of transmission
Speaker 2: lines poorly stabilized by batteries and hydro mandated electric vehicles
Speaker 2: in heat pumps, vast desalination to produce green hydrogen, and
Speaker 2: a network of pipelines to capture and transport CO two
Speaker 2: to storage sites. The whole scheme is bonkers. So why
Speaker 2: didn't Dutton and O'Brien tell Labor that they were dreaming?
Speaker 2: Because the Liberal left add its venal rent seekers. What
Speaker 2: a hop on board the net zero gravy train. That's
Speaker 2: also why a group no one's heard of, Liberals Against Nuclear,
Speaker 2: has been running ads on Sky News since the election.
Speaker 2: Yet nuclear is only indispensable if you're chasing net zero delusions,
Speaker 2: which even then are unachievable with current technology. In the
Speaker 2: real world, a responsible government would face the strategic and
Speaker 2: physical threats bearing down on Australia and do the only
Speaker 2: sensible thing, go for growth.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: One of the great intellects of science the New Zealand
Speaker 2: has produced is Professor Michael Kelly. Born and bred in
Speaker 2: New Zealand, he ended up in England and has reached
Speaker 2: massive heights of reckinggn and respect Now. I've interviewed him
Speaker 2: on two occasions over the years. He was here actually
Speaker 2: just earlier this year, but we couldn't couldn't organize a
Speaker 2: get together. But I've picked out something that he wrote
Speaker 2: back in twenty eighteen. Why twenty eighteen and not recently well,
Speaker 2: it is a self explanatory I think climate change mitigation
Speaker 2: in New Zealand the stifling of debate. This paper is
Speaker 2: in three sections. The first is a paper I wrote
Speaker 2: examining in detail claims made in a report by the
Speaker 2: Royal Society of New Zealand in twenty sixteen on transitioning
Speaker 2: New Zealand to a low carbon economy. Three of forty
Speaker 2: six recommendations three of forty six made sense both economically
Speaker 2: and environmentally, three out of forty six eight made no
Speaker 2: difference to either, and all the others were detrimental to
Speaker 2: the New Zealand economy and or were ineffective at reducing
Speaker 2: CO two emissions. I pointed out the futility of cutting
Speaker 2: emissions when the Chinese are growing at a much greater
Speaker 2: rate in bracketcy rights. I have discovered more recently that
Speaker 2: with their Belton Road Initiative. Over the next thirty years,
Speaker 2: they're about to treble their global emissions footprint, which is
Speaker 2: already at two hundred and seventy times the New Zealand footprint.
Speaker 2: The original paper is only a third of the length
Speaker 2: of the report I submitted to the Royal Society New Zealand,
Speaker 2: and that constraints led to criticisms that to add even
Speaker 2: more to the paper, which was not allowed. The second
Speaker 2: section is the correspondence with the editor of the Journal
Speaker 2: of the Royal Society of New Zealand, where I tried
Speaker 2: to continue the debate. This represents the second round of submission,
Speaker 2: as I was able to identify by his comments that
Speaker 2: one of the first referees was an author of the
Speaker 2: original report. While the referees thought that the approach to
Speaker 2: the research was to be lauded, they could not possibly
Speaker 2: agree with the results and use the old rus of
Speaker 2: nitpicking instead of unraveling these substantive arguments that I made,
Speaker 2: which still stand. The third section deals with the correspondence
Speaker 2: with the editor of the Journal of New Zealand studies
Speaker 2: with pretty much the same conclusion. This paper is two
Speaker 2: years old, but I have more empirical data to back
Speaker 2: up each of the claims that I have made. That's
Speaker 2: all I want to include, point being that stupidity reigned supreme.
Speaker 2: I would suggest to you that Professor Michael Kelly has
Speaker 2: more intelligence, and I'm tempted to say than the entire
Speaker 2: membership of the New Zealand Royal Society, but that might
Speaker 2: be just a wee bit of an exaggeration and that'll
Speaker 2: take us out for podcasts to two hundred and eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Would like to write to us Latent at the us
Speaker 2: talks ab dot co dot nz or Carolyn at news
Speaker 2: talks ab dot co dot nz on this podcast, any
Speaker 2: other podcasts of mine, and anything else that you might
Speaker 2: think is worthy of bringing to my attention. So the
Speaker 2: only thing left to say is, as always, thank you
Speaker 2: for listening and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 3: Thank you for more from News Talks ed B.
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