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Speaker 1: One of the biggest data center projects, this one in
Speaker 1: Utah that you can possibly imagine, is moving forward. Listen,
Speaker 1: sixty two square miles of desert getting carved up for
Speaker 1: you know, I guess to jack up your electricity bills.
Speaker 4: And use more power than the entire state of Utah.
Speaker 1: It's like sixty two square miles and getting a tax
Speaker 1: break of humming data center. Like, good, look look at
Speaker 1: that thing. I don't even I don't even know what
Speaker 1: to say about that.
Speaker 4: Look at look at that beautiful, beautiful so chunk of land.
Speaker 1: Locals out there looked at it, and we're like, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: don't think I don't think we want this either, did
Speaker 1: not seem to matter. Let's roll a little bit of
Speaker 1: uh C two here.
Speaker 5: All of this as well.
Speaker 1: Then why won't they let people talk?
Speaker 5: Why won't.
Speaker 4: This is not real information?
Speaker 1: And we sitting here like it's okay, it's a charaine,
Speaker 1: it's a charaine.
Speaker 5: It's full.
Speaker 1: So despite this kind of outpouring of opposition, the project
Speaker 1: is continuing to move forward. Also, environmental concerns being spelled
Speaker 1: out roll C three here.
Speaker 6: How are you upsetting the how are you offsetting these
Speaker 6: environmental concerns?
Speaker 7: Well, I'm actually the only developer of data centers on
Speaker 7: Earth that graduated from environmental studies, so I'm pretty aware
Speaker 7: of what these concerns are. They are around air, water use, heat,
Speaker 7: noise pollution. So sustainability is at the heart of what
Speaker 7: we do in terms of all these proposals, not just Utah.
Speaker 7: We have ten thousand acres in Alberta, Canada with the
Speaker 7: same concerns, and so we search for the best technology.
Speaker 7: There's many air cooled turbines now, so you're blending in
Speaker 7: air cooled versus water. There's so many different ways to
Speaker 7: generate power. We can also put a percentage of the
Speaker 7: power generation through solar, wind and batteries because the battery
Speaker 7: technology is ten x more efficient than it was just
Speaker 7: five years ago. So that's very helpful because it makes
Speaker 7: the cost of energy lower. So no one, you know,
Speaker 7: if you're environmentalists, then you don't care about that stuff.
Speaker 7: Of course you protest, and that's what happens.
Speaker 1: I noted.
Speaker 7: You know what's happening in Utah right now is we
Speaker 7: think over ninety percent of the protesters are actually not
Speaker 7: people that live in Utah or box Elter County.
Speaker 4: They're being busted in Oh goodness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what I think of this new
Speaker 1: trend of even like the data center guy.
Speaker 4: Kevin O'Leary of jud Tank and Party Supreme.
Speaker 1: Like doing the car thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, nobody trusts you if you like have overprocessed
Speaker 4: videos now and they've discovered that three very commercials, not
Speaker 4: in this case, but like have you started to see
Speaker 4: some commercials that are filmed like they're on a phone.
Speaker 4: It's really something.
Speaker 1: So unless you're like Kyle Kolinsky coming back from the
Speaker 1: golf course with Crystal nobody wants to hear.
Speaker 4: Nobody trusts you.
Speaker 1: Nobody trusty Crystal en Route, nobody trusts your take. Of course,
Speaker 1: all this is propped up by an inflated bubble put
Speaker 1: up CE five here. Bloomberg has a nice little graphic
Speaker 1: this is crazy, tries to explain how how the money
Speaker 1: is flowing through here and to help us walk, to
Speaker 1: help us walk through this. Lucky enough to be joined
Speaker 1: by Rohit Choper, who's the former director of the Consumer
Speaker 1: Financial Protection Board, also a former FTC commissioner. What's your
Speaker 1: what's your current gig? Now that Trump threw you out
Speaker 1: of this CFPB because I don't want to, we don't
Speaker 1: want to just do formers. Row Hit, welcome to show.
Speaker 1: What are you up to now?
Speaker 6: Well, I'm helping out our state attorneys general actually prosecute
Speaker 6: some of this wrongdoing that the federal agencies are just
Speaker 6: watching as crime is committed all over the country.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 4: It would have been really funnyhead if your answer was
Speaker 4: I'm I'm spearheading massive data center construction.
Speaker 1: Data center consulting.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: Rowhit is one of the people that keeps corporate America
Speaker 1: up at night. The the foul language that people like
Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond have had for Rowhead. I think speaks speaks
Speaker 1: to speaks quite well to him and to the analysis
Speaker 1: that he's able to give here. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: this Utah Data Center project, am I an idiot? Like?
Speaker 1: Why are they putting these things out in the desert?
Speaker 1: First of all? When the big problem is overheating? Am
Speaker 1: I the first person to think of that?
Speaker 6: Well, here's what we're seeing across the country, massive actually
Speaker 6: competition from all of these states and localities to hand
Speaker 6: out tax breaks in order to subsidize these very massive
Speaker 6: real estate developments. And I think you're seeing an unending
Speaker 6: thirst for power when it comes to keeping going this
Speaker 6: AI machine. There is even analysis from Goldman Sachs that
Speaker 6: is suggesting that AI is contributing to all sorts of
Speaker 6: increased consumer prices, whether it is the increased cost of
Speaker 6: electricity that some people believe is a result the increased
Speaker 6: demand for electronic equipment and chips, as well as a
Speaker 6: whole other set of costs. So you're starting to see
Speaker 6: a lot of pushback, especially because some of the traditional
Speaker 6: arguments for subsidizing these developments, like creating lots of jobs,
Speaker 6: aren't necessarily materializing. Well, it takes people to construct these
Speaker 6: data centers. If you walk through some of them, you'll
Speaker 6: see there's very few people working at them.
Speaker 4: Have you done that before you've walked through the data centers.
Speaker 6: I've seen a data center. I've seen it's actually it's
Speaker 6: quite extraordinary in some ways to see the sheer volume
Speaker 6: of electronic equipment, the need to cool some of this,
Speaker 6: and the need to just kind of keep it going
Speaker 6: twenty four hours a day. And I think we forget
Speaker 6: that every time we are opening an app or streaming
Speaker 6: a show that is really resting on those behemoth data centers.
Speaker 4: So on that point Trump takes office, CFPB, you're gone.
Speaker 4: CFPB is now a shell of its former self. Basically
Speaker 4: was doged, which was a plan of the conservative movement
Speaker 4: long before Doge, of course, But one of the things
Speaker 4: that you were doing, and correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 4: at the CFPP was starting to pay really close attention
Speaker 4: to the consumer effects of cryptocurrency. And I think one
Speaker 4: of the reasons cryptocurrency and just financialization and the like.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the reasons that people are
Speaker 4: so mad about what started to happen with the data
Speaker 4: centers is that they look around and they say, for what,
Speaker 4: what is all of this? All of this is war schemes,
Speaker 4: whether it's I mean, crypto isn't directly related to this,
Speaker 4: or maybe it is, correct me if I'm wrong, but
Speaker 4: like it's all to that Bloomberg piece we just we
Speaker 4: just had up on the screen. It's all like Microsoft
Speaker 4: funding in Nvidia to fund Microsoft, like it's all it
Speaker 4: all feels fake to people. It all feels like it's
Speaker 4: for the sake of people who are going to be
Speaker 4: fine no matter what, just like what happened in the
Speaker 4: Great Recession. They are going to survive, many of them
Speaker 4: are going to survive. Average people are going to be
Speaker 4: screwed once again. And so some of it I think
Speaker 4: just comes from this anger about what's building up, the
Speaker 4: froth that's building up in the economy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, there's a concept that we talk about
Speaker 6: on Wall Street. It was I think coined by a
Speaker 6: Bloomberg journalist, number go up, which is really this push
Speaker 6: no matter what type of asset you're referring to, they
Speaker 6: want the number.
Speaker 5: To go up. And we have seen it in the data.
Speaker 6: The top one percent of Americans now own over fifty
Speaker 6: percent of the stock market and mutual fund assets in
Speaker 6: the US. And if you look at the portion of
Speaker 6: what we refer to as the Magnificent Seven, those big
Speaker 6: tech companies, Nvidia and others, they are a larger and
Speaker 6: larger and larger share of the overall stock market. So
Speaker 6: we're in a situation now, and I'll tell you something.
Speaker 6: Just in one quarter recently, just baby boomers saw their
Speaker 6: wealth increase by a trillion dollars and this is due
Speaker 6: to some of these stock market gains. So we're in
Speaker 6: a situation where the economy is now in some ways
Speaker 6: resting on these big asset prices, and many people are
Speaker 6: wondering are these asset prices really real? You mention what's
Speaker 6: called circularity. This is where a.
Speaker 1: Group up while you're talking people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, these group of companies are really kind of all
Speaker 6: in deals with each other. Some of it is related
Speaker 6: to services like cloud, some of it is related to chips,
Speaker 6: the things that you know in video makes. Some of
Speaker 6: it is actually investment. So there is really this web
Speaker 6: and honestly, this Bloomberg graphic doesn't even begin to show
Speaker 6: some of it. You are seeing that in some cases
Speaker 6: an enormous part of even the cloud infrastructure is increasingly
Speaker 6: being paid between these companies. And what's interesting is that
Speaker 6: it is not necessarily they're paying cash. They're entering into
Speaker 6: deals financing and equity deals that are really tying some
Speaker 6: of these firms together.
Speaker 5: So we don't really know.
Speaker 6: Is this a situation where if one problem occurs, will
Speaker 6: it have a ripple effect? I think earlier you mentioned
Speaker 6: what happened in the financial crisis, the regulators had no
Speaker 6: clue about the linkages between the big banks between some
Speaker 6: of these credit default swaps insurance companies like AIG, and
Speaker 6: the result was a mess. And I think we're starting
Speaker 6: to worry that maybe there isn't a big problem here.
Speaker 6: But is anyone really looking because it seems like most
Speaker 6: of the regulators in Washington are worshiping at these companies
Speaker 6: alters rather than actually kicking the tires to see if
Speaker 6: there's a bigger issue on our hands.
Speaker 1: And so, what happens if the revenue expectations of an
Speaker 1: open AI or an anthropic start to not meet? Like well, we're.
Speaker 5: Already seeing signs of this.
Speaker 6: Open AI I think has delayed its timeline for a
Speaker 6: IPO where they go public anthropics.
Speaker 5: I think we still don't have a.
Speaker 6: Firm timeline on it, and many analysts believe this is
Speaker 6: because us open AI is not showing the level of
Speaker 6: revenue that the street expects.
Speaker 5: So this is the worry.
Speaker 6: You have a set of companies that are an overwhelming
Speaker 6: share now of the stock market, over a third of
Speaker 6: the stock market, and you have all that wealth really
Speaker 6: concentrated at the upper echelons of the economy, and they
Speaker 6: are driving those wealthy individuals are driving a huge amount
Speaker 6: of spending. If we start seeing the stock market values
Speaker 6: of these companies go down, will they all face a correction?
Speaker 6: And what will the ripple effect be through the economy.
Speaker 6: I think that's really what a lot of people, both
Speaker 6: on Wall Street and who follow the economy closely, are
Speaker 6: really really curious about.
Speaker 4: And if we could talk a bit about the consumer
Speaker 4: end of this rowhead, I'm curious, you know, some of
Speaker 4: the stuff you all were doing at the CFPB to
Speaker 4: stealman the conservative argument it was you didn't need the CFPB.
Speaker 4: The CFPB could sort of be folded into other agencies
Speaker 4: that already existed. So if we take that seriously for
Speaker 4: a moment, I'm curious if you believe that some of
Speaker 4: those responsibilities have adequately been folded into other oversight bodies
Speaker 4: and what risk. I'm assuming you're gonna say, no, what risk?
Speaker 4: Then consumers find themselves in with a basically empty CFPB
Speaker 4: and some of this real economic change happening kind of
Speaker 4: under everybody's noses right now.
Speaker 5: Well, let's look at the proof.
Speaker 6: While I was in office, and even before, the CFPB
Speaker 6: was regularly returning billions of dollars. I think on average
Speaker 6: it was over three billion dollars a year, and really
Speaker 6: some serious fraud.
Speaker 5: I think we've basically seen zero.
Speaker 6: I don't I can't even tell you when the last
Speaker 6: time they took an action. It has mostly been to
Speaker 6: gut the place. So I think the arguments that someone
Speaker 6: else would do it just haven't held up. Here's the thing,
Speaker 6: Emily that I think we've got to really think hard about.
Speaker 6: It's one thing about, you know, going after fraud, returning.
Speaker 5: Money to people.
Speaker 6: The big, big work is often preventing the next meltdown
Speaker 6: or crisis. Had there had been I think some real
Speaker 6: scrutiny of subprime mortgages, we wouldn't have gotten into the big,
Speaker 6: gigantic mess from two thousand and eight that honestly, we
Speaker 6: are still feeling aspects of today, both politically and economically,
Speaker 6: including in our housing costs.
Speaker 5: But I really wonder.
Speaker 6: These alphabet soup agencies are they asking any question, are
Speaker 6: they actually looking at anything, or are they simply just
Speaker 6: doing deals to scratch the backs of political supporters. We're
Speaker 6: seeing this at the FTC when it comes to mergers,
Speaker 6: waving mergers through where there is a politically connected lobbyist
Speaker 6: and going hard on firms that might be enemies of
Speaker 6: the administration. And what I say to all my conservative
Speaker 6: friends is that I really thought you guys didn't want
Speaker 6: the government picking winners and losers. That is really how
Speaker 6: Russia and China often work. I thought we were about
Speaker 6: letting people build and create and not just deciding and
Speaker 6: crowning corporate royalty. I'm worried we're shifting toward that. And
Speaker 6: let's see if there is a broad spectrum of people
Speaker 6: across the ideological spectrum who just say no and we're.
Speaker 5: Tired of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm picking a lot of tech companies those winners
Speaker 4: in particular.
Speaker 1: And Rohitchroper I also wanted to ask you uh to
Speaker 1: kind of unpack for us a little bit this this
Speaker 1: fight that's going on between Wall Street banks on the
Speaker 1: one hand and crypto companies on the other hand that
Speaker 1: seem to be attempting to act like banks. They want to.
Speaker 1: It looks like they want to start taking deposits and
Speaker 1: paying interest on deposits, but without being kind of regulated
Speaker 1: as as banks, which you know, the nice thing that
Speaker 1: we got out of the Great Depression was the fdi
Speaker 1: C and you put you put your money into a bank,
Speaker 1: and if the bank goes under. As Americans, we're not
Speaker 1: actually worried that we're not that we're going to lose
Speaker 1: our deposits, and so therefore we don't rush and we
Speaker 1: don't create runs on those those banks. So Tom Tillis,
Speaker 1: I maybe we can add this and pose with Tom
Speaker 1: Tillis and Angela also Brooks, the Tom Till's Republican from
Speaker 1: North Carolina, also Brooks Democrat from Maryland, putting together a
Speaker 1: proposal that they thought had reached some type of compromise
Speaker 1: between coinbase and the crypto world and Wall Street. But
Speaker 1: that seems to have kind of unraveled a little bit.
Speaker 1: So can you unpack for us, like what are these
Speaker 1: what are the different camps arguing for? And I wonder
Speaker 1: so Coinbase just laid off what fourteen percent of its
Speaker 1: of its staff, and I wonder if they were waiting
Speaker 1: to kind of reach a deal and then and then
Speaker 1: went for this massive layoff. Setting that aside, What what
Speaker 1: is this fight over?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So look, Ryan, you know I'm not some kind of
Speaker 6: unvarnished cheerleader for banks. I think we got to scrutinize
Speaker 6: them carefully. But let's be honest. We do need banks
Speaker 6: in our society. We need a place where we can
Speaker 6: pull our deposits and that we can get loans on
Speaker 6: everything from building factories or starting a dry crew or pizzeria.
Speaker 6: That's what banks do. The banks are arguing that the
Speaker 6: crypto companies that are wanting to start these crypto dollars
Speaker 6: or stable coins they call it, that they're going to
Speaker 6: put money in those coins, and that it is going
Speaker 6: to drain the banks of deposits who they would otherwise
Speaker 6: use to lend. And so what the battle is about
Speaker 6: here is can those stable coin companies or crypto dollars,
Speaker 6: can they pay interest on the deposit. The argument if
Speaker 6: they pay interest, there will be lots of flight from
Speaker 6: banks to those stable coin issuers. And the argument from
Speaker 6: the stable coin issuers. Is that the banks they can
Speaker 6: just compete and raise their interest rates too. So this
Speaker 6: sounds actually like it's a debate about it's really not.
Speaker 6: It's really a debate about what is the future of
Speaker 6: our banking system. Is our banking system going to be
Speaker 6: one where we put money in deposits and that leads
Speaker 6: to lending, but we can always get our money back,
Speaker 6: as you said, Ryan, or we going to have something
Speaker 6: a little bit different. I really worry that this is
Speaker 6: not becoming a debate about farm lending and mortgage lending
Speaker 6: and national security and sanctions. Instead it seems a little
Speaker 6: bit more about a fight that's just jocking between two
Speaker 6: big industries shooting.
Speaker 5: At each other.
Speaker 6: But the truth is is that if you look at
Speaker 6: as what is happening about, big questions about the future
Speaker 6: of the dollar trade, the financial system, the future of
Speaker 6: the FED, these are all linked, and you just don't
Speaker 6: see a lot of coverage about this. So we got
Speaker 6: to all get smart and make sure this is not
Speaker 6: just a lobbying frenzy between industries, but we're choosing what
Speaker 6: is right for America.
Speaker 1: So what does the world look like if we're doing
Speaker 1: crypto dollars instead of.
Speaker 4: Dollars, and the stable coin push from the Trump administration,
Speaker 4: which is enriching to them as well. By the way,
Speaker 4: but remember when with the tariff, Trump's what Trump what
Speaker 4: brought him from the brink was the bond market's getting
Speaker 4: quote a little yippy. And I don't think anybody totally
Speaker 4: understands what they're trying to do with the dollar in
Speaker 4: the long term.
Speaker 6: Well, here's really one of the best cases they're trying
Speaker 6: to make is that by issuing these stable coins, they're
Speaker 6: going to attract more demand for dollars, and therefore that
Speaker 6: will mean more purchases of US treasuries, which will then
Speaker 6: make our debt cheaper. I really I wrote a piece
Speaker 6: last year that really questions some of that assumption, because
Speaker 6: I do think a lot of the funds that will
Speaker 6: power these stable coins will actually just come from US
Speaker 6: consumers and businesses. When I send a Venmo or a
Speaker 6: cash app, I'm not thinking about is it in a
Speaker 6: stable coin, is it in a bank deposit. I just
Speaker 6: expect it to work. This is not going to be
Speaker 6: so clear to consumers, and I want to make sure
Speaker 6: that if something went down, if there is a crisis,
Speaker 6: that people will not panic and that they will be
Speaker 6: able to get their money back. That is something that
Speaker 6: is so key for confidence in our economy. And I
Speaker 6: would hate to see those who really live paycheck to
Speaker 6: paycheck all of a sudden, or a small business all
Speaker 6: of a sudden lose everything because what their money, that
Speaker 6: their money is not really stable.
Speaker 4: We're so cooked.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, it's not, we're cook We just got
Speaker 6: to get smarter and we got to get our voices
Speaker 6: in the arena. And we can't just be passive observers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who are the smartest, Who are the people on
Speaker 1: the right side of this, Who are actually who actually
Speaker 1: get it? In Congress?
Speaker 6: Now, well, you know what's funny is I think actually
Speaker 6: a lot of them do get it, but many are
Speaker 6: worried about what they can say out loud. I think
Speaker 6: they see huge lobbying interests on those companies. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: I think that is something that is something that politicians,
Speaker 6: you know, we want them to all be courageous to
Speaker 6: do the right thing, but we know the power of
Speaker 6: these big arsenals of lobbying money. We're seeing it in
Speaker 6: AI as well, where the AI you know, companies are
Speaker 6: forming lobbies to really destroy any state legislator or local
Speaker 6: politician who is even speaking up against data centers or
Speaker 6: trying to put some basic protections on the books. So
Speaker 6: this is why we can't just we can't just observe.
Speaker 6: We gotta we gotta be in on it.
Speaker 1: Rohit Chopra, thanks so much for joining us. Former director
Speaker 1: of the CFP, PB, former chairman or former commissioner on
Speaker 1: the FTC. Much appreciated.
Speaker 5: Thanks raving.
Speaker 1: The conservative movements. Woodward and Bernstein turned up in Havana,
Speaker 1: both of them. Takes two to match the wits one.
Speaker 1: Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley, however, running into a little running
Speaker 1: into a few problems in Havanah. Here he is from
Speaker 1: a sanctioned Havana hotel. I think through sheer ignorance, Nick
Speaker 1: Shirley is confronting the absurd of American sanctions by staying
Speaker 1: in a hotel. He is definitely not allowed to be
Speaker 1: staying in. So critical support to comrade surely here who
Speaker 1: is facing difficult circumstances. Let's roll this video that Nick
Speaker 1: Shirley actually produced. This is not AI or made up
Speaker 1: or anything. Let's roll some Nick Shirley.
Speaker 8: All right, Depending when this comes out or if it
Speaker 8: does We are currently being telled by Cuban intelligence here
Speaker 8: in habout A, Cuba.
Speaker 4: I came here.
Speaker 8: I've been wanting to make a video for so long
Speaker 8: about life and communism and showing people what communism is
Speaker 8: like in a place like Cuba.
Speaker 5: For instance, I go out.
Speaker 8: At the airport. They sees all of my cameras. They
Speaker 8: sees both my GoPros, my metaglasses. These are not my metaglasses,
Speaker 8: all my microphones. However, the only thing they don't take
Speaker 8: is my iPhone camera. That's what I'm filming. It's on
Speaker 8: right now. They don't take my iPhone camera, and somehow
Speaker 8: they didn't get this microphone that was in the very
Speaker 8: very bottom of my backpack. We're filming this video and
Speaker 8: when we're next to the hospital, we see undercover cop
Speaker 8: roll up on us and my security guards that are
Speaker 8: with me. They detected him, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 8: there's another one. So we hot back in another taxi.
Speaker 8: We left the scene and we thought we were good.
Speaker 8: They didn't tell us and we left. But since we
Speaker 8: left the airport, we had been getting telled or the
Speaker 8: word had gotten out that there was a journalist inside
Speaker 8: of Cuba. There's only two flats that come in here
Speaker 8: every single day, so it wasn't hard to spot out
Speaker 8: who the journalist was. And we have a Cuban intelligence
Speaker 8: down in the lobby of the hotel right now working
Speaker 8: to essentially try to round us up and potentially imprison
Speaker 8: us or make it so we cannot leave Cuba.
Speaker 1: So the interesting thing about that video, one of them,
Speaker 1: at least when I went over there recently, there was
Speaker 1: this massive hullabaloo about the fact that we stayed in
Speaker 1: a quote unquote five star hotel. For when you have
Speaker 1: a giant group of Americans who are traveling to Cuba,
Speaker 1: there are only a couple of hotels that you're allowed
Speaker 1: to stay, and you can stay in their version of
Speaker 1: kind of Airbnbs, but spreading seven hundred people out around
Speaker 1: those would be rather logistically difficult. So among the hotels
Speaker 1: that you're allowed to stay in, there's only a couple
Speaker 1: because they can't have, you know, connections to the Cuban government.
Speaker 1: He's staying in one that is fully one hundred percent sanctioned.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's deliberately violating American sanctions and supporting
Speaker 1: the communist Cuban The argument is by staying there, he's supporting,
Speaker 1: you know, the tyrannical communist government, and so therefore he
Speaker 1: shouldn't be staying there, and it's a crime. What's the
Speaker 1: statute of limitations? Would be funny if like President Platna
Speaker 1: rolls in and and like lifts sanctions on Cuba, but
Speaker 1: also prosecutes, surely for violating them while they were still
Speaker 1: in place. So good for surely for showing the absurdity
Speaker 1: of these American sanctions. Now, so he's there doing some reporting.
Speaker 1: I think his mom is sort of like his handler, right, she's.
Speaker 4: Kind of I thought they traveled together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm much anger at his mom than him. He
Speaker 1: doesn't have any idea what he's doing. You can't be Yeah,
Speaker 1: he is, he's challenged.
Speaker 4: We weren't going to make the joke about literacy being
Speaker 4: Cuba's one strand.
Speaker 1: He's bringing down the literacy rate in Cuba single handedly.
Speaker 4: I wasn't going to make the joke, but I was
Speaker 4: going to tee you up to make the joke.
Speaker 1: But I'm upset with his mom, Like his mom should
Speaker 1: have been like, well, you can't just bring in a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of equipment and start filming in Cuba, like you,
Speaker 1: there's a process you have to go through with the
Speaker 1: government to get a visa connected to doing journalism. Chinese
Speaker 1: tried to send their leading propagandist to like make videos
Speaker 1: here in the United States.
Speaker 4: We'd roll out the red carpet.
Speaker 1: Well, we would also.
Speaker 4: We would follow them.
Speaker 1: We would follow them, yes, yeah, and there are way
Speaker 1: like you can't just come in on a You're not
Speaker 1: supposed to just come in on a tourist visa and
Speaker 1: do it when there are processes forms are supposed to
Speaker 1: fill out. Right now, obviously Cuba has stacks and stacks
Speaker 1: of forms. They are that's what they are.
Speaker 4: Well, and nobody except for like maybe I mean, you
Speaker 4: can correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe people who
Speaker 4: are sort of still avowed Marxists, nobody really tries to
Speaker 4: claim that the Cuban government isn't repressive and is not
Speaker 4: going to follow forg journalists and that the process.
Speaker 1: Everyone would agree they're repressive. The questions like some would argue, maybe.
Speaker 4: It's good, yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's a good point, but
Speaker 4: it's obviously a repressive country. Again, even some of the
Speaker 4: people were arguing against sanctions and the like.
Speaker 1: They have tight rules, admit that speech.
Speaker 4: Yes, the media, they have artists in political prison, like
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 1: Wanting to interview somebody at the University of Anna who
Speaker 1: is a high profile person, Like that's a government university,
Speaker 1: and you have to then get permission from like the
Speaker 1: government interview like right, not the kind of system that I,
Speaker 1: as a journalist.
Speaker 4: Prefer, which when you came back from Cuba, we talked
Speaker 4: about all of this, like we talked about the process,
Speaker 4: We talked about how you were able to do those
Speaker 4: tours of the hospitals.
Speaker 1: But it's also not a mystery like what Cuba is
Speaker 1: apparently other to anybody other than Nick Shirley. So I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope the Cubans governments takes mercy on poor Nick Shirley. Truly,
Speaker 1: he doesn't, he knows not what he does.
Speaker 4: So Marco Rubio gave a briefing yesterday, and I think
Speaker 4: it's worth rolling this side. This is going to be
Speaker 4: D four MARCOO did with the White House briefing yesterday,
Speaker 4: and both for you and Trump continue to talk about
Speaker 4: what could be coming imminently for Cuba. Trump obviously infamously
Speaker 4: said that he may have the privilege of taking Cuba
Speaker 4: very soon. Here is Secretary of State Rubio at the
Speaker 4: White House yesterday.
Speaker 9: There's no oil blockade on Cuba, per se. Here's what's
Speaker 9: happening with Cuba.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 9: Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela. Used to
Speaker 9: give them a bunch of free oil. They would take
Speaker 9: like sixty percent of that oil and resell it for cash.
Speaker 10: It wouldn't even go to benefit the people.
Speaker 9: So the only blockade that's happened is the Cubans have decided,
Speaker 9: I mean, the Veneze weddings have decided, we're not giving
Speaker 9: you free oil anymore. And you can only imagine nowadays
Speaker 9: the way oil prices aren't. No one's giving away free oil,
Speaker 9: much less to a failed regime. So the problem with
Speaker 9: Cuba is worse.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 9: Their economic model doesn't work, doesn't work, and the people
Speaker 9: who are in charge can't fix it. And the reason
Speaker 9: that I can't fix it is not just because they're communists.
Speaker 9: That's bad enough, but they're incompetent communists.
Speaker 4: Okay. So he also south Coomb's Twitter. I can't believe
Speaker 4: that's the thing I'm even saying. But south COM's I
Speaker 4: guess x account posted a very calculated image of Secretary
Speaker 4: of Rubio yesterday D two posing in front of a
Speaker 4: map of Cuba with General Francis Donovan. Quote. Their discussions,
Speaker 4: according to Southcom, focused on US efforts to counter threats
Speaker 4: that undermined security, stability, and democracy in our hemisphere. Absolutely
Speaker 4: no mistake that they're shaking hands in front of a
Speaker 4: giant map of Cuba.
Speaker 1: Ran yeah, and he was asked about that in his
Speaker 1: press conference. Then he said, yeah, that was to send
Speaker 1: a signal. Also, what he said in that clip is
Speaker 1: just a flat out lie. Forget Venezuela, Mexico and every
Speaker 1: other country that wants to sell oil to Cuba, not
Speaker 1: give it away, sell it is told that they're not
Speaker 1: allowed to do that by the United States. I don't
Speaker 1: know why he keeps telling this lie so confidently, but
Speaker 1: he does. The Russia brought a tanker there and Trump
Speaker 1: allowed it to go through. The fact that Trump had
Speaker 1: to say that he was allowing a Russian tanker to
Speaker 1: go to Cuba tells you that there is a blockade.
Speaker 1: If there was no blockade, Trump would have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with a transaction between Russia and Cuba. Meanwhile, a
Speaker 1: little bit of a little bit of news that came
Speaker 1: out yesterday, Cuba finalized a massive reform of its immigration system,
Speaker 1: a huge loosening of it. Previously, they weren't they didn't
Speaker 1: allow dual citizenship for the most part, and if you
Speaker 1: were gone for a certain amount of time, that was
Speaker 1: kind of a de facto renunciation of your citizenship. Immigration
Speaker 1: law is always complex, so it might have the details
Speaker 1: slightly off here, but the loosening allow it's going to
Speaker 1: allow dual citizenship, and it's going to allow Cubans who
Speaker 1: have gone to not just the US, but you know, Brazil,
Speaker 1: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, you name it, to go back and forth.
Speaker 1: It will also allow them to spend money that they
Speaker 1: have earned in you know, Central or South America or
Speaker 1: the North American back and back in Cuba and then
Speaker 1: to go and then to go again. So it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a huge liberalization of their of their immigration policy,
Speaker 1: which is interesting, and it's it comes at a time
Speaker 1: as hundreds of thousands of people, as Trump and then
Speaker 1: Biden really ratchet it up the boot, the boot on
Speaker 1: the neck of the Cuban economy. Hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: Cubans have millions at this point over maybe five six
Speaker 1: years have fled Cuba, and so what this is saying
Speaker 1: is that if they want to come back, it's it's
Speaker 1: the way I read it. If they want to come back,
Speaker 1: they can do so. And they don't have to stay either.
Speaker 1: They can come back and visit and go back.
Speaker 4: So anyway, that's and bring I guess potentially bring stuff
Speaker 4: for people.
Speaker 1: Suffering, bring stuff and bring money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because and to just as a flight from Miami
Speaker 4: to Avanta it's easy, or.
Speaker 1: From Costa Rica or wherever else they are, because they're like,
Speaker 1: Cubans are doing pretty well in other countries because they
Speaker 1: all got this as they all got this, but Cubans
Speaker 1: are particular because they got this really good education in Cuba,
Speaker 1: and so they're able to then outperform other people in
Speaker 1: like Brazil or Columbia or Costa Rica or whatever. I
Speaker 1: was talking. When I was in Cuba, I was talking
Speaker 1: to some people there who who were saying it was
Speaker 1: ironic that a lot of their friends have who have
Speaker 1: left and done really well, have turned right wing, and
Speaker 1: they're like they're the ones who staying here, like it's
Speaker 1: a little annoying because they got this socialist education and
Speaker 1: then use that to do well in these countries where
Speaker 1: education is not a priority and have kind of forgotten,
Speaker 1: you know, how they got there, but that that's because
Speaker 1: there's real genuine animosity towards the sclerotic Cuban government.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, well, we'll see, we'll be we'll of course
Speaker 4: be paying close attention to Nick, the plight of Nick Shirley,
Speaker 4: the education Nick Shirley, and the like. In all seriousness,
Speaker 4: though we hope that he's okay and safe, because that
Speaker 4: can get hairy very quickly, as you know.
Speaker 1: Right, imagine interrogating Nick Shirley about anything about.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, right, I would like to see
Speaker 4: you do that for the record. Nick, come on, Ryan,
Speaker 4: we'll talk to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 4: All right, we got big election updates to get to,
Speaker 4: so let's start now in Indiana. We can talk about this.
Speaker 4: We'll just put this New York Times tear sheet up
Speaker 4: on the screen because it kind of gives a broad
Speaker 4: overview of everything that happened last night, big election results
Speaker 4: around the country. Quote. President Trump's efforts to oust Republicans
Speaker 4: deemed insufficiently loyal faced a key test on Tuesday's Indiana
Speaker 4: voters decided whether to backstates who opposed redistricting, in whom
Speaker 4: the president wanted out all right now. The Times also
Speaker 4: said his political payback campaign, Trump's is going to extend
Speaker 4: later this month to classes in Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana.
Speaker 4: But in Indiana, these are primaries. We're not actually even
Speaker 4: talking about the general elections yet. The Times says several
Speaker 4: Republican led states quickly fell online last year when mister
Speaker 4: Trump demanded redrawn maps. You may remember that Indiana Republicans
Speaker 4: tried to push back against that, so quote. When lawmakers
Speaker 4: returned to Indianapolis in December, the House approved a new
Speaker 4: map which would have positioned Republicans to flip the states
Speaker 4: to Democratic held congressional seats, but the Senate said no,
Speaker 4: and a slim majority of Republicans joined all Democratic senators
Speaker 4: to vote the bill down. Those senators who were on
Speaker 4: the ballot for reelection, not all of them were, but
Speaker 4: the ones who were faced I've seen estimates between eight
Speaker 4: million and twelve million dollars from Trump groups like National
Speaker 4: True groups basically and not even secretly, but very openly,
Speaker 4: who then said Okay, that's it, you're gone, and basically
Speaker 4: all of them ended up losing with the exception of
Speaker 4: one as of right now losing their primary battles last night.
Speaker 4: So brutal day for Indiana Republicans who wanted to push
Speaker 4: back against Trump. Basically again as of now, just one
Speaker 4: who is clinging to and a high profile race who's
Speaker 4: clinging to the seat. But you know the way that
Speaker 4: I would describe this, we're in an arms race now
Speaker 4: on jerrymandering. There's no question about it. This was after Texas,
Speaker 4: which then you saw California, and the redistricting has been going.
Speaker 1: On, held by the Voting Rights Act decision because that
Speaker 1: opens up, yes, redistricting possibilities everywhere from Alabama, Mississippi to Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Right said, you know, because they what they can do
Speaker 1: is they can just eliminate the Civil Rights Act or
Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act required basically majority black district They'll
Speaker 1: just carve up the black voters and dilute them into
Speaker 1: a bunch of white districts.
Speaker 4: Right, And so six of the eight who refused to
Speaker 4: do the gerrymandering, we're gone.
Speaker 1: You have time to do it before November or that.
Speaker 1: Well they're still in.
Speaker 4: Office, so right, yeah, some of them are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they'll do it for twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes, And just
Speaker 4: to again, the argument from Jim Banks and Trump Republicans
Speaker 4: is that you can't do unilateral disarmament or you can't. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's not happening, right, So it's not possible. And the
Speaker 4: only if you're going to make like a moral pencion
Speaker 4: type stand on the principle against redistricting. At this point,
Speaker 4: there is no you're not the bulwark again national redistricting
Speaker 4: just because you say Indiana won't do it. And so
Speaker 4: Trump people and obviously Indiana voters for the most part,
Speaker 4: looked at that and said, yeah, this is bs. You
Speaker 4: guys aren't stopping redistricting. It's happening whether you like it
Speaker 4: or not. And what you are doing is just saying
Speaker 4: we're disarming ourselves and giving Dems more seats in Indiana.
Speaker 4: So it's I think that's a pretty compelling argument to
Speaker 4: most voters. Everybody hates redistricting.
Speaker 1: Maybe everybody hates it.
Speaker 4: Everybody hates it.
Speaker 1: They lived they started it in Texas, like they didn't
Speaker 1: have to do this mid district, a mid cycle redistricting
Speaker 1: in Texas, and they chose to do it and then yeah,
Speaker 1: once they chose.
Speaker 4: To do that, then you're yeah, the cycle was on. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it was immediately Gavin Newsom was like, Okay, we're doing it.
Speaker 4: And Gavin Newsom's people loved that because everybody knows that
Speaker 4: we have we don't have. The stigma around these boundaries
Speaker 4: has been blown up during the Trump era and so
Speaker 4: it's unfortunate. It's reality. Nobody is unless somebody if these
Speaker 4: Indiana Republicans had a real substantive plan to stop redistricting
Speaker 4: around the country, they would probably have a better case
Speaker 4: with Republican voters. But nobody. Everybody hates jerrymandering, but also
Speaker 4: everybody hates not doing it now, like Republicans, Republicans and
Speaker 4: Democrats hate not doing it now. It's a it's a
Speaker 4: horrible status quo, but it is unfortunately our reality. Right Ohio,
Speaker 4: interesting results in Ohio last night as well. We can
Speaker 4: put this up on the screen Politico quote Ohio Republicans
Speaker 4: fhere former ice official could cost them a battleground house seat. Now,
Speaker 4: this is about Madison san who was a very young
Speaker 4: and inexperienced deputy to Christy Nome. Her title was I'm
Speaker 4: trying to remember exactly what her title was. She was
Speaker 4: deputy director at ICE, that's right, and then resigned to
Speaker 4: run for congress. Back home and Ohio was the subject
Speaker 4: of a salacious Daily Mail hit piece about her sex life. Yes,
Speaker 4: about her sex life just a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Ago, rather aggressive. Was it sexual assault? Even like there
Speaker 1: was some pretty pretty serious like hikes.
Speaker 4: It was definitely a yikes story.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if there's such anyway going on.
Speaker 4: Ruled into it, but yes, Madison she and people may
Speaker 4: I lose, right, Madison Sheen is. The results are in
Speaker 4: lost and lost big as we can look at the
Speaker 4: results right now. So this is former state Representative Derek
Speaker 4: marin one and now goes up against Marcy Captor in
Speaker 4: Ohio's ninth congressional district. Yeah, she lost, she lost. And
Speaker 4: the Daily Mail story, the headline was that she was
Speaker 4: engaged into year secret relationship with a junior staffer inside
Speaker 4: of the Ohio Republican Party and there were just some
Speaker 4: private communications and stuff that leaked. Obviously, anytime you have
Speaker 4: same sexual relationships within a Republican administration, that is also
Speaker 4: equally to like the media a sort of hypocritical. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's it's different within the Trump administration. But that was
Speaker 4: also the subject of fascination I think in the media
Speaker 4: reports or gave them extra little extra fuel because of
Speaker 4: course it's from a Republican administration.
Speaker 1: So oh and before we go to call one real
Speaker 1: quick one on the Ohio Yeah, this is buried down here.
Speaker 1: This is Greg Lansman, who held on to a seat.
Speaker 1: This is but he is one of the only Democrats
Speaker 1: to publicly support the war in Iran and has been
Speaker 1: one of the most ridiculously outspoken, unapologetic supporters of Israel
Speaker 1: within the caucus. Damon Lynch, the fourth the Progressive, who
Speaker 1: spent like five dollars, got thirty two percent of the
Speaker 1: voting against this against the incumbent Landsman. So to have
Speaker 1: Landsman under seventy is suggests that like he's his type
Speaker 1: of politics is vulnerable.
Speaker 4: And that actually I just did another point on Ohio
Speaker 4: on the she and race. This was seen in I
Speaker 4: think some way as a test of whether Trump's Ice
Speaker 4: immigration policies would be toxic in a place like Ohio,
Speaker 4: and a Republican primary in Ohio. Is it like she
Speaker 4: was literally Deputy director of ICE, not some random bureaucrat
Speaker 4: but like actually the deputy director behind Christinoman, all of
Speaker 4: these photos, those were in the ads. So another thing
Speaker 4: just before we move away from Ohio, I wanted to
Speaker 4: note that did not work for Mason Shei.
Speaker 1: In Yes, indeed, so in Colorado speaking of this redistricting cycle,
Speaker 1: they're Democrats are trying to get onto the ballot a
Speaker 1: measure to redraw these boundaries in November, which would then
Speaker 1: apply to twenty twenty eight, which shows that like this
Speaker 1: is a long term thing that would only give them
Speaker 1: the advantage in twenty twenty eight and twenty thirty because
Speaker 1: it was coming anyway from the from the census. But Colorado,
Speaker 1: being one of these Democratic run states, had leaned more
Speaker 1: towards fair process and doing a you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of commission type of approach where you're fair. Democrats plan
Speaker 1: to throw that out for twenty eight and twenty thirty
Speaker 1: if if voters approve it according to the new report
Speaker 1: and put up B three. The primary donor to the
Speaker 1: cause of getting this measure onto the ballot is Hakeem
Speaker 1: Jeffries is like super pac basically, and so yes, and
Speaker 1: so then moving over to Michigan real quickly, there was
Speaker 1: a state Senate race, massive blowout over performance again in
Speaker 1: a what was a plus one this is plus one district? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do we have the E seven State.
Speaker 4: Senate thirty five Harris plus one district and.
Speaker 1: He blew it out by like twenty plus or whatever,
Speaker 1: just across the board. I don't think. I think Democrats
Speaker 1: have now flipped five seats in special legislative elections.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's throw E nine on a screen. The street
Speaker 4: guy Taniel Ryan, who said this is a remarkable analysis
Speaker 4: that he did over at Bolts his website, the JUPE
Speaker 4: has not flipped a legislative seat in any states since
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. Just read that again, not flipped a
Speaker 4: legislative seat in any state since twenty twenty four. Democrats, meanwhile,
Speaker 4: have flipped five seats so far in.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: And that's after flipping twenty five in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: And I would like to remind everybody that the end
Speaker 4: of the Obama administration, Republicans took a victory lap that
Speaker 4: you may remember. This is a huge Politico story that
Speaker 4: came out seats or whatever. Yeah, that was retrospective. This
Speaker 4: was towards the end of twenty six on all of
Speaker 4: the seats Democrats had lost during the Obama administration and
Speaker 4: how he had essentially not. I mean, maybe it's the
Speaker 4: Obama brand. Maybe it was a lazy Democratic party under
Speaker 4: Obama that tried to kind of coast on vibes and
Speaker 4: not really take care of some of these underlying problems
Speaker 4: in the economy that was giving rise to Trump and
Speaker 4: Bernie populism. Whatever it was, Democrats hemorrhaged seats around the
Speaker 4: country over the course of the Obama administration. It looks like,
Speaker 4: not to anybody's particular surprise, but after Republicans took that
Speaker 4: victory of love about ten years ago very smugly over Obama,
Speaker 4: it looks like that is the experience that will probably
Speaker 4: be part of the Trump era for Republicans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're going to flip a bunch of chambers, I
Speaker 1: would suspect in November as well.
Speaker 4: Seems like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, meanwhile, the d Triple C has ticked off
Speaker 1: enormous number of Democrats. You can put up e five
Speaker 1: here is this was really not the moment for Washington
Speaker 1: Democrats to creep into congressional elections around the country and
Speaker 1: put their thumb on the scale and endorse a particular
Speaker 1: Democratic candidate while there are while there are serious contests
Speaker 1: still underway. So they added I think eight new people, yeah,
Speaker 1: eight new Democrats to what they call their Red to
Speaker 1: Blue list, which mean means they're getting the Democratic parties
Speaker 1: basically their endorsement, getting access to their to their donors,
Speaker 1: to their vendors, to their consultants, which you know, who
Speaker 1: knows what all of that is worth to them in
Speaker 1: the end, but also gives them actually gives them both
Speaker 1: the sheen of being party endorsed but also the stench
Speaker 1: of being party endorsed. And so it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see how some of these play out. In California twenty
Speaker 1: second district, jazz Meat Baines is one of the most
Speaker 1: more controversial Red to Blue candidates. Jazz Meat is running
Speaker 1: against Randy Viegas. Jazz Meat had been asked if Israel
Speaker 1: was committing a genocide, said yes, then said, oh, I
Speaker 1: think I heard that wrong, after starting to get support
Speaker 1: from pro Israel superpacks, and so, yes, Isra's committing a genocide. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. Pro Isral money flows in, and then Democratic
Speaker 1: Party money flows in. This is a Latino heavy district,
Speaker 1: so for them to go and endorse against Randy Vegas,
Speaker 1: who has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus boldpack,
Speaker 1: which is the Hispanic Caucus. Is an aggressive use of
Speaker 1: you Democratic dues money. Like the way that you D
Speaker 1: tripleC is funded partly is through other House Democrats paying
Speaker 1: dues in So the Progressive Caucus, which represents ninety plus Democrats,
Speaker 1: endorsed Vegas, is spending its money and then the detrip
Speaker 1: C is using their dues money to then support the
Speaker 1: opponent in the race. So a lot of House Democrats,
Speaker 1: you know, very upset about this. They did. Bob Brooks,
Speaker 1: who's in the news lately because he accidentally outed Josh
Speaker 1: Shapiro as having did you see this thing, endorsed this
Speaker 1: Republican because he was mad at the Democrats or something
Speaker 1: for comptroll or control or some one of those positions.
Speaker 1: Bernie backed guy, So D triple C and Bernie on
Speaker 1: the same page, which is which is quite fascinating. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we will we'll track these red to blue ones as
Speaker 1: they get closer to the races and see how well
Speaker 1: that D tripleC did and putting its thumb on the scale,
Speaker 1: because the only thing more embarrassing than putting your thumb
Speaker 1: on the scale. Is putting a thumb on the scale
Speaker 1: and still losing.
Speaker 4: Well, this is let's let's put E four on the screen.
Speaker 4: This is another dub for Graham Plattner. Big dub for
Speaker 4: Graham Plattner. He's a K file found an old video
Speaker 4: of Susan Collins behind George Bush and Graham Platner is
Speaker 4: yelling in the audience, don't attack a rocket two thousand
Speaker 4: and two, So before the invasion, let's roll the clip.
Speaker 11: I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here.
Speaker 11: I want to thank the people who take time, who
Speaker 11: work hard to make sure that the democracy is strong.
Speaker 11: I want to thank you very much for your efforts
Speaker 11: on behalf of all candidates. I want to thank you
Speaker 11: for what you have done. I want to thank you
Speaker 11: for what you're going to do, and that is to
Speaker 11: turn out to vote for these candidates on November the fifth.
Speaker 11: When I say that, when I say that I understand
Speaker 11: Susan Collins, I do. I've worked closely with her.
Speaker 4: So there's George W. Bush pumping up Susan Collins back
Speaker 4: in two thousand and two, and you hear Graham Plattner
Speaker 4: audibly his voice in the background saying, don't attack a rock.
Speaker 4: So the point Ryan was making about going back and
Speaker 4: checking how the d trip putting its thumb on the
Speaker 4: scales works out just a reminder of establishment Democrats here
Speaker 4: in Washington's record of that recently, there was no way
Speaker 4: they wanted Platner to be the candidate in Maine to
Speaker 4: take on Susan Collins. But here you have unearthed video,
Speaker 4: I think, showing exactly why they should have been excited
Speaker 4: about Plattner being the guy to take on Susan Collins
Speaker 4: rather than Janet Mills, one of the most uninspiring candidates
Speaker 4: conceivable in that race in Maine.
Speaker 1: And we knew about this protest because it was reported
Speaker 1: publicly and he was interviewed by someone, you know, after
Speaker 1: he'd gotten taken out of this event, and then people
Speaker 1: and then one of the first things I asked him
Speaker 1: when we had him on the air was okay, you
Speaker 1: did that, but then you enlisted to go fight in
Speaker 1: those is like why and what he has what he
Speaker 1: said then and what he said he he's actually addressed
Speaker 1: this like in Reddit posts, basically says he can't explain
Speaker 1: it really, but he had wanted to be a soldier
Speaker 1: since as long as he could remember, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that he agreed with the policy decisions that were
Speaker 1: that were being made. He also made a point in
Speaker 1: one of his Reddit posts that that I think people
Speaker 1: don't quite understand is that basically in every unit, there's
Speaker 1: like not every unit, but a lot of them. There's
Speaker 1: there's the lefty and as somebody from rural American type, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's like we exist out in rural America too, Like
Speaker 1: there's lefties out there, not as many, but they're out there.
Speaker 1: And then there's always like a nationalist right winger in
Speaker 1: the unit, and then everybody else is like just a
Speaker 1: normal person doing going about their life. He was, he
Speaker 1: was the lefty in the unit. It happens. Why I
Speaker 1: can't quite explain it, but it happens.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of benefits to enlisting if
Speaker 4: you're well, there's that too. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead,
Speaker 4: Ryan and bring in our next guest, who's going to
Speaker 4: tell us exactly how miserable it is to be graduating college.
Speaker 1: Right now, Graduation season is upon us, which means it's
Speaker 1: time for students to start hitting the job market. But
Speaker 1: if you're like me and Emily, you're hearing from people
Speaker 1: around the country that graduates are entering a workforce that
Speaker 1: is as brutal and facing headwinds is stronger than any
Speaker 1: time perhaps since two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: Yet without I hesitate to call it optimism, but the
Speaker 1: optimism at the time that at least that would be
Speaker 1: a you know, one to two to three maybe four
Speaker 1: year hiccup, but that things might recover. Now they're graduating
Speaker 1: into a world that is seems like different in kind
Speaker 1: than the world that they kind of entered college in.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they entered it in difficult time
Speaker 1: because you're you know, finishing up with with you know,
Speaker 1: finishing high school amid COVID and then entering college minute.
Speaker 1: And so what we wanted to do today is talk
Speaker 1: to one of those graduating seniors. We're gonna be joined
Speaker 1: by Timmy McCallister, who is a computer science uh soon
Speaker 1: to be graduate at the University of Central Florida. Timmy
Speaker 1: he got on our Timmy, you got on our radar
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago because he did kind of
Speaker 1: a funny video.
Speaker 4: He did some computer science.
Speaker 1: Some computer science video, kind of taking the conversation that
Speaker 1: Sager and I had had on this program about the
Speaker 1: Barbie movie and turning it into a video. And but
Speaker 1: now you're now you're headed into into the job market.
Speaker 1: A recent video that you did has gotten I think,
Speaker 1: you know, enormous numbers for a small YouTube channel, A
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand and view viral video about the about
Speaker 1: what it's like trying to get into this job market
Speaker 1: in this environment. So timmy, first of all, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for being here and taking time out of
Speaker 1: your kind of graduation schedule. Appreciate it.
Speaker 12: Yeah, absolutely, I'm a huge fan of the show, so
Speaker 12: I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1: So when when do you? When do you graduate? By
Speaker 1: the way, you still finals kicking around.
Speaker 12: I finished my last final yesterday, so I'm through pretty
Speaker 12: much all of my school work. My actual graduation is
Speaker 12: going to be Saturday evening, So just working on that.
Speaker 1: Well, bittersweet congratulations. Maybe at the end of the we'll
Speaker 1: play some of the Barbie things at the end of
Speaker 1: the end of the se He.
Speaker 4: Loves it so much. He loves it so much, I'd
Speaker 4: go it's great.
Speaker 1: So let's let's start with a little bit of the
Speaker 1: video of yours that kind of went went viral that
Speaker 1: was getting attention about the difficulties of finding work at
Speaker 1: this moment, let's roll out for one.
Speaker 12: I'm applying to PhD programs because I've pretty much given
Speaker 12: up on the idea of getting a job, because even
Speaker 12: if I did get a job, I probably just end.
Speaker 10: Up doing like annoying.
Speaker 12: Work wrangling with AIS for like one or two years,
Speaker 12: and then you have AIS that can wrangle themselves and
Speaker 12: I'm not even useful anymore. So I'm going into a
Speaker 12: PhD hopefully I can do a little bit of research
Speaker 12: about AIS, even though I don't have access to the
Speaker 12: best AIS.
Speaker 1: And so is What was your job application process like
Speaker 1: before you made the decision to just pull the plug
Speaker 1: on it?
Speaker 12: Yeah, so pretty much all of last summer I just
Speaker 12: spent like applying to internship positions. I was looking for
Speaker 12: some web development positions because I've done a lot of
Speaker 12: like full stack web development work. I was also looking
Speaker 12: for like, you know, like AI internships stuff like that
Speaker 12: because I've experienced like fine tuning large language models to.
Speaker 10: Do specific tasks.
Speaker 12: But you know, I applied to probably definitely over one
Speaker 12: hundred job applications. I did at least like one to
Speaker 12: three every day, like I forced myself over last summer,
Speaker 12: mostly on like LinkedIn.
Speaker 10: But you know, I'm not counting.
Speaker 12: Any of those like stupid like easy apply things because
Speaker 12: those don't really do anything. No one ever responds to those.
Speaker 12: So just counting the ones where you know, I found
Speaker 12: the job application on LinkedIn, went to the employer's website.
Speaker 12: Definitely over one hundred, and I mean I didn't get
Speaker 12: I feel like I'm almost lucky in the sense that
Speaker 12: I got probably like thirty to forty rejections. A lot
Speaker 12: of people don't hear anything back at all from these
Speaker 12: jobs that they applied to. And then I did get
Speaker 12: one interview at the unpaid frontend web development position that
Speaker 12: I've been doing the past couple semesters, and yeah, that's
Speaker 12: what that's what I've been doing these past couple of semesters.
Speaker 12: And yeah, I talked to the supervisor there also, and
Speaker 12: I mean this was the thing that honestly really like
Speaker 12: shocked me is at that unpaid internship position, he told
Speaker 12: me that there were two hundred and fifty other applicants.
Speaker 1: Wow, and I was I was.
Speaker 12: The one who got the lucky unpaid, unpaid job.
Speaker 1: So wow, So.
Speaker 4: You start, you went into school studying computer science as
Speaker 4: an undergrad what in twenty twenty two, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm really curious that you could tell us just a
Speaker 4: little bit more. You get into this in your video,
Speaker 4: which folks can go watch, but tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit more just about yourself, about how well you did
Speaker 4: in school. You had your pretty good grades, and why
Speaker 4: you know, going in, what your expectations were of how
Speaker 4: studying computer science would set you up. I'm sure you
Speaker 4: believed for success. You're jumping in right before the AI
Speaker 4: boom is starting to change absolutely everything.
Speaker 12: Yeah, so I mean, yeah, I remember, you know, before
Speaker 12: I had, you know, decided on UCF, I was pretty
Speaker 12: sure I was going to go into psychology. But you know,
Speaker 12: I was always interested in computer science. I've always been
Speaker 12: like a coder, always worked on websites, stuff like that,
Speaker 12: and I thought that, you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 12: great opportunities there. They told us there are a lot
Speaker 12: of great opportunities there. The job market was great in
Speaker 12: twenty twenty two. But yeah, I mean, now I have
Speaker 12: a four point oh gpa. I literally literally straight a's
Speaker 12: like my entire time here at college. I've done you know,
Speaker 12: I was a teaching assistant. I've done research in various labs.
Speaker 12: And you know, another big thing too that, like they
Speaker 12: say employers like to look for, is that you know
Speaker 12: you have sort of a decent number of like personal projects,
Speaker 12: like not just that you've had good grades, but you
Speaker 12: know that you were able to actually like work with
Speaker 12: something like a much larger scale project. And you know
Speaker 12: I did that, like over my soft sophomore in junior year,
Speaker 12: I worked on like this very large scale full stack
Speaker 12: web development project where I like fine tuned large language
Speaker 12: models to perform like this the specific task of sort
Speaker 12: of identifying sort of like spin in like language.
Speaker 10: And yeah, I.
Speaker 12: Mean nothing nothing back from from anyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what about? Well what one of the things
Speaker 1: I I saw people be critical of your video for
Speaker 1: as well? This guy's not at Stanford, it's University of
Speaker 1: Central Florida. But well for two things to that you
Speaker 1: see f is actually when it comes to computer science,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty strong school. Secondly, we're not an economy
Speaker 1: just for Stanford, like like we there are millions of
Speaker 1: people in this country. They all they all need work,
Speaker 1: and so to say, well, sure, everything's fine. As long
Speaker 1: as you go to Stanford, you're going to be fine. However,
Speaker 1: from what I'm hearing, even the people who went to
Speaker 1: Stanford are deeply struggling to to find the kind of
Speaker 1: jobs that one year ago even would have been easy
Speaker 1: for somebody coming out of Stanford. Just anecdotally, among the
Speaker 1: circles that you run in, the computer science circles that
Speaker 1: you've run in. What are you what are you hearing
Speaker 1: from other seniors?
Speaker 12: Yeah, so you know, I don't I don't know anyone
Speaker 12: at Stanford, and most of the people I know are
Speaker 12: just here at UCF.
Speaker 10: You know, I have you know, one of my.
Speaker 12: Close friends, you know, he got his first internship freshman year,
Speaker 12: and so you know, he was able to sort of
Speaker 12: use those connections at the time and and sort of
Speaker 12: like continue working through various positions. He has a job
Speaker 12: offer right now, so I'm very happy for him.
Speaker 10: I know a lot.
Speaker 12: Of other people who are going to grad school. It
Speaker 12: really just kind of seems like a safe option, especially
Speaker 12: if you've done well in school. You can work towards
Speaker 12: like a specific project like research something like that, continue
Speaker 12: getting paid, like if you have an assistant ship with
Speaker 12: a tuition waiver, and it's like, that's that's an option
Speaker 12: I've actually seen a very large number of people doing.
Speaker 12: But yeah, there's I'd say it's mostly that, and then yeah,
Speaker 12: I do. I do have a couple of people who
Speaker 12: sort of got those connections early, and like you know,
Speaker 12: they always tell us like networking is really really important
Speaker 12: for for like getting a job, but nowadays it feels
Speaker 12: like that really is kind of the only way anyone
Speaker 12: gets any job, because if you're trying to wade into
Speaker 12: that pool of college or not college application job applications,
Speaker 12: where it really is just thousands and thousands of AI
Speaker 12: generated resumes that are going to these AI filters that
Speaker 12: who knows what they're even doing, how many of these
Speaker 12: jobs are even real? You're not going to be in
Speaker 12: for a fun time.
Speaker 4: Can you talk us Talk to us about the response
Speaker 4: you've gotten to your video. Again, we mentioned it's over
Speaker 4: one hundred thousand views, and that's I think interesting in
Speaker 4: and of itself. I think it probably speaks to you
Speaker 4: capturing something that other people are then sending around and
Speaker 4: saying this is what my experience is. Like, it's resonant.
Speaker 4: So talk to us a bit about what you've heard
Speaker 4: from other people is you've shared your own experience publicly.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's sort of a
Speaker 10: couple of different sets of responses.
Speaker 12: I mean, there's a lot of people who are you know,
Speaker 12: even like earlier along the path than me, who are
Speaker 12: either like just graduating high school right now, or they're
Speaker 12: like a freshman or a sophomore, and you know, they're
Speaker 12: just trying to like figure out what should they even
Speaker 12: be doing right now in this economy. And you know,
Speaker 12: I try to give advice as best I can, but
Speaker 12: you know, I honestly don't really know like what the
Speaker 12: best option would be for for someone going through that.
Speaker 12: I mean, honestly, the best piece of advice I could
Speaker 12: give to someone like that is just to keep working
Speaker 12: on like personal projects. You can you can use Claude
Speaker 12: code to like spin up an interesting idea pretty quickly
Speaker 12: and maybe you can put that on a resume or
Speaker 12: get some sort of connection or something from that.
Speaker 10: And then there's sort of like this other set of people.
Speaker 10: I don't know.
Speaker 12: I got this email from someone who's like just just
Speaker 12: like move to the Bay Area, bro. There's a bunch
Speaker 12: of like AI AI engineer physicians. XAI is paying like
Speaker 12: four hundred thousand dollars a year if you're willing to
Speaker 12: sell your soul. But you know, not everyone can can
Speaker 12: live in San Francisco, So I don't really.
Speaker 10: Know about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that might not be the best of us it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is, you know, when you combine
Speaker 1: it with the idea that networking is the only way
Speaker 1: to get a job at this point, Like, I get
Speaker 1: the idea, like just move to the Bay Are Like
Speaker 1: when you wanted to be an actor, you move used
Speaker 1: to be moved to La You want to be a
Speaker 1: country musician in this or you want to be a
Speaker 1: folk musician in sixties you moved to you know, the village.
Speaker 1: You want to be a country singer, you moved to Nashville.
Speaker 1: Like so I get it. But as you think about that, what,
Speaker 1: like is that possible? Like are there affordable group houses
Speaker 1: for people moving out there or like because if it's
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars for an apartment, you better network immediately
Speaker 1: and you're also not going to get the apartment.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean that is the issue.
Speaker 12: It's like I don't know anyone in cal and like
Speaker 12: I can't just get a job, like I need to
Speaker 12: have a job lined up there already, and then you
Speaker 12: know the ability then to move knowing that I have
Speaker 12: like some sort of stable income, Like I could never
Speaker 12: just move to San Francisco, Like that's not financially feasible.
Speaker 1: That's bleak unless you're in the street.
Speaker 4: Right And to me, you go through this in the video,
Speaker 4: but tell us a little bit more about why you've
Speaker 4: landed on the path that you've landed for your future,
Speaker 4: Like why are you taking the bet that you are?
Speaker 4: What is it? I mean it actually it's a story
Speaker 4: that reminds me a lot of well people were making
Speaker 4: the decision to do during the Great Recession, kind of
Speaker 4: the stay in school. So talk to us a little
Speaker 4: bit about why you're thinking what you're thinking right now,
Speaker 4: why you're taking that kind of gamble. It's a sort
Speaker 4: of safer bet. Why do you think it's a safer bet?
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean there's sort of like two reasons.
Speaker 12: I mean the first one is kind of just purely financial,
Speaker 12: Like I'm very lucky that I don't have any like
Speaker 12: I had a very good scholarship, so I'm debt free
Speaker 12: and I don't have to really worry about immediately making
Speaker 12: income to try to pay that off, so I have
Speaker 12: a little bit more time. I managed to land a
Speaker 12: graduate assistantship position, so you know, they'll pay me for
Speaker 12: doing research and I get tuition waves, so you know,
Speaker 12: it's not like.
Speaker 10: It's not like I'm.
Speaker 12: Going into two more dire financial straits by doing this.
Speaker 10: And then the other reason is I really.
Speaker 12: Am just sort of interested and worried about sort of
Speaker 12: the consequences of AI on society. I've always been been
Speaker 12: worried about this, Like I think social media is an
Speaker 12: example of a sort of very very simple AI system
Speaker 12: that just runs from like the one rule of maximizing engagement,
Speaker 12: and I think it has had catastrophic consequences, like on
Speaker 12: the mental health.
Speaker 10: Of my generation.
Speaker 12: And I can't imagine like what the consequences could be
Speaker 12: for for something way way smarter if we don't like
Speaker 12: take this really really seriously and get this right. So
Speaker 12: you know, I'm hoping to be able to do some
Speaker 12: sort of research with AI safety alignment, figuring out how
Speaker 12: we can actually make these things do what we need to.
Speaker 12: But I understand that it's it's not going to be easy,
Speaker 12: but hopefully I can make at least some sort of
Speaker 12: contribution there.
Speaker 1: Hopefully nobody else is taking it very seriously, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Let's finish up with some Barbie we can roll Timmy's
Speaker 1: all right production from a couple of years ago put
Speaker 1: up F three. One reason okay with her getting Stubb, though,
Speaker 1: is because she really flopped the landing with this like
Speaker 1: ratification of neoliberalism at the very end, with this you
Speaker 1: are you are enough like nobody nobody's kanough. You need,
Speaker 1: you need community, you need socialization, you need friends, you
Speaker 1: need family, like you need loved ones around you. Nobody
Speaker 1: is enough. And the idea that you would try to
Speaker 1: tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need
Speaker 1: anything other than themselves, I thought was just a like
Speaker 1: horrific message at the end. So, and the.
Speaker 5: Idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves.
Speaker 1: Nobody's enough, nobody's enough. You need, you need community, you
Speaker 1: need socialization, you need friends, you need family like you
Speaker 1: need loved ones around you.
Speaker 4: Nobody is enough.
Speaker 1: No, nobody is enough. You need community, you need socialization,
Speaker 1: you need friends, you need family, you need loved ones
Speaker 1: around you.
Speaker 4: Nobody is enough, it's pretty good stuff to me.
Speaker 1: That's pretty funny.
Speaker 10: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 12: It's uh, it worked pretty hard on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and must must be probably a lot easier now
Speaker 1: with Claude. That was that was this was like pre
Speaker 1: claud coding, right.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that is a that's.
Speaker 1: A that's artismal problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Tommy mcgautha. Where can people follow you? Where can
Speaker 4: they find find your work, whether it's lo fi or
Speaker 4: graduation videos?
Speaker 12: Yeah, so I'm on YouTube, Timmy McAllister. I've been trying
Speaker 12: to upload like about a video every week talking about.
Speaker 10: AI society stuff like that.
Speaker 12: If anyone wants to try to support me financially, I
Speaker 12: just started a Patreon. I don't have anything really on
Speaker 12: there yet. I have like a couple of videos, but
Speaker 12: if anyone is able to that would be awesome.
Speaker 10: But yeah, that's about That's about what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1: That's about all we got left to offer as an economy.
Speaker 1: So well, we'll we'll stay in touch. Curious how your
Speaker 1: how your journey goes over the next you know, months
Speaker 1: and years. So thanks for thanks for being here and
Speaker 1: good luck.
Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: All right, enjoy graduation day. Well, Emily, I am sure, sure, glad,
Speaker 1: I'm not graduating right now. I'm god, I'm sorry for
Speaker 1: all these people that are graduating into this disaster.
Speaker 4: No, it's brutal. I pulled up a New York Times
Speaker 4: article while we were talking to Timmy, and the New
Speaker 4: York Times is describing this as quote the most dismal
Speaker 4: and unpredictable job market in years. Employers overall are hiring
Speaker 4: fewer workers, dimming the prospects in particular for first time
Speaker 4: entrance into the into the labor market. And then also
Speaker 4: obviously mentioning the rise of AI, which we just heard
Speaker 4: from Timmy who thought computer science would be a safe
Speaker 4: major going into school in twenty twenty two, how quickly.
Speaker 1: They learned to code. And yeah, and the harder that first,
Speaker 1: the higher that first obstacle is, then the more it
Speaker 1: helps to be rich to be in with and the
Speaker 1: further we get from a remotely meritocratic level playing field.
Speaker 1: M hm.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's a good point, because.
Speaker 1: Like, if your parents can send you to the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: you can do the end for six months, pay your.
Speaker 4: Rent, unpaid internship ypes that type of.
Speaker 1: Thing which apparently possible to get too anyway.
Speaker 4: Really like I mean. That was the theme of today's show,
Speaker 4: with the exception of maybe Ron. We we may, we
Speaker 4: may have an end of kinetic fighting. We may there
Speaker 4: may be an end in sight. I don't know, we'll see,
Speaker 4: but bleak all around. Indeed, So thanks for watching Freakingpoints
Speaker 4: dot com. I'm get a premium subscription if you like
Speaker 4: being tortured by bad news like we do.
Speaker 1: Indeed, talk to you later.