Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an
Speaker 3: amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
Speaker 2: Indeed, we do many things to get to of course,
Speaker 2: as pretty usual, we got some updates on the tariff situation,
Speaker 2: what is on, what is off? We've got some more
Speaker 2: warning signs with regards to the economy. Also, increasingly clear
Speaker 2: AGI artificial general intelligence is really just around the corner.
Speaker 2: Expected to be here during the Trump administration. Is anyone
Speaker 2: ready for that? I really don't think, so we're going
Speaker 2: to take a look at that. Also some really contradictory
Speaker 2: signs about what Trump's approach is with regards to Gaza.
Speaker 2: So we'll give you all of the indications and all
Speaker 2: of the developments there. Andrew Tait now saying, actually, I'm
Speaker 2: just like ready to leave America anyway, guys, I was
Speaker 2: just going to stay here for a couple of days.
Speaker 4: And I'm out.
Speaker 2: So a lot going on there and some political interesting
Speaker 2: sort of like political ramifications there as well. I'm taking
Speaker 2: a look at if Trump is going to cook the
Speaker 2: books on the economy, some pretty clear indications in that direction.
Speaker 2: And we have the socialist candidate for New York City
Speaker 2: mayor who is going up against Andrew Cuomo is going
Speaker 2: to be on the show. He actually was on with
Speaker 2: Emily and Ryan before. His campaign has come a long
Speaker 2: way since then. He's actually polling as the top sort
Speaker 2: of progressive candidate in the race, which is pretty surprising
Speaker 2: kind of coming out of nowhere. So excited to talk
Speaker 2: to him as well.
Speaker 3: All right, So with all of it, by the way,
Speaker 3: thank you to everybody supports the show. We appreciate it
Speaker 3: very much. Been a very busy week here at breaking points.
Speaker 3: So let's go ahead and get to the tariffs. The
Speaker 3: most important economic news the White House announcing yesterday that
Speaker 3: there will be some terriff exclusion, specifically for automakers.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: We spoke with the big three auto dealers.
Speaker 5: We are going to give a one month exemption on
Speaker 5: any autos coming through USMCA. Reciprocal tariffs will still go
Speaker 5: into effect on April seconds, but at the request of
Speaker 5: the companies associated with USMCA, the President is giving them
Speaker 5: an exemption for one month so they are not at
Speaker 5: an economic disadvantage. So the three companies that he spoke
Speaker 5: to are Stilantis, Ford in General Motors.
Speaker 6: One on the reprieve that is being granted to these
Speaker 6: three automakers for one month on the tariffs on Canada
Speaker 6: and Mexico, how did the President settle on one month?
Speaker 5: The reciprocal tariffs will go into effect on April second,
Speaker 5: and he feels strongly about that no matter what, no exemption.
Speaker 5: So that's where the one month come from.
Speaker 4: So sure does he expect them to be able to
Speaker 4: shift production within a month.
Speaker 5: He told them that they should get on it, start investing,
Speaker 5: start moving shift production here to the United States of
Speaker 5: America where they will pay no tariff.
Speaker 6: That's the ultimate goal.
Speaker 3: So there was some initial confusion there from that announcement.
Speaker 3: It initially appeared as if it only applied to the
Speaker 3: Big three automakers, but the White House systems clarified that
Speaker 3: those terrif exemptions are for all automakers. The reason why
Speaker 3: that this is most significant is because part of USMCA
Speaker 3: and of NAFTA is that many of these car companies
Speaker 3: are vertically integrated across all three countries, and that many
Speaker 3: of these parts Crystal will move across the border, some
Speaker 3: almost forty or fifty times in the most extreme example,
Speaker 3: and so the idea was if it was going to
Speaker 3: get hit with a twenty five percent tariff every single
Speaker 3: time that across the border, you would famously have those
Speaker 3: examples of a car going from from fifty thousand to
Speaker 3: like eighty or ninety thousand dollars something like that one
Speaker 3: month exclusion. Though as the question there was like, that's
Speaker 3: not exactly time. This seems to be part of the
Speaker 3: chaos blunt force strategy to try and see as much
Speaker 3: progress or announcements or whatever Trump can.
Speaker 1: Squeeze out of them.
Speaker 3: But the market reaction has been all over the place
Speaker 3: over the last couple of days, and so the pendulum
Speaker 3: continues to swing back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, I mean, is it crazy for him and
Speaker 2: to think that he saw that Fox News segment with
Speaker 2: the car dealer guy who was like, this same truck
Speaker 2: is going up twenty k like right now instantly, and
Speaker 2: Maria Barbaroma being like, oh my god, what is going
Speaker 2: on here? Like, I genuinely think that may have been
Speaker 2: part of the calculus going into this. I was a
Speaker 2: little bit surprised there wasn't more of a rollback of
Speaker 2: the tariffs that is just.
Speaker 4: Applying to the auto industry.
Speaker 2: The other part that was kind of funny to me
Speaker 2: is like, the one group that came out and was like,
Speaker 2: actually we like the tariffs was the United Auto Workers,
Speaker 2: and now that's the one industry where it's being rolled back.
Speaker 2: The other thing that was surprising to me is you
Speaker 2: were alluding to the markets, is how positively the markets
Speaker 2: responded to this news since you are just talking about
Speaker 2: one sector of the economy. Granted, of course it is
Speaker 2: a significant sector, but you know, the plan is for
Speaker 2: them to go back in place in a month. All
Speaker 2: of the tariffs on Mexico are still there. The teriff
Speaker 2: announced on China's still there. All the rest of the
Speaker 2: tariffs on Canada is still there, and Justin Trudeau and
Speaker 2: Canada is still talking pretty tough saying listen, unless all
Speaker 2: of the tariffs a rolled back, we are continuing with
Speaker 2: our retaliatory tariffs. So you know, people should be really
Speaker 2: clear about what this means. It will have significant impact
Speaker 2: on a lot of produce coming from Mexico, you know,
Speaker 2: from Canada.
Speaker 4: The tariff on energy.
Speaker 2: Is lower, but still there, still expecting significant gas price increases,
Speaker 2: including I think in New England was the first place
Speaker 2: that you're likely to see gas prices go up some
Speaker 2: twenty to forty cents pretty quickly. Here new construction materials,
Speaker 2: a significant amount of that comes from Canada. And then
Speaker 2: depending on how long this lasts, eighty percent of the
Speaker 2: fertilizer that's used in the US comes from Canada as well.
Speaker 2: So even with the rollback of this one particular sector,
Speaker 2: which is again it's significant, you're still going to have
Speaker 2: quite significant and reverbting impacts across the economy if they
Speaker 2: continue to move forward with these.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's been so there's been some crazy movement on this.
Speaker 3: So you reference the markets. The markets were up yesterday,
Speaker 3: the S and P erased its one day loss, and
Speaker 3: yet as of this morning you and I are talking,
Speaker 3: the S and P futures have now erased yesterday's gain,
Speaker 3: So we're basically back to where we were two days ago.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, don't don't ask me.
Speaker 3: I'm not some you know, stock analysts that can only
Speaker 3: go off of what the Wall Street Journal and the
Speaker 3: Financial Times and all of them are saying. They're saying
Speaker 3: that right now the Dow future and all of that
Speaker 3: dropping is from a weakening dollar. And also they are
Speaker 3: saying that the invert indexes will reverse the rally of
Speaker 3: the partial rollback yesterday, also apparently in response to the
Speaker 3: German government and European bond market.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot going on right now.
Speaker 3: Actually, interestingly enough, almost all that comes back to Trump,
Speaker 3: both on the German side and on the tariff side.
Speaker 3: The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik Commerce Secretary, by the way,
Speaker 3: is the person who is most in charge of the tariffs.
Speaker 3: Their responsibility under the current law is that they're the
Speaker 3: ones who write those justifications for them implement the teriffs. Specifically,
Speaker 3: let's take a listen to what Secretary Lutnik had to say.
Speaker 7: The Big Three say they produce cars that are compliant
Speaker 7: under US MCA, which means they have sufficient US content
Speaker 7: in them to be part of the US MCA agreement.
Speaker 7: So I think that's part of our discussion and the
Speaker 7: President's really thinking about that.
Speaker 6: It's not really the concemption.
Speaker 7: Remember, it's it's we're trying to end fetanyl coming into
Speaker 7: the country. So we're trying to set a message that
Speaker 7: fetanyl has got to end coming in from Mexico and Counada.
Speaker 4: It just has to end.
Speaker 7: And they've done a reasonable job on the border, and
Speaker 7: they're going to do a better job on the border.
Speaker 7: But this is memory, it's a key about fentanyl for
Speaker 7: this month April second, we could talk about the rest
Speaker 7: depths in America have not decreased in a way that
Speaker 7: is sufficient depths of feris in America.
Speaker 8: Yesterday though, the President question the fairness of Canadian banks,
Speaker 8: So what is it about. Is it about Canada's banking
Speaker 8: system or is it really about fentanyl.
Speaker 7: So this month right now is about fentanyl. When we
Speaker 7: talk about April second, we will talk about the bigger
Speaker 7: trade picture between our trading partners Canada and our trading
Speaker 7: partners of Mexico.
Speaker 3: So just to reiterate here, they have to say fentanyl
Speaker 3: because it's the only way they can get that national
Speaker 3: security exemption through law, because otherwise you can't just say, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't agree with Canadian banking or whatever, because we
Speaker 3: have a USMCA agreement that's been ratified by Congress. This
Speaker 3: is the only way that you can actually get around that.
Speaker 3: We do, though, need to flag that the problem with
Speaker 3: all of this strategy is that Americans need to feel
Speaker 3: as if there's a big strategy behind it, and we
Speaker 3: flag this in our pre State of the Union coverage.
Speaker 3: But this is very important. Let's put this up there
Speaker 3: on the screen from the New York Times. Here is
Speaker 3: how Americans feel about TERRA. So you've got some twenty
Speaker 3: nine percent of Americans to fifty six percent of Americans,
Speaker 3: depending on how the question is asked, who are in
Speaker 3: favor of tariffs. Now, the tariffs that have the highest
Speaker 3: support in the mid fifties are when you ask a
Speaker 3: question specifically about China. Now, if you mention Canada and Mexico,
Speaker 3: the support for the tariffs starts to fall. Now the
Speaker 3: tariffs however, almost at a fifty percent approval rating if
Speaker 3: they're to bring back American jobs. But if you add
Speaker 3: the caveat of even if price increases, then you drop
Speaker 3: down to thirty percent.
Speaker 1: And that's not a surprise to me at all.
Speaker 3: Americans are some of the most cost conscious people literally
Speaker 3: on Earth, where seventy percent consumer based economy.
Speaker 1: And the real thing.
Speaker 3: Is is all of this would have to be communicated
Speaker 3: in a way as if people feel that there is
Speaker 3: a big strategy behind this, because if you're going to
Speaker 3: jack the price of a car up, or groceries or
Speaker 3: all of that, you need to have a reason.
Speaker 1: And look, I've spoken about Canada and Mexico.
Speaker 3: I do think our trade imbalances are ridiculous with those
Speaker 3: two countries. However, the problem is right now is that
Speaker 3: these people are the American people, are not being sold
Speaker 3: a coherent vision on how this is all going to work.
Speaker 3: And that's evidenced by the constant roll in and roll
Speaker 3: back of the strategy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So, the automaker is the perfect example because out of
Speaker 3: all of the industries that most need and deserve tariffs
Speaker 3: specifically from this bring back American jobs, it's the automaker
Speaker 3: specifically that one industry where it should be most applicable,
Speaker 3: and not say on groceries. We talked here about avocado
Speaker 3: berries is probably a better example. I don't think we
Speaker 3: grow any berries in the continental United States. But so
Speaker 3: if you're giving an exemption to one, jacking the price
Speaker 3: up on another, rolling back something here, and people are
Speaker 3: also saying it's about fentanyl, and people are just going
Speaker 3: to be like, Okay, what the hell is this all about.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the biggest problem that the White
Speaker 3: House has right now.
Speaker 4: Totally.
Speaker 2: I do think we grow some berries in California, and
Speaker 2: I know that we grow some strawberries there and some
Speaker 2: other things. Yeah, but in any case, your point still stands.
Speaker 2: It's significant. And you know there's certain things too that, Okay,
Speaker 2: we can grow them here in one particular season, but
Speaker 2: we're all used to getting everything we want all the
Speaker 2: time in the grocery store whenever we want it, even
Speaker 2: when it is the dead of winter. Those are the
Speaker 2: sorts of things products that are really going to have
Speaker 2: pressure put on them here, you know, at a time
Speaker 2: when people are particularly cast conscious. Obviously, inflation has been
Speaker 2: one of the major political stories of the past several years,
Speaker 2: you know, towards the end of COVID and certainly post COVID,
Speaker 2: So you know, that's what I've mentioned before, is the
Speaker 2: economic landscape now and the economic priority of Americans is
Speaker 2: also different from when Trump first came into office. So
Speaker 2: I think even if he was telling a coherent story
Speaker 2: about what these tariffs could deliver in terms of reindustrializing
Speaker 2: America or you know, American jobs, and yes, we're going
Speaker 2: to have some pain in the short term, but in
Speaker 2: the long term it's all going to run at work out.
Speaker 2: I think even if he was telling that story, it
Speaker 2: would be a tough sell. And he's not telling that story.
Speaker 2: The message is completely confused. Even Mexico and Canada don't
Speaker 2: really know what the hell he's doing or what the
Speaker 2: hell he wants his advisor to sow.
Speaker 4: Peter Navarro go.
Speaker 2: On last night and be like, Canada is being taken
Speaker 2: over by Mexican cartel, so they're really pushing the fentanyl line,
Speaker 2: even though we all know that that's just a pretext
Speaker 2: for him to be able to have as much authority
Speaker 2: as he wants and do whatever he wants. And I
Speaker 2: think your point about the auto industry is a really
Speaker 2: important one. Like if you were going to make the
Speaker 2: case for these tariffs in any industry, the auto industry
Speaker 2: is the place where you have actually the most compelling case,
Speaker 2: where you can say, Okay, we want to have a
Speaker 2: really strong auto industry here. This is important to our
Speaker 2: manufacturing base. It's certainly important in a number of key
Speaker 2: swing states. We're going to really invest in this industry.
Speaker 2: We're going to put some protected barriers around it, We're
Speaker 2: going to bring back, you know, all these supply chains
Speaker 2: into the US that have gone over to Canada and
Speaker 2: Mexico since NAFTA was instituted. But instead that's the one
Speaker 2: that is getting the break. So yeah, I think, you know, politically,
Speaker 2: I think this is really a non starter in terms
Speaker 2: of the way that it is.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not being sold, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't think the policy makes sense anyway outside of
Speaker 2: you know, there are some theories of some sort of
Speaker 2: grand plan to weaken the dollar and for that to
Speaker 2: cause the reindustrialization.
Speaker 4: But again, if.
Speaker 2: That's your goal, you need to be explaining that to people.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, you see you're really flirting
Speaker 2: with disaster economically, which we're going to talk about more
Speaker 2: in the next block as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, you really got to keep these things. You
Speaker 3: need to keep things such that they are explainable and understandable,
Speaker 3: especially if you're going to suffer. And part of the
Speaker 3: other problem is I've seen the Secretary say things like, oh,
Speaker 3: well it's not and people aren't going to feel it
Speaker 3: because we're gonna be taking in so much money. And
Speaker 3: it's like, okay, well, you know, then you've got to
Speaker 3: have a pretty explicit redistribution program. Maybe people could get
Speaker 3: behind that. I don't see the Republican Congress going tomorrow
Speaker 3: yet for some sort of external revenue service that's constantly
Speaker 3: just cutting checks to Americans in terms of their tariff dividend.
Speaker 3: If you did that, yeah, maybe it'd be popular, But
Speaker 3: it's one of those where it actually it would mean
Speaker 3: that you would have to dramatically change the entire system,
Speaker 3: of which I don't see a lot of congressional support
Speaker 3: for right now. So you could have the worst of
Speaker 3: all worlds. You could have higher prices and you could
Speaker 3: not have any redistribution. If not not even that, you
Speaker 3: could actually have cuts there and or a diminishment of services.
Speaker 3: And so if you do feel like it's a price
Speaker 3: is going to go down, your government services are also
Speaker 3: going to go or price is going to go up
Speaker 3: and your government services go down.
Speaker 1: That's not a very good trade, is it. So let's
Speaker 1: continue here on this.
Speaker 3: On this front, there have definitely been some There have
Speaker 3: definitely been some CEOs who are doing everything they can
Speaker 3: to get Trump's ear. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 3: the screen. The latest gambit is to meet one on
Speaker 3: one with the president. You've got to give five million
Speaker 3: dollars to one of his organizations. And now that doesn't
Speaker 3: directly go to him, but it goes to MAGA Inc.
Speaker 3: Or the Make America Grade again ink, it's a super
Speaker 3: pack that supports the Trump twenty twenty four campaign somewhere
Speaker 3: between one million dollars a piece to dine with him
Speaker 3: in a group setting five million dollars for a one
Speaker 3: on one. And so did the Big Three pony that up.
Speaker 3: Not sure, I mean they probably can get his ear anytime,
Speaker 3: but this has certainly been something that we have seen
Speaker 3: in the nearest future, is that people mar a Lago
Speaker 3: members and others I mean getting in his ear and
Speaker 3: has had significant changes on policy. The best example is
Speaker 3: probably Jeffyass who has a huge share in TikTok and
Speaker 3: a Byte Dance, probably single handedly most responsible for Trump's
Speaker 3: about face on that. We haven't talked a lot here
Speaker 3: about the crypto industry, but this is kind of this
Speaker 3: is unprecedented, to say the least, because what do you
Speaker 3: need the money for.
Speaker 1: You're not running for anything.
Speaker 3: It's like, what is all this money being funneled into
Speaker 3: your campaign or your super pack for. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's a little grotesque, especially to have basically pay for
Speaker 3: play with the president at his private club. Not saying
Speaker 3: it hasn't happened, you know, previously with Trump or I
Speaker 3: guess with other presidents, but this is just a little
Speaker 3: bit on the nose right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely no doubt about it. And we also know
Speaker 2: the way that he's able to round trip some of
Speaker 2: that those funds out of the campaign account into his
Speaker 2: personal bank account by like, hey we're going to rent
Speaker 2: Mara a Lago for this event for the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: Hey we're going to use this or that vendor that
Speaker 2: actually is under the Trump family umbrella. So one of
Speaker 2: the things that is unprecedented about him, in particular with
Speaker 2: his business interests, is the ability to funnel that campaign
Speaker 2: cash actually directly into his bank account, and then the
Speaker 2: shit coin is just something else entirely. I mean, we've
Speaker 2: talked before about this crypto dude who had a big
Speaker 2: SEC investigation going. He gives seventy five million dollars while he,
Speaker 2: you know, buys seventy five million dollars worth of Trump
Speaker 2: crypto tokens and lo and behold, SEC dropped the investigation.
Speaker 2: Huh isn't that nice for him? I mean, it just
Speaker 2: it truly is like, listen, we're none of us are
Speaker 2: Pollyanna here. We know corruption in politics is nothing new.
Speaker 2: This is like on a truly another level that's hard
Speaker 2: to describe just how corrupt it is. And then also
Speaker 2: because you've had so much power consolidated with Trump and
Speaker 2: Elon in particular, it also becomes much more important to
Speaker 2: create direct favor with him. So Elon yesterday was meeting
Speaker 2: with the Republican Caucus and saying like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 2: to set up a phone line so you guys can
Speaker 2: call directly if there are programs in your district, in
Speaker 2: your state that are important that are getting cut. Well,
Speaker 2: guess who's not going to have access to that phone line?
Speaker 2: Any Blue state representative. So it truly is just like
Speaker 2: if you're in the favored class, either because you gave
Speaker 2: money to Trump, you bought his shit coin, you happen
Speaker 2: to be a Republican, especially a Republican of state that
Speaker 2: matters to them politically, then you're going to get your favors,
Speaker 2: You're going to get your goodies, and everyone else is going.
Speaker 4: To be screwed.
Speaker 2: So you know, that's why you see the tech oligarchs
Speaker 2: lining up at the inauguration, why you see them betting
Speaker 2: the knee, why you see them donating millions of dollars
Speaker 2: to the Inauguration Fund, etc. Because they want to make
Speaker 2: sure their mergers go through. They want to make sure
Speaker 2: when the terriff is t gets put into place, they
Speaker 2: get their particular carve out and their interests are looked after.
Speaker 2: And you know that's very much the story of how
Speaker 2: this administration is being run.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the economy then, in terms of the
Speaker 1: warning signs.
Speaker 2: So this all sort of ties in. Harry Anton did
Speaker 2: a great segment breaking down some of the polling numbers
Speaker 2: about how Americans feel Trump is doing on the economy
Speaker 2: and specifically whether they feel like he is focusing on
Speaker 2: economic issues. Enough, let's take a listen to what he
Speaker 2: had to say.
Speaker 8: The answer the question is no, Trump and the economy
Speaker 8: he should prioritize here on planet Earth eighty two percentsent.
Speaker 8: It's almost as if Trump is on planet Krypton. Look
Speaker 8: at this. He is prioritizing the economy just thirty six percent.
Speaker 8: My goodness, gracious, I don't understand how this mathematical formula works. Right,
Speaker 8: If the economy is the number one issue, if that's
Speaker 8: what Americans think you should be prioritizing, and well less
Speaker 8: than half think that you are. No wonder Trump is
Speaker 8: having problems with the economy because, simply put, he's not
Speaker 8: putting it to the top of his list the.
Speaker 1: Way Americans are.
Speaker 8: American adults who have a job currently at least in
Speaker 8: January with sixty one percent the percentage that own a
Speaker 8: stock either directly or indirectly. Perhaps you're four oh one
Speaker 8: k sixty two percent sock. The stock market is as
Speaker 8: important to economic perceptions in my mind as is the
Speaker 8: unemployment number, given that it's about the same percentage of Americans.
Speaker 8: In fact, if you believe it, though, it's within the
Speaker 8: margin ververa one point more of the American folks actually
Speaker 8: own stock than actually have a job.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure about that last part.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I'm really buying that people are more
Speaker 2: concerned with the stock market than the employment. I mean,
Speaker 2: stock market ownership is still very very skewed, but it
Speaker 2: is an important point that, Look, a lot of people
Speaker 2: are paying attention to this. Trump himself has always paid
Speaker 2: very close to attention to what the stock market says.
Speaker 2: In fact, there's some old tweet of his that's like,
Speaker 2: you know, if the stock market drops this much two
Speaker 2: days in a row, that.
Speaker 4: President should be impeached.
Speaker 2: That people have been circulating around here soccer. It made
Speaker 2: me think back to his speech this week and what
Speaker 2: we talked about that the front part was really frontloaded
Speaker 2: with the and that's, you know, the first part is
Speaker 2: what most people will stick around and watch, and then
Speaker 2: you'll see the clips that circulate after the fact. But
Speaker 2: that first portion of the speech really frontloaded with culture war.
Speaker 2: If anything, it feels much more like Elon is the
Speaker 2: mover and shaker on the pieces relevant to most directly
Speaker 2: relevant to the economy. Now that sort of changes with
Speaker 2: Trump stepping up and instituting these tariffs, but changes in
Speaker 2: an even more negative way because the tariffs are pretty
Speaker 2: unpopular when you look at what people want him to
Speaker 2: be focusing on, which is getting prices down, not issuing
Speaker 2: tariffs that are very likely to raise prices even further
Speaker 2: than they already are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just again like if it was part of
Speaker 3: a major strategy, then okay, then people may be willing
Speaker 3: to put up with it. No, although I'm not so
Speaker 3: sure because the real reaction that we've seen currently, I
Speaker 3: mean that poll really tells the truth. They go, even
Speaker 3: if prices increase, most Americans just don't want to put
Speaker 3: up with it.
Speaker 1: I can't say I blame them, you know, I get it.
Speaker 3: I would make a case for why it would be
Speaker 3: worth it and perhaps some ways to mitigate all of
Speaker 3: that pain. But the problem is is that that's not
Speaker 3: what the White House is saying right now. And I've
Speaker 3: really become convinced that this is an existential problem for
Speaker 3: all of them, because without that message and without that
Speaker 3: FDR like feeling of I am doing something for you,
Speaker 3: you were just going to end up like Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: And let's go ahead to the Atlanta FED because this
Speaker 3: was the most important actually indicator out of them alls
Speaker 3: put it up there please on the screen, which is
Speaker 3: that their GDP model now forecast has actually been revised
Speaker 3: for the first quarter of twenty twenty five down to
Speaker 3: minus two point eight percent. So that is one where
Speaker 3: economic contraction combined with consumer sentiment plunging over tariffs and
Speaker 3: of uncertainty, also combined with persistent high inflation, all three
Speaker 3: of those things, not to mention flat unemployment, which we're
Speaker 3: about to get to in a second, that is a
Speaker 3: recipe for disaster. And so, as I have said here,
Speaker 3: you have some runway America is listening. That's one of
Speaker 3: the more interesting things that you and I have seen
Speaker 3: is that the amount of interest in news left and
Speaker 3: right remains sky high right now. So it's not like
Speaker 3: people are not paying attention and they're generally willing to
Speaker 3: give you the benefit of the doubt in the first
Speaker 3: hundred days or so. But you have a very very
Speaker 3: short period before some serious stuff is about to start
Speaker 3: hitting you politically. And the biggest danger I see for
Speaker 3: the Republicans is, let's say things just continue down this
Speaker 3: road for the first hundred days. Well, Crystal, you and
Speaker 3: I know what is the first major thing they're going
Speaker 3: to do after the first hundred days, they're going to
Speaker 3: pass the Republican tax bill, that tax bill which massively
Speaker 3: increases or the current tax cuts for large corporations and
Speaker 3: for rich people.
Speaker 1: Let's be honest here, Let's be honest, right.
Speaker 3: They made a case for it back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: and they haven't really reduced from it. So that, as
Speaker 3: I always say, the lowest day of Donald Trump's presidency
Speaker 3: in terms of approval rating was the day that that
Speaker 3: tax bill pass. Well, if you combine that with persistent
Speaker 3: high inflation, with the economic contraction, with unemployment, inflation, etc.
Speaker 3: Well plus the tax bill, that is a recipe really
Speaker 3: for a George W. Bush style pushback even after you've
Speaker 3: won the popular vote. Bush basically nuked his presidency over
Speaker 3: trying to privatize Social Security, Andy Rock and I haven't
Speaker 3: even mentioned any potential crisis. It's all just floating out
Speaker 3: there right now. Hurricane season, you know, it's not that
Speaker 3: far away, could be right around the same time as
Speaker 3: the tax bill.
Speaker 1: The optics would be a disaster if anything like that.
Speaker 3: And who in you and I know the global system
Speaker 3: is very uncertain Ukraine obviously, but Gaza, I mean that
Speaker 3: could start up any minute now. It already has escalated
Speaker 3: a bit with the Israelis cutting off AID. There could
Speaker 3: be any sort of terrorist attack, anything, some sort of
Speaker 3: major shock to the global system. So with all of
Speaker 3: us uncertainty right now and these economic problems, people want
Speaker 3: to feel as if there's a st at, a hand
Speaker 3: on the wheel. I don't think that they're getting that
Speaker 3: right now, and I think that remains a big.
Speaker 1: Problem for Trump.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have terrists that are likely to spike prices.
Speaker 2: You have GDP growth dropping, potentially going negative. I mean
Speaker 2: that is the definition of stagflation, which is the most
Speaker 2: disastrous economic situation that you could imagine. And then the
Speaker 2: GOP economic priorities are tax cuts for the rich and
Speaker 2: cutting social safety net programs. There was a new report
Speaker 2: out from the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office that says
Speaker 2: what you and Izager obviously already knew, which is that
Speaker 2: the amount of cuts that Republicans are pushing, there is
Speaker 2: no way to achieve them without cutting Medicaid or Medicare,
Speaker 2: and we know Medicaid has been in their sits in particular.
Speaker 2: So you got the richest man on the planet who's
Speaker 2: consolidated all this power you've got him giving himself contracts
Speaker 2: and goodies. There's more updates on that on how he's
Speaker 2: finding more money for and more contracts for Starlink, seemingly
Speaker 2: every day at the same time that you're pursuing this agenda.
Speaker 2: That's great for rich pe that's great if you want you,
Speaker 2: if you're wealthy, if your big corporation, you want your
Speaker 2: tax cut, and it's terrible for ordinary people who are
Speaker 2: already suffering and who many of whom voted in this
Speaker 2: election because they thought Trump as a businessman, would do
Speaker 2: a better job manning to be managing the economy, and
Speaker 2: they remembered back to his first term and felt like
Speaker 2: they were personally doing better, especially because prices were lower
Speaker 2: at that time and their dollar was able to go further.
Speaker 4: We alluded to this.
Speaker 2: We've got another negative indicator here that's significant. This is
Speaker 2: the ADP Jobs Report. Could put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: So companies added just seventy seven thousand new workers for
Speaker 2: the last month. This is the chart showing at that
Speaker 2: last little blue bar there that's really quite low in
Speaker 2: comparison to the other blue bars on the chart.
Speaker 4: That's where we are.
Speaker 2: That's also a lot less than what January was one
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty six thousand, and it was much below
Speaker 2: the estimate of one hundred and forty eight thousand jobs added. So,
Speaker 2: you know, this is something Ryan's been talking about out
Speaker 2: how all of the federal government cuts. It doesn't just
Speaker 2: impact those particular people who get fired. You end up
Speaker 2: with universities freezing firing, You end up with the healthcare
Speaker 2: system freezing hiring. You end up with an economy that's
Speaker 2: just kind of on standstill as people wait and see
Speaker 2: what the reverberations and what the ripple effects are ultimately
Speaker 2: going to be. You add to that consumer confidences down.
Speaker 2: I know, Target came out and said that they're spending
Speaker 2: their revenue was soft in the past month as well,
Speaker 2: So you've got a lot of indications that consumers are
Speaker 2: pulling back and getting really nervous as well. And when
Speaker 2: you ask consumers what their expectations are for both job
Speaker 2: losses and for inflation, they are expecting things to turn
Speaker 2: south this year as well. And to be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I feel like the American people have been better at
Speaker 2: understanding prediction predicting the economy than many of the analysts
Speaker 2: who do.
Speaker 4: This for a living.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.
Speaker 3: I mean, because they feel it and you can just
Speaker 3: really look around, I will say, you know, thermostatic public
Speaker 3: opinion is also a hell of a drug. I was
Speaker 3: just looking the other day at approval for the economy,
Speaker 3: and the day that Trump took office, Republicans went from
Speaker 3: net negative to net positive, and their approval of the
Speaker 3: economy Democrats went from net positive to net negative. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of vibes talk out there as well.
Speaker 3: If we're all being honest, let's all be honest. That's
Speaker 3: I remember looking at economic data and Arizona during the
Speaker 3: right before the election, where if people were asked, how
Speaker 3: is your state doing, they would be like, oh, plus
Speaker 3: twenty five percent? Things are great, it's boom times here
Speaker 3: down in Arizona. They're like, how is America doing it?
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, it's a disaster, and you're like, well,
Speaker 3: the moment that Trump gets elected, they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: just we're booming. America's back for business again. So just
Speaker 3: saying partisanship is also a.
Speaker 1: Hell of a drug.
Speaker 3: Let's put this next one up here on the screen
Speaker 3: of This is about the stock market. This is something
Speaker 3: I've been warning about here for quite some time from
Speaker 3: the Financial Times, the US has quote to nearly two
Speaker 3: thirds of global equity market value. But they say, analysts
Speaker 3: are seen danger in the huge bet on AI.
Speaker 1: So they say, if you hold a.
Speaker 3: Global tracker by definition, then two thirds of that is
Speaker 3: the United States and a lot of that is Silicon
Speaker 3: Valley specifically. That means you are very vulnerable to this
Speaker 3: huge bet on AI. Now, our economy has significantly benefited
Speaker 3: from the fact that these tech stocks have gone vertical
Speaker 3: since two thousand and eight. That's how a huge portion
Speaker 3: of Americans who do have assets, who are not asset
Speaker 3: light individuals or persons inflicted with asset lightness have been
Speaker 3: able to capture some value and actually be able to
Speaker 3: retire with these great year over year gains in the
Speaker 3: S and P five hundred. But the real issue is
Speaker 3: that over the last five years, in particular, this huge
Speaker 3: explosion of value in these technology stocks means that Americans
Speaker 3: are very exposed to any correction, even a modest ten
Speaker 3: to twenty percent correction in the technology sector, which would
Speaker 3: have massive ramifications for the economy. It would mean unemployment,
Speaker 3: it would mean change to federal reserve. So it's not
Speaker 3: just something that would affect tech employees. It would affect
Speaker 3: all of us, There's no question about it. And really
Speaker 3: that's what they're appointing to right now with the current
Speaker 3: stock market and with all of these bigger questions too.
Speaker 3: About an Nvidia which currently saw a huge reduction the
Speaker 3: other day, we didn't get a chance to talk about it,
Speaker 3: but it was really because there are indications of how
Speaker 3: much they are currently inverting export controls to China, and
Speaker 3: so actually just enforcing US law huge impact there on
Speaker 3: end video. So you've got geopolitical attentions, you got the
Speaker 3: whole deep Seek thing in terms of efficiency, and then
Speaker 3: you still have these companies just pouring hundreds of billions
Speaker 3: of dollars into AI development every single quarter. Now they're
Speaker 3: doing that for a reason, and we're about to get
Speaker 3: to that in a little bit. But you know, if
Speaker 3: that comes up short, it could have serious problems. We
Speaker 3: could be in for a bad five years, is what
Speaker 3: I would say.
Speaker 2: Well, and it doesn't even have to come up short.
Speaker 2: It just can be that, you know, deep Seek and
Speaker 2: other open platforms are able to suck up a lot
Speaker 2: of the value as well, So it could even be
Speaker 2: that it's not that they underperform in terms of their
Speaker 2: technological development. It's just that there's far more global competition
Speaker 2: than has anticipated. I mean, I'm quite convinced that we
Speaker 2: are in a bubble. Just a question to me of
Speaker 2: whether or not that bubble is going to pop and
Speaker 2: the lengths that politicians will certainly go to to make
Speaker 2: sure that the stock market continues to churn, because that's
Speaker 2: you know, that's been a goal, in a priority obviously
Speaker 2: for many years now. But we talk about the Magnificent
Speaker 2: seven group of stocks, and you're talking about how dominant
Speaker 2: the tech sector is. That's Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft,
Speaker 2: nvidiaan Tesla. They hold almost a third of the S
Speaker 2: and P five hundred's market value, and this article points
Speaker 2: out that the price to earnings ratio of that index
Speaker 2: is at its highest level since the early two thousand
Speaker 2: since yep, you guys remember what happened to the early
Speaker 2: two thousands. That's when you had the dot com bubble
Speaker 2: and ultimate crash. So again, they're going to keep trying
Speaker 2: to do what they can to keep the stock market inflated.
Speaker 2: But I don't to me, it's pretty undeniable that we
Speaker 2: are in a fairly significant bubble, and the fact that
Speaker 2: these handful of companies comprises such a large portion of
Speaker 2: the stock index, and that that stock index comprises such
Speaker 2: a large portion of the overall market activity is another
Speaker 2: just looming massive risk and exposure as we're looking at
Speaker 2: these things. And this is a good segue too into
Speaker 2: our next segment, which is specifically about AI and where
Speaker 2: we're headed with that, which is also kind of terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yes, artificial general intelligence.
Speaker 3: So Azra Klein over at the New York Times just
Speaker 3: had a really good interview with Benby Cannon, and he
Speaker 3: was a White House advisor on AI and a professor
Speaker 3: at Georgetown, and he has a prediction that AGI, artificial
Speaker 3: general intelligence is in the Trump administration. I will say,
Speaker 3: if you watched our coverage during the inauguration, I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure we were both talking about that and we're like, listen,
Speaker 3: you know, all of this doge everything it could be
Speaker 3: could be a footnote to what the actual story of
Speaker 3: the entire Trump administration actually is, which is the development
Speaker 3: of artificial general intelligence. Just as when people go back
Speaker 3: and write the history of the first Trump term, it'll
Speaker 3: be the Trump Revolution of twenty sixteen and COVID.
Speaker 1: Those are the two things.
Speaker 3: It probably the most important things actually came out of
Speaker 3: those years in retrospect. So let's take a listen here
Speaker 3: to some of ben By Cannon's analysis on artificial general intelligence,
Speaker 3: his predictions, and also some of the major policy implications
Speaker 3: behind it.
Speaker 9: So it sort of pretty big off on this question
Speaker 9: a little bit. By saying you're not a labor economist,
Speaker 9: I will say.
Speaker 10: That I have not a labor economist here or not.
Speaker 9: I will promise you the labor economists do not know
Speaker 9: what to do about AI. Yeah, you were the pop
Speaker 9: advisor for AI. You were at the nerve center of
Speaker 9: the government's information about what is coming. If this is
Speaker 9: half as big as you seem to think it is,
Speaker 9: it's going to be the single most disruptive thing to
Speaker 9: hit labor markets ever, given how compress the time period
Speaker 9: in which it will arrive. This right, It took a
Speaker 9: long time to lay down electricity, it took a long
Speaker 9: time to build railroads.
Speaker 10: I think that is basically true, But I want to
Speaker 10: push back a little bit. So I do think we
Speaker 10: are going to see dynamic in which it will hit
Speaker 10: parts of the economy first. It will hit certain firms first,
Speaker 10: but it will be an uneven distribution process.
Speaker 9: I think it will be uneven, and that's I think
Speaker 9: what will be destabilizing about it in part. Right, if
Speaker 9: it were just even, then you might just come up
Speaker 9: with an even policy to do something about it. Sure
Speaker 9: you must have heard somebody think about this. You guys
Speaker 9: must have talked.
Speaker 10: Yeah, we did talk to economists and try to texture
Speaker 10: this debate in twenty three and twenty four. I think
Speaker 10: the trend line is even clearer now than it was then.
Speaker 10: I think we knew this was not gonna be a
Speaker 10: twenty three and twenty four question. Frankly, to do anything
Speaker 10: robust about this, it's going to require Congress, and that
Speaker 10: was just not in the cards at all. So it
Speaker 10: was more of an intellectual exercise than it was a policy.
Speaker 9: Policies begin as intellectual exercises. Yeah, yeah, this is a
Speaker 9: kind of like. The ways that I'm pushing on this
Speaker 9: is that we have been talking about this, seeing this
Speaker 9: coming for a while. And I will say that as
Speaker 9: I look around, I do not see a lot of
Speaker 9: useful thinking here. And I grant that we don't know
Speaker 9: the shape of it. At the very least, I would
Speaker 9: like to see some ideas on the shelf for if
Speaker 9: the disruptions are severe, what we should think about doing.
Speaker 9: Does everybody move into the trades? What were the intellectual
Speaker 9: thought exercises that all these smart people at the White
Speaker 9: House who believe this was coming. You know, what were
Speaker 9: you saying?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 10: I think, yes, we were thinking about this question. I
Speaker 10: think we knew it was not going to be a
Speaker 10: question we were going to confront in the president's term.
Speaker 9: I guess I'm trying to push like, was this not
Speaker 9: being talked about? There were no meetings, there were no
Speaker 9: you guys didn't have claud write up a brief of options.
Speaker 10: Well, you know, we definitely didn't have Claude Ripe a
Speaker 10: brief because we had to get over government use of AI.
Speaker 9: See, but that's like itself slightly damning.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I I think, you know, I agree
Speaker 10: that the government has to be more forward leaning on
Speaker 10: basically all of these dimensions.
Speaker 9: You sit down with somebody and you start the conversation
Speaker 9: and like, the most transformative technology perhaps in human history,
Speaker 9: is landing into human civilization in a two to three
Speaker 9: year time frame, and you say, wow, that seems like
Speaker 9: a really big deal. What should we do? And then
Speaker 9: things get a little hazy right now. Maybe we just
Speaker 9: don't know. But what I've heard you kind of say
Speaker 9: a bunch of times is like, look, we have done
Speaker 9: very little to hold this technology back. Everything is voluntary,
Speaker 9: you know. The only thing we asked was a sharing
Speaker 9: of safety data. You know, now income the accelerationists, you know,
Speaker 9: Mark Andreson has criticized you guys extremely straightforwardly. Is this
Speaker 9: policy debate about anything? Is it just the sentiment of
Speaker 9: the rhetoric? Right like, if it's so big, but nobody
Speaker 9: can quite explain what it is we need to do
Speaker 9: or talk about, except for maybe export control is like,
Speaker 9: are we just not thinking creatively enough? Is it just
Speaker 9: not time?
Speaker 1: So I thought that that was a very good exchange.
Speaker 3: Our producer Griffin cut that together because what Ezra keeps
Speaker 3: trying to get at is he's like, so, did you
Speaker 3: guys think about this at all? And the answer was like, no,
Speaker 3: not really in terms of how it's all going to come.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing, I don't think very much has changed. Now.
Speaker 3: There are some great people who are working in the
Speaker 3: White House, people like Shri Ram Krishnan or a few others,
Speaker 3: But that's one person I mean, is this being discussed
Speaker 3: at like the very highest levels and beyond that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not just up to the White House. This would
Speaker 3: be a whole of government Congress approach if we're going
Speaker 3: to even think about rules and guidelines for the future.
Speaker 3: And I think the biggest worry right now, and this
Speaker 3: is actually fundamentally what's so crazy about AI, is that
Speaker 3: the breakthrough is most likely to come, at least in
Speaker 3: America in a pre existing technology monopoly. So if you
Speaker 3: look at all of these other breakthrough technologies, they can
Speaker 3: come from outside competitor. They don't necessarily come from you know,
Speaker 3: everyone a famously says like, oh, Kodak invented the digital camera,
Speaker 3: but you know they put it to the shelf because
Speaker 3: they want to disrupt themselves. These guys are all actually
Speaker 3: aware of that, and they're the ones who are pumping
Speaker 3: all the money into this tech, and it's not necessarily
Speaker 3: some new value capture startup or something that would be
Speaker 3: the break I think that probably.
Speaker 1: Has to do more with AI economics.
Speaker 3: But I think that's part of why I'm so worried,
Speaker 3: is that if you give these people already have immense
Speaker 3: power even more immense power basic control over the whole
Speaker 3: US labor market. I think that's the really terrifying part
Speaker 3: behind the development.
Speaker 2: There's a lot about this that like gives me panic attacks,
Speaker 2: and listening to that. I listen to that whole podcast,
Speaker 2: and it confirms my terror, which is that, you know,
Speaker 2: even the people who are at the bleeding edge of
Speaker 2: this really don't know exactly what it's going to do
Speaker 2: to society and don't really have any answers about how
Speaker 2: to address it. And I think everyone really needs to
Speaker 2: wrap their head around the fact that the social contract
Speaker 2: is going to need to be completely re written. And
Speaker 2: I don't think that there is I get that it
Speaker 2: is hard to fathom what this is going to mean.
Speaker 2: It feels very like, oh, I use chat GPT and
Speaker 2: it's fun to asking questions, just kind of like a
Speaker 2: better Google.
Speaker 4: But what is coming is something profoundly different.
Speaker 2: And the goal is to automate, to use AGI to
Speaker 2: basically make human intellectual labor irrelevant.
Speaker 4: So what does that do to a society?
Speaker 2: What does that do to the world when human beings
Speaker 2: are no longer the most intelligent species on the planet. So,
Speaker 2: you know, the Biden administration clearly didn't have any answers
Speaker 2: for that, and I don't know that anyone. I mean,
Speaker 2: at this point, there was these different factions in Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley thinking about AI development, and you have people who
Speaker 2: were like, you know, the AI safety people and people
Speaker 2: who are dumers. I'm probably kind of in the Dumer camp,
Speaker 2: and the acceleration ists at this point have just completely won.
Speaker 2: And the idea is just like we're an a race
Speaker 2: with China. We're going to throw as much money and
Speaker 2: you know, effort in this into this as we possibly can.
Speaker 2: We're going to develop it as quickly as possible, even
Speaker 2: though the problem of what they call alignment has not
Speaker 2: been solved.
Speaker 4: An alignment is like a really.
Speaker 2: Uh, sort of sterilized word, anti septic word for how
Speaker 2: do we make sure that this AI isn't just going
Speaker 2: to like decide to destroy us all or have catastrophic
Speaker 2: consequences that we aren't envisioning. They haven't figured that out,
Speaker 2: but they're still pushing forward. And sorry you're mentioning, you know,
Speaker 2: this is going to come from likely from some big
Speaker 2: tech monopoly and less unless China does get to AGI first,
Speaker 2: which I think is certainly a possibility at this point.
Speaker 2: But the other thing that's different there is that the
Speaker 2: previous major technological advances, like if you think about the Internet,
Speaker 2: if you think about computers like personal computers, if you
Speaker 2: think about nuclear energy and weapons, all of that was
Speaker 2: developed within the government. So the government also there was
Speaker 2: some ability to have a democratic check on what purposes
Speaker 2: this would be developed for, and you know, a sort
Speaker 2: of studied approach to it. Not that that is perfect
Speaker 2: in any way, but when you just are developing it
Speaker 2: in the private, capitalist markets and where the goal is
Speaker 2: just like who can get there first and who can
Speaker 2: capture the most the biggest profit margins, like the impacts
Speaker 2: are almost unfathomable. And you know, I talk a lot
Speaker 2: about the labor market piece. The surveillance piece is also
Speaker 2: I think something we should all be pretty terrified about.
Speaker 2: And then the last thing I'll say before we get
Speaker 2: to the clip that specifically talks about the race with
Speaker 2: China is I think one of the things that's happening
Speaker 2: with DOGE, as best I can tell, is they want
Speaker 2: to use the federal government as kind of like a
Speaker 2: laboratory for how many human beings can be replaced right
Speaker 2: now by AI even before we get to AGI. So
Speaker 2: we're getting an announcement probably today that they're working to completely,
Speaker 2: you know, dismantled the Department of Education. We've already had
Speaker 2: indications that they're using AI to go through all sorts
Speaker 2: of data, and you know, I've seen indications like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe they're going to cut the Social they are cutting
Speaker 2: the Social Security Administration. Maybe those people on those hotlines
Speaker 2: are going to be replaced by AI. I do think
Speaker 2: it is sort of a test lab for how many
Speaker 2: human beings can we get rid of and replace with machines,
Speaker 2: and the basic functions still more or less work. So
Speaker 2: I think that is part of what's going on here too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's go to the next part here.
Speaker 3: As you said that specific interview question on AGI and
Speaker 3: the race, let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: There are a lot of arguments in America about AI.
Speaker 9: The one thing that seems not to get argued over,
Speaker 9: that seems almost universally agreed upon and is the dominant
Speaker 9: in my view, controlling priority and policy, is it we
Speaker 9: get to AGI, a term I've heard you don't like. Yeah,
Speaker 9: before chin to us.
Speaker 10: Why, I do think there are are profound economic and
Speaker 10: military and intelligence capabilities that would be downstream of getting
Speaker 10: to AGI or transformative AI, and I do think it
Speaker 10: is fundamental for US national security that we continue to
Speaker 10: lead AI because we think AI could represent a fundamental
Speaker 10: shift in how we conduct cyber operations on offense and defense.
Speaker 6: And I would not want to live.
Speaker 10: In a world in which China has that capability on
Speaker 10: offense and defense in cyber and the United States is not.
Speaker 9: They want strength and dominance and to see the next
Speaker 9: era be a Chinese era. So maybe there's nothing you
Speaker 9: can do about this, but it is pretty damn antagonistic
Speaker 9: to try to choke off the chips for the central
Speaker 9: technology of the next era to the other biggest country.
Speaker 10: I don't know that it's pretty antagonistic to say we
Speaker 10: are not going to sell you the most advanced technology
Speaker 10: in the world. That does not in itself. That's not
Speaker 10: a declaration of war, That is not even self a
Speaker 10: declary of a Cold war. I think it is just
Speaker 10: saying this technology is incredibly important.
Speaker 9: Do you think that's how they understood it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was interesting, And I don't know,
Speaker 3: to be honest, I think that, as your question incredibly stupid,
Speaker 3: like what people are just entitled all across the world
Speaker 3: to whatever product the United States produces. That's absurd. If
Speaker 3: you guys are so good that you could build it yourself,
Speaker 3: which they did. I mean that's the other thing. It's
Speaker 3: not one thing that we always do in America is
Speaker 3: we underestimate the Chinese. I mean, look at BYD. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they were stealing our ip and there was all this
Speaker 3: other stealing from US, et cetera. And then they were like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we stole it, and then we actually made it ten
Speaker 3: times better than everything that you have in your market.
Speaker 3: They are already doing that with their chips. Will we
Speaker 3: sell them to it or not? It's absurd to think
Speaker 3: that they're entitled to it. So in a way, it's
Speaker 3: almost like weirdly paternalistic. It's like, oh no, it's all good.
Speaker 3: We have to sell them this brand new technology. I
Speaker 3: just think that's completely absurd. But you know, look the
Speaker 3: question that Ben raises, and this is one too, that's
Speaker 3: kind of like nuclear weapons, is there just is a
Speaker 3: mutually disturbed destruction through city's trap element to this. Like
Speaker 3: it's nice to pollyann and be like, oh, maybe we
Speaker 3: can all get along. It's like, now we're not going
Speaker 3: to getlong because they don't want to get along with us,
Speaker 3: and you know, most Americans don't necessarily want to get
Speaker 3: along with them in terms of allowing total dominance or
Speaker 3: being subject to their economic or market control. That's something
Speaker 3: that we all are, you know, pretty wedded to, at
Speaker 3: least at a consumer level here in America. And if
Speaker 3: you look at SPOTNAK or any of these other moments
Speaker 3: is pretty much born out in the population data. So
Speaker 3: I don't know, I have some mixed feelings on that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was looking at there's this Australian technology index
Speaker 2: that looks at which countries are most advanced across a
Speaker 2: number of different technologies, called the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's
Speaker 2: Critical Technology Tracker, And we went from being number one
Speaker 2: and basically everything to now China, according to this index,
Speaker 2: leads in thirty seven out of forty four evaluated technologies,
Speaker 2: including things like defense, BA botox, energy, biotech, AI, advanced
Speaker 2: materials in quantum technology. I don't know if you saw this, Sagra.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is a different sort of quote unquote technology.
Speaker 2: But McDonald's is no longer the largest fast food chain
Speaker 2: in the world. A Chinese brand that just went public
Speaker 2: in Hong Kong actually has the I think it's called.
Speaker 4: Like mixy or something like that. I think it's called
Speaker 4: mix Y.
Speaker 2: I might be made, that might be wrong, But anyway,
Speaker 2: now has more locations than McDonald's, and not a single
Speaker 2: one is in Europe or the United States of America.
Speaker 2: Ninety percent of them are just within China themselves. So
Speaker 2: I think it's I mean, it's it's a chain. I
Speaker 2: sell ice cream strings.
Speaker 4: Is that what it is? Though?
Speaker 2: I mean, and this is our no had a tweet
Speaker 2: about this, Arno Bertrand which is like, listen, this is
Speaker 2: going to be new for those of us in the
Speaker 2: West to have these brands that are like the largest
Speaker 2: brands and the new big thing that we don't have
Speaker 2: any idea. We've never heard of. They don't exist here.
Speaker 2: We don't know what they are. And so your point about,
Speaker 2: you know, being arrogant with regard to where China is
Speaker 2: and how far along they are in their development, I
Speaker 2: think people need to wrap their heads around the fact
Speaker 2: that actually in many technologies they have surpassed.
Speaker 4: Us at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there is no reason to think there's any
Speaker 2: guarantee that we're going to quote unquote win the AI
Speaker 2: arms race, because you know there, they are quite advanced,
Speaker 2: and they are right there along with us, and the
Speaker 2: innovations with regard to deep seek, you know, really pushed
Speaker 2: the boundaries in terms of efficiency and you know, requires
Speaker 2: much less power usage than the models that were developed here.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's it's a very real dynamic. But that
Speaker 2: mcdonald'son kind of blew my mind absolutely, like a Sputnik
Speaker 2: moment in a weird way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good point.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I will care so much about the
Speaker 3: largest place being bubble Tea, but I'll try it.
Speaker 1: I'll be happy to try it. Apparently it's all over Asia.
Speaker 1: I would love to go.
Speaker 3: Not usually a bubble tea guy, but they have soft
Speaker 3: serve so that sounds pretty good. But yes, no, you're
Speaker 3: absolutely right, and this is part of the chauvinism in
Speaker 3: the United States. I've recently started been looking back at
Speaker 3: the Soviet atomic bomb industry or the Soviet atomic bomb program.
Speaker 1: Absolutely fascinating time.
Speaker 3: Everybody can tell you the story of the Manhattan Project
Speaker 3: or watch Choppenheimer, etcetera, but nobody really thinks about, you know,
Speaker 3: that four year period where the Soviets went from not
Speaker 3: having an atomic bomb to be able to compete and
Speaker 3: actually the hydrogen development which sparked the arms race. And
Speaker 3: I think what was so fascinating about that time period
Speaker 3: of the early Soviet Union was a chauvinism here in
Speaker 3: the United States of you know, even in the early
Speaker 3: days of the Cold War, where they're like, we've got it,
Speaker 3: we don't really have to do all that much, and
Speaker 3: there's no way that these backwards Soviets could be able
Speaker 3: to compete. And that's where Sputnik came in. Deep Seek
Speaker 3: obviously is a version of that. But part of the
Speaker 3: other issue is culturally right now, is we don't appreciate
Speaker 3: the ability of alternative systems to deliver extraordinary results. We
Speaker 3: had foolish notion here in the West that by cutting
Speaker 3: Russia off from the international banking system they would collapse.
Speaker 3: What we forgot is that countries are not stock markets.
Speaker 3: They are places that have natural resources, and the ability
Speaker 3: to produce guns, bullets and pull oil out of the
Speaker 3: ground is actually all that really matters whenever you're in
Speaker 3: a time of war.
Speaker 1: Same with the Chinese.
Speaker 3: I mean they have all of these minerals and factories,
Speaker 3: industries and supply chains that are totally vertically integrated that
Speaker 3: have enabled these incredible breakthroughs in their car industry and
Speaker 3: their battery technology, and now you know, with AI, I
Speaker 3: have no doubt that in the next ten years they'll
Speaker 3: be on parody with us on the chips as well,
Speaker 3: and we have to grapple with that. This is something
Speaker 3: that all Americans. I'm watching the Europeans do this right now.
Speaker 3: They're having huge debates over I saw a headline in
Speaker 3: the Financial Times like Europeans, we must slash our welfare
Speaker 3: states to compete on defense. I was like, man, that'd
Speaker 3: be a bitter pill to swallow if I was a
Speaker 3: Frenchman or if I was a German. And I've been
Speaker 3: used to a life of seventy five years of universal healthcare,
Speaker 3: so I'm curious to see how that works out for them.
Speaker 3: But that's my point too, is that you know, you
Speaker 3: everything is a trade off, and to just sit here
Speaker 3: and think that you know, we are just naturally will
Speaker 3: inherit the earth is ludicrous and you will find out
Speaker 3: very very quickly. I do I encourage. That's why I
Speaker 3: talk about those Chinese evs all the time. I don't
Speaker 3: think people know like and you can just go on YouTube.
Speaker 3: You can go watch it for yourself. It's crazy. You
Speaker 3: would buy one too. If we're all being honest, every
Speaker 3: one of us would buy one if we're talking about
Speaker 3: the price, and so think about it and just say like,
Speaker 3: how do you get there? Well, it's it's not that easy.
Speaker 3: And you need a government. We need a plan, you
Speaker 3: need supply chain, you know, you need you need your
Speaker 3: elon and you need the government to like come together
Speaker 3: like this otherwise you need to left in the dustl on.
Speaker 4: China's got got elon too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 4: Good point.
Speaker 1: The BYD guy, that guy is crazy.
Speaker 3: He is, like I said, Charlie Munger said, he was
Speaker 3: the smartest guy that he's ever met his entire life,
Speaker 3: which I think is extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Well, and last thing on this part of the hubrist
Speaker 2: is assuming that our version of capitalism is the one
Speaker 2: that is going to create the most innovation.
Speaker 4: You know, we just assume that that's the case.
Speaker 2: And part of what has happened that, you know, is
Speaker 2: something that Matt Stuller certainly shines a light on, is
Speaker 2: since we allow these giant tech monopolies to grow, oftentimes
Speaker 2: they focus more on you know, financial tricks and games
Speaker 2: than innovation. They have few competitors because they're giant monopolies,
Speaker 2: and so it certainly has not been the best way
Speaker 2: to encourage innovation and keep us at the leading edge.
Speaker 2: China obviously has a very different economic system, and you know,
Speaker 2: parts of it are effectively socialist, and that has the
Speaker 2: way that they've been able to marshal state resources in
Speaker 2: critical industries and you know, create supply chains and actually
Speaker 2: yes efficiencies that have enabled this technological development. And it
Speaker 2: also you know, made some intentional decisions to keep their
Speaker 2: society from going down the path of just everything being
Speaker 2: financialization and all of their top graduates going into you know,
Speaker 2: the equivalent of Wall Street. You know, that's also a
Speaker 2: significant part of the story as well, and part of
Speaker 2: the hubrist because you know, after we won the Cold
Speaker 2: War versus the Soviets, we're like, all right, our system
Speaker 2: is the best. This kind of capitalism is amazing, It's
Speaker 2: going to win forever. And here comes another economic model
Speaker 2: that is you know, rivaling or in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: out innovating and out competing us. I don't think a
Speaker 2: lot of people here have wrapped their heads around that
Speaker 2: or want to wrap their heads around what that means.
Speaker 1: Yep, you're right.
Speaker 3: Turns out to just eating McDonald's all day, watching only
Speaker 3: fans or Netflix or all of that doesn't produce the
Speaker 3: best scientists.
Speaker 1: Shocking, shopsolete, shocking. All right, let's get over to Gaza.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have some significant developments here. Only go
Speaker 2: with the latest one first. So Trump put this message
Speaker 2: up on I guess this was truth social to begin with.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up on the screen. So he writes,
Speaker 2: Shalom Hamas means hello and goodbye. You can choose release
Speaker 2: all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return
Speaker 2: all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered,
Speaker 2: or it is over for you. Only sick and twisted
Speaker 2: people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted. Unmentioned
Speaker 2: is the fact that Israel is holding hundreds of bodies,
Speaker 2: but we'll put that aside. I am sending Israel everything
Speaker 2: it needs to finish the job. Not a single Hamas
Speaker 2: member will be safe if you don't do as I say.
Speaker 2: I have just met with your former hostages, whose lives
Speaker 2: you have destroyed. This is your last warning for the leadership.
Speaker 2: Now is the time to leave Gaza while you still
Speaker 2: have a chance. Also to the people of Gaza. A
Speaker 2: beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If
Speaker 2: you do, you are dead. Make a smart decision. Release
Speaker 2: the hostages now or there will be hell to pay later.
Speaker 4: Donald J.
Speaker 2: Trump, President of the United States of America. Now this
Speaker 2: comes at the same time as let's with this next
Speaker 2: piece up on the screen. The Trump administration is actually
Speaker 2: meeting directly with Hamas. Now, uh, to me, when you
Speaker 2: are engaged in negotiations, it is a no brainer that
Speaker 2: you want to engage in those negotiations directly with the
Speaker 2: people who you are negotiating with. But this is not
Speaker 2: the way things are normally thought of in Washington, d C.
Speaker 2: And of course, if the Biden administration had negotiated directly
Speaker 2: with Humas, of course there would have been like massive
Speaker 2: breakouts all across the right, et cetera about negotiating with terrorists.
Speaker 2: But the Presidential Envoy for hostage Affairs, Adam Bowler, actually
Speaker 2: you know, has been communicating directly with Hamas, and so
Speaker 2: you know that.
Speaker 4: To me is the fact that you.
Speaker 2: Even have talks occurring in that way is certainly an
Speaker 2: encouraging sign. But then countervailing forces. You have that very
Speaker 2: belligerent Trump message on true social and you have the
Speaker 2: fact that he seems still committed to his insane mass
Speaker 2: you know, complete ethnic cleansing plan in the Gaza Strip,
Speaker 2: and it all amounts to it like I don't really
Speaker 2: know where things are and what is going to happen next. Also,
Speaker 2: last thing, befere I get your reaction tagers to keep
Speaker 2: in mind, as we covered on Monday, that Israel has
Speaker 2: completely backed away from the ceasefire deal.
Speaker 4: You know, Bibe had always told.
Speaker 2: His domestic fanatic partners that they were only going to
Speaker 2: do Phase one and then they were going to go
Speaker 2: back to the war. Now what they're doing is they're
Speaker 2: reinstituting the complete siege, including considering cutting off water to
Speaker 2: the Gaza Strip as well.
Speaker 4: So you know, the situation is quite dire at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is if the signals are everywhere.
Speaker 3: So on the one hand, talking with the MAASA is great,
Speaker 3: that's what you should be.
Speaker 1: Doing from day one.
Speaker 3: And of course all these idiots in America, oh, we
Speaker 3: don't negotiate with terrorists or whatever. I'm like, well, Israel's
Speaker 3: tried to kill him for two years and they're still standing.
Speaker 1: So what do you want to do? You know, and
Speaker 1: their answer is actually simple.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, just kill them all and they're like, okay,
Speaker 3: well that didn't work, or at very least I don't
Speaker 3: want any part of that. So this is the alternative option.
Speaker 3: How do you think you got out of Afghanistan?
Speaker 1: You do what? Trump?
Speaker 4: Did?
Speaker 3: You sign a deal that says we are negotiating with
Speaker 3: the Taliban. It was an absurd this idea that the
Speaker 3: United States is not going to negotiate with the Taliban
Speaker 3: over a twenty year occupation of that country and an
Speaker 3: insurgency with the same problem here. So let's just put
Speaker 3: that on the table. I do also this is the
Speaker 3: problem with Trump. I've been thinking about this. He already
Speaker 3: gave that ultimatum previously and nothing happened. He said, they
Speaker 3: have to release all the hostages they didn't really help,
Speaker 3: or they will be held to bad Literally, not a
Speaker 3: single thing happened. My guess is that this is part
Speaker 3: of trying to pressure the negotiations and the direct US
Speaker 3: talks right now with Hamas. But in terms of the
Speaker 3: credibility that they will be received, that's a bit of
Speaker 3: an issue. I would also say at the very end there,
Speaker 3: he said, people of Gaza release the hostages or you're
Speaker 3: all die. I'm like, okay, so America's going to do
Speaker 3: it now, We're not even gonna let the Israelis do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's, you know, pretty insane.
Speaker 3: I think Jeremy Scahill has an official response now from
Speaker 3: Hamas that just came out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here we go, just in the last hour.
Speaker 3: I can read it here, in response to Trump's statement
Speaker 3: directed to Hamas, only sick and twisted people keep bodies.
Speaker 3: On February twenty third, the Palestinian National Campaign for the
Speaker 3: Recovery of Martyr's Bodies announced they're going through the bodies thing.
Speaker 3: They say, according to the bodies they're among retained, they're
Speaker 3: talking what you said about Israeli bodies, and finally they
Speaker 3: say the campaign noted these figures do not include bodies
Speaker 3: held in the Gaza Strip since the onset of aggression. However,
Speaker 3: Israeli sources have revealed the occupation is holding over fifteen
Speaker 3: hundred martyr bodies at the what that taie at I
Speaker 3: forget exactly how to say it. Where the rape occurred
Speaker 3: in occupied Southern Palestine. So you can see that they
Speaker 3: are hitting back on the bodies claims. But they are
Speaker 3: not actually talking specifically about this claim over Hell to pay,
Speaker 3: so there is an open question. I will also say
Speaker 3: it's funny that this is such a subversion and of
Speaker 3: the Israeli strategy, because Israel's previous strategy was to kill
Speaker 3: all of the people who were reasonable ish inside of
Speaker 3: Hamas so that there was nobody to negotiate with. And
Speaker 3: yet even still, as we can see here correctly at
Speaker 3: this time, there's still no bombing yet, and perhaps there
Speaker 3: is some path to some sort of.
Speaker 1: Phase two deal.
Speaker 3: This is how we would actually get there if it
Speaker 3: were to ever exist. Is the United States is the
Speaker 3: big brother, just as in Ukraine. Yes, you have to
Speaker 3: talk to Putin sorry people, that's how it works. Same
Speaker 3: here in Hamas. No, they don't have a nuke, but
Speaker 3: they exist and they have at least some number of
Speaker 3: fighters in the Gaza strip who were still able to
Speaker 3: able to mount our resistance. They have some support there,
Speaker 3: nobody really knows how much, but yeah, you have to
Speaker 3: talk to them. So this is the duality I guess
Speaker 3: of Trump and the two directions where he's torn. His
Speaker 3: Israeli supporters want him to just blow them all away
Speaker 3: and basically bomb and give. That's the other thing. I
Speaker 3: will give Israel everything they've already been given. What are
Speaker 3: they asking for that they're not getting? Is there any evidence?
Speaker 3: I have not seen one. And you and I both
Speaker 3: know if there's a weapon system they wanted that they
Speaker 3: weren't getting, they would leak in.
Speaker 1: They would have leaked it. You know, last week. I
Speaker 1: can't think of.
Speaker 3: A single thing that they're getting that they don't have,
Speaker 3: other than a nuke, which they also have.
Speaker 1: So it's like, well, what do you want?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they just rushed through a quote unquote emergency
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, like billions of dollars of weapons to Israel.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we all know Israel's getting everything they want.
Speaker 4: Don't worry. Not a question.
Speaker 2: Remember there was like one shipment of two thousand pound
Speaker 2: bombs that got held up, and you know they were
Speaker 2: up at arms over at how dare you withhold this
Speaker 2: one shipment that made no difference in terms of their
Speaker 2: ability to completely decimate the Gaza strip. You know. The
Speaker 2: other thing that was not encouraging is we could put
Speaker 2: the next piece up on the screen is a bunch
Speaker 2: of Arab nations came together and put together, you know,
Speaker 2: pretty reasonable plan for next steps in terms of Gaza,
Speaker 2: and Trump and Nat Yahoo immediately rejected it, like, you know,
Speaker 2: this was a considered plan, multiple nations involved. You know,
Speaker 2: significant planning goes into this, and then it's just sort
Speaker 2: of rejected out of hand.
Speaker 4: They said this in Haretz.
Speaker 2: They said it's the result of a month's long diplomatic
Speaker 2: effort to create an off ramp that would end the
Speaker 2: war and let reconstruction began. The plan contains hundreds of
Speaker 2: pages and appendices, yet the Trump administration seemed to have
Speaker 2: killed it with a single paragraph. That paragraph was quote,
Speaker 2: the current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza
Speaker 2: is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a
Speaker 2: territory covered in debris and an unexploded ordinance. Of course,
Speaker 2: that's consistent with Trump's plan of like, oh, we got
Speaker 2: to ethnically cleanse all of these people out of the
Speaker 2: Gaza strip and by the way, they're never allowed to return.
Speaker 4: This was a.
Speaker 2: Spokesman for the National Security Council, adding that President Trump
Speaker 2: remains committed to his plan to forcibly evacuate the entire
Speaker 2: population of Gaza claim the territory for the US. Netanyahu
Speaker 2: rejected at without even putting out a little paragraph saying
Speaker 2: why so you know this is the other piece is like,
Speaker 2: if that idea is a negotiating tactic, then okay, well,
Speaker 2: the Arab Nations got together, they came up with the counterproposal,
Speaker 2: so let's negotiate. But the fact that they immediately stuck
Speaker 2: so hard to his just like both evil and absurd
Speaker 2: and preposterous notion of the US is going to take
Speaker 2: over the Gaza strip and push out every Palestinian and
Speaker 2: not allow them to return. That is obviously deeply troubling
Speaker 2: and listen, maybe they'll come back. The Arab Nations said, okay, well,
Speaker 2: we don't consider that to be final answer, so we're
Speaker 2: going to keep working on it.
Speaker 4: We'll see where it ultimately goes.
Speaker 3: But my biggest signals there, My biggest signal was he
Speaker 3: didn't mention it at all.
Speaker 1: At the State of the Union.
Speaker 3: He made one thing about the he made one mention
Speaker 3: of the hostages. There was not nothing a ceasefire about
Speaker 3: the Gaza plan. Even though I do think he is serious,
Speaker 3: he did not mention it there. I don't know, I
Speaker 3: have no idea what to say. I just hope Steve
Speaker 3: Wikoff just keeps sending him there. He's got a good
Speaker 3: track record. Keep talking to Hamas. Let's get to some
Speaker 3: sort of phase two. Whatever this Gaza moronic idea is.
Speaker 3: I don't even know about that. But in the interim,
Speaker 3: you know, it's still better, at least for now. But
Speaker 3: if Trump does start to provide not only just weapons
Speaker 3: to Israel, let's par for the course. If he starts
Speaker 3: to directly intervene from the US military, I think you
Speaker 3: would see a titanic pushback here in the United States.
Speaker 3: I genuinely don't think a lot of people would stand
Speaker 3: for that, about a direct military and a bombing campaign.
Speaker 3: In fact, it would be a nightmare for Israel and
Speaker 3: for a lot of their supporters because people would start
Speaker 3: asking all kinds of questions whenever it's actually US military weapons,
Speaker 3: jets and others that are directly being used inside of
Speaker 3: the Gaza strip. So we'll see, maybe they will catch
Speaker 3: their own tail, because that will create serious pushback I
Speaker 3: think from the UNITEDS. Are both also in terms of
Speaker 3: backlash against the United States, very very troubling situation. All right,
Speaker 3: let's get over to the Tate brothers, and so I
Speaker 3: will let me just say, at the top. I have
Speaker 3: not had the time time to explicitly parse every statement
Speaker 3: by Andrew Tate, every one of his human trafficking claims
Speaker 3: or all of that. I do know that he has
Speaker 3: definitely advocated some stuff that I definitely am against it,
Speaker 3: of which I guess the Romanian authorities found and bear investigation.
Speaker 3: But the funniest thing that I have seen now so
Speaker 3: far is this civil war happening right now over Andrew
Speaker 3: Tates basically what fleeing slash vacationing according to him, back
Speaker 3: to the United States, and a split overall in the
Speaker 3: conservative movement where many people We've had Ali Bethstucky on
Speaker 3: the show, for example, to be like, I, actually, no,
Speaker 3: Andrew Trade is not really a male model at all
Speaker 3: for anybody who is conservative or wants to see like
Speaker 3: family life or you know, there's some I could go
Speaker 3: down the list in terms of so many of the
Speaker 3: different things that the guy has said. But the split
Speaker 3: now has opened up a fight legally here in America,
Speaker 3: where the Attorney General of the State of Florida said
Speaker 3: he is going to pursue an investigation of Andrew Tad
Speaker 3: specifically around these human trafficking allegations.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 11: Yeah, look, these guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating
Speaker 11: in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying
Speaker 11: upon women around the world. Many of these victims coming forward,
Speaker 11: some of them miners. You know, people can spin or
Speaker 11: defend however they want, but in Florida, this type of
Speaker 11: behavior is viewed as atrocious. We're not going to accept it.
Speaker 11: They chose to come here and set their feet down
Speaker 11: in this state, and we're going to pursue every tool
Speaker 11: we have within our legal authority to hold them accountable.
Speaker 11: So we are in the process today. We have secured
Speaker 11: and executed subpoenas and warrants, and we're going to continue
Speaker 11: to move forward with full force of law. This is
Speaker 11: an ongoing criminal investigation and we're going to use every
Speaker 11: tool we have to ensure that justice has served.
Speaker 12: A criminal investigation.
Speaker 11: There is an active criminal investigation.
Speaker 6: Yes, do you believe that they're giving any details of what?
Speaker 11: I can't come on an pending investigation, But what I
Speaker 11: can tell you is if these guys did criminal activity
Speaker 11: here in Florida, we will go after them with the
Speaker 11: full force of law and hold them accountable.
Speaker 3: So the Florida Attorney General saying there was an active
Speaker 3: criminal investigation. Andrew Tait then responded us to put this
Speaker 3: up there on the screen. He put out his tweet
Speaker 3: saying Ron DeSantis is attacking me because he was worried
Speaker 3: I would support Byron Donald's over his wife. Knowing I
Speaker 3: have monumental political weight and trust our commander in chief,
Speaker 3: President Trump's recommendations completely, they attacked me to prevent me
Speaker 3: from destroying his wife's political ambitions. Interestingly, I had no
Speaker 3: interest in Florida politics until I learned how communist the
Speaker 3: DeSantis administration.
Speaker 1: Is game on.
Speaker 3: Well, it might surprise everyone to learn that actually, even
Speaker 3: Byron Donald's not really play involved with all this. So guys,
Speaker 3: can we go ahead and play E three. Please, let's
Speaker 3: take a listen.
Speaker 12: Andrew Tait and his brother Tristan, because in Romania they
Speaker 12: just came to Florida from there were charges of rape,
Speaker 12: sex with minor and human trafficking. Do you support the
Speaker 12: Attorney General's actions here?
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 13: I think those those allegations have to be fully investigated
Speaker 13: and then we go from there. We go from there.
Speaker 13: The key thing is we don't tolerate the trafficking of
Speaker 13: women or frankly, the abuse of women. We do not
Speaker 13: tolerate that. So if the Attorney General finds calls under
Speaker 13: Florida law to investigate that, then I wish him the
Speaker 13: best and I support whatever he's going to do on
Speaker 13: that matter.
Speaker 12: Are Andrew and Tristan Tate welcome in Florida?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 13: Quite frankly not, because if you listen to some of
Speaker 13: the dialogue, I find it to be demeaning and disgusting.
Speaker 13: That's not about being that's not about being an alpha male.
Speaker 13: It's not about being a strong man. But they stand for,
Speaker 13: in my view, with something totally different.
Speaker 3: Woo all right, so Byron, it's actually backing up the
Speaker 3: Attorney General here.
Speaker 1: So a bit of a plot twist.
Speaker 3: And Andrew is now saying Andrew Tate says, let's see
Speaker 3: E four.
Speaker 1: Can we put that on the screen please?
Speaker 3: He is now claiming that his flight to the United
Speaker 3: States is that its flight to the United States was
Speaker 3: just a vacation. It's a strange feeling to be so
Speaker 3: adored that when you go on a two week holiday
Speaker 3: to Miami, the entire world talks about it.
Speaker 1: It's wild. I'm going back to Romania in a few
Speaker 1: days anyways, So there we go.
Speaker 3: Crystal before I played crazy Andrew Tates reaction, but I
Speaker 3: wanted to get yours first.
Speaker 4: Back to Romania is a surprise. I guess he feels like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, an investigation there, I wouldn't want to go back
Speaker 3: to Romania.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe he feels like because I mean, it
Speaker 2: looks very much like the Trump administration intervened directly with
Speaker 2: the Romanian government, So maybe he feels like you've got
Speaker 2: more protection in Romania at this point, courtesy of Trump
Speaker 2: and Rickernell in particular, than he does clearly in the
Speaker 2: state of Florida. I mean, I don't know if you
Speaker 2: guys have seen the videos floating around both of things
Speaker 2: that he has said, which you know, if true, if
Speaker 2: acted upon, certainly would constitute criminal behavior, or some of
Speaker 2: the alleged videos that are floating out there of actual abuse.
Speaker 2: I mean, it truly is horrifying. So for a party
Speaker 2: that has any semblance of caring about family values can
Speaker 2: understand why there's some contingent that's like, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: this guy really isn't the role model that we want
Speaker 2: to embrace here, and it is utterly discussing that the
Speaker 2: Trump administration intervened on behalf of this dude. Like whatever
Speaker 2: you think of him, that they spent their diplomatic resources
Speaker 2: getting this guy free is I think just absolutely disgraceful.
Speaker 4: With regard to the politics.
Speaker 2: Of it, it is kind of interesting because I'm curious
Speaker 2: how you read it, Cyber, but to me, it reads
Speaker 2: like Ron de Santis.
Speaker 4: First of all, I'm sure bitter about.
Speaker 2: The presidential campaign and blah blah blah, and he wants
Speaker 2: his wife to get the Senate seat and a Senate
Speaker 2: seat right or governor which one is governor governor, Yeah,
Speaker 2: after he goes, and so there's that piece. But also
Speaker 2: I think he's positioning himself for a theoretical post Trump GOP,
Speaker 2: where you know, in theory, at least this is the
Speaker 2: last time Trump can run for president, and I think DeSantis,
Speaker 2: perhaps foolishly, is calculating that maybe after this term there
Speaker 2: will be a desire for someone who showed a little
Speaker 2: bit of independence from Trump, had a little bit of
Speaker 2: principle on something somewhere that they can point to that
Speaker 2: was distinct from just being part of, you know, the
Speaker 2: Trump band of sycophants. But you know, I'm not really
Speaker 2: sure that he's right about that, But I do think
Speaker 2: that that's kind of the.
Speaker 4: Calculus that he's that he's engaging in here.
Speaker 3: It could be, But then I don't know why Byron Donald's,
Speaker 3: who is like as maga and as Trump as it gets,
Speaker 3: would back him up because and that's actually the other thing.
Speaker 4: I think that's political calculate.
Speaker 2: I mean, because most people are going to look at
Speaker 2: this dude and be like, yeah, this is imhorrent. So
Speaker 2: if he wants to run, you know, if he's running
Speaker 2: in the state which he is, I just read that
Speaker 2: is feeling some political pressure to take a stance against
Speaker 2: something that would be wildly unpopular.
Speaker 1: I think it's possible.
Speaker 3: I will tell you that whole Trump thing is not
Speaker 3: confirmed one hundred percent. It was according to the Financial Times.
Speaker 3: They claim Rickell Grenell denies it. So that that's the
Speaker 3: only thing that's come back to. Don't forget. I mean,
Speaker 3: he is an American citizen. He's a dual Romance, an
Speaker 3: American national, has full entry rights to the United States.
Speaker 3: It could come and go, as he pleads, not in defense.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying he's got the US passport, okay, so
Speaker 3: like he doesn't have to he doesn't have to apply.
Speaker 1: Or whatever to be released.
Speaker 3: It is, of course noting that he was barred from
Speaker 3: leaving the country for almost two years while that continues.
Speaker 1: Like I said, you could spend ninety.
Speaker 3: Hours going back and forth, as you said about there's
Speaker 3: things on video, things he said it claims never did them.
Speaker 1: There are people who have anonymously suit him.
Speaker 3: There are multiple people, I think in the UK where
Speaker 3: they want and seek his extradition. I know there is
Speaker 3: an American unidentified woman who claims to have been, you know,
Speaker 3: a victim of the so called human trafficking network, etc.
Speaker 3: You could even put all that criminal stuff aside and
Speaker 3: actually just focus purely on all this like demonization of
Speaker 3: family life, marriage, you know, so many of the views
Speaker 3: that he has espoused in the past. Look, I think
Speaker 3: he has the right to say them, but you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think necessarily is a good thing or whatever
Speaker 3: to be celebrated. And that's part of the reason why
Speaker 3: I find it pretty annoying. It's also pretty I had
Speaker 3: this discussion with Andrew Schaltz. It's like, as much as
Speaker 3: this guy shits all over America and he's like pushing
Speaker 3: his like weird quasi Sharia slash. It's like Islamic hedonism.
Speaker 3: Whatever his brand is now currently, it's like, oh, you
Speaker 3: can come back to big, big bad America. Whatever it
Speaker 3: suits you now. Doesn't it as much shit if you
Speaker 3: talked now over the years. So even pinning down this
Speaker 3: guy's like personal views or whatever is like pretty difficult.
Speaker 1: I find it. I'm all, like, pretty abhorrent and gross.
Speaker 3: I understand why, you know, if you're a fourteen year
Speaker 3: old dude online, yeah, I get why it might resonate
Speaker 3: a little bit with you. But overall, politically, this from
Speaker 3: the dysantist administration, I haven't seen much organic pushback against it.
Speaker 1: I could be.
Speaker 3: Wrong, but I do think that the damn has broken
Speaker 3: a little bit. He's on the conservative commentariat and all
Speaker 3: of that that are backing up Desantas. And I don't
Speaker 3: see like some grand army that's going to be going
Speaker 3: against uh, going against Byron Donald's and or Ron DeSantis
Speaker 3: for either accepting or pursuing this investigation against the Tape Brothers.
Speaker 1: It is a fascinating saga though, in and of itself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and he was on with Candice Owens and you know,
Speaker 2: explaining his you know, his Irisian and very upset and whatever.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
Speaker 14: Arrest me, purp, walk me, put me on the news.
Speaker 14: Tell one I'm human, draft or you think I'm all verse,
Speaker 14: you think I'm already I'm a baby seal in this
Speaker 14: shit fucking Come get me right in my house, take
Speaker 14: my stuff. You think I sleep with a phone full
Speaker 14: of evidence. You think I don't wipe my phone every night,
Speaker 14: You think I'm dumb, Come get me, arrest me, Let's
Speaker 14: do this all over you.
Speaker 1: I've better every time.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, actually, do you think you're kind
Speaker 2: of tomb because if you're like I don't sleep with
Speaker 2: a phone full of evidence, I wipe it every night,
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well what evidence was on there that
Speaker 2: you're trying to hide? So that's weird, really the kind
Speaker 2: of thing that people who are innocent of these said
Speaker 2: allegations typically do.
Speaker 1: But there you go, so innocent to proven guilty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I tell to me was oh, I'm
Speaker 3: going back to Romania because I'm like, okay, well, then
Speaker 3: here a lot more. And by the way, you should
Speaker 3: be more afraid in Romania. Look, I'm only assuming no offense.
Speaker 3: Romania but it seems like a place we could probably
Speaker 3: buy your way out of some trouble. You're here in
Speaker 3: the United States of America. You're gonna need a few
Speaker 3: billion dollars to buy yourself out of trouble, not a
Speaker 3: few hundred million or whatever from your multi level marketing schemes.
Speaker 3: So anyway, it's fascinating, fascinating story. We'll continue to keep
Speaker 3: everybody updated. Already sure that this will go extremely viral.
Speaker 3: Just in terms of in terms of this all this
Speaker 3: coverage of this fascination over the Tate brothers, I do
Speaker 3: recommend everybody go watch our Ali Betstucky interview about Andrew
Speaker 3: Chain that maybe from a year or two ago.
Speaker 1: I thought she did an excellent on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she really was kind of a leader on it
Speaker 2: because at that point, I think it was much harder
Speaker 2: for someone who's conservative to come out and say the
Speaker 2: things and be critical of him in the way that
Speaker 2: she was, So she was, you know, principled on that.
Speaker 4: And then the last thing I'll say.
Speaker 2: In terms of just like investigations in charge is just
Speaker 2: keep in mind that if it was state charges that
Speaker 2: were filed against him, like Trump can't pardon him for those,
Speaker 2: So you know, I think that would be another part
Speaker 2: of the calculus of flag.
Speaker 4: Yo, I was just here on vacation.
Speaker 2: I'm just like I'm leaving now, headed back to Romania.
Speaker 2: See you guys later. Was never really planning on staying.
Speaker 2: But yeah, some interesting pseudo divides in the MAGA coalition
Speaker 2: that remind me also of some of the discussion which
Speaker 2: we also talked to Ali Bestechi about about Elon and
Speaker 2: Ashley Saint Clair and the you know, the whole baby
Speaker 2: Mama drama situation there with him too.
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely so, Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 2: Well, we've just received some new troubling a news. According
Speaker 2: to ADP, private employers added just seventy seven thousand jobs
Speaker 2: last month. That is far fewer than the one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty eight thousand that they expected. Now this adds
Speaker 2: one more sign that the economy is teetering on the
Speaker 2: brink of a crash.
Speaker 4: But the Trump.
Speaker 2: Administration they've got a solution. They're implementing a plan to
Speaker 2: cook the books and make it look like things are
Speaker 2: going better than they actually are. So it all started,
Speaker 2: as most things do, in Trump two point zero, with Elon,
Speaker 2: who offered some significant cope on Twitter and response to
Speaker 2: a new projection from the Atlanta Fed that GDP was
Speaker 2: set to fall off a cliff, so Elon tweeted this,
Speaker 2: a more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: you can scale GDP artificially high by spending money on
Speaker 2: things that don't make people's lives better. For example, you
Speaker 2: could shift everyone who is building cars to working at
Speaker 2: the DMV. That would result in no cars and a
Speaker 2: much worse standard of living, but GDP would appear to
Speaker 2: be the same. So, as is often the case, his
Speaker 2: this post was hit with a community note, as users responded, Hey,
Speaker 2: we actually already have that metric that you're looking for.
Speaker 2: It's called value added by private industries. What's more, that
Speaker 2: metric has continued to rise as a percent of overall GDP,
Speaker 2: even under supposed big government Democrats like Obama and Biden.
Speaker 2: But since Elon is our unelected CEO dictatorator King, his
Speaker 2: random Twitter musings are now rapidly becoming government policy. Days later,
Speaker 2: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik took to Fox News to announce
Speaker 2: he was looking at changing how GDP is calculated in
Speaker 2: line with exactly what Elon just said, take a listen.
Speaker 15: How worried should we be about an economy that is slowing?
Speaker 15: In all of this, we saw the GDP last week.
Speaker 1: There are new worries.
Speaker 15: That the Wall Street Journal wrote about worries mounting that
Speaker 15: the Trump agenda testing economies resilience.
Speaker 1: The Lindsay Group out.
Speaker 15: With a report can doge induce a recession?
Speaker 1: Are any of these moves worrying.
Speaker 15: You that we're actually going to see it cut into
Speaker 15: growth over the near term?
Speaker 1: Negative?
Speaker 7: No, no, no. So let's you know, the Commerce Department
Speaker 7: runs the statistics of GDP. You know the governments historically
Speaker 7: have messed with GDP. They count government spending as part
Speaker 7: of GDP. So I'm going to separate those two and
Speaker 7: make it transparent that lower government spending. It's one thing.
Speaker 7: It goes like this, If the government buys a tank,
Speaker 7: that's GDP, but paying a thousand people to think about
Speaker 7: buying a tank is not GDP. That is wasted inefficiency,
Speaker 7: wasted money, and cutting that while it shows in GDP.
Speaker 7: We're going to get rid of that. We're going to
Speaker 7: show you how that is.
Speaker 4: So let me just to code that for you.
Speaker 2: Since Republicans led by Elon are in the middle of
Speaker 2: destroying the government, mass buying workers, and attacking medicaid. They
Speaker 2: don't really want the numbers to accurately reflect the way
Speaker 2: that their austerity for you, socialism for the rich agenda
Speaker 2: is actually really bad for the entire economy, so instead
Speaker 2: they're just going to hide it.
Speaker 4: But that's not all.
Speaker 2: The Trump administration just announced they're completely disbanding two different
Speaker 2: committees that both assist in producing accurate economic statistics. According
Speaker 2: to The Wall Street Journal, one of the committees was
Speaker 2: particularly important for tracking inflation, employment, economic growth. Seems pretty
Speaker 2: important to know about those things. So GDP is being
Speaker 2: quote messed with, and committees that helped to keep statistics
Speaker 2: accurate are being eliminated. They're asking you to not believe
Speaker 2: your lying bank accounts. Now, Lutnik and Elon's alliance is
Speaker 2: actually an important one to watch. Is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: This isn't the first time they've been hand in glove
Speaker 2: with their ideological agenda, which mainly centers around austerity for
Speaker 2: you and billions for them and for their rich buddies.
Speaker 2: You might recall Elon backed Lutnik for Treasury Secretary, which
Speaker 2: is generally considered a more powerful position than Commerce secretary.
Speaker 2: He tweeted at the time that Lutnik would quote actually
Speaker 2: enact change over the quote business as usual, Scott Bessant now.
Speaker 2: Lutnik also famously introduced Elon at that infamous Madison Square
Speaker 2: Garden rally, asking him how much he would rip out.
Speaker 4: Of Biden's wasted budget. Let's take a listen for the
Speaker 4: greatest capitalist in the history of the United States of America,
Speaker 4: Elon must.
Speaker 1: I've only got one question.
Speaker 7: For you that I'm getting out of here because this
Speaker 7: is your stage.
Speaker 1: But we set up doge.
Speaker 14: Yes, how much do you think we can rip out
Speaker 14: of this wasted six point five trillion dollars Harris Biden budget?
Speaker 6: Well, I think we.
Speaker 16: Could do at least two trillion, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yes, two trillions.
Speaker 16: I mean, at the end of the day, you're being taxed.
Speaker 16: You're being taxed old gouvern spending, taxation. So whether it's
Speaker 16: it's direct taxation or old gum spending, it either becomes
Speaker 16: inflation or it's it's direct taxation. Your money being wasted,
Speaker 16: and the Department of Government DIVISIONCY is going to fix that.
Speaker 2: So I suspect Elon sees Lutnik as a pretty useful
Speaker 2: ally in advancing Elon's agenda, and that's of course to
Speaker 2: gut and defenestrate the government so it can't check the
Speaker 2: power of his own companies, and also of course, to
Speaker 2: loot the treasury so he can become a trillionaire and
Speaker 2: make it to Mars, two goals he must have realized
Speaker 2: were really pretty impossible without hijacking the whole of the
Speaker 2: US federal government. This new scheme to cook the books
Speaker 2: on GDP also aligns with Elon's and arco capitalist ideology,
Speaker 2: which views all government activity as quote non productive, except
Speaker 2: of course for that government activity which blows into the
Speaker 2: bockets of Elon himself personally and helps to finance and
Speaker 2: further his own ambitions. Changing GDP to ignore government inputs
Speaker 2: both backs up his tech feudalist ideology of mass privatization
Speaker 2: and also is going to help cover up the damage
Speaker 2: that DOGE is causing in real time. Now, Listen, GDP
Speaker 2: is far from a perfect metric. It certainly shouldn't be
Speaker 2: used to judge general well being if that's the only
Speaker 2: thing you're looking at. In fact, assuming GDP growth is
Speaker 2: the end all be all, was one of the core
Speaker 2: failures of the neoliberal era. Who cares after all, GDP
Speaker 2: grows if all the gains are ultimately flowing to the top.
Speaker 2: But as with most everything in the Trump administration, the
Speaker 2: proposal here would take something that is already bad and make.
Speaker 4: It much worse.
Speaker 2: Do we really believe that government spending and investment is
Speaker 2: meaningless and contributes nothing to the economy. We're talking about infrastructure, research,
Speaker 2: electricity generation, public schools, all meant to be ignored as
Speaker 2: drivers of real productive economic activity.
Speaker 4: It's insanity, it's stupidity.
Speaker 2: It also creates absurd situations like a private four higher
Speaker 2: fire department being counted towards GDP and the traditional government
Speaker 2: backed variety not or private school teachers counting but not
Speaker 2: public school teachers. This new selective metric would do more
Speaker 2: to confuse and hide than to illuminate.
Speaker 4: But of course that is exactly the point here.
Speaker 2: Now the economy is turning sour fast, not that it
Speaker 2: was really amazing before. Again the theme of taking something
Speaker 2: bad and making it even worse. But consumer spending has
Speaker 2: dropped by the largest amount in years, Consumer confidence of
Speaker 2: falling off a cliff. The housing market is truly paralyzed,
Speaker 2: the stock market, it's all over the place. Job creation
Speaker 2: is plummeting, and contrary to what Elon and Lunnik wants
Speaker 2: you to think, gutting government, firing workers, slashing social safety
Speaker 2: net programs, that is going to be really bad for
Speaker 2: the economy overall and specifically for regular people and their
Speaker 2: experience of the economy. In fact, the oligarch agenda that
Speaker 2: has been rapidly implemented is deeply destructive to the non
Speaker 2: GDP metrics that actually really do matter for people's lives.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal recently reported a record breaking amount
Speaker 2: of our economic activity now is just from rich people
Speaker 2: spending money, since increasingly they're the only ones who actually
Speaker 2: have money to spend. The top ten percent of all
Speaker 2: earners make up now half of all spending. Just three
Speaker 2: decades ago, back when I was a teenager, they only
Speaker 2: made up a third of all spending. That represents an
Speaker 2: extraordinary concentration of wealth and power among the few, a
Speaker 2: realignment of resources, a collapse of prosperity for ordinary people
Speaker 2: at a record breaking pace.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: The response this new gilded age by the trumpet admin
Speaker 2: is a cartoonishly pro oligarch agenda. They'll hype prices through
Speaker 2: Tariff's massively or progressive impact. There, gut the agencies that
Speaker 2: curb the scams that benefit the rich, destroy the threadbare
Speaker 2: programs that working class and poor Americans rely upon, and
Speaker 2: implement a four trillion dollar tax cut that goes straight
Speaker 2: to the rich, all while opening new foreign opportunities for
Speaker 2: American billionaire plunder. So how successful do I think these
Speaker 2: efforts to cover up economic reality will ultimately be? How
Speaker 2: will their cooking of the books go? Since people have
Speaker 2: their own personal experience of the economy, I kind of
Speaker 2: doubt that it's going to be all that successful. You
Speaker 2: can ask Soviet Russia how these sorts of projects typically go,
Speaker 2: or you could ask the Democrats who wanted to deny
Speaker 2: the reality that for ordinary people, the Biden economy was
Speaker 2: far from great. The fakery will be unable to fully
Speaker 2: mask economic reality. But I will say Elin and Trump
Speaker 2: they are both masters at concocting alternative realities, with far
Speaker 2: greater talent at it than people like Biden and Schumer.
Speaker 2: They have hardcore cult followings who've proven willing to suspend
Speaker 2: reality in order to believe the pronouncements of their dear leaders.
Speaker 2: These manipulate economic statistics will be one weapon of gas
Speaker 2: lighting to feed their fabricated fantasy lands and further their
Speaker 2: postmodernist project where facts and truth are discarded in favor
Speaker 2: of vibes and narratives. How successful this elaborate gaslighting is
Speaker 2: going to be, well, that depends on how undeniable the
Speaker 2: fact of economic pain becomes. All right, guys, we've got
Speaker 2: Zoron Mondami for us. Next, let's take a listen. So
Speaker 2: you've really got a pretty interesting race shaping up for
Speaker 2: New York City mayor. You've got the scandal plaggued Eric Adams,
Speaker 2: who still is refusing to resign at this point. Andrew
Speaker 2: Cuomo has just entered the race, also sort of scandal plagged,
Speaker 2: but kind of a political juggernaut as well, and leading
Speaker 2: a pack of the more progressive candidates right now is
Speaker 2: a really interesting upstart Democratic socialist candidate. He's an assembly
Speaker 2: member named Zora Mandami. Let's take a look at a
Speaker 2: little bit of his campaign.
Speaker 4: Ada.
Speaker 1: New York Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by.
Speaker 6: A federal Every politician says New.
Speaker 4: York is the greatest city own a global but what good.
Speaker 6: Is that if no one can afford to live here?
Speaker 6: City Hall is engulfed in corruption. The cost of living
Speaker 6: is the real crisis. New Yorkers are being crushed by
Speaker 6: rent and childcare, the slowest buses in the nation, robbing
Speaker 6: us of our time and our sanity. Working people are
Speaker 6: being pushed out of the city they built. A mayor
Speaker 6: could change this, and that's why I'm running. I'll make
Speaker 6: busses fast and free.
Speaker 4: So i can just get where I'm going.
Speaker 6: I'll make childcare available to all New Yorkers at no costs.
Speaker 4: I want to raise my kid in New York.
Speaker 6: And I'll freeze the rent for every single rent stabilized tenant.
Speaker 1: These Eric Adams rent ike are killing us.
Speaker 6: Life in this city doesn't need to be this hard.
Speaker 2: And Zorn Mandami joins us now. Welcome, great have you.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me in such a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So it's been really exciting to see
Speaker 2: you know, your polling numbers have taken off. Of course,
Speaker 2: Quomas jumped in the race, and like you said, he's
Speaker 2: kind of a political juggernaut. But just talk to us
Speaker 2: a little bit about who you are, your platform and
Speaker 2: why you think that it is resonating at this point
Speaker 2: with New Yorkers.
Speaker 6: Absolutely I was born in Kompala, Uganda and East Africa,
Speaker 6: and I grew up here in New York City. I
Speaker 6: moved here when I was seven years old, and I
Speaker 6: am now in my third term as a State assembly member.
Speaker 6: And in my time in office, I have fought alongside
Speaker 6: taxi drivers to secure more than four hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: million dollars in debt relief for the working class drivers
Speaker 6: who were sold alive by the city. I have defeated
Speaker 6: the eighth largest carbon emitter in the country when they
Speaker 6: sought to build a frat gas power plant in Astoria,
Speaker 6: and one more than one hundred million dollars in an
Speaker 6: increased subway and bus service, as well as a reduction
Speaker 6: in the fair hike, alongside a historic fair free bus
Speaker 6: pilot in New York City. And all of those things
Speaker 6: are driven by a politics whose north star is the
Speaker 6: fight for working people. And that is ultimately what this
Speaker 6: campaign from AYR is about, making this city more affordable
Speaker 6: for the working class who built the city but are
Speaker 6: being priced.
Speaker 4: Out of it.
Speaker 2: I want to play a little bit of Quomo's announcement
Speaker 2: video here, which was quite lengthy, I must say, but
Speaker 2: I just want to get your reaction to it and
Speaker 2: the way he's positioning himself. Let's go ahead and take
Speaker 2: a listen to a little bit of what he had
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 17: You feel it when you walk down the street and
Speaker 17: try not to make eye contact with a mentally a
Speaker 17: homeless person, or when the anxiety rises up in your
Speaker 17: chest as you're walking down into the subway. You see
Speaker 17: it in the empty store, the graffiti, the grime, the
Speaker 17: migrant influx, the random violence. The city just feels threatening,
Speaker 17: out of control and then crisis.
Speaker 2: So what did you think of his video and the
Speaker 2: way that he is sort of situating himself in this race.
Speaker 6: Well, I'd be interested to know when the last time
Speaker 6: was that Governor Cuomo actually walked down the stairs and
Speaker 6: took the subway, because I can't recall that off on
Speaker 6: the top of my head. When it comes to him,
Speaker 6: given the fact that he hasn't lived in New York
Speaker 6: City for more than two decades, you know, he is
Speaker 6: trying to portray this as a city in chaos that
Speaker 6: requires someone like him to deliver a steady hand through
Speaker 6: that time. And the irony of it all is that
Speaker 6: he is the chaos. Many of the issues that he
Speaker 6: has identified are ones that are direct results of policies
Speaker 6: that he pursued as the governor of the state, whether
Speaker 6: it was shuddering hospital capacity across the city, whether it
Speaker 6: was cutting funding for New York City, whether it was
Speaker 6: stealing money from the NTA. There is so much of
Speaker 6: what we are living through right now that is a
Speaker 6: direct result of his time and Albany as a disgraced governor.
Speaker 6: And I understand why Andrew Cuomo is running away from
Speaker 6: his record because if that was my record, I would
Speaker 6: try to do the same as well.
Speaker 2: What do you think will be different for you in
Speaker 2: this campaign versus other progressives who ran against Eric Adams
Speaker 2: last time, Because I mean, I hear this Andrew Cuomo message,
Speaker 2: it sounds very similar. They're stylistically somewhat different, but very
Speaker 2: similar to the way Eric Adams positioned himself on the
Speaker 2: tough on crime. The chaos is going to be over.
Speaker 2: We're going to, you know, deal with this issue of
Speaker 2: your personal safety, et cetera, and kind of a law
Speaker 2: and order approach. So he's very much trying to put
Speaker 2: himself into that lane at this point.
Speaker 4: And look, last time around, it was successful.
Speaker 2: So how do you sort of respond to that and
Speaker 2: reassure people that you know you're going to be serious
Speaker 2: about the issues that they're concerned about that led them
Speaker 2: to vote for Eric Adams in the first place.
Speaker 6: You know, to your point, Andrew Cuomo is running for
Speaker 6: Eric Adams the second term. It's the same agenda, the
Speaker 6: same donors, the same chaos, the same corruption. And I
Speaker 6: think a lot of New Yorkers can see through that.
Speaker 6: But to your point about twenty twenty one, one of
Speaker 6: the things that I recall is Eric Adams running on
Speaker 6: a promise to New Yorkers that they need not choose
Speaker 6: between safety and justice. And I think it's easy for
Speaker 6: us to characterize him as a candidate then, as if
Speaker 6: he was a full representation of him as a mayor now,
Speaker 6: when in fact he did run with messages beyond that
Speaker 6: of the mayor he has become. And that's why so
Speaker 6: many New Yorkers feel betrayed, is that they did vote
Speaker 6: for him in the hopes that it was the son
Speaker 6: of the working class, deliver the outer Burroughs into city Hall.
Speaker 6: And yet he has been a mayor for the millionaires
Speaker 6: and billioniers of the city and described himself as real estate.
Speaker 6: And with the campaign, we are running is a campaign
Speaker 6: laser focused on the cost of living crisis. It is
Speaker 6: a campaign that says, while we must tackle the crisis
Speaker 6: of corruption in City Hall, that most New Yorkers cannot
Speaker 6: even afford to worry about that crisis because of the
Speaker 6: cost of living. Because if they can't afford their rent,
Speaker 6: or their childcare, or their groceries or their Metro card,
Speaker 6: they can't afford to worry about anything that's happening in
Speaker 6: local politics. And that also means being serious about safety.
Speaker 6: And I'm excited that in the next month we're going
Speaker 6: to be putting forward a proposal that will be unveiling
Speaker 6: a new department within city government called the Department of
Speaker 6: Community Safety that will tackle these issues that Andrew Cuomo
Speaker 6: is pretending to address and actually deliver substantive solutions. Because ultimately,
Speaker 6: what we're seeing, whether it's from Cuomo or Atoms or
Speaker 6: a whole host of establishment politicians, are the same ideas
Speaker 6: to the same crisis that is pervaded for years and
Speaker 6: is only going to deliver us the same results. And
Speaker 6: what New Yorkers deserve our outcomes, and what we're excited
Speaker 6: to present is data driven proposals that are built off
Speaker 6: of the successes we've seen in cities across the country
Speaker 6: that New Yorkers finally deserve to call their own.
Speaker 2: You know, zooming out a little bit from your race,
Speaker 2: and to the comments you just made, you know, the
Speaker 2: knock on people like you and me who have very
Speaker 2: similar politics is that, oh, it only appeals to this
Speaker 2: like sort of small sliver. Sure, an aoc Can win
Speaker 2: in New York City, but it doesn't have a broader appeal.
Speaker 4: It's these you.
Speaker 2: Know, affluent, young, mostly white people in Brooklyn that are
Speaker 2: sympathetic to your style of politics. How do you get
Speaker 2: beyond that caricature? How do you build a truly working
Speaker 2: class base, you know, multi racial working class coalition, And
Speaker 2: what also are the lessons for the broader Democratic Party
Speaker 2: about how to achieve that? As you know, those constituencies
Speaker 2: have been fleeing or just staying home or moving over
Speaker 2: to the right and voting for Republicans.
Speaker 6: You know, I think there's often a temptation in the
Speaker 6: Democratic Party to treat non white constituencies purely through the
Speaker 6: prism of race, as opposed to also addressing the immense
Speaker 6: way and when class shapes every person's life in this country,
Speaker 6: And what we've found is an incredible amount of success
Speaker 6: in speaking to Black New Yorkers and Brown New Yorkers
Speaker 6: and every kind of New Yorker with that same focus
Speaker 6: on an economic agenda, because when we look at the
Speaker 6: impacts of this crisis of a cost of living, these
Speaker 6: impacts are racialized, and what I mean by that is
Speaker 6: they disproportionately push black and brown New Yorkers out of
Speaker 6: New York City. From twenty ten to twenty nineteen, we
Speaker 6: lost nearly twenty percent of the city's population of black
Speaker 6: children teenagers nearly twenty percent because of how expensive the
Speaker 6: city had become and that their families had to leave.
Speaker 6: That is something that needs to be tackled head on
Speaker 6: at the source of it, which is the fact that
Speaker 6: rent is too expensive, childcare is too expensive, even our
Speaker 6: metro cards are becoming too expensive. And I think that
Speaker 6: the way that we actually build a message that resonates
Speaker 6: beyond one strip of the waterfront is by ensuring we're
Speaker 6: taking this message to all five boroughs. And I was
Speaker 6: very really heartened to see in the last fundraising period
Speaker 6: we had the most donations for more than one hundred
Speaker 6: different zip codes across New York City that we raised
Speaker 6: more money than any other campaign, did so from more
Speaker 6: New Yorkers than every other campaign combined, and ultimately an
Speaker 6: inspiration for this politics is also thinking about Bernie's runs
Speaker 6: for president, where even when he came to New York City,
Speaker 6: he managed to win more than forty percent of the
Speaker 6: vote on Staten Island, which is often considered a place
Speaker 6: where Democrats are that simply a name only, when in
Speaker 6: fact Staten Islanders are just like any other borough where
Speaker 6: people are feeling left behind by the economic policies of
Speaker 6: this mayor and of this party. And it is an
Speaker 6: urgent moment for us to respond by putting forward an
Speaker 6: alternative path that actually speaks directly to work keep people.
Speaker 2: What has your reception been from the sort of mainstream
Speaker 2: Democratic Party I've you know, I've seen some people a
Speaker 2: Queen Jeffrey is unwilling to say, like, hey, Eric Adams,
Speaker 2: maybe you should resign Kirston I brand being sympathetic to
Speaker 2: Andrew Cuomo, even though you know she's was at the
Speaker 2: forefront of the me too movement previously. But what if
Speaker 2: some of the you know, what has the overall reception been.
Speaker 2: Have people from the mainstream Democratic Party reached out to you,
Speaker 2: because I think it's undeniable the way you've been communicating,
Speaker 2: and certainly your grasp of social media and how to
Speaker 2: make viral content and how to understand the attention economy,
Speaker 2: like these are things that the Democratic Party really should
Speaker 2: be like trying to learn from. Do you get any
Speaker 2: sense of that or are they just, you know, afraid
Speaker 2: because you represent a different brand of politics that's not
Speaker 2: going to be beholden to be the corporate and the
Speaker 2: billionaire class.
Speaker 6: I think there's definitely a little bit of that fear.
Speaker 6: I think also there's been quite a bit of surprise.
Speaker 6: You know, when we launched this campaign, there were many
Speaker 6: who treated it as an interesting idea at best, and
Speaker 6: it was discussed as if it was something that would
Speaker 6: come and go in the span of maybe a few
Speaker 6: weeks at best, maybe a few months. And now being
Speaker 6: the best place progressive challenger to the failed mayoralty of
Speaker 6: Eric Adams and the disgraced governor of Andrew Cuomo, that
Speaker 6: is something that many did not expect. Now, we always
Speaker 6: believed that there was a pathway for this kind of politics,
Speaker 6: because ultimately, I think there's been a misreading of our
Speaker 6: political context in New York City, where people have thought
Speaker 6: that Trump winning more votes than a Republican nominee for
Speaker 6: a president in many years in this city, a right
Speaker 6: word shift across New York State, the most of any
Speaker 6: state in the country, is all indicative of a shift
Speaker 6: towards the right wing, when in fact, almost five times
Speaker 6: as many people who voted for Trump over Democrats as
Speaker 6: they had in twenty twenty instead stayed home. And what
Speaker 6: I think that speaks to is the need for a
Speaker 6: politics that is for something that is fighting for working
Speaker 6: people that requires no translation. That when I say the platform,
Speaker 6: you know what it means in your life, and that's
Speaker 6: freezing the rent, making buses fast and free delivering universal
Speaker 6: child wildcare, building two hundred thousand affordable homes. These are
Speaker 6: things that people understand because it's the very things that
Speaker 6: they're missing in their life. And I think that's what's
Speaker 6: created this pathway for us, and we'll continue to do
Speaker 6: so over the next three and a half months.
Speaker 2: Last question for you, what is it going to take
Speaker 2: to be able to defeat Andrew Cuomo and how can
Speaker 2: people support you if they're so inclined.
Speaker 6: I would say there's two things. The first is money,
Speaker 6: Andrew Cuomo's allies are already setting up a superpack with
Speaker 6: the goal to raise fifteen million dollars. We're lucky in
Speaker 6: New York City that we have a public matching fund
Speaker 6: system where the city matches a New Yorker's contribution eight
Speaker 6: to one. We've already raised four million dollars. We can
Speaker 6: raise another four million through this program. And so I
Speaker 6: would ask anyone who's interested in supporting us and then
Speaker 6: defeating disgrace New York executives, whether past or present, to
Speaker 6: visit Zahran for NYC dot com. And the other thing
Speaker 6: I would say is that we are going to knock
Speaker 6: on a million doors across the city. So if you
Speaker 6: would like to canvass go to that same website and
Speaker 6: you will find many in our opportunity to knock on
Speaker 6: your neighbor's doors and tell them that there is a
Speaker 6: city we can win, and it's one that their neighbors
Speaker 6: can actually afford.
Speaker 2: Well, I know from my New Yorker friends that you
Speaker 2: have really captured people's imagination and generated tremendous energies. So
Speaker 2: congratulations on that to begin with, and good luck to
Speaker 2: you as well. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much with such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's our pleasure, all right, guys, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us.
Speaker 3: You know, Crystal was at home. But everything will be
Speaker 3: all normal next week. At least for now, I'm going.
Speaker 4: To say whatever whatever that means.
Speaker 3: Wait, Something's going to happen. You know, Emily's actually going
Speaker 3: to be in for me three days.
Speaker 1: We have a joke, well, and we do.
Speaker 2: We are planning on doing some kind of mini show
Speaker 2: tomorrow as well, so keep your eyes out for that
Speaker 2: and we will see you guys back here next week.
Speaker 1: See you guys later,