Speaker 1: Welcome to Breaking Points at Chrystal.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning Emily. Lovely to see you, and
Speaker 2: lovely to see our guest right right.
Speaker 3: We are joined now by Damian Thompson. He is an
Speaker 3: editor at The Spectator. He hosts the Holy Smoke podcast
Speaker 3: over there.
Speaker 1: And Damian, we may see.
Speaker 3: Our co host Ryan Graham pop up at some point
Speaker 3: while we're chatting with you.
Speaker 1: In fact timing here he is.
Speaker 3: But Damian, I first want to say you are in
Speaker 3: Rome right now. You have been covering the events of
Speaker 3: the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: The first American pope has been chosen.
Speaker 3: So first, Damien, thank you so much for being here,
Speaker 3: and if you could just give us your initial reaction.
Speaker 3: This was a surprising pickstep Ban and I think last
Speaker 3: week described him as the quote dark horse, a potential
Speaker 3: dark horse candidate, and that's actually what happened.
Speaker 1: So you're the expert here, Damien, what do you make
Speaker 1: of all this?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the first thing we want to say is
Speaker 4: that there's a mood of real optimism in Rome today.
Speaker 4: People who had dismissed Cardinal Prevost's Francis Mark too some
Speaker 4: sort of hopeless scheming liberal have been very pleasantly surprised,
Speaker 4: first of all by the sight of him coming on
Speaker 4: to the loader of Saint Peter's wearing the traditional robes
Speaker 4: that France has rejected. Secondly by the choice of name Leo,
Speaker 4: which is a very traditional one, by his style, and
Speaker 4: on checking his record, they discover that he isn't perhaps
Speaker 4: as liberal as they thought. That he seems to have
Speaker 4: relatively orthodox views on the sensitive issues of sexuality that
Speaker 4: have proved to be so divisive in the Catholic Church.
Speaker 4: And there are also rumors that he's sympathetic to the
Speaker 4: traditional Latin mats. So all of that is causing traditionalists
Speaker 4: who initially reacted with dismay when they heard the name,
Speaker 4: to shame hinge their verdicts fairly quickly, and you can
Speaker 4: see it happening on Twitter. They like the way he's
Speaker 4: presented himself, They like the thoughtful theological message. They particularly
Speaker 4: liked his very christ centered homily in the Sistine Chapel
Speaker 4: to the gardens this morning. So I think, above all
Speaker 4: is just a sense of relief that the bizarre, quixotic
Speaker 4: and often I think personally cruel pontificate of Francis has
Speaker 4: come to an end. There will not be a Francis
Speaker 4: the second. As I've written many times, Francis was involved
Speaker 4: in so many horrible abuse cover ups that I think
Speaker 4: his legacies profoundly tainted.
Speaker 2: So one of the things, of course that people immediately
Speaker 2: noticed is a prevost social media profile being the modern era,
Speaker 2: and several of his recent tweets, actually, all of his
Speaker 2: recent tweets seem to be quite critical of the Trump
Speaker 2: and menministruation. This one in particular, he chimes in here
Speaker 2: and says JD Vance is wrong. Jesus doesn't ask us
Speaker 2: to rank our love for others. So that led to that,
Speaker 2: among other things, led to Republicans like Laura Lumer calling
Speaker 2: him a woke Marxist pope and really despairing about his
Speaker 2: liberal inclinations. What do you make about his political commentary
Speaker 2: with regard to Jade Vance and also the meeting with
Speaker 2: President Trump and the Kelly in the White House.
Speaker 4: Well, he's not a big fan of MAGA, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: But there's a big difference between a woke Marxist and
Speaker 4: somebody who doesn't approve of the second Trump administration. And
Speaker 4: there are plenty of woke Marxists in the Catholic Church,
Speaker 4: but there's no evidence that Pope Leo is one of them.
Speaker 4: He is probably left leaning on the subjects of migration.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's always it's always puzzled me that
Speaker 4: the Catholic Church is so keen on advocating mass migration
Speaker 4: without any thought about its longtime social consequences. On the
Speaker 4: other hand, and perhaps you guys can help clear up
Speaker 4: this mystery for me. What's his business about him not
Speaker 4: being a registered Republican because I understand that the state
Speaker 4: of Illinois doesn't doesn't have doesn't have registration in that way,
Speaker 4: but having voted in a series of Republican primaries, could
Speaker 4: somebody clear.
Speaker 1: That up for me?
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I think that might be. Charlie Kirk
Speaker 3: pulled his voting history. Charlie Kirk also is from the
Speaker 3: Chicago area. Pulled his voting history, and it might be
Speaker 3: the case that he's sort of from the never Trump
Speaker 3: school of the conservative movement here in the United States.
Speaker 3: He's a Chicago guy. It's very interesting, Damien. I guess
Speaker 3: we'll see. And you know, it's always difficult to map
Speaker 3: go ahead ahead.
Speaker 4: We know that he's pro life, and it's very very
Speaker 4: hard for an orthodox pro life Catholic and the new
Speaker 4: pope certainly the dogs on the subical abortion to support
Speaker 4: the Democrats, who you know, who are incredibly dogmatic in
Speaker 4: their support for abortion, including late time abortions. So you know,
Speaker 4: I would have been very surprised, for example, if the
Speaker 4: new Popa supported Kamala Harris support either of them.
Speaker 5: What do we know about his his time in Peru
Speaker 5: relative to child sex abuse cover ups, That's an open question,
Speaker 5: Like I don't know. I've just seen some some talk
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 4: This was why my job taper. When I heard Robert Francis,
Speaker 4: I immediately knew who it was because I had just
Speaker 4: been reading some very detailed coverage and the influential Catholic
Speaker 4: investigative publication of The Pillar, which is very highly respected,
Speaker 4: about allegations that Cardinal pre asked when Bishop of Chicayo
Speaker 4: in Peru brushed aside complaints by women that they've been
Speaker 4: abused by priests, and he was also accused of he
Speaker 4: also accused of them watering down the severity of their accusations.
Speaker 4: And therefore, you know, before the conclave, abuse survivors organizations
Speaker 4: were worked drawing attention to what they claimed was his
Speaker 4: bad record on this, and there's also a case dating
Speaker 4: back to two thousand in which, as an Augustinian prior
Speaker 4: or whatever he was in Chicago, he was accused of
Speaker 4: allowing a pedophile priest to live and operate near a school.
Speaker 4: And as I understand it, the new Pope has merely
Speaker 4: invoked some sort of formal excuse for the Chicago for
Speaker 4: the Chicago excuse me if I get the peruan complaints
Speaker 4: by these women, and offered no explanation for what happened
Speaker 4: in Chicago. So that is being followed up, as it
Speaker 4: was followed up in the Daily Mail today, and.
Speaker 6: It won't go away.
Speaker 4: But I think I would make a distinction, and it's
Speaker 4: a very these things have to be taken incredibly seriously,
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't make a distinction between failure to deal
Speaker 4: adequately with abuse allegations, which is terrible but of which
Speaker 4: vast unders of bishops have been guilty, and the sort
Speaker 4: of grossly negligent and culpable covering up of in some
Speaker 4: cases convicted abuses that Pote Francis indulged, in which I think,
Speaker 4: you know, I regard his Pontifica's a disgrace for that
Speaker 4: reason alone. And the failure of the press to follow
Speaker 4: that up. So it would be a little bit stranger
Speaker 4: if the press concentrated so much attention on following up
Speaker 4: this absolutely legitimate story and ignoring the fact that the
Speaker 4: late pope has a record which you know, had he
Speaker 4: been ahead of state anywhere in the wet western world,
Speaker 4: would have forced him to resign years before he died.
Speaker 2: Damien, what do you make of the politics of choosing
Speaker 2: an American pope? What is the significance of that? And
Speaker 2: you know, do you have any have you heard any
Speaker 2: rumors about some of the internal politics about how he
Speaker 2: was chosen From an ideological perspective as well.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm not so sure that the cardinals thought of
Speaker 4: him as an American pope, because this is a guy
Speaker 4: who has spent nearly his entire career, certainly his entire
Speaker 4: episcopal career in Latin America, and before that he was
Speaker 4: a missionary in Latin America. So I suspect that it
Speaker 4: was the Latin American voting bloc, which might perhaps otherwise
Speaker 4: have gone to Cardinal Tagle, the married him over the
Speaker 4: two thirds majority, So I'm not so sure. I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously people are aware that he was born and brought
Speaker 4: up in America, but he is, you know, he has
Speaker 4: a you know, mixed ancestry and had spent so much
Speaker 4: of his adult life in Latin America that I think
Speaker 4: it was a Latin American block really backed him. But
Speaker 4: that's conjecture.
Speaker 5: I saw something about the name Leo potentially signaling some
Speaker 5: type of reference to Leo the thirteenth, labor and cyclical.
Speaker 5: I'm deeply out of my depth when it comes to
Speaker 5: this stuff, but I I understand there was.
Speaker 4: Some much O the other I think was doctrinally orthodox
Speaker 4: and in some ways the founder of modern Catholic social teaching.
Speaker 4: The choice of the name Leo if it refers to
Speaker 4: the thirteenth and many other great pope cooed Lear, including
Speaker 4: some not so great poets cord Leer. But if it
Speaker 4: is a reference to theater the thirteenth, then that might
Speaker 4: indicate some sort of balance between doctrinal orthodoxy. And it
Speaker 4: does seem to be doctrinal orthodox, more so than Francis's
Speaker 4: bizarre and haphazard mixture of impenetrable spirituality, I think, and
Speaker 4: a very pronounced social conscience, one that has, whether you
Speaker 4: agree with him or not, already let him into conflict
Speaker 4: with the Trump administration. But I think President Trump is
Speaker 4: actually very keen to in as far as he possibly can,
Speaker 4: have good relations with the Catholic Church. So I think
Speaker 4: Trump will will take inside, but he won the won't
Speaker 4: be the same sort of insults and sniping and you know,
Speaker 4: goading that France is directed at Trump. If Pope Leo
Speaker 4: wants to criticize the Trump administration, he will do so
Speaker 4: in an honest, straightforward and civil manner.
Speaker 2: Damian. One thing that people like myself, I'm not a Catholic,
Speaker 2: but people who are on the left who appreciated Pope
Speaker 2: Francis really respected was his commitment to and focusing on
Speaker 2: an anti war message, and especially vis A VI the
Speaker 2: atrocities committed in Gaza. I wonder if you have any
Speaker 2: insight into Popolio's perspective on that conflict.
Speaker 4: I want to ask you something. You're talking about respecting
Speaker 4: a man who protected a serial rapist of nuns. How
Speaker 4: does he earn your respect? I'm not having a get
Speaker 4: you Crystal passy because I've foun of yours, but really,
Speaker 4: a man who doesn't that, I mean, really doesn't that
Speaker 4: overshadow everything? So many abuse victims had their stories ignored,
Speaker 4: and that the abusers upheld and detected by this man. Francis,
Speaker 4: how can any anyone Well.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'll answer that I think that people who
Speaker 5: are not intimately involved with are familiar with the Catholic
Speaker 5: Church and don't know the details of it, assume that
Speaker 5: pretty much everybody, and you know, the leadership there is
Speaker 5: involved and to some degree with covering up the media.
Speaker 4: That's a growth favure of the media.
Speaker 6: Covered up.
Speaker 5: I think maybe Greesel knows the most recent numbers, something
Speaker 5: like thirteen thousand children have been killed by Israel, and
Speaker 5: so anybody who speaks out against that is going to
Speaker 5: get a hearing from people who are opposed to that.
Speaker 4: It's a pope to abuse his abuse his personal authority
Speaker 4: to protect a Jesuit ex jesuit accused of abusing and raping,
Speaker 4: you know, twenty young women, including religious sisters in order
Speaker 4: which is basically sex cult and for him to enjoy
Speaker 4: the personal protection of the pope who kept his bile
Speaker 4: artwork on the door of his on the wall of
Speaker 4: his apartment till the day he does this.
Speaker 1: Is this is repnic that we're talking about.
Speaker 4: Exactly this Damien story, but there was a there was
Speaker 4: a corrupt that compressed call who kept the story out
Speaker 4: of the headlines.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I to explain why, I think, yeah, why why
Speaker 5: people like us don't think that there's a whole lot
Speaker 5: of difference in in the choice, like, Okay, whoever you're
Speaker 5: going to get is going to be protected by this.
Speaker 2: But Damien, I do want to get back this point.
Speaker 4: There's a huge difference. Both are appalling, but there's a
Speaker 4: difference between cover ups and the sort of very very
Speaker 4: active protection of convicted abuses that France has indulged in, which.
Speaker 2: Is Damien fair fair enough? I hear your point. I
Speaker 2: hear your point, and I confess to being, you know,
Speaker 2: ignorant on many of the specifics about who covered up
Speaker 2: and what their level of culpability was. But I do
Speaker 2: want to know if you have any perspective on what
Speaker 2: how Pope Leo may orient himself vis a v war
Speaker 2: and peace, and specifically with regard to Israel's atrocity in Gaza.
Speaker 1: And also Ukraine. I think there's a question of that
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 4: I just don't know at this stage. By my assumption
Speaker 4: is that he'll want to be a peacemaker my assumption
Speaker 4: is that he would condemn some of Israel's actions as
Speaker 4: well as of course condemning the appalling slaughter of Israelis
Speaker 4: by Hamas. I wouldn't expect him to align very clearly
Speaker 4: with either side. I would be surpris ris if he
Speaker 4: was as indulgent of Russia as Possis seems to have
Speaker 4: been on occasion, but that's speculation.
Speaker 1: So dam.
Speaker 3: My last question, just to actually kind of wrap all
Speaker 3: of this up, is I've relied a lot on your
Speaker 3: reporting over the course of the last papacy, and I
Speaker 3: know that Leo uh is an ally of Francis, and
Speaker 3: I'm genuinely curious if everything that you just explained that
Speaker 3: has really been a failure of the media to cover
Speaker 3: deeply and to focus on and to you know, put
Speaker 3: front and center of the discourse about what was happening
Speaker 3: in Vatican City. Does the new pope have any complicity
Speaker 3: in the in Francis's regime of covering things up and
Speaker 3: silencing and indulging particular guilty parties.
Speaker 4: It's it's a really good question because in US, I mean,
Speaker 4: he was a very senior member of the Curia in
Speaker 4: a sense, every cardinal who failed to speak up about
Speaker 4: what they knew was happening, which was that the pope
Speaker 4: was covering up for convicted as well as credibly accused
Speaker 4: vile sex abuses. Really has some explaining to do, and Poplio,
Speaker 4: like the cardinals who elect him, not only has some
Speaker 4: explaining to do, I would say, on that count, but
Speaker 4: has to do something about it. And what everybody's been
Speaker 4: saying to me in ren a few years is as
Speaker 4: soon as Francis dies, it will all come out. I
Speaker 4: hope it does. And when it does come out, the
Speaker 4: level of complicity of Francis in covering up sex crimes
Speaker 4: all over the world, if that really does come out,
Speaker 4: then that will be a huge diplomatic problem for the
Speaker 4: new pope, But at least it will be confronted, which
Speaker 4: it desperately needs to be, because the fact that the
Speaker 4: general public doesn't know the extent of the pravity is
Speaker 4: shocking in itself.
Speaker 1: Damien.
Speaker 3: We are all non Catholics here and so we really
Speaker 3: appreciate you coming on, especially someone so well sourced, literally
Speaker 3: in Rome right now, to help us understand.
Speaker 6: A great pleasure.
Speaker 4: Let me just emphasize the mood here is upbeat.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Damian. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, all right, So interesting perspective from the
Speaker 2: right there. I you know, I have listen, I have
Speaker 2: no idea what the reality of how Pope Leo is
Speaker 2: going to position himself. But you know, I will say
Speaker 2: the reaction I've seen has been quite different. You know,
Speaker 2: the left very encouraged by even the choice as Ryan
Speaker 2: was getting at of Leo as the name. Certainly the
Speaker 2: sniping at jd Vance, the upset from much of the right,
Speaker 2: including the Laura Lumers of the world. So you know,
Speaker 2: a lot to be seen about how he positions himself.
Speaker 2: But also to your point, Emily, I mean he he
Speaker 2: was someone who was close to Pope Francis and had
Speaker 2: been put in this position of selecting many of the
Speaker 2: cardinals and bishops, which also may have put him sort
Speaker 2: of in the pole position to achieve this position, you know,
Speaker 2: not knowing anything about the politics involved here, But what
Speaker 2: do you make of this, Emily? Before we let you go,
Speaker 2: because I know you've got things to do today too.
Speaker 3: Well, flight to catch, so hopefully the real idea doesn't
Speaker 3: mess that up. But yeah, my Catholic friends are I mean,
Speaker 3: I would put it this way, I think One of
Speaker 3: the things that Damian said is really interesting that the
Speaker 3: initial reaction was pretty uncomfortable. As soon as you know,
Speaker 3: people started scrolling through his twitter feed, Popolio's twitter feed.
Speaker 1: And it's extremely political.
Speaker 3: It was as though the only times he was tweeting
Speaker 3: or retweeting was to make political statements.
Speaker 1: Now that's not exactly accurate, but.
Speaker 3: It accounts for probably fifty to sixty percent of the
Speaker 3: tweets over the last several years on his speed, which
Speaker 3: means that he has a well of frustration with MAGA
Speaker 3: as an American and with the Trump administration, with jd Vance,
Speaker 3: who is a Catholic convert. One of Francis's I think
Speaker 3: points at tension with jd Vance and others is that
Speaker 3: there's this wing of Catholic converts, particularly in the United States,
Speaker 3: who do like the Latin Mass and that's what Damien
Speaker 3: was alluding to, and they see that as kind of
Speaker 3: a proxy for this anger at the modernization attempts in
Speaker 3: the Vatican.
Speaker 1: And so all this is to say, I.
Speaker 2: Thinically about Latin Mass sort of codes right wing correct. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is like the jd Vance like version of Catholicism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like tradcasts and I don't know if Jad does
Speaker 3: Latin Mass, but it's sort of seen as like a
Speaker 3: proxy for that. But Leo comes from that sort of strain,
Speaker 3: the Francis type of strain of the church. And so
Speaker 3: I think what Damian pointed out was interesting that over
Speaker 3: the last twenty four hours some of the people who
Speaker 3: were hoping for a more conservative choice have come to
Speaker 3: reconsider whether Leo might have things that they really like,
Speaker 3: and they're now failing quote unquote upbeat.
Speaker 1: We'll see.
Speaker 3: But my last big thought on this is just I
Speaker 3: think think my Catholic friends might not like me saying this,
Speaker 3: but there's a desperation for a breath of fresh air
Speaker 3: because Francis is mismanaged things. Whether you're liberal or conservative,
Speaker 3: the guy mismanaged things, He was complicit in cover ups.
Speaker 3: It is such an intense character that I think there's
Speaker 3: a some of my conservative friends who get really frustrated
Speaker 3: with mapping contemporary American politics onto the Vatican left right.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work perfectly, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 3: At the same time, this guy with posting seemingly only
Speaker 3: to make a point against the American right over and
Speaker 3: over again. So I get that it's complicated, but I
Speaker 3: think he's probably closer to Francis than some of my
Speaker 3: conservative Catholic friends probably will uh, they'll probably find this
Speaker 3: out in ways that are unpleasant to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's some there's some coping, coping going on potentially.
Speaker 5: Here if you're a psile cope. We got everybody got
Speaker 5: Francis wrong. Like the first day or two after when
Speaker 5: Francis was named, everybody thought he was kind of a concervative.
Speaker 2: Oh really, I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: There was like a twenty four hour period where the
Speaker 5: right was celebrating and the left was freaking out, and
Speaker 5: then he went around like you know, kissing people's feet
Speaker 5: and people are like, oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeahs was like really really really anti abortion.
Speaker 2: I mean any isn't any pope gonna be anti abortion?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: For him, it was like he had you know that
Speaker 3: everyone has sort of like a suite of issues under
Speaker 3: their priorities, and that was definitely one of his. So
Speaker 3: that's what the rights were reacted to immediately when it
Speaker 3: came to got Yah.
Speaker 6: So they got that wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, So I guess we'll see anyway, Emily,
Speaker 2: I'll let you go for the day. Great to see us.
Speaker 2: Always have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys.
Speaker 2: See ye, Ran, how are you this morning?
Speaker 6: Wonderful? How about yourself?
Speaker 1: Good?
Speaker 2: Thank you for standing up for my honor with Damien
Speaker 2: Like well, you know, yes, this is obviously the sexual
Speaker 2: abuse scandal is an incredibly important one, but also you
Speaker 2: know there there are issues that we could discuss here
Speaker 2: as well. So in any case, speaking of other issues discussed,
Speaker 2: there's a ton that I want to get to in
Speaker 2: the show. And also, by the way, guys, Ryan's going
Speaker 2: to have to jump about ten o'clock. We have a
Speaker 2: special guest, very special guest who has a long commute
Speaker 2: from two rooms away in order to join us this
Speaker 2: morning for the premium portion of the show. And we've
Speaker 2: got lots of stuff to get into with regard to trade,
Speaker 2: and I definitely want to get Ryan's take before he
Speaker 2: goes on the Abundance Caucus newly formed, and if we
Speaker 2: have time, get a little bit of your your thoughts
Speaker 2: on casey means she may be right up your alley, Ryan,
Speaker 2: I don't know you have.
Speaker 6: Yeah, shrooms and crystals?
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, talking to trees, it might be your gal?
Speaker 6: Is she talking to trees?
Speaker 5: Is just listening to them, because if you're listening to
Speaker 5: trees and hearing from them, I'm with that. If you're
Speaker 5: talking to them, that's too.
Speaker 2: Far, that's too fa Okay, all right, we'll investigate. We'll
Speaker 2: investigate first. I want to let me see what I
Speaker 2: got here first. I want to get into this strade stuff.
Speaker 2: And in particular, there's some news this morning. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've seen this yet, I'm sure you probably have,
Speaker 2: but Trump posted that he thinks that an eighty percent
Speaker 2: tariff on China seems right up to Scott b being
Speaker 2: Scott Bessett. So basically china strategy of do nothing and
Speaker 2: win seems to be working out. Ryan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and markets jumped on that on the UK trade
Speaker 5: deal yesterday because it was it was kind of a
Speaker 5: nothing burger of a deal.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Basically, apparently the UK makes cars and they're going to
Speaker 5: be allowed to sell like one hundred thousand cars into
Speaker 5: the US that are reduced tariff rate, and in exchange,
Speaker 5: they will reduce their digital tax that they were hitting
Speaker 5: our big tech companies with, and there's some tariff reciprocity.
Speaker 5: Basically a free trade steal zone that we're creating with
Speaker 5: the UK, and we're still going to then hit other
Speaker 5: steal with the twenty five percent tariff, and because it
Speaker 5: wasn't really much to it, and Trump sold it as
Speaker 5: this like historic, you know deal with our you know,
Speaker 5: our best friends across the pond. That sent a signal
Speaker 5: to the markets that he's looking for face saving ways
Speaker 5: out of this trade war. And so the hope then
Speaker 5: from the markets is Okay, he understands he's lost, and
Speaker 5: he's gonna wind this down. And so I think that's
Speaker 5: why the markets popped. I think the markets might be
Speaker 5: a little wrong, like which probably you know, dial up
Speaker 5: Jeff Stein again see what he thinks. But I think
Speaker 5: he might be more committed to continuing this until he
Speaker 5: gets a real punch in the face that he doesn't
Speaker 5: recover from him quickly. But so that that's that's where
Speaker 5: we are. And then you know, the China knocking TIFFs
Speaker 5: on China down to eighty percent is also silly, because
Speaker 5: you know, anything above a pretty trivial percentage is a
Speaker 5: is a is a meaningful tariff. So the difference between
Speaker 5: eighty and one hundred and forty five isn't isn't that significant?
Speaker 5: Because in either case, most importers. Most businesses that rely
Speaker 5: on Chinese imports are out of business, So whether you're
Speaker 5: out of business at eighty percent or out of business
Speaker 5: at one hundred and forty five percent doesn't really matter
Speaker 5: to the company that goes bankrupt me in that direction.
Speaker 2: Let me show you this, which is kind of shocking.
Speaker 2: So China apparently reported bumper April exports ahead of crucial
Speaker 2: trade talks with the US. China's experts actual exports actually
Speaker 2: grew sharply in April, despite Trump's Liberation Day terrafts on
Speaker 2: shipments to the US, strengthening Beijing's hand ahead of crucial
Speaker 2: trade negotiations due to start this weekend. Strong performance came
Speaker 2: as Chinese companies diverted trade flows to South East Asia,
Speaker 2: Europe and other destinations following the imposition of prohibitively high
Speaker 2: tit for tat tariffs between the world's two largest economies.
Speaker 2: Exports rows eight point one percent in dollar terms compared
Speaker 2: with a year earlier, China's and said on Friday, beating
Speaker 2: analyst forecast in a poll by Reuters of one point
Speaker 2: nine percent growth, but slowing from twelve percent growth in March,
Speaker 2: when figures were buoyed by export is seeking to get
Speaker 2: ahead of expected tariffs by front loading shipments to the US.
Speaker 2: So in spite of a dramatic reduction in trade with US,
Speaker 2: in fact, China's exports grew post Liberation Day and grew
Speaker 2: sharply year over year because we are not the entire world.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that they had other options available
Speaker 2: to them, especially as we did everything we could to
Speaker 2: you piss off all of the countries around the entire world,
Speaker 2: contrary to the proposal. I think Scott Bessen and laid
Speaker 2: down of Hey, we're going to have this encirclement strategy
Speaker 2: and we're going to try to isolate China, and then
Speaker 2: they go about it by basically pissing off everyone that
Speaker 2: they possibly.
Speaker 5: Can, right, And I think one thing that is underestimated
Speaker 5: is the role of kind of inertia in global affairs.
Speaker 5: Like China has been selling stuff to us because that's
Speaker 5: because that's what they do. Like the relationships are set up,
Speaker 5: the contracts are in place, it's it's smooth, it works,
Speaker 5: We've got to figure it out. And that doesn't mean
Speaker 5: that they didn't have other options where they could sell stuff.
Speaker 5: And we kind of took that to mean that we
Speaker 5: were the only buyer in the world, you know, for
Speaker 5: these products. And what China is showing here is that
Speaker 5: actually if they do the if they do, if they're
Speaker 5: forced to do the work to find other buyers, Southeast
Speaker 5: Asia and Europe, you know, do have some consumers who
Speaker 5: are you know, willing to buy the twenty eight dollars.
Speaker 2: That that we're not allowed to do anywhere, that we're
Speaker 2: not going to have anymore. This is kind of contrary
Speaker 2: to what you were saying about the UK trade deal.
Speaker 2: So let me get your reaction to this. Charles Gasparino says,
Speaker 2: now you know why Powell didn't cut rates after the
Speaker 2: UK deal. If the ten percent tariff is in the
Speaker 2: UK deal, not sure how we escape some economic repercussions
Speaker 2: i e. Inflation in the short term at the very least,
Speaker 2: since UK is a friend where we sell more stuff
Speaker 2: to than we import i e. Ten percent on the
Speaker 2: UK means much higher on countries we have deficits with.
Speaker 2: That's the tariff investment calculation you're hearing on Wall Street
Speaker 2: right now. So basically, like you said, the UK deal,
Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, we should be clear it's
Speaker 2: not even actually a deal yet. It's like you know,
Speaker 2: concepts of a play on kind of a deal, but
Speaker 2: it leaves in place most of the ten percent tariff,
Speaker 2: which is what it was already at.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: There were other provisions involved, as you laid out some
Speaker 2: of them previously, but basically what Gasparino is saying is like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well ten percent is the baseline, that's the best deal
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to get. Then that indicates
Speaker 2: some significant inflationary pressures on countries around the world.
Speaker 5: Again, so it's it's like irrationality layered on top of irrationality,
Speaker 5: and it's this weird game theory where everybody is trying
Speaker 5: to figure out what irrational thing and and unpredictable thing
Speaker 5: is going to happen and trying to predict that. So
Speaker 5: in this case, what I think is going on is
Speaker 5: that the mark and the markets only ended up up
Speaker 5: like eighty or something. They were up significantly throughout the
Speaker 5: day and then came down. I think what they took
Speaker 5: from it is that, Okay, he's not really going to
Speaker 5: keep that ten percent on them, like he's saying that
Speaker 5: for now, but he reached a deal, and the point
Speaker 5: of the deal is that the tariffs are going to
Speaker 5: come down, and so you know, once once they start
Speaker 5: to bite a little bit and have real world consequences,
Speaker 5: because we've gotten the deal, he's going to use the
Speaker 5: deal to quietly just get rid of those. Now, they
Speaker 5: could be totally wrong about that, and this is why
Speaker 5: I'm saying it's irrationality layered over irrationality. But I think
Speaker 5: that's what they're I think that's the assumption there because
Speaker 5: Gasprino's right that, like, if that ten percent is solid,
Speaker 5: then yeah, that signals everyone's going to get at least
Speaker 5: ten and other people are going to get higher. But
Speaker 5: what about Trump's approach to any of this suggests that
Speaker 5: any of this is.
Speaker 2: Solid, that anything is solid.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So that's why I think that's what I think
Speaker 5: is going on it that they assume that this is
Speaker 5: all soft.
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to Jadie Vance got
Speaker 2: asked about the number of dolls that anyone will be
Speaker 2: permitted to have here. So let me go ahead and
Speaker 2: pull this up because his answer was interesting, let me
Speaker 2: go ahead and get your reaction to those.
Speaker 7: Right, So the President said, you know, maybe American kids
Speaker 7: should have three dollars instead of thirty or whatever the
Speaker 7: number was.
Speaker 1: Do you agree.
Speaker 7: Do you tell the people of this country that you
Speaker 7: need to make some sacrifices in order to reorganize this
Speaker 7: bad trade relationship?
Speaker 8: Well, I think the President's point here is that, yeah,
Speaker 8: we do need to become more self reliant, and that's
Speaker 8: not going to happen overnight, and it's not.
Speaker 6: Always going to be easy. Mark.
Speaker 8: But what I'd ask people is not whether they want
Speaker 8: two dollars or five dollars or twenty dollars for their kids.
Speaker 8: I'd ask American moms and dads, would you like to
Speaker 8: be able to go into a pharmacy and know that
Speaker 8: the drugs your.
Speaker 6: Kids need are actually available to you?
Speaker 8: As an American parent, would you like to God forbid,
Speaker 8: if your country goes to a war and your son
Speaker 8: or daughter is son off to fight, would you like
Speaker 8: to know that the weapons that they have are good
Speaker 8: American made stuff, not made by a foreign adversary. What
Speaker 8: President Trump is talking about is bringing self reliance back
Speaker 8: to the United States economy.
Speaker 2: We have a what do you think of that explanation here?
Speaker 5: You know, I I I wish that it didn't feel
Speaker 5: like this stuff was reverse engineered, you know what and
Speaker 5: by what? And what I mean by that is, Trump
Speaker 5: seems to now understand that, oh, the shelves are going
Speaker 5: to be empty. Now I have to come up with
Speaker 5: a rationale for why I support, why the shelves being
Speaker 5: empty is actually a good thing. Right when when you
Speaker 5: if you actually start from the principle that we consume
Speaker 5: too much junk, it's it's it's spiritually degrading, it's it's
Speaker 5: bad for the environment, it doesn't make us feel better
Speaker 5: about ourselves. Uh, it's it's empty.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: Then and then you flow from there and and try
Speaker 5: to bring the whole country together around that idea that's
Speaker 5: still to me, that's delightful and a replace the spiritual
Speaker 5: regeneration of the of an entire public wonderful, agreed.
Speaker 2: And And but there has to be not just you're
Speaker 2: not going to have dolls, but there has to be
Speaker 2: a replacement for that consumerist ideology that we've been sold
Speaker 2: for decades and decades.
Speaker 5: Right, which which we don't have. Like consumerism is a
Speaker 5: thing that stitches us together. Yeah, and you you pull
Speaker 5: that apart without replacing it with anything, you know, God
Speaker 5: save us, you know, so it could so, But if
Speaker 5: you know the process of getting to that, the process
Speaker 5: of working it through. If we did it collectively, you know,
Speaker 5: could result in you know, less you know, lower levels
Speaker 5: of unhappiness, less plastic in our bloodstream. Like all of
Speaker 5: these things would be would be good. Like I mean,
Speaker 5: you you've got young kids, like it should be a
Speaker 5: crime like that every single uh kid's birthday party they
Speaker 5: have to give you a giant bag of plastic when
Speaker 5: you walk out that the kids play play with for
Speaker 5: thirty seconds in the car on the way home and
Speaker 5: then don't then then don't touch again. And it's it's,
Speaker 5: it's it's it's genuinely awful, Like that's horrible.
Speaker 2: Stuff to me that the deeper worry and I suspect
Speaker 2: you share this is actually about social media and specifically
Speaker 2: with regard to AI. And you know, this administration is
Speaker 2: running a million miles an hour to wild West AI.
Speaker 2: We're just going to take off all the breaks we've
Speaker 2: got to win the AI race. We're just going to
Speaker 2: unleash this potentially extraordinarily destructive force on society with it's
Speaker 2: not even contemplating what the impacts will be without planning
Speaker 2: for them, without creating any sort of a safety net.
Speaker 2: If there's mass job replacement, I'm sure you read the uh,
Speaker 2: what was it? A New York magazine piece about everybody
Speaker 2: cheating on their college tests, and like, you know that
Speaker 2: particular like narrow problem you could figure out. Okay, well
Speaker 2: now you just have to write us days in class
Speaker 2: instead of you can't.
Speaker 5: You know, there's we're taking out your phone father trying
Speaker 5: to figure that out though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but to me it speaks correct. But also to
Speaker 2: me it speaks to you know, the same way that
Speaker 2: I use this example with Emily Estra that GPS made
Speaker 2: us like unable to navigate, like that part of our
Speaker 2: brain just atrophied completely.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 2: AI is going to do that for basically everything. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and if we were a functioning society, we would be
Speaker 2: dealing with that, right, We would be figuring about it,
Speaker 2: we would be planning for it, we would be braining
Speaker 2: it in. And so you know, that's just an example
Speaker 2: of how contrary to the idea that there's some plan
Speaker 2: here for the Trump administration to remake the social contract
Speaker 2: in a way that is going to be healthier and
Speaker 2: more fulfilling. And you know, spiritually regenitaive regenerative, I think
Speaker 2: is the word that you use. It's the exact opposite
Speaker 2: we're running a million miles in the other direction and
Speaker 2: not even looking to consider where we might be headed, and.
Speaker 6: Doubling our energy usage in order to do it.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, No. Naomi Klein talks about how this is
Speaker 2: like a vampiric technology because it eats up the resources
Speaker 2: that you actually need for not just humanity, but for creation.
Speaker 6: Your part.
Speaker 2: That's right in order to create this mirror world. And
Speaker 2: it's it's endlessly disturbing to me, and you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know what to do about it other than to
Speaker 2: complain and worry. The last economic piece that I wanted
Speaker 2: to I actually really want you to make I want
Speaker 2: to make sure I'm thinking about this the right way,
Speaker 2: because the media has been saying, oh, Trump wants to
Speaker 2: lift taxes on the rich. He's he called Mike Johnson,
Speaker 2: he told him he wants to hike the top tax rate.
Speaker 2: But as I was reading the details here, it's not
Speaker 2: exactly as it's being portrayed. So the change here would
Speaker 2: roll back one of the tax cuts that Trump signed
Speaker 2: into law in twenty seventeen, as the Tax Cuts and
Speaker 2: Jobs AC That measure reduced the rate on income earned
Speaker 2: in the top bracket to thirty seven percent from thirty
Speaker 2: nine point six percent this year. The top income bracket
Speaker 2: starts at roughly six hundred thousand dollars for an individual
Speaker 2: of aster. Trump is effectively seeking to restore the previous
Speaker 2: top rate, but at a much higher income level. So
Speaker 2: just so people know, if nothing happens the Tax Cut
Speaker 2: and Jobs Act, those tax breaks expire and taxes go
Speaker 2: up on everybody, but especially because they got the biggest
Speaker 2: cuts on the rich. So what we're talking about here,
Speaker 2: what Trump is proposing, is still giving a tax break
Speaker 2: to the rich, but not as much, quite as much
Speaker 2: of one as he had previously given. Am I understanding
Speaker 2: this correctly?
Speaker 6: That's right, except for some.
Speaker 5: You could imagine a rich person who makes twenty million
Speaker 5: dollars a year, which is you know that there are
Speaker 5: I think there's in the hundreds or maybe the thousands
Speaker 5: at the most of people in the United States who
Speaker 5: make that amount of money. People can look it up.
Speaker 5: It's that that number is available. Those people would pay
Speaker 5: a little bit more because everything above a certain threshold,
Speaker 5: they're you know, they're jumping from whatever it was, you know,
Speaker 5: thirty six something to like thirty nine, And so that
Speaker 5: those couple points would then hit everything above that level.
Speaker 5: But that's a tiny number of people. So if you're
Speaker 5: a typical.
Speaker 2: But if you don't, if you don't renew the Task
Speaker 2: Cuts and Jobs Act, which is the whole four trillion
Speaker 2: dollars that they're trying to do, Yeah, then taxes are
Speaker 2: going to go up on the far more.
Speaker 5: It's a huge it's a huge cut relative to not
Speaker 5: doing anything.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's still a cut.
Speaker 6: Even on the right, as much of.
Speaker 2: A cut as what he had originally planned.
Speaker 5: Yes, still giving a big cut to the very rich,
Speaker 5: but a little bit less than he gave to them.
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, all right, all right, let me get your
Speaker 2: take on this Abundance Caucus, because you've been, you've been,
Speaker 2: you had some interesting insights on this. So you have
Speaker 2: some Democrats now who are starting an abundance Caucus, in
Speaker 2: abundance inspired caucus in particular, what is this guy's name,
Speaker 2: Josh Harder from California, says House Democrats are getting asra
Speaker 2: cline pilled. Bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Josh Harder
Speaker 2: as launching a new roughly thirty member block claiming inspiration
Speaker 2: from abundance movement championed by the liberal commentator client. I
Speaker 2: guess my question is like is this really necessary because
Speaker 2: I feel like we have ideological groups that are already
Speaker 2: pretty abundance pilled.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, got to seize the Abundance Caucus, and
Speaker 5: you know, maybe they hope that they'll be able to
Speaker 5: get Ezra to come speak to their caucus, like he's
Speaker 5: you know, he spoke to the Senate retreat recently. This guy, uh,
Speaker 5: I forget who was it, Serota?
Speaker 6: Maybe that flagged it.
Speaker 5: The funniest thing that like one of Harder's you know,
Speaker 5: chief accomplishments was blocking this water project.
Speaker 2: I think it was Stolar.
Speaker 6: Was that Solar?
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, just which is just hilarious because that's like
Speaker 5: the whole like to the extent that abundance.
Speaker 6: You know, has a villain.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, environmentalists who are standing in the
Speaker 5: way of these types of infrastructure projects, and here he
Speaker 5: was blocking one of these water projects on environmental grounds.
Speaker 2: I have it here, Congressman behind the Abundance Caucus, Josh
Speaker 2: Harder has as a signature accomplishment stopping a water project
Speaker 2: from getting a permit.
Speaker 5: There you go, So, yeah, the the we'll see who
Speaker 5: winds up And this is this is what I said yesterday, like,
Speaker 5: we'll see who winds up joining this caucus. But here
Speaker 5: here's a prediction, and you can map this prediction then
Speaker 5: against the analysis of whether this abundance is you know,
Speaker 5: seriously aimed at, you know, lifting everybody up, or is
Speaker 5: actually just kind of rebranded neoliberalism. My suspicion is that
Speaker 5: the Abundance Caucus will eventually be populated almost exclusively by
Speaker 5: people who are also in what's known as the New
Speaker 5: Democrat Coalition New Democrat Governference. New Democrats were created by
Speaker 5: the DLC, the Democratic Leadership Council, which itself was created
Speaker 5: in the nineteen eighties as a as the vehicle for
Speaker 5: the faction that said, we need deregulation, we need lower taxes,
Speaker 5: we need we need to end big government. We need
Speaker 5: to get Democrats away from civil rights, environmentalism, feminism, big unions,
Speaker 5: big government, you know, tax and spend liberalism. We need
Speaker 5: to be the kind of we need to basically do
Speaker 5: Reaganomics light and they were.
Speaker 6: That was the DLC. There was a New Democrats.
Speaker 5: So I think all I think everybody who joins this
Speaker 5: Abundance Caucus is probably going to be New Democrats.
Speaker 6: And if I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 5: Then uh, then maybe I'm wrong about my whole analysis
Speaker 5: of abundance. But you know, let's check back in in
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks and see who harder has been
Speaker 5: able to recruit into this caucus. Now, you're definitely gonna
Speaker 5: have some There are some progressive people in the Progressive
Speaker 5: Caucus who are also in the New Democrats. And there
Speaker 5: are which is a lot of embarrass caucus. Are are really,
Speaker 5: you know, underneath that kind of neoliberal you know, you know,
Speaker 5: Clinton type Democrats who have who have you know, progressive
Speaker 5: social values And I think you'll you'll find those kinds
Speaker 5: of people too, will be really intrigued by the the
Speaker 5: the abundance framing because it's nice. Who's against abundance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I feel like yeah. But so Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton is you know, his his framing is the DLC
Speaker 2: and it's neoliberals. It's really the Democratic Party sort of
Speaker 2: embracing the Ronald Reagan era framing, and Jimmy Carter, to
Speaker 2: be fair, initially, is the one who starts to move
Speaker 2: Democrats away from the New Deal and into the neoliberal era.
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton really cements that. I sort of feel like
Speaker 2: Barack Obama is almost like another rebranding. That's like a
Speaker 2: different rebranding of neoliberalism and now and that was coming
Speaker 2: out of the wilderness of George W.
Speaker 1: Bush.
Speaker 2: And you know, how could we have lost to this guy?
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Okay, here we go another rebranding neoliberalism.
Speaker 2: And then it seems like Abundance is the attempt again
Speaker 2: to rebrand neoliberalism as something new and fresh and different
Speaker 2: out of the wake of the you know, devastating loss
Speaker 2: for Democrats to Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Right, and the Affordable Care Act, Obama's signature achievement, you know,
Speaker 5: was all about using the market and doing a you know,
Speaker 5: doing healthcare reform without you know, not not even without
Speaker 5: adding to the deficit, but reducing the deficit. And yes,
Speaker 5: very very Clintonian.
Speaker 2: Well it brought a bunch of Clinton people into his administration.
Speaker 2: So I mean, the you know, the carryover from the
Speaker 2: Clinton administration was quite quite real and not just not
Speaker 2: just theoretical. Let me get your take also, Ryan, since
Speaker 2: we didn't have you yesterday before, you have to jump
Speaker 2: on Casey means. So there's all sorts of there's all
Speaker 2: sorts of things going on here. I don't even know
Speaker 2: where to start, But let me pull up a friend
Speaker 2: of show, Laura Lumer, who has been was first very
Speaker 2: upset about the first Trump search and general pick and
Speaker 2: was probably influential and getting her spiked. Then Trump picks
Speaker 2: Casey Means, the sister of Callie Means and Emily and
Speaker 2: I talked about her a good bit yesterday. She's really
Speaker 2: a like MAHA influencer star. She's been on with Tucker,
Speaker 2: She's been on with Joe Rogan. She runs some health
Speaker 2: company herself, like Glucose monitoring company. She wrote a book
Speaker 2: along with her brother, Callie Means, and so when she
Speaker 2: got picked, I thought that Lumer and certainly the MAHA
Speaker 2: people like Nicole Shanahan would be delighted, But I was wrong.
Speaker 2: Some people were delighted. Nicole Shanahan, notably, was really really upset,
Speaker 2: and Laura Lumer continued to you know, raise hell about
Speaker 2: this pick as well, and despair truly over the UH
Speaker 2: over the vetting team, not Trump. Of course, it's not
Speaker 2: Trump's fault, but over the vetting team that is deserving Trump.
Speaker 2: So in any case, Lord tweeted this, which I thought
Speaker 2: was interesting. She said, I'm glad I initiated the Maha breakup.
Speaker 2: Many of these grifters needed to be exposed for who
Speaker 2: they are. And also I was amused by Richard Hanania
Speaker 2: chiming and being like, here's another one, go after him
Speaker 2: as well. In any case, give me your give me
Speaker 2: your thoughts on Casey Means, on the Maha and Maga
Speaker 2: tensions that are emerging, and Laura Lumer's role in all
Speaker 2: of this stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, I love all the folks that
Speaker 5: are into the crystals and the reiki and the the moon.
Speaker 2: And you have some background in this.
Speaker 5: Yes, in the nineties, I used to I used to
Speaker 5: go to reiki sessions. Then I became like a reiki practitioner.
Speaker 6: Stuff.
Speaker 2: Of course you did the shock.
Speaker 6: This is important stuff.
Speaker 5: I don't I I don't think you want the Surgeon
Speaker 5: general though.
Speaker 6: From that world.
Speaker 5: Like, I think it's fine if you know it's a
Speaker 5: compliment to our system of Western medicine, because there are
Speaker 5: there are a lot of things that Western medicine doesn't
Speaker 5: understand about the body clearly, and there's a lot left
Speaker 5: to be learned about it. But I think it's fine
Speaker 5: that that it lives off in on your YouTube land
Speaker 5: and in the basements and in churches and wherever where
Speaker 5: you know you want to get you want to do reiki, great,
Speaker 5: it's great, go do it.
Speaker 6: It's wonderful.
Speaker 5: But to but to make that person the surgeon general,
Speaker 5: it's like, well, no, the Western medicine is also responsible
Speaker 5: for enormous number of advances.
Speaker 2: Like when you're when your wife's got cancer, to go
Speaker 2: to the specialist, to the occupuncture, the doctor.
Speaker 5: And you might go to the acupuncturist as well to right,
Speaker 5: was some of the side effects true? But no, it's
Speaker 5: it becomes dangerous when you you're throwing the Western medicine
Speaker 5: out with the bathwater like this. Because look, Steve Jobs,
Speaker 5: for instance, like you know, you know, thought he could
Speaker 5: cure his own cancer with his with his spirit and smoothies,
Speaker 5: and that's true and whatever, and what you know, the
Speaker 5: way that he just try to approach it with his
Speaker 5: spirit or his will or whatever. And he, as far
Speaker 5: as I understand, like that was a cancer that he
Speaker 5: should have beaten, you know, with treatment, but he didn't
Speaker 5: and then he died.
Speaker 2: And there's a similar story with Kyle's dad actually, who
Speaker 2: was going to a chiropractor who was telling him, oh,
Speaker 2: I got you, you know, and he didn't he didn't
Speaker 2: go to a regular doctor, so he didn't get a
Speaker 2: cancer diagnosis until it was far too late, because the
Speaker 2: chiropractor promised him that he would be able to heal
Speaker 2: whatever ailed him.
Speaker 5: Right, And yes, then that's that's the real danger of that.
Speaker 5: Like it as a as a compliment to your life
Speaker 5: and to your you know, your spiritual pursuits great to
Speaker 5: supplant to literally supplant medicine, Western medicine and have the
Speaker 5: person as a certain general it's like.
Speaker 2: Uh, well here's here's the other thing, Ryan, is there's
Speaker 2: another piece of this I want to talk to you about,
Speaker 2: which is like the realignment from those types from the left.
Speaker 2: I mean, this used to be very much the you know,
Speaker 2: the Crystal people were very much within the firmitment of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party. And that realignment is interesting to be
Speaker 2: which is how you know, Mariann and R. F. K.
Speaker 2: Junior knew each other, ran the same circles and whatever.
Speaker 2: Our K Junior of course is like the emblem of
Speaker 2: that realignment, you know, the Woo woo realignment into the
Speaker 2: Republican Party. But the thing that really drives me crazy
Speaker 2: about our K Junior's ideology Casey means Callie means from
Speaker 2: what I can tell is like number one, you know,
Speaker 2: the position on the left is that ourns you have
Speaker 2: access to medicine, not that there shouldn't be medical or
Speaker 2: that we shouldn't trust, but it's that people should have
Speaker 2: access to the advances of Western medicine. So that's number one.
Speaker 2: Number two, they'll oftentimes talk accurately about the corruption of
Speaker 2: the food industry, about the corruption of the medical industry,
Speaker 2: of big pharma, et cetera, but then there's no effort
Speaker 2: to actually root out the corruption. Instead, there's just a
Speaker 2: redirection into alternative health profiteering, of which Casey and Gala
Speaker 2: means both participate. You know, that's their livelihood, and that
Speaker 2: stuff is wildly untested. I mean, there are much say
Speaker 2: what you will about the FDA, the standards for actually
Speaker 2: getting a drug approved much higher than there are no
Speaker 2: sane standards for these you know, supplements and you know
Speaker 2: things that you sell on the internet, and all these
Speaker 2: influencers you go on say I take this, I take that.
Speaker 2: They're getting paid and then they're selling it to you,
Speaker 2: and there's no very little standards or testing with regard
Speaker 2: to that. So that's the other piece of it and
Speaker 2: the fact that there's no focus on Okay, you're right
Speaker 2: that the profit motive at the center of healthcare is
Speaker 2: is actually deadly because that creates mass incentives for guess
Speaker 2: what's most profitable for people to be chronically sick, so
Speaker 2: that you can continue to have to treat them and
Speaker 2: treat them and treatment them over many years. There's no
Speaker 2: effort to root that out through something like Medicare for
Speaker 2: All system. Instead, it's just redirecting people into things that
Speaker 2: are worse, less tested and at least as corrupt and.
Speaker 5: Right, the profiteering is outrageous that the entire reason we
Speaker 5: have the FDA is in response to and I wrote
Speaker 5: about this in my first book. What were they used
Speaker 5: to be called patent medicines? Right, and like literally snake
Speaker 5: oil snake like that's where we get the phrase snake oil.
Speaker 5: Like people would come by and say, look, this oil
Speaker 5: from a snake, you know, rub it here, and this
Speaker 5: is going to be effect and oftentimes like it wouldn't
Speaker 5: even be snake oil. It would be like not that
Speaker 5: the snake oil would work, but they weren't even selling
Speaker 5: you snake oil, which good because like you probably you know,
Speaker 5: exterminate all the snakes if you had to do that.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: And so the FDA was brought in and and it
Speaker 5: was the it was actually the first kind of assertion
Speaker 5: of of federal government, you know, regulatory power, which is
Speaker 5: why there's this alliance with corporate power linking up with
Speaker 5: the MAHA people because they they they understand both historically
Speaker 5: and intuitively that that the f d A is sort
Speaker 5: of like the tip of the spear for this regulation
Speaker 5: of of corporate profiting. And if they can they can
Speaker 5: cut that, they can they can roll back, you know,
Speaker 5: so they can roll back so much else. Uh and
Speaker 5: so uh that's why that's how you wind up with
Speaker 5: like a chemical chemical industry lobbyist being put into place
Speaker 5: by the Trump administration to you know, over over oversee
Speaker 5: you know what the MAHA people thought was going to
Speaker 5: be an effort to like root out toxic chemicals.
Speaker 2: Right, And then how do you think, like, what do
Speaker 2: you think of what are your reflections on the MAHA
Speaker 2: movement into magaworld, some the tensions there and how that
Speaker 2: comes about. I mean, I think the most obvious thing
Speaker 2: is just to say that many of them were skeptics
Speaker 2: of the COVID vaccine, or skeptics of the school closures,
Speaker 2: the you know, the lockdown, those sorts of things. But
Speaker 2: I also think in general, the right has just become
Speaker 2: like the magnet for sort of all conspiracy theories, and so,
Speaker 2: you know, there's just been and the Democratic Party has
Speaker 2: become like the party of the experts, trust the science,
Speaker 2: like that's that's you know, especially with the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: becoming more heavily college educated, although there are also plenty
Speaker 2: of MAHA people for sure, college educated, very highly educated, wealthy,
Speaker 2: successful whatever. I mean, that was kind of the Hollywood
Speaker 2: liberal type. But anyway, what do you what do you
Speaker 2: make of that transition? Where do you think it comes from?
Speaker 5: My basic sense is that when when a lot of
Speaker 5: these people gave up on the idea of collective change
Speaker 5: and instead began to pursue kind of individual you know,
Speaker 5: self improvement, self help, as the atomization of society and
Speaker 5: of communities took hold, uh, they they moved right. And
Speaker 5: the male version is you know, we see it all
Speaker 5: the time, and the.
Speaker 2: Manager that the Bernie bros.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and also right, the Bernie bros. Who then now
Speaker 5: the thing that they know or tell themselves that they're
Speaker 5: going to focus on is you know, they're like you know,
Speaker 5: taking you know, taking the right supplements, drinking the right powders,
Speaker 5: you know, work you know, doing the right kind of workout,
Speaker 5: the right amount of testosterone or whatever like that in.
Speaker 2: Set of medicare for all the collective project, it's all right, well,
Speaker 2: let me just let me get fit, let me do
Speaker 2: what I can do individually, and and.
Speaker 5: That's the that's the that's the male version of the
Speaker 5: kind of woo woo you know, reiki maha stuff that
Speaker 5: will you know, where you're just like, let let me
Speaker 5: find my own individual spiritual practice that's gonna you know,
Speaker 5: you know, get me out of this toxic culture or
Speaker 5: make me detoxify it, detoxify myself as much as possible,
Speaker 5: because you've you've given up the possibility of kind of
Speaker 5: collective de liberation.
Speaker 2: Do you think there's a parallel to the Back to
Speaker 2: the Land movement of the seventies, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Same same thing, same thing. Yeah, Like we're going to
Speaker 5: make we're going to change the world in the sixties
Speaker 5: and then you give it and you're like, wow, this
Speaker 5: world is just didn't work, not only unchangeable.
Speaker 6: All our efforts backfired and so we're just going to
Speaker 6: go live on a commune.
Speaker 2: We're just going to withdraw from society altogether, live on
Speaker 2: a commune, and then the commune.
Speaker 5: Is going to fall apart, and then we're going to
Speaker 5: go sell out and go to Wall Street or go
Speaker 5: just do the thing that we were.
Speaker 6: Destined to do.
Speaker 2: I told you, I told you. I read this this
Speaker 2: book about the Back to the Land movement and focused
Speaker 2: on Vermont that Bernie Sanders randomly shows up in at
Speaker 2: some commune and they have to make believe because he
Speaker 2: won't stop like distracting everyone from their work and talking
Speaker 2: about millionaires. Yeah, just tuber. I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: He was at that time writing for some like you know,
Speaker 2: socialist adjacent newspaper or something, and so he shows up
Speaker 2: with the commune to like interview them and then just.
Speaker 6: Talking about eugen Shut up about Eugene Debs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, something like that. Oh. Here,
Speaker 2: Kyle's here, special guest, Special guest. Kyle Kalinsky in the house.
Speaker 9: Hey babe, literally in the house. I'm in the bedroom.
Speaker 2: We were just wrapping up talking about Casey Means and
Speaker 2: then sort of digressed into thinking about the way that
Speaker 2: there are parallels between this moment of men in particular
Speaker 2: withdrawing from like being the birdie bro looking at the
Speaker 2: collective solution into like let me you know, work out
Speaker 2: and take whatever supplements and trust whatever influencers and whatever,
Speaker 2: to the moment after the sixties and the seventies when
Speaker 2: there's Okay, well we were going to change the world.
Speaker 2: Now we're going to go back to the land and
Speaker 2: we're going to like set up these communes and kind
Speaker 2: of like do our own thing. And Ryan the other
Speaker 2: thing that was interesting out of that book is that
Speaker 2: I never realized how many food companies, like organic food
Speaker 2: company type things that are big names now actually came
Speaker 2: out of that vaccal land movement as well.
Speaker 6: Oh totally.
Speaker 5: That makes a lot of sense. And if we're right,
Speaker 5: then over the next you know, five years, we may
Speaker 5: see communes starting to pop up where this is kind
Speaker 5: of like the Timpoles type of compound situation.
Speaker 2: Right or like the the trad wife and the what
Speaker 2: do they call the people who there There is a
Speaker 2: movement of this of people who are like you know,
Speaker 2: moving out of cities, and this is all in the
Speaker 2: right becoming getting them like farms going and trying to
Speaker 2: be fully sustainable. There's a term for them completely oh.
Speaker 5: Sovereign sovereign citizens maybe, but yeah, they're like there's usually
Speaker 5: right wingers, the sovereign citizens.
Speaker 6: It's going to be a right wing version.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and it goes with like the trad wife stuff
Speaker 2: as well. You know, it's like we're withdrawing from society.
Speaker 2: We're going to go back to these other ways we're
Speaker 2: gonna in this. I mean there were vibes of this, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean there was vibes of this with the seventies
Speaker 2: thing on the left to where it was like, okay,
Speaker 2: these new modern ways of doing agriculture, we don't want
Speaker 2: any of this mechanization. We're going to figure out how
Speaker 2: to use like a horse and a cart to do
Speaker 2: our truly, like we're going to make our own tools.
Speaker 2: We're not going to have electricity. That was the pure
Speaker 2: way to do it.
Speaker 9: So anyway, Yeah, whenever I think of how to become happy,
Speaker 9: I go let me copy the Amish. That'll work out.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know it might I have more I
Speaker 2: have more sympathy to that, wen, you do, babe.
Speaker 9: We rely on so much stuff that we take for granted,
Speaker 9: you know, like, whenever the power goes out and I
Speaker 9: lose the TV, I'm always like, holy shit, the TV
Speaker 9: is amazing. I wish I had that thing all the time.
Speaker 9: So I have like the opposite philosophy of those people.
Speaker 9: And the other thing is self self health help stuff
Speaker 9: in general. Like I feel like the only times I've
Speaker 9: been even somewhat interested in that in my life, they
Speaker 9: were like the worst points of my life.
Speaker 2: So I feel like, yeah, well there's submit to that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, going down this path in general is a symptom
Speaker 9: of an underlying misery or depression or being lost in
Speaker 9: the same way that like hyper religiosity, you're being an
Speaker 9: adult convert to a religion. That's a sign of like, hey, guys,
Speaker 9: let me tell you I didn't kill myself last night.
Speaker 9: I came up with this reason to not kill myself.
Speaker 9: So it's a sign of a like decaying society.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we'll all agree with that. All right, Ryan,
Speaker 2: We'll let you go. I know you got a meeting,
Speaker 2: you got a Junco.
Speaker 5: Thank you brother, all right, see you guys later, bye,
Speaker 5: right bye?
Speaker 2: All right, guys. That concludes the Free Show. If you
Speaker 2: want to see what Kyle has to say about Biden's
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Speaker 2: for your support. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah,