Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 1: dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an
Speaker 1: amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal Yay?
Speaker 2: Particularly amazing because Sager made it back. Thank God, I'm back.
Speaker 1: I weathered the snowstorm, I weathered the South Seas of
Speaker 1: the Caribbean for all of you to get here, the rough,
Speaker 1: the rough and tumble life of a cruise ship veteran.
Speaker 1: But I've made it. I've made it. I'm tan, I'm rested,
Speaker 1: and I'm ready and I'm back to be year. It's
Speaker 1: exciting to be here for the New Year excellent.
Speaker 2: A lot of interesting stories to talk through today and
Speaker 2: a lot of interesting things that we've been one of
Speaker 2: your your thoughts on the H one P fights, so
Speaker 2: we managed to get. We got Bernie backing Maga in
Speaker 2: the H one B fight, so you can kind of
Speaker 2: weigh in on some of that stuff. Justin Trudeau resigning,
Speaker 2: this has been a while in the making, so we'll
Speaker 2: tell you, like the chain of events and what it
Speaker 2: means is pretty interesting moment in history. I would say
Speaker 2: we've got more Elon News. He's now threatening an invasion
Speaker 2: of Britain and a bunch of European leaders sounding off
Speaker 2: as they become increasingly nervous that he thinks he can
Speaker 2: just like jump into their politics and sort of control
Speaker 2: their political process in similar ways as he did here. Also,
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg going on Fox News, was this just this morning?
Speaker 2: That does happen soccer?
Speaker 1: So it's actually Mark Zuckerberg didn't go on Fox News.
Speaker 1: His chief of policy Joel Kaplan okay, but he put
Speaker 1: out a video on Instagram. We're going to play some
Speaker 1: of it for everyone. It's genuinely one of the most
Speaker 1: crazy videos over.
Speaker 2: He sounds like Elon He's basically go and so yeah,
Speaker 2: you guys are you guys are gonna this is an
Speaker 2: interesting one. We also wanted to take a look at
Speaker 2: this big labor dispute happening at Vale Ski Resort. A
Speaker 2: bunch of wealthy people waiting in really long lines because
Speaker 2: Vail refuses to pay their personnel two dollars an hour more.
Speaker 2: And there's a really interesting backstory here about corporate consolidation
Speaker 2: and these ski towns and the way they've been taken over.
Speaker 2: So get into some of that as well. And we're
Speaker 2: also taking a look at this big CNN lawsuit, lawsuit
Speaker 2: against CNN claiming defamation. They are actually going to trial,
Speaker 2: which is kind of unusual. Usually they settle in these
Speaker 2: sorts of situations. But they could be facing huge, huge
Speaker 2: dollar amounts if the jury finds against them. And it's
Speaker 2: happening in Florida, which you know, they could find a
Speaker 2: pretty tough demographic down there, given how much Florida has
Speaker 2: shifted to the right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, jury pool has not been kind to CNN so far.
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting about this case will be I
Speaker 1: think it will turn into both case about Donald or Sorry,
Speaker 1: both about the actual specifics, but also about CNN itself
Speaker 1: because so many of the comments from the perspective jurors
Speaker 1: were literally about its own coverage and so could certainly
Speaker 1: turn out to bite them. But yeah, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: be back, I really am. All right, why don't we
Speaker 1: get started with Justin Trudeau? Crystal? Yeah, oh, should we note?
Speaker 1: By the way, we're at home because of the snowstorm,
Speaker 1: it is the roads spartalize. Yeah, yeah, completely impassable here
Speaker 1: in the Washington, DC area, combined with the fact that
Speaker 1: DC is also now the Green Zone because of the
Speaker 1: scary January sixth that happened yesterday, So we had like
Speaker 1: military tanks occupying our streets as we also had twelve
Speaker 1: inches of not twelve inches with close a bunch of snows,
Speaker 1: So it's a mess out here. Please bear with us
Speaker 1: before we are able to get back to the studio
Speaker 1: hopefully on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Hopefully Thursday. Yeah, we're pretty we're pretty snowed in down
Speaker 2: here in the country as well well, So anyway, and
Speaker 2: I've got kiddos that are going to wake up at
Speaker 2: some point, animals running around, so just bear with this guy, right,
Speaker 2: all right, let's go ahead and get to Justin Trudeau. Who,
Speaker 2: of course prime Minister of Canada and deeply unpopular. He
Speaker 2: has been in powerful like a decade there, so he's
Speaker 2: kind of overstayed his welcome at this point, facing blowback
Speaker 2: not only from the country at large very low approval rating,
Speaker 2: but also blowback within his own party. So he made
Speaker 2: this announcement official yesterday. Let's go ahead and take a listen.
Speaker 3: So last night, over dinner, I told my kids the
Speaker 3: decision that I'm sharing with you today. I intend to
Speaker 3: resign as party leader as Prime minister after the party
Speaker 3: selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process.
Speaker 3: Last night I asked President of the Liberal Party to
Speaker 3: begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in
Speaker 3: the next election, and it has become clear to me
Speaker 3: that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot
Speaker 3: be the best option in that election.
Speaker 2: So he's referencing these internal battles within his own party.
Speaker 2: But as I said, he was deeply unpopular overall. I
Speaker 2: can go ahead and pull up this tearsheet from the
Speaker 2: Washington the Wall Street Journal rather that sort of breaks
Speaker 2: down some of what was going on here, And you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of this story is going to sound kind
Speaker 2: of familiar to those of you who have been following
Speaker 2: politics here or in many other European G seven nations. Effectively,
Speaker 2: you know, overall, he came in kind of an Obama
Speaker 2: style figure, really embraced cultural liberalness, and some of the
Speaker 2: biggest hits he took were during the COVID era, when
Speaker 2: you know, they had significant shutdowns. You'll remember the big
Speaker 2: trucker protests and the uproar over that they took some
Speaker 2: more draconian measures actually than we did here in the US.
Speaker 2: And in addition to that, they had high levels of
Speaker 2: inflation like many countries did around the world, and he
Speaker 2: just came to be seen as sort of out of
Speaker 2: step with the pain that people were feeling in the
Speaker 2: country at large, and more interested in these cultural issues
Speaker 2: than he was in making sure that people were really,
Speaker 2: you know, okay in their day to day lives. So again,
Speaker 2: familiar story, similar to what's going on here and other
Speaker 2: European nations. But Sager, you noted this is what the
Speaker 2: last G seven leader to move out since the Trump
Speaker 2: era began, So it is kind of a significant turning
Speaker 2: point in terms of global politics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we can put it in two separate stories.
Speaker 1: Like one obviously is the Canadian context, and as you said,
Speaker 1: I mean Trudeau. And that's why I think I really
Speaker 1: noted is Trudeau is the very last leader of a
Speaker 1: major G seven nation to step down who pre dates
Speaker 1: Donald Trump coming down the escalator, the political earthquake. Every
Speaker 1: single other G seven nation has experienced significant political turmoil. Germany, Japan,
Speaker 1: the United States obviously, even you know, if you look
Speaker 1: at the European Union, you know, even if you think
Speaker 1: about it, Putin, who used to be called the G eight.
Speaker 1: So yes, he may have been there during Obama, but
Speaker 1: let's just say things have changed. I think in the
Speaker 1: last several years. The point really here that we have
Speaker 1: with Trudeau, as you said, is that he became someone
Speaker 1: who kind of embodied the quote unquote like progressive cultural liberalism,
Speaker 1: while frankly his country has been you know, destroyed from
Speaker 1: the inside. I mean, the average home price in Canada
Speaker 1: now is some seven hundred thousand dollars for people who
Speaker 1: Canadian dollars, it's not that different than US dollars. People
Speaker 1: don't seem to understand that. While yes, the United States
Speaker 1: is a massive housing crisis and we cover it here
Speaker 1: all the time, Canada is ten times worse. They also
Speaker 1: have had significant problems with immigration. They've had major turmoil.
Speaker 1: Remember even internally Trudeau has flipped on immigration, being like listen,
Speaker 1: you know, we've let too many people in here. They've
Speaker 1: had significant strains on their social welfare state. So they
Speaker 1: have major problems, and especially going into the Trump era,
Speaker 1: the Canadian economy is wholly reliant on the United States
Speaker 1: as a trading partner and with tariffs and with a
Speaker 1: lot of the disputes that are going to happen, specifically
Speaker 1: around electric vehicle mandates and others of which they had
Speaker 1: been penalized under the IRA over milk, over oil, timber,
Speaker 1: a few other things that significantly cross the border. They
Speaker 1: will have to manage their relationship with Donald Trump. You know.
Speaker 1: The last thing is with the Canada is we shouldn't
Speaker 1: forget that. On a foreign policy level, they've had significant
Speaker 1: issues trying to navigate both kind of being a you know,
Speaker 1: secondary state to the United States pursuing its own policy
Speaker 1: with respect to NATO, Ukraine. They've had serious diplomatic crises
Speaker 1: with India, which relates to their own population. So it's
Speaker 1: a mess. You know, whoever inherits this from Trudeau is
Speaker 1: going to have like a global they have to define
Speaker 1: Canada's role like abroad, or define Canada's role with its
Speaker 1: major trading partner, the United States, and internally, you know,
Speaker 1: they have to justify and to change the relationship or
Speaker 1: at least justify and reset the relationship with the social
Speaker 1: welfare state to the Canadian to the Canadian populace, which
Speaker 1: is significantly, you know, very frustrated right now. So it's
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing to happen. And I do think
Speaker 1: it's a like a world historical event in that his passing,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like when Angola Merkel, you know, step
Speaker 1: down like that. That is true the true sign of
Speaker 1: like where we were in one age and now we're
Speaker 1: in a different age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's another sign of the end of
Speaker 2: the neoliberal era effectively, you know, global populations. This is
Speaker 2: not just specific to the UI rejecting this previous political
Speaker 2: framework that has really been ascendant since certainly since the eighties.
Speaker 2: You may even trace it back. I mean, it is
Speaker 2: ironically I'll say also of course missed the death of
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter, and it is there is something fitting about
Speaker 2: him passing now literally on the day his funeral, literally
Speaker 2: on the day that Trump is you know, electorally certified,
Speaker 2: because Carter is really the first that sort of in
Speaker 2: terms of the US terms, starts to initiate the neoliberal ara.
Speaker 2: It sort of has one foot in both the New
Speaker 2: Deal era and the neoliberal era. And now as Trump
Speaker 2: I think closes the door definitively on that period of
Speaker 2: political dominance at that very same time as when when
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter leaves this world. Now, I would say that
Speaker 2: his advent, those pieces of the economic agenda that he
Speaker 2: brought in, all the deregulation and his embrace of this
Speaker 2: market driven, value free philosophy. You know, I think that's
Speaker 2: been devastating ultimately to the country, certainly to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: So there's something to be said about that as well.
Speaker 2: But you know, Trudeau being leaving is another sign that
Speaker 2: this era is done and closed. People are searching for
Speaker 2: something different, and whether or not they've landed on it
Speaker 2: is another question and kind of the story that we'll
Speaker 2: be tracking over our time. I reference the internal turmoil
Speaker 2: within his own party, which was kind of the final straw,
Speaker 2: and it really did break down over in particular Trudeau's
Speaker 2: response to Trump's potential trade war in the the threat
Speaker 2: of significant tariffs being marshaled against Canada and Canada's Finance Minister,
Speaker 2: Christian Freeland, who is herself a very well known figure
Speaker 2: in Canadian politics, actually have a past personal history with her.
Speaker 2: She back in the early days before I even was
Speaker 2: like a contributor on MSNBC. She went on the Dylan
Speaker 2: Ratagan Show, where I also was a regular guest. All
Speaker 2: the times I've actually met her, like way back in
Speaker 2: the day, but she's become quite a significant figure. She's
Speaker 2: been the longtime finance minister under Trudeau. She resigned, and
Speaker 2: in particular she took issue with she did not feel
Speaker 2: he was taking seriously enough the threats from Trump on tariffs.
Speaker 2: She did not feel that they were he was setting
Speaker 2: the Canadian economy up to be able to weather a
Speaker 2: potential storm coming from the United States of America. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's easy to take for granted here the
Speaker 2: level of fiscal flexibility that we can have being the
Speaker 2: world's reserve currency, but you know, Canada doesn't benefit from
Speaker 2: that particular dynamic, so they really needed to kind of
Speaker 2: save for a rainy day. And she felt like he was,
Speaker 2: you know, instead throwing out kind of political political gimmicks
Speaker 2: is what she called it, to try to save his
Speaker 2: own ass and rescue his approval rating, which was probably
Speaker 2: an impossible mission at this point, so she had resigned.
Speaker 2: The other backstory is that he was also reportedly unhappy
Speaker 2: with her. He was going to remove her as Finance
Speaker 2: minister and put her in this sort of like work
Speaker 2: job with no official duties, so she resigned ahead of that.
Speaker 2: But again just a sign of how unpopular he'd become,
Speaker 2: even within his own party. I think his approval rating
Speaker 2: overall in Cannon with something like twenty eight percent, after
Speaker 2: having at one point had an approval rating well in
Speaker 2: the high sixties. So a massive fall here, and the
Speaker 2: Liberal Party overall set for based on the polling, set
Speaker 2: for potentially massive, massive losses in parliament. One of the
Speaker 2: big warning signs as there had been a special election
Speaker 2: I believe in around in and or around Toronto that
Speaker 2: you know, should have been a safe seat for Trudeau's
Speaker 2: party and they lost, like it was narrow, but they
Speaker 2: should have won by like twenty points and they lost,
Speaker 2: and that was a real eye opening, like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: like this is really bad. This is a political disaster Freeland,
Speaker 2: for what it's worth, is also one of the people
Speaker 2: who is mentioned as a potential successor to Trudeau. She's
Speaker 2: one of the more popular figures in the party, so
Speaker 2: she's someone to watch as well. But it's also important
Speaker 2: to note, you know, they're going to have to go
Speaker 2: through these party elections before Trudeau officially steps down, so
Speaker 2: he will continue to be head of state for some
Speaker 2: period of time while that is all being resolved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, Yeah, people, he's not immediately stepping down.
Speaker 1: He'll he's basically like a lame duck figure who will
Speaker 1: be in position until they elect that new leader who
Speaker 1: will then challenge in the next election. Now, you and
Speaker 1: I were taking a look at some of the polling
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, and it's just dismal for Justin Trudeau's party.
Speaker 1: The Conservative Party looks poised to at least get some gains.
Speaker 2: Remember they're poised to at massive gains.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and those gains which will allow them to
Speaker 1: form a government, which of course would also change I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been a long time, you know, people don't remember
Speaker 1: Trudeau has been a figure in Canada now for so
Speaker 1: long that this kind of reopens a lot of political
Speaker 1: opportunity in the country. So nonetheless, it's very import and
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason that you and I
Speaker 1: really wanted to lead with it is that it just
Speaker 1: feels truly like a major, like a global event, in
Speaker 1: that you know that period is over and we are
Speaker 1: certainly like in a new period. Yes, you know, I
Speaker 1: find interesting, I really do.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. Here is Donald Trump weighing in over on
Speaker 2: truth social He says, many people in Canada love being
Speaker 2: the fifty first state. He's been doing this whole fifty
Speaker 2: first state bit for a while and calling Trudeau, the
Speaker 2: governor of Canada, to in a nod to his you
Speaker 2: know whatever trolling or whatever this is. He says the
Speaker 2: United States can no longer suffer the massive trade deficits
Speaker 2: and subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau
Speaker 2: knew this and resign. If Canada emerged with the US,
Speaker 2: there would be no tariffs, taxes would go way down,
Speaker 2: and they would be totally secure from the threat of
Speaker 2: the Russian and Chinese ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together.
Speaker 2: What a great nation it would be. What do you
Speaker 2: think about that? Zager?
Speaker 1: I'm very against this project. I am very pro buying Greenland.
Speaker 1: I am very against annexing Canada, as you said, you know,
Speaker 1: as we referenced earlier.
Speaker 2: Each natural resources. Yeah, that's what I'll.
Speaker 1: Tell you this. There's only one province of Canada that
Speaker 1: I would take, and that is Alberta because it has
Speaker 1: a ton of oil and not enough people, but every
Speaker 1: other ones, and we'd be responsible for all of their
Speaker 1: population who are used to you know, universal health care
Speaker 1: and social welfare state and all of that. We don't
Speaker 1: need to inherit all of that. Also, we already guarantee
Speaker 1: their security through NATO, so you know, kind of works
Speaker 1: out already for them if you were to ask me,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think things are good as
Speaker 1: they are right now. Also, you know you have all
Speaker 1: that vast territory. Oh is that a Salem sighting seance.
Speaker 1: I've shut my door to keep the cat out. Let's
Speaker 1: see if he allows that or if he's gonna start
Speaker 1: beating on the glass at some point. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in terms of this whole annexation thing, I guess it's
Speaker 1: just trolling. Probably it Also, I mean on a base,
Speaker 1: on like a literal level, there is truth to it,
Speaker 1: Like their economy is wholly relate on us. Their security
Speaker 1: is wholly reliant on us. They are a vassal state
Speaker 1: and have been, you know for quite some time, sorry Canadians,
Speaker 1: is true. You know, your first vast state of the UK,
Speaker 1: now your vast state of US. That's what your long
Speaker 1: history kindom has been. And I think Trump he's either
Speaker 1: trolling or trying to put them in their place for
Speaker 1: future negotiations, if I had to guess, that's probably where
Speaker 1: it is. Remember, they do have I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I just put them down. They do have a lot
Speaker 1: of leverage over US as well, through their dairy farmers,
Speaker 1: through oil, through timber. There's a billion, hundreds of billions
Speaker 1: of dollars of goods that move across that border, a lot.
Speaker 2: Of building materials. I mean, timber is one of them,
Speaker 2: but a lot of building materials, and obviously we have
Speaker 2: they have a huge cost of living crisis. We obviously
Speaker 2: have a huge cost of living crisis as well. And
Speaker 2: then the oil in particular, I was reading that a
Speaker 2: lot of Canadian oil comes down through Midwest refinery, so
Speaker 2: that's really important to the economy in particular there. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not like they're without their own barg ning chips,
Speaker 2: but they've got plenty. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's
Speaker 2: a couple things that I think are interesting about this,
Speaker 2: not that I really take it all that particularly seriously,
Speaker 2: but the interest in Canada and in Greenland are both
Speaker 2: sort of like tastic tacit acknowledgments that climate change is real.
Speaker 2: It is literally reshaping the globe. And that's part of
Speaker 2: the interest, in particular in Greenland is these new shipping
Speaker 2: lanes that are opening up because of so much ice
Speaker 2: melt in the Arctic. And then the other piece is like,
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in any new imperial projects from the US,
Speaker 2: but if Canada, if Canada was interested in if there
Speaker 2: are like some people that live in the fifty people
Speaker 2: that live.
Speaker 1: There are there are more people in my neighborhood than
Speaker 1: there are live in Greenland.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, but anyway, there are people that live there.
Speaker 2: But with regards to Canada, I'm not interested in new
Speaker 2: imperial project. But you know, if they wanted to voluntarily
Speaker 2: join the country, I'd be over to that. I'd be
Speaker 2: open to it.
Speaker 1: We don't need any of their French bullshit. Okay, Keebec,
Speaker 1: you guys can stay wherever the hell you are with whatever.
Speaker 2: Language my high school French.
Speaker 1: Oh god, no, no, no, the quebec Qua. Sorry quebec Qua.
Speaker 1: You guys have your own. It's a beautiful major.
Speaker 2: Issue of Canada. I love Western Canada in particular, you know,
Speaker 2: Vancouver Island, Victoria. It's it's a lovely place, lovely people.
Speaker 1: You are absolutely correct, it's a great place. Montreal is
Speaker 1: a beautiful city, even though we just shout all over it.
Speaker 1: My father got his PhD there, so everybody calmed down.
Speaker 1: But you guys can take your poutine and you can
Speaker 1: keep that ship up there. All right, it's disgusting. What
Speaker 1: else any any other Canadian jokes like, no, that's it
Speaker 1: all right. Actually, remember didn't we do a segment like
Speaker 1: a month ago where we tried to name Canadian provinces.
Speaker 2: I got better with that than we do Mexico though,
Speaker 2: that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was bad. Mexico was bad. That was bad.
Speaker 2: I felt bad anyway, Sorry Mexico anyway. Kind of an
Speaker 2: end of an era with Justin Trudeau moving aside, and
Speaker 2: you know, Conservative Party certainly set to make big gains
Speaker 2: and we'll see, you know, we'll see what happens then
Speaker 2: around the world next. All right, guys, we got a
Speaker 2: bunch of Elon Musk updates. In particular, we touched on
Speaker 2: this with Ryan yesterday, but I wanted to really dig
Speaker 2: into this latest change that he's at least announced that
Speaker 2: he's making to the algorithm. Can put this up on
Speaker 2: the screen. This is from mister Musk himself. He says,
Speaker 2: algorithms tweak coming soon to promote more informational and entertaining content.
Speaker 2: We will publish the changes to add ex english. Our
Speaker 2: goal is to maximize unregarded user seconds. Too much negativity
Speaker 2: is being pushed that technically grows usertime, but not unregretted
Speaker 2: user time. Many people noted that he is not exactly
Speaker 2: himself following this new encouragement of positive, informative, entertaining political
Speaker 2: content on Twitter. Here he is replying to someone f
Speaker 2: you retard and then immediately posting, please post a bit
Speaker 2: more positive, beautiful informative content on this platform. And Ryan's point,
Speaker 2: which I think is an important one, is like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: now that you and your guy are coming into office,
Speaker 2: suddenly it's like everybody calling to let's just be positive,
Speaker 2: Like the world's actually a beautiful place and things are
Speaker 2: going great, So we're going to use the algorithm to
Speaker 2: promote good news about the new incoming Trump administration. And
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it's just like another example of
Speaker 2: the way Elon clearly bought Twitter to be an ideological
Speaker 2: weapon for himself and whatever political movements he aligned with
Speaker 2: aligns with, So no one should be surprised when he's
Speaker 2: just out and out announcing the way that he's shaping
Speaker 2: the use of this platform in you know, directions that
Speaker 2: he thinks will be beneficial to him and his goals.
Speaker 1: It's also just a bad idea because, like, let me
Speaker 1: break it for you down, folks, good content and all
Speaker 1: of that doesn't engage. There's a reason that it did
Speaker 1: well because that's what the people engage with the most.
Speaker 1: It's not because it was being amplified. People have tried
Speaker 1: this in the past. You know, I would wait both
Speaker 1: bristly and I've been around long enough to have seen
Speaker 1: algorithms when they were untweaked way back in the day,
Speaker 1: the before times. And actually I would say it was
Speaker 1: even crazier and more chaotic then in terms of what
Speaker 1: the you know, when real quote unquote free speech and
Speaker 1: all that would rain. There was some crazy shit that
Speaker 1: was going around on Twitter on Facebook.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know that my Twitter timeline
Speaker 2: has ever had more actual Nazis in it. With that
Speaker 2: is amount of an engagement that they have as it
Speaker 2: does right.
Speaker 1: Now, that's only because they're pushing it to you. But
Speaker 1: again that actually kind of shows what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that they're pushing it to you because they want to
Speaker 1: piss you off and make sure that people are engaging
Speaker 1: with that. I mean, I remember, you know when Isis
Speaker 1: had free reign on the internet and all that. These
Speaker 1: were crazy times. So this experiment has been run and
Speaker 1: on an engagement level, it just doesn't work, I do think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you're right in terms of electorally,
Speaker 1: the interesting point on it is about specifically that now
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump is president, trying to vibe and tone
Speaker 1: shift it towards something positive. Again, I just don't think
Speaker 1: that it's going to work. I also would note that
Speaker 1: this came after Elon himself found the very first time
Speaker 1: that he has truly pissed off a significant portion of
Speaker 1: the Baga political base, and since then has really been
Speaker 1: trying to retrench and move away from and engage with
Speaker 1: topics that get those people back on his side. That
Speaker 1: is actually what I would say is behind all of
Speaker 1: this is that for the very first time, Elon got
Speaker 1: really a taste of his own medicine, or not his,
Speaker 1: of what it's like to be engaged in politics online,
Speaker 1: which is it's a dirt. You know, it's dirty, it's
Speaker 1: a nasty business. You took a position, you insulted a
Speaker 1: significant portion of the people who voted for the political
Speaker 1: party and for the candidate that you pushed, who happened
Speaker 1: to just disagree with you on a policy. You call
Speaker 1: it what did he say? There are idiots or my
Speaker 1: mouth breathing morons or something like that.
Speaker 2: He's said many things about yeah.
Speaker 1: For disagreeing with him on H one BE policy, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden he's like, oh, well, we
Speaker 1: just need to be positive. It's like, well, does positive
Speaker 1: mean unlimited H one b's for the Tesla Company? I
Speaker 1: think it might be. I think it might be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his ego was clearly bruised in exactly.
Speaker 1: And I mean they what's happened to the guy? Where's
Speaker 1: he been? No one's seen him since he said white
Speaker 1: people are lazy. You know, It's like Vivike where are you?
Speaker 1: Where are you out there somewhere? It's in a while,
Speaker 1: we haven't heard from you. Where's the truth? Vivic tell
Speaker 1: us more about Boy Meets World and Saved by the
Speaker 1: Bell was dying over there?
Speaker 2: Oh did you see the clip of him literally in October.
Speaker 2: So we're talking like that three months ago saying the
Speaker 2: polar opposite thing about h one Be's.
Speaker 1: What did he say?
Speaker 2: He well, because his cope was like, no, I haven't
Speaker 2: changed my position. I've always wanted to reform the program.
Speaker 2: But there's a clip of him with Charlie Kirka at
Speaker 2: some turning points event where he is like, no, my
Speaker 2: belief is if a pro there's a problem with the program,
Speaker 2: it needs to be destroyed entirely. And say, I mean,
Speaker 2: he sounded like, you know, the simpler things that Steve
Speaker 2: Bannon and culture have been saying about h one B's
Speaker 2: and that I'm sure you would probably echo in yours
Speaker 2: in some ways in my comments as well, he sounded
Speaker 2: exactly like that. And now you know, three seconds later
Speaker 2: when he's on Doge, when he's got you know, in
Speaker 2: the Elon camp, suddenly there's a suddenly white people are
Speaker 2: lazy and we need to have h one B labor.
Speaker 1: But we need to stop Corey from you know, I'll
Speaker 1: save my commentary. I still I'm going to do a
Speaker 1: long mile a long about this. I know Vivic. I
Speaker 1: grew up with Vivic. These are deep seated wounds. Some
Speaker 1: of us went one way, others went the other way.
Speaker 1: Wanted to generate the mat.
Speaker 2: That came out. Actually that this was a deep seated way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's been sitting there for thirty years.
Speaker 1: I mean, who the kid still cares about Boy Meets World?
Speaker 1: What's wrong with you?
Speaker 2: I know? And talking about mule culture. I'm like, mule
Speaker 2: culture doesn't exist, and it was better when it did.
Speaker 2: Button way, like that was Actually the culture you're talking
Speaker 2: about is superior to what we have now.
Speaker 1: You just know, there was a skinny math Olympia Vivike
Speaker 1: sitting at the food court and no girls were talking
Speaker 1: to him, and he was staring across it limited to
Speaker 1: watching them gather, and he was like, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I just wish that they would acknowledge my existence.
Speaker 2: He was, like I said, drafting this manifesto in his
Speaker 2: head as he sat there.
Speaker 1: I grew up with Vivic. I think I understood, like
Speaker 1: with the Vics of the world. I think I understand
Speaker 1: him very deep psychological legs.
Speaker 2: I know we're digressing. But the thing that I've been
Speaker 2: dying to talk to you about this, the thing that
Speaker 2: was interesting to me is like, actually didn't grow up
Speaker 2: with the Vikes, because I grew up in this like
Speaker 2: you know, small town or whatever. But I grew I
Speaker 2: What I have witnessed is when I lived in Manhattan
Speaker 2: and I got to see these like wealthy elites in
Speaker 2: the way they raised their kids. The way they raised
Speaker 2: their kids is like the model that the Vike is pushing,
Speaker 2: which I always found to be really sort of like
Speaker 2: soulless and horrible because it was all like from the
Speaker 2: time the child is born, we have to get them
Speaker 2: in the right playgroup. We have to get them or
Speaker 2: in the right preschool, we have to get them in
Speaker 2: the right tutoring said. They need to learn Latin, they
Speaker 2: need to be on the violin. Fencing is the best
Speaker 2: way to get into an ivy League school. So they
Speaker 2: need to take up fencing. And it's like Jesus got like,
Speaker 2: let these kids have a life ounside of your goals
Speaker 2: and aspirations and molding them into the perfect like market shareholder,
Speaker 2: value driven machine. So that was the part of it
Speaker 2: that I was like, Oh, actually, the culture I've seen
Speaker 2: that you're describing isn't an immigrant culture necessarily. It's this
Speaker 2: elite white culture that I saw in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: But well, I would say elite whites barred it from us.
Speaker 1: But the truth is is that it is. There's so
Speaker 1: much to say. It is terrible. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: some things you can learn from it which are good.
Speaker 1: I would say Amy Chua, herself, the original Tiger Mother,
Speaker 1: says she has huge regrets about the way that she
Speaker 1: raised her kids. Interesting, yeah, which I think is important,
Speaker 1: you know, for people who actually follow that model. And
Speaker 1: by the way, let's look at the results. You know,
Speaker 1: our kids have turned out great. You know, I think
Speaker 1: they what are they? Oh my god, we're going in
Speaker 1: such a candent, but I think they both went to
Speaker 1: Harvard and they clerked for Kavanar or whatever. But they're
Speaker 1: around my age, so it's like, well, what else have
Speaker 1: you done? But what's going on here?
Speaker 2: This is my problem too, is the the worldview that
Speaker 2: Vivek is espousing is effectively the one that was sold
Speaker 2: underneath liberals and both by elite Republicans and Democrats. It's like,
Speaker 2: if you're failing, it's your fault and you screwed up
Speaker 2: or you screwed up your kids, or your culture is
Speaker 2: defective or whatever. And Number one only values people inso
Speaker 2: much as they go to Harvard and have a company
Speaker 2: and you know, have this like very material based, you know,
Speaker 2: market based success and ignores any other values. And part
Speaker 2: of why this was so such an incredible moment in
Speaker 2: the Trumpest movement is in some ways at least the
Speaker 2: idea of trump Ism was a rejection of that was
Speaker 2: saying like, no, we shouldn't just be driven by like, oh,
Speaker 2: we can lift the GDP by a little bit, and
Speaker 2: that's what we should do. It's like, no, there are
Speaker 2: other values that matter, and there are other human qualities
Speaker 2: too that matter. So that was part of what I
Speaker 2: found so extraordinary about it. Not to mention it was
Speaker 2: just like the sort of things that Republicans say all
Speaker 2: the time about like black culture or Latino culture or whatever.
Speaker 2: Now the gaze is turned on white people and there's
Speaker 2: a big uproar over it. But anyway, I think it
Speaker 2: was a very important actual moment in the you know,
Speaker 2: as the next Trump administration is forming, and as we're
Speaker 2: getting a picture of what these divides are going to
Speaker 2: be and what these fights are going to be, because
Speaker 2: you and I have been talking about how there are
Speaker 2: these vast ideological divides between the Elon Musk view of
Speaker 2: the world and at least the Trump narrative that's been
Speaker 2: sold of the world. Now, Trump of course comes in
Speaker 2: and wholeheartedly backs Elon and had already I mean, he'd
Speaker 2: already affected or taken this position, so you know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't new, but you know it is in some ways
Speaker 2: that illustrated how that position is directly contradictory to the
Speaker 2: narrative that he has sold of the world that has
Speaker 2: made him such a political sit It.
Speaker 1: Will also really manifest what we're tracking right now is
Speaker 1: the Republicans are on track try and get a major
Speaker 1: bill through Congress by April. One bill or two. They
Speaker 1: haven't decided yet which one it is, which is going
Speaker 1: to include immigration taxes, and I think there's a third one.
Speaker 1: I'm oh terriffs, So it's going to include three of
Speaker 1: the most contracts. Now here's a big question, what is
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's White House going to push which is
Speaker 1: going to include in that bill because the Republican Party currently,
Speaker 1: as is constitutent in Congress, spans the gamut from we
Speaker 1: need unlimited legal migration, including a massive expansion of H
Speaker 1: one B to air immigration moratorium like where I am,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of stuff that's in the middle. Now
Speaker 1: it's going to be some sort of quote unquote compromise.
Speaker 1: We have no idea what that looks like. But if
Speaker 1: is Donald J. Trump, for example, going to side you know,
Speaker 1: with the fortune five hundred, not just rhetorically, but be like, no,
Speaker 1: I won't pass a bill that doesn't include uncapped H
Speaker 1: one B country quotas. You know, these are all like
Speaker 1: actually interesting questions.
Speaker 2: The other thing that Elon is doing on Twitter is
Speaker 2: apparently introduced these sort of like I don't know, social
Speaker 2: credit scores that indicate like if you go on Twitter,
Speaker 2: your Twitter user, and you ask rock what is my
Speaker 2: ex score? It will tell you and then it will
Speaker 2: give you some indication of like, well, you know you're
Speaker 2: doing okay, but your content is just like not that
Speaker 2: engaging or whatever. One thing people have found is that
Speaker 2: there is a mass number of people myself and yourself included,
Speaker 2: many people have been tying it to like, if you've
Speaker 2: posted about Israel's genocide and gospel, I.
Speaker 1: Think that's that's the connective because I don't post about Israel, right.
Speaker 2: But maybe you're too closely tied to me and Ryan
Speaker 2: or what. I don't know. But in any case, we
Speaker 2: get a thirty eight out of one hundred, so it's
Speaker 2: not a good score, which means that we're effectively not
Speaker 2: really being super promoted by the algorithm. And Steve Bannon,
Speaker 2: who's always an interesting voice on these things and has
Speaker 2: been extremely adversarial towards Elon Musk for a while now actually,
Speaker 2: and has been kind of consistent in it to his credit,
Speaker 2: he weighed in and described these as effectively communist social
Speaker 2: credit scores. Let me just see where. Let me pull
Speaker 2: up this video and start a little ways in so
Speaker 2: you can hear Bannett's comments about this.
Speaker 4: This is the danger of the guy, it's told, this
Speaker 4: is the CCP, this is a social credit score.
Speaker 5: This is way he's gone to.
Speaker 4: He's got glass draw he can't take because of the
Speaker 4: I don't know, the autism worries, and the spectrum is
Speaker 4: clear not he's got the maturity of a loven year old.
Speaker 4: You can tell that but he's it's obvious he can't
Speaker 4: take criticism. One of his weaknesses is that he needs
Speaker 4: to be loved. He needs the masses to love him.
Speaker 4: You can tell me he's on the stage. He needs
Speaker 4: that glory. For instance, I don't give a damn right
Speaker 4: as long as the objective. That's why twelve o'clock heis
Speaker 4: on a movie. It's the objective. Whatever happens doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: It's the objective. It's the objective of the accounts and
Speaker 4: nothing else. They say it when it all costs, Hey,
Speaker 4: you have to win. You don't need anything else. He
Speaker 4: must have adoration.
Speaker 2: You can tell that.
Speaker 3: It lights him up.
Speaker 4: So then when the platform, when his zaparas turns against him,
Speaker 4: and particularly people that cheered him, saying, hey, we don't
Speaker 4: we hate what you're doing to this country. We know
Speaker 4: now that you're in you're lying to us, bald faced live.
Speaker 4: These are not higher skill people. When they turn all
Speaker 4: of a sudden, he has to go to what's the
Speaker 4: Chinese credit score? This is to have a digital ghetto
Speaker 4: and to only have raised up what praises him. That
Speaker 4: that's the that's the that is like the little boy's mentality.
Speaker 4: If I want to be the superhero. I want to
Speaker 4: put the cape on and kind of skip around.
Speaker 2: So you get a sense there. But I mean, I
Speaker 2: think he's spot on in his analysis effectively what you
Speaker 2: were saying as well with regard to you know, the
Speaker 2: way now he's weighing in on all these global politics
Speaker 2: and pulling back up this grooming gang scandal from ten
Speaker 2: years ago in the UK to try to rewin for
Speaker 2: Curry favor with the right wing magabase that was pissed
Speaker 2: off at him over h one b tweaking the algorithm,
Speaker 2: instituting these scores. All of these things are you know,
Speaker 2: attempt to use this tool that he purchased for his
Speaker 2: own ends. Sometimes those ends may have, you know, things
Speaker 2: that I agree with, they may be in line with
Speaker 2: things that you agree with, and sometimes they won't be.
Speaker 2: And that's why I've tried to consistently say the problem
Speaker 2: here is the principle of having oligarchs with so much power,
Speaker 2: including power within media, obviously power within government. Now he
Speaker 2: feels like he can wait into politics in any number
Speaker 2: of countries and try to control the outcomes around the world,
Speaker 2: and that is something that on principle we should reject
Speaker 2: because it's short circuits the actual functioning of democracy here.
Speaker 2: And so now that some portion of the MAGA sees that,
Speaker 2: now they've become aware of, like suddenly they're realizing, Oh,
Speaker 2: it turns out x isn't a free speech platform. For example,
Speaker 2: it turns out Elon is perfectly willing to censor when
Speaker 2: he finds the content to be to be inconvenient for him.
Speaker 2: This has again long been the case, but now on
Speaker 2: the right there's increasingly more awareness of it because it's
Speaker 2: been trained at some of them. I mean, he's like
Speaker 2: banned gropers and stuff like that who have been critical
Speaker 2: of him. In this H one B visa fight, he
Speaker 2: actually banned I can put this up on the scrange
Speaker 2: just get your reaction to this, as well as Steve Bannon.
Speaker 2: He actually banned this journalist who did a deep dive
Speaker 2: into Adrian Dittman. For people who are not initiated, there's
Speaker 2: been a whole theory that this character on Twitter, Adrian Dittman,
Speaker 2: who sounds a lot like Elon and is this massive
Speaker 2: Elon simp that this was actually Elon's old account. So
Speaker 2: this journalist went and like actually found out, No, here
Speaker 2: is Adrian Dittman. He is an actual human being. Here's
Speaker 2: where he lives, Here's what he does, not like his
Speaker 2: specific house, but like here's the country he lives in.
Speaker 2: And Elon apparently banned this journalist for revealing the truth
Speaker 2: about Adriane Ditman. And I guess the theory is quote
Speaker 2: unquote doxing. But seemed like a perfectly legitimate journalistic enterprise.
Speaker 2: And again it's not like, not like this journalist posted
Speaker 2: Adrian's house or you know, specific like address or anything
Speaker 2: of that nature. So anyway, it's kind of wild, especially
Speaker 2: because you would think that he would be happy that
Speaker 2: the truth about this was exposed. But I guess he
Speaker 2: kind of liked the game of people thinking that Agel
Speaker 2: was him or whatever. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Look, Elon is like a king. He's like a capricious monarch.
Speaker 1: And so actually I think Curtis Yarvin I heard him
Speaker 1: say this. He's like, you know, the law applies equally
Speaker 1: to all citizens except for the king. So if you
Speaker 1: come with the king, then the law no longer applies.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I think that's basically accurate for those
Speaker 1: who wanted Elon to be you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I've always been pretty ride on the show as
Speaker 1: to like what Eon is exactly for the rest of
Speaker 1: those sorry to burst your bubble. Nobody's perfect, nobody is
Speaker 1: ever going to be you know, some great uh selfless
Speaker 1: hero Elon's in this game, you know for and also look,
Speaker 1: I mean in the H one B thing in particular,
Speaker 1: that might be the single biggest threat, you know, if
Speaker 1: there was a restriction to the Tesla business. Tesla right
Speaker 1: now is not doing that well. Their stock has popped,
Speaker 1: but they have major problems going into this year with sales,
Speaker 1: and they've had this price cut strategy and others. Right
Speaker 1: now the stock you know, which is a significantly put
Speaker 1: pressure on them to deliver and to they all these
Speaker 1: promotions and other things. A lot of the great you know,
Speaker 1: original sales of the company and the hype surrounding that
Speaker 1: on top of Elon himself is like personal image has
Speaker 1: been starting to show in some of their sales data.
Speaker 1: This is from literal Wall Street people that I've read
Speaker 1: who are analyzing the stock, so H one B and
Speaker 1: keeping labor costs and all of that down is actually
Speaker 1: vital to Tesla the company. Also to SpaceX, by the way,
Speaker 1: which are you know, miraculously to companies which heavily rely
Speaker 1: on what engineers, and on keeping and making sure that
Speaker 1: the talent of all of that is paid as little
Speaker 1: as possible. Well, you know, miraculously. Of course, He's going
Speaker 1: to use his tremendous wealth and his control of this
Speaker 1: platform to protect what is the most vital part of
Speaker 1: his entire network, which is the stock of Tesla. So
Speaker 1: I think people should also be very clear eyed where
Speaker 1: all of that is. There have been times where Elon,
Speaker 1: as you know, sometimes Elon will act in such a
Speaker 1: way which is beneficial to you know, whatever, But at
Speaker 1: the same time, like, let's not forget where all these
Speaker 1: people's bread is buttered. This applies to everybody, to Zuk,
Speaker 1: to Elon, to Jeff Bezos, to Tim Cook, you know,
Speaker 1: and all these other folks. I mean, what I do
Speaker 1: at least appreciate about this is that for years, so
Speaker 1: many of these people want wanted to claim that their
Speaker 1: company's success and future and all of that is wholly
Speaker 1: you know, divorced from the United States government. But what
Speaker 1: you are obviously seeing in real time is that the
Speaker 1: policy of trade, the policy of tax, the policy and
Speaker 1: foreign policy of the United States government is the is
Speaker 1: the actual, like major determination of a lot of these companies'
Speaker 1: success and the opening of trade to China. I mean,
Speaker 1: why do you think Tim Cook is given a million
Speaker 1: dollars to Donald Trump's inauguration fund out of the goodness
Speaker 1: of his heart? Or because China is their number one
Speaker 1: market for iPhone and they're already having problems. You know,
Speaker 1: why do you think so many of these people are
Speaker 1: you know, Amazon, one of the companies most susceptible to
Speaker 1: tear iff pressure is going to be Amazon because half
Speaker 1: the ship people buy off of there is not even half,
Speaker 1: probably more is made in China. Crap the lithium that
Speaker 1: is in a Tesla battery, Giga Shanghai, one of the
Speaker 1: largest producers of Tesla's in the world, is he located there?
Speaker 1: All of this You know, I could go on forever.
Speaker 2: Well, and I'm sure you took note too that in
Speaker 2: this whole like spending fight which Elin and Viveig pasture like,
Speaker 2: oh this is so principal, blah blah blah. One of
Speaker 2: the things that they got pulled down of the original
Speaker 2: bill was restrictions on high tech investment in China, which
Speaker 2: I'm sure that was like that was the most important
Speaker 2: part of this fight for Elon when he saw that
Speaker 2: and was like, oh, we can't have this, so let
Speaker 2: me throw a fit about these, you know, and try
Speaker 2: to create an ideological point that conservatives can agree with
Speaker 2: in an effort to strip the sound in the bill,
Speaker 2: and lo and behold it stripped on the bill, and
Speaker 2: suddenly he likes the bill and the bill passes. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he has his own ideological and personal self interest goals
Speaker 2: and everyone needs to keep their eye on that ball.
Speaker 2: At the same time, you know, there's been we covered
Speaker 2: yesterday with Ryan the whole like going after here Starmer
Speaker 2: and bringing back up these grooming gangs from ten years ago,
Speaker 2: horrific scandal. Like don't get I don't want to minimize it,
Speaker 2: but it was a decade ago. There have been, you know,
Speaker 2: lots of reports analyzing what happened, and actually the criticism
Speaker 2: is that the recommendations of those reports have not been
Speaker 2: implemented either under Cure Starmar or under the previous conservative administration.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's pretty clear what's going on here
Speaker 2: in terms of him trying to rescue his own reputation
Speaker 2: with Megan, not to mention, you know, the the other
Speaker 2: side of it, as he gets to meddle in other
Speaker 2: countries politics and see how it goes for him there,
Speaker 2: and see if he can get an administration that's more
Speaker 2: friendly to him there as well. So the latest in
Speaker 2: this battle, as he says this on Acts, he says,
Speaker 2: America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.
Speaker 2: Yes or no, you know, shit posting, but anyway, and
Speaker 2: I say yes.
Speaker 1: You know, see and I don't know. I have a
Speaker 1: very soft spot for the UK.
Speaker 2: I know you love the UK.
Speaker 1: I love the UK.
Speaker 2: So you take the UK but not Canada.
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, the seed of our culture, the seat of
Speaker 1: the Anglo, the seat of Anglo culture. You know, we
Speaker 1: owe it to a lot of them. My own history,
Speaker 1: my background. You know, my wife is Irish too. We've
Speaker 1: all been colonized by the British. But then we came
Speaker 1: to him America, you know, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: we have a lot of ties to the UK culturally,
Speaker 1: but you know, in general, what I find again about
Speaker 1: this is his own like capricious and frankly you know
Speaker 1: now that he has real political power. Someone made a
Speaker 1: good point, you know, now in what is it January seventh,
Speaker 1: so thirteen days, Elon Musk will be a United States
Speaker 1: official and all but name, he effectively will be like
Speaker 1: an envoy of Donald J. Trump, whether he's appointed by
Speaker 1: the US government or not, you know, going out and
Speaker 1: interfering in the internural politics of the UK, specifically with
Speaker 1: an ideological movement like Nigel Farage. Here calling for Nigel
Speaker 1: Farage saying he doesn't have what it takes to be
Speaker 1: reform leader. I mean, that is one of the most
Speaker 1: insane statements I've ever heard. Nigel Farage is almost single
Speaker 1: handedly responsible not only for reform, but for being the
Speaker 1: og on Brexit, for calling so many of the anti
Speaker 1: EU forces, for coalescing the criticism of the conservative and
Speaker 1: liberal governments, and of being anti neoliberal itself. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like, I don't know, I can't even think
Speaker 1: of a comp here in the Honestly, the comp would
Speaker 1: be saying Donald J. Trump doesn't have what it takes, Like,
Speaker 1: are you sterious? This is one of the most important
Speaker 1: political figures in UK history and like to say he
Speaker 1: doesn't have what it takes whenever he was responsible for
Speaker 1: building this thing out of nothing, for having UKIP be
Speaker 1: the force that it was for criticizing, you know, for
Speaker 1: pushing Brexit then criticizing the neoliberal Brexit that eventually happened,
Speaker 1: is just ridiculous. He's the only person who has any
Speaker 1: sort of name ID credentials, you know, credentials, and frankly,
Speaker 1: just like the credibility on all of these issues that
Speaker 1: these voters, you know, who have been betrayed by the
Speaker 1: Conservative Party and by the Labor Party. For Elon to
Speaker 1: just you know, decide willy nilly to these people, you
Speaker 1: know that this guy doesn't have what it takes is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I mean, Faraje himself came out and spoke against that.
Speaker 1: A lot of the people who've worked for him, people
Speaker 1: like Raheem Kassam and others, have just been like a sorry, Elon,
Speaker 1: your moron. You know, this is a real This is
Speaker 1: just one of those like arrogant parachuting in and deciding
Speaker 1: that you think that you know better than others. And
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it worked in America.
Speaker 2: Such a commentrait with billionaires of like they think because
Speaker 2: they were good at something, that they're going to be
Speaker 2: good at everything, and especially when they start dabbling in politics.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean in America, sure, it worked because
Speaker 2: he gave a quarter of a billion dollars to Donald
Speaker 2: Trump and guess what that's gonna buy. And Donald Trump
Speaker 2: is an extremely transactional figure. And by the way, Elon
Speaker 2: is a lot more popular, although his popular is kind
Speaker 2: of going like this in the US at this point,
Speaker 2: but he's way more popular in the US than he
Speaker 2: is in the UK, so that gives him more cultural
Speaker 2: power as well. I mean he's now a US citizen,
Speaker 2: so that also gives him more power in terms of
Speaker 2: the say of our politics. Is the foreign national just
Speaker 2: popping into UK politics and trying to tell them what's
Speaker 2: But Farage is in a position where he thinks he
Speaker 2: could achieve potentially and his party could achieve real power,
Speaker 2: so they don't want to embrace, for example, you know,
Speaker 2: not even controversial like criminal figures like Tommy Robinson, who
Speaker 2: that seems to be the source of the rift between
Speaker 2: him and Elon, because Elon has also been going to
Speaker 2: the matt defending Tommy Robinson, who's in prison for lying
Speaker 2: about this fifteen year old Syrian refugee and claiming that
Speaker 2: he was part of these grooming gangs, which was found
Speaker 2: to be inaccurate. He kept doing it and then is
Speaker 2: ultimately thrown in prison for it. And you can debate
Speaker 2: whether that's an over the top reaction or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely think it is. But it's like, look,
Speaker 1: the whole grooming thing is just so annoying to me,
Speaker 1: because I was telling you I wrote this is one
Speaker 1: of the first stories I ever wrote about, was the
Speaker 1: grooming scandal, the Roterham cover up. So much of what
Speaker 1: has happened there. It was, by the way, a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't know this, but one of the precipitating
Speaker 1: things that actually influenced Brexit and was one of those
Speaker 1: those issues which was a sleeper with the British working class. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's about immigration and about the refugee crisis, as we
Speaker 1: also saw with serious rape allegations and cover ups for
Speaker 1: example in Germany and Sweden and elsewhere. You can debate
Speaker 1: that if you want to, but I'm telling you that
Speaker 1: it was very important. The thing is with e On
Speaker 1: is they kind of like came out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Well, it's just disgusting to pretend like you care about
Speaker 2: an issue when you only came to it because you
Speaker 2: think it serves your own personal ends. Like that means
Speaker 2: you don't actually care about it, right and for you know,
Speaker 2: Barry Weissu's now writing articles about it on her website,
Speaker 2: like you only care about this now ten years later
Speaker 2: because you want to use these people and their horror
Speaker 2: to make a political point, and that really is actually grotesque.
Speaker 2: It actually is disgusting to use it as a cultural
Speaker 2: cudgel and displays that you don't actually and aren't actually
Speaker 2: serious about the issue. The other thing that's happened here
Speaker 2: that I wanted to quickly get to is a bunch
Speaker 2: of European leaders now react acting. You've had Emmanuel Macron
Speaker 2: wide in. Let me get rid of that. There we go.
Speaker 2: Emmanuel Makron joins growing criticism of Elon Musk in Europe.
Speaker 2: He's added his voice to a growing chorus of European
Speaker 2: criticisms of Elon Musk, joined the Norwegian and British prime
Speaker 2: ministers and a German government spokesperson on Monday, and responding
Speaker 2: to a barrage of hostile posts by Musk, Macron said, specifically,
Speaker 2: ten years ago, who would have imagined that the owner
Speaker 2: of one of the world's largest social networks would be
Speaker 2: supporting a new international reactionary movement and intervening directly in elections,
Speaker 2: including in Germany. You also had the Norwegian leader saying,
Speaker 2: I find it worrying a man with enormous access to
Speaker 2: social media and huge economic resources involves himself so directly
Speaker 2: in the internal affairs of other countries. This is not
Speaker 2: the way things should be between democratic allies. In Germany
Speaker 2: they had similar comments saying like hands off our democracy
Speaker 2: was one of the one of the comments here. So
Speaker 2: there's a huge backlash among European leaders who of course
Speaker 2: feel like you know, they don't want they want to
Speaker 2: learn some of the lessons from what happened here and
Speaker 2: the level of influence that Elon Musk has. The UK
Speaker 2: is moving to potential, potentially block some of the contributions
Speaker 2: that he could theoretically make through a corporate entity into
Speaker 2: British politics so that they, you know, don't have the
Speaker 2: same level of corrupting influence of money that we have
Speaker 2: had here as well. And also the Europeans are more
Speaker 2: open to the idea of we could just ban the platform,
Speaker 2: like we could just take a harder line in terms
Speaker 2: of allowing Twitter, you know, our citizens to have Twitter
Speaker 2: access at all. So I think those are all things
Speaker 2: at the on the table. Now that Elon has made
Speaker 2: it quite clear he wants to use Twitter as a
Speaker 2: weapon of Ryan called it like a weapon of regime
Speaker 2: change in these various countries. Now, whether you'd have the
Speaker 2: same success in these countries as he has here is
Speaker 2: an open question. But clearly, when you're talking about the
Speaker 2: richest man on the planet, he's going to have some influence,
Speaker 2: He's going to have some sway, especially when he has
Speaker 2: this very powerful social media platform.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh look, I don't think the UK should ban
Speaker 1: Twitter or anything else. I don't think that. I think
Speaker 1: the EU is way too censorious, the Germans and others
Speaker 1: too high ended. People know of my disdain and hatred
Speaker 1: for Europe. All of that said, they are proud people
Speaker 1: in their own right and in general. You know, when
Speaker 1: I would say this about any country us going and
Speaker 1: trying to inter I mean just imagine if there was
Speaker 1: like some British oligarch who came over to hear and
Speaker 1: was trying to tell us, so I'd be like, shut
Speaker 1: the fuck up, get out of my country. And look
Speaker 1: the UK and Germany and others as beaten down and
Speaker 1: ridiculous to some of their populations. Maybe from time to time.
Speaker 1: They themselves are a proud people with their own long history,
Speaker 1: and I would not personally recommend it. I would never
Speaker 1: you know, have the gall to go to the UK
Speaker 1: and be like Nigel Farage, you don't have what it takes,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're a guest or something else in
Speaker 1: another country. I think you should act that way. And
Speaker 1: especially now for Zuckerberg, for Elon and all of these
Speaker 1: other folks. I mean, this is part of the problem
Speaker 1: that they've always had. These are not just American companies,
Speaker 1: they're global. I mean, you know, his Meta has three
Speaker 1: billion daily active users. The United States population is only
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty million. That means that the vast
Speaker 1: majority of their user base is foreign. You have the
Speaker 1: same thing with I think with Twitter it's still a
Speaker 1: bit more skewed, but you know, they have a very
Speaker 1: large percentage of the user base and others, so you know,
Speaker 1: you also need to tread lightly. And this is also
Speaker 1: probably some of the problems that they themselves have faced.
Speaker 1: We'll see how it works out. I honestly have no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and get to Mark
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg and when he's up.
Speaker 1: To okay, some big News this morning, as Crystal alluded
Speaker 1: to Mark Zuckerberg in probably the biggest vibe shift knee
Speaker 1: bend video I've ever seen from one of these people
Speaker 1: has released a new video dropped around seven am this morning.
Speaker 1: We're gonna watch it all together. I'll just give the
Speaker 1: top line for people who are wondering. Number one, Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: says they are ending their content moderation and censorship policies
Speaker 1: around quote unquote misinformation, including moving the team to Texas.
Speaker 1: Two is all political content will no longer be censored
Speaker 1: on the Instagram platform, meaning that previously people who needed
Speaker 1: to opt in to view accounts such as Crystal and
Speaker 1: I to engage with anything political, that gait will be
Speaker 1: taken off, he announces as well. About what did he say,
Speaker 1: He says that specific topics like gender and immigration will
Speaker 1: no longer be censored, so it is just tonally. I
Speaker 1: want everybody to listen to this because again, this is
Speaker 1: like the biggest vibe shift I have ever seen. Let's
Speaker 1: take it to get.
Speaker 6: Back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 6: I started bilding social media to give people a voice.
Speaker 6: I gave a speech at Georgetown five years ago about
Speaker 6: the importance of protecting free expression, and I still believe
Speaker 6: this today, but a lot has happened over the last
Speaker 6: several years. There's been widespread debate about potential harms from
Speaker 6: online content. Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor
Speaker 6: more and more. A lot of this is clearly political,
Speaker 6: but there's also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there. Drugs, terrorism,
Speaker 6: child exploitation. These are things that we take very seriously
Speaker 6: and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly.
Speaker 6: So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content.
Speaker 6: But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes.
Speaker 6: Even if they accidentally censor just one percent of posts,
Speaker 6: that's millions of people, and we've reached a point where
Speaker 6: it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The
Speaker 6: recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards
Speaker 6: once again prioritizing speech. So we're going to get back
Speaker 6: to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our
Speaker 6: polllo in restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically,
Speaker 6: here's what we're going to do. First. We're going to
Speaker 6: get rid of fact checkers.
Speaker 1: All right, So replacing fact checkers with community notes. By
Speaker 1: the way, we've talked about this before. I'm very anti community.
Speaker 2: Notes that more pro community notes.
Speaker 1: I think all content should float on its own. I
Speaker 1: do not. I'm not a fan of just like users
Speaker 1: deciding what's true and what's not. I actually was community noted,
Speaker 1: and it was extremely stupid. I just want people to
Speaker 1: know it's not personal, because I've said this way before.
Speaker 1: I also was subject, yes, but but I will note
Speaker 1: that it was a confirmation to me in that I
Speaker 1: got piled on by a bunch of Ukraine fanatics because
Speaker 1: I had put out a post being like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: it's insane that Ukraine is assassinating Russian generals on the
Speaker 1: streets of Moscow, and the community note was like, this
Speaker 1: is a normal practice during war and it cited the
Speaker 1: US operation to kill admiral like Yamamo and World War Two,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to be like, yeah, that's the same,
Speaker 1: except for the US was on a client state of
Speaker 1: anyone else during World War Two, and we do weren't
Speaker 1: reliant on i don't know, like the UK or whatever
Speaker 1: just to apply all of our weapons when we were
Speaker 1: doing that. So I'm just saying, you know, it has
Speaker 1: bad context. And I'm very against the policy.
Speaker 2: Well, I just to defend community notes, since you're shitting
Speaker 2: on community notes. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I
Speaker 2: do think for me, it's helpful when there's a community
Speaker 2: note there and you can just kind of like evaluate
Speaker 2: the note with regards to the content. And I also
Speaker 2: do enjoy you know, some of the pylons in community
Speaker 2: notes are funny as.
Speaker 1: Well, so it's definitely fun, especially when people post stupid shit.
Speaker 2: I think it's I guess what I would say is,
Speaker 2: I think it is superior to having some body of
Speaker 2: so called experts who are you know, creating decisions from
Speaker 2: on high with no ability to input or fight back
Speaker 2: or whatever. I think that community notes are a superior
Speaker 2: innovation for that previous model. So I think this is like,
Speaker 2: I think this is an improvement in terms of the
Speaker 2: Facebook slash meta context.
Speaker 1: Definitely an improvement as opposed to straight up censorship, but
Speaker 1: still not the one I would I would like to
Speaker 1: see at all. Just let fly number two, he says
Speaker 1: they're simplifying their content policies. Three, this was the new
Speaker 1: approach to policy enforcer. I'm going to play a little
Speaker 1: bit of this because this one will see it.
Speaker 6: Third, we're changing how we enforce our policies to reduce
Speaker 6: the mistakes that account for the vast majority of censorship
Speaker 6: on our platforms. We used to have filters that scanned
Speaker 6: for any policy violation. Now we're going to focus those
Speaker 6: filters on tackling illegal and high severity violations, and for
Speaker 6: lower severity violations, we're going to rely on someone reporting
Speaker 6: an issue before we take action. The problem is that the.
Speaker 1: Filter's basically saying that the filter itself will no longer
Speaker 1: automatically remove content. Number four. This was what I was
Speaker 1: talking about, quote unquote bringing back civic content, as we
Speaker 1: have explained before, and actually just personally crystalized accounts. I
Speaker 1: have seen this. We don't really care about our Instagram followings,
Speaker 1: but it was interesting. In the first two years of
Speaker 1: us starting rising and all of that, both of us
Speaker 1: are masked somewhere around two hundred thousand followers on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We have not gained a net follower in over three
Speaker 1: years because of this policy. Just to show what it means,
Speaker 1: which basically, if you post anything political, people have to
Speaker 1: opt in to seeing political content. So this effectively has
Speaker 1: removed political content from their algorithm. Here, Zuckerberg says they
Speaker 1: are reversing that.
Speaker 6: Policy back civic content. For a while, the community asked
Speaker 6: to see less politics because it was making people stressed,
Speaker 6: so we stopped recommending these posts. But it feels like
Speaker 6: we're in a new era now and we're starting to
Speaker 6: get feedback that people want to see this content again.
Speaker 6: So we're going to start phasing this back into Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 6: and threads while working to keep the communities friendly and positive. Fifth,
Speaker 6: we're going to move our trust and safety and content
Speaker 6: moderation teams out of California, and our US based content
Speaker 6: review is going to be based in Texas. As we
Speaker 6: work to promote free expression. I think that will help
Speaker 6: us build trust to do this work in places where
Speaker 6: there is less concern about the bias of our teams. Finally,
Speaker 6: we're going to work with President Trump to push back
Speaker 6: on governments around the world. They're going after American companies
Speaker 6: and pushing to censor more. The US has the strongest constitutional.
Speaker 1: All right, So there we go. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: even play all of the amazing parts where he goes
Speaker 1: after the quote unquote Legacy Media, which I should note
Speaker 1: that he partnered with and listened to for, you know,
Speaker 1: basically the entirety of the Trump era. Look, you can
Speaker 1: read this in a variety of ways. I would read
Speaker 1: it in two. One is, this is a company that
Speaker 1: rightfully should be scared of government policy and the anti
Speaker 1: trust lawsuits. It is under active litigation right now from
Speaker 1: the United States government over you know, Department of Justice
Speaker 1: antitrust violations. So that's one. Two is obviously they also
Speaker 1: were on the different side of the literal popular vote
Speaker 1: of this selection. You know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: he notes in there is that the legacy media has
Speaker 1: constantly been pushing this narrative that you have, this narrative
Speaker 1: that you know, misinformation is a threat to democracy that
Speaker 1: he has said. He's like, clearly, you know, we are
Speaker 1: out of step, he says, quote with the mainstream discourse
Speaker 1: on even cites issues like gender and immigration, two of
Speaker 1: obviously the most hot button issues. So it is both
Speaker 1: like a retrenchment of a quote unquote like woke content moderation.
Speaker 1: But I think obviously it fits also with his you know,
Speaker 1: the company itself metas a multi one hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: or whatever market cap. I don't even know what it
Speaker 1: is right now. This is a company tremendously vulnerable to
Speaker 1: Department of Justice policy, and he wants to get on
Speaker 1: the good side of Donald Trump. Remember he's donating as
Speaker 1: well one million dollars through the Donald Trump Inaugural Fund.
Speaker 1: So there's a confluence of personal interests of cultural interest.
Speaker 1: And I mean, for me, it's just crazy. This is
Speaker 1: a man who I watched in real time go from
Speaker 1: giving a speech defending the ability of Holocaust deniers, which
Speaker 1: I agree with, by the way, as unpopular as that
Speaker 1: may sound, to be able to post on a Facebook platform.
Speaker 1: He then reverses that policy some years later, giving into
Speaker 1: this you know, legacy media stuff. Then five years later
Speaker 1: decides to give this Georgetown speech where he's like, actually,
Speaker 1: we stand for free expression and that's why you should ban TikTok.
Speaker 1: And now it's you know, it's just the constant moving
Speaker 1: around shows both the influence of corporate Uh, these corporations
Speaker 1: are under both from their shareholders, from the media and others,
Speaker 1: but also just it can be so capricious. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: just why And you know, if they had just stuck
Speaker 1: with the first principles from the very beginning, they would
Speaker 1: have been better off.
Speaker 2: But I truly believe that's the thing is they don't
Speaker 2: have principles. They're like, don't get confused to think that
Speaker 2: they have principles. They're trying to ride whatever political wave
Speaker 2: is ascended at the moment. And so, you know, in
Speaker 2: the early days of social media and then algorithmic social media,
Speaker 2: there was all this promise of democracy in the Arab
Speaker 2: Spring and this idea under like the Obama era. You know,
Speaker 2: Obama was very close with all of these tech titans
Speaker 2: and they were kind of an integral part of the
Speaker 2: democratic coalition at that point. All of this sense of
Speaker 2: the coalition of the ascendant and how this like liberal
Speaker 2: democratic order was just going to grow and you know,
Speaker 2: justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron and Barack Obama, like this
Speaker 2: was the model for the world for the future. And
Speaker 2: then in the Trump era, you know, in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: the sense from Zuckerberg and I think some of these
Speaker 2: other tech titans is that Tump is kind of this
Speaker 2: was kind of an aberration, right, this is a weird
Speaker 2: moment in time. He doesn't win the popular vote. Hillary
Speaker 2: Clinton is a uniquely flawed candidate who runs a uniquely
Speaker 2: bad campaign, and so the bet is effectively on the resistance,
Speaker 2: and you know, there's all this concern about misinformation and
Speaker 2: Russia and foreign interference and all of these sorts of things.
Speaker 2: And you know, and also the Trumpest movement did take
Speaker 2: a lot of energy and have a lot of sort
Speaker 2: of like you know, far right internet culture embedded into
Speaker 2: that initial Trump campaign. So there's a fear about that,
Speaker 2: and that's how they place their chips in that era.
Speaker 2: You know, that kind of continues through the Biden era
Speaker 2: and now with Trump winning and you have the rise
Speaker 2: of the right in many countries around the country and
Speaker 2: the really the fall of the neoliberals in all kinds
Speaker 2: of countries around the world, the bet is being placed
Speaker 2: very differently. You layer on top of that, like this
Speaker 2: was not just to bend the name that to Trump,
Speaker 2: it was also been the Knew video to Elon, which
Speaker 2: is you know, adopting the community notes, moving to Texas,
Speaker 2: adopting some of elon sort of framing and language. So
Speaker 2: he's recognizing these two power centers in American politics, both
Speaker 2: of whom can cause real problems for him personally, real
Speaker 2: problems for his company's bottom line, and he's doing what
Speaker 2: he can to get on the right side of both
Speaker 2: of them, and Donald Trump being the uniquely brazenly transactional
Speaker 2: person that he is, Like, if you're out there flattering
Speaker 2: him and say I'm gonna work with you in your
Speaker 2: noble mission to embrace free expression, which of course is bullshit.
Speaker 2: Trump is like wants to, you know, make people it
Speaker 2: easier for to suit people for libel and defamation. He
Speaker 2: wants to ban flag burning. I mean, he wants to
Speaker 2: deport anyone who says something he doesn't like about the
Speaker 2: country of the foreign country of Israel, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But he knows that if he flatters Trump and frames
Speaker 2: him in positive terms, that that's going to be better
Speaker 2: for him, and that that may well short circuit some
Speaker 2: of the cases against him and certainly will help to
Speaker 2: undercut any additional enforcement action against him. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: see this in align with Tim Cook and Sam Altman.
Speaker 2: Altman is the one, the other one who's the sort
Speaker 2: of prime example of doing the need ben not just
Speaker 2: to Trump but also to Elon, with whom he has
Speaker 2: like personal grievance but has gone out of his way
Speaker 2: to be like, Oh, I think Elon's going to do
Speaker 2: a great job at doje. I know he would never
Speaker 2: use like personal animis or petty grudges against people. Of
Speaker 2: course he wouldn't do that. So this is kind of
Speaker 2: the story of this moment in time and of the
Speaker 2: way these corporate titans are reading the global political mood
Speaker 2: and certainly the American domestic political mood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it is genuinely amusing. I also think there's
Speaker 1: been a personal evolution with Mark Zuckerberg ever since he
Speaker 1: got into martial arts. For example, here we have Mark
Speaker 1: has announced that Dana White will be joining the board
Speaker 1: of Meta. He says, I am excited to kick off
Speaker 1: the year when some exciting news we've been working on
Speaker 1: for a while, Dana White and a few others are
Speaker 1: joining Meta's board of directors. We have massive opportunities. He
Speaker 1: is the president CEO of UFC, built into one of
Speaker 1: the most popular, fastest growing, most popular sports enterprises in
Speaker 1: the world, and an entrepreneur Trump. Yes, that's right. He's
Speaker 1: also friends with Donald Trump. So two birds with just
Speaker 1: one stone. I think they're with Zuck. You know what
Speaker 1: I was fascinated by is, like you said, it is
Speaker 1: clear to me that Bezos and Zuck I think I
Speaker 1: mean jealous may be too. I think jealous is the
Speaker 1: correct word with Bezos. I don't know if that's the
Speaker 1: correct word with Duck. But these guys are online and
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're annoyed that Emon is soaking up
Speaker 1: the role that Zuckerberg, for example, once held under the
Speaker 1: Barack Obama administration, the pinnacle of American leadership, of innovation,
Speaker 1: of you know, the next step for American GDP. And
Speaker 1: so Zuck is watching all of this happen. He also
Speaker 1: has the Hydra, which he frankly created, you know, by
Speaker 1: bending the knee to Cheryl Sandberg and all these other
Speaker 1: idiots who he hired for the content moderation. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you remember how ridiculous things got Crystal where they
Speaker 1: had the independent Facebook board like the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like there were some sovereign nation that was going
Speaker 2: to pass judgment on all of us. But well, you're
Speaker 2: right to those names in particular. So all of these
Speaker 2: tech oligarchs that we're talking about, I think all of them,
Speaker 2: maybe not yeah, all of them, maybe not Bezos, And
Speaker 2: to be frank we don't really totally know, but they're
Speaker 2: all engaged in arms raies right now over AI and
Speaker 2: the amount of money and corporate focus on AI really
Speaker 2: dwarfs pretty much anything else, and that is going to
Speaker 2: be there are going to be critical decisions made with
Speaker 2: regard to govern contracts and with regard to potential regulation,
Speaker 2: which company gets a leg up, which company doesn't, Which
Speaker 2: company is favored in this giant global arms race to
Speaker 2: achieve the you know, the best age AI, and too
Speaker 2: you know the arms race ultimately to achieve artificial general
Speaker 2: intelligence AGI. That's the subtext of all of this as well,
Speaker 2: and so a lot of this jockeying and positioning and
Speaker 2: trying to curry favor is also about trying to obtain
Speaker 2: favored status visa VI. That race which is going to
Speaker 2: be incredibly consequential for all of our lives and is
Speaker 2: really kind of happening behind the scenes and is the
Speaker 2: context for a lot of these fights, including the H
Speaker 2: one B fight, by the way, is like a side
Speaker 2: event to the main event, which is this battle over
Speaker 2: the development of AI, which requires massive both electricity resources
Speaker 2: and what they call compute like computer analytical resources. Altman
Speaker 2: is at odds with Microsoftware now his partner, because of
Speaker 2: the amount of commute compute that he wants and the
Speaker 2: amount of corporate resources that that is required. So in
Speaker 2: any case, that's the other sort of underlying piece of
Speaker 2: business piece of this that you know, we all need
Speaker 2: to keep our eyes on because it could end up
Speaker 2: being in the quite near term, extraordinarily impactful on human life,
Speaker 2: on the labor markets, on our country, on geopolitics, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Very true, interesting, nonetheless, vibe shifts, indeed, vibe shifts galore.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see what the next one will be.
Speaker 1: I can't even think of what a comp would be
Speaker 1: to watch somebody just flip like this. It's just so astounding.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, as you said, they don't have principles,
Speaker 1: But it would have been better off if you just
Speaker 1: hadn't done any of this crap in the first place,
Speaker 1: because you frankly wouldn't look ridiculous, you know, whenever you
Speaker 1: reverse it overnight. So there you go. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go to the next one.
Speaker 2: So, guys, really interesting story that has been developed over
Speaker 2: the winter holiday season. So a bunch of wealthy ski
Speaker 2: holiday patrons have been complaining about massively long lines at
Speaker 2: ski lifts and diminished resources at Vale in Park City, Utah.
Speaker 2: And this is all because of a strike a walkout
Speaker 2: by ski patrollers who are saying, hey, guys, these areas
Speaker 2: are extremely expensive to live in. We're asking for a
Speaker 2: couple of dollars wage increase so that we might have
Speaker 2: a prayer of being able to afford a life here.
Speaker 2: Here's an image of some of the workers here. They say,
Speaker 2: ask me about this pick line wage twenty one dollars,
Speaker 2: asking twenty three dollars, burger twenty five dollars plus. Ye,
Speaker 2: just speaking to the unbelievable cost of living that you
Speaker 2: know in order to live in these ski towns that
Speaker 2: you're ultimately subjected to that certainly goes for housing prices
Speaker 2: even to a greater extent. Can show you some of
Speaker 2: the images that are coming out because they're pretty interesting
Speaker 2: that people who are going to these resorts are sharing.
Speaker 2: Here you can see long line just to image here.
Speaker 2: You can see this video too of people waiting in line.
Speaker 2: I guess that's for like the ski lift, just having
Speaker 2: to stand around. This person says, the longest lines ever,
Speaker 2: no excuse, operational managerial fail. During the busiest week of
Speaker 2: the year, twenty thousand dollars vacation with two to three
Speaker 2: hour lines for lifts at least discount those who bought
Speaker 2: lift ticke as wall strake was occurring. Or you could
Speaker 2: just pay your workers a little better, how about that,
Speaker 2: and get them back and get them back on the job,
Speaker 2: because this is insane. I've just got one more video
Speaker 2: for you so you can get a sense of the
Speaker 2: scale of the disruption. Here. This is a video you
Speaker 2: can see of the massive lines waiting again for the
Speaker 2: ski lift. So let me give you some of the
Speaker 2: backstory on what's going on here, according to the Ski
Speaker 2: Patrollers Union. Here is some local news coverage. Veil Resorts
Speaker 2: sense in Colorado ski patrollers to break the strike as
Speaker 2: Park City strike continues. The Park City, Utah Professional Ski
Speaker 2: Patrol Association went on strike December twenty seventh at Veil Resorts,
Speaker 2: Inc's largest US ski area, vuying for higher wages. A
Speaker 2: walkout of ski patrollers during the busy holiday period in
Speaker 2: Park City has yielded long lift lines, limited terrain, and
Speaker 2: swelling crowds as the strike stretches into its second week.
Speaker 2: They say that they are looking for higher wages starting
Speaker 2: at twenty three dollars an hour and better benefits. They
Speaker 2: also express frustration about the prolonged negotiation processing and a
Speaker 2: social media post. They are ready to get back to
Speaker 2: work as soon as Veil Resorts offers a fair contract.
Speaker 2: So Saga a pretty fascinating labor dispute here, And some
Speaker 2: of the background story on this is also really important
Speaker 2: because even though this is you know, very specific context
Speaker 2: of specific like recreational sport activity, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the broader themes here are really important. Twenty three dollars
Speaker 2: an hour may sound like, oh, that's a pretty good wage,
Speaker 2: or the twenty one dollars an hour that they earn
Speaker 2: right now, you might think like, oh, that sounds pretty decent,
Speaker 2: But when you factor in the cost of living in
Speaker 2: these towns, like there's just no way to make it.
Speaker 2: And these giant companies have bought up a bunch of
Speaker 2: these different ski resorts in all kinds of towns across
Speaker 2: the country, and they've sort of pushed out to the
Speaker 2: extent that, you know, the certain of these ski towns
Speaker 2: had a local economy and local vitality begin with, they've
Speaker 2: like pushed out the locals. A lot of out of
Speaker 2: towners coming in buying up the property, making it insanely expensive,
Speaker 2: and then crowding out even things like you know, local
Speaker 2: restaurant owners and local business owners, so that the only
Speaker 2: game in town in terms of a workforce are these
Speaker 2: relatively low paid, hourly jobs where you don't have a
Speaker 2: prayer of hoping to be able to like live and
Speaker 2: eat and exist in the town where your job actually
Speaker 2: is located.
Speaker 1: This may sound like a boohoo problem, but you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago that Park City, Utah. Yes,
Speaker 1: it has always been a bastion of the ultra wealthy,
Speaker 1: but it didn't always cost twenty thousand dollars to go
Speaker 1: into ski in Park City, Utah. In fact, I know
Speaker 1: several people who are skiers who grew up in more
Speaker 1: of a middle class background. It used to be that
Speaker 1: you would be able to, you know, put the family
Speaker 1: in a hotel room six or whatever. You could buy
Speaker 1: the ski passes for a little bit less, and yes
Speaker 1: it'd be a bit of a pain, but you could
Speaker 1: make it work and it'd be one of those things
Speaker 1: that we would be equivalent to taking the family to Disneyland,
Speaker 1: for example. So this was a sport that no, it
Speaker 1: has never been accessible to people who are you know,
Speaker 1: lower middle class, but I would say middle class upper
Speaker 1: middle class historically has been something that is there. It
Speaker 1: has since moved to the bastions of the ultra wealthy
Speaker 1: and of people who are making over five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: We're about to show everybody a video which actually shows
Speaker 1: explicitly how that's been the strategy. Now to what you
Speaker 1: just pointed out, this is obvious. I love Park City, Utah.
Speaker 1: I don't even skate. It's one of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: places I've ever been, such a gorgeous town. As you
Speaker 1: just said, the local businesses and all that are exactly
Speaker 1: what make it nice and good. I can also attest
Speaker 1: that the twenty five dollars burger is in fact reality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what it demonstrates is the same problem here of
Speaker 1: you both make the cost of anything fun and nice
Speaker 1: in America. You just make it outrageously expensive, and then
Speaker 1: you also treat the workers as shitty as humanly possible
Speaker 1: to roll up as much profit as you possibly can.
Speaker 1: This is a story of everything, and that's why I
Speaker 1: noted it that we used to be a middle class thing.
Speaker 1: I think Disney is another perfect example of this, where
Speaker 1: you have the cost of these Disney trips now costing
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of dollars in some cases if you
Speaker 1: have a large family, something that people have been doing
Speaker 1: in the past. I think Vegas is another one. You know,
Speaker 1: if we had the era in the old days, the
Speaker 1: Christmas family vacation and all that, a sixty dollars hotel room,
Speaker 1: that's all gone. And so really what we have is like,
Speaker 1: if you want to go on vacation in the Continental America,
Speaker 1: you are just competing with you know, like a price war.
Speaker 1: And then the people themselves who are actually working and
Speaker 1: staffing and delivering this product are making absolutely nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just me saying this. There're so many people,
Speaker 1: even rich people, who are like, are they seriously destroying
Speaker 1: this entire experience just to not pay these people two
Speaker 1: dollars more per hour. They're like, I can't even believe this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that it just demonstrates their greed, you know, that
Speaker 1: they that they're willing to hold the line on an
Speaker 1: extremely extremely like it is not out of left field,
Speaker 1: it's not too much of an ass. It barely even
Speaker 1: keeps place with inflation.
Speaker 2: They probably even what they're asking for twenty three dollars
Speaker 2: an hour. I don't know how you live in these
Speaker 2: towns because the rent and everything is so incredibly expensive.
Speaker 2: Let me goad and pull up this video, and I
Speaker 2: really recommend you guys watch all of this from Wendover
Speaker 2: Productions is quite excellent. That title here is how corporate
Speaker 2: consolidation is killing ski towns. But I just want to
Speaker 2: play a little bit of a portion of it that
Speaker 2: focuses on the cost of living and how impossible it
Speaker 2: is for workers in towns like Park City, Utah, where
Speaker 2: this labor dispute is occurring.
Speaker 7: What's left is the financial impossibility of minimum wage work
Speaker 7: in the Veil Valley.
Speaker 5: There are no easy answers to where a Veil employee
Speaker 5: might start their day. The conglomerates new minimum wage is
Speaker 5: twenty dollars an hour, a near fortune compared to minimum
Speaker 5: wage at most entry level jobs in America. The most
Speaker 5: entry level jobs aren't located here, and a narrow mountain
Speaker 5: valley you bounded by two often impassable sections of highway,
Speaker 5: posting some of the highest living costs in the world.
Speaker 1: Currently, the cheapest publicly.
Speaker 7: Listed apartment for rent within Veil City limits is going
Speaker 7: for twenty five hundred dollars a month, assuming forty hours
Speaker 7: per week of work, which might come if the slopes
Speaker 7: are busy and the snow is abundant. A given lift
Speaker 7: operator might make thirty two hundred dollars a month. Therefore,
Speaker 7: after tax, they might make ever so slightly more than
Speaker 7: what it costs to keep an apartment in the town
Speaker 7: in which they work. But of course, in a small
Speaker 7: town environment like this, and considering the competitiveness of housing,
Speaker 7: most rentals never make.
Speaker 1: It to be on the classifieds.
Speaker 7: There one can find deals like this one and fifty
Speaker 7: dollars a month room in an apartment in Edwards, a
Speaker 7: twenty minute drive away, assuming one pay is for the
Speaker 7: four hundred and twenty.
Speaker 5: Five dollars a year Veil employee parking pass.
Speaker 2: Think about that. So not only do you have to commute,
Speaker 2: but now you have to pay for a parking pass.
Speaker 2: And Veil Resorts is one of the companies that so
Speaker 2: they own this park city resort. They they're one of
Speaker 2: the large players in this space. So a lot of
Speaker 2: what is said in this video applies kind of across
Speaker 2: the board to all these ski towns, ski resort towns
Speaker 2: into the workers that are there. I mean, you've just
Speaker 2: turned these places, first of all, any local character that
Speaker 2: exists gone, Locals cannot afford to live there, housing stock
Speaker 2: bought up by people who are you know, wealthy millionaires
Speaker 2: from all over the country, if not all over the world,
Speaker 2: who are there like twice a year. So town is
Speaker 2: effectively vacant when it's not peak season. Locals pushed down,
Speaker 2: and workers treated as basically like indentured servants who you know,
Speaker 2: can't afford to live in the town and are even
Speaker 2: being gouged in terms of having to pay this like
Speaker 2: four hundred dollars monthly parking pass, which is totally completely insane.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it demonstrates the fact that they won't give
Speaker 2: them their freakin two dollars an hour raise because they're afraid.
Speaker 2: What they would say is they're afraid that next holiday
Speaker 2: season they're going to realize this was a successful tactic
Speaker 2: to go out during peak season, and they're going to
Speaker 2: do it again and again. And I would just say, like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you know, you probably could afford to pay them well
Speaker 2: enough so that they'd be happy and they're not feeling
Speaker 2: like they have to like split your throat every holiday
Speaker 2: season because this is their peak season as well.
Speaker 1: I don't ski, but as I understand it, a single
Speaker 1: ski ticket is three hundred dollars per person, right, so
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they could cover costs. Yeah, people were
Speaker 1: pointing out it is actually cheaper to fly to Switzerland
Speaker 1: and to ski in the Alps, especially if you stay
Speaker 1: on the French side. Apparently then it is to go
Speaker 1: and ski in park City Utah. Wow, what the hell
Speaker 1: are we doing here? That's crazy, you know, and just
Speaker 1: demonstrates again that the way that these private equity companies
Speaker 1: and others have rolled all the stuff up, milked as
Speaker 1: much as possible, is that they are making it impossible
Speaker 1: to have a good time in this country unless you
Speaker 1: are stupendously.
Speaker 2: They've just turned the whole They're turning the whole world.
Speaker 2: Like the most beautiful some of the most naturally beautiful
Speaker 2: places in the country, they just turn it into a
Speaker 2: completely inaccessible playground to the rich. And you know, great
Speaker 2: for that, I guess, except when they have to deal
Speaker 2: with a long lift line because the workers don't feel
Speaker 2: like being indentured servants for the day. But yeah, in
Speaker 2: terms of an attainable vacation spot, in terms of a
Speaker 2: sustainable workforce that's actually able to live, in terms of
Speaker 2: having any sort of local culture, Like everything just disnified
Speaker 2: playground for the rich. That's what it is.
Speaker 1: It is, and it is an ongoing trend. I hope
Speaker 1: it's reverse. I don't think it will be for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, with Disney, with Vegas, with so many
Speaker 1: of these other places, I don't know, where do you
Speaker 1: go on a chief vacation these days? Like your backyard camping?
Speaker 1: That's that's that's yeah. My one hope is that private
Speaker 1: equity please don't go after the national parks because that's
Speaker 1: the last place that we all currently have. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure they'll find a way. Yeah, sure they will find so.
Speaker 2: True. I mean, this is the you know, this is
Speaker 2: the fallout from massive Gilded age level inequality. These are
Speaker 2: businesses they see the people who have money are at
Speaker 2: the very top, and so they cater to them because
Speaker 2: they're the ones that have twenty thousand dollars to spend
Speaker 2: on a vacation, and so they would rather their business
Speaker 2: bottom line dictates that they would rather create this ultra
Speaker 2: luxury experience than to try to cater to a vast
Speaker 2: middle class which doesn't really exist anymore. So there you go.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about DNN. There is a pretty
Speaker 1: major defamation lawsuit going on right now that actually is
Speaker 1: going to trial in the state of Florida, and haven't
Speaker 1: seen a lot of coverage on it, and considering how
Speaker 1: CNN could face a absolutely massive judgment and liability from
Speaker 1: this jury trial, it is certainly worth covering as it
Speaker 1: may be the biggest story in the space since the
Speaker 1: Fox News smartmatic settlement that will all recall, So let's
Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. A Florida jury
Speaker 1: will decide if CNN defamed a security contractor so the
Speaker 1: details everybody stick with me. Goes back to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one from the US Afghan withdrawal. So basically, in November
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, DNN ran a five minute long
Speaker 1: lawsuit a segment about private contractors who were charging large
Speaker 1: sums of money to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee the country.
Speaker 1: This was the direct quote from Jake Tapper. Dnn's Alexander
Speaker 1: Marquett has discovered Afghans trying to get out of the
Speaker 1: country face a black market full of promises, demands of
Speaker 1: exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success. The
Speaker 1: only security contractor mentioned is this man, Navy veteran Zachary Young,
Speaker 1: whose operation had actually been paid by several large companies
Speaker 1: including Audible, Bloomberg, etc. At one point in the segment,
Speaker 1: his face was shown on screen above the graphic referencing
Speaker 1: black markets and exorbitant fees. So that is the core
Speaker 1: of Young's defamation lawsuit. The reason why, in particular that
Speaker 1: he's able to quote unquote at least allege damages is
Speaker 1: because his business suffered significant monetary damage as a result
Speaker 1: of this CNN report. Now we should note that actually
Speaker 1: DNN did issue a correction about four months later. Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper or Jake Tapper and CNN read an on air
Speaker 1: correction to the story and actual some of the emails
Speaker 1: that have now been released show that inside of CNN
Speaker 1: there was concern that this did not meet editorial standard. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: STNN still alleges that it is not liable for defamation,
Speaker 1: as they issued a correction some four months later. However,
Speaker 1: it was enough to reach the standard for a judge
Speaker 1: to allow us to go through. Now we should say
Speaker 1: that that is extraordinary already, because it is extremely rare
Speaker 1: for a news organization to be able to even to
Speaker 1: not have the case thrown out. In terms of scrutiny,
Speaker 1: the judge, Florida Circuit Judge William Henry ruled that Young's
Speaker 1: activities were legal, preventing the network from suggesting to jurors
Speaker 1: that he has been engaging in illicted activity. That's really
Speaker 1: important because if the jury determines the term black market
Speaker 1: refers to illegal activity, DNN would be found to have
Speaker 1: quote knowingly published false information as network journalists agn knowledge
Speaker 1: they're reporting. Did not find evidence that Young had committed
Speaker 1: a crime. So, you know, on the merits crystal, they
Speaker 1: are facing some serious issues and sociologically, when we think
Speaker 1: about the jury pool and all of that, they could
Speaker 1: be they could have a real problem on their hands
Speaker 1: with this case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, potentially. I mean the other thing is what comes
Speaker 2: out in this case as well is going to be
Speaker 2: It already is very unflattering because some of the emails
Speaker 2: from producers behind the scenes acknowledge that the segment is
Speaker 2: kind of sloppy, kind of sensationalist. They also acknowledge like
Speaker 2: they think this guy who's now suing them as like
Speaker 2: a shitty person, and they have this sort of like
Speaker 2: personal animus against them that also against him, not that
Speaker 2: they knew him personally, but they thought he was sort
Speaker 2: of like sketchy and sleazy, and so that could have
Speaker 2: animated some of the editorial direction of the segment as well.
Speaker 2: And so their star anchor, Jake Tapper is involved, He's
Speaker 2: having to be deposed, what is going to come out
Speaker 2: in discovery, what's going to come out in the trial,
Speaker 2: even if they ultimately prevail here, just getting that little
Speaker 2: window into the behind the scenes of how CNN actually
Speaker 2: operates and actually puts together these stories could in and
Speaker 2: of itself be at the least embarrassing to them, who
Speaker 2: like to hold themselves out as this like gold standard
Speaker 2: of journalism. Clearly in this particular instance, they certainly fell
Speaker 2: short of that.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's no question about it. With the emails in particular.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to know too that really where I
Speaker 1: think Stann is screwed is on that legal standard about look,
Speaker 1: we all know black market means illegal. Can we all
Speaker 1: be honest, like that's so obvious? Yeah, Ben So on
Speaker 1: the standard itself that they narrowly have to rule it's bad.
Speaker 1: But what's really important to me is how these jurors,
Speaker 1: these potential jurors. How we're revealing here, how you really
Speaker 1: can see where the actual editor of as to CNN
Speaker 1: over years is now going to screw them with the
Speaker 1: jury pull So, for example, the first perspective juror, when
Speaker 1: asked if they could be fair, says, I dislike the media,
Speaker 1: especially CNN. Another says I'm not a fan of CNN,
Speaker 1: but about a dozens in between said they had no issue.
Speaker 1: Another potential juror said he believes media outlets think they
Speaker 1: can say anything about anyone and pretend to be the
Speaker 1: victim when called out, and another said he could be impartial,
Speaker 1: but added nothing negative against CNN. I just don't see
Speaker 1: the way things that they do, you know. Another, my
Speaker 1: personal favorite, says, it's killing me sitting here. I'm hyperactive
Speaker 1: and I smoke, plus I have to pee. Who is
Speaker 1: I think all of them.
Speaker 2: Relatable, very relatable. It would be the jury of the peers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's your jury of peers, folks. What I do
Speaker 1: think is interesting here is all the jurors were picked.
Speaker 1: Apparently CNN's legal team picked off by asking prospective jurors
Speaker 1: if they'd ever served in the military. That was one
Speaker 1: of the ways that they were trying to screen people.
Speaker 1: They also said, how many of you believe CNN creates
Speaker 1: fake news? Six perspective jurors to raise their hands. Most though,
Speaker 1: do insist they can be impartial. When jurors are amazing.
Speaker 1: I know you served on a jury. You're much more
Speaker 1: of a believer, I think in jury trial than I am,
Speaker 1: just in terms of your ability to.
Speaker 2: Get people take it very seriously.
Speaker 1: I know, Crystal, But how can a person with a
Speaker 1: straight face say I believe CNN creates fake news, but
Speaker 1: I can be impartial? Like, come on, all right, look,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I want to I want CNN to be
Speaker 1: screwed personally.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. I think Fox News creates fake news,
Speaker 2: and I think CNN creates fake news. I agree, be
Speaker 2: impartial on this, yeah, but if somebody evaluate the facts
Speaker 2: of this particular case and decide whether in this particular instance, yeah.
Speaker 1: You're right, you know, yeah, that's a fair point. I
Speaker 1: mean again, on the legal standard, I think they're screwed.
Speaker 1: I just don't see a single way that they could
Speaker 1: get around it. Because they literally put his face over
Speaker 1: the words black market. Yeah, they destroy his business.
Speaker 2: That is one of the things that like when you're
Speaker 2: first learning on air requirements journalists. Requirements they teach you
Speaker 2: is like you cannot picture someone while you're saying something
Speaker 2: if that thing that you're saying is not about that
Speaker 2: person and is not accurate. So it is pretty basic.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, I just know that it's well
Speaker 2: CNN is going to have the best lawyer's money can buy,
Speaker 2: and the standard for defamation is quite high, so I
Speaker 2: wouldn't bet against them prevailing in the case. I think
Speaker 2: it's possible that they do that. They can, you know,
Speaker 2: prove enough like just incompetence versus some sort of intent
Speaker 2: here to be able to slide. I think that's entirely possible.
Speaker 2: But and you know, the amounts will be significant, but
Speaker 2: they'll be fine. This is a you know, gigantic company
Speaker 2: and conglominary et cetera. I think probably more important is
Speaker 2: just what is learned in the context of this trial,
Speaker 2: whether it's embarrassing to the company itself, embarrassing to Jake Tapper,
Speaker 2: embarrassing to his team, etc. Nobody wants that peak behind
Speaker 2: the curtain. It's going to be messy seeing how this
Speaker 2: sausage is made.
Speaker 1: That's the amazing part. Is one of the hardest things
Speaker 1: that you have to do is prove damaging, and so
Speaker 1: he has to prove that they wanted to harm his reputation.
Speaker 1: But when they have emails saying that they think he's
Speaker 1: a shitty person and that they acknowledge that the story
Speaker 1: is quote a mess flowed full of holes, incomplete eighty
Speaker 1: percent emotion, twenty percent observed. Fact, we're getting to the
Speaker 1: place where, you know, it's on a knife's edge as
Speaker 1: to whether you can even argue any of this. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you just said, I mean, if Jake Tapper and his
Speaker 1: team are found liable here, that will be a massive
Speaker 1: blow to them. It also will you know, to show
Speaker 1: everybody else and others, including us in our business. I
Speaker 1: just don't understand how this ever got to air, because
Speaker 1: you know, you and I both know the standard for
Speaker 1: saying somebody is doing something illegal or even sketchy is
Speaker 1: so high. Also, this guy not a public figure. That's
Speaker 1: another one which is very important. You know. Look, we
Speaker 1: can talk about Elon, Mark Zuckerberg, all these other people,
Speaker 1: all of them fall under the public figure standard. This
Speaker 1: is just some random dude who's involved in business or whatever,
Speaker 1: private military contractor to name him. The Newsworthy standard of
Speaker 1: that has to be very high, and you have to
Speaker 1: have dead to rights, you know, evidence that this is
Speaker 1: going on. I mean, I think clearly what happened is
Speaker 1: the reporter didn't like him, and the editorial team also
Speaker 1: found it. I guess gross that people were charging to
Speaker 1: get people out of Afghanistan and they were like, screw him,
Speaker 1: We're going to go after him. But that is the
Speaker 1: exact reason you're supposed to have editorial standards to make
Speaker 1: sure something like this never happened. So pretty extraordinary. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: the jury did eventually get picked and they're going to trial,
Speaker 1: so it could be like Fox where they just settle
Speaker 1: before that. You know, if I've seen NS legal team
Speaker 1: looking at this, you may you know, you might need
Speaker 1: to pay, Like you might need to pay big time
Speaker 1: to make this go away because Florida jury, I need
Speaker 1: to go and check how exactly it works with the
Speaker 1: damages and everything. But if I recall the Gawker case
Speaker 1: also was out of Florida, and if we'll remember, that
Speaker 1: case basically shut down the entire website forever. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that's going to happen to CNN, but you know,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to pay half a billion, three quarters of
Speaker 1: a billion dollars out all because your reporters did a
Speaker 1: stupid job. But they may decide that that is the
Speaker 1: that that's the best course of action, just to try
Speaker 1: and not set a standard. But that's why it's risky
Speaker 1: when you go to trial, a jury trial like this,
Speaker 1: Absolutely anything could happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the last thing on note is reportedly part of
Speaker 2: why ABC Slash Disney decided to settle with Trump on
Speaker 2: that you know, he was suing them for defamation. George
Speaker 2: Stephanopolis was involved, specifically over the way he characterized the
Speaker 2: Egene Carol civil suit lawsuit, saying that he was found
Speaker 2: liable for rape instead of saying liable for sexual assault.
Speaker 2: Part of the reason they settled is because they were
Speaker 2: worried about a Florida jury.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And so you know, here you've got the Florida jury
Speaker 2: and Florida, given how favorable they are to Donald Trump
Speaker 2: and how much they've shifted right and how much antipathy
Speaker 2: I'm sure there is towards CNN and the state that
Speaker 2: may create a bit of an uphill battle for them.
Speaker 2: So I wouldn't be surprised to see them ultimately be like,
Speaker 2: you know, we really don't want to go through this.
Speaker 2: How much money do you need to make this go away?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think you're absolutely right. Okay, guys, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for watching. It was great to be back.
Speaker 1: Hopefully going to be back in studio on we'll be
Speaker 1: back in studio on Thursday, if the snow and the
Speaker 1: road conditions allow. I can just tell you, I'm still looking.
Speaker 1: I'm looking outside. There's going to be six seven inches
Speaker 1: of snow on the streets. So it's bad. It's bad
Speaker 1: out here. Washington, DC needs to wake up and learn
Speaker 1: how to actually deal with this. But we'll do our
Speaker 1: best to get there in the studio. And it's great
Speaker 1: to be back, Crystal.
Speaker 2: It's great to have you back. It's not the same
Speaker 2: without you here. Sager, and there were all kinds of
Speaker 2: things I wanted to hear what you have to say
Speaker 2: about them, So I'm glad to have you hurt.
Speaker 1: It hurt to be quiet, but that was the Those
Speaker 1: were the orders that I got, and I did comply.
Speaker 1: So there we go. All right, We'll see you guys later.