WEBVTT - The Meme Gurus 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:04.760 Markets are going crazy, as the meme gurus over at 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:10.080 Reddit dot com confound the entire financial and regulatory establishment. 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.400 But the establishment is pushing back big tech, big government, 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.520 big corporate America, all coming back to squeeze the little guy. 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:20.840 We'll get into what it all means. This is Verdict 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:29.480 with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict. I'm Michael Knowles. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:35.839 I am joined by the nefarious, infamous murderer himself, Ted Cruz. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:40.200 We have got some very very exciting news. After so 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:44.120 long of being locked down, being kept apart, we're taking 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.760 Verdict on the road. We will be at yaff's Freedom 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:53.040 Conference in Miami Friday, February fifth, eight pm Eastern. If 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:54.800 you're in Miami, I hope that we'll see you there. 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.160 Even if you're not in Miami, we will get to 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.360 speak with you. We will be taking your questions live 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.080 through the YAFF YouTube channel, So if you want to 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.560 submit a question and have it answered in real time, 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.720 go to YouTube dot com slash yaff TV. We have 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:11.440 been talking about a whole lot of things, but there's 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.440 so much more to get to. Senator, what are we 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.960 going to talk about? Well, the best thing about Miami 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.800 is that we'll be with with real, live human beings 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:22.479 out of the COVID caves to which we've all been sent. 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.520 You had to flee the state of California to actually 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.000 encounter other human beings, and so it'll be good to 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.120 be in Florida, an actual state that is open and 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:36.320 operating with with live, liberty loving human beings. And apparently 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:40.280 I will continue my murderous rampage down in Miami. Yet 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.319 you know, ever since northern California in the sixties, uh, 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.080 you know, you know, I've had a proclivity to to 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.880 be to mass murder, and so so we'll see if 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.400 that continues. You got that again. This actually the most 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:58.040 recent accusation of your murderous tendencies. It came in response 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:02.280 to this this game style wild stock market question. I 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.880 know some people are a little confused by what's been 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.360 going on in the markets, and by some people, I 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.079 especially mean me. I'm not exactly the most financially literate 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.120 person here. What exactly is going on? There's as far 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.400 as I can tell, there were these guys on Reddit 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.720 who decided that there was a vulnerability at some big 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.799 hedge fund and Wall Street had taken out certain positions 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:26.160 and so they were going to make a bunch of 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.600 money at Wall Street's expense, and then everything went haywire. Well, 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.760 I think you actually understand it pretty well. Yeah. You 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.160 had a couple of big Wall Street hedge funds that 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.120 were short selling game Stop. So they were making bets 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.959 in the market that game Stop was going to go down, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:43.080 and if the stock price went down, they made a 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.880 bunch of money. And over at Reddit, at this this 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.400 subreddit called Wall Street Bets, a bunch of folks got 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:53.080 ticked off at that and said, I'll tell you what. 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.760 Let's all go buy game Stop, and number one, we'll 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:58.720 make money and drive the stock up, but number two, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.440 we'll put those other guys out of business. And miraculously 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.280 they got enough people to do it that the stock 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.600 started going up and going up and going up, and 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.440 it went from like four bucks a share. So I 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.800 think it's been as high as as as four hundred 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.160 dollars a share. I mean, it's massive increase. I checked 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.120 a few minutes ago. It's trading about three eighteen right now. 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:26.520 That is enormous volatility. That did a number of things. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.400 Number One, for everyone that bought it four bucks, if 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.320 you sold it four hundred, you made a lot of money. 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.480 Number Two, the hedge funds that are betting on it 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.400 going down, I mean they got caught with their shorts down, 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.920 and they're really really unhappy. Because, Senator, when you when 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.200 you take a short position, when when you're short selling 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.240 a stock, you're betting against it, right, and so you know, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:50.840 if it goes down, you make money. But if it 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.480 if it goes up, it's not like you get to 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.840 just hold your position in mid air forever. You've you've 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:57.680 got to start putting cash on the table as the 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.360 stock goes up. So what has happened is if you're 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.120 shorting it, you have sold the stock at a really 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.800 low price, and you've already executed that transaction. You've sold it, 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:10.200 and so if the stock goes up, you have to 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:12.840 fulfill on that promise, which means you got to buy it. 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.760 Let's say you sold it at three bucks, you might 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.640 have to buy it at four hundred to be able 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.320 to deliver on the stock you've sold at three. In 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.440 other words, when when you're shorting a stock, you've got 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:31.440 enormous vulnerability if there's a big delta on the upside. 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.640 And so this look, this is chaotic. This is this 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:40.560 is disconcerting. But then it took a really I got 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.599 to say, screwed up step because a number of trading platforms, 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.400 most prominently robin Hood. You know, robin Hood popularized itself 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.200 as democratizing stock sales that you on your phone can 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.560 participate with the big boys. Well suddenly robin Hood decided, no, no, 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.120 you can't. The big boys they can still buy and sell. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:06.920 But but but you, the ordinary schmow. They prevented you from 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.760 buying game Stop. You could still sell it, you just 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.240 couldn't buy it. It's unbelievable. And I gotta admit a 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.400 whole lot of folks, a whole lot of folks on 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:19.400 the left, whole lot of folks on the right. I mean, 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:21.760 we all said, all right, this is screwed up. If 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:23.480 there's gonna be a rule, it ought to be a 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.400 rule that applies to everyone. We shouldn't have one rule 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.840 for rich, powerful connected hedge funds in Manhattan and a 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.360 different rule for every other American that is trading your 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.320 own money. And what robin Hood did is basically implemented 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.440 that rule and said, all right, we're gonna screw the 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.599 little guy and only favor the big guy, and that 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:45.760 does seem to be getting the whole notion of robin 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.839 Hood a little bit backwards, steal from the poor to 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.960 give to the rich. Because one thing that has been 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.280 so nauseating about this entire issue is when apps like 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.760 robin Hood came in and protected Wall Street, basically protected 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.160 these hedge funds. It was as though they were these vulnerable, innocent, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.279 poor little hedge funds, you know, and the mean old 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.760 guys on Reddit were coming in, and of course that 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.240 isn't the case when you've got a retail investor, an 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:16.159 ordinary American coming in trying to play with the big guys. 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.680 And then the big guys seemed to get this separate 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.680 set of rules here. So the left and the right 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.919 did kind of come together about this. They said, this 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.640 seems a little bit rigged, guys, this seems unfair. AOC 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.480 as far left to Congressman as you can get. She 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.520 came out and said, we've got to look into this. 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.920 You said, you know, stopped clock twice a day. I 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.560 agree with this, and it could have been this moment 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:45.520 of unity and healing and bipartisan support. And then she 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.480 called you a murderer. Yeah, so so my tweet, I 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.680 took her tweet where she said, this is messed up. 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.839 This needs to be investigated. Congress needs to look into 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.479 why Robin Hood shut down ordinary investors. But but hedge 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.800 funds can continue to try to get out of there 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.279 their short position and try to cover their rare ends. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:04.520 I read or tweet, and I was, you know, on 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.520 my phone. I read it, and I said, huh, that's right. 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.360 I'll be damned. That doesn't happen very often. And so 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.240 I retweeted her, and the sum total of my tweet 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.760 was two words, fully agree. And then I had a 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.720 finger pointing down. And by the way, no it was 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.640 not the middle finger. It was the index finger pointing down. 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.520 In an ordinary world, if someone retweets you and say 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.559 they fully agree with you, that does suggest, gosh, maybe 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.040 there's there's something to this. If people all across the 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.720 ideological spectrum agree this is screwed up, maybe there's something 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.880 to it. Her reaction was a little different. She sent 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:43.240 a series of really unhinged tweets screaming that she's not 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:45.600 willing to work with me. She'll work with other Republicans, 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.200 although I'm not sure who or where. But but this 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.320 theoretical Republican. But because I tried to have her murdered 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.760 three weeks ago, she's not willing to work with me. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:02.120 And it's just a look the left right now, they're angry, 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:08.000 they're filled with hate and and and they're they're exercising 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.600 a primal scream. I mean, we are seeing ID right now, 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.360 leftist ID and they're expressing hate. And it's like, all right, look, 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.480 our country is really divided right now. I'd like to 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.920 see us actually interact like human beings and adults and 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.360 show some decency and actually address the real problems in 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.680 the country. But on the other hand, you can just 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.120 scream screw you, screw you, screw you, if if that's 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.360 what makes you feel good. Well, this brings up a 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.840 conversation that's happening right now among conservatives as as all 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.400 of these kind of big powers, big big big or 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.880 coming in and clamping down. It's making us rethink some things. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.920 I think, because as you say, AOC says, I'm happy 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.160 to work with Republicans, just not Ted Cruz and just 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.640 not Donald Trump, and just not really any Republican who 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.160 who could work with her. You know, it's just this 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:01.839 hypothetical Republican. But but basically she's delegitimizing any Republican. You've 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:03.440 heard this from other people on the left who say 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.600 seventy five million Americans or Nazi, white supremacist whatever. And 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.240 we on the right used to say things like, well, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.120 you know, Twitter as a private company, if they want 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.720 to kick people off, build your own Twitter. You know, 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.280 we want private people to be able to run their 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:22.360 business however they want. But increasingly we're finding out the 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.680 left won't let us build our own Twitter. We try 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.160 to do that with an app called Parlor. They kicked 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:28.560 it out of the app store, then they kicked it 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:32.400 off the internet. Same thing. Here are we now if 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.520 we're not allowed to invest in robin Hood or through 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.600 robin Hood rather or really any of the other brokerage apps. 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.120 Are we supposed to build our own broker dealer? Are 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.599 we supposed to build our own stock market? Are we 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.880 supposed to build our own account? You know, where is 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.440 the end of this and how can we tackle the 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.439 problem so that we're not totally ostracized from society. So 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.640 there's a whole bunch of substance there to unpack. Let 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.000 me let me take that at several levels Number one, 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.920 if you look at what happened to Parlor, Parlor was 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.400 kicked out of existence by essentially every gigantic tech company 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.120 acting in concerts. So it was so it was Apple 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.719 and Amazon and all of them just said we're shutting down. 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:14.120 Your servers were kicking you off. And it was it 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.199 was swift, it was brutal. It was obviously illegal, by 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.840 the way, when giant competitors work together to eliminate another 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.160 competitor that is on its face and antitrust violation and 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:26.679 they're all going to be sued, they're all gonna pay 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.000 big damages, and they don't care. They're so big, and 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.880 they're now convinced the Biden administration are so in their 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.679 pocket that they just don't care. It's an exercise of 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:44.960 brute power. Secondly, you know, the AOC response is typical 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.240 of how the left responds to a lot of issues 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.400 which they don't actually want to talk substance. They don't 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.559 actually want to want to talk about the underlying merits. 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.760 They want to engage. Number one, it's all politics. You know, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.440 we talked in the Last Verdict about how this is 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.439 the final scene for every Godfather movie that they are 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.040 playing out Michael Corleone. They are settling the debts. They 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:07.880 want you and me and all of us to sleep 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:12.040 with the fishes. And so they are trying to eliminate everyone. 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.800 They're trying to eliminate Donald Trump. They're trying to eliminate me, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.840 They're trying to eliminate you. They're trying to eliminate conservatives 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:23.320 on social media. They're trying to erase the seventy five 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:27.119 million Americans who voted for Trump. And it is completely 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:31.000 devoid of substance. Now you talked about how does that 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:35.360 mean we can't you know, the ordinary American can invest 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.440 saying game stop through robin Hood. Look, one important caveat 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:45.880 game Stop is almost surely a terrible investment, right, and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:48.000 it's worth noting. I mean there are I mean, since 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.080 they've been investments, since there's been stock markets, they've been bubbles. 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:53.680 You know, you look at and in Holland the tulip 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:58.120 bulbs where they bid up tulip bulbs two insane amounts. Now, 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.480 anytime you have a bubble, anytime you have is going 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.000 wait wait, wait, wait, wait up. You can make a 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:04.640 ton of money if you buy it a hundred and 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.800 sell it two hundred that math works really well. So 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.480 if you happen to catch something that is soaring on 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.640 an artificial bubble, if you can time it right, you 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.480 can make a good chunk of money. Now people get 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.240 worried about bubbles because if you buy it a thousand 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.520 and it drops to two, you can be devastated. And 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:29.400 predictably with giant bubbles, these they soar high and then 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.960 they crash precipitously. So I'll be honest, I'm not buying 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:38.960 game stock right right, I think it is fair to 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:44.040 say GameStop is not today a seventy billion dollar company, 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.560 which is where its market cap was, given that it 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:49.680 was a tiny fraction of that a couple of weeks ago. 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.680 I mean this is this is a casino. So there 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.080 are people rightly saying, look, a lot of people could 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:58.880 lose their shirt and lose all their money on this, 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.400 and that's right. But the same rules ought to apply 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.600 for everyone. So if it's a casino, you know what, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.000 You or I can walk into a casino in Vegas. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.240 We can put everything we got on red spin the wheel, 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:16.080 and if it hits, it hits. And what dismayed so 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.000 many people, what I think was wrong and what so 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.440 many other people think was wrong about what robin Hood 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.760 did is it had differential rules. The giant hedge funds 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.080 they could keep buying and selling, but ordinary Americans couldn't. 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.600 And yes, there's risk, but if you want to do 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.840 some dumb ass things, you ought to have as much 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.920 right to do a dumbass thing as the politically well 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:41.680 connected are. And that differential is significant. In a final 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:45.240 point that is not being discussed at all, and I'm 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.880 sure AOC this has not occurred to her remotely, but 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.000 there's a very real possibility that one of the major 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:58.480 reasons that robin Hood halted the ability of consumers to 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.240 buy Game Stop is because of Dodd Frank, because of 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:07.920 leftist regulation that came in. So, as a broker under 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.680 Dodd Frank, robin Hood has a requirement essentially to put 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.000 up funding and to borrow funding to cover the differential 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.960 of their risk exposure. And it's set up in such 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.680 a way. And listen, I'm a lawyer. I don't do maths, 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.320 so I'm not going to purport to explain the mechanics 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.960 of it, other than I think there are good discussions 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:34.400 to be had about how much was robin Hood's actions 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.160 driven by Dodd Frank and pressure from the regulators. Did 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.040 the regulators get involved directly? To Janet Yellen, the new 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.240 Treasury secretary, did she get involved directly? That's a question 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.720 that needs to be asked. What did the banking regulators do? 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.440 And also the fear of lawsuits. I don't doubt that 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.480 A reason A significant reason Robin Hood did this is 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.200 they said, well, gosh, a whole bunch of people are 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.160 gonna buy the stock really high. It's gonna plumb it. 0:14:58.200 --> 0:14:59.960 They're gonna lose all their money, They're gonna turn around 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.280 sue us. And they were understandably scared about being sued. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:10.000 And so there is if we're going to let people 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.600 go to a casino and bet it does seem to 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:15.880 me there ought to be some form of basically a 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.560 liability waiver, which is, you know, you sign something saying, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.360 you know, dumb ass release. I recognize I maybe being 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.640 a dumbass right now. If I am, I'm not going 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.840 to sue you. Yeah, that could well make sense. And 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.600 I suspect our Democratic friends will have no interest in 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:38.320 that because that does not conform with their ideology. Well, this, 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.640 I mean, this is a very important point. That game 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:42.960 stop itself, right. This is a brick and mortar store 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.120 that sells physical video games. This is a company that's 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.280 going to go the way a blockbuster. And these kind 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:54.600 of reddit boards have also targeted BlackBerry, Nokia companies also 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:56.960 where the technology. You know, they're not the companies they 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.880 once were. That was the point. I mean, it was 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.360 kind of a joke to them. And they saw this 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.520 massive short position and they saw that they could basically 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.560 run the price up and force these hedge funds that 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:10.080 they don't like to buy up the stock, and you know, 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:11.760 it becomes a bubble. Some people are gonna make a 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:13.240 lot of money, some people are going to get hurt, 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.480 and the establishment is going to expose itself. To me, 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.600 what's so interesting about all this volatility is a political 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:24.640 point that you've been making now for quite some time, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.600 and we're seeing it expressed the guys on these reddit boards. 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.600 I don't know them personally, it seems their politics are 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.520 a little more on the right than they are on 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.440 the left. I've been told my whole life that the 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.800 Republicans are the party of Wall Street. Republicans are the 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.600 party of the big hedge funds. Republicans are the party 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.520 of these plutocrats and the establishment. And yet if you 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:51.680 look right now, who is defending this sort of unfair 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.720 set of rules that's protecting Wall Street. It's the establishment Democrats. 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.080 It's not the Republicans. We're the ones who are complaining 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.800 about it. Is this shift we've been talking about the 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:03.920 difference between the Party of Paris and the Party of Pittsburgh. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.520 Is this shift settling in? And are people going to 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.679 realize it? Yes, it's settling in, and it drives Democrats crazy. 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:14.840 You are right, Today's Democratic Party is the party of 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.840 the rich. It's the party of elites. It's the party 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.240 of Wall Street. It's the party of big Tech. It's 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.200 the party of Hollywood. It's the party of universities. That's 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:26.879 who big tech listens to. That that's who rather Democrats 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:28.320 listen to. I say, I can't even tell the difference 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.159 between big tech and Democrats anymore. It's actually one of 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.199 the reasons why today's Democrats are so pro China, why 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.760 they're so in bed with communist China, because all of 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.840 their patrons, all of the people writing them checks and 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.639 funding what they're doing, are in bed with China, Big Tech, Hollywood. 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.119 They're in bed with China, which means the Democrats are 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.480 in bed with China. Who are the Democrats not supporting 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.959 working men and women, blue collar workers, union members. You know, 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:56.960 you think back. You know, you and I both read 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:58.720 in history books. Neither one of us are old enough 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.240 to remember FDR. But but there was a time where FDR, 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:09.240 we're union workers. A steel worker was the prototypical Democrat voter. Yep. 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.960 And actually, you know, you look at Joe Biden. Joe 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:17.119 Biden's whole political career has been marketing that he was 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.600 the kid from Scranton, that he was the blue collar, 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.280 working class kid from Scranton. And what does he do. 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:26.600 He gets elected and literally within minutes of being sworn in, 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.000 he takes out a pen and he destroys thousands upon 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.760 thousands of blue collar union jobs, just the Keystone Pipeline, 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.360 which he eliminated with one executive order. That was eleven 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:42.560 thousand jobs, eleven thousand jobs, eight thousand of those were 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.880 union jobs. And with a stroke of one pen, eleven 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:50.359 thousand people their jobs just poof go away. And you know, 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.320 I've spent the last couple of weeks in confirmation hearings 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.880 for Biden cabinet appointees asking them what do you say 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:58.760 to those eleven thousand people whose jobs you just destroyed? 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.000 And the answer that they've said over and over again 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.919 is essentially jump in a lake. You know, we saw 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.360 this week, John Carey. I gotta say, by the way, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:14.200 if you were to pick the perfect spokesperson to understand 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.960 the travails of the blue collar working class, it is 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:24.560 John Kerry with tuxedo and tails, riding his windsurfer, and 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:28.480 he really does. He gave this this this lecture where 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:32.480 he says, well, we're going to help them quote make 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:40.399 better choices. Well, with all respect, John, screw you. You 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.080 don't get to sit there with eight hundred million dollars 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.040 in the bank, which, by the way, you didn't learn 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.600 and tell the lowly, dirty people who have to work 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.880 for a living, we're going to help you make better choices, said, 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.879 they all need to make solar panels. You know, I 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.879 would invite you, John, come to South to Exis, to 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.240 the oil patch and talk to an Hispanic guy in 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.439 a FOURD F one fifty and tell him, sorry, I 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.760 don't like the choices you have. So your job has 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.600 just been eliminated. Your ability to provide for your family 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:19.680 is gone. I mean the arrogance and condescension Thurston Howell 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:24.080 telling you I'm destroying your life. Sadly, that's where the 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.160 Democrats are right now. Well, there's something that was I mean, 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.639 the whole the whole carry press conference I felt was 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:35.040 extraordinarily condescending and typically lock jawed and disturbing. But the 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:39.120 most disturbing aspect I felt was where he presented his 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:44.680 political plan and the Biden administration's political plan as inevitable. 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.159 And you know, just a few months ago, Joe Biden 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.120 was saying, I'm not against fracking, I'm not against coal, 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.600 I'm not against oil, natural gas. And then we find out, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:55.840 you know, the rug is pulled out from under everybody. Yes, 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:57.560 I am. We're going to kill the coal jobs, We're 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.640 going to kill the energy sector jobs. But it's inevitable. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.840 It's inevitable. You have to move to solar, you have 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.119 to move to wind. Go learn how to fix a 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.560 wind turbine. You know, it reminds us a few years 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:14.359 ago when when liberal journalists told American manufacturing workers learn 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:19.000 to code. Sorry, and as if there were no choice here, 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:20.360 but of course there is. You know, the last four 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:24.200 years we had a different policy and we prioritized keeping 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:28.480 energy jobs in America, bringing manufacturing jobs back. When we 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:32.479 think about the difference between populism and elitism and all 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.920 these isms that are coming up, what is the future 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:37.840 for the Republican Party and is there any way that 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.800 we can stop this, this inevitable flow of progressive history. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.440 So let me make three points on that. Number One. 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:48.800 You know, when Joe Biden was saying in the general 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:52.520 election he wasn't going to end fracking, everyone knew he 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:56.199 was lying. Biden knew he was lying. Trump knew he 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.760 was lying, The press knew he was lying. Everyone listening 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.240 knew he was lying. And what did the press do? 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.800 And this is a great illustration of how we don't 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.040 have journalism anymore. The press, the fact checkers, and by 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.600 the way, fact checkers among the most pernicious liars we 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:14.000 have in our political process. The fact checkers declared it 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.320 a lie if you said Biden wasn't fact in a 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:22.040 band fracking. Because he was lying to the American people 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.280 and saying he wasn't it, we were required to accept 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:28.280 his lies. Boom, what happens. He gets elected, and now 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.480 the fact checkers are saying it's a lie that he 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.600 ever said he wasn't good to band fracking. I mean 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:40.000