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Speaker 1: Mission Implausible is now something you can watch. Just go

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Speaker 1: to YouTube and search Mission Implausible podcasts or click on

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Speaker 1: the link to our channel.

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Speaker 2: In our show notes, I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea.

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Speaker 2: We have over sixty years of experience as clandestine officers

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Speaker 2: in the CIA, serving in high risk areas all around

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Speaker 2: the world, and.

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Speaker 3: Part of our job was creating conspiracies to deceive our adversaries.

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Speaker 2: Now we're going to use that experience to investigate the

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Speaker 2: conspiracy theories everyone's talking about as well as some of

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Speaker 2: you may not have heard.

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Speaker 4: Could they be true or are we being manipulated?

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Speaker 2: We'll find out now on Mission Implausible.

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Speaker 1: Welcome John Cipher, Jerry O'shee, and Adam Davidson to our

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty.

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Speaker 5: Five Year in review wrap up.

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Speaker 1: So think of this as your Spotify playlist of the year.

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Speaker 1: You know how Spotify does all wrap up and they

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Speaker 1: tell you what what have you guys been talking about

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Speaker 1: or thinking about the most?

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Speaker 3: So this is a good ridden this twenty twenty five show.

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Speaker 3: Is this what it is in a don't let the

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Speaker 3: door hitch in the ass on the way out.

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Speaker 2: The only problem is twenty twenty six doesn't look too.

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Speaker 4: Really, Yeah, it's damn.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of talk oh the midterms and the

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Speaker 2: next election when we're talking about politics, but like everything's

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Speaker 2: a long way off.

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Speaker 6: Remember when we first started talking about this show, and

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Speaker 6: like conspiracy theories were like this interesting, kind of weird

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Speaker 6: thing that a small percentage of people were into and

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Speaker 6: like it would be fun. You know, I guess this

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Speaker 6: isn't this year, but it does seem like this year

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Speaker 6: really cemented conspiracy theories place at the very heart of

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Speaker 6: American life as a like almost a first response. We

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Speaker 6: actually we don't go through the official response and then

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Speaker 6: get to the conspiracy theory. We go through the conspiracy

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Speaker 6: theory and then well trying.

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Speaker 3: To in ninety seven episodes, which we've done so far,

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Speaker 3: you know, we've had fun. Now we have Bigfoot, great

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Speaker 3: fun and Kem trails. Those are obviously outliers. But now

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Speaker 3: it's more I agree with you, it's more insidious. And

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Speaker 3: maybe it's more insidious because the conspiracy theorists are at

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Speaker 3: the helm of the ship now, right that the patients

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Speaker 3: have taken over the asylum.

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Speaker 4: Christ look at the.

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Speaker 3: FBI, right, you know, Dan Bongino is the Epstein guy, right,

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Speaker 3: and then now he's in the guy he is them

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Speaker 3: right alone, Jade Vance and Trump himself and a lot

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Speaker 3: of these other people. So yeah, I mean he is

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Speaker 3: like almost not being pushed at the periphery.

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Speaker 6: What's happening at CIA? Oh, I was gonna that was.

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Speaker 2: One of the things I wanted to talk about, and

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Speaker 2: I want to talk about general conspiracies in politics and

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Speaker 2: all that type of stuff, But the year in intel

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Speaker 2: is actually worth like bear with me for a minute.

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Speaker 2: Like cash Patel is weakening the counterintelligence part of the

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Speaker 2: FBI and that belongs to the intelligence community. All of

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Speaker 2: the leadership of the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence,

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Speaker 2: DoD and FBI are all pushing up partisan public statements

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Speaker 2: day after day, which is something that's never happened in

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Speaker 2: the past. They've been cherry picking intelligence to declassify and

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Speaker 2: can There's a couple of specifics that we can talk

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Speaker 2: about as we get going here. They're firing people in

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Speaker 2: their own midst who are putting out reporting that's true

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Speaker 2: just because they don't want to hear it because it

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Speaker 2: doesn't fit with their partisan sort of viewpoints. There's a

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Speaker 2: senior intelligence people who were on a signal chat with

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Speaker 2: a journalist and they were spreading classified information, which then

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Speaker 2: they went publicly and said there was no classified information

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Speaker 2: on it, when they know that's that's not true. We

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Speaker 2: bombed Iran and immediately the heads of the intelligence community said, oh,

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Speaker 2: we've destroyed the Iranian nuclear program and it can never rebuild,

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Speaker 2: obliterating lid, which is not a professional assessment, and normally

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Speaker 2: you just shut up if you're the head of these

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Speaker 2: kind of things, And now they're trying to They're taking

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Speaker 2: the things that happen in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen Russia

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Speaker 2: assessments and trying to recreate them as a manufactured coup

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Speaker 2: against Trump that involved obomba on and all this other

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Speaker 2: kind of stuff. They revoke security clearances for top officials.

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Speaker 2: It's been a mess when you have an intelligence community

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Speaker 2: which is supposed to be the place where truth is

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Speaker 2: told to power, and the leadership, just to get the jobs,

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Speaker 2: have to say that the twenty twenty election was stolen.

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Speaker 2: How do you do that, automate to get the job,

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Speaker 2: you have to say that facts aren't true, and then

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Speaker 2: now you're in the job. So I think the intelligen

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Speaker 2: screen is a place has really taken a beating and

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Speaker 2: I don't know how it fixes itself.

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Speaker 6: Sounds like sour grapes. Did you apply for the job?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: It strikes me as the you know, Putin's intelligence assessments

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Speaker 3: right when like, yes, sir, yes, sir, ninety to ninety

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Speaker 3: five percent of the Ukrainians are going to support you

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Speaker 3: when you march in.

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Speaker 4: It'll be three days.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because they were all scared shitless to say anything else.

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Speaker 6: Like remember forty seven years ago when Trump became president

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Speaker 6: again believe it or not, that was actually this year.

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Speaker 6: But we were talking about Tolsa Caabbart and the risk

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Speaker 6: to you know, part the sharing that we were that

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Speaker 6: we normally get from allies who would know longer want

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Speaker 6: to share with us. But what is your sense, like,

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Speaker 6: what what would be your damage assessment of our intelligence.

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Speaker 3: Capacity when you threaten your allies we're going to take

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Speaker 3: over Canada, We're going to invade Denmark and take Greeny

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Speaker 3: away from the.

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Speaker 6: Way, you're saying that Canada might not share as much

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Speaker 6: intelligence with us.

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Speaker 3: I say, when you threatened people, you tend not to

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Speaker 3: get And of course now most people want paying attention

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Speaker 3: to this, but this national security document that they've come

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Speaker 3: out with. I mean, we out and out say that

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Speaker 3: we want to we want regime change for the our

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Speaker 3: European democratic allieses.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't mention any potential enemies or anything. We

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Speaker 2: have no threats about there except for europe.

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Speaker 4: Right and wokeism or whatever exactly.

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Speaker 3: So the answer is I think that the big secret

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Speaker 3: that the Europeans that are Europeans, that the Allies, and

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Speaker 3: to the Japanese and the South Koreans and Filipinos in

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Speaker 3: this as well, is that they can't help but not

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Speaker 3: look at us as something different. Right, we don't stand

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Speaker 3: for anything anymore. It is just transactional. What's in it

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Speaker 3: for us? And you know, I.

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Speaker 4: Think the damage of this, the damage assessment.

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Speaker 3: Is not going to be just maybe in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: six when Congress comes back and hopefully it's democratically led

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Speaker 3: and starts doing investigations if we have fair elections, which

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure we will, or even when Trump is gone.

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Speaker 3: It's not like that our allies are going to go, oh,

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Speaker 3: that was just a one off, Right, we voted the

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Speaker 3: guy in twice, and they're going to be concerned that

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Speaker 3: you know that he's gonna.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, it would be irresponsible for a foreign leader not

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Speaker 6: to think even if the Democrats win in twenty twenty eight.

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Speaker 3: There's the genius of American foreign policy since the end

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Speaker 3: of World War Two is that we have genuine allies,

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Speaker 3: and allies are democratic. They're messy and difficult, but they

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Speaker 3: actually are on our side. Russia has a couple of

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Speaker 3: vassal states but no allies. China has no allies, a

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Speaker 3: couple of vassal states that it blackmails into supporting them.

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Speaker 3: You know, we were something different and we're slowly not anymore.

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Speaker 3: I mean, the damage is just incomprehensible.

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Speaker 2: So I agree with Jerry, the allies thing is a

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Speaker 2: big one. But when you said the capacity of the

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Speaker 2: intelligence community, I still think there's lots of talented people

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Speaker 2: and there are lots of cool things that the intelligence

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Speaker 2: community can do. But in the past, for example, when

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Speaker 2: Bill Clinton was in power and he didn't really care

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Speaker 2: about the Intelligence Committee, you know, he didn't really want

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Speaker 2: to hear the morning brief. He wasn't that interested unless

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Speaker 2: there is a crisis, and then of course he would

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Speaker 2: get briefed in that type of thing. And so that's

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Speaker 2: happened in the past. Presidents have not paid as much

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Speaker 2: attention to intelligence. But what this administration is doing is

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Speaker 2: they're undermining the intelligence community, like they're trying to actually

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Speaker 2: weaken the parts of the FBI that try to stop

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Speaker 2: foreign interference in our country and election. They're trying to

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Speaker 2: undermine the CIA by saying that it's involved in coup

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Speaker 2: planning and all this other kind of stuff. So there's

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Speaker 2: capability there, but they're undermining it. So it will hurt

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Speaker 2: it when we try to re we put it back together,

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Speaker 2: even if there is another election. So the Allies thing's

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Speaker 2: a big one, but even just you have a place

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Speaker 2: that's built on professionalism and you undermine the professionalism, it's

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Speaker 2: going to take a long time to fix.

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Speaker 3: And I would expand that out real quick and just

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Speaker 3: say not just the intelligence community, but the national security.

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Speaker 3: I really worry going into twenty twenty six that the

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Speaker 3: US military is going to be pushed into some really

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Speaker 3: difficult decisions, like about operating internally inside the United States.

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Speaker 2: Like shooting boats out of the water. Adam, what I

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Speaker 2: want to know from you is if you read the

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Speaker 2: press the last week or two, and especially after the

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Speaker 2: death of Rob Reiner, for example, there is this sort

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Speaker 2: of view that things might be starting to turn. The

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Speaker 2: economy is not looking great, but Trump says it's great.

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Speaker 2: Trump is not really out on the stump anymore. Tariffs

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Speaker 2: are hurting His just nasty behavior is even turning some

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Speaker 2: Republicans a little bit away from things. Is there a

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Speaker 2: turn or not?

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Speaker 6: I remember I announced the turn once years ago and

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Speaker 6: it turned out than twenty eighteen or something, and turned

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Speaker 6: out I was slightly off. But we are seeing some

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Speaker 6: things that are interesting, right. We are seeing like Marjorie

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Speaker 6: Taylor Green, who you know, we have a friend of

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Speaker 6: the pod, a friend of the pod. But like when

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Speaker 6: you have people in lockstep for years, and you have

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Speaker 6: an entire party in lockstep for years, anyone stepping out

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Speaker 6: and then not being like destroyed that I was listening

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Speaker 6: to this British historian talk about how he was noticing

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Speaker 6: that nobody ever compares a Trump to other American presidents

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Speaker 6: except maybe Andrew Jackson. You know, no one's ever like

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Speaker 6: you compare him to Saddam Hussein or Putin or something.

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Speaker 6: So I'll do just that one thing that I think

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Speaker 6: Putin or Saddam Hussein or yes are r Fat or

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Speaker 6: I mean, we could list a lot of people when

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Speaker 6: you want that kind of control, you really need to

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Speaker 6: punish dissidents, right, Like that's an absolute vital move in

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Speaker 6: comedians and comedians Yeah no, seriously.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, medians are the dissidents.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, in our Yeah.

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Speaker 6: So when you see people, you know, even this horror

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Speaker 6: fic Rob Reiner tweet, when you had a bunch of people,

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Speaker 6: I mean they were like soft on Trump Republicans already,

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Speaker 6: but just really using strong language like language we would use.

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Speaker 6: This was in conscient ball. How could he? You know,

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Speaker 6: I don't know, it's hard. Is that a total shift?

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Speaker 6: Is that game over for Trump? I don't think so.

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Speaker 6: I do think. You know, a lame duck is a

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Speaker 6: lame duck, you know, and that's why he needs to

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Speaker 6: keep alive the idea that he might not be a

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Speaker 6: lame duck. And it's not a zero chance, right that

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Speaker 6: he'll try and the Supreme Court will somehow give him

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Speaker 6: cover or you know, that crazy plan that doesn't seem

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Speaker 6: all that much crazier than things that have happened.

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Speaker 4: That JD.

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Speaker 6: Vance will be elected and then step down immediately with

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Speaker 6: Trump as his vice president. Anyway, but assuming he's a

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Speaker 6: lame duck also, you know, I do think the cognitive

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Speaker 6: decline seems real. I mean that it does seem so

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Speaker 6: one way or another. We are nearing the end of

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Speaker 6: trump is we are seeing wild unpopularity, I mean real

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Speaker 6: electoral results and stuff. So it's if it were anyone else,

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Speaker 6: I'd be like, yeah, obviously, this is the other side.

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Speaker 6: It's a fever. But we've been here before. And you know,

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Speaker 6: the guy who spent his life in Greenwich Village and

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Speaker 6: silver Lake and Vermont is maybe not the guy to

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Speaker 6: tell you exactly like I will tell you based on

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Speaker 6: everyone I'm close to. Yes, he's not particularly popular.

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Speaker 4: Even then there's Trump and then there's trump Ism.

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Speaker 6: That is the question, right, And I think it felt

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Speaker 6: like early twenty twenty five there was talk of like

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Speaker 6: now the Trumpists and the trump Ism and that JD.

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Speaker 6: Vance and Elon Musk and that whole project. And it

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Speaker 6: isn't a project. I think that's kind of their problem.

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Speaker 6: It's many different projects. There's like the nativist racist project,

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Speaker 6: there's the oligarchic Grifter project. There's certainly plenty of people

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Speaker 6: doing really, really well. It's a good time to be

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Speaker 6: Barry wise, it's a good time to be a Silicon

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Speaker 6: Valley oligarch, but it's nobody has really gained traction. And

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Speaker 6: that's also typical of strong men, right, they don't want

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Speaker 6: that next tier. I mean I remember when I was

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Speaker 6: Middle East correspondent. Yes, Sir our Fat was still in power,

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Speaker 6: and one thing you would study is his approach to power,

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Speaker 6: which was always to have lots of different there where

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Speaker 6: I forget the number eleven or fourteen different security services

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Speaker 6: within the Palestinian authority, and he could kind of raise

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Speaker 6: and lower them at will, so they're constantly looking at

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Speaker 6: each other. I think King Hussein did a version of that,

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Speaker 6: So I'm certainly did a lot of that and that

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Speaker 6: in Russia.

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Speaker 2: Look at Putin whot has he built up anybody to

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Speaker 2: follow behind him? No?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he's certainly not it.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I do want to talk about oligarchs. Can

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Speaker 6: we talk oligarchs because that's been very much on my mind.

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Speaker 2: Hey, wait, before you start talking about oligarchs, let me

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Speaker 2: just put it in a side here with Jerry and

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Speaker 2: I with Rob Reiner.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I met Rob Reiner when he was very focused on

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Speaker 2: Russian interference in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, and he wanted

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Speaker 2: to talk with General Hayden and myself and some others

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Speaker 2: about that, and he came to Washington and I got

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Speaker 2: to meet him. I was really like shellacked. Oh my god,

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Speaker 2: meat heads. And he was such a nice guy and

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Speaker 2: it was very focused on those issues and stayed in touch.

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Speaker 2: And then when Jerry and I first started the company,

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Speaker 2: he went to la We called him and he invited

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Speaker 2: us over to his house and he was having a

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Speaker 2: big dinner there and there was all kinds of Barbara

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Speaker 2: Streisan and Larry David and all of those kind of people.

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Speaker 2: So it's when you see this horrible thing happen to

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Speaker 2: someone who's so nice, and you know personally.

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Speaker 6: That's you know, I have a lot of friends in Hollywood,

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Speaker 6: and there's not a lot of people you've only heard

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Speaker 6: good things about, and him, Henry Winkler. You only hear

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Speaker 6: good things about Henry Winkler.

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Speaker 2: But that is all right, So that's an aside. I apologize.

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Speaker 6: I was thinking about the thoroughness of the oligarcic slash

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Speaker 6: strong man, because that does feel like you talked about

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Speaker 6: permanent changes in national security. I mean, i'd say permanent

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Speaker 6: changes in our economy, like the idea that a the

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Speaker 6: way the president feels about a company and its CEO

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Speaker 6: is a meaningful like a significant economic indicator, Like we're

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Speaker 6: way in that, Like people don't even.

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Speaker 2: Or they're even taking pieces socialism. The government's taking pieces

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Speaker 2: of all these big comieties too.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, it troubles me both because it's gross in and

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Speaker 6: of itself, but it also scares me. The bribes that

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Speaker 6: like Tim Cook giving him gold, people literally giving Trump

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Speaker 6: gold bribes. Here's what I would want them to be thinking.

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Speaker 6: I would want them to be thinking, oh boy, I

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Speaker 6: better not do that because he's only going to be

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Speaker 6: president in another few years and this is obviously illegal

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Speaker 6: and we're obviously going to have like some kind of correction,

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Speaker 6: and this is really risky. So the fact that they're

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Speaker 6: all doing it, that they're jumping into bed with him,

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Speaker 6: is I mean, leave aside just it being upsetting and

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Speaker 6: morally repugnant. It like why aren't they more concerned? Like

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Speaker 6: it makes me think they are already in this oligarchic

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Speaker 6: capitalism and just let's define it for a minute, and

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Speaker 6: maybe John you can help me here. So the whole

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Speaker 6: sales all right, let me get on. Can I get

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Speaker 6: to my economic lecture goal? Soapbox, the whole sales pitch

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Speaker 6: of capitalism. Literally, like, the one thing that's got going

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Speaker 6: for it is that we harness greed to produce societally

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Speaker 6: beneficial outcomes and through competition. So well, all three of

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Speaker 6: us want to make a lot of money. We don't

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Speaker 6: give a crap about anybody. And we're all bakers, you know,

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Speaker 6: to use Adam Smith's canonical example, the only way we

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Speaker 6: can win, at least in the toy universe that Adam

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Speaker 6: Smith describes, is make better bread, or make cheaper bread,

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Speaker 6: or make faster bread, or And a key part of

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Speaker 6: that is that we have to fail if we don't

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Speaker 6: do well. So if you're in a world, you know,

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Speaker 6: and you know when Adam Smith was writing, like it

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Speaker 6: was still fairly common for corrupt bakers to put sawdust

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Speaker 6: in instead of wheat and all sorts of nasty stuff.

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Speaker 6: As soon as what you're optimizing for is not consumer

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Speaker 6: demand consumer surplus, as soon as what you're optimizing for

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Speaker 6: is like pleasure of the leader, for you don't even

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Speaker 6: get the pleasure of the leader, necessarily, you distort the

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Speaker 6: entire ecosystem and it becomes a net drain on the society.

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Speaker 6: I mean, in a less dramatic way than like Saddam

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Speaker 6: Musin or Vladimir Putin. Like in Japan in the nineties,

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Speaker 6: the banks were kept alive by bank regulators, and so

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Speaker 6: the banks took out really irresponsible loans because they didn't

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Speaker 6: really have to pay the negative cost of any losses,

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Speaker 6: but they did reap the rewards. So they took riskier

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Speaker 6: and riskier bets, and it stored up more and more

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Speaker 6: capital of the country and sort of non performing assets.

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Speaker 6: And you've had total stagnation in Japan for going on,

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Speaker 6: heading towards thirty years. You know, you can then think

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Speaker 6: of it. You know, name your other oligarchic country, you know,

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Speaker 6: whether it's Angola or Iraq or Russia or whatever. They're

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Speaker 6: closely associated with a lack of democracy, lack of a

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Speaker 6: middle class, lack of stability, because the way you succeed

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Speaker 6: is you compete with other oligarchs. You a mass wealth.

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Speaker 6: I mean, it makes me think of John Lee Anderson

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Speaker 6: who was on the show. He told me the story

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Speaker 6: of when he was in Afghanistan. He was talking to

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Speaker 6: his local guy and he started thinking, like what would

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Speaker 6: it take to be a warlord? And the guy's like, well,

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Speaker 6: about ten grand will get you enough troops that you

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Speaker 6: could take over enough territory and drug area that it

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Speaker 6: becomes self sustaining. So you just need that first ten grand.

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Speaker 6: And John Lee was like, I can put ten grand together.

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Speaker 6: Bet you know either he'd be a good he'd pick

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Speaker 6: THATOD one in all the ways.

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Speaker 3: And I want to run this through a conspiracy, which

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Speaker 3: I think maybe a conspiracy, And I'd love to get

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Speaker 3: all three of your your comments on it. So Adam,

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Speaker 3: you probably know this better. But there's this guy, Chengping Zhao, right,

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Speaker 3: he goes by CZ and he's the he's the CEO

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Speaker 3: of Binance, or at least he was. I think he's

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Speaker 3: going to be again, and he was. He was running

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Speaker 3: basically the biggest money laundering drugs money laundering institution out

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Speaker 3: of the face of the earth. And pick I've got

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Speaker 3: it down here. One of his employees wrote when they

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Speaker 3: were investigate him, we need a banner.

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Speaker 4: Is laundering drug money too hard? Come? We have cake?

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Speaker 4: This is like.

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Speaker 3: So it's not like they don't know, right. So he's

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Speaker 3: you know, he's investigated first under Trump and then Trump won.

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Speaker 3: He's sentenced underby He only gets four months because he's

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Speaker 3: got great lawyers, and but he's he's his company I

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Speaker 3: think has got a four point three billion dollar, billion

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Speaker 3: dollar fine. He had a fifty million dollar fine, and

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Speaker 3: Trump is just him. At the same time, this guy

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Speaker 3: cz his company, Binance was helping was it World Liberty Finance,

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Speaker 3: the Trump kids, the Trump family stable coin outfit, and

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Speaker 3: they were working together, and so he's he's put together

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Speaker 3: for them that Binance assisted in putting together their stable coin.

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Speaker 3: And then this this stable coin was then later used

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Speaker 3: by I think by Krishner certainly by one of the

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Speaker 3: Trumps to do this deal with the UAE for two

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Speaker 3: billion dollars. But they're not going to use US dollars,

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Speaker 3: which is good for us. They're going to be using

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Speaker 3: the Trump stable coin, right, which helps both Binance and

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Speaker 3: the Trump family. Right, they're both making money off of this,

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Speaker 3: and they're not using US dollars, which would be good

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Speaker 3: for US. I guess, like, fuck the US. And this

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Speaker 3: is a guy who's enabling drug purchases around the world

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Speaker 3: that damage and kill Americans if you really care about

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Speaker 3: this kind of thing, which they claim they do. But

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Speaker 3: the guy's pardon he it helps Trump family. They're all

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Speaker 3: making money off of this. Is this trinketing? Is this

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Speaker 3: a conspiracy or is this like a real conspiracy theory?

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Speaker 3: And I don't like conspiracy theories, and I know John dovisn't,

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Speaker 3: but I'm really leaning into conspiracy theory here, or excuse me,

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Speaker 3: conspiracy that like, no, there's a plan, whether they sit

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Speaker 3: down and outlined it on the back of an envelope,

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00:20:31,464 --> 00:20:33,824
Speaker 3: but they all know what's going on, and so this

397
00:20:33,944 --> 00:20:37,464
Speaker 3: is oldigar key. But this is also some deep conspiracies

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Speaker 3: to defraud the United States government and to fuck with

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Speaker 3: us all.

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Speaker 4: This isn't capitalism.

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Speaker 6: It's also not hidden like it's not you know, this

402
00:20:44,544 --> 00:20:47,064
Speaker 6: used to be. I remember when I started reporting on

403
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Speaker 6: money laundering and corruption. I forget who said it, but

404
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Speaker 6: there is I'm sure many people said it that in

405
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Speaker 6: the West, and they were talking in this case about

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Speaker 6: the former Soviet states that are closer to Europe. There's

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Speaker 6: a general feeling that corruption is something to hide and

408
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Speaker 6: something to pretend you don't do. But in a lot

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Speaker 6: of the developing world and the Central Asian form of

410
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Speaker 6: it states and Russia, it is the point like it

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Speaker 6: is theatrically presented. It's not like they'll have whatever bs

412
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Speaker 6: they say to the public, but it's you know, I

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Speaker 6: spent time in Azerbaijan. You want to see that the

414
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Speaker 6: Minister of Transportation, who officially made twenty six thousand dollars

415
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Speaker 6: a year at his highest has a crazy mansion in

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Speaker 6: the middle of Baku. And to me, that's what I wonder,

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Speaker 6: is this even Is it a conspiracy? When they want you,

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Speaker 6: they're not hiding it.

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Speaker 3: I just want to one thrown one thing. Trump was

420
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Speaker 3: asked about this in sixty minutes in his interview, and

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Speaker 3: he says, I don't even know this guy, sez Well,

422
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Speaker 3: if you don't know him, why did you.

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Speaker 4: Get your why did you pardon them?

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Speaker 3: And the same thing could be said about the Honduran

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Speaker 3: former hundred and president. Right, he's according to the DOJ

426
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Speaker 3: when it was honest, the guy has brought in four

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Speaker 3: hundred tons of cocaine into the United States. So we're

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Speaker 3: killing people who may be running coke to Surinam. Who

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00:22:06,824 --> 00:22:09,544
Speaker 3: the fuck knows. But the guy rings in four hundred

430
00:22:09,624 --> 00:22:12,104
Speaker 3: tons of cocaine in the US and he does a

431
00:22:12,184 --> 00:22:13,944
Speaker 3: couple of weeks and he gets pardoned.

432
00:22:14,144 --> 00:22:16,904
Speaker 2: Look at what's happening in Hollywood, right. David Ellison in

433
00:22:16,904 --> 00:22:20,784
Speaker 2: Paramount is trying to take over Warner Brothers at the

434
00:22:20,784 --> 00:22:24,104
Speaker 2: same time Netflix is, and President Trump is weighing in,

435
00:22:24,824 --> 00:22:28,704
Speaker 2: essentially likely to support David Ellison because he'd rather have

436
00:22:28,784 --> 00:22:33,664
Speaker 2: a right leaning person running CNN than a left leaning company. Yeah,

437
00:22:33,664 --> 00:22:35,504
Speaker 2: and so it's just in the older. If we only

438
00:22:35,504 --> 00:22:37,784
Speaker 2: have the Partment of Justice, yeah, it would be okay.

439
00:22:38,104 --> 00:22:40,624
Speaker 6: But my point is I don't think we're supposed to

440
00:22:40,864 --> 00:22:44,224
Speaker 6: not know it. I think they want us to know it, right,

441
00:22:44,304 --> 00:22:47,824
Speaker 6: Like that is like le tas Semoir, you want Yeah,

442
00:22:47,864 --> 00:22:48,784
Speaker 6: it has to right.

443
00:22:49,064 --> 00:22:51,023
Speaker 2: But we also want you to know that nobody can

444
00:22:51,064 --> 00:22:51,824
Speaker 2: touch me. I'm immune.

445
00:22:51,864 --> 00:22:54,104
Speaker 3: And except I'm not sure people do know it. I'll

446
00:22:54,104 --> 00:22:56,464
Speaker 3: bet you the vast majority of people even listening to

447
00:22:56,464 --> 00:22:58,464
Speaker 3: this podcast, who are probably fairly well in form people,

448
00:22:58,704 --> 00:23:01,064
Speaker 3: couldn't sit down and tell you about how this guy,

449
00:23:01,624 --> 00:23:04,704
Speaker 3: Cheng Peng Zhao is milking the system. There's just so

450
00:23:04,904 --> 00:23:07,464
Speaker 3: much of it. So let me throw this out to

451
00:23:07,544 --> 00:23:11,184
Speaker 3: the to the three. Let's just pretend that in twenty

452
00:23:11,184 --> 00:23:14,184
Speaker 3: twenty six the Democrats started investigating, or in twenty twenty

453
00:23:14,224 --> 00:23:17,784
Speaker 3: eight we get a new president, a new broom. Now

454
00:23:17,824 --> 00:23:21,624
Speaker 3: do they go around like arresting everybody, Tim Cook, you

455
00:23:21,624 --> 00:23:24,263
Speaker 3: gave him a fucking gold bar, right, right? Do these

456
00:23:24,264 --> 00:23:26,264
Speaker 3: people get or do they like, go, well, it's best

457
00:23:26,264 --> 00:23:27,344
Speaker 3: to kick it under the table.

458
00:23:27,544 --> 00:23:29,624
Speaker 4: Let's just move on. Or do the Democrats do the

459
00:23:29,664 --> 00:23:30,144
Speaker 4: same thing.

460
00:23:30,344 --> 00:23:33,424
Speaker 6: I don't want false equivalents. But it's not like Democrats

461
00:23:33,424 --> 00:23:36,944
Speaker 6: have been cleaned forever. Like there Trump is way many, many,

462
00:23:36,984 --> 00:23:39,984
Speaker 6: many levels of first but the insider trading stuff with

463
00:23:40,104 --> 00:23:43,104
Speaker 6: Nancy Pulp, Like I there's plenty to be mad about

464
00:23:43,184 --> 00:23:45,504
Speaker 6: before Trump came in. It is on a shole new

465
00:23:45,584 --> 00:23:48,344
Speaker 6: level that we have not seen in over a century.

466
00:23:48,464 --> 00:23:50,224
Speaker 3: The way to clean it up, though, do you go

467
00:23:50,304 --> 00:23:52,704
Speaker 3: after all these people or do you just go.

468
00:23:52,584 --> 00:23:54,104
Speaker 4: Hey, let's just start again.

469
00:23:54,504 --> 00:23:57,664
Speaker 1: Well is there a truth and reconciliation commissioned type of solution?

470
00:23:57,864 --> 00:23:58,344
Speaker 5: I don't know.

471
00:23:58,944 --> 00:24:02,144
Speaker 6: I mean look at Epstein, like even like you know,

472
00:24:02,464 --> 00:24:04,944
Speaker 6: the state of New York could go after Like we

473
00:24:05,024 --> 00:24:07,544
Speaker 6: all know who was in his orbit. We all know

474
00:24:08,064 --> 00:24:11,784
Speaker 6: best case scenario, they were witnesses to crimes. Like why

475
00:24:11,824 --> 00:24:14,704
Speaker 6: do we not see all of these people who are

476
00:24:14,744 --> 00:24:19,024
Speaker 6: like quitting prominent jobs, who are like it seems like

477
00:24:19,064 --> 00:24:21,624
Speaker 6: we have I'm going to say something radical. You've never

478
00:24:21,664 --> 00:24:24,544
Speaker 6: heard this before. But it's possible that we don't prosecute

479
00:24:24,784 --> 00:24:27,424
Speaker 6: rich white people in the way that we prosecute other

480
00:24:27,464 --> 00:24:28,464
Speaker 6: people in this country.

481
00:24:28,504 --> 00:24:30,464
Speaker 2: And to Jerry's question, one of the reasons maybe we

482
00:24:30,504 --> 00:24:33,704
Speaker 2: don't go after all those people is they may benefit

483
00:24:33,744 --> 00:24:37,064
Speaker 2: by if Trump pardons everybody, then they actually don't have

484
00:24:37,144 --> 00:24:37,744
Speaker 2: to do it.

485
00:24:38,264 --> 00:24:40,904
Speaker 6: But you were saying not everyone knows, and that's probably

486
00:24:40,944 --> 00:24:41,824
Speaker 6: I mean, that's definitely true.

487
00:24:41,864 --> 00:24:43,664
Speaker 3: Of like I was paying attention, Maybe that's a better

488
00:24:43,984 --> 00:24:45,904
Speaker 3: because it's just so but there's so much graft though.

489
00:24:45,984 --> 00:24:48,224
Speaker 2: Jerry, like people can see foreign leaders coming over.

490
00:24:48,304 --> 00:24:52,104
Speaker 6: He wants to know, like how many people in the

491
00:24:52,144 --> 00:24:55,064
Speaker 6: Department of Justice are like maybe I will go after this,

492
00:24:55,424 --> 00:24:57,344
Speaker 6: you know, and it doesn't even have to be one

493
00:24:57,384 --> 00:25:00,824
Speaker 6: of the big things, you know, Yeah, or how many

494
00:25:00,984 --> 00:25:04,464
Speaker 6: like how many prominent CEOs are like I mean, Costco

495
00:25:04,504 --> 00:25:06,624
Speaker 6: suit him. I was impressed by that that didn't have

496
00:25:06,664 --> 00:25:07,144
Speaker 6: a choice.

497
00:25:07,264 --> 00:25:09,464
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, someone in the FBI can walk in it.

498
00:25:09,584 --> 00:25:11,704
Speaker 2: White House, Listen, you know, we've got some concerns with

499
00:25:11,784 --> 00:25:13,904
Speaker 2: Russian intelligence in the United States. We really want to

500
00:25:13,944 --> 00:25:15,544
Speaker 2: crack down. We really want to crack down.

501
00:25:15,664 --> 00:25:19,144
Speaker 6: And no, mister President, it's awkward, but it's your campaign

502
00:25:19,304 --> 00:25:22,704
Speaker 6: so we got to you know, we're looking at some

503
00:25:22,744 --> 00:25:25,584
Speaker 6: of your meetings your kids have had with some people

504
00:25:25,584 --> 00:25:29,144
Speaker 6: on the terrorism watch list. So I think the message

505
00:25:29,144 --> 00:25:33,264
Speaker 6: gets to the people who need to know, and then.

506
00:25:32,904 --> 00:25:35,944
Speaker 2: The people who can benefit or avoid getting in trouble.

507
00:25:36,144 --> 00:25:40,304
Speaker 6: We've all spent time in autocratic nations, right, and you

508
00:25:40,344 --> 00:25:43,184
Speaker 6: see pictures of the leader everywhere, and you see pictures

509
00:25:43,224 --> 00:25:46,784
Speaker 6: of their kids everywhere. There is that like this is

510
00:25:46,824 --> 00:25:50,464
Speaker 6: a state, it that is owned by this family. And

511
00:25:51,024 --> 00:25:55,224
Speaker 6: to me, the puzzle is why people seem to like it.

512
00:25:55,344 --> 00:25:57,783
Speaker 6: I mean, it's a very it's a smaller number than

513
00:25:57,784 --> 00:25:59,984
Speaker 6: it was a few months ago, but it's still more

514
00:26:00,024 --> 00:26:03,144
Speaker 6: than a third of Americans. It would be it curious

515
00:26:03,184 --> 00:26:05,544
Speaker 6: to know how many of them do know what's going

516
00:26:05,544 --> 00:26:08,264
Speaker 6: on and kind of see it as cool, like, yeah,

517
00:26:08,304 --> 00:26:11,384
Speaker 6: what are you going to do? I remember when Mayor

518
00:26:11,784 --> 00:26:14,424
Speaker 6: the first of the father, Richard Day, I say, I

519
00:26:14,464 --> 00:26:17,304
Speaker 6: remember I wasn't around, but I read about it. Gave

520
00:26:17,344 --> 00:26:20,304
Speaker 6: his son, who later became Mayor a job. And you

521
00:26:20,344 --> 00:26:23,624
Speaker 6: know this was back when Mayor Daily ran Chicago like

522
00:26:24,384 --> 00:26:27,944
Speaker 6: frump Friends of America. And his answer he was asked

523
00:26:27,944 --> 00:26:30,384
Speaker 6: about he said, what am I gonna do? Like not

524
00:26:30,424 --> 00:26:32,864
Speaker 6: get my kid a job, And that was a pretty

525
00:26:32,864 --> 00:26:35,064
Speaker 6: good answer for his followers. They liked it.

526
00:26:35,144 --> 00:26:39,184
Speaker 2: Let's talk about oligarchs and conspiracy, like one of the

527
00:26:39,184 --> 00:26:41,504
Speaker 2: things I think we've sort of been you know, there's

528
00:26:41,504 --> 00:26:45,264
Speaker 2: been this big blizzard of horrible things of corruption and

529
00:26:45,504 --> 00:26:47,904
Speaker 2: competence and all these things we've talked about. That's about

530
00:26:47,904 --> 00:26:50,504
Speaker 2: Elon Musk and DOGE. I think we've forgotten about Doge.

531
00:26:50,504 --> 00:26:53,744
Speaker 2: What a disaster that was and how that just completely

532
00:26:53,784 --> 00:26:56,624
Speaker 2: weakened the capability of public servants to do their jobs

533
00:26:56,624 --> 00:26:59,064
Speaker 2: and expertise. And it was based very largely on a

534
00:26:59,064 --> 00:27:02,264
Speaker 2: bunch of conspiracy theories that Elon Musk got right off

535
00:27:02,424 --> 00:27:05,144
Speaker 2: of Twitter, right, so he got these crazy things about

536
00:27:05,224 --> 00:27:09,104
Speaker 2: USA AID causing all these horrible problems. As a result,

537
00:27:09,144 --> 00:27:12,824
Speaker 2: he destroyed the entire organization within the within just a

538
00:27:12,864 --> 00:27:17,304
Speaker 2: few weeks, so rapidly and so thoughtlessly that literally hundreds

539
00:27:17,304 --> 00:27:19,624
Speaker 2: of thousands of people may die as a result of this.

540
00:27:19,904 --> 00:27:24,064
Speaker 2: Yeah again, conspiracy crap that he believed on social media

541
00:27:24,104 --> 00:27:27,664
Speaker 2: platforms has led to the destruction of a US big

542
00:27:27,784 --> 00:27:32,504
Speaker 2: US government organization and worldwide consequences to include people dying

543
00:27:32,904 --> 00:27:34,184
Speaker 2: and the science funding.

544
00:27:34,264 --> 00:27:36,424
Speaker 3: Like I was going to go there next by the

545
00:27:36,464 --> 00:27:40,064
Speaker 3: time people start dying of polio, those people will have

546
00:27:40,264 --> 00:27:41,584
Speaker 3: moved on, right.

547
00:27:41,344 --> 00:27:44,344
Speaker 6: And I know a bunch of folks in like cutting

548
00:27:44,424 --> 00:27:48,744
Speaker 6: edge medical research, scientific research. I mean that is a

549
00:27:48,864 --> 00:27:53,064
Speaker 6: generational you know, we have long term studies that you know,

550
00:27:53,064 --> 00:27:55,424
Speaker 6: we're supposed to go on for decades, that you can't

551
00:27:55,464 --> 00:27:58,504
Speaker 6: just restart them five years later, like those are done.

552
00:27:58,984 --> 00:28:01,984
Speaker 6: We have entire avenues of research. Like there's a very

553
00:28:02,024 --> 00:28:04,704
Speaker 6: good chance that one of us or someone we love

554
00:28:04,744 --> 00:28:07,744
Speaker 6: will be in a doctor's office ten years from now,

555
00:28:07,784 --> 00:28:10,584
Speaker 6: twenty years from now, and they're won't be a solution

556
00:28:11,664 --> 00:28:15,144
Speaker 6: because of research that was stopped. And it is like

557
00:28:15,224 --> 00:28:18,624
Speaker 6: I think where I go is that, Like it's awful,

558
00:28:18,664 --> 00:28:23,184
Speaker 6: but it's fascinating that Like on the conspiracy side, so

559
00:28:23,424 --> 00:28:28,224
Speaker 6: little information gets to be combined or no information, negative

560
00:28:28,264 --> 00:28:31,464
Speaker 6: information gets to be combined. But on the fact check

561
00:28:31,504 --> 00:28:35,344
Speaker 6: the conspiracy or call out. Like if you then say

562
00:28:35,384 --> 00:28:37,944
Speaker 6: like look how corrupt Trump is, You're gonna hear like, well, no,

563
00:28:38,104 --> 00:28:40,104
Speaker 6: it was actually his sons did this and they didn't

564
00:28:40,144 --> 00:28:42,944
Speaker 6: do that. And I think that I'm gonna talk about

565
00:28:43,024 --> 00:28:45,784
Speaker 6: AI for a second. People get worried about AI and

566
00:28:46,104 --> 00:28:49,424
Speaker 6: deep fakes, which is like a fine thing to be

567
00:28:49,424 --> 00:28:51,944
Speaker 6: worried about. But what I'm thinking about is like, how

568
00:28:51,984 --> 00:28:56,944
Speaker 6: does a fact become a publicly known thing or a

569
00:28:57,024 --> 00:29:00,064
Speaker 6: lie become a publican note? Like that whole information environment

570
00:29:00,544 --> 00:29:03,984
Speaker 6: is utterly broken, irreparably. I would say, like there might

571
00:29:04,024 --> 00:29:06,224
Speaker 6: be some new thing that we can create.

572
00:29:06,304 --> 00:29:06,864
Speaker 4: But when I.

573
00:29:06,824 --> 00:29:09,384
Speaker 6: Started in journalism in the early nineties, like, there was

574
00:29:09,424 --> 00:29:13,904
Speaker 6: a set number of gatekeepers, and this system had its issues,

575
00:29:13,944 --> 00:29:17,104
Speaker 6: Like it wasn't flawless, certainly not, but there was a

576
00:29:17,144 --> 00:29:19,544
Speaker 6: set number there was, and you know, and there still is.

577
00:29:19,584 --> 00:29:22,944
Speaker 6: But they clearly don't have that big an impact. You

578
00:29:23,024 --> 00:29:27,544
Speaker 6: guys worked in a truth oriented business at least internally,

579
00:29:28,104 --> 00:29:31,504
Speaker 6: of that rewarded truth and had mechanisms for checking to

580
00:29:31,544 --> 00:29:34,664
Speaker 6: see if things are true, and all of that seems broken.

581
00:29:35,184 --> 00:29:38,024
Speaker 6: I actually I feel like people will hate me for

582
00:29:38,064 --> 00:29:41,224
Speaker 6: saying this. I think AI exacerbates the problem, but AI

583
00:29:41,304 --> 00:29:45,704
Speaker 6: also could potentially help mitigate the problem. Like AI, I

584
00:29:45,784 --> 00:29:48,904
Speaker 6: have used AI in ways to make things more factual.

585
00:29:49,184 --> 00:29:51,024
Speaker 6: It's not it, you know, you have to do stuff,

586
00:29:51,064 --> 00:29:54,664
Speaker 6: but it's pretty good at checking and assessing things, researching things.

587
00:29:54,904 --> 00:29:57,944
Speaker 6: But that feels to me like a big theme maybe

588
00:29:57,984 --> 00:30:00,584
Speaker 6: of the rest of our lives. It's like the rapid

589
00:30:01,304 --> 00:30:03,944
Speaker 6: spread of let's just call it information and then is

590
00:30:03,984 --> 00:30:07,904
Speaker 6: it miss is it disinformation? Is it truthful information? How

591
00:30:07,944 --> 00:30:10,224
Speaker 6: does that happen? What are the channels that flows through?

592
00:30:10,504 --> 00:30:13,104
Speaker 3: So a couple of days ago, I was in Whole

593
00:30:13,144 --> 00:30:17,984
Speaker 3: Foods and there was one stall right for for number two.

594
00:30:18,344 --> 00:30:21,384
Speaker 3: The guy just didn't come out right, and I like

595
00:30:21,504 --> 00:30:23,984
Speaker 3: piped under the under the thing and his feet were there,

596
00:30:24,144 --> 00:30:26,824
Speaker 3: and you know, and another guy was waiting. See he

597
00:30:26,944 --> 00:30:30,704
Speaker 3: knocks like nothing, and like, I don't know, is somebody

598
00:30:30,744 --> 00:30:33,384
Speaker 3: o d in there? Is he like asleep? Is it

599
00:30:33,464 --> 00:30:36,264
Speaker 3: a homeless person? So I thought I better, So I

600
00:30:36,304 --> 00:30:39,264
Speaker 3: went to the staff and said, hey, there's somebody in

601
00:30:39,304 --> 00:30:42,144
Speaker 3: there and they're not moving, and I sort of went

602
00:30:42,184 --> 00:30:44,784
Speaker 3: away and I bumped into the guy, the whole Whole

603
00:30:44,824 --> 00:30:50,064
Speaker 3: Foods store employee. He said, basically, he was just doing

604
00:30:50,184 --> 00:30:53,024
Speaker 3: like his his health research on his phone, right, But

605
00:30:53,144 --> 00:30:56,184
Speaker 3: this is where it's conspiracy. He's basically he was doing

606
00:30:56,264 --> 00:30:59,384
Speaker 3: research on his freaking telephone sitting on a public toilet.

607
00:30:59,784 --> 00:31:02,184
Speaker 4: But this is where people are doing it now, right.

608
00:31:02,064 --> 00:31:03,984
Speaker 3: It's like, Oh, I'm gonna I'm going to become an

609
00:31:04,024 --> 00:31:08,984
Speaker 3: expert in RNA technology and whether autism caused whether vaccines

610
00:31:09,024 --> 00:31:11,904
Speaker 3: cause autism, because I'm gonna like quick research this on

611
00:31:11,904 --> 00:31:13,104
Speaker 3: the Whole Foods public toilet.

612
00:31:13,264 --> 00:31:15,864
Speaker 5: Well, it sounds like Whole Foods needs a breakroom, that's

613
00:31:15,864 --> 00:31:16,384
Speaker 5: the problem.

614
00:31:16,544 --> 00:31:17,184
Speaker 4: Yeah.

615
00:31:17,264 --> 00:31:18,224
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he's.

616
00:31:18,024 --> 00:31:21,344
Speaker 3: Probably you know, he's probably got three million followers.

617
00:31:20,824 --> 00:31:23,824
Speaker 1: Probably you know, more followers than our progress especially if

618
00:31:23,864 --> 00:31:26,344
Speaker 1: he has videos of himself on the toilet.

619
00:31:26,384 --> 00:31:27,304
Speaker 5: Good money that way.

620
00:31:27,544 --> 00:31:31,784
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we're looking back at the year, it's clear

621
00:31:31,864 --> 00:31:34,904
Speaker 2: the corruptions, clear, the incompetence. But at the same time,

622
00:31:35,304 --> 00:31:38,224
Speaker 2: based on Trump want to you know, and the idiots

623
00:31:38,224 --> 00:31:40,784
Speaker 2: that they put in charge of things, the incompetence is there.

624
00:31:40,824 --> 00:31:43,864
Speaker 2: But in terms of the things that they've gone after successfully,

625
00:31:44,464 --> 00:31:47,104
Speaker 2: They've gone after the media, they've gone after academia, they've

626
00:31:47,184 --> 00:31:50,664
Speaker 2: gone after the law firms, and they've gone after the

627
00:31:50,704 --> 00:31:53,504
Speaker 2: deep state, and they've had an effect on all of.

628
00:31:53,464 --> 00:31:54,784
Speaker 6: Those things, a massive event.

629
00:31:54,864 --> 00:31:57,344
Speaker 2: And so on one hand, I think of the people

630
00:31:57,384 --> 00:32:01,024
Speaker 2: who run organizations are incompetent, But on the other hand,

631
00:32:01,584 --> 00:32:03,784
Speaker 2: it's almost like they really did have a plan and

632
00:32:03,824 --> 00:32:05,344
Speaker 2: they executed that plan.

633
00:32:05,664 --> 00:32:08,544
Speaker 6: Absolutely, and it's something like it's something I've read about

634
00:32:08,704 --> 00:32:12,344
Speaker 6: in his books and political science books, but I never

635
00:32:12,784 --> 00:32:15,184
Speaker 6: certainly never occurred to me. I would experience it in

636
00:32:15,224 --> 00:32:19,584
Speaker 6: my own country, which is, there's never enough like crazies,

637
00:32:19,624 --> 00:32:23,264
Speaker 6: whatever you want to call, like Maga or Nazis or

638
00:32:23,304 --> 00:32:28,144
Speaker 6: Bathists or whatever. There's never enough true believers. And generally

639
00:32:28,184 --> 00:32:30,824
Speaker 6: when you have a sycophantic based system, you don't get

640
00:32:30,864 --> 00:32:34,384
Speaker 6: great people because great people don't want to be sycopants, right, So,

641
00:32:35,344 --> 00:32:37,704
Speaker 6: you know, it does seem like Trump has a handful

642
00:32:37,704 --> 00:32:40,544
Speaker 6: of true believers in something like Stephen Miller, But for

643
00:32:40,624 --> 00:32:44,184
Speaker 6: the most part, it's you know, Lindsay Halligan and Pambondi

644
00:32:44,264 --> 00:32:47,544
Speaker 6: and stuff. It's people who are operating many levels above

645
00:32:47,544 --> 00:32:50,144
Speaker 6: anywhere they ever had any right to imagine they'd be,

646
00:32:50,304 --> 00:32:53,704
Speaker 6: and they're just going to stick around. But that group

647
00:32:53,984 --> 00:32:58,264
Speaker 6: can't dismantle a system. You need the people who believe

648
00:32:58,304 --> 00:33:01,504
Speaker 6: in the system, who built the system, who created the system,

649
00:33:02,224 --> 00:33:05,224
Speaker 6: who have upheld the system. You need those people to

650
00:33:05,344 --> 00:33:09,304
Speaker 6: destroy the system. And that is that happened in a shocking,

651
00:33:09,744 --> 00:33:16,264
Speaker 6: lee abrupt like the university capitulation. The law firms, like

652
00:33:16,344 --> 00:33:19,384
Speaker 6: the law firms really were shocking to me. The universities

653
00:33:19,384 --> 00:33:21,624
Speaker 6: were shocking to me, Like I think, you know, you

654
00:33:21,664 --> 00:33:24,024
Speaker 6: sort of say like, oh, universities are a business, but

655
00:33:24,424 --> 00:33:27,784
Speaker 6: you don't really think they're like like, so these schools

656
00:33:27,784 --> 00:33:30,624
Speaker 6: will be smaller, or or some of these schools won't exist,

657
00:33:30,744 --> 00:33:34,504
Speaker 6: or maybe your law firm doesn't exist. Okay, yep, maybe

658
00:33:34,584 --> 00:33:37,584
Speaker 6: that's an okay, Like you're still going to make millions

659
00:33:37,624 --> 00:33:39,184
Speaker 6: of dollars at a different law firm.

660
00:33:39,264 --> 00:33:42,224
Speaker 1: And short term thinking too, is it really good business

661
00:33:42,264 --> 00:33:44,944
Speaker 1: for five ten years down the road? How many people

662
00:33:44,944 --> 00:33:47,464
Speaker 1: are going to stop applying to your college or stop

663
00:33:47,544 --> 00:33:50,504
Speaker 1: donating money? And how many people will if you're standing up,

664
00:33:50,544 --> 00:33:52,624
Speaker 1: how many people will choose I'm going to choose a

665
00:33:52,664 --> 00:33:54,624
Speaker 1: law firm that fought for my rights.

666
00:33:54,384 --> 00:33:58,584
Speaker 6: And that is like you know, Columbia. Like it just

667
00:33:58,624 --> 00:34:03,464
Speaker 6: seemed to me there were so many making obviously dumb choices.

668
00:34:03,504 --> 00:34:05,624
Speaker 6: But then I'm like, do they know something I don't know.

669
00:34:05,744 --> 00:34:08,743
Speaker 6: I don't mean like in some Moorilly right way. I

670
00:34:08,864 --> 00:34:11,424
Speaker 6: just mean, but I think that is like people have

671
00:34:11,504 --> 00:34:14,064
Speaker 6: said that of Trump, he's a master of human weakness,

672
00:34:14,104 --> 00:34:17,183
Speaker 6: like he he sees weakness where the rest of us

673
00:34:17,304 --> 00:34:19,183
Speaker 6: might see strength.

674
00:34:19,344 --> 00:34:22,584
Speaker 3: What about cracks inside of mega which I expected to

675
00:34:22,743 --> 00:34:26,783
Speaker 3: be much wider and come much earlier, things like anti Semitism.

676
00:34:26,824 --> 00:34:30,143
Speaker 3: You've got parts of MAGA that are like, clearly, you know,

677
00:34:30,223 --> 00:34:33,104
Speaker 3: Nick Flent is clearly anti Semitic. What could be more

678
00:34:33,143 --> 00:34:35,184
Speaker 3: fun than a gas chamber joke? On the other side,

679
00:34:35,544 --> 00:34:39,864
Speaker 3: the same movement, it's like we're behind Israel because eventually

680
00:34:39,944 --> 00:34:41,783
Speaker 3: Jesus is going to come down and destroy it all

681
00:34:42,064 --> 00:34:44,623
Speaker 3: when the rapture comes in. And also two things like

682
00:34:44,743 --> 00:34:47,504
Speaker 3: Christian nationalism. And then you look at Cash Patel right

683
00:34:48,143 --> 00:34:51,384
Speaker 3: and vice pread wush Vans, and there's there's a number

684
00:34:51,384 --> 00:34:54,863
Speaker 3: of US Gabbert Hagen's still in the US government. So

685
00:34:55,584 --> 00:34:58,303
Speaker 3: it seems like Trump is Trump and Grift or the

686
00:34:58,384 --> 00:35:01,343
Speaker 3: glue that's holding it together. It seems to me, and

687
00:35:01,544 --> 00:35:03,663
Speaker 3: I probably got it wrong, but I wonder about some

688
00:35:03,783 --> 00:35:06,903
Speaker 3: of these fishers inside of the organization how long they

689
00:35:06,904 --> 00:35:07,903
Speaker 3: can hold on.

690
00:35:08,223 --> 00:35:10,024
Speaker 6: I mean, I think that is the question end of

691
00:35:10,304 --> 00:35:13,263
Speaker 6: twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven, like will there

692
00:35:13,304 --> 00:35:17,304
Speaker 6: be trump Ism after Trump? It is hard to picture,

693
00:35:17,424 --> 00:35:20,344
Speaker 6: like what that unified thing is other than.

694
00:35:20,544 --> 00:35:23,904
Speaker 3: Hatred and like we woke, anti woke, anti gay.

695
00:35:24,024 --> 00:35:26,064
Speaker 2: But don't you have to hate some there's a white

696
00:35:26,104 --> 00:35:30,183
Speaker 2: nationalism piece, there's the grifting piece there, and they are

697
00:35:30,223 --> 00:35:32,783
Speaker 2: separate and they don't necessarily like each other. And we're

698
00:35:32,783 --> 00:35:35,624
Speaker 2: seeing some of it in Congress. But on the Jerry

699
00:35:35,623 --> 00:35:37,544
Speaker 2: on that Steady State group with a podcast, we had

700
00:35:37,544 --> 00:35:39,943
Speaker 2: Adam kinserground the other day and asked him, like Jim

701
00:35:40,024 --> 00:35:41,944
Speaker 2: Lawler was doing it with me, and asked him, like,

702
00:35:42,143 --> 00:35:44,623
Speaker 2: do you see any of your former colleagues in the

703
00:35:44,623 --> 00:35:47,183
Speaker 2: Congress or Senate that you work with who will be

704
00:35:47,304 --> 00:35:49,504
Speaker 2: like you, like a Republican's willing to stand up? And

705
00:35:49,544 --> 00:35:51,823
Speaker 2: he said, no, I don't. He's just I think they've

706
00:35:51,824 --> 00:35:56,024
Speaker 2: all completely gone away, they've quit, or there's just total cowardice.

707
00:35:56,064 --> 00:35:57,423
Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, you need some

708
00:35:57,504 --> 00:36:00,944
Speaker 2: politicians to stand up too, like the regular society can

709
00:36:00,984 --> 00:36:03,703
Speaker 2: stand up. But if the executive branch and the judicial

710
00:36:03,703 --> 00:36:06,384
Speaker 2: brands and the legislative branch are all sort of working

711
00:36:06,424 --> 00:36:09,104
Speaker 2: against the American people, it's a hard it's a hard role.

712
00:36:09,544 --> 00:36:12,744
Speaker 6: It is I will set like it's heartbreaking, it's awful.

713
00:36:12,944 --> 00:36:16,863
Speaker 6: It also is fascinating like it is. You know, I've

714
00:36:16,904 --> 00:36:20,943
Speaker 6: read about civilizational collapse and I'm not even necessarily saying

715
00:36:20,984 --> 00:36:24,703
Speaker 6: we will collapse, but I'm also not saying we won't collapse.

716
00:36:24,743 --> 00:36:27,104
Speaker 6: I think we're certainly seeing in a way none of

717
00:36:27,183 --> 00:36:30,303
Speaker 6: us ever expected to see in our home country, the

718
00:36:30,384 --> 00:36:33,824
Speaker 6: things that lead to civilizational collapse, whether or not it happens.

719
00:36:34,263 --> 00:36:37,584
Speaker 6: Like I think I would have thought a bunch of

720
00:36:37,623 --> 00:36:39,984
Speaker 6: our norms were stronger, Like I don't even know if

721
00:36:39,984 --> 00:36:42,343
Speaker 6: I would have consciously thought about it.

722
00:36:42,384 --> 00:36:46,024
Speaker 3: I just I would have thought their laws. I think

723
00:36:46,064 --> 00:36:48,104
Speaker 3: a lot of people are surprised at their norms.

724
00:36:48,304 --> 00:36:48,504
Speaker 5: Right.

725
00:36:48,783 --> 00:36:51,904
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh, Clarence Thomas, he just took all this money,

726
00:36:52,024 --> 00:36:53,183
Speaker 3: and that's clearly illegal.

727
00:36:53,263 --> 00:36:54,424
Speaker 4: No, it isn't he can.

728
00:36:54,904 --> 00:36:56,863
Speaker 2: But after Nixon, there was a lot of laws to

729
00:36:56,904 --> 00:36:58,863
Speaker 2: try to push back. What if that's what we see

730
00:36:58,944 --> 00:37:01,864
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight going forward, is the Congress actually taking

731
00:37:01,944 --> 00:37:03,864
Speaker 2: up it's being a coward for so long, all of

732
00:37:03,864 --> 00:37:05,223
Speaker 2: a sudden they're going to jump in and put all

733
00:37:05,223 --> 00:37:07,464
Speaker 2: these laws together to try to fix the things that

734
00:37:07,504 --> 00:37:08,744
Speaker 2: were supposedly broken.

735
00:37:08,783 --> 00:37:12,384
Speaker 4: And then especially like the DOJ. I mean I assumed

736
00:37:12,384 --> 00:37:13,343
Speaker 4: it was silly me.

737
00:37:13,384 --> 00:37:16,584
Speaker 3: I assumed it was a law that the DOJ couldn't

738
00:37:16,663 --> 00:37:19,304
Speaker 3: work that closely with the White House. If you remember,

739
00:37:19,344 --> 00:37:23,384
Speaker 3: there was like Barack Obama on an airplane, he bumped

740
00:37:23,464 --> 00:37:26,664
Speaker 3: into somebody Clinton. That's right, They just like they talked

741
00:37:26,663 --> 00:37:29,623
Speaker 3: on on a ptarmac. Yeah, for five minutes. And now

742
00:37:29,663 --> 00:37:32,504
Speaker 3: you've got the Republicans were going crazy over that. But

743
00:37:32,663 --> 00:37:36,823
Speaker 3: now the DOJ and the White House are absolutely intertwined.

744
00:37:36,864 --> 00:37:39,384
Speaker 3: There's no debate about that. I just assumed that the

745
00:37:39,504 --> 00:37:42,064
Speaker 3: DOJ independence was legally binding, and it's not.

746
00:37:42,143 --> 00:37:43,104
Speaker 4: It's just a custom.

747
00:37:43,183 --> 00:37:47,504
Speaker 1: Well, the custom is the Senate approval of the Attorney General,

748
00:37:47,703 --> 00:37:49,824
Speaker 1: and that protection went away.

749
00:37:49,783 --> 00:38:11,623
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we should wrap up with something optimistic. I mean,

750
00:38:11,623 --> 00:38:14,303
Speaker 6: I will say there are a few things, like most

751
00:38:14,304 --> 00:38:18,343
Speaker 6: people still don't believe in conspiracy theories. I think you

752
00:38:18,344 --> 00:38:20,623
Speaker 6: think most people don't believe in conspiracy theories.

753
00:38:20,824 --> 00:38:22,984
Speaker 5: I think most people do. I think the four of

754
00:38:23,064 --> 00:38:23,343
Speaker 5: us do.

755
00:38:23,663 --> 00:38:23,903
Speaker 4: Yeah.

756
00:38:23,944 --> 00:38:26,824
Speaker 3: Maybe I'd believe in more conspiracies now than ever before.

757
00:38:26,864 --> 00:38:29,143
Speaker 1: Well you think they're conspiracies to other people, that are

758
00:38:29,143 --> 00:38:31,863
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, right, No, we're right.

759
00:38:32,183 --> 00:38:34,223
Speaker 6: We get to live through history in a rich and

760
00:38:34,304 --> 00:38:35,143
Speaker 6: exciting way.

761
00:38:36,663 --> 00:38:39,504
Speaker 4: Gives us and sounding something you say in nineteen thirty four.

762
00:38:40,104 --> 00:38:42,263
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's like I saw somebody talk about if you

763
00:38:42,304 --> 00:38:44,663
Speaker 6: get sucked into a black hole, like it would suck

764
00:38:44,783 --> 00:38:49,064
Speaker 6: because of what they call spaghettification, where your body is

765
00:38:49,223 --> 00:38:52,584
Speaker 6: stretched out until it's just a bunch of quirks. But

766
00:38:53,024 --> 00:38:55,943
Speaker 6: in those seconds or minutes you're alive, you would see

767
00:38:55,984 --> 00:38:58,743
Speaker 6: the entire future of the universe in front of you.

768
00:38:59,064 --> 00:39:02,104
Speaker 6: I hope my glasses make it, because I can't crap

769
00:39:02,183 --> 00:39:03,743
Speaker 6: without damn it.

770
00:39:04,344 --> 00:39:06,143
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Jets finally win the Super Bowl.

771
00:39:07,064 --> 00:39:09,104
Speaker 2: The Jets did win the Super Bowl, Jerry, just so

772
00:39:09,183 --> 00:39:10,984
Speaker 2: you know, or nineteen sixty seven.

773
00:39:10,864 --> 00:39:12,383
Speaker 4: Oh they did. Yeah, that's right.

774
00:39:12,504 --> 00:39:15,223
Speaker 2: But Adam's a writer, right, just so the people who

775
00:39:15,304 --> 00:39:16,984
Speaker 2: live through the thirties got to at least write cool,

776
00:39:17,143 --> 00:39:19,703
Speaker 2: good books about it. Yeah, many movies and TV shows.

777
00:39:19,824 --> 00:39:21,663
Speaker 6: I mean, I do think like, if you think about

778
00:39:21,703 --> 00:39:25,104
Speaker 6: the thirties, like the thirties in Germany, it probably was

779
00:39:25,183 --> 00:39:29,024
Speaker 6: pretty impossible to imagine Germany a generation or two later

780
00:39:29,104 --> 00:39:29,424
Speaker 6: would be.

781
00:39:29,864 --> 00:39:32,464
Speaker 1: Well, here's something optimistic. A lot of people say that

782
00:39:33,104 --> 00:39:37,384
Speaker 1: one of Trump's geniuses is gets everyone united against a

783
00:39:37,464 --> 00:39:42,024
Speaker 1: common enemy and creates this common enemy through fear. Now

784
00:39:42,464 --> 00:39:46,584
Speaker 1: Trump has created a common enemy and fear against him.

785
00:39:46,663 --> 00:39:48,383
Speaker 1: He's united all of us.

786
00:39:48,703 --> 00:39:51,024
Speaker 2: Well, the immigrants become the other, right, So that's where

787
00:39:51,064 --> 00:39:53,544
Speaker 2: everybody's causing your problem. And they chose the immigrants to

788
00:39:53,623 --> 00:39:57,743
Speaker 2: be the thing you should fear. But they're almost overdoing it, right,

789
00:39:57,783 --> 00:40:00,223
Speaker 2: So they're doing such nasty things that people in public

790
00:40:00,304 --> 00:40:02,263
Speaker 2: that even even some of the people who I think

791
00:40:02,424 --> 00:40:04,584
Speaker 2: would be happy to see immigrants be pushed out of

792
00:40:04,584 --> 00:40:06,663
Speaker 2: the country are starting to say this is too much,

793
00:40:06,783 --> 00:40:09,343
Speaker 2: this is over the top, And so maybe that's part

794
00:40:09,384 --> 00:40:11,984
Speaker 2: of the turn I'm gonna try to be optimistic. I

795
00:40:12,104 --> 00:40:14,464
Speaker 2: do think there is a bit of a turn turn, right,

796
00:40:14,464 --> 00:40:16,344
Speaker 2: so they attack the deep state, But to me, the

797
00:40:16,424 --> 00:40:19,104
Speaker 2: deep state is are people of public servants with expertise,

798
00:40:19,263 --> 00:40:22,464
Speaker 2: yes you legal professionalism, as opposed to politicians who we

799
00:40:22,544 --> 00:40:26,024
Speaker 2: now see openly life, cheat and steel and have no courage. Right,

800
00:40:26,223 --> 00:40:29,423
Speaker 2: So I think there'll be a turnback on deep state

801
00:40:29,783 --> 00:40:31,743
Speaker 2: the things we talked about law firms. I don't know

802
00:40:31,783 --> 00:40:35,104
Speaker 2: about media, but academia maybe will start to push back

803
00:40:35,143 --> 00:40:38,024
Speaker 2: against these things. Media I worry about because there's so

804
00:40:38,064 --> 00:40:40,623
Speaker 2: many big oligarchs buying stuff, right, So that's a different thing.

805
00:40:40,864 --> 00:40:45,784
Speaker 1: But entertainment is spread out now and democratize and literally

806
00:40:46,064 --> 00:40:49,623
Speaker 1: more people are watching YouTube than everything else combined. I

807
00:40:49,703 --> 00:40:52,663
Speaker 1: think media and journalism how we get our news. We're

808
00:40:52,663 --> 00:40:53,744
Speaker 1: already most of the way.

809
00:40:53,623 --> 00:40:56,743
Speaker 6: There, Yeah, for better and worse. It's funny, like I

810
00:40:56,864 --> 00:41:00,104
Speaker 6: was an insider in the media elite, but I was

811
00:41:00,223 --> 00:41:02,384
Speaker 6: very critical of the way it was done. You know,

812
00:41:02,663 --> 00:41:04,663
Speaker 6: I had a lot of problems with it. So I'm

813
00:41:04,743 --> 00:41:07,904
Speaker 6: not like, oh, that was perfect, very much not. But

814
00:41:08,024 --> 00:41:10,504
Speaker 6: I do think there were, Like I do think there

815
00:41:10,544 --> 00:41:15,383
Speaker 6: are ways to rebuild at least make available credible news

816
00:41:15,464 --> 00:41:18,303
Speaker 6: and information like that. Is that might be like more

817
00:41:18,384 --> 00:41:21,544
Speaker 6: doable now than ever before. It's a separate issue of

818
00:41:21,623 --> 00:41:23,703
Speaker 6: like getting people to want to read that and to

819
00:41:23,783 --> 00:41:26,264
Speaker 6: prefer that to exciting lies.

820
00:41:27,263 --> 00:41:30,263
Speaker 3: One thing to be optimistic about and something I do

821
00:41:30,384 --> 00:41:33,704
Speaker 3: tell myself and John and I, Well, we've all served

822
00:41:33,824 --> 00:41:36,944
Speaker 3: or lived in like fucked up repressive authoritarian states, and

823
00:41:37,304 --> 00:41:39,703
Speaker 3: by and large they're more fucked up than we are.

824
00:41:39,743 --> 00:41:41,544
Speaker 3: They're just better at hiding it. You know. I think

825
00:41:41,584 --> 00:41:44,344
Speaker 3: the Russian economy, I mean, I don't know, but I

826
00:41:44,424 --> 00:41:46,743
Speaker 3: think it's in like way worse shape than anybody thinks

827
00:41:46,783 --> 00:41:49,183
Speaker 3: it is, right, I mean, Putin is hiding it. They've

828
00:41:49,223 --> 00:41:52,343
Speaker 3: lost a million men, They're demographically fucked up. I think

829
00:41:52,504 --> 00:41:56,064
Speaker 3: China has got like huge issues that it's hiding as well.

830
00:41:56,143 --> 00:41:59,823
Speaker 3: Mostly economic, but also demographic. No one is really loyal

831
00:41:59,944 --> 00:42:02,584
Speaker 3: to the CCP. It's everybody knows. It's just the way

832
00:42:02,623 --> 00:42:06,663
Speaker 3: to the top. Right, whereas we have problems, I think

833
00:42:06,864 --> 00:42:12,623
Speaker 3: our competitors are our rival arguably are as much or

834
00:42:13,223 --> 00:42:16,303
Speaker 3: even more in trouble than we are their system. So

835
00:42:16,783 --> 00:42:20,263
Speaker 3: we may will out simply because we're not as fucked up.

836
00:42:20,344 --> 00:42:22,623
Speaker 2: The only thing is, Jerry, those aren't our competitors anymore.

837
00:42:22,623 --> 00:42:25,064
Speaker 2: If you read the National Security sturgey in the United States,

838
00:42:26,584 --> 00:42:30,023
Speaker 2: those are allies and it's Europe that's the enemy.

839
00:42:30,183 --> 00:42:32,783
Speaker 3: Just so you know, yeah, I don't so, I don't

840
00:42:32,783 --> 00:42:35,663
Speaker 3: know how inside the national you know, everybody who's like

841
00:42:35,864 --> 00:42:38,223
Speaker 3: a worker level you spent, they say, you've been in

842
00:42:38,344 --> 00:42:40,183
Speaker 3: for twenty years. You know, you got another tend to go.

843
00:42:40,864 --> 00:42:42,944
Speaker 3: You know, the entire twenty is it's o'wellian, you know,

844
00:42:43,263 --> 00:42:46,904
Speaker 3: like Russian China, the authoritarians, they're the bad guys, plucky

845
00:42:46,984 --> 00:42:50,143
Speaker 3: little little European democracies. Yeah they're paying the ass. Yeah

846
00:42:50,143 --> 00:42:52,703
Speaker 3: they're free riding on us. But they are our allies, right,

847
00:42:52,743 --> 00:42:56,663
Speaker 3: we have common values and TI weeks basically to say,

848
00:42:57,024 --> 00:42:59,303
Speaker 3: though that's not the way it is anymore. I'm not

849
00:42:59,344 --> 00:43:01,943
Speaker 3: sure anybody buys that, And I don't know whether maybe

850
00:43:01,984 --> 00:43:06,303
Speaker 3: that's another optimism that there's this huge reservoir of young

851
00:43:06,424 --> 00:43:10,424
Speaker 3: people who are just biding their time at their leadership

852
00:43:10,464 --> 00:43:13,903
Speaker 3: go in three more years, you know. Yeah, I'm hoping

853
00:43:13,984 --> 00:43:14,504
Speaker 3: that's the case.

854
00:43:14,623 --> 00:43:17,703
Speaker 1: I talk to my sons about this, who now going

855
00:43:17,783 --> 00:43:21,823
Speaker 1: on ten years, the majority of their adult life, if

856
00:43:21,864 --> 00:43:25,064
Speaker 1: not their entire adult life, have lived in a country

857
00:43:25,143 --> 00:43:29,064
Speaker 1: where it's basically trump Ism, and they're not aware that

858
00:43:29,223 --> 00:43:32,423
Speaker 1: it can be another way. That's how they think it's

859
00:43:32,584 --> 00:43:34,223
Speaker 1: always been and will always be.

860
00:43:34,584 --> 00:43:37,104
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the piece that so you want to

861
00:43:37,143 --> 00:43:39,263
Speaker 2: step out, That's what That's how people like Putin, those

862
00:43:39,263 --> 00:43:42,104
Speaker 2: guys survive is you realize that if you want to

863
00:43:42,143 --> 00:43:44,623
Speaker 2: play in the political arena, you'll get burned, and so

864
00:43:44,743 --> 00:43:46,623
Speaker 2: it's better just to stay out of it. Let the

865
00:43:46,904 --> 00:43:49,703
Speaker 2: oldigarks and politicians run their things. And so the people

866
00:43:49,783 --> 00:43:50,424
Speaker 2: are apathetic.

867
00:43:50,504 --> 00:43:53,464
Speaker 3: And so I worry that Putin and j and China

868
00:43:53,584 --> 00:43:56,104
Speaker 3: aren't really the things we're heading towards. That sort of

869
00:43:56,623 --> 00:43:58,823
Speaker 3: you know, I use Nazi analogies all the time because

870
00:43:58,824 --> 00:44:01,783
Speaker 3: it's easy and fascile, but I think pernism is more

871
00:44:02,304 --> 00:44:05,104
Speaker 3: the thing like we're heading towards. Even after Peron died

872
00:44:05,263 --> 00:44:09,464
Speaker 3: right and Ivida was gone, they still maintained that kleptocracy,

873
00:44:10,143 --> 00:44:12,663
Speaker 3: you know, in Argentina has never been the same. Argentina

874
00:44:12,743 --> 00:44:14,384
Speaker 3: was one of the richest countries in the world in

875
00:44:14,424 --> 00:44:18,024
Speaker 3: the nineteen thirties and prone took over and paronism and

876
00:44:18,104 --> 00:44:21,264
Speaker 3: different facets of it is still fucking that country outcome.

877
00:44:21,344 --> 00:44:24,223
Speaker 6: But that is like America is a weird Like we've

878
00:44:24,263 --> 00:44:28,184
Speaker 6: had a pretty crazy run for two and fifty years.

879
00:44:28,183 --> 00:44:30,584
Speaker 6: It's like it is, you know, and I don't know.

880
00:44:30,663 --> 00:44:34,703
Speaker 6: I just read that ulysses as Grant biography by We're

881
00:44:34,703 --> 00:44:39,304
Speaker 6: on Turnout. It's really good. He makes airment. Grant himself

882
00:44:39,424 --> 00:44:42,464
Speaker 6: was not hyper corrupt, but his he was too trusting

883
00:44:42,584 --> 00:44:46,864
Speaker 6: and his administration was. But his administration was comparably corrupt

884
00:44:47,464 --> 00:44:50,344
Speaker 6: to like it was. It was on a smaller scale.

885
00:44:50,424 --> 00:44:52,703
Speaker 6: The country was smaller, the economy was smaller, but it

886
00:44:52,824 --> 00:44:55,944
Speaker 6: was not It was pretty bad. And you know, we

887
00:44:56,104 --> 00:44:59,504
Speaker 6: created the modern state like in the thirties as the

888
00:44:59,584 --> 00:45:03,304
Speaker 6: result of the depression. Like that helps me a little

889
00:45:03,344 --> 00:45:06,744
Speaker 6: bit think, like it's not like America has existed forever

890
00:45:06,864 --> 00:45:10,424
Speaker 6: and has been perfect. And then Trump ruined it. It's like,

891
00:45:10,584 --> 00:45:12,743
Speaker 6: all right, we had this system from the thirties. It

892
00:45:12,824 --> 00:45:15,024
Speaker 6: started to fray by the seventies or eighties. I mean,

893
00:45:15,104 --> 00:45:18,424
Speaker 6: certainly the regulatory apparatus and you know, and there was

894
00:45:18,504 --> 00:45:22,904
Speaker 6: always this conservative undercurrent that wanted to overthrow it. But

895
00:45:22,984 --> 00:45:25,743
Speaker 6: it's always been fairly popular and rough. You know, people

896
00:45:25,864 --> 00:45:29,183
Speaker 6: like social security, they like well regulated financial institutions, you know,

897
00:45:29,263 --> 00:45:32,143
Speaker 6: that kind of thing. So they want their food and

898
00:45:32,703 --> 00:45:36,303
Speaker 6: water and air to be healthy. People, I think can

899
00:45:36,384 --> 00:45:39,544
Speaker 6: get riled up against anti Wochism, but they actually want

900
00:45:39,663 --> 00:45:43,344
Speaker 6: a fair society, even if they don't understand or agree

901
00:45:43,384 --> 00:45:45,623
Speaker 6: with every law. I don't know how optimistic that has been.

902
00:45:45,663 --> 00:45:49,303
Speaker 6: It's just history's weird. Lots of crazy things happen.

903
00:45:49,384 --> 00:45:51,743
Speaker 2: It's been worse the Civil War. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

904
00:45:51,743 --> 00:45:53,704
Speaker 2: I know, but that's not really helping me out.

905
00:45:53,623 --> 00:45:56,303
Speaker 4: With right, the plague of Hadrid in you know, five

906
00:45:56,424 --> 00:45:56,903
Speaker 4: thirty eight.

907
00:45:57,064 --> 00:45:59,143
Speaker 2: We thought we were going in a certain direction, you know.

908
00:45:59,304 --> 00:46:01,544
Speaker 1: But I think what you're saying, Adam is after every

909
00:46:01,703 --> 00:46:05,024
Speaker 1: crisis time in America, the reaction to it is actually

910
00:46:05,304 --> 00:46:06,143
Speaker 1: a step forward.

911
00:46:06,464 --> 00:46:09,384
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, I think that you have to touch the

912
00:46:09,424 --> 00:46:12,424
Speaker 6: third rail, or you have to touch bottom before you

913
00:46:12,504 --> 00:46:15,303
Speaker 6: go up, or whatever cliche we want to use. And

914
00:46:15,984 --> 00:46:19,104
Speaker 6: like absent Trump, we still had this like kind of

915
00:46:19,263 --> 00:46:23,623
Speaker 6: crazy mix with social media, and there's clearly, like independent

916
00:46:23,663 --> 00:46:28,584
Speaker 6: of Trump, some major distrust of authority and institutions, Like

917
00:46:28,703 --> 00:46:33,104
Speaker 6: we're three pretty institutionalist guys, and which doesn't mean we

918
00:46:33,183 --> 00:46:34,143
Speaker 6: think institutions are.

919
00:46:34,104 --> 00:46:38,944
Speaker 3: Flawless, not at all, Like we probably know institutions like

920
00:46:39,263 --> 00:46:43,183
Speaker 3: Somalia in Afghanistan exactly, Yeah, the tribal areas of Pakistan.

921
00:46:43,263 --> 00:46:45,384
Speaker 6: I mean, I guess that is right. Isn't that a

922
00:46:45,424 --> 00:46:48,384
Speaker 6: big factor? Like I've heard people say, like in a

923
00:46:48,464 --> 00:46:52,064
Speaker 6: country this big, where most people have either never traveled

924
00:46:52,104 --> 00:46:55,464
Speaker 6: or they've traveled on a guided tour to Europe, it's

925
00:46:55,504 --> 00:46:57,703
Speaker 6: hard to know what we've got if you haven't seen

926
00:46:57,783 --> 00:46:59,903
Speaker 6: what it's like to not have it. So we need

927
00:47:00,024 --> 00:47:03,743
Speaker 6: everybody to spend six months in the developing.

928
00:47:04,183 --> 00:47:05,544
Speaker 2: Well, we did some of these things we didn't have

929
00:47:05,584 --> 00:47:07,463
Speaker 2: in our own country, Like it wasn't that long ago.

930
00:47:07,584 --> 00:47:10,623
Speaker 2: We didn't necessarily have clean water, and there was garbage

931
00:47:10,663 --> 00:47:12,984
Speaker 2: on the streets, and you couldn't get a hot shower,

932
00:47:13,143 --> 00:47:15,624
Speaker 2: and you couldn't if you had bad knees. You couldn't

933
00:47:15,623 --> 00:47:16,224
Speaker 2: get him fixed.

934
00:47:16,223 --> 00:47:18,143
Speaker 5: And I remember in New York when you didn't have

935
00:47:18,223 --> 00:47:18,704
Speaker 5: to clean.

936
00:47:18,584 --> 00:47:20,943
Speaker 6: Up your dog poop, oh, dog shit, twenty twenty six.

937
00:47:21,024 --> 00:47:24,864
Speaker 6: That's my campaign. Well, I'm looking forward to talking to

938
00:47:24,904 --> 00:47:26,384
Speaker 6: you guys one year from today.

939
00:47:26,703 --> 00:47:28,383
Speaker 5: Well, let me ask you, guys, what do you think

940
00:47:28,544 --> 00:47:30,024
Speaker 5: you might be saying a year from now?

941
00:47:30,304 --> 00:47:32,944
Speaker 6: Adam, I do think that we've been shocked before, but

942
00:47:33,104 --> 00:47:35,544
Speaker 6: it will be shocking if the Democrats don't take the House.

943
00:47:35,864 --> 00:47:39,304
Speaker 6: And I do think these things have a seismic impact,

944
00:47:39,584 --> 00:47:42,423
Speaker 6: Like it's not just the direct like there'll be investigations

945
00:47:42,504 --> 00:47:44,183
Speaker 6: and all of that, which there will be, but there's

946
00:47:44,223 --> 00:47:46,424
Speaker 6: also you know, we're going to be looking down the

947
00:47:46,743 --> 00:47:49,703
Speaker 6: you know, George W. Bush didn't really lose all his

948
00:47:49,824 --> 00:47:55,104
Speaker 6: popularity until two thousand and six when nobody really needed him.

949
00:47:55,663 --> 00:47:59,024
Speaker 6: He couldn't really help anybody. So I do think we'll

950
00:47:59,064 --> 00:48:03,064
Speaker 6: be at the beginning, think hope, and like gently predict

951
00:48:03,143 --> 00:48:06,104
Speaker 6: we'll be at the beginning of a fundamental and is

952
00:48:06,143 --> 00:48:08,383
Speaker 6: it post trump Ism? It could be worse. It could

953
00:48:08,424 --> 00:48:11,623
Speaker 6: be we're heading towards you know, JD. Vansell get his

954
00:48:11,743 --> 00:48:14,864
Speaker 6: sea legs and will be or you know, Stephen Miller

955
00:48:14,864 --> 00:48:17,423
Speaker 6: will run for press or whatever horrible thing we want

956
00:48:17,464 --> 00:48:17,823
Speaker 6: to think of.

957
00:48:18,104 --> 00:48:21,344
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we we do this on conspiracy theories,

958
00:48:21,424 --> 00:48:24,743
Speaker 2: but I think reality eventually more or less wins out.

959
00:48:24,904 --> 00:48:28,664
Speaker 2: And so I do believe that the administration has built

960
00:48:28,743 --> 00:48:32,343
Speaker 2: itself so much on lies and conspiracies that can't last forever.

961
00:48:32,424 --> 00:48:35,504
Speaker 2: And you add that to perhaps the Democrats winning in

962
00:48:35,584 --> 00:48:38,903
Speaker 2: the midterm elections, with Trump's health continuing to go down

963
00:48:39,344 --> 00:48:42,463
Speaker 2: and his lame duck statics going up, I do think

964
00:48:42,864 --> 00:48:45,984
Speaker 2: will at least be seeing a better horizon by next year.

965
00:48:46,223 --> 00:48:51,024
Speaker 3: I think that we're going to have a cataclysmic event

966
00:48:51,424 --> 00:48:54,544
Speaker 3: or two that people aren't ready for, either an economic

967
00:48:54,663 --> 00:48:57,984
Speaker 3: crash or President's going to have a health crisis, or

968
00:48:58,064 --> 00:49:00,623
Speaker 3: we're going to end up like fighting in Venezuela.

969
00:49:00,783 --> 00:49:03,183
Speaker 4: Somehow in some war. Something's going to.

970
00:49:03,263 --> 00:49:06,024
Speaker 3: Happen, and generally we could work our way through, and

971
00:49:06,104 --> 00:49:09,104
Speaker 3: we're going to find that the nation of nincompoops is

972
00:49:09,143 --> 00:49:12,024
Speaker 3: the lead ship, is going to be unable to handle

973
00:49:12,104 --> 00:49:14,623
Speaker 3: this in a rational way, and so we're going to

974
00:49:14,703 --> 00:49:16,623
Speaker 3: have like a I would say nine to eleven is

975
00:49:16,743 --> 00:49:19,064
Speaker 3: but certainly something is going to happen. We're going to

976
00:49:19,104 --> 00:49:21,504
Speaker 3: have a crisis and it is going to be handled

977
00:49:21,904 --> 00:49:22,623
Speaker 3: very badly.

978
00:49:22,904 --> 00:49:25,223
Speaker 6: I mean it was Katrina really that cemented.

979
00:49:26,104 --> 00:49:26,223
Speaker 5: Right.

980
00:49:26,464 --> 00:49:29,263
Speaker 3: I could see something even like you know, I mean

981
00:49:29,304 --> 00:49:31,623
Speaker 3: I don't really understand it, but I could see a

982
00:49:31,703 --> 00:49:35,024
Speaker 3: crypto crash, right, and suddenly the billions that are put

983
00:49:35,064 --> 00:49:38,584
Speaker 3: into there and suddenly at like the bottom falls out.

984
00:49:38,703 --> 00:49:40,424
Speaker 1: I predict a year from now, we're going to be

985
00:49:40,504 --> 00:49:43,584
Speaker 1: talking about something that none of us are able to

986
00:49:43,663 --> 00:49:46,863
Speaker 1: predict right now that will be completely surprising to us.

987
00:49:47,344 --> 00:49:51,024
Speaker 1: It's the unexpected things that have the biggest impact on history.

988
00:49:51,223 --> 00:49:55,343
Speaker 6: It's something like a Family Ties remake. All right, that's

989
00:49:55,384 --> 00:49:57,064
Speaker 6: a free idea, John, But if you do it.

990
00:49:57,223 --> 00:50:00,344
Speaker 1: I want someone all Right, thank you everybody for this

991
00:50:00,504 --> 00:50:09,463
Speaker 1: year of Mission Implausible. Mission Implausible is produced by Adam David,

992
00:50:10,024 --> 00:50:13,744
Speaker 1: Jerry O'shay, John Seipher, and Jonathan Stern.

993
00:50:13,904 --> 00:50:16,224
Speaker 5: The associate producer is Rachel Harner.

994
00:50:16,504 --> 00:50:20,303
Speaker 1: Mission Implausible is a production of honorable mention and Abominable

995
00:50:20,344 --> 00:50:22,263
Speaker 1: pictures for iHeart Podcasts.