Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Let's get to Germany, shall we, because there
Speaker 3: were some fascinating elections that happen over there. Shall we
Speaker 3: put this up there on the screen, the German election
Speaker 3: official fried Okay, you want to help me with the pronunciation?
Speaker 1: Is it Friedrich or Friedrich? I'm going to go for
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with Friedrich, all right, Friedrich Mertz.
Speaker 3: The Germans are going to crucify me for this. It's
Speaker 3: set to become Germany's next chancellor. According to the exit
Speaker 3: polls and now the federal election results that we have learned.
Speaker 3: So this is actually super interesting because there's a couple
Speaker 3: of narrative things that are happening. You'll recall that jd
Speaker 3: Vance and Elon Musk had been supporters and or meeting
Speaker 3: with the AfD, the Alternative for Germany, the more right
Speaker 3: wing party there that's very against immigration. This guy, Friedrich Mertz,
Speaker 3: what I've read about him, he's kind of almost a
Speaker 3: Washington type figure. He was in politics and then he
Speaker 3: left to become a lobbyist, and then he came back
Speaker 3: after he became filthy rich, almost in a Trump way,
Speaker 3: where he's like, now I've made my money and what
Speaker 3: I'm going to do is I'm going to save Germany
Speaker 3: from the AfD.
Speaker 1: That was really his goal.
Speaker 3: His goal was to transform the center right party into
Speaker 3: a party that could subsume the concerns around immigration and
Speaker 3: around Ukraine, the economy, etc. Into his party and to
Speaker 3: keep the AfD out of power. And that's kind of
Speaker 3: what it seems the coalition government that he will form
Speaker 3: is trying to do. At the same time, Before we
Speaker 3: even get to all of that, the results themselves are
Speaker 3: fascinating because it is a German basically affirmation of the
Speaker 3: same trend across the continent and in my opinion here
Speaker 3: in the United States too. Let's put this on the screen.
Speaker 3: Friend Ryan Gridusky pointed out, if you look at this
Speaker 3: election in Germany, the CDU is the second worst showing
Speaker 3: in the party's history.
Speaker 1: Right, That's what Mers's party is.
Speaker 4: Those are the ones that.
Speaker 2: Came in first but performed poorly compared to their history exactly.
Speaker 3: SPD is the worst result for them since eighteen eighty seven.
Speaker 3: The Greens just had their second best showing ever, the AfD,
Speaker 3: the right wing party, just had their best showing ever,
Speaker 3: and then the FDP is the second worst showing ever. Now,
Speaker 3: in Americans speak, we can look at the Greens and
Speaker 3: the AfD and say what you've got the left and
Speaker 3: the right which are either their best or their second
Speaker 3: best showing ever. Now that doesn't mean that they're going
Speaker 3: to be in power, because what's happened is that the
Speaker 3: cd who is going to form a coalition with an
Speaker 3: alternative party to make sure the AfD doesn't have access
Speaker 3: to those high government officials. But I still think that's
Speaker 3: pretty important in terms of looking at the explosion of
Speaker 3: support both for the Greens and for the AfD. And
Speaker 3: in both you actually see similar forces that are here
Speaker 3: in the United States and across the continent. So for example,
Speaker 3: in France, where we saw the left wing Socialist Party
Speaker 3: that did very well while the far right National Front
Speaker 3: was doing very well. Macron is completely underseas right now.
Speaker 3: We all know that whenever he leaves, whatever comes next,
Speaker 3: it will not look like mister centrist that is over there.
Speaker 3: This guy again, I don't want to claim that he's
Speaker 3: right wing or any He's very pro NATO, is very
Speaker 3: pro Ukraine. When he's conservative, he's conservative in the sense
Speaker 3: that our George W. Bush types are. Was like, we
Speaker 3: need to clean up the debt crisis over here. But
Speaker 3: he's very much more willing to talk about immigration and
Speaker 3: to change some of the immigration policy in Germany. He's
Speaker 3: much more of like a stronger German, stronger Germany.
Speaker 1: That will break away from the United States.
Speaker 3: But do you want to win on that before I
Speaker 3: go anymore, Just because I think that the surge of
Speaker 3: AfD in the Greens is the most important story.
Speaker 1: Out of this election.
Speaker 2: The general orientation of the Students' Party is like immigration restrictionists,
Speaker 2: but pro Ukraine. That's kind of the that's kind of
Speaker 2: their thing, you know, just put the previous element just
Speaker 2: back up.
Speaker 4: On the screen.
Speaker 2: There was one other thing that I wanted to note,
Speaker 2: which will feed into the you know, conversation about like
Speaker 2: the far right and the far left in terms of
Speaker 2: the German election context.
Speaker 4: BSW is interesting too.
Speaker 2: So this is this break off party started by this
Speaker 2: person who was previously part of the like far left
Speaker 2: party and then position themselves as being like left on
Speaker 2: most issues and less like pro Ukraine but pro immigration restriction.
Speaker 2: So you could kind of put them also in the
Speaker 2: bucket of these like far left and far right you
Speaker 2: know upstarts, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And then you know, with the AfD.
Speaker 2: We'll show the map in just a minute, but there's
Speaker 2: a huge geographic divide. I mean you look at these
Speaker 2: maps and it's East and West Germany just like to
Speaker 2: a te So that's you know, very interesting dynamic there
Speaker 2: as well. And they performed basically where the polls had
Speaker 2: them performing. So it doesn't seem like Elon or Jade
Speaker 2: Vance's insertion into this election really particularly made a difference
Speaker 2: in either Germans.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I mean that would look in general if
Speaker 3: you're abroad and you're you know, voting because how Jadie.
Speaker 1: Vance told you to what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Like you should be voting based on how you think
Speaker 3: for your own company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it got funny, is sparked a little bit
Speaker 2: of a backlash because they did not perform as high
Speaker 2: as they had at some point in some polls. Anything,
Speaker 2: there was a little bit of a backlash. But I mean,
Speaker 2: I think the best you can say is it didn't
Speaker 2: seem to make that much of.
Speaker 1: A difference, nor should it. Why should it?
Speaker 3: You know, it's like you got people should vote on
Speaker 3: your own concerns. I'm not going to think what you
Speaker 3: care about our elections if you look. Actually though, in
Speaker 3: terms of the change since twenty twenty one, absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 3: So the AfD has experienced a ten point four percent
Speaker 3: increase in its vote share one and the Greens actually
Speaker 3: lost a little bit but still had their second best
Speaker 3: showing ever. The BSW, the CDU and the Left all
Speaker 3: experienced modest Greens but it's really the decline of the SPD,
Speaker 3: the centrist party, the center left liberal party, that is
Speaker 3: the one that is most like the big headline out
Speaker 3: of this election. But what you're watching is the basically
Speaker 3: collapse of the center and Europe is grappling.
Speaker 1: They're like, what are we doing here? And I think
Speaker 1: that's really interesting.
Speaker 3: So you pointed out that map, Why don't we put
Speaker 3: that up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: We'll go to the next part.
Speaker 3: Please this one, by the way, keep in mind this
Speaker 3: was apparently from the European elections European Parliament elections in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, not for the Bundestag, but it still
Speaker 3: still shows exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, the divide
Speaker 3: between the two of East and West Germany. I am
Speaker 3: not a scholar or anything. I did read a book
Speaker 3: once which talked about this about how the basically about
Speaker 3: how the reunification of Germany is one of the least
Speaker 3: discussed like major political elements of political understanding in the West,
Speaker 3: as in it really wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 1: It was like thirty something years ago.
Speaker 3: And the clear, stark economic differences between the two are
Speaker 3: really important because it gets to the heart of industrialization,
Speaker 3: being Western, how European you feel, how you feel about
Speaker 3: Russia and Ukraine, communism and all of that. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean you're talking about generations really of that were
Speaker 3: split apart. So it does make sense as to how
Speaker 3: that would be also economically, as I understand, it is
Speaker 3: very very different in terms of how they fare even
Speaker 3: today some thirty some years later, which again makes complete
Speaker 3: sense if you were to split a country up for
Speaker 3: decades and then just throw them back together under different
Speaker 3: economic models. But it is manifesting itself very importantly politically.
Speaker 3: That was actually a merkle ideological project before the mass
Speaker 3: migration into Europe during the refugee crisis, and a lot
Speaker 3: of Germans cent to write people blame her for kind
Speaker 3: of splitting apart and opening up this can of works.
Speaker 1: Fuck whatever it is.
Speaker 3: It's been a decade long March, I think to where
Speaker 3: we are right now least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean the East West Germany thing is
Speaker 2: really fascinating. I mean, Eastern Germany is more rural, less developed. Also,
Speaker 2: I mean there was kind of a concerted effort from
Speaker 2: the Allies to destroy some of the industrial base in
Speaker 2: East Germany. You know, the bombing of Dresden was devastating
Speaker 2: to the prospects the economic prospects of East Germany, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, you can see the.
Speaker 2: Very long hangover both of World War Two and obviously
Speaker 2: of the you know, reunification and how recently that is
Speaker 2: in terms of history. So that certainly plays a huge
Speaker 2: role here in terms of Germany. Part of what makes
Speaker 2: this election so important and interesting is there are few
Speaker 2: countries that were impacted by the Ukraine War as Germany.
Speaker 2: You know, they really their economy really was quite reliant
Speaker 2: on cheap gas from Russia, and so you know, without
Speaker 2: that energy prices have risen significantly, huge cost of living issues.
Speaker 4: So you've got that.
Speaker 2: You have these longer term structural issues with the German
Speaker 2: economy where they really kind of placed some of the
Speaker 2: wrong bets. They did not get in on the technologies
Speaker 2: of the future.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: Germans are known for their like industrial production and for
Speaker 2: their auto industry, and the auto industry really just stayed
Speaker 2: set on gas powered cars, really kind of turned up
Speaker 2: their nose at EV's and unlike here. You know, in Germany,
Speaker 2: first of all, they were selling a lot of cars
Speaker 2: into the Chinese market, and China now has their own burgeoning,
Speaker 2: very successful auto industry, including the best evs in the
Speaker 2: entire world, and so that's been a problem for Germany.
Speaker 2: They really had been reliant on that Chinese market, and
Speaker 2: so there were these longer term structural inabilities to adapt
Speaker 2: to modern environment. Then you have the high energy prices,
Speaker 2: so they're going through a de industrialization that's kind of
Speaker 2: similar to you know what we went through post NAFTA
Speaker 2: or post the permanent normal trading relations with China, and
Speaker 2: that's putting an economic squeeze on. And then you layer
Speaker 2: on top of that, I mean truly very very significant
Speaker 2: levels of migration, quite a lot larger per capita than
Speaker 2: even what we've experienced here where they're percent of the
Speaker 2: foreign warn pulp population has gone up to twenty percent.
Speaker 2: So you can see how all of these things. To
Speaker 2: be honest with you, when you put all those factors together,
Speaker 2: it's a wonder that AfD isn't actually outright gating. And
Speaker 2: if it wasn't the fact that they're out there like
Speaker 2: actively flirting with Nazi slogans and plotting some of them
Speaker 2: to overthrow the government and all of these sorts of things,
Speaker 2: they probably would be doing even better than they are
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say I think they have some I
Speaker 3: feel complicated I guess about AfD in that they're a
Speaker 3: little bit less like pro innovation. I guess if you would,
Speaker 3: I would like for them to be, because it's like
Speaker 3: you just said, they're very much focused on migration.
Speaker 1: I think that's fine.
Speaker 3: I think immigration is probably the most important issue for them.
Speaker 3: But if you people want to be independent, you need
Speaker 3: to make some shit. You need to stop being completely
Speaker 3: reliant on us. That's my biggest problem is that they
Speaker 3: really don't have any real vision for their own economy
Speaker 3: or for basically how to reverse the managed decline of
Speaker 3: the last forty years, which it turns out also this.
Speaker 3: I just can't let this go. What you were talking
Speaker 3: about with the Russian gas, the German miracle was fake.
Speaker 3: It was entirely built on cheap gas from Russia. The
Speaker 3: moment that that got turned off, they went into a
Speaker 3: deep slide and their economy continues to contract. So let's
Speaker 3: also put that with the problems that this new guy faces.
Speaker 3: Put this up there, please on the screen. This is
Speaker 3: C five, This statement here from the next prime minister.
Speaker 3: He says, quote, I am communicating closely with a lot
Speaker 3: of prime ministers and heads of state. This is Murr said,
Speaker 3: heads of EU, and for me, it is an absolute
Speaker 3: priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that
Speaker 3: we achieve independence from the US step by step. I
Speaker 3: never thought I would need to say something like this
Speaker 3: on television, but after the latest statements made by Donald
Speaker 3: Trump last week, it is clear that the Americans, at
Speaker 3: any case, these Americans, this administration mostly don't care about
Speaker 3: the future of Europe one way or the other. That's correct,
Speaker 3: and so we wish you the best, mister Merse. I
Speaker 3: wish you independence. I hope you guys do well. You
Speaker 3: can take over the rest of the continent. It's not
Speaker 3: like there's all that much for us that.
Speaker 2: It seems to me to be the right that he's
Speaker 2: thinking about things correctly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree. I go listen.
Speaker 3: You have your own shit to deal with in terms
Speaker 3: of your managed, declined economy, you have mass migration problems.
Speaker 3: You are far you are less important to the United
Speaker 3: States than you have ever been in Germany's entire history.
Speaker 3: Why should we care about you and continue to underwrite
Speaker 3: all of your security architecture and keep flying to the
Speaker 3: Munich Security conference. Like you just said, the only reason
Speaker 3: that we should have even cared about Germany previously was
Speaker 3: for cars. Well, guess what now that China's a net
Speaker 3: exporter of cars, they're eating the Germans lunch. Even in
Speaker 3: their own economy, something like ten percent of cars and
Speaker 3: erman have sold are from China. It's unbelievable. So they
Speaker 3: have massive structural problems to think about. I think the
Speaker 3: only joke that's going on here is that they continue
Speaker 3: to try and rope US in because they know they
Speaker 3: can't do anything without the backstop, according to them, of Americans.
Speaker 3: This is where I wanted to get Ukraine in C four.
Speaker 3: Please up on the screen. The European leaders are currently
Speaker 3: drafting a quote peacekeeping plan for Ukraine, but American forces
Speaker 3: have to serve as the backstop. Why because, according to them,
Speaker 3: Russia would not Russia both would not be afraid enough
Speaker 3: a French end of UK troops that are doing peacekeeping
Speaker 3: in Ukraine. But more so, they literally don't have the
Speaker 3: resources to even sustain thirty thousand troops in Ukraine without
Speaker 3: the intelligence and support of the United States. So their
Speaker 3: current plan, which I think is bullshit, is thirty thousand
Speaker 3: European peacekeepers, no US soldiers directly on the ground, but
Speaker 3: instead we basically pay for all of the support stuff
Speaker 3: in Poland and on the NATO borders that's surround it.
Speaker 3: So this apparently is something that probably falls in line
Speaker 3: with this new German chancellor. It's unclear, just because the
Speaker 3: guy is very pro Ukraine and apparently even wants to
Speaker 3: send them more missiles, but at the same time has
Speaker 3: not signed on necessarily to the Macron or the Kerestarmer proposal.
Speaker 3: There's a lot still up in the air for whatever
Speaker 3: happens with the Ukraine piece, that.
Speaker 4: Is definitely the case.
Speaker 2: I guess what I will say is that, you know,
Speaker 2: for the Joe Biden's, the liberals of the world who
Speaker 2: really push to back Ukraine, Okay, I'm actually okay with that,
Speaker 2: but then push them to continue fighting and wanted this
Speaker 2: war and actively thwarted the early stage peace negotiations that
Speaker 2: could have come to, you know, some sort of resolution
Speaker 2: so everyone could have moved forward with you know, and
Speaker 2: avoiding the mass death and destruction that we've seen. You know,
Speaker 2: for these liberals, they really have helped to provide the
Speaker 2: impetus that has led to the rise of the AfD
Speaker 2: and other far right parties in Europe. I mean, the
Speaker 2: German example is I think really pretty clear cut, because
Speaker 2: their energy prices and overall inflation were so impacted by Ukraine.
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, COVID was part of it too, But Ukraine,
Speaker 2: I think is a really undertold part of that story
Speaker 2: because I think it's uncomfortable for liberal media that was
Speaker 2: all in on.
Speaker 4: This project as well.
Speaker 2: But you know, the Ukraine War in terms of its
Speaker 2: impact on Europe was significantly inflationary, really contributed to the
Speaker 2: cost of living crisis, and really did help to give
Speaker 2: fuel to parties like the AFT. The last thing, and
Speaker 2: I'll note here in this again is some reporting from
Speaker 2: drop site is they also took advantage of Israel's genocide
Speaker 2: in Gaza. And the AfD is extremely pro Israel. They
Speaker 2: have you know, been pushing for like the Germany is
Speaker 2: a censorious place, and the place that it has been
Speaker 2: most sincere is on any sort of pro Palestinian speech.
Speaker 2: Francescalbanie was just there and like you know, they blocked
Speaker 2: her event, and they're incredibly aggressive about effectively criminalizing any
Speaker 2: pro Palestinian speech. And AfD has really seized on that
Speaker 2: and been a part of this movement, and that has
Speaker 2: also helped to bolster them. So all of these quote
Speaker 2: unquote like liberal wars that Biden and other Biden is
Speaker 2: really the primary actor here, because everybody was falling the
Speaker 2: US's lead on this, have done nothing but to help
Speaker 2: to further break down and bol the liberal order and
Speaker 2: bolster the far right throughout Europe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's completely their fault. I'll also tell you I'm
Speaker 3: not going to let the Greens off the hook. The Greens,
Speaker 3: it's my secondary thing. How are the Greens not winning
Speaker 3: this election? That's the crazy thing, because the only reason
Speaker 3: that they haven't exploded in popularity is that many Germans
Speaker 3: are still pissed at them for being anti nuclear and
Speaker 3: for the denuclearization of the country which led to this
Speaker 3: explosion in reliance on Russian gas. So, Greens, if you're listening,
Speaker 3: if you just if you had just reversed your policy
Speaker 3: on nuclear or if you at least apologize come forward
Speaker 3: and it asked for that, you could easily, I think
Speaker 3: have won that.
Speaker 1: Election because Germans are liberal.
Speaker 3: I mean, look at them, are social attitudes, the way
Speaker 3: that they think about the continent. Even yes on migration,
Speaker 3: but they're way more permissive than even we are.
Speaker 1: They're much more polite.
Speaker 3: They're very, very into what you were saying, the censorious
Speaker 3: that their post World War two censor stuff on.
Speaker 1: The books is nuts.
Speaker 3: That's another thing that annoys me about the AfD the
Speaker 3: Israel stuff is that the laws on the books in
Speaker 3: Germany today aren't basically meant to prevent, according to them,
Speaker 3: the rise of any new Nazi party, but they use
Speaker 3: it to basically ban anything that they deem socially unacceptable. Famously,
Speaker 3: they would ban like Tom Cruise for scientology, stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But the laws are just incredibly expansive and you can
Speaker 3: use them against anything. So for example, they've been used
Speaker 3: in the past against right wing activists and now they're
Speaker 3: using me against these Palestine folks. But you know, to
Speaker 3: cheer on being censorious or it's just you're leading to
Speaker 3: your own destruction. That's what keeps the center alive in
Speaker 3: Germany is a lot of the managing of media and
Speaker 3: of public opinion. It's part of the reason why our
Speaker 3: country is a lot more raucous. I think is that, yes,
Speaker 3: even with all of our free speech problems and all
Speaker 3: of that, it's still a way more free place than
Speaker 3: most countries in Europe. We're allowed to have much more
Speaker 3: raucous debates than anybody else.
Speaker 2: All Right, someone on this show even, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: nothing compared to what if we were German, we would
Speaker 2: be going at it.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine.
Speaker 4: I can't in that regard.
Speaker 2: You know that the Brits, there's like the way their
Speaker 2: interviewers are so aggressiveling is.
Speaker 4: Hurt in the same way. Really I respect that.
Speaker 1: You know, who's that guy from the BBC Andrew Something.
Speaker 4: I know you're talking about it and he's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the guy with the glasses and all that, and
Speaker 3: he just he just gives it to you.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I mean this is part of why Peers Morgan is
Speaker 2: so successful because he yeah, he has these like they're
Speaker 2: all calling each other names and like as much you're
Speaker 2: a scumbag, you're a piece of shit, and then there's
Speaker 2: just like invite them right back up the show again.
Speaker 3: Let me just say that, as people know, I hate Europe.
Speaker 3: But let me tell you this, the UK has the
Speaker 3: best electoral system I think around because what happens when
Speaker 3: you lose an election, what happens fuck off? You know
Speaker 3: all these people, David Cameron, yeah, you get to big
Speaker 3: comeback as you're little what he was like the secretary
Speaker 3: whatever the Secretary of State is. But most of the
Speaker 3: time Gordon Brown, fuck off. You know all these other
Speaker 3: leaders if you lose an election, you're done. Most of
Speaker 3: the time they completely recycle Liz Trust she's here in
Speaker 3: Washington begging for attention at Sea Pack in London.
Speaker 1: She's a joke. I love it.
Speaker 4: It's the joke that we invite her here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: I love how when you lose there they get rid
Speaker 3: of you. Most of the time they bring in a
Speaker 3: new leader and they reinvent themselves as a party and
Speaker 3: it works, and you know, you can have a vote
Speaker 3: of no confidence, the government can fall like this.
Speaker 1: They have elections all the time.
Speaker 4: I love you.
Speaker 2: I prefer the parliamentary I'm sure it has its drawbacks
Speaker 2: as well, but yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 4: I think it's better than what we got.
Speaker 2: Speaking of electoral systems, Bernie Sanders, who is now eighty
Speaker 2: three years old, has decided to do this series of
Speaker 2: town halls about oligarchy in swing districts across the country,
Speaker 2: and in particular, Bernie, unlike apparently any other Democrat, has
Speaker 2: this idea that hey, you know, they're about to vote
Speaker 2: on this budget that is supposed to massively cut medicaid
Speaker 2: and give a giant tax cut to the rich. And
Speaker 2: there's a very narrow margin that Republicans have in the House.
Speaker 2: So if you can flip, if you can put pressure
Speaker 2: on just a couple of swing district Republicans, then you
Speaker 2: can block them from being able to successfully make those cuts.
Speaker 2: So he has gone so far to Nebraska where Don
Speaker 2: Bacon is the representative there in a relative swing district,
Speaker 2: and also did a town hall in Iowa City, Iowa
Speaker 2: as well. Turnout has been insane. Reception for him has
Speaker 2: been insane, and we're about to show you a.
Speaker 4: Little bit of this.
Speaker 2: But in Iowa City, they actually had he had to
Speaker 2: give three different speeches because they had two separate overflow
Speaker 2: crowds that he had to go and speak to. So
Speaker 2: let's take a look at a little bit of Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 2: Here you can see him walking in this is Nebraska,
Speaker 2: being escorted in by the Omaha Police. There you can
Speaker 2: see the crowd, you know, huge room filled to the brim.
Speaker 2: There are pictures of people waiting there outside for them.
Speaker 2: I actually, back in twenty eighteen went to some of
Speaker 2: these events that he did SUPPORTINGSUS various congressional candidates. This
Speaker 2: is now in Iowa City, Iowa. That was the original
Speaker 2: crowd in the auditorium this is overflowed overflow crowd, I
Speaker 2: believe number one, where he goes and speaks to them
Speaker 2: there as well, trying to motivate the crowd, and there
Speaker 2: was another overflow crowd as well that he had to go.
Speaker 2: So just a huge reception here for Bernie, which I
Speaker 2: think speaks to the fact, I mean, first of all,
Speaker 2: he has unlike most Democrats, he has an actual ideology.
Speaker 2: He has an actual vision. It's something that's consistent and
Speaker 2: coherent and makes sense, and he's got a strategy. And
Speaker 2: the liberal Democratic base has really been just kind of
Speaker 2: totally abandoned by their actual you know, leaders, whether in
Speaker 2: the House or the Senate, who have been completely asleep
Speaker 2: at the switch, have not shown anything like the energy
Speaker 2: or the strategy of a Bernie Sanders. And you know,
Speaker 2: this ties in also to just the level of energy
Speaker 2: that is starting to build in terms of One of
Speaker 2: the early things we tracked was thousands of calls into
Speaker 2: Senators and members of Congress. Now you're starting to see
Speaker 2: this huge response. Anytime any member of Congress does a
Speaker 2: town hall, you see these droves of people turning up
Speaker 2: who are very upset about what's going on with Trump
Speaker 2: and Elon in particular, and then you also see this
Speaker 2: energy and excitement around Bernie Sanders. I mean, in a
Speaker 2: sense Sager like it's really a shame that he's so
Speaker 2: old at this point, because this really is kind of
Speaker 2: his moment because he's been proven right on so many
Speaker 2: things in terms of his analysis of how you actually
Speaker 2: combat trump Ism and actually offer an agenda that would
Speaker 2: make sense to people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, as people know, I think the only
Speaker 3: Democrat politician I have the softest spot for is Bernie.
Speaker 3: I still love him, I really do, and so I appreciate.
Speaker 4: It's not Retten Democrats. So maybe yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is all those Bernie clips
Speaker 3: from the nineties whenever he's just railing against corporate media
Speaker 3: and him and Noam Chomsky, and I just I like them, though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't help. I can't help but like him.
Speaker 3: But I guess my caution on all of this is
Speaker 3: always just I wonder if we're looking a little too
Speaker 3: closely for the Tea Party comparison, just because so much
Speaker 3: of the Tea Party last time was not just organized
Speaker 3: or not was the organic movement, but it was the
Speaker 3: influx of billions of dollars from Koch Brothers and from
Speaker 3: a lot of the freedom works and all of this.
Speaker 3: There was an architecture in Washington waiting for the Tea Party.
Speaker 3: They didn't know it, but they were waiting with all
Speaker 3: of the dollars in the world to organize all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Doesn't really exist on the liberal side. Like if you think.
Speaker 3: About what liberal or what the liberal NGOs and all
Speaker 3: those other people are the most concerned about, it's like
Speaker 3: USAID funding transports. Like they're not ready for some oligarch
Speaker 3: conversation because they would have to pay taxes, so they're
Speaker 3: not ready to like get in on all of this.
Speaker 3: And this is kind of what I think the issue
Speaker 3: with the burnie movement here will be is that organic
Speaker 3: anger is great. It can lead you to a midterm
Speaker 3: and all that, but you need to be organized around
Speaker 3: a real political wedge and project.
Speaker 1: Give it to the Tea Party for what it is.
Speaker 3: They hated one thing, Obama and they wanted what defund Obamacare.
Speaker 3: That was like their number one thing. I don't see
Speaker 3: yet anything other than stop Musk or you know, like
Speaker 3: kind of like performatively protests, And it's just I'm getting
Speaker 3: Occupy vibes off this as opposed to Tea Party, where
Speaker 3: I mean, let's be honest, if you look at the
Speaker 3: political effectiveness of those two things, Occupied basically didn't do anything,
Speaker 3: whereas the Tea Party, again not a huge supporter of
Speaker 3: them or whatever, but they really did. They were able
Speaker 3: to take over the Republican Party. They were able to
Speaker 3: you know, shut down the government if they wanted to
Speaker 3: basically kick out John Bayinner.
Speaker 1: I mean, they had real scalps behind.
Speaker 2: Their true And I think those points are well taken,
Speaker 2: especially in terms of the organization piece, because people want
Speaker 2: to pretend like the Tea Party was just an organic movements.
Speaker 1: There was about the big stuff on the right.
Speaker 2: And there were people there, and there was an architecture
Speaker 2: there to marshal that organic energy. And I mean, I
Speaker 2: you know, I was running for Congress in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: I went to My policy was I would go and
Speaker 2: speak to any group that invited me that was in
Speaker 2: my district. I went to a bunch of these Tea
Speaker 2: Party town alls. So I saw it very up close,
Speaker 2: and you know, these people were not like paid operatives.
Speaker 2: They were genuinely motivated. Now were they all partisan Republicans?
Speaker 2: Who were super activated. Yes, by and large that's who
Speaker 2: they were. And you know, by and large that's what
Speaker 2: we're talking talking about here too, are people who are
Speaker 2: already active partisan Democrats, but who are now activated in
Speaker 2: a way that they weren't previously. I will say, I
Speaker 2: think you're giving the Tea Party a little bit too
Speaker 2: much credit for being ideologically consistent, because ultimately the energy
Speaker 2: of the Tea Party, and this is something Emily talks
Speaker 2: about too, The energy of the Tea Party, which was
Speaker 2: just sort of like we hate Obama, right and ends
Speaker 2: up being oh, you know, we're for austerity, we're for
Speaker 2: smaller government, etc. Ultimately really morphs into the Trump movement,
Speaker 2: which was not those things. You know, was just about
Speaker 2: overturning the apple cart. And I mean you can look
Speaker 2: at the den and the deficit under the first Drump
Speaker 2: administration absolutely explodes. So I think it was a little
Speaker 2: bit more in co eight inter ideologically than maybe you're
Speaker 2: giving it credit for.
Speaker 3: No, You're absolutely right. What I'm talking about are the
Speaker 3: freedom works peep. They're elected representatives, does it make sense?
Speaker 3: So not necessarily the voters, but like people like Jim Jordan,
Speaker 3: who to this day is what this guy is just
Speaker 3: like a big tex shill, I mean on the Oversight Committee.
Speaker 3: He actually is a real libertarian and a lot of
Speaker 3: the people they elected, unfortunately in my opinion, believed a
Speaker 3: lot of their own bullshit whenever it came to.
Speaker 1: Tax yeah or whatever. Not the vote the voters are
Speaker 1: very different.
Speaker 2: They're also you know, not near I mean, they have
Speaker 2: done a good job of flexing their power when they've had,
Speaker 2: you know, opportunities to do so. But they also now
Speaker 2: they bend the need to Trump like it's Trump's party, yes,
Speaker 2: and so those people are very much secondary. We could
Speaker 2: see the way that that all went down with the
Speaker 2: budget fight at the beginning of the year.
Speaker 4: And once Musk.
Speaker 2: And Trump were like, this is our budget deal, They're like, yes,
Speaker 2: they're no problem. We'll you know, we'll go along with it.
Speaker 2: And so in any case, you know, also with regard
Speaker 2: to Occupy, it's not like Occupy just fizzled out and
Speaker 2: went nowhere. Occupy actively mohrphs into the Bernie Sanders movement,
Speaker 2: like that's where that energy went.
Speaker 4: And some of the.
Speaker 2: Organizers from Occupy are actively involved in the early phases
Speaker 2: of recruiting Bernie Sanders into the twenty sixteen campaign and
Speaker 2: of being involved in the Bernie Sanders campaign. So I
Speaker 2: mean it did result in this large rebirth of a
Speaker 2: left wing movement that just did not really exist in
Speaker 2: America at that point. So, you know, were they able
Speaker 2: to take over the Democratic Party the way that Trump
Speaker 2: was able to take over the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: No, they were not.
Speaker 2: Able to succeed in that. But you know, it didn't
Speaker 2: just fizzle out and go nowhere. It did create this large,
Speaker 2: significant movement. And I think what Bernie is trying to
Speaker 2: do and what there is an opening for right now
Speaker 2: and which you're seeing in the growth like the channels
Speaker 2: that are growing et cetera online in the flight from msmbc,
Speaker 2: et cetera, is that you have liberals who are much
Speaker 2: more open to a Bernie style message than they were
Speaker 2: previously and who are deeply disgusted with the liberal torch
Speaker 2: carriers of the like you know, traditional democratic establishment. That
Speaker 2: is what is so different this time from last where
Speaker 2: that goes as a total open question. But you have
Speaker 2: some seventy percent of the Democratic base, like you people
Speaker 2: are not fighting against Trump hard enough. And again that
Speaker 2: is much more like the numbers under during when the
Speaker 2: Tea Party was formed and they were disgusted with Republican
Speaker 2: establishment leadership, and Republican establishment leadership was underwater even with
Speaker 2: the Republican base. You now have that dynamic on the
Speaker 2: Democratic side. So obviously there's no guarantees, but a lot
Speaker 2: of the ingredients are there, A possibility is there that
Speaker 2: did not exist in the first Trump administration. And you
Speaker 2: even have people like near A Tandon, who, of course,
Speaker 2: now that Bernie's million years old and will never run
Speaker 2: for president again, it's safe for her to say, but
Speaker 2: it's like lauding Bernie for going out and making his
Speaker 2: case with regard to Olim.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't disagree with a lot of this. I
Speaker 3: guess it just comes back to effectiveness and what you're
Speaker 3: trying to accomplish. Because can we play the clip of
Speaker 3: the guy asking them to get arrested, because.
Speaker 1: That's import Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of liberal activism is deeply performative
Speaker 3: and again rooted in their like genuine desire to just
Speaker 3: recreate the nineteen sixties, which if you can go back
Speaker 3: and read all of our debates about whether protests and
Speaker 3: all of that is even effective or not. But let's
Speaker 3: play it just because that, to me is the beating
Speaker 3: heart of liberalism.
Speaker 2: So this is we have two clips put together here.
Speaker 2: The first one is the one so I referring to,
Speaker 2: which is a Democratic representative I think it's New York's
Speaker 2: twenty second congressional district or something like that, who hosted
Speaker 2: a town hall, has this huge crowd and people very energized,
Speaker 2: and one gentleman stands up in this clip pink kind
Speaker 2: of viral. And then there's also a clip from a
Speaker 2: Wisconsin Republican town hall where you see people there, you know,
Speaker 2: flooding in who are very unhappy with this individual and
Speaker 2: what he.
Speaker 4: Has to say. So let's play both of those.
Speaker 7: I'm so proud that unrepresentatives on the front line about
Speaker 7: John Lewis. And I know what John Lewis would have done.
Speaker 7: He would have gotten arrested that day.
Speaker 5: Like you, President Trump positioned a lot of executive orders.
Speaker 5: I think, by a marginess is being very quickly compared
Speaker 5: to other administrations. And I think across the board he's
Speaker 5: done some very good things. I think he's gotten rid
Speaker 5: of birthright citizenship.
Speaker 1: All.
Speaker 3: I think the reason I wanted to play that is,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure you'll disagree with this is I just don't.
Speaker 3: I don't understand this like fetish eye of you need
Speaker 3: to go and get arrested by standing in the door
Speaker 3: of the Department of Education, and it's like you're not
Speaker 3: doing anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I understand.
Speaker 3: It might feel good, it might look good, I guess,
Speaker 3: but it's one of those where there just seems to
Speaker 3: be this desire. They're like, we need to stand up
Speaker 3: against Elon and that will definitely manifest in the midterms,
Speaker 3: no question about it.
Speaker 1: But it's like, to what end?
Speaker 3: And that's why again I respect Bernie because Bernie has
Speaker 3: a plan. Like you could say whatever else you want
Speaker 3: about the guy, the guy has some pretty consistent beliefs
Speaker 3: across the hell, like.
Speaker 1: The overwhelming arc of his life.
Speaker 3: But if you look at the Democratic Party today, and
Speaker 3: we talk a lot about this with the constituency and
Speaker 3: all of that, how can you be anti oligarchy when
Speaker 3: the vast majority of rich people in this country are
Speaker 3: just liberals like our people who and I'm talking about
Speaker 3: even the super rich, like yes, many billionaires supported Trump,
Speaker 3: the vast majority supported Kamala right, or if you look
Speaker 3: at the NGOs and the Democratic architecture, the hr class,
Speaker 3: the DEI stuff. Like all of those people are much
Speaker 3: are just like much more engaged in culture war as
Speaker 3: opposed to a Bernie plan, and they would of course
Speaker 3: love to see somebody stand in the doe in the.
Speaker 1: In the doors.
Speaker 3: But like once they're in power and they're selling to people,
Speaker 3: I'm just not sure I see it in the same
Speaker 3: successful movement. Not saying it can't succeed in the midterms
Speaker 3: at all, I'm just I don't see like the Bernie energy.
Speaker 3: Like I was just on Midas Touches YouTube channel number
Speaker 3: one podcast in the country, by the way, it's all
Speaker 3: just like anti Trump shit posting. Mostly it's just like
Speaker 3: Drump humiliates himself yesterday. I'm like, okay, I mean, what
Speaker 3: are we doing here?
Speaker 1: He did huh Okay, I mean fine, look, I mean
Speaker 1: it's just like they're just like, oh, Drump is so bad.
Speaker 2: But that's why Bernie being the really he is the
Speaker 2: leader of the Democratic Party at this point in time,
Speaker 2: because no one else is filling the void. That's why
Speaker 2: that is so important, because you're right, you know, you
Speaker 2: have liberals who are well intentioned, who are disgusted with
Speaker 2: their leadership. They're you know, disgusted with like Joe Amiko
Speaker 2: run Amsmi. See, they're disgusted with the Washington Post, they're
Speaker 2: disgusted with the New York Times, and they need some
Speaker 2: direction of like how do you effectively like marshal some
Speaker 2: sort of movement and in what kind of a direction?
Speaker 2: And so yes, that's why it matters to have Bernie
Speaker 2: out there, Like the problem is oligarchy. Here's the plan,
Speaker 2: here's the agenda. Here's how we're going to block the
Speaker 2: cuts to medicaid, Here's how we're going to block the
Speaker 2: tax cuts to the rich. This is what we're you know,
Speaker 2: this is what we're going to go out and try
Speaker 2: to accomplish. Because there does need to be some marshaling
Speaker 2: and coherence added to this movement. There's there's no doubt
Speaker 2: about that. But you know what I will say is
Speaker 2: again the opening is just different than it ever has been.
Speaker 2: And there's just no doubt about that. The fact that
Speaker 2: King Jefferies, they the liberals hates this guy. They hate him,
Speaker 2: they're disgusted with him. And so when you see that
Speaker 2: clip of this man who's standing up, who's like, great
Speaker 2: that you were the Department of Education. But next time,
Speaker 2: like get arrested, We'll have your back, will be there.
Speaker 2: I think it would be a mistake to like overanalyze, like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: will that particular tactic be successful. I think it's more
Speaker 2: that they feel so abandoned by the fact that this
Speaker 2: party which made the case Donald Trump is an authoritarian,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is a fascist. Now he's in there and
Speaker 2: his party is going to seapack and doing you know,
Speaker 2: sighaile over and over again. He's saying, they're and out
Speaker 2: there making the case like Trump is the living embodiment
Speaker 2: of the Constitution. He's saying, effectively, lestat semi right, I
Speaker 2: am the law. I can't violate the law if I'm
Speaker 2: in the context of saving the country. Elon is consolidating
Speaker 2: power in this brazen, naked self dealing way. Like all
Speaker 2: the things they've warned about that the Democratic Party warned about,
Speaker 2: they're happening.
Speaker 4: They're here, and you've.
Speaker 2: Got, you know, a bunch of listless, no nothing leaders
Speaker 2: who are just sitting back like, oh, let him punch
Speaker 2: himself down, don't sow get every pitch. They just want
Speaker 2: to see someone with some fight and some energy.
Speaker 4: That's all.
Speaker 2: And you know, so far, the people who have really
Speaker 2: tried to provide that are Bernie has the best plan
Speaker 2: and the best strategy that we've seen so far. AOC
Speaker 2: has been very aggressive in terms of getting out there
Speaker 2: and like meeting the moment in terms of her rhetoric
Speaker 2: and that I think that's really all they're looking for
Speaker 2: is for people to show some fight. Yeah, they know
Speaker 2: they're not magicians. They know they can't magically turn it back.
Speaker 2: They know that, you know, maybe getting arrested in front
Speaker 2: of the Department of Education isn't going to like solve
Speaker 2: the problem overnight or whatever. They just want to see
Speaker 2: some fight. And I think that there was a lot
Speaker 2: of that with the Tea Party as well. I agree
Speaker 2: there's a lot that with Trump too, to be honest
Speaker 2: with you, where more like they just love to see
Speaker 2: him take on the fight and be unafraid of it
Speaker 2: and own the Libs. And like that's kind of what
Speaker 2: the liberal base wants to see right now from their leaders,
Speaker 2: and they're not getting from any one say basically like
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders say.
Speaker 3: I think has an important point though, is that what
Speaker 3: is owning the Libs get you? It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: it gets you that farmer guy who got his government
Speaker 3: contract shut off, and he's like, it's the government who's
Speaker 3: come after me. So it's like, listen, guys, if you
Speaker 3: want your rage to be hijacked by rich people, which
Speaker 3: is basically what's happened throughout the culture war on left
Speaker 3: and right, Like, go ahead, I guess.
Speaker 4: But again, that's what Bernie piece matters so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bernie, are we overstating a little bit?
Speaker 3: I mean, the guy sold out twenty three hundred or
Speaker 3: had twenty three hundred people in Nebraska like you and
Speaker 3: I sold out a place with like fifteen sixteen hundred people, Like,
Speaker 3: it's not a lot of people.
Speaker 1: If ten thousand people show up, call me all right.
Speaker 4: Like a city, small place, isn't Iowa City.
Speaker 3: The place where they have what's it called, isn't the
Speaker 3: university there? Isn't one of the most liberal counties there.
Speaker 3: So again, let's not overstate the case. Yeah, like I
Speaker 3: was not going blue, like Nebraska's not going blue. Uh,
Speaker 3: in terms of like all of these places where it matters,
Speaker 3: Wisconsin all that, I'm gonna pay much more attention to
Speaker 3: that town hall. Maybe that guy will lose, But I
Speaker 3: mean it's just again like it there's there just seems
Speaker 3: to be like a Lib wish casting happening here, which
Speaker 3: makes me very skeptical because so much Lib wish casting
Speaker 3: during the election turned out to be bullshit.
Speaker 2: But you acknowledge like there's probably going to be a
Speaker 2: significant backlash in the Midia.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I think that would have happen.
Speaker 2: I think Virginia is going to be in a blood bath.
Speaker 2: They have elections this year. I think it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a blood bath because of how many federal government workers
Speaker 2: there are and how much this hits home for, and
Speaker 2: not just in the Northern Virginia suburbs, but you know
Speaker 2: throughout the state, including in Norfolk, including the town where
Speaker 2: I live, et cetera. And so you know, the backlash
Speaker 2: is it has emerged, right, it is here, The energy
Speaker 2: is there. You can see the trend in the trajectory.
Speaker 2: It's on And all I'm saying is like it is
Speaker 2: I think very inco eight. I think it is just
Speaker 2: a react. And in the same way the Tea Party
Speaker 2: was just really just a reaction against Obama Democrats having
Speaker 2: a trifecta. This is a similar, sort of parallel thing,
Speaker 2: with the specific tension point being around Elon Musk. Basically
Speaker 2: like appointing himself CEO, Dictator king of the entire government.
Speaker 2: But that's why it matters to have these like you know,
Speaker 2: it had Paul Ryan and the Tea Party and all
Speaker 2: those people like shaping what that movement ended up being about.
Speaker 2: And so who takes control of the movement and right
Speaker 2: now it's like Bernie and the Left that are stepping
Speaker 2: up to the plate really matters for what the political
Speaker 2: goals end up being, how it's framed at what ends
Speaker 2: up ultimately happening.
Speaker 3: I hate to say, you know, my money's on Buddha Jedge.
Speaker 3: I think Pete Pee's playing his cards. He's been on Twitter,
Speaker 3: he's been fighting. He's gonna win in Michigan.
Speaker 1: We all know it. I'm already wanting to blow my
Speaker 1: brains down, but I could see it. Pete's tanned, he's rested,
Speaker 1: he's ready.
Speaker 3: It's unfortunate, but I think I think he could be
Speaker 3: the bridge between the NGOs and the lib rage. But listen,
Speaker 3: maybe I'm wrong. All right, let's get to Warren Buffett.
Speaker 3: Let's go down to Warren Buffett. We've been really paying
Speaker 3: attention to this because it could be a signal, some
Speaker 3: major warning signs in the economy. Let's put this up
Speaker 3: there on the screen. So a lot of financial news
Speaker 3: outlets have been taking note of this. Warren Buffett is
Speaker 3: currently trying to reassure his shareholders over his record amount
Speaker 3: of cash. The amount of cash is actually so stunning
Speaker 3: that it's literally the letter shows a cash pile grew
Speaker 3: by just nine billion dollars in this quarter. The cash
Speaker 3: pile has now hit three hundred and thirty four billion
Speaker 3: at the end of last year, with an additional increase
Speaker 3: percentage wise. Looking at the entire history of the amount
Speaker 3: of cash and cash equivalents on the Buffet books, there
Speaker 3: has never been this high. And it's really interesting because
Speaker 3: of a question of why. So what Buffett says is
Speaker 3: that Berkshire shareholders can rest assured we will forever deploy
Speaker 3: a substantial o their money in equities, mostly American equities,
Speaker 3: although many of these will have international operations of significance.
Speaker 3: But the reason why he appointed to the amount of
Speaker 3: cash in his letter Crystal is that he is saying, basically,
Speaker 3: he thinks that there is a massive overprice of assets
Speaker 3: in the economy.
Speaker 1: I actually read a book about it.
Speaker 3: He's an interesting figure, kind of worshiped sometimes a little
Speaker 3: bit too much in my opinion. But the thing is
Speaker 3: that he's of the old school in terms of analyzing stocks,
Speaker 3: trying to make sure that the multiples fit with that.
Speaker 3: Whenever he sees a miss price, that's when he buys.
Speaker 3: And that style of investment going back over time has
Speaker 3: obviously made him tremendously wealthy. For him, he sees significant
Speaker 3: imbalance currently in the economy, holding cash to be able
Speaker 3: to buy assets for presumably what he's saying is some
Speaker 3: sort of crash that's in the future.
Speaker 1: Now, is he correct. I've no idea.
Speaker 3: These guys are wrong all the time, but obviously he's
Speaker 3: one of the most successful investors literally in American history,
Speaker 3: so we should all pay attention and looking back to
Speaker 3: all the stuff that he has done previously. Whenever he's
Speaker 3: hold health cash, he's come out pretty well on top
Speaker 3: whenever he bets on something being overpriced, and that's kind
Speaker 3: of the foundation of his entire entire stock analysis going
Speaker 3: back for decades.
Speaker 2: This is the most amount of cash that Burscher Hathaway
Speaker 2: has ever held, like quite by a fairly margin. So
Speaker 2: that's something to pay attention to. Something I had noticed
Speaker 2: before is actually a bunch of billionaires have been dumping stocks.
Speaker 2: So Bezos has been, Bill Gates has been Sockerberger.
Speaker 4: I believe Ray.
Speaker 1: Dalio, like Alex carp I, sold a huge thing of paleer.
Speaker 2: A bunch of billionaires are mitigating their risk and exposure
Speaker 2: to the stock market. And you know, that's I think
Speaker 2: something to pay attention to. One of the things. One
Speaker 2: of the reasons why we cover deep seeks so extensively
Speaker 2: is because our stock market is so dependent on this
Speaker 2: just handful of tech giants. They are responsible for majority
Speaker 2: of the growth in our stock market index over the
Speaker 2: past couple of years. So if their AI projections do
Speaker 2: not pan out, either in terms of their ability to
Speaker 2: corner the market or in terms of how impactful AI
Speaker 2: ends up being, then there could be a massive correction.
Speaker 2: And so the fact that deep seek was developed in
Speaker 2: China for less money and you know, has a fundamentally
Speaker 2: sort of different configuration and blew up some of the
Speaker 2: assumptions undergirding AI development in trajectory in the US was
Speaker 2: particularly significant because there is a big question about whether
Speaker 2: there is a huge AI bubble right now comparable to
Speaker 2: let's say, the like two thousands dot com bubble, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's a very real and live possibility.
Speaker 2: You add to that some of the things we're about
Speaker 2: to get into, like the housing market still sucks, inflation
Speaker 2: now is going back up, consumer sentiment is falling. You
Speaker 2: have Trump who knows what he's going to do in
Speaker 2: terms of tariffs, the firing mass firings at the federal government. Like, yes,
Speaker 2: it's a comparatively small proportion of the of the overall workforce,
Speaker 2: but can have huge reverberating effects throughout the country. All
Speaker 2: of these pieces should make you pretty nervous.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, And all of the signs are there for
Speaker 3: some market problems. Put this one up there on this
Speaker 3: This is from Friday, but just right now when we're
Speaker 3: looking at the markets as we're recording the show, S
Speaker 3: ANDP is like mostly flat today, but the Wall Street
Speaker 3: on Friday had a significant dip. It was like almost
Speaker 3: like one zero point seven percent or so. The reason
Speaker 3: why I paid attention to that is it kind of
Speaker 3: came basically on macroeconomic news, So it was concerns here
Speaker 3: over the economy and on tariffs, specifically of the softening
Speaker 3: of US consumer demand. I'm actually going compair that with
Speaker 3: something really interesting that I just saw this morning. Over
Speaker 3: fifty percent right now of consumer spending is by the
Speaker 3: top ten percent of the American of the American income owners,
Speaker 3: meaning rich people are the literal backbone of the economy
Speaker 3: right now. That's actually really bad because any change in
Speaker 3: their consumer behavior means what crash for everybody else. Also,
Speaker 3: it's really gross because what it means. I've always pointed
Speaker 3: this for years. What is like Uber, Instacart and all
Speaker 3: of these new companies, what are they all about serving
Speaker 3: the convenience of the wealthy?
Speaker 1: Right? Airbnb? Same thing.
Speaker 3: All of these are about luxury industries where people basically
Speaker 3: have a mass service class to service the top ten percent.
Speaker 1: That's really bad, flack More, even.
Speaker 3: Distribution of consumer spending is what you want in a
Speaker 3: healthy economy.
Speaker 1: We don't see that.
Speaker 3: And then worse is E three, please can we put
Speaker 3: up on the screen, is that the overall price for
Speaker 3: home sales remains at an all time high for January
Speaker 3: and the number of sales continue to drop as most
Speaker 3: people basically decide not to put their home on the market.
Speaker 3: You've got high interest rates, you've got high home prices.
Speaker 3: The medium home price of a home sold in January
Speaker 3: was three hundred and ninety six thousand dollars, which if
Speaker 3: you look actually at some of the top ten metros,
Speaker 3: the price is roughly around one million with a seven
Speaker 3: percent mortgage rate. So just think about you know, like,
Speaker 3: even if you want what twenty percent to avoid PMI,
Speaker 3: and if you're in a major metro area, good luck
Speaker 3: to you. I mean, who has hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 3: dollars just sitting around. Not most people, you know, it
Speaker 3: would take you a lifetime to be able to even
Speaker 3: save that up alone, not yet alone to save for
Speaker 3: the mortgage payments that come in the future. So it's
Speaker 3: very difficult. And this is probably what worries me the
Speaker 3: most and is in my opinion, the most existential threat
Speaker 3: to a Trump presidency is some sort of bubble explosion.
Speaker 1: It could be. I mean, that's the thing about Nvidia.
Speaker 3: It can still be a phenomenally valuable company and it
Speaker 3: can still drop by forty percent just because of how
Speaker 3: increase the price is now relative Just how much is
Speaker 3: there Look at MetaStock, look at google Stock, any of.
Speaker 1: These others over the last five years. It's insane.
Speaker 3: And then the billions of capex that they're spending on
Speaker 3: AI development. I think if we put all that together
Speaker 3: with weak consumer spending, and then even if you leave
Speaker 3: tariffs out of this, just the fundamentals right now are
Speaker 3: bad price hold, all time high for homes, lack of
Speaker 3: credit because mortgage rates are very very high, consumer sentiment down.
Speaker 3: Actually you're seeing an increase in budget stuff, which is
Speaker 3: not usually a good sign. It means people are tightening
Speaker 3: their pocketbooks. And then complete redistribute where you have top
Speaker 3: ten percent responsible for more than half of overall consumer
Speaker 3: spending in the US economy. So that just shows you
Speaker 3: that if a single thing were to change, like let's
Speaker 3: say a correction of the stock market by twenty percent,
Speaker 3: and all those rich people stopped spending, at least even
Speaker 3: more of a doom loop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes through these.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the last piece we have here is just specifically
Speaker 2: about consumer sentiment, which we can put up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was the write up from CNN. They say it's
Speaker 2: consumer sentiment plunges over tariff and inflation fears. So we
Speaker 2: already saw a pullback in consumer sentiment in January. There
Speaker 2: was another one in February. This is according to the
Speaker 2: University of Michigan's latest survey release Fridays, showed it had
Speaker 2: declined in February for the second consecutive month, down by
Speaker 2: a steep ten percent from January. That was double the
Speaker 2: decline initially reported earlier this month. And there's a partisan
Speaker 2: valance to this. So Republicans are still feeling pretty good,
Speaker 2: but both Democrats and Independence experienced a fall in consumer sentiment.
Speaker 2: So you know, when you put all the pieces together,
Speaker 2: it's a pretty perilous, perilous landscape. And you know, you again,
Speaker 2: layer on top of it the austerity push from Elon
Speaker 2: and doge in the amount of chaos and uncertainty that's
Speaker 2: injecting with the federal workforce, and you know, all of
Speaker 2: the ancillary jobs that are connected to the federal government
Speaker 2: and the federal workforce, all the services throughout the country,
Speaker 2: things like the national parks, et cetera, that are important
Speaker 2: to the local economies, and it ends up in a
Speaker 2: pretty concerning picture for the future.
Speaker 3: That's right, So everybody just pay attention the economy. I mean,
Speaker 3: who knows where things could go. But I'm the most worried.
Speaker 3: And what we always talk about here is the concentration
Speaker 3: of the magnificent seven stocks in the S and P
Speaker 3: five hundred, and the difference and just the sheer ability
Speaker 3: of the indexes right now to crash just as a
Speaker 3: result of a reduction in the tech market is like
Speaker 3: a huge threat, especially if all of those are overvalued,
Speaker 3: and when there's a market correction and high interest rates,
Speaker 3: think about that money's expensive and people's overall assets are low.
Speaker 3: It will just lead to a total change in consumer behavior,
Speaker 3: especially if you're people at the top. It could have
Speaker 3: all sorts of crazy impacts. So I'm really worried about it.
Speaker 3: But also obviously, what's the easiest thing to do. Whenever
Speaker 3: there's a crash, they fire a bunch of people. So
Speaker 3: then you know, we have high We actually have high
Speaker 3: employment right now, some of the highest ever.
Speaker 1: But we could have like the worst.
Speaker 3: Nineteen seventy scenario of like bad asset prices, high interest rates,
Speaker 3: high unemployment. It would just be a complain not to mention,
Speaker 3: you know, all the domestic strife and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm still waiting for America to break, like, I don't
Speaker 3: know how long they can take it. I just don't
Speaker 3: get it. The home price thing is the one I
Speaker 3: think about the most where I'm like, man, like, just
Speaker 3: you know, decades, if you're like forty seven and you've
Speaker 3: still have been unable to buy a house, what do
Speaker 3: you do? Like that would break me personally. So I
Speaker 3: just have no idea, like how much longer this whole
Speaker 3: thing can go on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you look at the cost of housing, education,
Speaker 2: healthcare over decades, it just, I mean, it is skyrocketed astronomically,
Speaker 2: so that the number of hours you have to work
Speaker 2: at like, you know, an average waste job to be
Speaker 2: able to afford those things has I mean, it's just skyrocketed.
Speaker 2: It's insane compared to what it used to be. And
Speaker 2: so even as you look at these various indicators of oh,
Speaker 2: in this way, America is doing better and Americans are wealthier,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, But when you talk about these
Speaker 2: core staples of a afford above, like a basic middle
Speaker 2: class life, those are the things that have gone through
Speaker 2: the roof, and there's really no you know, no end
Speaker 2: in sight, no serious attempt being made to deal with
Speaker 2: housing prices. And that's such a core component too, of
Speaker 2: how Americans have traditionally been able to build wealth and stability.
Speaker 2: So That's why we always pay a lot of attention
Speaker 2: to it. But yeah, a lot of warning signs here, ye.
Speaker 2: In any case, Luigi Mangioni made an appearance in court
Speaker 2: this week, and our own Spencer Snyder was there to
Speaker 2: talk to some of the protesters who were in and
Speaker 2: around the courtroom about why they were there and what
Speaker 2: they were hoping to see from this trial.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and get to that. Very fortunate to be.
Speaker 2: Joined this morning by Spencer Snyder, who is one of
Speaker 2: our fantastic Breaking Points contributors and whose videos regularly blow
Speaker 2: up on our channel.
Speaker 1: To Spencer, good to see you, man read to be here.
Speaker 2: So you were in Manhattan, you spoke to luigim Mangioni
Speaker 2: made his first court appearance there since his original arraignment,
Speaker 2: and there were a bunch of Luigi's supporters and sort
Speaker 2: of like anti healthcare industry protesters who were there waiting
Speaker 2: to get inside the court room and also outside the courtroom.
Speaker 4: You were able to speak to some of them.
Speaker 2: We're going to play a little bit, but why don't
Speaker 2: you go ahead and set up what we're about to
Speaker 2: watch here.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, I went to the rally for Luigi
Speaker 8: MAANNGIONI outside of the Manhattan Criminal Court on Saturday, just
Speaker 8: to talk to some people and see what motivated them
Speaker 8: to come out. So I just prepared a few of
Speaker 8: their statements and their general sentiments.
Speaker 4: All right, let's go ahead and listen to that.
Speaker 9: Really spar thousands of dollars out of pocket and health
Speaker 9: care expenses in the past year. I have good healthcare,
Speaker 9: I have Anthem gold Ppo, and I just don't think
Speaker 9: that we should exist in a system where medical bankruptcy
Speaker 9: is a thing.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that murder is justified.
Speaker 9: But when you have a system that systematically devalues the
Speaker 9: lives of consumers and of citizens at the behest of
Speaker 9: the profit margin of the corporations, you're gonna have people
Speaker 9: get mad.
Speaker 10: Brian Thompson is indirectly responsible for the deaths of probably
Speaker 10: thousands of Americans at this point. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 10: And so I think free Luigi means free healthcare, it
Speaker 10: means free are people, it means democracy.
Speaker 8: I don't think there's one person in this country that
Speaker 8: hasn't had at least some type of negative experience with healthcare.
Speaker 11: I will tell the one about my mom, because she's
Speaker 11: passed since now that she had a huge tumor in
Speaker 11: her neck. It turned out to be stage four hogkitkinslin foma,
Speaker 11: which nearly killed her. But had she listened to the
Speaker 11: health insurance company and the doctor which wasn't willing to
Speaker 11: rad sure the health insurance company would, she would have
Speaker 11: passed at the age of like forty eight.
Speaker 12: It was like, I work with a lot of women
Speaker 12: who have breast cancer and they are getting declined their
Speaker 12: right to reconstruction, and I have to argue in a document.
Speaker 12: Basically I'll write like a forty page document saying like, hey,
Speaker 12: this woman had breast cancer, these are her rights, and
Speaker 12: they're kind of being declined.
Speaker 4: And this is like really frequent.
Speaker 13: And since I'm a home health fate, I've seen it
Speaker 13: within my patients, my clients getting you know, denied and
Speaker 13: I denied with insurance claim that they really need. And
Speaker 13: I think it's just extremely unfair. And I again, this
Speaker 13: is you know, this is why I'm here, This is
Speaker 13: why I'm supporting Luigi. He is a hero to me.
Speaker 13: I don't see him as a criminal at all.
Speaker 1: We have a solution.
Speaker 14: The solution is a single pair ideally a universal payer system.
Speaker 14: Across the United States. But we're also here advocating for
Speaker 14: the New York Healthcare Act, which is a single payer
Speaker 14: system for New York. So we can't get it for everybody,
Speaker 14: then let's at least, you know, prove that it is
Speaker 14: a I will concept here in New York.
Speaker 2: I mean, really interesting to hear that it seemed like
Speaker 2: there were a lot of ladies there. So I'll let
Speaker 2: you weigh in on whether there was in fact a
Speaker 2: bit of a gender imbalance here, perhaps owing to the
Speaker 2: relative attractiveness of this gentleman. But also, you know, what
Speaker 2: do they think that they will could accomplish by coming
Speaker 2: out and doing this protest and supporting him as he's
Speaker 2: you know, facing trial.
Speaker 8: I mean, as far as what they think is accomplishable
Speaker 8: just by just by that, I think, you know, it's
Speaker 8: it's up in the air. But I would say, you know,
Speaker 8: people there are really motivated by a broken healthcare system.
Speaker 6: People there were angry, they're frustrated.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: One person said when I asked her what she thought
Speaker 8: when she heard the news about Brian Thompson, she said,
Speaker 8: finally something is being done.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 8: You know, there were a lot of doctors there, a
Speaker 8: lot of people who work in healthcare, but also just
Speaker 8: people who you know, are angry about the healthcare system.
Speaker 8: You know, there were some Luigi fans. I mean everyone's
Speaker 8: wearing green. Everyone had a lot of Luigi stuff and
Speaker 8: paraphernalia and hats. One woman had knitted a free Luigi sweater.
Speaker 8: But everyone I spoke with was there because they think
Speaker 8: the healthcare system is criminal. Everyone seemed pretty serious to me. No, no,
Speaker 8: No one told me I'm here because he's hot.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, good point. That's very important.
Speaker 3: So in terms of the social effect of all of this,
Speaker 3: what struck you in terms of the way that people
Speaker 3: felt compelled to come out so they wanted to talk
Speaker 3: to you. Obviously we heard a lot about discussed with
Speaker 3: the overall healthcare system. But how closely are they following
Speaker 3: the news and what do you think the political valance
Speaker 3: of most of the people who were in attendance were.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's a good question. The people there were they're
Speaker 8: following the case, they know what's happening. Political valance they
Speaker 8: were definitely. I'm I think there were a couple of
Speaker 8: conservatives there.
Speaker 6: I know there was.
Speaker 8: Someone had pointed out a conservative YouTuber who was there,
Speaker 8: or a TikToker.
Speaker 6: But I mean people were there on the left.
Speaker 8: There were or I would say mostly mostly leftists out there.
Speaker 8: I didn't see any DSA people who who I know
Speaker 8: are DSA. But there were people out there advocating for
Speaker 8: the New York Health Act, which is something that the
Speaker 8: DSA has made a project out of.
Speaker 2: How did they grapple with the sort of moral questions
Speaker 2: involved here? You know, you got a little taste of
Speaker 2: that in the clips that you shared of someone saying like, well,
Speaker 2: I don't think murder is like murder is wrong, but
Speaker 2: also this healthcare system is wrong and immoral as well.
Speaker 2: So how were people sort of balancing the way that
Speaker 2: they felt and.
Speaker 4: Thought about that?
Speaker 6: You know, I think.
Speaker 8: In my estimation, they see the killing of Brian Thompson
Speaker 8: as not entirely dissimilar from someone who kills their spouse
Speaker 8: and self defense. I mean, there was I'm sure everyone
Speaker 8: remembers the Emerson poll asking to what extent people found
Speaker 8: the murder acceptable, Something like fifty eight percent said totally unacceptable.
Speaker 8: Everyone else was somewhere between somewhat unacceptable and completely acceptable.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's a lot.
Speaker 8: Of people who, it seems to me think that being
Speaker 8: a health insurance CEO means you're some kind of criminal,
Speaker 8: which is why a lot of people in the crowd
Speaker 8: their big goal when I asked them what they hope for,
Speaker 8: what they hope the outcome of the trial will be
Speaker 8: a lot of people said jury nullification, which if you
Speaker 8: don't know, is basically when the jury says, yeah, he
Speaker 8: did the crime, he would be guilty.
Speaker 6: But it's not that simple, so not guilty.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm really interested so in terms of the protest
Speaker 3: and others, as you were talking about, I know you
Speaker 3: follow the case as well, what are some of the
Speaker 3: other legal hurdles that Luigi faces now in terms of
Speaker 3: the procedural and eventually lead up to trial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 8: I something that his attorney's highlighted is just the complexity
Speaker 8: of the three cases because you know, he's actually facing
Speaker 8: a trial in Pennsylvania where he was captured, He's facing
Speaker 8: a trial in New York, and he's facing a federal
Speaker 8: trial which he might be eligible for death.
Speaker 6: So it's it's up in the air. I think we have.
Speaker 8: There is another hearing next month, and I think that's
Speaker 8: at federal court, and the next New York appearance will
Speaker 8: be in June, I believe, but I don't think anyone
Speaker 8: really knows what's going to happen at this point.
Speaker 2: So these are separate charges that he's facing in state
Speaker 2: court in Pennsylvania, state court in New York, and federal court.
Speaker 6: As well, believe.
Speaker 2: So what is the next that we will see from
Speaker 2: Luigi when it is his next appearance scheduled to be
Speaker 2: And was there anything noteworthy from this particular appearance that
Speaker 2: people should know about.
Speaker 6: Not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 8: I haven't read all the details of what happened in
Speaker 8: the hearing.
Speaker 2: It's probably just pretty pretty standard, Yeah, pre trial stuff.
Speaker 8: I would imagine, But the next appearances next month in
Speaker 8: federal court, got it all right?
Speaker 2: Well, Spencer, thank you for being on the ground for us.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting to hear what Chelle had to say. Yeah, appreciate,
Speaker 2: it's great to see you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, great seeing you. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 3: for watching, for bearing with my voice. It's been struggling
Speaker 3: throughout this one. We'll be back here tomorrow and then
Speaker 3: we'll see that