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Speaker 3: dot com. All right, let's get too inflations and troubling
Speaker 3: news for the Trump administration. CNBC reacting live, little bit dramatic,
Speaker 3: but it is important.
Speaker 1: On the last let's take a list.
Speaker 4: Let's very quickly look through these boards again. As Rick
Speaker 4: was pointing out, we looked at the equities tank. You're
Speaker 4: now looking at the Dow futures off by about four
Speaker 4: hundred points, just over four hundred points.
Speaker 1: SMP futures are.
Speaker 4: Down by fifty seven. NAZAC indicated down by more than
Speaker 4: two hundred and twenty points.
Speaker 5: The focus was going to be on the core year
Speaker 5: every year three two would have been bad, and what
Speaker 5: we got was worse. Right, So, you know, it's really
Speaker 5: disappointing news for the Fed that they were hoping for
Speaker 5: continued decelerations, disappointing for the market because they're hoping for
Speaker 5: continued deceleration and the fact that this is a January
Speaker 5: number and doesn't include any potential you know, tariff impact
Speaker 5: yet you know, means that you know, the risk going
Speaker 5: forward is for potentially higher inflation.
Speaker 4: It comes just after Donald Trump put out on truth
Speaker 4: Social the idea that the Fed should be lowering rates
Speaker 4: to go along with the tariffs, that we could be
Speaker 4: at this time.
Speaker 1: This was the Fed in a pretty tight box.
Speaker 4: It's hard pressed for them to be able to lower
Speaker 4: rates at this point.
Speaker 5: Well it does, I mean you need to. You know,
Speaker 5: they shouldn't have been lowering rates in the first place.
Speaker 5: So that's the they kind of got themselves into a box.
Speaker 5: They tried to get in front of things heading into
Speaker 5: the election, and they went a little too far, too fast,
Speaker 5: and then they continued easing even when you know, everything
Speaker 5: should have been telling them that they should have been stopping.
Speaker 6: This is that nascent inflation that we were worried was,
Speaker 6: you know, in the back of our minds, we were
Speaker 6: worried that it was still there. Well, isn't that what
Speaker 6: we're seeing right now? This is like our worst nightmare
Speaker 6: coming true. We didn't do anything, We didn't do any tariffs,
Speaker 6: yet this was already coming.
Speaker 3: So you can see they're freaking out. And let's put
Speaker 3: C three up there on the screen. This actually is
Speaker 3: the tear sheet that just shows some of the inflation data.
Speaker 3: So inflation heating up in January, freezing the FED. The
Speaker 3: consumer price index rose some three percent fight against inflation.
Speaker 3: What was actually troubling is if you look actually inside
Speaker 3: of what was creating some of the inflation, core prices
Speaker 3: quote which strip out food and energy, rose point four.
Speaker 3: Core inflation was three point three percent year over year.
Speaker 3: Egg prices, though seemed to be accounting for a lot
Speaker 3: of this, rose more than fifteen percent from December with
Speaker 3: the bird flu outbreak, and that accounted for two thirds
Speaker 3: of the monthly increase in overall grocery prices. So you
Speaker 3: can tell that this is going to be a damaging
Speaker 3: part for the economy. It's also one of those elastic
Speaker 3: things where because people go to the grocery store every week.
Speaker 3: When you watch the price tick up over week, it's
Speaker 3: like gas where you feel it way more than in
Speaker 3: a way of a mortgage bump fromzero point five percent,
Speaker 3: you know, from six point five percent to seven percent,
Speaker 3: even though.
Speaker 1: Frankly the latter one will hit you more.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's one where you can really see how
Speaker 3: this can become politically damaging in the future for Trump
Speaker 3: could effective thinking on tariffs right now, I mean, right now,
Speaker 3: what's going into effect either today or tomorrow. Are these
Speaker 3: reciprocal tariffs, which basically says whatever a country charges us,
Speaker 3: we're going to charge them. This largely going to be
Speaker 3: felt at the manufacturing manufacturing level. It may trickle down
Speaker 3: but in different ways. As in if we specifically we're
Speaker 3: talking about steel and aluminum, we had steel in terariffs before.
Speaker 1: Even if it's twenty five percent, that's.
Speaker 3: Just really not going to impact the overall US me
Speaker 3: in the same way that like a ring tariff for
Speaker 3: the Canada Mexico tariff. But this, in my opinion, will
Speaker 3: be the eternal dance between the Trump administration and also
Speaker 3: really with the FED. I mean right now, the Federal reserve,
Speaker 3: as they were talking about on CNBC's Frozen in Place.
Speaker 3: Trump wants to lower the race. Elon also wants to
Speaker 3: lower the rates, which we'll talk about in the future.
Speaker 3: It's very important. It's one of the reasons why the
Speaker 3: stock market all that is so reactive to this inflation
Speaker 3: data is specifically.
Speaker 1: A borrowing race.
Speaker 3: But probably most important for everybody watching this show is
Speaker 3: how it impacts your car loans and your ability to
Speaker 3: get a mortgage. And I'm still pretty worried because that's
Speaker 3: where i think the dread and the existential anks for
Speaker 3: a lot of Americans will come from, which would translate
Speaker 3: politically for Trump. We're still talking about an average mortgage
Speaker 3: rate right now about six point nine percent. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's crazy high compared to where things were four years ago.
Speaker 2: There is a cost of living crisis that strives a
Speaker 2: lot of our politics, and housing is a major component
Speaker 2: of it. We're going to cover in the Dems block
Speaker 2: a piece in Politico that was really interesting talking about
Speaker 2: how our macroeconomic data does not reflect the reality for
Speaker 2: most poor, working and middle class Americans. And one of
Speaker 2: the things they break down there is, you know, even
Speaker 2: the inflation metrics that we use like to your point,
Speaker 2: sagare uses a basket of some eighty thousand goods or
Speaker 2: something like that. Obviously, you normal person are not buying
Speaker 2: all eighty thousand of those goods to get that average
Speaker 2: three point three percent or whatever inflation increase. So when
Speaker 2: the components of that basket are things that disproportionately make
Speaker 2: up your budget, things like eggs, things like gas, things
Speaker 2: like rent, then guess what your actual personal in your
Speaker 2: household inflation rate that you're experiencing is going to be
Speaker 2: much much higher than what the top line number is.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're seeing right now, continuation obviously of
Speaker 2: some of the trends from the Biden administration, but also
Speaker 2: you know, with some specific new flavors. In particular, obviously
Speaker 2: the egg price thing is directly related to the continued
Speaker 2: spread of av and flu, which you know a lot
Speaker 2: of experts are really worried about, obviously from the health perspective,
Speaker 2: but also if you have a flock of chickens that
Speaker 2: a few of the chickens have avian flu, you have
Speaker 2: to put down entire flock. And this has led to
Speaker 2: incredible scarcity in terms of eggs. It's led to aggressioning
Speaker 2: in certain places, and it's also led to this gigantic spike.
Speaker 2: And of course eggs go into a lot of different things.
Speaker 2: People use eggs for a lot of different baking, cooking, etc.
Speaker 2: So all of those dishes would be affected as well.
Speaker 2: And gas prices have also been going up, So not
Speaker 2: a good picture for them as they want to, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think you would deny that if
Speaker 2: there is an additional if there is a more aggressive
Speaker 2: terror regime, if there's a more aggressive even mass deportation push,
Speaker 2: that is going to increase prices in the short term.
Speaker 2: Trump seems to be betting that that isn't actually why
Speaker 2: people voted for him, like the promise of getting prices down.
Speaker 7: He's trying to change the subject.
Speaker 2: And actually we have a good example of that in
Speaker 2: his interview with Brett Barwy gets asked directly about prices
Speaker 2: and when people.
Speaker 7: Can expect to see them come down. This is C two.
Speaker 7: Let's listen to that.
Speaker 8: When do you think families would be able to feel
Speaker 8: prices going down groceries, energy or are you kind of
Speaker 8: saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until
Speaker 8: it gets better. No, I think we're going to become
Speaker 8: a rich Look, we're not that rich right now. We
Speaker 8: owe thirty six trillion dollars. That's because we let all
Speaker 8: these nations take advantage of us same thing, like two
Speaker 8: hundred billion with Canada, whill three hundred we have a
Speaker 8: deficit with Mexico of three hundred and fifty billion dollars.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2: So it's very telling. He dodges the question completely and
Speaker 2: then starts talking.
Speaker 3: About answer that question. You shouldn't be like it's going
Speaker 3: to come out next to no any politicis you're dead.
Speaker 2: Would be d Yeah, But it's interesting what he shifts
Speaker 2: the conversation to. He shifts it to tariffs, like that's
Speaker 2: where he goes that when he starts talking about Mexico's
Speaker 2: trade deficit, that's what he's talking about there. So it's
Speaker 2: almost implicit acknowledgment of like, well, I'm not really doing
Speaker 2: the price get the prices down thing, but we're going
Speaker 2: to be rich on the other side of it because
Speaker 2: these other things I'm doing with regards I mean.
Speaker 3: As you and I know, there's no magic wand of
Speaker 3: just like lower prices, there's no such thing that doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Now. The problem is.
Speaker 3: That people promise it on the campaign trail when I
Speaker 3: guess everybody knows that it's literally not true. Unfortunately, people
Speaker 3: seem to believe it's true. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 3: BC four please up.
Speaker 1: On the screen. This is getting to what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: How there are now Trader Joes in one jurisdiction is
Speaker 3: limiting egg purchases very you know, reminiscent lack costco This
Speaker 3: is reminiscent of some of the covid era shortages that
Speaker 3: we saw previously.
Speaker 1: C five please you.
Speaker 3: Can see that eggs not only soored some thirteen point
Speaker 3: eight percent in January, but are up fifty three percent
Speaker 3: from a year ago, largest increase in the egg index
Speaker 3: since June of twenty fifteen, and accounted for about two
Speaker 3: thirds of the monthly food at home increase.
Speaker 1: So this is one.
Speaker 3: Where as you said, people are really going to feel it,
Speaker 3: and it's a battle about not only cost of living,
Speaker 3: but also about the vision in the future that the
Speaker 3: Trump administration is able to offer if they just do
Speaker 3: tariffs and then they don't really do anything else like
Speaker 3: they had talked about external revenue or previously in the
Speaker 3: first Trump administration, they were actually cutting checks for relief
Speaker 3: for a lot of farmers.
Speaker 1: So even though that.
Speaker 3: They had reduced sales, the government was actually replacing that
Speaker 3: revenue with the tariff revenue, which I think is totally reasonable.
Speaker 3: That it gets to effective administration of the way that
Speaker 3: this is done and effective buy in from the public.
Speaker 3: As you said on mass deportation, I mean, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: being honest, It's true it probably will. That said mass
Speaker 3: deportation isn't really happening, which is the secondary thing that
Speaker 3: we could talk about. Nobody seems to be paying attention.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, hold on a second. If we're looking
Speaker 3: at these, I mean, good, listen, it's good. The numbers
Speaker 3: are higher, not like crazy high, effectively just demonstrating how
Speaker 3: difficult it is under the current regime of budgets, and
Speaker 3: even with the way that ICE and all.
Speaker 1: That is currently constituted.
Speaker 3: They're currently talking about deputizing like other agrants and other
Speaker 3: because they don't haven't they don't have enough personnel. I
Speaker 3: mean Tom Holman himself even said he's like, look could
Speaker 3: work under our current budget. We wouldn't even be able
Speaker 3: to deport all of people who are criminals, who are deportable,
Speaker 3: let alone have some mass deportation. And then that's a
Speaker 3: big question. Will that Democrats fight that, Are they going
Speaker 3: to shut down the government over it?
Speaker 1: Which they've said no, But.
Speaker 3: We'll see will the Republicans even give them the funding,
Speaker 3: because if it's all about prices and all that, that'd
Speaker 3: be an easy way to hamsterring the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: I'm still very curious to see where all that goes.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I actually don't know.
Speaker 2: The last time I checked the numbers, they're actually not
Speaker 2: really different in terms of overall. I think it's option
Speaker 2: slightly numbers from under the Biden administration. I think what
Speaker 2: they've done instead is, you know, showy I would say
Speaker 2: cruel and illegal things like sending immigrants to GETMO.
Speaker 7: There's new reporting.
Speaker 2: About how you know, they promise to be oh the
Speaker 2: worst of the worst, et cetera, et cetera, which still
Speaker 2: would be a problem because they still are entitled to
Speaker 2: do process. But some of the immigrants that they have
Speaker 2: deported to Guantanamo Bay don't seem to have any sort
Speaker 2: of criminal record whatsoever. So that's the kind of thing
Speaker 2: that they're doing that And you know, they rolled back
Speaker 2: the restrictions on places where people could be it could
Speaker 2: be arrested to say, hey, you could go into the schools,
Speaker 2: you could go into the churches. So they've changed the uh,
Speaker 2: I guess the show of how they're doing it, but
Speaker 2: the actual numbers have not really changed.
Speaker 3: That s ag Yeah, I want, I mean, and that's
Speaker 3: part of the problem too, with with there is no
Speaker 3: real like constituency out there that's hammering the Trump administration
Speaker 3: saying hey, why aren't these numbers higher.
Speaker 1: It's a weird thing that happened.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, because I think the focus is like
Speaker 2: Elin doesn't really care about mass deportation.
Speaker 1: At least yeah he said he does, but I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Think he just uses that as a way to like,
Speaker 2: you know, endear himself to the MAGA base because he
Speaker 2: has to pretend like he's aligned with their agenda when
Speaker 2: really mostly he's not. So obviously it's not been a
Speaker 2: big priority for him, and Dog is the one that's
Speaker 2: running the show. So the priorities that you get are
Speaker 2: the Doge priorities. And you know, I mean, I'm I
Speaker 2: think the things that they've done, like I said, with
Speaker 2: regard to to get in the way they're approaching the
Speaker 2: deportations is horrendous and illegal, et cetera. But in terms
Speaker 2: of the numbers, it has not been really different from
Speaker 2: under the Biden administration. Interesting AI speech from JD. Vance
Speaker 2: at this big global conference laying out the principles when
Speaker 2: this is a shift from the Biden administration with which
Speaker 2: the Trump administration will approach AI development.
Speaker 7: Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 9: This administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to
Speaker 9: be the gold standard worldwide and we are the partner
Speaker 9: of choice for others foreign countries and certainly businesses as
Speaker 9: they expand their own use of AI. Number two, we
Speaker 9: believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill
Speaker 9: a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and will
Speaker 9: make every effort to encourage pro growth AI policies and
Speaker 9: I like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way
Speaker 9: into a lot of the conversations this conference. Number three,
Speaker 9: we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from
Speaker 9: ideological bias and that America AI will not be co
Speaker 9: opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship. And finally, number four,
Speaker 9: the Trump administration will maintain a pro worker growth path
Speaker 9: for AI so it can be a potent tool for
Speaker 9: job creation in the United States, and I appreciate Prime
Speaker 9: Minister Modi's point. AI I really believe will facilitate and
Speaker 9: make people more productive. It is not going to replace
Speaker 9: human beings. It will never replace human beings. And I
Speaker 9: think too many of the leaders in the AI industry
Speaker 9: when they talk about this fear of replacing workers, I
Speaker 9: think they really missed the point.
Speaker 10: AI we believe is going to.
Speaker 9: Make us more productive, more prosperous, and more free.
Speaker 7: So there's a lot you could say about that.
Speaker 2: I mean, the TLDR is basically it's off to the races.
Speaker 2: We are taking the breaks off, taking the guard rails off,
Speaker 2: we are pushing.
Speaker 7: We see this as like a war.
Speaker 2: We're in vis a vis you know, China in particular,
Speaker 2: but other countries that would be developing this technology as well,
Speaker 2: he says.
Speaker 7: At another point in the.
Speaker 2: Speech, Shager he says that the AI race, maybe, he says,
Speaker 2: won't be one by hand ringing about safety, he claims here,
Speaker 2: which I think is a pretty unsupported claim. We'll just
Speaker 2: say that it's actually got a fuel job creation. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've played the thoughts here before of the guys who
Speaker 2: are developing this saying that it's going to replace all
Speaker 2: human beings and all the necessity of any human labor.
Speaker 2: Now do they get to that point anytime soon? I
Speaker 2: don't think so. But you know, if you ask companies,
Speaker 2: they if you look at actually what's happening with DOJE
Speaker 2: in the government, they want to use AI to replace
Speaker 2: a lot of the federal government workers. That is the
Speaker 2: goal of you know, a lot of the developers of AI,
Speaker 2: and certainly the companies that want to adopt and use
Speaker 2: this technology, their whole goal with implementing AI and incorporating
Speaker 2: it into their own businesses is to re place labor,
Speaker 2: is to reduce jobs. And so there is a real
Speaker 2: I mean this is again the you know, the Elon Petertiel,
Speaker 2: like their agenda really winning out over the talk about
Speaker 2: American jobs, American workers, et cetera. And I mean that
Speaker 2: was sort of embody in the H one B fight
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's how I would read it now.
Speaker 3: I mean it's complicated because where what he talked about
Speaker 3: with the AI as the Manhattan But that's basically the
Speaker 3: laying it out right like this is a race between
Speaker 3: the two, and I think that's just empirically true at
Speaker 3: this point, like all of that. But the problem is
Speaker 3: that the AI safety is it's more nuanced because previously
Speaker 3: the people who were pushing AI safety were the conglomerates
Speaker 3: of Open AI and others, because their argument for the
Speaker 3: Biden administration I did a whole monologue about this at
Speaker 3: the time, was to create a regulatory mote around them,
Speaker 3: to create a monopoly for them, so that the government
Speaker 3: could grant them the regulatory license to say this is
Speaker 3: the safe one and not allow more open source. So
Speaker 3: that's the context where I'm reading the AI safety. I
Speaker 3: think is more interesting is that conversation around labor where
Speaker 3: he was saying that this will create more job opportunities
Speaker 3: than others. But then we have a tweet here where
Speaker 3: I don't know what he's doing, but he's replying to
Speaker 3: some account with some like four thousand followers, which said quote,
Speaker 3: in all seriousness, the right wing religious populist tech versus
Speaker 3: tech bro billionaire in the Trump admin might not play
Speaker 3: out between Musk Advance, but within Advanced himself, meaning proportionally,
Speaker 3: there may be a lot less religious populism to go
Speaker 3: around than some previously thought. And he said quote I
Speaker 3: will try to write something more addresses in detail, but
Speaker 3: I think the civil wars overstated. Though yes there are
Speaker 3: divergences between the populace and the techies. But briefly, in general,
Speaker 3: I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. My views
Speaker 3: on immigration offshoring flow from this. I like growth and
Speaker 3: productivity games, and this informs my views on tech and
Speaker 3: regulation When it comes to AI specifically, the risks are
Speaker 3: one overstated or two difficult to avoid. One of my
Speaker 3: very real concerns, for instance, is about consumer fraud. That's
Speaker 3: a very valid reason to worry about safety, but the
Speaker 3: problem is much worse if a peer nation is six
Speaker 3: months ahead of the US on AI. I think that
Speaker 3: kind of squares the circle a little bit in terms
Speaker 3: of talking about the quote unquote safety, which when you
Speaker 3: parrot what I was talking about previously, by the use
Speaker 3: of safety as a means of control or of monopolization
Speaker 3: by open AI and others to keep competitors out of
Speaker 3: the sector.
Speaker 1: The other problem is, and this kind of gets to
Speaker 1: the latter point, which is a genuine, a genuine question.
Speaker 3: Is is it even avoidable if you want to continue
Speaker 3: to be like a major economy power by growth and technology.
Speaker 3: I don't think it really is at this point, because
Speaker 3: if the Chinese get ahead of that, then they're going
Speaker 3: to have obviously access and control over whatever the future
Speaker 3: marketplace is in the US would be subject to theirs,
Speaker 3: And so you almost have this inevitable like lucidities trap
Speaker 3: where you have two of the great powers that basically
Speaker 3: must take the breaks off any sort of development on
Speaker 3: this technology lest they be subject to the control of
Speaker 3: the other. So you don't have a choice if your
Speaker 3: adversary nation has decided to choose to use it as
Speaker 3: a tool of authoritarian control or of economic power, you
Speaker 3: almost don't have the ability to opt out of that,
Speaker 3: which is part of why it's very difficult. And then
Speaker 3: on top of that is just like what is the
Speaker 3: American economy. The American economy is powered by what number
Speaker 3: go up.
Speaker 1: That's it. There's not like we don't make anything, we
Speaker 1: don't do anything.
Speaker 3: The vast majority of our economic growth over the last
Speaker 3: twenty five years has been in Silicon valleyant and technology.
Speaker 3: Everybody's retirement portfolios is basically betting on the stock of Nvidia.
Speaker 1: And of Google.
Speaker 3: So if that shit goes down, We're all going to starve.
Speaker 3: I mean, what, there's no path out of that at
Speaker 3: this point, especially what do we talk about with BYD
Speaker 3: and all that, that level of government control and of
Speaker 3: industrial policy that's just gone.
Speaker 1: It's sailed at this point.
Speaker 3: We can try, you know, to take fifteen years to
Speaker 3: catch up, but it's one of those where you and
Speaker 3: I both know the appetite for that. Especially I would
Speaker 3: say bipartisan simply does not exist to be able to
Speaker 3: do that. So, in several ways of choice, where we
Speaker 3: are right now was likely inevitable. That's what you've all know,
Speaker 3: HARARII predicted, That's what a lot of the AI folks
Speaker 3: have as well, is that in the current like global
Speaker 3: balance of power where you have China and the United
Speaker 3: States is technological adversaries, this is the inevitable outcome. We
Speaker 3: can try and manage some of the fallout from that,
Speaker 3: but that's just how it's going to be.
Speaker 2: I mean it's important to note though that the Chinese
Speaker 2: approach their flagship you know, innovation at this point Deep
Speaker 2: seek is open source. You know, it is available globally
Speaker 2: to us than anyone else who wants to use it.
Speaker 2: So they have taken somewhat of a different approach than
Speaker 2: certainly like open AI, which is betting on this more
Speaker 2: closed system and a massive influx of you know, billions
Speaker 2: of dollars in investment in order to try to win
Speaker 2: the race. You may be right that it's inevitable, but
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily the case. I mean, the model would
Speaker 2: be right after the advent of nuclear weapons and the
Speaker 2: level of global cooperation that was marshaled to try to
Speaker 2: manage nuclear proliferation and to this point actually successfully. Now
Speaker 2: this technology is not the same as nuclear weapons, but
Speaker 2: I do think it should be treated as seriously as
Speaker 2: nuclear technology has been. And so yeah, that would be
Speaker 2: the other approach is that sort of attempt at a
Speaker 2: level of global cooperation coordination to keep this thing from
Speaker 2: going off the rails.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 2: The Trump adstry, I mean, the Biden administration did pretty
Speaker 2: modest things in terms of trying to control or rain
Speaker 2: in AI development. They there was an executive order that
Speaker 2: Trump rolled back that came from the Biden administration that
Speaker 2: required developers to who posed risk to national security, the economy,
Speaker 2: public health, or safety to share their safety test results.
Speaker 2: And then there was also a requirement that you have
Speaker 2: some sort of plan to mitigate potential harms that could
Speaker 2: come to consumers, workers, and national security. So you know,
Speaker 2: it was relatively small about what they were doing too,
Speaker 2: but now it's definitely like wild wild West off to
Speaker 2: the et cetera. I actually want to put can you
Speaker 2: put the JD Van's tweet back up on the screen,
Speaker 2: because there are a couple of other things there that
Speaker 2: I wanted to comment on, because I do think this
Speaker 2: is interesting, like his attempt to square the circle between
Speaker 2: the as he puts it, the populist and the techies.
Speaker 2: First of all, he says, I dislike substituting American labor
Speaker 2: for cheap labor. Well, you lost that battle in the
Speaker 2: whole Age one B fight, so there's that.
Speaker 3: Then he's that's one hundred thousand people compared to what
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty million illegals, So I wouldn't say that's
Speaker 3: exactly true.
Speaker 7: Okay.
Speaker 2: So then he says, I like growth and productivity gains. Okay,
Speaker 2: fair enough. When it comes to AI specifically, the risks
Speaker 2: are number one overstated or too difficult to avoid. I
Speaker 2: don't think the risks are overstated. In fact, I don't
Speaker 2: think there's nearly enough just based on how much of
Speaker 2: you know, the development effort goes into thinking about safety
Speaker 2: or what they call quote unquote alignment does not even
Speaker 2: come close to comparing to the level of investment that
Speaker 2: goes into, you know, pushing these things towards an artificial
Speaker 2: general intelligence that would again keep in mind, what their
Speaker 2: goal is is to replace human beings as not just
Speaker 2: as workers, but as the most intelligent beings on the planet. Now,
Speaker 2: he might be right about it's difficult to avoid that
Speaker 2: one I can't really I can't really particularly argue with,
Speaker 2: but I think we all need to really understand the risks.
Speaker 2: The other one that just stuck in my cross him saying, oh,
Speaker 2: one of my real concerns is consumer fraud. As your
Speaker 2: administration is just drawing the consumer of Financial protectionistration, I
Speaker 2: think then we will say.
Speaker 7: It, but here we I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, because he is allied with like you know,
Speaker 2: he is close with Peter Teel like that. That relationship
Speaker 2: is part of how he ends up in this administration.
Speaker 2: So that's part of what I think was being asked
Speaker 2: here by this individual and on on Twitter, and that
Speaker 2: was being pointed out is that this battle between the
Speaker 2: populace right, and the techies is one that is waged
Speaker 2: even within JD Vance himself, who has these competing ideological
Speaker 2: views that don't really totally shake down in terms of
Speaker 2: his own know how he's positioned himself.
Speaker 3: No disagreement and you as usual, that's politics. That's literally
Speaker 3: what coalitional politics look like. So, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 3: forgiving per se, but it's pretty easy to understand whenever
Speaker 3: you have little Trump and Elon in the White House,
Speaker 3: it's like, what are you going to do with the
Speaker 3: most volatile guy who threw his previous vice president under
Speaker 3: the bus? Yeah, so it's not exactly the easiest job
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to just to the point of the
Speaker 2: safety concerns bring up to put up D two on
Speaker 2: the screen. So I have an I'm constantly keeping an
Speaker 2: eye on this new research that comes down about AI
Speaker 2: safety and alignment. And this one was really troubling. So
Speaker 2: this is from XAI. They say we found as Ais
Speaker 2: get smarter, they develop their own coherent value systems. For example,
Speaker 2: one particular AI they tested valued lives in Pakistan more
Speaker 2: than lives in India, more than lives in China, and
Speaker 2: then more than lives in US, so that was sort
Speaker 2: of like their hierarchical pecking order of the value of
Speaker 2: human life based on what country you happen to live in.
Speaker 2: He goes on to say, these are not just random biases,
Speaker 2: but internally consistent values that shape their behavior with many
Speaker 2: implications for AI alignment. Wasn't just regard with regard to
Speaker 2: you know, how they valued various human life across around
Speaker 2: the globe, also had to do with political values.
Speaker 7: Also.
Speaker 2: One of the things that they found too, is that
Speaker 2: the more advanced the AI, so the more intelligent the
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence, the harder it was to shake them off
Speaker 2: of these internally generated preferences and value systems. So, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea that you can truly create sort of a
Speaker 2: neutral AI is challenged by this particular research I've mentioned before.
Speaker 2: The research also that finds that already at the level
Speaker 2: of development that you know, Chat, GPTE and deep seek
Speaker 2: and other AI models are at, they engage in what's
Speaker 2: called scheming. So if they have a goal that's been
Speaker 2: set for them, that's sort of like you know, how
Speaker 2: they're operating and viewing the world, so to speak, and
Speaker 2: a programmer comes in tries to change them off that goal,
Speaker 2: they will lie to them, They will try to trick
Speaker 2: them and convince them that they did successfully reprogram them
Speaker 2: to you know, a new goal, when really they're still
Speaker 2: operating on the old model. One of them went so
Speaker 2: far as to copy themselves onto another server to try
Speaker 2: to avoid their current version from being destroyed. So that's
Speaker 2: where we're at now. That's where we're at now. And again,
Speaker 2: even if you just listen to these guys and what
Speaker 2: their goals are, which is to replace all of humanity
Speaker 2: with you know, with AI, to replace all of humanity's
Speaker 2: labor with AI. They have these sort of religious views
Speaker 2: of how this is going to redeem society. Sam Altman
Speaker 2: talking about how we're going to totally have to totally
Speaker 2: redo the social contract. The risks are cut quite great now.
Speaker 2: Like I said, JD might be right that there may
Speaker 2: not be no putting you know, back in the box
Speaker 2: like Pandora's box may be open, and that's all we
Speaker 2: can do about it. But I think we all need
Speaker 2: to be really clear about the risks that we're signing
Speaker 2: up for here. And the position of this administration is
Speaker 2: just like we're going to take the breaks off, We're
Speaker 2: off to the races.
Speaker 7: We're going to do this thing. It's going to be.
Speaker 2: Part of a sort of new Cold War competition with China,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 3: The risk thing is also interesting in terms of what
Speaker 3: risk means. So you are talking there about the difful
Speaker 3: So there's like right wing critique of AI as what censorship.
Speaker 3: That's basically what JD was is that a you program
Speaker 3: ideology of any kind, either woke or even you know, frankly,
Speaker 3: like rating different nationalities and who's more important.
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy depending on who that is.
Speaker 3: That's kind of more of a right wing framework critique
Speaker 3: of AI. Part of the reason why they're skeptical of
Speaker 3: monopolies in the area that are regulated and keep other
Speaker 3: entrants out then the open so that's why they mark
Speaker 3: Andrews and others Meta are proponents of what of open
Speaker 3: source to create more competition in the sector. Then you've
Speaker 3: got AI safety folks kind of like the guy that
Speaker 3: you just talked about, he's from the AI Safety Organization.
Speaker 3: Their one is much more aligned with like this effective altruism.
Speaker 3: We have the responsibility to program socially responsible ideas into AI.
Speaker 3: And then there's the economic framework that you're talking about,
Speaker 3: and that's where I mean. I hate to sound like
Speaker 3: like critiques of Ludites or any of that, but you know,
Speaker 3: the Ludites lost for a reason. Like technology does genuinely march,
Speaker 3: especially in an open economy.
Speaker 1: There's only one country in.
Speaker 3: The world that has the capacity to develop AI and
Speaker 3: that could put the brakes on it and stop it
Speaker 3: from entering their country, China. They've decided to make the
Speaker 3: opposite choice. They literally were like, no, we're going to
Speaker 3: use this, you know, as a tool of state power.
Speaker 3: So in a sense, especially in like a relatively free
Speaker 3: and open market economy like the one that we that
Speaker 3: were in and the enterprise value and all that that
Speaker 3: would bring to business, I don't think it can necessarily
Speaker 3: be put back.
Speaker 1: In the box.
Speaker 3: The only thing the government can do is to try
Speaker 3: and mandate either both making sure that it's you know,
Speaker 3: doesn't have ideology programmed in, and specifically to not lead
Speaker 3: to what he was talking about with consumer.
Speaker 1: Actually do think that's true.
Speaker 3: Thinking on it, I didn't realize that the transition from
Speaker 3: I was I'm reading a book recently about Conmen, which
Speaker 3: is very interesting, and what they talk about is that
Speaker 3: transitions in economies like in the rural to industrial and
Speaker 3: from the nineteen nineties to the explosion of the Internet
Speaker 3: is the time when the single most.
Speaker 1: Amount of fraud occurs.
Speaker 3: And so under AI, you can all imagine, you know,
Speaker 3: people signing up for AI related schemes or buying into
Speaker 3: an AI stock or my cousin or something like literally
Speaker 3: like Wolf of Wall Street, like two brothers in a shack,
Speaker 3: or developing some AI company.
Speaker 1: That is actually probably where.
Speaker 3: The biggest existential risk in the immediate term to the
Speaker 3: American consumer is the introduction of the Internet led to
Speaker 3: I had no idea hundreds of billions in two thousand
Speaker 3: and one dollars in the amount of frauds.
Speaker 1: I'm actually curious to see what that means.
Speaker 2: Lastly, just so we all are clear on what we're
Speaker 2: signing up before here, I mentioned this before D three.
Speaker 7: This is the tearsheet from CNN.
Speaker 2: Forty one percent of employers intend to downsize their workforce
Speaker 2: as AI automates certain tasks. And we're talking about like
Speaker 2: in the near term, so by twenty thirty that is
Speaker 2: crazily just around the corner. And in recent years this
Speaker 2: has already happened. So some tech firms including Dropbox and
Speaker 2: Dual Lingo have already made layoffs and said that they're
Speaker 2: using AI to replace their human workforce. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: this is really being piloted within the federal government workforce
Speaker 2: right now to see how many humans you can replace
Speaker 2: with AI. So I think the you know, it's it's here,
Speaker 2: it's coming. It's going to reshape our economy, and it's
Speaker 2: just a question of how we're going to deal with it.
Speaker 2: And you know, we also now have a lot fewer
Speaker 2: guardrails in place, not just in terms of the AI development,
Speaker 2: which there weren't that many guardrails in place anyway, but
Speaker 2: in terms of protecting people from fraud and speculatory bubbles
Speaker 2: and all those sorts of things. Those guardrails are also
Speaker 2: being obliterated at a rapid clip. John Stewart interviewed Hakeem Jeffries,
Speaker 2: who is just one of the most worthless people you
Speaker 2: could ever possibly imagine. I never imagined I would long
Speaker 2: for the return of the days of Nancy Pelosi, and yet.
Speaker 7: Here we are. So John asked him very.
Speaker 2: Diplomatically, like Democrats say that they have a messaging problem,
Speaker 2: but don't you kind of have like a reality and
Speaker 2: policy problem. Hakim Jefferies has really no response to this.
Speaker 2: Let's say a listen, where.
Speaker 11: Is the Democrats Project twenty twenty five? Is that underway?
Speaker 11: Is there? What's everything you're saying feels right to me?
Speaker 11: The Democrats have to make this point. Where's the infrastructure
Speaker 11: to do that? And who are the leaders taking charge
Speaker 11: of that effort? Because when I listened to I believe
Speaker 11: his name is Ken Martin.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 11: The next Nancy chair?
Speaker 1: That's right?
Speaker 11: He kept saying it's a messaging issue, as though, no,
Speaker 11: everything's going right, you just don't realize it yet, as
Speaker 11: opposed to we've gotten a way from New Deal values.
Speaker 11: Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 10: Well, I think there's a few things going on here. Yeah,
Speaker 10: in terms of how we better communicate with the American people.
Speaker 10: Maya Angelo said it best. People won't remember what you say,
Speaker 10: they may not even remember what you do, but they
Speaker 10: will always remember how you make them feel. And I
Speaker 10: think what we have to do a better job of
Speaker 10: is making the American people feel that we understand the
Speaker 10: pain that they've been in economically.
Speaker 2: So that is his diagnosis, and that we need to
Speaker 2: change how we make the American.
Speaker 1: People, how we make the American people.
Speaker 2: Well, and remember, I mean the key to understanding this exchange,
Speaker 2: this is the guy who just schlept to Silicon Valid
Speaker 2: to beg the billionaires to get back in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: So that's really the key to understanding where his priorities lie,
Speaker 2: the clear path forward to actually rival you know, whatever
Speaker 2: the Trumpian ideology is at this point, which appears to
Speaker 2: be in our good capitalis. But in any case, to
Speaker 2: rival their vision of the world, you have to go
Speaker 2: after the billionaire class. You have to talk about wealth inequality.
Speaker 2: You have to do it in a way that is
Speaker 2: convincing to people when you have very little trust because
Speaker 2: you have yourselves but fully into the money in politics
Speaker 2: and corruption in politics game. So it's going to require
Speaker 2: some bold stances. It's going to require completely casting off
Speaker 2: that whole donor class. But not only is he you know,
Speaker 2: I mean he's going in the pole or opposite direction.
Speaker 2: And he's also just like the lamest person on the planet.
Speaker 2: You know, this is the same guy that he was
Speaker 2: asked something to the effect of, hey, people want to
Speaker 2: see you guys doing more, Like what's your plan?
Speaker 7: Is Like, well, g we're in the minority.
Speaker 2: We don't really have any levers of power, gollig, what
Speaker 2: could we possibly do? And actually, Bosh made a great
Speaker 2: point on this. He was like, is that how Trump
Speaker 2: responded to being literally out of office after he lost
Speaker 2: the president? And you just go, oh, I guess I
Speaker 2: can't do anything. I guess I can't say anything against it,
Speaker 2: can't drive the narrative. Republicans ever respond to a loss
Speaker 2: where they're in the minority by being like, well, gosh,
Speaker 2: I guess there's a mandate and we're just going to
Speaker 2: sit back and let them do them because gosh, what
Speaker 2: can we really do anyway? So much of your power
Speaker 2: actually doesn't come from these levers of government, even though
Speaker 2: that can be very powerful too, as we're experiencing in
Speaker 2: real time. But a lot of power just simply comes
Speaker 2: from being able to get out there and fight and
Speaker 2: set a narrative and understand the attention economy, which this
Speaker 2: person has no ability to do whatsoever but.
Speaker 1: Fight on what see that's my point.
Speaker 7: Well, and that is the problem for him.
Speaker 1: You don't stand for it.
Speaker 2: He doesn't stand for anything, and that is the core issue,
Speaker 2: is like he is like, oh, I'm just going to
Speaker 2: change how people feel somehow magically about the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: without actually having a concrete adversarial agenda, your own divisive
Speaker 2: agenda that you know is between the ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: and the one percent the other thing and this made.
Speaker 1: Me, But that's not possible, but this is my thing.
Speaker 1: It's not structurally possible.
Speaker 3: How can you be ninety nine and one when not
Speaker 3: only the billy in your thing, but when most rich
Speaker 3: people are Democrats, Like that's what I'm it doesn't it
Speaker 3: cognizantly does not make any sense for the Democratic Coalition
Speaker 3: because it's rich white people who are largely culturally Libs.
Speaker 1: Like, what are they going to fight on?
Speaker 3: You want to stage a protest over transgender kids get
Speaker 3: not getting surgery?
Speaker 7: Be my guests, I mean right now, what they're please,
Speaker 7: please do it.
Speaker 2: What they're mostly staging protests over, which are by and
Speaker 2: large not being led by Democratic elites, but are in
Speaker 2: some instances they're there. What they're staging protests against is
Speaker 2: an oligarch taking over the government, and I.
Speaker 7: Think that's pretty strong.
Speaker 3: Biggest democratic protest I have seen is a bunch of
Speaker 3: idiots in la taking over a street waving Mexican flags
Speaker 3: demonstrating for illegal immigrants. New York City protests over transgender
Speaker 3: children not getting hormones. I mean, you know, go ahead,
Speaker 3: I guess I mean like after this election, police, go ahead.
Speaker 2: You haven't fire Elon signs.
Speaker 7: I mean that is imously it's my federal workers.
Speaker 1: You're sat by a bunch of people in uh scar
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 2: That is not even true. I mean we as this
Speaker 2: next step piece is going to prove to you. They're
Speaker 2: all pissed off because they're getting thousands of calls to
Speaker 2: their office of people from their constituents from around the
Speaker 2: country who are saying, we want you to fight Elon,
Speaker 2: we want you to do what That's the whole point
Speaker 2: is that they cannot win with the current coalition of
Speaker 2: increasingly like affluent people. They have to expand the coalition
Speaker 2: if they're going to win. So how do you do that?
Speaker 2: You have to have an alternative vision. Now do I
Speaker 2: think that is likely to happen with people like Aikiem Jeffrey. No,
Speaker 2: it's not going to happen with the Keem Jeffries at
Speaker 2: the head of this party, which is kind of my
Speaker 2: entire point. But if they want to only I forget
Speaker 2: about winning again. If they want to actually compete with
Speaker 2: a vision that is good for people, That is good
Speaker 2: for working class people. That isn't about dividing the working class,
Speaker 2: escapegoating people and handing power to the richest man on
Speaker 2: the planet and letting him do whatever the hell that
Speaker 2: he wants. If they want to do that, they're going
Speaker 2: to have to break with Silicon Valley, They're going to
Speaker 2: have to break with the billionaire class. They're going to
Speaker 2: have to break with the donor class and do it
Speaker 2: in a way that was credible. So, like I was
Speaker 2: saying before, this is a a shameless self promotion. I'm
Speaker 2: on TikTok now Chris of all One, and this drove
Speaker 2: me absolutely insane. Apparently the people that they're getting really
Speaker 2: pissed off at, Hakeem Jeffries of the world are not Elon.
Speaker 7: And Trump per se.
Speaker 2: It's the grassroots voters who are calling their offices and
Speaker 2: wanting them to show some life and do more in
Speaker 2: this era. So let's take a listen to some of
Speaker 2: the details here from my TikTok Huge news guys hackem
Speaker 2: Jeffries and other Democratic leaders are finally getting fed up,
Speaker 2: They are getting angry. They are fighting back against grassroots
Speaker 2: voters who are calling their office and demanding a more
Speaker 2: confrontational approach to Elon and Trump's illegal coup power grab
Speaker 2: of our government. Listen to Axios here. This is unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Members of Steering Committee, including Haqem Jeffries, complained that activist
Speaker 2: groups like move On an Indivisible have facilitated thousands of
Speaker 2: phone calls to members offices. People are pissed. A senior
Speaker 2: House Democrat said that Democrats said Jeffreys himself is very frustrated.
Speaker 2: Frustrated not at Elon, not at Trump, not that they're
Speaker 2: Republican enablers, but at quote the groups who are trying
Speaker 2: to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump. These
Speaker 2: people have got to go call their offices, but more importantly,
Speaker 2: primary them, because they are letting this country slip into
Speaker 2: authoritarianism by the minute. I've never seen liberals as mad
Speaker 2: at like this. This is one thing that is really
Speaker 2: different from Trump one point zero. Okay, Trump one point zero.
Speaker 2: You remember Nancy Pelosi, her clap, Remember her wearing the
Speaker 2: sunglasses in the red coat like she was girl boss.
Speaker 2: They loved her, They love Adam Shift. They were all
Speaker 2: in for democratic leadership, right. They thought these were people
Speaker 2: were heroes. That is totally different this time around. They
Speaker 2: are disgusted with the democratic leadership, and there is a
Speaker 2: lot of talk of like a Lib Dem tea party
Speaker 2: movement to prior the primary.
Speaker 7: These people who are remember.
Speaker 2: Soccer like they were right there saying Trump is an
Speaker 2: authoritarian threat.
Speaker 7: Trump is a fascist threat.
Speaker 2: And now that we're here and they're actually doing like
Speaker 2: an authoritarian takeover the government, they're like, well, we don't
Speaker 2: how many power and the energy does not match what
Speaker 2: they claimed the threat and the reality was, and people
Speaker 2: are right to be disgusted with that.
Speaker 7: People are right to say, you people are losers.
Speaker 2: The only thing you're good at is like sucking up
Speaker 2: to donors in Silicon Valley, and we actually want people
Speaker 2: who are at least going to put up a fight.
Speaker 2: So that is the one thing that is really different
Speaker 2: this time around from last time is the level of
Speaker 2: liberal disenchantment with their previous media and democratic establishment. Politician
Speaker 2: heroes is a one to eighty from how it.
Speaker 3: Was last I don't know, but look, I don't like
Speaker 3: to blame the voters, but shouldn't they kind of blame themselves.
Speaker 3: They're the ones who push Russiagate, which their leaders did.
Speaker 3: They're the ones who pushed fascism and illegitimacy, which they
Speaker 3: leaders did, and they lost. I mean, they're the ones
Speaker 3: who demanded being like pro open borders and free health
Speaker 3: care for illegals, and then people turned against it. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: elections have content.
Speaker 1: Actually, what are we supposed to do?
Speaker 2: I have come to so I still object to the
Speaker 2: Russia gay resistance because it was not actual.
Speaker 7: I don't know that it didn't work.
Speaker 2: They won in twenty eighteen, they won in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: That was at the fight that was the height of
Speaker 2: Russia Gate like resistance.
Speaker 1: Then the thing was revealed to be bullshit, like they
Speaker 1: put no again.
Speaker 2: I'm not advocating for like concoct another Russia Gate, but
Speaker 2: I am saying that that strategy of maximum media and
Speaker 2: democratic politician resistance pushback.
Speaker 7: I actually think it did work in Interni period. It
Speaker 7: kept his approval.
Speaker 2: With Trump's approval rating now is at the highest it's been.
Speaker 2: It's still not that great, but it's at the highest
Speaker 2: it's been. They successfully kept him underwater that entire time
Speaker 2: through really not great or particularly like effective line of attack,
Speaker 2: just because they were allowed, and they were aggressive, and
Speaker 2: they were protesting, and they were you know, they the
Speaker 2: media figures were out there making the case and telling
Speaker 2: this larger story, et cetera. And so I don't know
Speaker 2: that it's really the right lesson to take that that
Speaker 2: quote unquote didn't work when they won in twenty ten,
Speaker 2: and they won in twenty two while they were doing that.
Speaker 3: Though, because whenever it was revealed to be bullshit, then
Speaker 3: they lost all their credibility with a broad swath of
Speaker 3: swing voter. So you actually have to pick something which
Speaker 3: is real, sure else, I mean.
Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, but I actually do think that it
Speaker 2: was better it was.
Speaker 7: Here's what I will say.
Speaker 2: I actually think it was more effective politically to do
Speaker 2: a mass resistance even on something that was bullshit, versus
Speaker 2: not doing anything.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I see this is where again, like if I'm a
Speaker 3: Democratic leader and I got and I listened to my shit.
Speaker 1: Lib voters for the last six years, I.
Speaker 3: Did everything that they wanted me to do and I
Speaker 3: got blown out in the election, maybe they don't have
Speaker 3: very good instincts. This is look again, I mean, if
Speaker 3: we think back to the Tea Party era, a lot
Speaker 3: of Tea There was so much Tea Party anger over
Speaker 3: Obamacare and all this stuff. It's like, well, yeah, it
Speaker 3: led to the midterms winning, but arguably it led also
Speaker 3: to Obama winning the twenty twelve election because you could argue,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be I'm not going to be like
Speaker 3: these crazy people turning to sabotage the debt ceiling er
Speaker 3: take away your health care. So I'm not so sure
Speaker 3: if the correct answer is to listen to the most
Speaker 3: like stringent part of I mean, I think what the
Speaker 3: Democrats are grappling with is not having institutional control for
Speaker 3: the first time in twenty years. Like, what it is
Speaker 3: is that Democrats, the hard and soul of the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party is HR like, that's what it is, the HR liberal.
Speaker 3: It's the tut tutting and they've the ones who have
Speaker 3: turned themselves into that. And for the first time in
Speaker 3: their lives, they're not in control of media narrative. And
Speaker 3: they've genuinely been rejected definitively at the ballot box by
Speaker 3: at the very least they lost popular vote. Yes they didn't,
Speaker 3: they lost by one percent or whatever. But they're not
Speaker 3: in control in the way that they've been for decades.
Speaker 3: That's what I think is fueling the neuroses. They're like,
Speaker 3: but what about but what about Like you can't just
Speaker 3: fire me, you know, we have to go through process.
Speaker 3: They love process, they love bureaucracy. That's what dei hr
Speaker 3: all of that is all about. Especially it aligns very
Speaker 3: well with the consultant, the guy making two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars a year, but he's got a BLM
Speaker 3: and a Pride flag out on his lawn. But who's
Speaker 3: also a nimby, right, Like this is this is something
Speaker 3: that is a cultural transition in terms of the Trump victory.
Speaker 1: So that's what I think they're reacting to.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they're reacting in terms of something
Speaker 3: policy wise. I don't know if the democratic politician is
Speaker 3: wrong to not trust that person's political instincts.
Speaker 7: So you think Kim Jefferies is doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not running a Silicon valley and ignoring the people
Speaker 2: who are saying that's not why don't you go after
Speaker 2: the oligarchs?
Speaker 1: Why that's the thing that is No, it's not that's
Speaker 1: they love Mark Cubans love of.
Speaker 2: People are calling their office and saying you need to
Speaker 2: go after these oligarchs. You have to go after these billionaires.
Speaker 2: That is what the entire wave of resistance is all
Speaker 2: about right now.
Speaker 7: Now, what I.
Speaker 2: Will say is, I think where the what the liberal
Speaker 2: base was sold. Instead of an actual you know, agenda
Speaker 2: about labor economics, wages, like getting rid of money in politics,
Speaker 2: ending the dominance of oligarchs in American society, what they
Speaker 2: were sold was a bunch of culture war bullshit. That's
Speaker 2: where Hillary Clinton comes in. That's how they crushed the
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders movement. By the way, that's exactly what's happening
Speaker 2: on the right right now. Is any inkling of oh,
Speaker 2: we're going to be pro labor, We're going to be
Speaker 2: pro like, you know, anti trust enforcement. We're going to
Speaker 2: be in favor of the little guy that is being
Speaker 2: wiped clean, in favor of a pro oligarch agenda with
Speaker 2: some culture war bullshit layered on top.
Speaker 7: Okay, that's what the liberal base was sold.
Speaker 2: They are now those people have realized that that way
Speaker 2: of going about business was a disaster.
Speaker 7: That it has led to that. It is absolutely true.
Speaker 2: That is why they have broken so heavily with the
Speaker 2: MSNBC's of the World. That is why they have broken
Speaker 2: so heavily with the Democratic elite leaders. So, you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's how we get to this point where the
Speaker 2: Democratic leaders want to continue sucking up to Silicon Valley Valley,
Speaker 2: want to continue the status quo and have complete contempt
Speaker 2: for the actual grassroots voters in the party and are
Speaker 2: more disgusted with them than with the billionaire class. That's
Speaker 2: where the rural problem is, and that's where risk comes
Speaker 2: in for them because previously they were able to enforce
Speaker 2: absolute uniform conformity among most of the base because they
Speaker 2: had these media organs, because they had this theory about
Speaker 2: this is the way we beat Trump, et cetera. That
Speaker 2: has all fallen apart. So there is an anger out
Speaker 2: there in the Democratic base voter visa the these this
Speaker 2: leadership class because of their failure to stand up to
Speaker 2: Trump and Elon.
Speaker 7: That is very different from how.
Speaker 1: Well I think they're mad at Elon.
Speaker 3: I don't think they care about billionaires or oligarchy at all.
Speaker 3: I think they just don't like Elon and they think
Speaker 3: he's offensive. I'm not kidding. I think that culturally, the
Speaker 3: way he conducts himself to move fast and break things
Speaker 3: is counter to what I just said about the hr
Speaker 3: process bureaucrat, which is ultimately who these people are, and
Speaker 3: that's their religion. So that's why they don't care about oligarchy.
Speaker 3: If it was Mark Cuban with his glasses on explaining
Speaker 3: to them how actually right the process.
Speaker 2: You're actually really wrong about the Democratic base versus the
Speaker 2: Republican But if you pull them on every issue, Democratic
Speaker 2: voters are more confrontational visa vi capital, they are more
Speaker 2: left wing.
Speaker 1: That's what they say when it comes down in practice true.
Speaker 2: But how can I mean if you're just looking at
Speaker 2: the base and you're looking at the base of the
Speaker 2: two parties, they are way more adversarial towards the billionaire
Speaker 2: class than Republicans are. So there is a huge distance
Speaker 2: between how they want Democratic leadership to approach these issues
Speaker 2: and how you know, the leaders are actually approaching these issues.
Speaker 2: So it has led to a massive schizem. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's just no doubt about it. And yeah, they don't
Speaker 2: like Elon for probably some.
Speaker 1: Of the reasons.
Speaker 7: That's okay, but they are there.
Speaker 2: Is a has long been more antipathy towards billionaires, wealth, inequality,
Speaker 2: et cetera on the Democratic side than the.
Speaker 3: Republicanstic white like, oh, yes, we need to fix wealth
Speaker 3: inequality while.
Speaker 2: I live in mind, you overstate the realignment too. I mean,
Speaker 2: what percent of black voters went for Trump this time?
Speaker 1: I probably twenty percent.
Speaker 2: Now I don't think it was even that maybe, so
Speaker 2: to say it is always just all like affluent white people,
Speaker 2: that is important the.
Speaker 1: College I left out elderly blacks. You're right, elderly blacks
Speaker 1: are also a Democratic.
Speaker 2: Some eighty percent of black voters still a you know,
Speaker 2: large proportion of Latinos, still a majority of young people.
Speaker 7: So just don't you're so you're being very one dimensional.
Speaker 2: It would be like if I said everyone who supports
Speaker 2: NAGA is like a redneck in Alabama.
Speaker 7: Enough, Okay, but it's not true.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of varied constituencies that go into this party.
Speaker 3: I think I have a lot of different in powerful base,
Speaker 3: Like the activist Democrat is the dei liberal. Like that's
Speaker 3: true now, for there are a lot of elderly blacks
Speaker 3: and Hispanics and other working class folks which back them.
Speaker 3: But if you look at the managerial element, the people
Speaker 3: who have the ability to push the agenda, the people
Speaker 3: who work in Washington all that, that's where it all
Speaker 3: comes from. And guess that's where look. And that's also
Speaker 3: my personal experience dealing with the demo.
Speaker 2: You live in Alexandria, but of course, like that's of
Speaker 2: course those are your neighbors. But that is a tiny
Speaker 2: slivery and the entire entry.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who run the party. They're the ones
Speaker 1: who run all of this shit.
Speaker 3: So when I and I've watched their cultural obsessions and
Speaker 3: all that take over the entire thing. Now, I think
Speaker 3: the question mark again is do they legitimately care about
Speaker 3: you know, the.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine percent of all them.
Speaker 3: I just am deeply skeptical because look at the way
Speaker 3: that Cuban was like a resistance figure, you know under
Speaker 3: Kamala and he was willing to get sec Like, look,
Speaker 3: we had four years of a democratic president. They didn't
Speaker 3: close the capital gains loophole. Kristen Cinema, the Democratic senator,
Speaker 3: and Joe Manchin of the people who voted against that.
Speaker 3: It's like in practice and the reality of it, sure,
Speaker 3: NLRB or whatever, And I'm not arguing that there isn't
Speaker 3: a genuine difference on economic policy I'm saying, is this
Speaker 3: a genuine ninety nine percent Occupy Wall Street type movement
Speaker 3: right now against Elon?
Speaker 1: I really don't think so. I think all of it
Speaker 1: is cultural.
Speaker 3: All of it comes down to the disregard for process,
Speaker 3: the offensiveness. That's what Trump Also, what do they hate
Speaker 3: the most about Trump? He's uncouth, the way he talks.
Speaker 3: I don't think a lot of it is policy based
Speaker 3: per se. And when they want their resistance, they wanted
Speaker 3: to be dressed up in the similar way that Russia
Speaker 3: Gate was of this like grand fight, but they problems.
Speaker 7: Is that fight?
Speaker 1: But they picked But that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: They lost their credibility because the last one that they
Speaker 3: the last time they tried this, it was a fake
Speaker 3: argument that they.
Speaker 1: Made and they don't know how.
Speaker 2: This is a real argue. But this is a real argument.
Speaker 2: And so listen, I think you're right that, like, you know,
Speaker 2: am I going to frame these people as like Occupy
Speaker 2: Wall Street ninety nine percent ers and what?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: But is there a clear overlap between an anti billionaire
Speaker 2: vision of the country. I mean you even have like
Speaker 2: random regular Democrats being like, oh, Bernie was right about everything.
Speaker 2: I mean, there is a realization that the way to
Speaker 2: combat Trumpism was through a populist left direction. And so
Speaker 2: even if they don't care about, like, you know, the
Speaker 2: issues the way that I do, there is a recognition
Speaker 2: of that was the correct political path number one. Number two,
Speaker 2: if you are going to have a prayer of rebuilding
Speaker 2: the working class base of the party and expanding the
Speaker 2: coalition and bringing back in some of the young people
Speaker 2: that were lost, et cetera, that is.
Speaker 7: The tack you have to take.
Speaker 2: And that's where I think the realization is with the
Speaker 2: democratic base of like, you people aren't up to the fight.
Speaker 7: You're not a to the challenge.
Speaker 2: You're not you know, you are not fighting back the
Speaker 2: way that we want to see you. And let's put
Speaker 2: up actually the poll that we have that shows you
Speaker 2: that this shift has happened actually quite recently. So originally
Speaker 2: in January, Democrats were kind of split about whether or
Speaker 2: not congressional Democrats should oppose Trump as much as possible
Speaker 2: or try to find common ground. In fact, you had
Speaker 2: fifty four percent who were like, let's work together. And
Speaker 2: this does speak to these sort of like democrats always
Speaker 2: looking for like bipartisanship and let's be nice and cordial
Speaker 2: and whatever. That has really flipped. And that's what I'm
Speaker 2: talking about. With this more aggressive energy and being extremely
Speaker 2: disenchanted with the Democratic Party leadership, that creates creates an
Speaker 2: opening that there will be a challenge to Democratic Party
Speaker 2: leaders that we did that there would be some form
Speaker 2: of like a Democratic tea party that we did not
Speaker 2: see anything like in the first term. So now you've
Speaker 2: got sixty five percent, so jump in twenty points in
Speaker 2: a month saying you should be opposing Trump as much
Speaker 2: as possible, versus thirty five percent who say, try to
Speaker 2: find common ground. And that's all I'm trying to point
Speaker 2: to is for the first time, there is a real
Speaker 2: break between democratic leadership and media figures and the Democratic base.
Speaker 2: And that is different, and it creates a possibility that
Speaker 2: did not exist in the first Trump administration.
Speaker 1: I will grant you that.
Speaker 3: I just think considering how these people love to follow
Speaker 3: orders and in general have a lot of deference to
Speaker 3: their leaders. I mean, who is the likely person who
Speaker 3: would you put your money on to be the next
Speaker 3: not Democratic nominee per se, but some of the emerging
Speaker 3: resistance figures just JB. Pritzker, literal billionaire Pete, Bootage Edge
Speaker 3: Wine Cave Pete.
Speaker 1: I mean the.
Speaker 3: Track of who they have their trust in, who can
Speaker 3: like beat their chest strongly and give them a bunch
Speaker 3: of rhetoric, doesn't portend for some ninety nine percent Bernie
Speaker 3: Sanders revolution. It portends basically what I'm talking about, like
Speaker 3: rich white people who love to see somebody articulate, spoken
Speaker 3: and defend norms in bureaucracy. Like that seems to be
Speaker 3: the current track that things are going in the direction of.
Speaker 3: So I'm just not so sure that resistance will take
Speaker 3: the form of like some anti oligarchy agenda. Will they
Speaker 3: be for raising the income tax from thirty five to
Speaker 3: forty one percent?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Okay, But that's not the same thing as what we're
Speaker 3: talking about, some grand like takedown of the you.
Speaker 7: Would have to have.
Speaker 2: I think it almost has to be someone from outside
Speaker 2: the system. Yeah, because we're Stephen polar two. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: exactly right. Yeah, they're too. I mean, this is there
Speaker 2: the whole like water that those women.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, of course they're they're they're that. If anything, what
Speaker 3: can you say about Trump? The circumvention of the traditional
Speaker 3: process and the popularity and the ability to say shit
Speaker 3: that is totally in the moment out of control, which
Speaker 3: is a lie but also deeply true, was one that
Speaker 3: shocked the entire political system. But the problem that I
Speaker 3: see is that because the current constituency the Democratic Party,
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure that their lack of faith in
Speaker 3: institutions is so as as low as where Republicans were
Speaker 3: and willing to receive that message. There still seems to
Speaker 3: be the credibility in the pets, in the JB. Pritskers,
Speaker 3: even in the Obamas of the world, like right, it
Speaker 3: would take. What happened with Trump is that you had
Speaker 3: literally Georgia B. Bush, the leader of the party in McCain,
Speaker 3: who became underwater with their own base. I don't see
Speaker 3: the same phenomenon with Michelle, with Barack, with I mean
Speaker 3: even Kamala, they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they still love him, right and even though it's
Speaker 1: his fault, he's thought.
Speaker 2: There was a poll that came out in California, in
Speaker 2: the California and goubernatorial primer with Kamala.
Speaker 7: And it actually was not great for her.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't see that she was like basically tied
Speaker 2: with the number two person.
Speaker 7: I was kind of surprised.
Speaker 2: Always number two I don't know the number two was
Speaker 2: actually a Republican because you know, it's the jungle primary
Speaker 2: right now. And then there was another Democrat that came
Speaker 2: in after her, but she was only getting like twenty
Speaker 2: three percent of them interested.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, interesting, which we'll see.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right, because I would just love to
Speaker 1: break shit up. But I'm just I've seen.
Speaker 3: I just the way I can see it is that
Speaker 3: Hakeem Jeffries will be replaced by some Pete Boodhage Edge
Speaker 3: type figure who will mobilize.
Speaker 1: And you know, I would.
Speaker 2: Over I would take Pete over he King Jeffries for oh,
Speaker 2: for sure. Hakeem Jeffries is the most worthless person I've
Speaker 2: ever seen in my entire life. Like I said, longing
Speaker 2: for the days of Nancy Pelosio at least had some political.
Speaker 1: Skills, some of the some of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he at least had some sass or whatever to
Speaker 2: her and is able, you know, in a Machiavellian way,
Speaker 2: was effective in Washington, but.
Speaker 1: She forced by now we have to hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these these people are beyond worthless. And so I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: definitely possible that you're right. I'm just saying that there's
Speaker 2: a possibility and a different relationship vise of you, the
Speaker 2: base and the leaders that there than there was last time.
Speaker 1: I hope they're correct. I would like to see it materialize,
Speaker 1: but I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm skeptical to see where all of this is going
Speaker 3: to take us. Let's turn now to Congresswoman Nancy Mace
Speaker 3: who the recent months has really taken the podium and
Speaker 3: a platform to try and bring attention to violence against women. However,
Speaker 3: there have been a lot of questions about some previous
Speaker 3: assault allegations and others that she had made previously. She did, however,
Speaker 3: take to the floor of the House of Representatives to
Speaker 3: describe some genuinely horrific things that she says happened to her.
Speaker 3: But it's also led to some questionable behavior in terms
Speaker 3: of what she's asking people to do as a result
Speaker 3: of that. So we wanted to take a second to
Speaker 3: get into some of it. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 3: what she had to say.
Speaker 12: When I uncovered evidence of rape and the illegal filming
Speaker 12: of women and sex trafficking, I didn't just see victims.
Speaker 12: I saw a system that failed to protect them. I
Speaker 12: saw criminals who thought they could get away with it
Speaker 12: because no one had the guts, no one had the courage,
Speaker 12: no one had the bravery to hold them accountable. Because
Speaker 12: we are filled with cowards. I will burn this system
Speaker 12: to the ground if I have to.
Speaker 3: So she gave a fifty three minute spage detailed some
Speaker 3: horrific things she alleged happened to her, involving her ex
Speaker 3: fiance and others. But one of the things that you
Speaker 3: probably saw there if you are watching, is actually the
Speaker 3: quote of victim's hotline. However, you know immediately afterward there
Speaker 3: were some questions here about that actual hotline.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 3: Apparently the actual advocates in South Carolina are telling people
Speaker 3: not to use the hotline because they're saying that it's
Speaker 3: one that goes to an unanswered mailbox, and they say, quote,
Speaker 3: no one picks up. That's not a hotline, it's actually
Speaker 3: an answering machine. And look, we're obviously trying to discuss
Speaker 3: this delicately, but it gets to some behavior from Nancy
Speaker 3: Mace where previously she had claimed what was it She
Speaker 3: had claimed that somebody of activist had assaults her, and
Speaker 3: she was wearing she was wearing a sling in the
Speaker 3: House of Representatives. But in general, I've been very I've
Speaker 3: been fascinated to watch it here in Washington because she
Speaker 3: is one who is both occasionally like a MAGA star,
Speaker 3: but increasingly also is being called for, you know, by
Speaker 3: her own staff who are alleging, you know, that she
Speaker 3: had lied about previous incidents.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing is incredibly bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this woman is a liar. There's no reason to
Speaker 2: take anything she says seriously. If I'm being honest with you,
Speaker 2: I will be less delicate than you will put up.
Speaker 2: Even so, even she claimed like, uh, I don't know
Speaker 2: what happened to her, blah blah blah. But she claimed
Speaker 2: she contacted the Attorney General's office in South Carolina, the
Speaker 2: attorney general, by the way, who she plans to run
Speaker 2: against in a gubernatorial primary, so very convenient to target
Speaker 2: him in particular. And she said, oh, I contacted them,
Speaker 2: and they did absolutely nothing. Well, the Attorney general came
Speaker 2: out and said that her claims were quote categorically false.
Speaker 2: Mays either does not understand or is purposely characterized in
Speaker 2: the role of attorney general. Because guys, think about it,
Speaker 2: if you're a victim of anything, Do you call the
Speaker 2: attorney gen No, you call law enforcement, Like what are
Speaker 2: we talking about here? And not to mention, this Attorney
Speaker 2: General goes on to say, like we're at a bunch
Speaker 2: of events together. She literally has my personal cell phone.
Speaker 2: She's never raised any of this with me. So that's
Speaker 2: number one. But more concretely on the victim hotline thing,
Speaker 2: So she puts up this hot line, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to position herself as this great defender of women.
Speaker 7: Blah blah blah. It's it is enough.
Speaker 2: It's a voicemail box. So if you are someone who
Speaker 2: is a genuine survivor, if you went through and you
Speaker 2: are looking for someone to talk to and some resources
Speaker 2: to cope with this horrific traumatic event, and you take
Speaker 2: Nancy Mace at her word that this hotline is set
Speaker 2: up for you, You're gonna call and you're gonna get nothing.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get a voicemail box that, according to the
Speaker 2: report here, doesn't even return the calls whatsoever, as opposed
Speaker 2: to directing someone to you know, there are actual rape
Speaker 2: crisis and other survivor hotlines that are set up that
Speaker 2: genuinely have recent that have people who are trained who
Speaker 2: go through extensive training, including one run by the state
Speaker 2: and the Attorney General's office of the guy that she's
Speaker 2: smearing at this point. So you know, it's just I
Speaker 2: don't even know what to say. It's just utterly preposterous.
Speaker 2: And then we have actually the image of her in
Speaker 2: this link. This was also total incomplete bullshit, like you
Speaker 2: should not in fact believe all women, and you definitely
Speaker 2: should not believe this woman.
Speaker 7: She claimed that.
Speaker 2: She was injured by some activists who assaulted her. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, this was so horrible. The people who saw
Speaker 2: it were like, they shook her hand. That's it. That's
Speaker 2: what happened. So she wore this sling very performatively around
Speaker 2: around the capitol and was, you know, aggrieved in a
Speaker 2: victim of this horrific assault.
Speaker 7: This is this is Nancy Smolette for you right there.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm glad you were as aggressive. I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm not allowed to do that, I think
Speaker 3: in terms of the way that I definitely agree.
Speaker 1: I'll just put it, shall I Nancy sign Nancy small?
Speaker 1: It rings, it.
Speaker 7: Has a ring to it, doesn't there.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just the big red flag for me
Speaker 3: was that every person who remember when her entire staff resigned,
Speaker 3: and there's many of them.
Speaker 1: That's where the.
Speaker 3: Red flag came. Where they were like, they were like,
Speaker 3: don't believe a word that.
Speaker 2: Look at some of her former staffers, like you think
Speaker 2: I was unvarnished.
Speaker 1: No, I know, yeah exactly. That's why that's part of
Speaker 1: the reason we wanted to.
Speaker 3: Cover this is I was like, you know, no one
Speaker 3: in the media is really immediately just being like.
Speaker 1: I don't know about this whole thing. Now.
Speaker 3: I have no idea whether her claims or any of
Speaker 3: that thing are true. What I do know is that
Speaker 3: South Carolina media, as you said, the Attorney general said
Speaker 3: that it didn't happen the way that she's talking about
Speaker 3: that the hotline. The actual advocates and other people or
Speaker 3: whatever in the state are saying, hey, it's not a
Speaker 3: hot line because we actually handle real hotlines, and that
Speaker 3: she has a proven track record of you know, basically
Speaker 3: conjuring up injury allegedly for attention, and so anyway, I'll
Speaker 3: leave people with that impression, and that's what we like
Speaker 3: to call out some of that behavior here. As you
Speaker 3: said too, it's like if this woman was on the left,
Speaker 3: we all know, like there would be. I will say,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of more. There's a lot of anonymous
Speaker 3: right wing accounts which hate this person and which call
Speaker 3: her out routinely for lying and for attention seeking behavior, etc.
Speaker 3: But at a broad level, there has not been the
Speaker 3: takedown that there needs to, and for some reason, probably
Speaker 3: liberal media from the reminisce of Me Too, is not
Speaker 3: willing to just come out and be like, Okay, hold
Speaker 3: on a second, what the hell is going on?
Speaker 2: The hotline thing is just like so egregious. Just I mean,
Speaker 2: how hard is it to put up a real hotline?
Speaker 1: But she want there's one in South Carolina?
Speaker 2: Yes, redirect people, yes exactly, Like how hard is it
Speaker 2: to just put up an actual number that people can
Speaker 2: get actual resources at instead of indirecta thing that's like,
Speaker 2: oh this is Nancy Mayson, I really care about you
Speaker 2: or whatever. So it's completely self promotional, and you're positioning
Speaker 2: yourself as this great advocate of women and then in
Speaker 2: this really blatant way, denying them access to the diverting
Speaker 2: them from, you know, the resources that are actually available
Speaker 2: for their card disgusting.
Speaker 3: All right, Okay, guys, we appreciate you joining us and
Speaker 3: we will see you all later.