Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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Speaker 3: dot com. Let's get to Tesla, shall we, Because this
Speaker 3: is in terms of some of the fallout overseas, and
Speaker 3: actually this is the curiosity of as.
Speaker 1: Elon becomes more political.
Speaker 3: Yes, as wealth is extraordinary and all of that, how
Speaker 3: much of it, if it declines, will affect his overall performance,
Speaker 3: his doge image and all of that. Yeah, I genuinely
Speaker 3: have no idea. I tend to think Tesla is still
Speaker 3: his baby. It's the center of gravity of all of
Speaker 3: his net worth and power. But maybe he just doesn't
Speaker 3: care anymore. He's realized in enough gains he doesn't care
Speaker 3: about the company.
Speaker 2: So Tesla I was looking makes up about a third
Speaker 2: of his net worth, so it's certainly significant in terms
Speaker 2: of his wealth. And right now it really is struggling.
Speaker 2: I mean the stock price is way dounk. Put this
Speaker 2: up on the screen, and I mean, Tesla stock is
Speaker 2: really I saw someone describe it.
Speaker 4: It's basically like a meme stock.
Speaker 2: I mean, the valuation doesn't really comport with reality anyway.
Speaker 2: And now they have this huge drop in sales, and
Speaker 2: that's part of what is driving this drop in terms
Speaker 2: of the stock price. Let's put the next piece up
Speaker 2: on the screen so I can explain more of the
Speaker 2: numbers behind the drop in sales. In Europe in particular,
Speaker 2: Tesla sales have dropped almost by half forty five percent
Speaker 2: year over year, and if you just look at the EU,
Speaker 2: it actually has dropped by half year over year. So
Speaker 2: back in January of twenty twenty four they sold some
Speaker 2: fifteen one and thirty Tesla's in the EU. This year
Speaker 2: it was only seven one thousand, five hundred and seventeen.
Speaker 2: Now you may say, okay, well, maybe EV sales overall
Speaker 2: are declining. Not so ev sales year over year are
Speaker 2: actually up. It's just Tesla sales which are way down.
Speaker 2: I do think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 2: with him becoming this very toxic partisan political figure.
Speaker 4: And you have to remember he weighed in.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously he's like controlling our entire political system
Speaker 2: at this point, but he also intervened in Germany, and
Speaker 2: the sales in Germany are down something like sixty three percent,
Speaker 2: so it's an even greater drop. He also was meddling
Speaker 2: in the UK. There's been a drop there as well,
Speaker 2: and there's been sort of a general European rejection of
Speaker 2: this foreign billionaire, richest man on the planet trying to
Speaker 2: meddle in their politics. And also you have to think
Speaker 2: about the kind of consumer who's typically buying an electric vehicle.
Speaker 4: Most of them are liberal or lefties.
Speaker 2: So to have someone who is so closely associated themselves
Speaker 2: with Trump and the AfD and you know, waiting in
Speaker 2: on the grooming Gang's debate in the UK or whatever,
Speaker 2: that's going to be problem for the Tesla brand. Now,
Speaker 2: there are some other factors that I think play into
Speaker 2: this that aren't just about Elon's politics, although, like I said,
Speaker 2: I do think that that is a significant part of
Speaker 2: what is going on here. One is, as we've been discussing,
Speaker 2: byd is selling fantastic evs and so that he's got
Speaker 2: more competition in terms of the electric vehicle market. And
Speaker 2: then the other one is people are potentially waiting for
Speaker 2: there's like a new model of the car that's coming
Speaker 2: out in the spring. You probably know more about that
Speaker 2: than I do, so maybe they're just waiting and holding
Speaker 2: off for like the latest new thing to come out.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it's deniable at this point that
Speaker 2: his brand is a big part of this drop. There's
Speaker 2: also a drop in China that I would probably attribute
Speaker 2: more to the semestic competition, yeah, market, and there's about
Speaker 2: a thirteen percent drop here in the US of Tesla sales.
Speaker 2: And of course they also have just become this very
Speaker 2: visible symbol of him. So you've had Tesla's Tesla owners
Speaker 2: putting those bumper stickers on that are like, I bought
Speaker 2: this before I knew Elon was crazy. You've had had
Speaker 2: some instances of vandalism. I don't know how widespread that is,
Speaker 2: but like cyberdrucks getting spray painted with waswastikas and Tesla
Speaker 2: charging stations being spray painted with swastikas, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: it has become this kind of like touchstone of resistance,
Speaker 2: visible symbol of him, etc.
Speaker 4: And it is.
Speaker 2: Significant to his net worth. But I wish I thought
Speaker 2: that it would like matter and sort of check him
Speaker 2: and that this is like really going to hit him
Speaker 2: where it hurts. But the truth of the matter is,
Speaker 2: as long as he's in control of the federal government,
Speaker 2: he has all of our tax dollars backstopping his net worth.
Speaker 2: And I do think his primary at this point ideological
Speaker 2: goal and like company passion is more SpaceX and the
Speaker 2: goal of getting to Mars. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is going to mean anything.
Speaker 1: To him or not very possible. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: We reached out to Doug Demiro, by the way, try
Speaker 3: and get him back on the show to talk about
Speaker 3: the Chinese evs, because I saw a video of him
Speaker 3: just talking about how good they are and about why
Speaker 3: he's like, without tariffs and if we have pure capitalism,
Speaker 3: he's like, we're going to get destroyed in this market.
Speaker 3: So I'm actually really curious see if we can try
Speaker 3: to talk to him about it. As you said, Look,
Speaker 3: obviously there's a new model, so there's some stuff going
Speaker 3: on there. A Tesla strategy as well has changed significantly.
Speaker 3: They cut a lot of their prices for this this.
Speaker 3: If there is lessening demand, it could feed more into
Speaker 3: that they still have the production on their side as
Speaker 3: opposed to every other company. There's still big questions as
Speaker 3: to whether the Trump administration will continue some of the
Speaker 3: EV incentives.
Speaker 1: That are there.
Speaker 3: It's actually a big open question as to whether Elon
Speaker 3: we even want those.
Speaker 4: Evns, wants them to go away, and in this.
Speaker 3: Right because it would subsidize the competition, which, let's be honest,
Speaker 3: not as good and has way bigger production problems. So
Speaker 3: it's much more of a subsidy for Ford, GM and
Speaker 3: for the big three automakers than it is for Tesla,
Speaker 3: which has approven you know, it has factories, it has
Speaker 3: charging stations, It already has like the biggest market share
Speaker 3: out of all of it. So it would only make
Speaker 3: even more of a reason to invest to buy a Tesla.
Speaker 2: No, I think he sees it as a benefit, yeah,
Speaker 2: which it mostly is EV.
Speaker 4: Credits to go away.
Speaker 2: That is hurting his competitors more than it hurts him.
Speaker 2: And you know, I do think it's important to remember,
Speaker 2: like Tesla benefited from huge amounts of government cash. They
Speaker 2: were really on the verge of going under, and Elan
Speaker 2: personally begged the Obama administration the elans the emails that
Speaker 2: he wants.
Speaker 4: The emails have been.
Speaker 2: Released of him really hat in hand, like we have
Speaker 2: to get this loan that enables them to be able
Speaker 2: to buy the factory in Fremont and live to fight
Speaker 2: another day and build up this you know, successful car company.
Speaker 2: The other thing I didn't realize, this is all from
Speaker 2: those Washington Post reporting. The other thing I didn't realize
Speaker 2: is a third of Tesla revenue actually comes from selling
Speaker 2: these like EV credits.
Speaker 4: And it's not just federal.
Speaker 2: A lot of that is state too, because California, of
Speaker 2: course has very stringent emission requirements, and so Tesla as
Speaker 2: an EV zero emissions. They can then sell their credits
Speaker 2: to other automakers who need to, you know, be able
Speaker 2: to lower their emissions, so they they sell and trade
Speaker 2: these credits on the market. That makes up about a
Speaker 2: third of their revenue. In fact, the first year that
Speaker 2: Tesla was profitable at all, it was all because of
Speaker 2: these state and federal credits that they were able to sell. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, this is really the story of Elon. He
Speaker 2: benefited massively from government taxpayer subsidies, dollars, loans, contracts, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But now that he's made it into this post position,
Speaker 2: he wants to pull up the ladder and make sure
Speaker 2: that other companies can't also benefit from that kind of
Speaker 2: industrial policy, which is why he would be perfectly happy
Speaker 2: to see the EV tax credits go away, because he
Speaker 2: thinks that will hobble his competitors here domestically. Now, I'm
Speaker 2: sure what he doesn't want to see the go away
Speaker 2: are the ban.
Speaker 4: On importing BYD's.
Speaker 2: I think that he will make sure that that restriction
Speaker 2: on the market stays in place.
Speaker 3: For me, it's out about this, It's just it's true.
Speaker 3: We just can't allow that if we're going to destroy
Speaker 3: our entire car market. I mean, if you and this
Speaker 3: is one of those where the car industry in America
Speaker 3: is maddening and yet necessary, both from a job's perspective
Speaker 3: but just from the ability to manufacture. I personally, if
Speaker 3: I had the choice, there's no question in my mind,
Speaker 3: I'm buying Jaumi or byd but I'm not going to
Speaker 3: like as an American consumer. And this is where I'll
Speaker 3: even argue against my own freedom. I shouldn't be allowed
Speaker 3: to because our manufacturing sector, those jobs, it's just too
Speaker 3: important to the United States and to our future defense capacity.
Speaker 3: And I don't begrudge the Chinese, you know good. If anything,
Speaker 3: I admire you your ability to prop that up in
Speaker 3: a fifteen year period.
Speaker 1: We can learn from it.
Speaker 3: We should absolutely study it and see what we can
Speaker 3: do to copy it. But yeah, I mean, this is
Speaker 3: not even about Tesla. I'm just like, we cannot let
Speaker 3: these companies go bankrupt. Like World War Two is often overused,
Speaker 3: but you know, if you look back in the day,
Speaker 3: the ability for those GM factories to overnight go switch
Speaker 3: to war production is super important. And when you lose that,
Speaker 3: then you become the country that we are right now,
Speaker 3: which is a husk of what it used to be,
Speaker 3: that produces nothing and has twenty five percent of its
Speaker 3: g riding on Jensen Wang's motorcycle jacket, which I don't
Speaker 3: want to lift in that world.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, No, I don't even I don't disagree with you.
Speaker 2: I don't even disagree with elon getting that loan at
Speaker 2: Tesla aut a time when he needed it, because I no,
Speaker 2: I think it should have come with requirements for like
Speaker 2: sure workers.
Speaker 4: Do you unionize? And things like that.
Speaker 2: What I object to is that the industrial policy he
Speaker 2: benefited from he wants to now shut off the tap
Speaker 2: and spigot when it comes to his competitors. So in
Speaker 2: any case, there's another piece of this that is really important,
Speaker 2: which is Ryan and Dropsite did a fantastic job breaking
Speaker 2: the story about this supposed four hundred million dollar contract
Speaker 2: for armored Tesla's coming out of the State Department. So
Speaker 2: you know, they just looked at like the list of
Speaker 2: procurements whatever, they see this contract the largest line item
Speaker 2: and lo and behold it is for Tesla's four in
Speaker 2: a million dollars, the largest contract coming out of the
Speaker 2: State Department. So let's put the story up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was Ryan's original story, now updated. It says armored
Speaker 2: Tesla was forecast to win four hundred million dollar State
Speaker 2: Department contract after Trump's election.
Speaker 4: So after this was discovered.
Speaker 2: Then they went in and changed the language so no
Speaker 2: longer said Tesla, it said armored electric vehicles.
Speaker 4: Then the story was.
Speaker 2: That, oh, actually this was initiated during the Biden administration,
Speaker 2: and the number wasn't four hundred million, it's really four
Speaker 2: hundred eight thousand something like that. So that was their
Speaker 2: story as like, oh, actually this started under the Biden
Speaker 2: administration and we didn't have anything to do with it,
Speaker 2: and this isn't going to happen anyway.
Speaker 4: Now we have another piece of the story.
Speaker 2: But NPR did this reporting up on the screen, so
Speaker 2: they were able to obtain the original State Department document
Speaker 2: that shows the Biden administration was not awarding a four
Speaker 2: hundred million dollar contract. They were awarding only four hundred
Speaker 2: eighty three thousand, and sometime after Trump was inaugurated, that
Speaker 2: amount got boosted from four hundred and eighty three thousd
Speaker 2: thousand to four hundred million. So either this is an
Speaker 2: extraordinary clerical era error that just happened to anore to
Speaker 2: the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars to the
Speaker 2: dude who is currently running the federal government, or they
Speaker 2: intentionally went in to try to funnel hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars into Tesla and basically got caught. Now, this
Speaker 2: amount of money, by the way, just so you understand
Speaker 2: how much this is in the context of these State
Speaker 2: Department armored vehicles, and this would be to like armor
Speaker 2: up cyber trucks. A bunch of experts said, this may
Speaker 2: not even make sense to use cyber trucks for this
Speaker 2: purpose anyway, but putting that aside, this would mean that
Speaker 2: they were replacing all three thousand armored cars and SUVs
Speaker 2: around the world that are used to transport diplomats, VIPs
Speaker 2: other officials working for the State Department, replacing all of
Speaker 2: them with cyber trucks, which are expensive, and then armoring them,
Speaker 2: which is also you know another let's say eighty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars to armor these things up.
Speaker 4: You have to like go at that incredibly.
Speaker 2: Maximum approach to even come close to the four hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars that Elon was set to be, you know,
Speaker 2: set to have sent to him. So it really looks
Speaker 2: like a potentially massive scandal and very clear example of
Speaker 2: self dealing and just you know, theft and robberies effectively
Speaker 2: of the American taxpayer to take this four hundred eighty
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars contract and just secretly boost it to
Speaker 2: four hundred million dollars. So worth a lot more investigation
Speaker 2: here because Like I said, it's either a very convenient
Speaker 2: clerical error or naked robbing of the public purse by
Speaker 2: the dude who is running the government right now.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with the job for DOGE. That
Speaker 3: sounds like a good job for Doge, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: Well, Ryan's reporting seems to spike the deal.
Speaker 1: So and this is another thing, Ryan's journals a matter.
Speaker 3: Ryan really is the goat in terms of his ability
Speaker 3: to sniff some of this stuff out. And if you
Speaker 3: think about his track record, I've been seeing it recently,
Speaker 3: it's not only stuff like this, but the Romanian election,
Speaker 3: I mean huge amounts of drop site reporting is responsible
Speaker 3: for Elon himself and Mike Ben's digging into the Romanian usaid.
Speaker 2: And it's a mention, So it's a news brand news
Speaker 2: thing are essentially it's just incredible.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's what we stand Ryan here over it.
Speaker 2: Ryan Grimm may have single handedly saved the government more
Speaker 2: than the entire no I'm talking about here.
Speaker 3: He could save the government here, and he could save
Speaker 3: the government of Romania.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: He's probably saved more money, like actual money, but for
Speaker 2: the federal government than the entire DOGE must project, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I'd be possible.
Speaker 3: Let's blow this last one up here from USAID. This
Speaker 3: was flagged by Pedro Gonzalez. He's always an interesting figure.
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure though what to make this. So
Speaker 3: he says, do you think Musk went after USAID because
Speaker 3: of its wo it's woke or because his rival had
Speaker 3: just recently scored its first federal contract. Is it possible
Speaker 3: as using culture war stuff to mask an agenda? So
Speaker 3: apparently in August of twenty twenty four, or open AI
Speaker 3: had revealed its first agency customer for chat GPT enterprise,
Speaker 3: which was USAID, would use the tool, and then apparently
Speaker 3: it was canceled by the USAID cuts that were there.
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure if that one is or is not,
Speaker 3: you know, the agenda that Pedro flags, But it does
Speaker 3: get to the whole idea of like conflict of interest,
Speaker 3: you know, in the first place, it's like, if you're
Speaker 3: going to have like personal agendas and stargate and all
Speaker 3: this other stuff, then how can you be sure that
Speaker 3: this is being done, you know, for correct purposes. As
Speaker 3: I said, I'm a cloud guy, I'm not a chat
Speaker 3: GPT person, but I would just you know ask that
Speaker 3: we would try to reward a contract based on some
Speaker 3: sort of competitive bid or not even have open questions.
Speaker 1: In our mind. This isn't the biggest scandal, but it
Speaker 1: is still important. It's still important.
Speaker 2: It's just important to realize how many whether this was
Speaker 2: the motivating factor for Elon going after USAID or not,
Speaker 2: the fact that we have to question that, that's the point.
Speaker 2: And with USAID in particular, you have that. I mean,
Speaker 2: we know he despises Sam Altman, they're locked in legal battles.
Speaker 2: He goes after him, they're you know, fighting over the
Speaker 2: origin and the development of open AI, et cetera. So
Speaker 2: there's certainly convenient for him that this contract is I'm
Speaker 2: sure at this point completely spiked, dealing a blow to
Speaker 2: not only someone that he has personal animus towards, but also.
Speaker 4: To a significant competitor.
Speaker 2: And I think Elon cares a lot about winning the
Speaker 2: AI race himself.
Speaker 4: So you've got that, You've got Apparently.
Speaker 2: Usaidea was also investigating the like Starlink Ukraine situation that
Speaker 2: was going on, so you have that as a potential
Speaker 2: motivating factor as well. And then also, as I mentioned
Speaker 2: to USAID was involved in like backing the end of
Speaker 2: a party. He may hold a grudge over that as well.
Speaker 2: We don't know, And maybe it was none of those.
Speaker 2: Maybe none of those factored in the fact that we
Speaker 2: have to ask and we don't know, and he has
Speaker 2: so many personal interests intertwined in almost all of these
Speaker 2: agencies is a problem. It's a big problem in and
Speaker 2: of itself, and especially because Trump has just given him
Speaker 2: free rein to really do whatever he wants. Some of
Speaker 2: the moves do seem just naked self deal. I mean,
Speaker 2: the four and a million dollar Tasla contract obviously nakedly
Speaker 2: self dealing. If that was intentionally changed, that's insane, right,
Speaker 2: insane levels of corruption. You also have attacks on very
Speaker 2: specific offices within agencies that happen to be the ones
Speaker 2: that were going after Tesla or going after SpaceX and
Speaker 2: investigating them for alleged infractions and violations. So some of
Speaker 2: it just seems very difficult to deny, especially when you
Speaker 2: look at the overall picture.
Speaker 3: All right, let's get to the Golden Visa. I felt
Speaker 3: compelled to weigh on this. I did not realize that
Speaker 3: that Ryan and Emily were going to be so supportive
Speaker 3: of what I think is such a trash program. So
Speaker 3: let's go ahead and play Trump's words first about how
Speaker 3: this is all going to work, and then.
Speaker 1: I will give you some analysis. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 5: Does this reflect a view on your port that the
Speaker 5: American immigration system has never been properly monetized as you
Speaker 5: feel should.
Speaker 6: Well, not so much monetized, it hasn't been properly run.
Speaker 6: I get calls from as an example of companies where
Speaker 6: they want to hire the number one student at a school.
Speaker 6: A person comes from India, China, Japan, lots of different places,
Speaker 6: and they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance,
Speaker 6: they go to Yale, they go to all great schools,
Speaker 6: and they graduate number one on their class and they're
Speaker 6: made job offers. But the offers immediately rescinded because you
Speaker 6: have no idea whether or not that person can stay
Speaker 6: in the country. I want to be able to have
Speaker 6: that person stay in the country. These companies can go
Speaker 6: and buy a gold card and they can use it
Speaker 6: as a matter of recruitment. At the same time, the
Speaker 6: company is using that money to pay down debt. We're
Speaker 6: going to pay down a lot of debt with that,
Speaker 6: and I think the gold card is going to be
Speaker 6: used by not only for that, I mean they'll be
Speaker 6: used by companies. I mean I could see Apple. I've
Speaker 6: spoken with Tim Cook and by the way, he's going
Speaker 6: to make a five hundred billion dollar investment in the
Speaker 6: country only because of the results of the election. And
Speaker 6: I will tell you the people that can pay five
Speaker 6: men and they're going to create jobs, they're going to
Speaker 6: spend a lot of money on jobs. They're going to
Speaker 6: have to pay taxes on that too, So they're going
Speaker 6: to be hiring people, They're going to be bringing people
Speaker 6: in and companies in.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let me just go off on this a
Speaker 1: little bit. So let me give you guys a list.
Speaker 3: Of the company the countries that currently have so called
Speaker 3: golden visas.
Speaker 1: This is not a novel idea.
Speaker 3: It already exists across Europe and most Caribbean nations. So
Speaker 3: we've got Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, we
Speaker 3: have Saint Kitts and Nevitz, Dominica, Grenada, Antigua, Barbuda, Saint Lucia,
Speaker 3: and then there are a few other countries kind of
Speaker 3: like in America where we have something called investment programs
Speaker 3: and others in Australia and New Zealand in Singapore as well.
Speaker 3: Now what do all of these countries have in common.
Speaker 3: They are either failing European nations with massively high unemployment
Speaker 3: rate which are selling access to Russian oligarchs and or
Speaker 3: rich businessmen across the world to the Shanngan area and
Speaker 3: to the protection of the European Union. Or they are
Speaker 3: tiny little Caribbean nations which are basically selling citizenship for
Speaker 3: tax haven purposes. For it's mostly used by crypto people
Speaker 3: and or others who want to escape the grid. Now,
Speaker 3: why would you auction off the most powerful passport in
Speaker 3: the world for five million dollars to a global elite
Speaker 3: class whose only purpose of buying the so called Golden
Speaker 3: Visa would be to use the United States as a
Speaker 3: tax haven for their ill gotten gains and or to
Speaker 3: launder money in our country. Now maybe you could justify that,
Speaker 3: but we already have a massive problem here of specifically,
Speaker 3: these types of global individuals who rape their country's economies
Speaker 3: bring it here for what purpose? To park money in
Speaker 3: the world's greatest and safest economy. So let me give
Speaker 3: you guys some figures in Miami. Today, twenty to twenty
Speaker 3: five percent of Miami's real estate market is owned by
Speaker 3: foreign nationals. In New York City, it's ten to fifteen
Speaker 3: percent of the overall market. In Los Angeles it's five
Speaker 3: to ten percent. In luxury areas, it's actually more like
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty percent.
Speaker 1: All of these are held.
Speaker 3: Specifically by the types of shady characters that we don't
Speaker 3: want in our country. So this is part of the
Speaker 3: problem that we have in terms of our amazing cities,
Speaker 3: places like San Diego, Los Angeles, you know, Miami, New
Speaker 3: York City, places Americans maybe should be allowed to live,
Speaker 3: are dominantly you know, driven especially at the luxury level,
Speaker 3: by these filthy rich foreign nationals. It's not fair both
Speaker 3: to the Americans who you know, make this country and
Speaker 3: or hold this citizenship, but worse, the type of person
Speaker 3: who buys the Golden visa is the exact opposite of
Speaker 3: like who you would want, and it also perverts the
Speaker 3: idea of citizenship itself. Citizenship is not supposed to be
Speaker 3: bought and sold like an auctioneer's passport. The purpose of
Speaker 3: a citizen is to have obligation to the country, not
Speaker 3: just to look at it as some sort of tax purpose. Now,
Speaker 3: if the Caribbean nations and all that want to do that, fine,
Speaker 3: you know that you guys got to make money somehow.
Speaker 3: We are the world's richest and most powerful nation. So
Speaker 3: that's my long screed. The Golden Visa is a preposterous
Speaker 3: and stupid idea. The current Investment Visa is plenty fine
Speaker 3: because it actually requires business investment, which would allow job
Speaker 3: creation and all of that to happen. That's the way
Speaker 3: that Australia and a few other countries do it. But
Speaker 3: even then again, I have seen this program so perverted
Speaker 3: by the ultra rich, like Olive art class.
Speaker 1: And in America.
Speaker 3: If we're going to sell our passport, this is my
Speaker 3: final thing, we need to be a much bigger number
Speaker 3: than five. It needs to be like a hundred, and
Speaker 3: that money needs to have a proven track record of
Speaker 3: actually going to its citizens. And they shouldn't be allowed
Speaker 3: to buy up a shit ton of real estate. So
Speaker 3: that's the end of my long runt. I just think
Speaker 3: it's disaster. It will massively if this were to go
Speaker 3: into effect. Can you imagine the real estate markets in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, in Chicago, in Miami, here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: What do you think these people are going to do?
Speaker 3: American real estate is the gold standard market of the world.
Speaker 3: That's why they already parked their cash here through all
Speaker 3: these shady LLCs. We don't need your money, you know,
Speaker 3: we don't need you you know at all. You guys
Speaker 3: can stay in cibrists or wherever the hell you're from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this is another This is like sort
Speaker 2: of an extractive parasite class of global elites. And to
Speaker 2: your point, I'll just add this. In Spain they actually
Speaker 2: have rolled back their Golden visa program, which was initially
Speaker 2: put into place in like twenty thirteen. And the reason
Speaker 2: that it became really unpopular and they rolled it back
Speaker 2: is because of exactly what you said. It was associated
Speaker 2: with like criminality and money laundering, and it helped you
Speaker 2: drive up the already high prices of housing in major cities. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, this has already been somewhat of a problem
Speaker 2: in places like Miami and New York, where so many
Speaker 2: of the condos are just permanently vacant because they're owned
Speaker 2: by these various oligarch like billionaires from around the world
Speaker 2: who are never there. So it really does sort of
Speaker 2: you know, strip the vitality out of communities. It drives
Speaker 2: housing prices up and encourages and facilitates illegal activity.
Speaker 4: So not a great direction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just can't stand it, you know, I was
Speaker 3: thinking about it if you want to now I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying everybody should be able to retire or whatever.
Speaker 3: But in the most beautiful place in America, I acknowledge
Speaker 3: supply and command. But when you look at the most
Speaker 3: at the Crown jewel places in the United States, places
Speaker 3: like La Joya in San Diego, and the average home
Speaker 3: price is like seven.
Speaker 1: Million dollars, You're like, okay, so who the fuck are you?
Speaker 3: You know, it's like and you start digging into it, yeah,
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, so a bunch of Saudi's own this,
Speaker 3: this and this same thing.
Speaker 1: In Beverly Hills.
Speaker 3: They literally make a joke about it over there about
Speaker 3: all the people there are from Saudi Arabia or who
Speaker 3: are foreign nationals who'd use it as some sort of plaything.
Speaker 1: Do you think it should be a plaything? My modest
Speaker 1: ask is it should be.
Speaker 3: A plaything at least of American entrepreneurs, okay, and not
Speaker 3: necessarily of the global elite class.
Speaker 1: We've basically same with Miami. I love Miami. I think
Speaker 1: it's a cool place. Wouldn't want to live there, but
Speaker 1: it's nice.
Speaker 3: Should it really just be the playground of South American
Speaker 3: criminals and or like oligarchs who are afraid that the
Speaker 3: Argentinian or Brazilian government could fall and seize their money
Speaker 3: at any time.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, it's not right. And then people what happens.
Speaker 3: You start to get pushed out more and more and more,
Speaker 3: and your city just becomes like a haven and extractive
Speaker 3: place where people drive in from the burbs to serve
Speaker 3: some Chilean oligarch.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's not how America is.
Speaker 3: Not a thing works, it's not a real city, has
Speaker 3: no character and that or it becomes like ultra segregated
Speaker 3: and in some sort what's that movie I'm thinking of
Speaker 3: the Matt Damonfield Elysium, Elysium, it becomes some sort of
Speaker 3: elysium type place. That's already the case in my opinion
Speaker 3: for all of America's gray cities. They're completely unaccessible to
Speaker 3: even people in the top five percent, let alone the
Speaker 3: top two percent of wealth.
Speaker 1: It's outrageous.
Speaker 3: So that's my my modest proposal is America should be
Speaker 3: a place that Americans can afford and or have, like
Speaker 3: somewhat aspirations to Beverly Hills, San Diego, all these other places.
Speaker 1: Good luck. You know, it's like it's it's not going
Speaker 1: to happen.
Speaker 3: You could be filthy rich and you're still competing against
Speaker 3: some Saudi prints.
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's right.
Speaker 3: And that's the problem I have with this Golden Visa program.
Speaker 3: And as you said, a lot of the places that
Speaker 3: have implemented them, they hate the type of people that
Speaker 3: end up buying this.
Speaker 2: It's been Portugal hasn't liked it either. The EU is
Speaker 2: really discouraging it because.
Speaker 3: Right because you're selling access to the European Union.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're just basically selling out your country. And
Speaker 2: then it also has not like raised that if Trump's
Speaker 2: all it's going to raise trili I No, it's not
Speaker 2: like that has also not panned out in any of
Speaker 2: the countries that I've tried it.
Speaker 3: What's about so I don't need some Russian oligarch or
Speaker 3: whatever coming over here and buying even more property in
Speaker 3: Williamsburg or Tribeca or Manhattan. Those places are plenty expensive.
Speaker 3: As it is anyway, all right, So that my rant
Speaker 3: is over. Screw the Golden visa. We don't need it.
Speaker 3: You guys can stay wherever you are. Let's get to Southwest.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, air travel has been obviously a consistent concern over
Speaker 2: the past several months and even going back years, we've
Speaker 2: been tracking how the decline and air safety and how
Speaker 2: nervous people are now to fly. And this image I'm
Speaker 2: about to show you is not going to make you
Speaker 2: any less nervous.
Speaker 4: Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is a near collision as the Southwest plane is
Speaker 2: landing at Chicago Midway Airport and just as it's about
Speaker 2: to touch on the ground, it has to pull back
Speaker 2: up to avoid this frickin private jet that then is
Speaker 2: taxiing down the runway in front of it. So quick
Speaker 2: thinking and quick acting by this Southwest pilot.
Speaker 4: Kudos to them.
Speaker 2: You can see it here in slow mo just how
Speaker 2: close they are to a horrific collision. But that was
Speaker 2: not the only incident where this occurred. Within ninety minutes,
Speaker 2: and we could put this next piece up on the
Speaker 2: screen with some of the details here. Within the span
Speaker 2: of ninety minutes on Tuesday, morning. Two airplanes, one at
Speaker 2: Reagan National which was just the site of that horrific
Speaker 2: deadly passenger plane crash just a couple weeks ago, and
Speaker 2: the one we just showed you at Chicago's Midway International Airport.
Speaker 2: Both were forced to abort landings to avoid collisions, according
Speaker 2: to Federal aviation officials. So an American Airlines flight that
Speaker 2: was arriving at National Airport from Boston was making its
Speaker 2: final descent, suddenly had to cancel its landing, climbed toward
Speaker 2: the skies, accelerated away from the airport. The last minute
Speaker 2: move allowed it to avoid colliding with another plane that
Speaker 2: was about to take off from the same runway, And
Speaker 2: that's according to the FAA. The airplanes pilots were told
Speaker 2: to scrap the landing by an air traffic controller to
Speaker 2: ensure separation was maintained. And then the incident that you
Speaker 2: just saw around eight fifty am Central time, the pilots
Speaker 2: of suth West Airlines flight two five oh four, traveling
Speaker 2: from Omaha had to cancel the planes landing at Chicago
Speaker 2: Midway after a business gent entered the runway without authorization.
Speaker 2: So two insane and terrifying incidents like I said, kudos
Speaker 2: to both of those pilots for being able to make
Speaker 2: those maneuvers. My understanding is the one that you saw
Speaker 2: in midway was a bit of a closer call than
Speaker 2: the other one, but both of them, it's like, what
Speaker 2: the hell is going on here? And in addition, Katie Pavlich,
Speaker 2: who can put this up on the screen, She was
Speaker 2: on a flight headed to some conference and she says
Speaker 2: her flight was just about to take off and the
Speaker 2: pilot slammed on the brakes upon departure. We were secreents
Speaker 2: from being off the ground. Terrifying incident, apparently, Saga. She
Speaker 2: updated and said this was some sort of a mechanical
Speaker 2: issue or failure. I don't know what the hell is
Speaker 2: going on. Of course, you know this comes amid the backdrop.
Speaker 4: Of air traffic.
Speaker 2: The FAA has not been immune from DOGE cuts. They
Speaker 2: say that they aren't firing any air traffic controllers, but
Speaker 2: a lot of the support staff, it's been reported, have
Speaker 2: been some of the support staff have been let go.
Speaker 2: You've got now DOGE engineers are sorry, Yeah, SpaceX engineers
Speaker 2: affiliated with elon running around this place and continuing to
Speaker 2: have terrifying incidents like this. The air trave There are
Speaker 2: has been a shortage of thousands of air traffic controllers
Speaker 2: for years now. You know, I have no doubt that
Speaker 2: there are some federal government agencies that should and could
Speaker 2: be trimmed down and you know, too much staff or whatever.
Speaker 2: The FAA is not one of them. This is one
Speaker 2: where you really need to staff up, you really need
Speaker 2: to invest because air travel safety matters to people, and
Speaker 2: all of these incidents are horrifying.
Speaker 3: Well, what's interesting about air travel is, if you think
Speaker 3: about it, it's got the it's got a very different
Speaker 3: permission structure than almost everything else.
Speaker 1: The number of acceptable accidents is what zero.
Speaker 3: It's so even with a failure rate of like minute percentile,
Speaker 3: it's still too high.
Speaker 1: And it's one of the those where you need to
Speaker 1: have the hundreds of.
Speaker 3: Billions of dollars that flow through the airlines, and that
Speaker 3: the bedrock of like international travel and all is built
Speaker 3: on is when you get on a plane, it's not
Speaker 3: a problem.
Speaker 1: And so that's why even events like this.
Speaker 3: Or like nine to eleven for example, can wipe out
Speaker 3: an entire sector of the economy. And it's one of
Speaker 3: those it's just fundamentally different. I mean, you and I
Speaker 3: are a business, like we operate on a very different
Speaker 3: risk profile, right, Like we can absorb various different hits,
Speaker 3: or we can think and take risks, et cetera. You
Speaker 3: can even do that in a car. As a society,
Speaker 3: we've just taken and accepted like we're going to have
Speaker 3: like X amount of fatalities a year, and like that
Speaker 3: is what it is. But it's different for airlines just
Speaker 3: because it's like control thing in terms of who's in power,
Speaker 3: but also just because if you started to see like
Speaker 3: cascading events and all that, it would remove and stuck complete.
Speaker 1: Trust out of the system. So that's where I worry
Speaker 1: about the most.
Speaker 3: And I just think, what we're watching here, it's not
Speaker 3: a doze issue, because this is like a decade long thing.
Speaker 3: It's about lack of prioritization by the government. It is
Speaker 3: also a lot of privatization and financialization in the airline sector,
Speaker 3: a lack of oversight in over the probably the last
Speaker 3: twenty years, like when we talk about mechanical failure and
Speaker 3: all that, and it just culminates where it's kind of
Speaker 3: like the Chinese EV thing. One day you just wake
Speaker 3: up and you're like, oh shit, like maybe these planes
Speaker 3: are not nearly as safe as they used to be.
Speaker 3: So it both happened over a long period of time.
Speaker 3: But it also wasn't that, you know, it wasn't that
Speaker 3: long ago that we didn't have incidents or questions like
Speaker 3: this all the time. It could be a matter of information,
Speaker 3: but I do still think it's unacceptable to have things
Speaker 3: where they are.
Speaker 2: Right now, of course, and you know, the way it
Speaker 2: relates to DOGE is because the whole ethos of DOGE
Speaker 2: is privatization, is stripping the government down and outsourcing everything,
Speaker 2: and that is the ideology that has led to the
Speaker 2: FAA being so bare bones that you have that you're
Speaker 2: short thousands of air traffic controllers. That is the mentality
Speaker 2: that led the fa to basically outsource their own like
Speaker 2: safety regulations to the industry where they're effectively like regulating
Speaker 2: themselves and oh yeah, this plane is safe, no problem,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it. That's the mentality and the ideology
Speaker 2: that led us to that place. And now Dog has
Speaker 2: put that ideology on steroids.
Speaker 4: That's why it matters. And it's also you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: this is.
Speaker 2: A perfect emblem of as you were saying, soccer like
Speaker 2: when you're running Twitter and you cut a huge proportion
Speaker 2: of the staff, and the Twitter spaces with Ronda Santis
Speaker 2: fails like, that's really bad for Rondo Santis and it
Speaker 2: didn't did not help him. It was embarrassing for Elon.
Speaker 2: It was really pathetic.
Speaker 4: And then you know Trump does spaces as well, and
Speaker 4: it also.
Speaker 2: Didn't go all that well. But no one's going to die, right.
Speaker 2: Some functions of government are absolutely critical. They're critical for
Speaker 2: life and death. They're critical for food safety, they're critical
Speaker 2: for veterans benefits. They're critical for you know, elderly people
Speaker 2: who are relying on that Social Security check. They're critical
Speaker 2: for moms who are shown up at the hospital have
Speaker 2: a baby in horror on Medicaid. It shouldn't be run
Speaker 2: like a business because sometimes the results of failure are
Speaker 2: truly truly catastrophic. And so you know, this is a
Speaker 2: primary emblem of that where the core ideology of privatization
Speaker 2: and strip the government down that is being pushed by
Speaker 2: Doge is exactly how we got to this place where
Speaker 2: people are now second guessing air travel in a way
Speaker 2: that has never been the case in my life. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can speak for myself like I don't want to
Speaker 2: get on a plane right now.
Speaker 3: Well, because it's not just this, it's near misses, it's
Speaker 3: the Boeing shit like blowout. It's like, I'm.
Speaker 4: Not going to discribe it.
Speaker 1: I still think people should get on a plane.
Speaker 3: It's good for you. Get on a plane and go
Speaker 3: and travel. I've flown plenty since all of these crazy things.
Speaker 1: Am I clutching the thing a little bit more?
Speaker 3: Am I looking over in the window just making sure
Speaker 3: and be like, all right, you know what's going on here?
Speaker 3: Every time we land even not.
Speaker 4: Just makes it so much less of a pleasant experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I used to get on a plane not think about anything.
Speaker 2: And they actually interviewed a dude who was on this
Speaker 2: plane that had to quickly like take back off, the
Speaker 2: one at Reagan National, and he was like, I was
Speaker 2: already really nervous because of the crash that just happened
Speaker 2: to here, and I was feeling the sense of like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're only we're two minutes to landing, Like we're almost there,
Speaker 2: it's going to be fine.
Speaker 4: He's kind of white white knuckling it.
Speaker 2: And then just before they touched down, this sharp, you know, ascent,
Speaker 2: and he's freaking out freaking out. I'm sure everybody on
Speaker 2: that plane was absolutely freaking out, like what the hell
Speaker 2: is going on? So yeah, it makes you so that
Speaker 2: if you're on the fence, you're like, I don't really
Speaker 2: want to sit there in terror for several hours.
Speaker 4: I'm not really in the mood for that. I'm not
Speaker 4: asdrennaline junkie.
Speaker 3: It doesn't help that every single day I drive past
Speaker 3: sixty six crosses or whatever, which is for all of
Speaker 3: the people who died on that Reagan and flight. So
Speaker 3: if you live in the DMV area, there's yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's like a literal I mean, it's a good thing,
Speaker 3: you know, obviously, remember, Yeah, it's just every day I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 3: just see that there were actually planes come in.
Speaker 2: There were actually a bunch of people from my little
Speaker 2: town that have been coming back from a hunting trip.
Speaker 1: Really that read about that, Yeah.
Speaker 4: A hunting trip.
Speaker 2: They were they were like contractors, like, you know, working
Speaker 2: in the construction industry, and so yeah, that that hit
Speaker 2: close to home.
Speaker 4: For sure for a whole lot of people.
Speaker 2: But you know, it just it gets into your head
Speaker 2: and even though you could tell yourself the statistics, oh
Speaker 2: it's safer than you know, you're more you're safer there
Speaker 2: than you are driving in your car to get to
Speaker 2: the airport or whatever.
Speaker 4: But when you're up in the air, it's a different
Speaker 4: kind of a vibe.
Speaker 2: You want to know that, like, Okay, everything is locked
Speaker 2: in and they got this under control.
Speaker 3: Let's get onto Joe Biden. So this just had to
Speaker 3: put this one on the show because it's like a
Speaker 3: little bit too perfect in terms of the way that
Speaker 3: this all works. So obviously, what was the greatest scandal
Speaker 3: of the Biden administration. If you're a Republican, you're gonna
Speaker 3: be like, oh, Hunter Biden, It's like no, it was
Speaker 3: the fact that this senile, dementia ridden old man was
Speaker 3: basically given a free pass up until six months before election. Yeah,
Speaker 3: up until you melt it down in front of all
Speaker 3: of our eyes, and that we basically had like some
Speaker 3: shadow morons like Jake Sullivan and others run the entire
Speaker 3: United States government. It was like, it was genuinely like
Speaker 3: a Republican fever dream of reality. And yet now we're
Speaker 3: allowed to talk about it, and that's perfect. In terms
Speaker 3: of a new book that's being released has put this
Speaker 3: up there on the screen. It was announced yesterday from
Speaker 3: CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson. It's called original sin,
Speaker 3: President Biden's decline, its cover up, and his disastrous choice
Speaker 3: to run again. Okay, and actually, if you read the
Speaker 3: book Jacket, it's even more shocking because they talked specifically
Speaker 3: on the back of the book where they're like, it
Speaker 3: wasn't a bad debate, it wasn't a cold. It was
Speaker 3: a systematic campaign to cover up. Yeah, here I have
Speaker 3: it in front of me. What the world saw in
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four debate was not an anomaly. It
Speaker 3: was not a cold. It was not someone who was
Speaker 3: under or over prepared. It was not someone who was
Speaker 3: just a little tired. It was the natural result of
Speaker 3: an eighty one year old man whose capabilities had been
Speaker 3: diminished for years. Biden, his family, and his team let
Speaker 3: their self interest in fear of another Trump term justify
Speaker 3: an attempt to put, at times an old man in.
Speaker 1: The Oval office for four more years. What was the
Speaker 1: extent of it? Who knew?
Speaker 3: Was it a conspiracy? We will let the facts speak
Speaker 3: for themselves. They say it was based on two hundred
Speaker 3: interviews with Biden, officials. So I want to split the
Speaker 3: difference here for Alex Thompson, as people know, we had
Speaker 3: Alex Thompson on the show Legit Dude. Now, did he
Speaker 3: call out the Biden stuff as much as I would
Speaker 3: have liked?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: But was he ever denying the reality of Joe Biden
Speaker 3: being an adult old man?
Speaker 1: Also? No, he took it seriously.
Speaker 3: He did a lot of reporting about it, and actually
Speaker 3: he was one of the only critical Biden reporters the
Speaker 3: entire time about how shit was really going on in
Speaker 3: the inside and about how people were terrified really of
Speaker 3: Biden's age. And so when Biden dropped out of the race,
Speaker 3: he was a go to for here on this show
Speaker 3: for a lot of other people. Tapper, though, is a
Speaker 3: whole other story in terms of CNN and how they
Speaker 3: treated the Biden age allegations until it became undeniable.
Speaker 1: We're gonna show people a clip in a little bit.
Speaker 3: But I just think it's ridiculous that Tapper is acting
Speaker 3: as if he was some sort of like lone voice
Speaker 3: out there trying to tell the truth when he was
Speaker 3: just as complicit in attacking people who were bringing up
Speaker 3: Biden's age as all these other idiots in the mainstream media.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna read the book. I'll be honest and honestly.
Speaker 4: Jake's gonna be a blockbuster.
Speaker 1: Jake, please still come on the show.
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you that we could talk
Speaker 3: about this base to face Alex.
Speaker 1: I know it'll come on. Well, I at least I
Speaker 1: hope so after all of this, But I don't.
Speaker 3: I just feel like if it's a little too cute
Speaker 3: right now to put something like this out there and
Speaker 3: just act like you.
Speaker 1: Had no idea the whole time.
Speaker 3: Jake, You're one of the best source reporters in Washington, man, Like,
Speaker 3: if you wanted to, you could have, but you just
Speaker 3: decided not to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's for me the biggest question, because
Speaker 2: we're going to show a clip that is really bad
Speaker 2: about him being oh he has a stutter, like, oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 4: Anyone who engaged in that is like.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're done if you believe that you're an idiot.
Speaker 2: Well, in fairness, that was back in like twenty twenty
Speaker 2: stupid early it was. I mean, obviously we know how
Speaker 2: we covered the time, right we see, like it was
Speaker 2: so obvious if you looked even in twenty twenty if
Speaker 2: you compared him then to when he was vice president,
Speaker 2: it was very clear this was not about a stutter.
Speaker 2: This was about this is an old man. And guess what,
Speaker 2: aging only goes in one direction. You're not going to
Speaker 2: get younger over the course of your time in the presidency.
Speaker 2: So anyone who wanted to see the signs could see
Speaker 2: the signs. But even beyond that, because he wasn't the
Speaker 2: worst of the mainstream press in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: covering up even into the you know, his presidency and
Speaker 2: running for reelection whatever, there are some clips floating around
Speaker 2: of him challenging Korean Jumpierre on his age and concerns
Speaker 2: around that, et cetera. But I I think your point
Speaker 2: is a really important one, which is that like you
Speaker 2: are deeply entrenched in the firmament of DC, you are
Speaker 2: very well sourced. You keep those relationships like did they
Speaker 2: trick you?
Speaker 4: Did you? Were you part of the cover up?
Speaker 2: Like how did this get by you to the extent
Speaker 2: that it did? When you know, the just regular Americans
Speaker 2: across the country, Democrat, Republican, independent alike, were able to
Speaker 2: more accurately understand the extent of his decline than the
Speaker 2: Washington Press corps and Jake Tapper being one of them.
Speaker 2: So that's that's my question here. Like you said that
Speaker 2: being said, I'm going to read the book. I have
Speaker 2: no doubt it's going to be a blockbuster. I know
Speaker 2: probably Alex wanted to have Jake on it because it
Speaker 2: will also like they'll get every media appearance like possibly
Speaker 2: want to with this, and it's an extraord's it's kind
Speaker 2: of amazing to me that it still is not seen
Speaker 2: as it's the massive scandal that it truly was.
Speaker 4: I mean, this was a gigantic cover up.
Speaker 2: And if you're someone like me who's very upset about
Speaker 2: Donald Trump being back in the White House, like you
Speaker 2: should care the most deeply because I think if there
Speaker 2: had been a democratic primary process that people have been
Speaker 2: allowed to run and they've been voters have been allowed
Speaker 2: to truly make a choice, Democrats would have been a
Speaker 2: much better position going into this election, and given the
Speaker 2: closeness of the election, I think it's reasonable to say
Speaker 2: it's very likely they would have prevailed. So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's going to be interesting to read. It's
Speaker 2: going to be interesting to see who knew what and when.
Speaker 2: But I have some questions for Jake Tapper, like, for you,
Speaker 2: what did you know and when? Why weren't you ask
Speaker 2: them questions? Why weren't you really taking it seriously? Were
Speaker 2: they just able to trick you? Or were you, you know,
Speaker 2: part of sort of intentionally intentionally hiding just how bad
Speaker 2: the extent of the decline truly was absolutely so.
Speaker 3: With all that, let's take a listen to the tap
Speaker 3: Equipment's from twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: But this is him on Biden's age.
Speaker 5: How do you think it makes little kids with stutters
Speaker 5: feel when they see you make a comment like that.
Speaker 7: First and foremost, I had no idea that Joe Biden
Speaker 7: ever suffered from a stutter. I think what we see
Speaker 7: on stage with Joe Biden Jake is very clearly a
Speaker 7: cognitive decline.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm referring to.
Speaker 4: It makes me uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: You are, No, that's so amazing. It's so amazing to
Speaker 5: me that.
Speaker 7: Try and figure out an answer a cognitive decline.
Speaker 1: You're trying to.
Speaker 7: Tell me that what I was suggesting was I think.
Speaker 5: That you were mocking his stutter. Yeah, I think you
Speaker 5: were mocking his stutter. And I think you have absolutely
Speaker 5: no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline. I would think
Speaker 5: that somebody in the prompt family would be more sensitive
Speaker 5: to people who do do not have medical licenses diagnosing
Speaker 5: politicians from Afar. Plenty of people have diagnosed your father
Speaker 5: from Afar, and I'm sure it offends you, your father
Speaker 5: in law from a far I'm sure it defends you.
Speaker 5: You don't have any standing to say.
Speaker 7: Noticing how what I'm saying just talking about a cognitive
Speaker 7: the clusid.
Speaker 1: I have one last question.
Speaker 7: Feel are times on stage and it's very concerning to
Speaker 7: a lot of people that this could be the leader
Speaker 7: of the free world.
Speaker 1: That is all I'm saying.
Speaker 7: I genuinely sorry for Joe.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how do those kids, those persons inflicted with stuttering feel?
Speaker 3: But I just this is the sanctimony, the attitude that
Speaker 3: pray it was. That's the problem is that people like
Speaker 3: us and others, any reasonable person was able to just
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, I don't think so. He's like he
Speaker 3: miraculously had a stutter that materialized in twenty twenty, even
Speaker 3: though he's been on a camera for forty five years.
Speaker 3: And you know, I personally saw Joe Biden at a
Speaker 3: campaign rally in twenty twelve. I remember that is the
Speaker 3: Biden in my head, and I remember seeing him in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. Just be like, oh man, I attended Joe
Speaker 3: Biden's as a journalist, very last speech as vice president
Speaker 3: in twenty and sixteen, which again is in my head
Speaker 3: three years later, and I was like, dude, this is
Speaker 3: totally the different person back then, and you as he
Speaker 3: was president. It was the most openly discussed thing by
Speaker 3: anyone who was not connected to institutional media. And this
Speaker 3: is the type of bullshit that they used to basically
Speaker 3: silence and to smear people who were bringing up the
Speaker 3: most obvious. So like, as you said, I'll buy the book, Okay.
Speaker 1: Sorry, but I will buy it.
Speaker 3: You got it all right, reew cops some of us, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's true, since we're since we're since, yeah, we can
Speaker 3: probably get a free review cop. But maybe honestly, at
Speaker 3: this point, I should just buy it after this point
Speaker 3: of talking about it. But the point I guess of
Speaker 3: all of it is just to say you had the
Speaker 3: opportunity to know, you did definitely participate in all of this,
Speaker 3: and don't be coming around here acting like here's some
Speaker 3: you know. So you're Seymour hirsh or whatever sniffing out
Speaker 3: the greatest story in the world, like you're not and
Speaker 3: it's fine.
Speaker 4: Did he engage in any cheap fakes?
Speaker 1: I don't know, surely I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm not one of those Twitter discourse guys who goes
Speaker 3: back and you know, checks everybody's past posting history.
Speaker 1: And all that. But on this one, I just think.
Speaker 3: It's egregious to act as if you were a forward
Speaker 3: facing person with credibility. And I actually feel bad for
Speaker 3: Thompson because he genuinely was on the story at the
Speaker 3: time as opposed to Tapper.
Speaker 1: But I get it. It's Washington. You need to make
Speaker 1: some money, so we wish you the best.
Speaker 2: All right, we got one more media story for you,
Speaker 2: guys that this is actually pretty significant. So Jeff Bezos
Speaker 2: yesterday puts out this tweet indicating that he is going
Speaker 2: to end the Washington Post tradition of publishing a range
Speaker 2: of viewpoints on their opinion page and is only going
Speaker 2: to basically push a pro Oligarch agenda exclusively. Not that
Speaker 2: it's a surprise that that's Jeff Bezos's preference, but pretty
Speaker 2: interesting to make it just completely brazen. So let's go
Speaker 2: ahead and put this up on the screen. This is
Speaker 2: the message that he sent to all the staff and
Speaker 2: journalists at the Washington Posts, which of course he owns,
Speaker 2: but also he put this out on Twitter. He says,
Speaker 2: I'm learning to let you know about a change coming
Speaker 2: to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing
Speaker 2: every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal
Speaker 2: liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course,
Speaker 2: but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be
Speaker 2: published by others. There was a time when a newspaper,
Speaker 2: especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen
Speaker 2: it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep
Speaker 2: every morning a broad based opinion section that sought to
Speaker 2: cover all views. But today the Internet does that job.
Speaker 2: I am of America and for America, proud to be so.
Speaker 2: Our country do not get here by being typical. Big
Speaker 2: part of America's success has been freedom and economic realm
Speaker 2: and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical, It minimizes coercion and practical.
Speaker 2: It drives creativity, invention, and prosperity. I offered David Shipley,
Speaker 2: whom I greatly admired, the opportunity to lead this new chapter.
Speaker 2: I suggested to him. If the answer wasn't hell, yes,
Speaker 2: then it had to be no. After careful consideration, David
Speaker 2: decided to step away. This is a significant shift. It
Speaker 2: won't be easy. It will require one hundred percent commitment.
Speaker 2: I respect his decision. We'll be searching for a new
Speaker 2: opinion editor to own this new direction. I am confident
Speaker 2: that free markets and personal liberties are right for America.
Speaker 2: I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current
Speaker 2: market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us
Speaker 2: together to fill that void.
Speaker 4: This makes me.
Speaker 2: Basically short circuit, because what I want you to understand
Speaker 2: is when Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, talks about
Speaker 2: free markets and personal liberty, he doesn't mean, like you know,
Speaker 2: for example, the freedom of his workers to be able
Speaker 2: to form a union, or to go to the bathroom
Speaker 2: when they need to, his drivers to have enough of
Speaker 2: a break to not have to pee in a bottle
Speaker 2: while they're delivering packages. When he talks about free markets,
Speaker 2: he does not mean the type of free markets that
Speaker 2: would lead to Amazon being broken up. Because it's a
Speaker 2: gigantic monopoly that has rigged its own algorithms. That's not
Speaker 2: the kind of free markets that he's talking about. What
Speaker 2: he's talking about is for the ability of him and
Speaker 2: oligarch to have unbridled power and freedom for himself in
Speaker 2: unlimited coercion and exploitation. When it comes to you, that
Speaker 2: is the agenda that he is talking about pushing here,
Speaker 2: and it is you know, also quite noteworthy coming after
Speaker 2: he blought the endorsement of Kamala to try to curry
Speaker 2: favor with Trump. Is it Trump's inauguration. Its completely trying
Speaker 2: to suck up to him. And you know, Trump has
Speaker 2: obviously handed his administration over to the richest man on
Speaker 2: the entire planet, the preeminent oligarch of all oligarchs, and
Speaker 2: Bezos is basically saying, I'm going to get rid of
Speaker 2: any of these hippies and liberals who might criticize that
Speaker 2: direction and make sure that when the CFPB is gutted, they're.
Speaker 4: On board with it.
Speaker 2: When the National Labor Relations Board can't issue rulings as
Speaker 2: has been done, they're going to be on board with it.
Speaker 2: That's what this is actually all about.
Speaker 3: I completely agree. And the thing is with Bezos is
Speaker 3: I also just think there's a lot of elon envy
Speaker 3: going on here in terms of his personal jail, My
Speaker 3: analysis of Bezos is that he is humiliated by the
Speaker 3: whole democracy dies in the darkness stuff previously and or
Speaker 3: didn't pay attention either. Or he wants to fire many
Speaker 3: of the people who work for him who think he
Speaker 3: thinks are too woke or are embarrassing or whatever. But
Speaker 3: the problem is is he doesn't just come out and
Speaker 3: say it, and so he invents all of this kakamemi.
Speaker 1: Bullshit that we're all supposed to believe.
Speaker 3: So, for example, we're no longer going to endorse any
Speaker 3: candidates miraculously in twenty twenty four, right, so we're going
Speaker 3: to create this principle standard when everyone's like, dude, we
Speaker 3: all know what you're doing here.
Speaker 1: Same thing. Personal liberty and free markets.
Speaker 3: Okay, sheerly from a business perspective, If I want personal
Speaker 3: liberty and free market opinion page, who am I going
Speaker 3: to the Wall Street Journal or sorry, Jeff Bezos at
Speaker 3: the New Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal, which
Speaker 3: has a century of standing up and literally carving out
Speaker 3: this niche for itself, or the Financial Times. I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure I'm gonna go for the latter, just as a consumer.
Speaker 3: So what in an office space, meme Euan Way, what
Speaker 3: do you do here? What is your purpose here? It's like,
Speaker 3: the purpose here is to serve your own personal end.
Speaker 3: And okay, that's fine, it's your right. You own the paper,
Speaker 3: you can do as you would like. But spare us
Speaker 3: your sanctimony, Spare us all this fakery, Spare us this
Speaker 3: idea that you care about personal liberty and free markets.
Speaker 3: You don't care about personal liberty. You're the second largest
Speaker 3: employer in the United States who routinely cycles through all
Speaker 3: of these people and discards them as trash, you know,
Speaker 3: as completely realigned our markets, lobbied against free market like
Speaker 3: true free market principles. I mean, just you know, stop,
Speaker 3: just stop this idea that you believe in free speech.
Speaker 3: Do you know how many conservative books and others were
Speaker 3: banned on Amazon remain banned actually up until I think
Speaker 3: two weeks ago. There was a Ryan Anderson, who is
Speaker 3: a guy who wrote a book about some transgender issues.
Speaker 3: His book was banned on Amazon for five years and
Speaker 3: only recently was reversed. Obviously as a result of this somebody,
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, like it's capricious. It's done in a
Speaker 3: nature where it's all up to his own personal whims,
Speaker 3: So just Sparris, dude, Please let's stop pretending.
Speaker 2: Also, many people pointed out the irony of backing supposed
Speaker 2: personal liberty and free speech at a time when you're
Speaker 2: censoring your own on your own platform, saying those view
Speaker 2: points aren't going to be allowed here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is.
Speaker 3: Where I gets where cost you can employ who you want.
Speaker 3: Is that censorship?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: No, not really, But the point is is that you're
Speaker 3: doing it out originally, which what do you believe?
Speaker 1: That's what I come back to.
Speaker 3: Was it democracy died in the darkness, which you did
Speaker 3: under your leadership? Was it reversing the editorial direction and
Speaker 3: hiring a British tabloid guy to rebuild your business? Because
Speaker 3: if you want a new business, let me tell it,
Speaker 3: take it from somebody who owns a media company with you. Uh,
Speaker 3: don't do this. This is really stupid. Who's signing up
Speaker 3: for it? Anybody who wants this viewpoint subscribes to the
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal, and why would they trust you? Anybody
Speaker 3: who wants this Democracy dies in the Darkness stuff has
Speaker 3: already canceled and has decimated your subscription business. So you're
Speaker 3: using this effectively as a propagandistic tool to bolster your
Speaker 3: own net worth and to curry favor. Okay, fine, you
Speaker 3: know you're actually just in the right tradition of William
Speaker 3: Randolphurst and all these other people from the days of old.
Speaker 3: But they were a lot more explicit about it, whereas
Speaker 3: you're trying to dress it up in all of this
Speaker 3: principle and I'm, you know.
Speaker 1: Holier than now. We will never just endorse one candidate
Speaker 1: or another. It's like, oh my.
Speaker 2: God, like to shut up for how after we don't
Speaker 2: do enforcements anymore, people can decide for themselves.
Speaker 4: Then they weighe in with.
Speaker 1: Dustment exactly every cabinet You're exactly right, the cabinet texts.
Speaker 3: It's like what and miraculously picked all the Washington choices
Speaker 3: and then we're like, oh, no, RFK Junior or whatever.
Speaker 3: Just so happens that Amazon it wants to be a
Speaker 3: huge player in the healthcare space. Right, It's like this
Speaker 3: in the same way we can talk about with Elon.
Speaker 3: I mean, remember, also, the problem is the press always
Speaker 3: comes to their defense and in a sense, like their
Speaker 3: crocodile tears today are useless. I'm not talking about Jeff Stein,
Speaker 3: but I mean you and I remember when Bernie Sanders
Speaker 3: pointed out the Washington Post ownership by Bezos.
Speaker 1: They were furious with him.
Speaker 3: They have never acknowledged oligarchy whenever it was used as
Speaker 3: a tool for the Capital D Democratic Party. It's only
Speaker 3: now that they're willing to talk about a part the
Speaker 3: reason a lot of people don't even take them seriously
Speaker 3: and think they're full of shit, which I think is fine,
Speaker 3: But can we all just like come together now and
Speaker 3: be like this is ridiculous. You know, this whole Bezos project,
Speaker 3: the way that he uses the op ed page and all,
Speaker 3: there's no noble you know, idea or any of this.
Speaker 3: And if anything, Zuckerberg's contortia and Elon's like actions and
Speaker 3: bays us and all that.
Speaker 1: Just it tells us what they're all about. So like,
Speaker 1: let's just be honest.
Speaker 2: That's the only soil lining is that it's no longer deniable.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, I mean, because yeah, that Bernie
Speaker 2: thing really sticks in my craw because their coverage of
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders was so negative and so dishonest, the like
Speaker 2: total smears and fake fact checks and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And he said like, hey, maybe the fact that it's
Speaker 2: owned by this very wealthy oligarch, maybe that has something
Speaker 2: to do with their perspective on my democratic socialist approach.
Speaker 2: How dare you, sir, suggest that the one of the
Speaker 2: wealthiest people on the planet who owns the newspaper would
Speaker 2: have any say over the nature of their coverage. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: all right, well, now we see, we see what the
Speaker 2: reality is, we see what is entailed when you have
Speaker 2: oligarch owned media, and he's just effectively coming out and
Speaker 2: saying it. So yeah, I think that is the one
Speaker 2: silver lining is it is no longer in any way
Speaker 2: deniable whatsoever. And you asked, what does Jeff Bezos actually believe?
Speaker 4: We know what he believes.
Speaker 2: He believes in hisself, his own self interest, Like whatever's
Speaker 2: good for him, that's what he believes in. That's why
Speaker 2: when he thought it was good for him to be
Speaker 2: part of the resistance and democracy dies in darkness, that's
Speaker 2: how he positioned things. And now that he feels this
Speaker 2: vibe shift and he wants to career favor with the
Speaker 2: Trump administration, like he doesn't give a shit about the
Speaker 2: Washington Post as a business venture. He cares about it
Speaker 2: as a tool for his own power, and that has
Speaker 2: always That is not new, that has always been the case.
Speaker 2: So same with Zuckerberg. You know when it's b but
Speaker 2: it was cool to be woke.
Speaker 4: He was woke.
Speaker 2: Now he's moving his content moderation to Texas and he's
Speaker 2: wearing his chain and hanging out with Joe Rogan. What like.
Speaker 2: These people are shameless in service of their own power
Speaker 2: and their own self interest, and that is what's going
Speaker 2: on here. Absolutely, let me just roll through the rest
Speaker 2: of these elements. We mentioned Jeff Stein, who you know,
Speaker 2: fantastic economics reporter there. He says, massive encroachment by Jeff
Speaker 2: Bezos in the Washington Post opinion section today makes clear
Speaker 2: dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there.
Speaker 4: I still have not felt.
Speaker 2: Encroachment on my journalism on the news side of coverage,
Speaker 2: but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side, I
Speaker 2: will be quitting immediately. And letting you know, Marty Baron
Speaker 2: had weighed in before, previous editor in chief of the
Speaker 2: Washington Post, very well known. We put this up on
Speaker 2: the screen from the Daily Beast. He says, there is
Speaker 2: no doubt in my mind that Bezos is doing this
Speaker 2: on a fear of the consequences for his other business interests,
Speaker 2: Amazon source of his wealth, and Blue Origin, which represents
Speaker 2: his lifelong passion for space exploration. Baron wrote Wednesday, he
Speaker 2: has prioritized those commercial interests over the Post, and he
Speaker 2: is betraying the post long standing principles in order to
Speaker 2: do so. I think that is fairly undeniable at this point.
Speaker 2: And he also points out which I didn't even realize.
Speaker 2: He says, it was only weeks ago the Post described
Speaker 2: itself as providing coverage for quote all of America. Now
Speaker 2: its opinion pages will be open to only some of America, though,
Speaker 2: who think exactly as he does. Also worth noting soccer
Speaker 2: Amazon had floated that what forty million dollar Millennia documentary,
Speaker 2: So also, you know, funneling cash into the First Ladies
Speaker 2: Bank account to the Trump and the Trump family bank
Speaker 2: account there as well as one more way of careering
Speaker 2: favor the Trump administration. Pretty happy with this. You can
Speaker 2: put this tweet up on the screen. So this is
Speaker 2: Stephen Chung's assistant is the President and White House Director
Speaker 2: of Communications with the Little Grinch evil smile. In reply
Speaker 2: to Jeff Bezos's note that he sent out here and
Speaker 2: last piece I'll put up on the screen. This is
Speaker 2: from Sarabamari, who actually writes a newsletter.
Speaker 4: With Emily over at Unheard Ryan.
Speaker 2: Emily had him on the show recently, and he says,
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos rebrands a Washington Post as the Billionaires think Tank.
Speaker 2: And he says, one of the world's richest men once
Speaker 2: his newspaper push policies that favor the rich. That's the
Speaker 2: upshot of Jeff Bezos's announcement today. Henceforth, the Amazon boss
Speaker 2: decreed his paper's comment pages will promote libertarianism, quote free
Speaker 2: markets and personal liberty, and will not publish opinions contradicting
Speaker 2: these central principles. While the story has a dog bites
Speaker 2: man quality breaking tycoon prefers low taxes and weak unions,
Speaker 2: it's still a dismaying turn since the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 2: comment pages, where I cut my teeth, are also strictly
Speaker 2: committed to free market libertarianism. It leaves the New York
Speaker 2: Times opinion page as the only national print outlet where
Speaker 2: writers can argue for greater union density and more robust
Speaker 2: antitrust enforcement, say or against Wall streets following out of
Speaker 2: the real economy. And I'm sure Stoler could spend hours
Speaker 2: regaling us with tales of how Jeff Bezos is the
Speaker 2: antithesis of someone who was committed to actual free market competition.
Speaker 2: So just coming out and overtly backing this pro alergarch
Speaker 2: agenda and also signaling like a right word shift for
Speaker 2: the paper in the era of.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean, though it's actually it's not right
Speaker 3: word in a sense. It's just the most naked like
Speaker 3: when you say personal liberty and free markets, it's really
Speaker 3: just a libertarian like mask off.
Speaker 1: Actually it's not even libertarian.
Speaker 3: It's what corporate capture libertarians, and it's like corporate libertarian.
Speaker 1: And just openly saying it.
Speaker 3: You don't believe in personal liberty, dude, Like you don't
Speaker 3: believe in free markets. It's just the worshiping of those
Speaker 3: ideals and frankly tricking a bunch of idiots into backing
Speaker 3: it so that you continue to get your tax benefit cuts,
Speaker 3: your you know, all preferential treatment, making sure that you
Speaker 3: don't face even like modest workforce concessions.
Speaker 1: That's what this whole thing is.
Speaker 3: And look, I mean, in a way, thank you for
Speaker 3: telling us the truth. Finally, it was obvious for some
Speaker 3: of us. Perhaps it will be obvious to the rest
Speaker 3: of you, and maybe the corporate pressure will stop defending them,
Speaker 3: although I highly doobt that because they're subject to.
Speaker 1: Many of the same pressures. All Right, we will see
Speaker 1: you guys later.
Speaker 3: Make sure you guys subscribe so you can watch the
Speaker 3: row Hit Choprah interview. Really looking forward personally to taking
Speaker 3: a look at it. Supporting that type of work. Here
Speaker 3: we do a breaking points otherwise, we'll see you later.