Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 2: We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do
Speaker 2: we have, Crystal, and indeed we do.
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal published a piece about Biden's age, and boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, there were some upset liberals morning Joe freaking
Speaker 1: out Holsworth, I'll meltdown. Is interesting. The whole thing is interesting.
Speaker 1: We've also got a look at Trump's shortlists for VP.
Speaker 1: Kind of an interesting list there too, so we'll dig
Speaker 1: into that. A new survey has revealed that the number
Speaker 1: one policy priority for gen z is housing affordability, something
Speaker 1: we have been covering here quite a bit but does
Speaker 1: not get nearly enough tension here in Washing.
Speaker 4: We also have an interesting story for you.
Speaker 1: So a remote tribe was given starlink and gained internet access,
Speaker 1: and it's not going so well. A lot of revealing
Speaker 1: things about what you know, internet does to us, some
Speaker 1: modern society, and new research about our children's brains, and
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff to get into there. We also
Speaker 1: have some very serious news coming out of Israel and
Speaker 1: the Gaza Strip, in particular New York Times revealing that
Speaker 1: the Israeli governments behind an influence up targeting American lawmakers.
Speaker 1: This comes as we are just waking up to additional
Speaker 1: carnage in the Gaza Strip. Another Israeli airstrike targeting a school,
Speaker 1: dozens of Palestinians dead.
Speaker 4: A lot going on there to get into.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Columbia Law Review they published a single pro Palestinian
Speaker 1: article and the board was so upset that they killed
Speaker 1: the entire website, not a joke, took down the entire
Speaker 1: website because of this one article. So we have a
Speaker 1: fantastic guest in to talk to all of that.
Speaker 2: Yes, right before we get to any of that, we
Speaker 2: have an amazing counterpoints debate that is going to come
Speaker 2: for everybody, for the public tomorrow, for premium describers tonight.
Speaker 3: It is about the Trump trial.
Speaker 2: We've got a maga lawyer versus somebody who's defending the case.
Speaker 2: So if you want to actually look into both the
Speaker 2: legal details, because they do argue on that front, but
Speaker 2: also politically, you want to go ahead and subscribe. It's
Speaker 2: going to be great television Breakingpoints dot com. Also just
Speaker 2: for everybody in general, for any other question, support at
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Speaker 3: If for every issues with your account.
Speaker 2: Now, as Chrystal said, the Wall Street Journal really poked
Speaker 2: the hornet's nest here by reporting the most obvious story
Speaker 2: in the world. Let's put it up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Behind closed doors, Biden shows signs of slipping.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: Really, just behind closed doors, it's the only place.
Speaker 2: Participants in meetings said that the eighty one year old
Speaker 2: president performed poorly at times. The White House said Biden
Speaker 2: is sharp and his critics are playing partisan politics. Now,
Speaker 2: I encourage everybody to read this. It's a couple thousand words.
Speaker 2: What they do is they have compiled this piece for
Speaker 2: three separate meetings focusing on Ukraine AID, on debt sealing
Speaker 2: AID or sorry enough, previous economic negotiations, and others that
Speaker 2: compile in concrete terms, how and when the exact circumstances
Speaker 2: of Biden kind of losing it manifest themselves in private meetings,
Speaker 2: because that's always been the span. Yeah, and public he
Speaker 2: may lose his step every once in a while, but
Speaker 2: he's sharp, he's there.
Speaker 4: He's a dynamo behind he tell you he is a
Speaker 4: dynamo and there.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, what comes through here is just the
Speaker 2: Pravda esque nature of how they want to deny reality.
Speaker 2: For example, forty one people, as I said, were interviewed
Speaker 2: for this piece, including many Democratic lawmakers who share details
Speaker 2: and recordings, and in fact, one of those congressmen, Representative
Speaker 2: Gregory Meeks, was explicitly told after the White House was
Speaker 2: told that he had been interviewed by the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal to call back the reporter and just say, you know,
Speaker 2: I should just give you a callback, According to Representative
Speaker 2: Gregory Meeks, so why House wanted me to set the
Speaker 2: record straight.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They also had people like Hakeen Jeffries, the House Minority Leader,
Speaker 2: give quotes like this quote, Biden is incredibly strong, forceful,
Speaker 2: and decisive. I mean, this is like North Korea level propaganda,
Speaker 2: and I think we have that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they they dis closed, they say after the offices
Speaker 1: of several Democrats aired with the White House are recording
Speaker 1: or details about what was asking our interviews. Some of
Speaker 1: those lawmakers spoke to the journal a second time and
Speaker 1: once again emphasized Biden's strength. So the White House was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what are they asking you about? You need to call
Speaker 1: them back and tell tell them just how amazing he is,
Speaker 1: and you know, be more strident in your defense of him.
Speaker 4: So very clear what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so none of this will be a
Speaker 1: surprise to anyone with eyeballs and years who've been watching
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. Some of the details just to give you
Speaker 1: a sense of what they're reporting behind closed doors. They
Speaker 1: lead the piece by saying, when President Biden met with
Speaker 1: congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate
Speaker 1: a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that
Speaker 1: some participants struggled to hear him. That's something you see
Speaker 1: repeated a couple times in this piece. In various meetings.
Speaker 1: According to five people familiar with the meeting, he read
Speaker 1: from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods,
Speaker 1: and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some
Speaker 1: in the room wondered whether he had tuned down.
Speaker 4: There were other anecdotes.
Speaker 1: Mike Johnson was involved in one where he seemed to
Speaker 1: not grasp of the details of his own policy. What
Speaker 1: is described overall is what they call a quote unquote unevenness.
Speaker 1: So it's not that he's one hundred percent adult one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the time. Sometimes he appears sharp, and
Speaker 1: sometimes he appears, as he reportedly did in this meeting,
Speaker 1: where he's kind of out of it and he's really
Speaker 1: reliant on note cards and defers to everyone in the room.
Speaker 4: You aren't even sure whether he's awake or asleep.
Speaker 1: His speech is very difficult to understand, both because it's
Speaker 1: soft and also because he fails to annunciate. You get
Speaker 1: the same defenses from the White House as oh, way,
Speaker 1: this is nonsense. You know, they actually what a great
Speaker 1: job he's doing as President of the United States. They
Speaker 1: also go back to his speech impediment, the stutter. The
Speaker 1: one thing I'll say so what opened this piece up
Speaker 1: for criticism from liberals is the fact that they couldn't
Speaker 1: get any Democrats on the record to say this. So
Speaker 1: all of the on the record comments are from like
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson and other Republicans, and so
Speaker 1: that's what opened this piece up to the criticism that
Speaker 1: it was like a partisan hit job. But the other
Speaker 1: thing that's funny to me, saga is that we go
Speaker 1: through these periods of time that it's like, there's certain
Speaker 1: moments when you're allowed to say these things out loud.
Speaker 4: Remember there was a moment.
Speaker 1: A little while ago after the report came out, and
Speaker 1: you know, Biden was this like adult old man, and
Speaker 1: they're saying, I don't even know if you can prosecute
Speaker 1: this guy, because the jurists is going to think he
Speaker 1: doesn't really know what's going on.
Speaker 4: And none of this was intentional.
Speaker 1: There was a moment there where there was some elite
Speaker 1: ability as reclined, et cetera, to say these things out loud.
Speaker 1: And now that window has once again closed and the
Speaker 1: ranks have been closed once again. You know, it's very
Speaker 1: clear Biden is not going anywhere. He's not being replaced.
Speaker 1: So we're once again in a place where you are
Speaker 1: not allowed to say these things that are patently obvious
Speaker 1: to probably ninety percent of.
Speaker 3: A enters extraordinarily well said.
Speaker 2: It's like this constant oscillation between he's too old, we
Speaker 2: got to replace him. Actually, no, he's completely fine, as
Speaker 2: opposed to the best defense you could really muster is
Speaker 2: his name is not Donald Trump, and he's fine.
Speaker 3: He's fine ish. That's basically it.
Speaker 2: But Biden is such a incredible egomaniac that any suggestion
Speaker 2: that he's lost any step whatsoever is met with the
Speaker 2: full fury of the White House. In that Time magazine
Speaker 2: interview that we spoke about on Tuesday, they ask him,
Speaker 2: can an eighty five year old really do the job
Speaker 2: of president? And he was just like, He's like, I
Speaker 2: could do it better than you. He's like, I could
Speaker 2: take you. Like, looking across at these two like mid
Speaker 2: forties journalists, that's just obviously not true. I mean again,
Speaker 2: he's asking us to deceive, you know, to not believe
Speaker 2: our eyes. Like that's basically what is being as it's
Speaker 2: again nineteen eighty four Pravda level. And then speaking of
Speaker 2: Pravda and of state media and propaganda, you have regime
Speaker 2: apparatchicks basically Morning Joe here, Mika and Joe Scarborough absolutely
Speaker 2: losing their minds over this Wall Street journal story.
Speaker 5: Let's take a listen, people around Mike Johnson and admit
Speaker 5: that this was basically House Republicans whacking.
Speaker 4: Why didn't they just ask Marjorie Taylor.
Speaker 5: Green Well exactly why didn't Yeah, they could, Lauren Bobert.
Speaker 5: You see about those guys right there. I've spent time
Speaker 5: with both of those guys privately. I've spent time with
Speaker 5: Biden and Trump. Privately, I've spent time with every House
Speaker 5: speaker over the past thirty years. And Joe Biden, I'm
Speaker 5: not just it's just not close. If you want to
Speaker 5: talk about international affairs, if you want to talk about
Speaker 5: how to get bipartisan legislation, Joe Biden is light years
Speaker 5: ahead of all of them. And I could also talk
Speaker 5: about what the French delegation said when they were negotiating
Speaker 5: with him, and what they told me and friends that
Speaker 5: I have in that French delegation who are part of
Speaker 5: those negotiations, who said that mccrawan came out like, wow, okay,
Speaker 5: it's a lot tougher than we expected. And actually I
Speaker 5: think mccrawn sort of got his back up because Biden
Speaker 5: was pressing so hard. I can tell you the same
Speaker 5: thing about Middle Eastern leaders that I talked to. Nobody's
Speaker 5: saying he's not coaching. Some people are suggesting that he
Speaker 5: he you know, it's a bit too tough in negotiations,
Speaker 5: that the United States throws their weight around a little
Speaker 5: bit too much.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, the French said that he's good Crystal barely
Speaker 2: is the sharpest tack in the history of France.
Speaker 1: Again Dynamo behind closed doors, like okay, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe let us see it.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I want to.
Speaker 2: Address the Republican thing too, because it's like you said, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know why they have to rely on Republican on
Speaker 2: the record quotes because.
Speaker 3: The Democrats won't call on the record say what's actually
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again, to actually be very fair to the
Speaker 2: journal they even quoted Republicans who defended him, really elderly
Speaker 2: senators who said, no, yeah, actually what you see is
Speaker 2: what you get. He's okay, you know, he's sharp, not
Speaker 2: sharp as attack. But they defended him saying, I've never
Speaker 2: been in a meeting with him where I didn't think
Speaker 2: that he didn't one percent have what it takes. So
Speaker 2: what they're upset about is the very concrete examples. Kevin
Speaker 2: McCarthy maybe being the best one. Is he a partisan guy, absolutely,
Speaker 2: but he's like listen, I used to meet with him
Speaker 2: when he was vice president eight years ago. I went
Speaker 2: over to his house all the time, and in fact,
Speaker 2: he's always had this reliance on note cards.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I love that.
Speaker 2: That's the defense is that, oh no, he's always been
Speaker 2: a scripted buffoon, being told exactly what to say by
Speaker 2: his aides or and nowadays, whenever I meet with him,
Speaker 2: I am honestly shocked at his diminishment. They also talk
Speaker 2: about in many of those meetings where, like you highlighted
Speaker 2: from the story.
Speaker 3: He doesn't take a commanding role.
Speaker 2: He'll very frequently just defer to a lot of the
Speaker 2: people around him. And again they just say, this is
Speaker 2: standard operating procedure. Even if that's a young and healthy president.
Speaker 3: That worries me.
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily want a person who doesn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of thoughts, who is not driving the meeting, who's
Speaker 2: constantly deferring to his advisors. You are the elected president
Speaker 2: of the United States. So even their own defense, it
Speaker 2: just doesn't pass a smell test on any of this.
Speaker 1: There's a few other things, So to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I think if people felt like the economy was great,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't really care that much about Biden's age even
Speaker 1: if they had a sense of like, yeah, maybe sometimes
Speaker 1: in meetings he's not what he as sharp as he
Speaker 1: used to be, or sometimes he has these moments, or
Speaker 1: he's not as forceful, you know, when he's giving a speech,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I think if people felt like the administration
Speaker 1: had delivered for them and had been effective then and
Speaker 1: was in control both on domestic policy and on foreign policy,
Speaker 1: I think that they would be able to overlook these things.
Speaker 1: But when you have a sense both that Okay, my
Speaker 1: personal finances things are not going well.
Speaker 4: And I don't have confidence you're the guy.
Speaker 1: That's going to be able to get it together to
Speaker 1: write the ship, that's when it becomes really a really
Speaker 1: difficult combination.
Speaker 4: And we should also say too, and people.
Speaker 1: Were pointing this down, I won't be the only one
Speaker 1: that you know, Biden really he didn't fully commit to this,
Speaker 1: but he really suggested when he was running for president
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty that he may be a one term
Speaker 1: president that he would be, you know, the bridge to
Speaker 1: the next generation. So it wasn't just us or the
Speaker 1: American people were like, you know, that's really an advanced
Speaker 1: age to be holding this incredibly powerful, incredibly demanding job.
Speaker 1: He himself was basically suggesting that when he was running
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty one. Other thing I want to
Speaker 1: address is, you know, part of what Biden's advocates and
Speaker 1: what Joe Scarborough here are saying is like, well, just
Speaker 1: look at the results, look at how effective he's been,
Speaker 1: and he shouts down in particular foreign policy, and how
Speaker 1: amazing and incredible. It's like, what country do you live
Speaker 1: and what world do you live in? Do you see
Speaker 1: the way that he's just sort of careening from humiliation
Speaker 1: to humiliation when it comes to the Middle East in particular,
Speaker 1: when it comes to Israel in particular.
Speaker 4: I mean, his own.
Speaker 1: Aids have basically acknowledged, he's basically acknowledged that the Bear
Speaker 1: hug Net Yahoo strategy was an utter and complete failure,
Speaker 1: failure every single quote unquote red line, none of them,
Speaker 1: of course, which were actually red lines, but all of
Speaker 1: the concerns that were expressed, all of the tough conversations
Speaker 1: that were being had behind the scenes, none of them
Speaker 1: amounted to jack shit. So how can you look at
Speaker 1: that and say, oh, this is so effective and he's
Speaker 1: so commanding, and he's so in charge, and this is
Speaker 1: going so well.
Speaker 4: So you know, just on every.
Speaker 1: Level, it's gaslighting, it's asking people to not believe what
Speaker 1: they see in front of their eyes, and it's also
Speaker 1: paying an incredibly different portrait of the record itself. Which
Speaker 1: again I think if the record was effective and people
Speaker 1: felt like he was delivering for them, his administration was
Speaker 1: delivering for them, Yeah, I think they would be willing
Speaker 1: to overlook these things. But when you put the two together,
Speaker 1: that's when you end up with a very dire reelection landscape.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no, it's very well said, and you know, with
Speaker 2: what we see in terms of the public and in
Speaker 2: the private, it is clearly a man who is not
Speaker 2: fully in control, or whenever he is in control, does
Speaker 2: so at the whims of his emotions, which this is
Speaker 2: one of those where it's not even necessarily him being old.
Speaker 2: What they always say about being old is it just
Speaker 2: makes me more of who you already are. He's always
Speaker 2: been that way, this stubborn guy that's always been from
Speaker 2: the very beginning.
Speaker 3: Of his career.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there on the screen, as we
Speaker 2: can continue to see here with Joe Scarborough, he says,
Speaker 2: I have spent a good time talking to Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 2: through the years and hours of Biden in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: There is no comparison. Biden is far sharper, more intellectually curious,
Speaker 2: and far more insightful on global affairs than any house
Speaker 2: GOP speaker I have met in over thirty years. It's
Speaker 2: just again, he wants us to believe fake version of
Speaker 2: who the man that we can all see in front
Speaker 2: of our eyes is. And funnily enough, whenever it comes
Speaker 2: to the American people, they can see right through it too.
Speaker 3: Now I definitely agree with you.
Speaker 2: If the economy is doing better, I actually think it'd
Speaker 2: be okay because people will be like, yeah, whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: Reagan was old, we reelected him, everything was fine. But
Speaker 2: let's put this up there on the screen when things
Speaker 2: are not going well and you're banking on everyone just
Speaker 2: saying but Trump, but Trump, but Trump. Really, what you
Speaker 2: see is that Trump versus Biden. The conviction so far
Speaker 2: is not having a big impact yet. This is from
Speaker 2: New York Magazine in their review of a few of
Speaker 2: the polls that have come out since the conviction of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump has come forward. You've seen a slight movement,
Speaker 2: maybe two points or so. That's been very temporary, but overall,
Speaker 2: the big promise of the convicted felon really moving everything
Speaker 2: has just not materialized.
Speaker 3: It. Over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: We see a consistent thing in all of the national
Speaker 2: polling is specifically a lot of the voters Democrats I
Speaker 2: supposedly care about young people, black people, and Hispanics, they're like, look, Trump, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's an asshole. In fact, many of them agree that
Speaker 2: he should have been convicted. They agree with the conviction,
Speaker 2: and they still say, but I think that he represents
Speaker 2: some sort of major change, and the economy is just
Speaker 2: not very good under Biden. So a lot of this
Speaker 2: is coming back or reverting to the fundamentals, which Biden
Speaker 2: was really the greatest beneficiary of not having any real
Speaker 2: fundamental Elections twenty twenty was a crazy year for a
Speaker 2: variety of reasons, mostly because of COVID twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: the same thing he got the great abortion bump and
Speaker 2: defied history. But you know, the only question is, is
Speaker 2: like that really that tail and effect is that really
Speaker 2: going to hang on here? I still think there's a chance,
Speaker 2: but not nearly. Is one a good as it used
Speaker 2: to be?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I would, I would say that's the case. Put up
Speaker 1: eight eight guys these screenshots with the voter comment this
Speaker 1: is so funny because it just shows you, like, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as we try to get in the head
Speaker 1: of the average voter, you can never get in the
Speaker 1: head of the average voter.
Speaker 4: They are their own that they have their own love
Speaker 4: view of the world. And I genuinely love this.
Speaker 1: So this was a frank once moderated focus group post
Speaker 1: Trump conviction, and we've got this guy Ben. He's forty two,
Speaker 1: he's from Texas, he's white, he's a college advisor. And
Speaker 1: there were a few a few comments he made that
Speaker 1: people were taking note of with regards to the conviction.
Speaker 1: So one of them, he says, listen of the Stormy
Speaker 1: Daniel stuff. We're all regular people with regular jobs. If
Speaker 1: any of us all did like one thousands of what
Speaker 1: this guy did for being on trial, the financial stuff
Speaker 1: that forms the bribes and meeting with people, we all
Speaker 1: would have been fired. True, we all would have been
Speaker 1: out on our butts applying for jobs at grocery stores
Speaker 1: or driving uber or whatnot. You're saying it's all like
Speaker 1: a political theater in farce and whatnot. But he was
Speaker 1: having an affair with a porn star, and not a
Speaker 1: particularly attractive one at that. There are so many wonderful
Speaker 1: porn stars out there, So the first comment is about, like, really,
Speaker 1: this porn star or other, so much better porn stars
Speaker 1: out there for you to have an affair with. But
Speaker 1: that's not all from Ben So talks about how he
Speaker 1: wants a president.
Speaker 3: This is his quote.
Speaker 4: I want a president who's.
Speaker 1: Gonna be able to cover up a one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars bribe to Stormy Daniels. If he can't
Speaker 1: pull that off, I'm not gonna trust him with the
Speaker 1: nuclear football. This seems like such an easy thing for
Speaker 1: him to screw up.
Speaker 4: I'm kind of leaning toward Biden.
Speaker 1: He's like, listen, he can't even cover up you're a
Speaker 1: fair with a porn star properly, Like, how are you
Speaker 1: competent to run govern I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think I'm going towards the other Kuy.
Speaker 3: I love that logic.
Speaker 1: It's so amazing, it's perfect, perfect. He's got a point
Speaker 1: to be honest with.
Speaker 2: A certain way. You could see it. You can kind
Speaker 2: of see what he's talking about. We also have to
Speaker 2: pull the latest Biden moment, which is just I guess
Speaker 2: odd is.
Speaker 3: Odd The kindest way to put this. This is what people.
Speaker 2: Think about whenever people are like man Biden, he's really
Speaker 2: a hold. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: Do you think the condition will have an impact on.
Speaker 3: We'd want to hear your thoughts on the paracter.
Speaker 4: For people who are just listening.
Speaker 1: He's walking on at this presser very slowly. Old man
Speaker 1: gait I saw people online saying, looks like he's being
Speaker 1: controlled by puppets, you know, it's very like.
Speaker 4: And then he stops.
Speaker 1: Somebody shouts a question, he stops, He slowly turns and
Speaker 1: gives this weird grin and then slowly turns back, and
Speaker 1: it's just I mean, listen, is it a b Of course,
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. But it was one of
Speaker 1: those things that went crazy viral because it just was
Speaker 1: odd and it showed off all of his like old
Speaker 1: man gates and tendencies and whatever.
Speaker 4: And he's, you know, producer maquiity.
Speaker 1: He's probably trying to come up with some like witty retort,
Speaker 1: but his brain just doesn't have that in it anymore.
Speaker 1: So he just turns back and keeps walking off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have I have a.
Speaker 2: Couple of friends on the White House Press Corps, and
Speaker 2: like what they tell me is that with him, it's
Speaker 2: it's all comes across in the camera too. But it's
Speaker 2: like when he puts those aviators on, he really believes
Speaker 2: he's forty years old again, Like in his head, he
Speaker 2: believes he still got it all there, and any suggestion,
Speaker 2: any even inkling that something is moving away, he just
Speaker 2: cannot mentally handle that. And on a certain level, you know,
Speaker 2: I think we can all empathize. We know a lot
Speaker 2: of there's a lot of old people who want to
Speaker 2: feel that way. But he's running for reelection and same
Speaker 2: thing there with his gait, Like look at him walk,
Speaker 2: look at the way that he talks. Remember the Afghanistan
Speaker 2: press conference, That one's burned into my mind because that's
Speaker 2: the first time I was like, oh my god. Whenever
Speaker 2: he was like whispering and leaning, you know, they're talking
Speaker 2: about some of those who died, I was like, oh my,
Speaker 2: you can't do this, you know.
Speaker 1: Like mixing up the president of Egypt, telling stories about
Speaker 1: you know, the German chancellor been dead.
Speaker 4: For how many year?
Speaker 3: I died?
Speaker 1: Ten years and retelling the same anecdote and again These
Speaker 1: are things if you have someone in your life, if
Speaker 1: you've you know, loved dearly and who's aging, like these
Speaker 1: will all seem very familiar to you.
Speaker 4: The inability to grasp.
Speaker 1: Certain words at certain times, the mixing up of people
Speaker 1: of events of years, the forgetting that you just told
Speaker 1: this anecdote, you know, five minutes ago, and now you're
Speaker 1: telling this anecdote again.
Speaker 4: These are all just very common, typical things that we see.
Speaker 1: And you know, I also have to say, if Democrats
Speaker 1: really believe this rhetoric about how the whole country is
Speaker 1: at stake and democracy is on the line, et cetera, Like,
Speaker 1: why do you close ranks against this guy?
Speaker 4: We see in every poll he underperforms.
Speaker 1: Every single Democratic Senate candidate, all of them, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: He underperforms them.
Speaker 1: I am at this point really convinced that you could
Speaker 1: put almost anyone else into the slot and they would
Speaker 1: outperform Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I know that goes against history because typically there's a.
Speaker 1: Huge incumbency advantage, but you have a very specific and
Speaker 1: unique set of circumstances here, and Democrats decided to close ranks.
Speaker 1: I think in large part after the midterm elections, went
Speaker 1: better than expected. That kind of closed the door to
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom or whoever was playing with the idea of
Speaker 1: jumping in the race. And now they're just locked into
Speaker 1: denying the reality that's in front of all of our faces.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And so what we really are going to watch
Speaker 2: is a very similar thing that happened in the lead
Speaker 2: up to the twenty twenty election. So in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: when Biden is losing his first two primaries and caucuses
Speaker 2: and he's a joke fifth place, everybody, including MSNBC's Andrew Mitchell,
Speaker 2: is like, this guy's way too old.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 3: Which Castro was?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 2: Was it Joaquin? I think maybe Julian which whatever one
Speaker 2: was running for office. He even calls him out on
Speaker 2: the debate stage. This is open, it's acknowledged Democratic elites.
Speaker 2: We're allowed to talk about Julian.
Speaker 3: There we go. I apologize, they're twins. They literally look
Speaker 3: the same. It's not my fault. But then you know
Speaker 3: what happens.
Speaker 2: The Atlantic article comes out and he becomes the nominee,
Speaker 2: and then the COVID is a national crisis. So what happens, Oh,
Speaker 2: he has a magical stutter that he had as a child,
Speaker 2: and then it happened to just re emerge when he turned,
Speaker 2: oh around seventy eight years old. And even though we've
Speaker 2: all seen him in public life, including many of these reporters,
Speaker 2: know him personally, know that he could speak cogently in
Speaker 2: the past. I've played here, I've done monologues in the
Speaker 2: past of his meet the press appearances over the years
Speaker 2: up until twenty seventeen, completely different individual. I personally saw
Speaker 2: him on the campaign trail in twenty twelve, completely different
Speaker 2: man to what he is. But it was after that
Speaker 2: article then the attacks come out. No, we're not allowed
Speaker 2: to talk about it. So very similar thing. Ezra Klein
Speaker 2: can say it, Nate Silver could write it. That was kosher,
Speaker 2: that was okay. Now it's official. We're less than six
Speaker 2: months to election day. We got to put thing, you know,
Speaker 2: the guardrails back on. But this is where we don't
Speaker 2: live in the monoculture media moments anymore. Every person on TikTok,
Speaker 2: Instagram and everywhere can see these means proliferate everywhere, so
Speaker 2: they can't cover it up anymore.
Speaker 3: So good luck, good luck to you all, I can say.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we got some interesting Trump VP news.
Speaker 1: All right, that's worth taking into This.
Speaker 2: Came out very late last night. So let's go ahe
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. Let's actually
Speaker 2: get into the official list.
Speaker 4: I need to be that Doug burgham is now I
Speaker 4: did not see that.
Speaker 3: Guys right up at the top. Guys.
Speaker 2: All right, So the Trump campaign has officially sent a
Speaker 2: vice presidential vetting paperwork. For those who don't know the
Speaker 2: paperwork thing, it's like you have to fill out all.
Speaker 3: Your stock investments.
Speaker 2: Have you ever hired an illegal immigrant anything they could
Speaker 2: ever be compromising on you, et cetera. So the list
Speaker 2: so far Doug burghm Marco Rubio, jd Vance, Tim Scott,
Speaker 2: Byron Donald's, Elise Stephonic and Ben Carson.
Speaker 3: So those are the people who are on the list.
Speaker 2: I also saw Axios this morning saying that Tom Cotton
Speaker 2: similarly received paperwork. We'll see here the only individual, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Tom Cotton is the only individual here that was added
Speaker 2: to the Axios list who was not included in the
Speaker 2: Associated Press.
Speaker 3: But those are the so called VP shortlist.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's Trump and things can literally change at
Speaker 2: any time. One name that didn't appear on there that
Speaker 2: some people have spoken to me about is Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Speaker 3: I would not sleep on her.
Speaker 2: The only thing ding against her is she didn't endorse
Speaker 2: Trump immediately whenever he asked her to. She wanted to
Speaker 2: see how it played out with Ron DeSantis. But that
Speaker 2: would be the only name I think I would add
Speaker 2: to this one.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 2: As I've said, I always think it's going to be
Speaker 2: one of three people. Maybe Bergham, now I guess since
Speaker 2: he's filthy rich. But I either think it's going to
Speaker 2: be Tim Scott, it's going to be JD Vance or
Speaker 2: at least Deefonic, all depending on the whims of the
Speaker 2: candidate in the moment. If he wants the race card
Speaker 2: that he can play on TV, we're going with Tim Scott.
Speaker 2: If he wants the woman because he thinks abortion is
Speaker 2: going to be a major issue, he's going with the Lease,
Speaker 2: who is much more socially modern than most other people
Speaker 2: in the GOP. She's literally a New York Republican. And
Speaker 2: then if he's one hundred percent style and he wants
Speaker 2: somebody who is like his ID who can help manage
Speaker 2: the bureaucracy, that's when you pick JD. But you only
Speaker 2: do that if you're feeling real confident there to win.
Speaker 2: So that's where my mind.
Speaker 4: Is at with all three.
Speaker 1: I don't want to even try to get inside Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's head to I just don't think that I have
Speaker 1: a good read on how he would be looking at
Speaker 1: any of these names. But a few things that were
Speaker 1: interesting to me was first, Aleistaphonic being the only woman
Speaker 1: on there. That's surprising to me because previously a lot
Speaker 1: of the commentary was that he was very likely to
Speaker 1: pick a woman. We've had a lot of women who've
Speaker 1: been floated, from Carrie Lake to Christine Hoam, who I think,
Speaker 1: you know, her chances really fell apart with the whole
Speaker 1: book situation. And I think also because her state that
Speaker 1: she's governor of has such an extreme abortion laws.
Speaker 4: I think that also was.
Speaker 1: A problem for him. But you know, there have been
Speaker 1: a variety of women who've been floating. The only one though,
Speaker 1: that makes it on the list is a least to Phonics,
Speaker 1: so that was interesting. You have three different A lot
Speaker 1: of these choices, as we see on the Democratic side,
Speaker 1: there also filtered through an identity lens, so you have
Speaker 1: three different black men. That's interesting to me. And Mark
Speaker 1: or Rubio is obviously Latino. There is clearly some shift
Speaker 1: in both among black men and among Latino men towards Republicans.
Speaker 1: Maybe Trump is thinking, I don't really buy into this logic,
Speaker 1: by the way, but this is like standard thinking. Maybe
Speaker 1: he's thinking that if he puts a black man or
Speaker 1: a Latino man on the ticket, that will further the
Speaker 1: appeal to those demographic groups. Last time around, we know
Speaker 1: he made a very strategic and very smart electorally smart
Speaker 1: choice with Mike Pence. He knew at that point he
Speaker 1: was a little shaky with evangelicals, and Mike Pence was
Speaker 1: meant to be a signal to them and to sort
Speaker 1: of like ease their minds about going with this guy
Speaker 1: who's not religious at all, Cereal Philander and all of
Speaker 1: those sorts of things. That was a very wise choice,
Speaker 1: and so I suspect, especially given the fact that not
Speaker 1: only are his electoral prospects on the line, but potentially
Speaker 1: his own personal freedom is on the line, that he
Speaker 1: will make a similarly strategic choice of whatever group he
Speaker 1: thinks needs to be stored up.
Speaker 4: Which is why I mean the one that I feel most.
Speaker 1: Skeptical of is JD fans, because I just don't see
Speaker 1: what else that electorally brings to the ticket for him.
Speaker 2: What's that's the question is how is he, like I said,
Speaker 2: I only think he's going to pick jdve He's like,
Speaker 2: I'm one hundred percent going to win this election.
Speaker 3: Now, it's all about governance.
Speaker 2: But having met Trump, spent some time with him, I
Speaker 2: very rarely speaks about government.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the issues.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: One thing you could say is that Jeddy has been
Speaker 2: doing a pretty good job recently of serving as like
Speaker 2: the media like this is the thing about Trump, it's
Speaker 2: all about image. So he really enjoyed the you know,
Speaker 2: he goes on CNN and goes toe to toe with
Speaker 2: Wolf Blitzer or Caitlyn Collins or whatever. But let's be honest,
Speaker 2: all of these candidates who are underneath JD can also
Speaker 2: do it. At least Stefanic that's her bread and butter.
Speaker 2: She emerged as his attack dog on while it was
Speaker 2: impeachment one and impeachment too.
Speaker 4: They're all also going to do that, whether they're pick
Speaker 4: or not.
Speaker 1: So it's not better than that if you know, if
Speaker 1: they're not on the ticket, and then you know, with Burgum,
Speaker 1: I think it's just like he gets the RFK junior
Speaker 1: choice of like, listen, I just need the money, so
Speaker 1: come on board, buddy, Like.
Speaker 2: Let's not diminish that, because, as I understand it, so
Speaker 2: Trump has got legal bills coming out of every or
Speaker 2: coming out of wherever. Trump has got over one hundred
Speaker 2: million legal bills. He is hitting up every rich person
Speaker 2: on the planet right now. And in fact, there is
Speaker 2: a major concerted effort behind the scenes for those two
Speaker 2: of us who are like billionaire watchers. You had the
Speaker 2: Sequoia founder Doug Leone come out and endorse Trump.
Speaker 3: This guy's worth like eight billion. He just has this.
Speaker 3: He's got this upcoming fundraiser tonight.
Speaker 2: Actually with David Snacks and Chamath Paula Hapatilla over an
Speaker 2: all in podcast. They actually sold that entire thing out
Speaker 2: at Silicon Valley. There's a lot of billionaires who will
Speaker 2: be in attendance. You've got Trump getting this hundred million
Speaker 2: dollar check from Miriam Adelson allegedly in exchange for no
Speaker 2: Palacitian sovereignty over the West Bank. You've got Nikki Haley
Speaker 2: who recently just took a Gulf Stands jets of Miriam's
Speaker 2: jet to Israel that we're spotting we've got I mean, like,
Speaker 2: if you watch these things very closely, he is hard
Speaker 2: up more for big institutional money this time around than
Speaker 2: at any previous time. And in fact, just yesterday I
Speaker 2: read an article about how small dollar donors, both on
Speaker 2: the Democratic and Republican side are at all time lows. Yeah,
Speaker 2: largely because the Dems tapped the crap out of it
Speaker 2: during Roe versus Way. They've raised and squeezed every dollar
Speaker 2: that they can, and Trump's been hitting his list for
Speaker 2: what like nine years straight.
Speaker 3: Now, and they had at this one and they hit.
Speaker 2: So even though yes, he raised his fifty to three million,
Speaker 2: on the aggregate, that dollar is an all time low,
Speaker 2: campaigns are still just as expensive.
Speaker 3: Both sides are going to spend well over a billion.
Speaker 3: So what do you do?
Speaker 2: Hire the billionaire? Not a bad strategy, I would add,
Speaker 2: not a bad strategy.
Speaker 4: Well, and you're right that Bergham.
Speaker 1: It's not just his own personal net worth, which is
Speaker 1: quite high. But also he would be a sort of
Speaker 1: sign of comfort. In the same way that Mike Pence
Speaker 1: gave comfort to evangelicals, he would give comfort to the
Speaker 1: Wall Street types who already have kind of warmed to
Speaker 1: Trump because they don't like Biden's anti Druss policy, as
Speaker 1: I mean, is the biggest rub there.
Speaker 3: And they want Trump to extend the tax cuts.
Speaker 1: They want their tax cuts, and he has overtly promised
Speaker 1: them reportedly at fundraisers like I will look out for
Speaker 1: you specifically, mister and missus billionaire if I am re elected,
Speaker 1: you will get your tax cuts, oil execs, you will
Speaker 1: get your deregulation.
Speaker 4: Like it's all there for you.
Speaker 1: So he's making these explicit material plays to the billionaire
Speaker 1: class that seems to be very important to him, and
Speaker 1: so a Doug Burgham fits perfectly into that strategy of like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not getting some crazy lunatic out there talking. This
Speaker 1: is a business guy right on a Silicon Valley that
Speaker 1: has very standard issue conservative Reaganite type of views. That's
Speaker 1: who's going to be my number two to help continue
Speaker 1: to shore up his support among these circles which have
Speaker 1: already warmed to him versus how they perceived him in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen and in twenty two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: And another thing I forgot to mention this came across
Speaker 2: my radar just yesterday. Trump is actually going to be
Speaker 2: meeting with the Business Roundtable, which is right, yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean it's hard to explain these things to people who
Speaker 2: don't work in Washington, but like the Business Roundtable is
Speaker 2: like the Chamber of Commerce, like on steroids. It is
Speaker 2: the top one hundred richest companies in the United States.
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, exon. Everybody's there, their chief lobbyist, one
Speaker 2: of the most powerful people up there with the Chamber
Speaker 2: in Washington. Really, what has come down to, again, as
Speaker 2: I understood, is people aren't stupid. Twenty twenty five, the
Speaker 2: tax return, the tax cuts expire, somebody is either going
Speaker 2: to extend them or not. If Biden is there, he'll
Speaker 2: probably extend seventy.
Speaker 3: Five percent of them. They want one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And not only do they want one hundred percent, they
Speaker 2: want you to continue to cut the corporate floor, to
Speaker 2: extend the individual rates. And they don't want to have
Speaker 2: a child tax credit included, which allegedly is like the
Speaker 2: trade that the Democrats would offer should Biden win the election.
Speaker 3: So this is this is it's all business at this point.
Speaker 2: It's just like listen, you guys, you were a great
Speaker 2: gift to business last time around, So this time around,
Speaker 2: we're much more overtly comfortable backing you. That's how you
Speaker 2: see guys like Ken Griffin who said I would never
Speaker 2: vote for Trump, and he spent one hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: or whatever on Ron DeSantis. He's like, yeah, I could
Speaker 2: see it. You know, maybe all back Trump. This is
Speaker 2: a business transaction, like you're cut and dry. And so
Speaker 2: that's in a way, Trump's political genius is mobilizing a
Speaker 2: lot of these more like working class vote or at
Speaker 2: the very least like the white working class voters. They're
Speaker 2: all coming out for him, for immigration, for culture purposes.
Speaker 2: And then it's it's a really like almost a Reagan
Speaker 2: play and at the same time, you almost explicitly align
Speaker 2: yourself at this point with big business to bring those
Speaker 2: two in. That's a very very powerful political movement if
Speaker 2: you can get people past some of the other Trump nonsense.
Speaker 2: But for them at this point, they don't care about
Speaker 2: the character stuff anymore. They know that he's here to
Speaker 2: stay and for the will to make the trade. And
Speaker 2: I'm probably a good one, right if you see what
Speaker 2: happened in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: I mean, he has dropped, Like if you go back
Speaker 1: and listen to the rhetoric twenty sixteen, the way he
Speaker 1: really positioned him himself, and it was always a farce
Speaker 1: we saw by the way he governed, but he really
Speaker 1: did position himself all that time, you didn't know as
Speaker 1: a more populous fair I mean, the trade deals were
Speaker 1: really central to the discussion. Drain the swamp, like, all
Speaker 1: of that was really core. That is all gone. There's
Speaker 1: no semblance of it left whatsoever. Instead you just get
Speaker 1: report after report of the You know, Hey, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sell the American foreign policy to Miriam Mandelson for one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars. Hey, you don't like the Palestinian protests,
Speaker 1: I'm going to crush that. I'm gonna deport them. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna set that movement back thirty years. Hey you want
Speaker 1: your tax cuts, no problem, vote for me. Give me,
Speaker 1: give me twenty five million dollars, and I'll make sure
Speaker 1: that you get your tax cuts. Hey, you want to
Speaker 1: be able to frack and drill and have absolutely no regulations,
Speaker 1: no problem.
Speaker 4: Vote for me.
Speaker 1: It's very direct, it's very over and so yes, if
Speaker 1: you can keep the working class coalition that you started
Speaker 1: to realign, you know, starting in twenty sixteen, and you
Speaker 1: can add in all the billionaire class. That is a
Speaker 1: very powerful coalition. I guess the question the problem is
Speaker 1: it's not like the Democrats are offering their own like
Speaker 1: populist opposition to that.
Speaker 4: So there's no one playing in the lane.
Speaker 1: Really of like working class material politics. And one of
Speaker 1: the things Ryan and I only covered this fantastically in
Speaker 1: Counterpoints yesterday. We've seen now a couple elections around the world.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's not analogous America's his own beast that really
Speaker 1: showed the power of those material politics. The overwhelming victory
Speaker 1: in Mexico for Claudia Shanebaum, the shocking setback for Mody
Speaker 1: in India, which was very much you know, driven by
Speaker 1: economics and lowercasts really turning on him because he was
Speaker 1: only delivering the sort of cultural bullshit and they're like,
Speaker 1: but I also need my wages and I need a job.
Speaker 1: So we've in South Africa, the elections there also were
Speaker 1: a warning sign about you know, material politics and how
Speaker 1: important that is. We just don't have a single player
Speaker 1: in terms of the two main parties that is even
Speaker 1: attempting to go in that drive.
Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say, you know, if
Speaker 2: the Biden campaign were intelligent, they would say all the
Speaker 2: things I just said, but they don't have that capatit.
Speaker 2: They're too busy quibbling with the Wall Street Journal over
Speaker 2: whether Biden is too old or calling him like convicted
Speaker 2: don or felon don. As I've said a million times,
Speaker 2: and as we're about to get to, yeah, if you
Speaker 2: want to win young people back, if you want to
Speaker 2: bring black people back, young Hispanics. The number one reason
Speaker 2: all of these people are even considering voting for Trump
Speaker 2: is they think he is a major shake up to
Speaker 2: the system, and they apply that to their own lives.
Speaker 2: One of the most important issues which nobody ever talks about,
Speaker 2: housing affordability. What can we actually do about it? And
Speaker 2: how central this is for voting issues. Let's put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. So I hear a lot
Speaker 2: of Republicans like, oh, these gen Z folks that are
Speaker 2: obsessed with trans and and some of that is true
Speaker 2: for people who are on lie, but it turns out
Speaker 2: that they're just like the rest of us. This is
Speaker 2: a new survey from redfin. Housing affordability is the gen
Speaker 2: Z top voting issue outweighing abortion and the economy.
Speaker 3: Although I would put it with the economy.
Speaker 2: More than nine to ten adult gen zers say that
Speaker 2: housing affordability is important when considering who they will vote
Speaker 2: in their upcoming presidential election. It is the top issue
Speaker 2: by ranking from that new report from redfinn and that
Speaker 2: gen zers quote were more likely to rate housing affordability
Speaker 2: as an important factor in their vote than any other
Speaker 2: issue that they were asked about, including the economy, abortion, guns,
Speaker 2: preserving democracy, and foreign wars. This is from three thousand
Speaker 2: US homeowners and renters that they just conducted in February
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four. Why I think that this is
Speaker 2: so important is that if you look at the breakdown,
Speaker 2: and this actually is gen Z specifically, but I'll include everybody,
Speaker 2: this is the ranking housing affordability ninety one percent, strength
Speaker 2: of the overall economy eighty two percent, education eighty two percent,
Speaker 2: then guns and abortions. So the culture issues are four
Speaker 2: and five that are in that ranking. If you shift
Speaker 2: over to millennials, you can actually see that the quote,
Speaker 2: strength of the overall, democracy, education, and housing affordability are
Speaker 2: all top three.
Speaker 3: They're actually roughly tied. It's like eighty nine and eighty
Speaker 3: seven percent.
Speaker 2: We're quibbling within a percentage point or so, housing affordability
Speaker 2: begins to drop only amongst Gen xers and amongst boomers
Speaker 2: from fourth and almost six.
Speaker 3: Specifically, whenever it comes to the boomers.
Speaker 2: So the younger you are in this country, Gen Z
Speaker 2: in particular, because they're at the very entry of the
Speaker 2: housing market, they're probably the ones getting squeezed the most
Speaker 2: by all this rent inflation because they have had to
Speaker 2: come in where I at least had some roughly cheaper
Speaker 2: rent maybe ten years ago. But nowadays, I mean, they're
Speaker 2: walking in and just getting hit right off the bat.
Speaker 2: Put this up on the screen just to illustrate how
Speaker 2: disastrous things are right now. The median mortgage payment in
Speaker 2: the United States is currently at a record high of
Speaker 2: two than eight hundred and ninety four dollars per month
Speaker 2: in May of twenty twenty four. That is a fourteen
Speaker 2: percent increase from just twenty twenty three. It's a twenty
Speaker 2: three percent increase from twenty twenty two. And wait for
Speaker 2: this one. It is a seventy eight percent increase from
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty one. A seventy eight percent increase for
Speaker 2: the median monthly mortgage payment from twenty twenty one. In
Speaker 2: just the span of three years, No wonder, you should
Speaker 2: be freaking out. That is straight up unattainable. That's almost
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars a month. That's thirty six grand a
Speaker 2: year roughly after tax income that is coming out if
Speaker 2: you want to try and not break the rule of
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be more than a third of your take
Speaker 2: home pay or whatever.
Speaker 3: Good luck, hope you make one hundred grand. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like yeah, And.
Speaker 2: Then if you do make one hundred grand, you're very
Speaker 2: likely not living in a place where you can get
Speaker 2: anywhere close to that median. You are living in one
Speaker 2: of the top ten metro areas and you're gonna be
Speaker 2: pooning up a million bucks per house if you're even
Speaker 2: lucky to be able to afford one, or you better
Speaker 2: average parents, good luck to you.
Speaker 1: I mean, a seventy eight percent increase just from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one.
Speaker 4: That that is that is wild. And listen.
Speaker 1: One of the things I found interesting in the Redfin
Speaker 1: survey of like people's issue priorities. So when you get
Speaker 1: to Gen X and boomers who benefited, you know, when
Speaker 1: they were coming into adulthood from much more affordable housing.
Speaker 1: You know, certainly for the boomers, less so for the exers,
Speaker 1: but still they rank preserving democracy above housing affordability, and
Speaker 1: obviously that's the pitch that the Democratic Party is really
Speaker 1: leaning into that along with abortion rights. But the preserving
Speaker 1: democracy that's been central for Biden central and the last campaign,
Speaker 1: it's central for him now. And listen, the bottom line
Speaker 1: is you can't really expect people to care that much
Speaker 1: about preserving democracy if they feel like democracy hasn't been
Speaker 1: good for them, They're just not going to prioritize that
Speaker 1: that highly. You know, the way for people to really
Speaker 1: care about democracy is when they see the democracy delivering
Speaker 1: for them in their families. Then it's like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is a great system. This is something that's worth fighting
Speaker 1: for and worth preserving. But if all you see is
Speaker 1: you know, your concern is getting ignored and asset prices
Speaker 1: going up and up and up year after year after
Speaker 1: year in a way that benefits people who already own
Speaker 1: those assets but completely screws people who are shut out
Speaker 1: of ever owning those assets, then yeah, you're going to
Speaker 1: prioritize other things and you're not going to be as
Speaker 1: impressed with the like but Trump argument this time around,
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what we're seeing.
Speaker 4: I mentioned the asset prices. This is related to this.
Speaker 1: Put the Wall Street Journal thing up on the screen,
Speaker 1: which shows one of the major bifurcations in our economy,
Speaker 1: because it really is a tale of the haves.
Speaker 4: And have nuts.
Speaker 1: Americans overall now have more investment income than ever before.
Speaker 1: Booming economy, rising household wealth help some consumers to keep spending.
Speaker 1: So people who have houses, people who have four to
Speaker 1: one ks a flush with investment cash, people who have stocks,
Speaker 1: who have mutual funds, who have bonds, those people are
Speaker 1: doing very well and effectively. Not to get too much
Speaker 1: in the economic weeds here, but we've had decades where
Speaker 1: most a lot of economic policy has basically been dedicated
Speaker 1: to increasing and increasing and increasing asset prices, which again
Speaker 1: is great if you already own stuff, and it's terrible
Speaker 1: if you don't, and you would like to one day
Speaker 1: have a house, for example, and be able to get
Speaker 1: into the asset ownership economy. And we never talked about
Speaker 1: that as inflation, right, it was seen to be totally
Speaker 1: separate from what people are paying at the grocery store
Speaker 1: and those sorts of transactions. Well, first of all, they're
Speaker 1: not totally separate. And second of all, when you create
Speaker 1: this huge divide between the asset ownership class and everyone else,
Speaker 1: that just continues to spiral out and control. And we
Speaker 1: have more indications of that that you can put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. The world has never had as
Speaker 1: many rich people as it does right now. The world's
Speaker 1: richest have never been so wealthy. According to a new study,
Speaker 1: the number of high net worth individuals rose by five
Speaker 1: percent last year. So yeah, again, if you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of stocks, if you've got a house, and you're
Speaker 1: seeing the way those prices are spiraling in, spiraling and spiraling,
Speaker 1: this is all working out.
Speaker 4: Pretty well for you.
Speaker 1: But if your Gen Z, if you're millennial, if you're
Speaker 1: you know, Gen Alpha, when they come along as well,
Speaker 1: it's assuming this trend continues, this is a really dire
Speaker 1: situation and you have so little hope of achieving the
Speaker 1: level of stability and comfort and just like middle class
Speaker 1: lack of precarity that your parents may have benefited from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you really see a real shift too. Also know,
Speaker 2: I kind of hate stuff like that too, because people
Speaker 2: will there's a lot of neoliberals out there who will
Speaker 2: be like, see we're living in the best time. They're
Speaker 2: like world's richest have never been so wealthy. The vast
Speaker 2: majority of this new wealth is coming from China. You know,
Speaker 2: I just listened to this great series. It's called the
Speaker 2: Acquired Podcast. Shout Out the Acquired Podcast. It's like a
Speaker 2: history of companies, and they did air meztle listening.
Speaker 3: You know. Interesting in terms of the history of luxury goods.
Speaker 2: Over fifty percent of their business now is just from China,
Speaker 2: like all of their growth is China, and then the
Speaker 2: other ten percent is Japan. If you look at a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff that's getting rolled up, it is
Speaker 2: at the direct expense of the American middle class, and
Speaker 2: multi billionaires are getting created overseas. You know, there was
Speaker 2: a guy named Donald Trump. He used to talk about
Speaker 2: this back in the day, not saying not as much anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess if he did, maybe it would help him out.
Speaker 2: But what we see is very important is that overall
Speaker 2: fundamentals of the nineteen fifties, sixties, and seventies, the genuine
Speaker 2: American dream post World War Two order, it has eroded
Speaker 2: to the point of it basically being dead. With the
Speaker 2: combination of high interest rates, extremely high prices and a
Speaker 2: very very middle and soft job market. Now again, I
Speaker 2: want to explain there, because the Biden administration plays tricks
Speaker 2: four percent unemployment, et cetera. When you look at the wages,
Speaker 2: and you look at the level of underemployment, specifically with
Speaker 2: a lot of these gen zs, and you combine household debt,
Speaker 2: credit card debt, and student debt on top of that,
Speaker 2: it's the raws deal. Since you know, basically from the beginning,
Speaker 2: let's also put this up there again on the screen
Speaker 2: just to see people for swing voters. Amongst swing voters,
Speaker 2: policies that could be Biden part of Biden's second term.
Speaker 2: Swing voters are split on which would make them vote
Speaker 2: for him. But what you see increasingly is that the
Speaker 2: economy and the high cost of living and anything that
Speaker 2: could actually address that is wildly popular. The most popular,
Speaker 2: you know, in this survey is raising taxes on the
Speaker 2: wealthy at twenty three percent, raising the minimum wage to
Speaker 2: fifteen dollars an hour, Increased border security at seventeen percent,
Speaker 2: expansion of Medicare to vision, dental and hearing at sixteen,
Speaker 2: increase protections for abortion is sixteen, crack down on corporate
Speaker 2: price gouging is sixteen, limit the sale of assault weapons
Speaker 2: twelve cancel student debt for more borrows, a left an
Speaker 2: increased running purpose. So you see a mix and smattering
Speaker 2: of culture. But you know, at the very very top,
Speaker 2: you've got raising taxes on the wealthy, raising the minimum
Speaker 2: wage with fi fifteen dollars an hour. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: very clear with the impetus and the things that could
Speaker 2: actually bring people out to vote for you, and you
Speaker 2: could do it in such a way where you don't
Speaker 2: have to touch anybody's household.
Speaker 3: Balance sheets during these things.
Speaker 2: I really encourage people to go and to learn about
Speaker 2: things like the step up basis for multi gajillionaires and
Speaker 2: for the carried interest loophole.
Speaker 3: I mean that one alone in.
Speaker 2: Terms of or a high frequency trading tax, any of
Speaker 2: this stuff. If you adjust that even marginally to like
Speaker 2: one percent, right now, it carried interest to zero. So
Speaker 2: let's say you put like five per we're talking about
Speaker 2: hundreds of billions of dollars that are unlocked immediately. Nobody
Speaker 2: on earth except for a bunch of people on Wall
Speaker 2: Street and in Silicon Valley would feel that. And yet
Speaker 2: you know it's smeared by a lot of those people
Speaker 2: in the same way as if you're going to some
Speaker 2: doctor's houses making three hundred grand and be like, all right, doc,
Speaker 2: it's to pony up ten more percent of your income.
Speaker 3: That's that's what The sheer.
Speaker 2: Reality of how the ultra wealthy get away with paying
Speaker 2: effective tax rates of like five to ten percent through
Speaker 2: manipulating the tax code is one which has been lost
Speaker 2: from the national discourse, and it's.
Speaker 3: Really a tragy.
Speaker 2: But at the very least people do intuitively understand that
Speaker 2: you can do that, and you should, you know, in
Speaker 2: some cases while actually still not touching even the middle class,
Speaker 2: upper middle class way of life at all, you don't
Speaker 2: have to.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting what has happened in Mexico and the
Speaker 1: Mexican economic model under AMLO, because it is a direct
Speaker 1: contradiction of all of the you know, all of the
Speaker 1: talking points of neoliberalism, you know, the idea of like.
Speaker 4: Rise and tide lifts all both.
Speaker 1: So if we just keep growing the GDP, if we
Speaker 1: just you know, keep shipping tax cuts to the rich
Speaker 1: and to corporations, and that's going to cause GDP growth
Speaker 1: to rise. That's going to be good for everyone. Well,
Speaker 1: the Mexican economy, it hasn't been growing gangbusters, and it's
Speaker 1: been fairly anemic in terms of GDP growth. But the
Speaker 1: policy a variety of policies, but one of them in particular,
Speaker 1: which was the sort of aggressive hikes of the minimum wage,
Speaker 1: which really delivered for vast majority of average Mexicans, made
Speaker 1: it so that even under relatively anemic GDP growth, people
Speaker 1: felt like, but this is working much better for me.
Speaker 1: That is so directly contradictory to the logic that has
Speaker 1: prevailed here for you know, my entire life and your
Speaker 1: entire life, certainly. So I thought that was an extraordinary example.
Speaker 1: And obviously, you know, not only was it good for
Speaker 1: average workers there, but obviously was extraordinarily good for Amlow
Speaker 1: and now his successor in terms of electoral politics. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at these surveys, it's not
Speaker 1: a mystery. The number one thing that people say would
Speaker 1: shift them to Biden is if you raised taxes on
Speaker 1: the ridge, and he's got a wide open lane because
Speaker 1: you've got Donald Trump out there meeting with billionaires and
Speaker 1: saying I'm going to cut your taxes. I did it
Speaker 1: last time, and I'm going to make sure that we
Speaker 1: do it again, so the lane is open if anyone wanted.
Speaker 4: To actually take it.
Speaker 1: And I think the housing one, I mean, we've talked
Speaker 1: about this ad nauseum at this point because it's just
Speaker 1: so obvious, it's just so clear, and they're I want
Speaker 1: to be fair, there are some democratic proposals that are
Speaker 1: out there that kind of tinker around the edges, but
Speaker 1: in terms of someone really taking hold of this issue
Speaker 1: and really running on it aggressively, it just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: And part of it is because you have a lot
Speaker 1: of powerful interests and a lot of you know, boomers
Speaker 1: who vote a whole lot are very interested in keeping
Speaker 1: those housing prizes high and continuing to see an escalation
Speaker 1: in their own net worth as asset prices continue to.
Speaker 4: Inflate and inflate and inflate.
Speaker 1: So very interesting survey, very revealing of what people's actual
Speaker 1: priorities are and what could move the needle.
Speaker 3: Shocking shocking, isn't I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, and I'll return to to what you said
Speaker 2: about Mexico, and I mean, this is again, is very
Speaker 2: counter to a lot of the way that Americans think,
Speaker 2: and this is empirical crime and under Amlow has got
Speaker 2: out of control. There have been insane cartel killings and
Speaker 2: all that. He's still one of the most popular presidents
Speaker 2: in the entire and those one of the most popular
Speaker 2: leaders in the world. I would also point back to Modi.
Speaker 2: One of the things that people always misunderstand India, the
Speaker 2: original Moody twenty fourteen Mody It had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with culture. It was about the broken economic consensus of
Speaker 2: the Congress Party. There was this whole program called Baratrice
Speaker 2: where people were getting free food. Eight hundred million people
Speaker 2: were getting free food from the government. There was also
Speaker 2: a direct attack at corruption. He himself was viewed as unassailable.
Speaker 2: He's not married and part of the thing is that
Speaker 2: in India it's very common to have like nepotistic arrangements,
Speaker 2: so his lack of children was like a big selling point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: No familiar networking can like spread the money around. He
Speaker 2: was seen in the early period as a real economic savior.
Speaker 2: Then what happens after COVID You have massive inflation, you
Speaker 2: have all these shocks to the economy, you have some
Speaker 2: of this crazy stuff going on with a Nani and company,
Speaker 2: and they literally they really forgot you know, some of
Speaker 2: their early routes, and that's what happened with a lot
Speaker 2: of these low cast voters who then return to the
Speaker 2: Congress Party. And now with the new coalition he's gonna
Speaker 2: have if he wants to win any popular election again
Speaker 2: or BJP does, they are going to have to return
Speaker 2: to that devaluation that happened early where they tried to
Speaker 2: target a lot of the corruption, where they really tried
Speaker 2: to go after inflation. They have to stop necessarily targeting
Speaker 2: like rich fdi to come in and actually try and
Speaker 2: rise some of the wages and things like that. So
Speaker 2: let that be a lesson too in terms of what
Speaker 2: things abroad can teach us, you know, here in the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it seems like they really misjudged their
Speaker 1: own electorate and they thought it was like, if we
Speaker 1: just deliver you deliver you this like Hindu nationalist cultural peace,
Speaker 1: that will be sufficient. And you know, it looks like
Speaker 1: they were really rebuked on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and also look, it's a very different country to
Speaker 3: poll have.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a huge portion of the population doesn't
Speaker 2: even read like it's a tough place to actually gauge,
Speaker 2: like what the hell is going on people speak all
Speaker 2: these different languages, and not by no means an expert.
Speaker 2: This is just from the people that I trust you
Speaker 2: cover India from what I've been able to read. But broadly,
Speaker 2: what it came down to is that they had the
Speaker 2: choice on what to really emphasize going into the election,
Speaker 2: and in going with that, they thought they had done
Speaker 2: enough on the economic front that they could do some
Speaker 2: of the cultural stuff and fuse that together to win
Speaker 2: an overwhelming popular majority. But they significantly misjudge how a
Speaker 2: lot of poorer, lower caste Indians were going to see
Speaker 2: what they viewed as an abandonment of that economic cost.
Speaker 2: So by returning but in the coalition government where they
Speaker 2: are right now, they're definitely going to have to return
Speaker 2: to their roots. Or what we are watching is for
Speaker 2: years everyone said, oh, the Congress Party in India is dead,
Speaker 2: It's dead forever. Now definitely not true. Now you know
Speaker 2: Rahu Gandhi and all these people, they're making a comeback.
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily want to see that. So you guys
Speaker 2: better get your back together if you want to return
Speaker 2: to that big consensus that everybody thought that you had
Speaker 2: in India. All right, let's go to the Internet section.
Speaker 2: I've been laughing about this for two days straight because
Speaker 2: it is just the most perfect story. A gift of
Speaker 2: altruism perhaps turns into a curse. Let's put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. So there's a remote Amazonian tribe
Speaker 2: which very recently was given access to the Internet by
Speaker 2: Starlink and Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: It was viewed as.
Speaker 1: There was some other donor who was benefactor, that's what
Speaker 1: gifted it, but.
Speaker 2: It gets it was an Elon Musk darling to the
Speaker 2: Marubo people, which is deep.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna mispronounce this.
Speaker 2: It is quote huts scattered hundreds of miles along the
Speaker 2: Itu River, deep in the Amazonian rainforest.
Speaker 3: They speak their own language.
Speaker 2: They take ayahuasca to connect with the forest spirits, and
Speaker 2: they trapped spider monkeys to make soup or to keep
Speaker 2: as pets. They have preserved this life for hundreds of
Speaker 2: years through isolation. Some villages take up to a week
Speaker 2: just to reach. In September, they were given access to
Speaker 2: high speed internet. And this is a two zousand member
Speaker 2: tribe that is deep in Brazil. Well, it appears that
Speaker 2: since September things have not been going so well. According
Speaker 2: to the elders, it seems that many of the younger
Speaker 2: folks are now hooked quote on porn and on social media.
Speaker 2: Some of the quotes in here are just fantastic. So
Speaker 2: here's some of the elders who are talking. When it arrived,
Speaker 2: everyone was happy, but now things have gotten worse. Young
Speaker 2: people have gotten lazy because of the Internet. They are
Speaker 2: learning the ways of the white people. They say. The
Speaker 2: Marubo are a very chaste tribe who frowned even upon
Speaker 2: kissing in public. But now ever since the arrival of
Speaker 2: the Internet and of pornography, quote, young Marubo men have
Speaker 2: been sharing porn in group chat. I love how they
Speaker 2: already have group chats and have already observed more quote
Speaker 2: aggressive sexual behavior. The elders say, we are very worried
Speaker 2: young people are going to want to try it. He
Speaker 2: says of kinky sex acts that they have been exposed
Speaker 2: to on the screen. Everyone is so connected sometimes they
Speaker 2: they stop talking to their own family. They also talk
Speaker 2: about how social media and others has increased the amount
Speaker 2: of screen time that a lot of people are spending,
Speaker 2: and they are forgetting that they don't live the type
Speaker 2: of lifestyle you and I live. Crystal they live an
Speaker 2: actual subsistence life. They're like, hey, man, you gotta go fish, you.
Speaker 3: Gotta go on.
Speaker 2: We're not you gotta get your ass out there because
Speaker 2: we're old. You're the ones who are supposed to feed us,
Speaker 2: and you need to go catch everything. It's a relatively
Speaker 2: communal society. So this is like the perfect example what
Speaker 2: happens when technology rolls it.
Speaker 3: It's a tail as old as time.
Speaker 2: We've got an indigenous way of life, there's actual balance
Speaker 2: with nature, and then what happens, Oh, the Russians come
Speaker 2: in and they happen to leave a bottle alcohol there
Speaker 2: and a piece of metal and boom, ten years later,
Speaker 2: everything goes to shit. Every single time you read about
Speaker 2: something like this, it's almost never a positive development. And
Speaker 2: yet you know, we can see in the most extreme
Speaker 2: way what this has done on a macro level to
Speaker 2: our overall society.
Speaker 1: So that's why I wanted to cover it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot. First of all, who's crazy idea
Speaker 1: was this? You can't you can't open the fire like
Speaker 1: they got to start with some flip.
Speaker 4: Phones, have some dial up.
Speaker 1: You know, you got to ease into this stuff. You
Speaker 1: can't just go full Internet starlink at high speed access.
Speaker 1: We had years to build up some sort of a
Speaker 1: tall stuff. It's true. One of the things they talked
Speaker 1: about is people getting scammed because I think if you
Speaker 1: live in like this village and you know everyone and
Speaker 1: you have these communal relationships, like people have to be
Speaker 1: honest with each other because you have to see these
Speaker 1: people face to face. You rely on them for your
Speaker 1: own like life and ability to hunt and do the
Speaker 1: things that you.
Speaker 4: Need to do to survive.
Speaker 1: So the idea of like this random person on the
Speaker 1: Internet is lying to me and they're scamming me must
Speaker 1: be so foreign.
Speaker 4: You see this with with elderly.
Speaker 1: People too, Like the things that we're sort of inured
Speaker 1: to and we'll see.
Speaker 4: Right off the bat is just a scam totally.
Speaker 1: Older people because they grow up in a different time
Speaker 1: when you know that type of skin wasn't prevalent, they
Speaker 1: don't have the same defense mechanism. You have to develop
Speaker 1: those things over time. So yeah, I think, listen, it's
Speaker 1: a new your posts. This may be really overstated. I
Speaker 1: do want to say there's like, you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit skeptical of some of the nature of the reporting,
Speaker 1: but I have no doubt that this has like turned
Speaker 1: their traditional lifestyle upside down. And I also have no
Speaker 1: doubt there's no putting the genie back in the bottle
Speaker 1: because as much as we know this technology comes with
Speaker 1: a million downsides that I'm struggling with my own kids
Speaker 1: and my own life whatever, we also know it comes
Speaker 1: up to like some really cool stuff. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not looking to get rid of my smartphone,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they're not looking to get rid of
Speaker 1: their internet access altogether either, because one of it has
Speaker 1: had positive benefits as well. Right, They talk about how
Speaker 1: they've been able to save lives. People get bitten by
Speaker 1: venomous snakes and now they can get help more quickly.
Speaker 1: They can actually you know, bring someone in to help
Speaker 1: people survive. They talk about how it's expanded the horizons
Speaker 1: of their young people also, where you know, they have
Speaker 1: aspirations that they never would have been able to have before,
Speaker 1: and that can be a beautiful thing as well.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's a double k.
Speaker 2: Of course, we were talking about India and our previous segment,
Speaker 2: I'll mention this, so I was recently in India. The
Speaker 2: way technology and mobile payments has taken off is incredible
Speaker 2: and so much to the benefit of the poorer classes
Speaker 2: in India. I watched them have cheap access that they
Speaker 2: can go on the street. Imagine there's like a cow
Speaker 2: and a donkey walking by, and you go to a
Speaker 2: guy who's sitting in a bamboo chair and you buy
Speaker 2: a SIM card off of him which has two hundred
Speaker 2: megabytes of data for one hundred repeats or something like that.
Speaker 2: And they have automatic which is like a dollar just
Speaker 2: for everybody who was watching. Then they put it into
Speaker 2: their phone and they've got automatic like five G plus Internet.
Speaker 2: Half of these guys can barely read. But the ability
Speaker 2: for the cheap internet and access and all that, it's
Speaker 2: opened up job opportunities. It's given them the ability to
Speaker 2: not have to rely as much on cash. They pay
Speaker 2: each other through verified payments because corruption and scams are
Speaker 2: a big problem in India. My grandparents are very old,
Speaker 2: they're over ninety years old. They literally can WhatsApp the
Speaker 2: corner stores for what they want. The corner lady comes
Speaker 2: to their apartment door and then he pays.
Speaker 3: Her on what I'm watching. My ninety four year.
Speaker 2: Old grandfather pay this lady on WhatsApp, there's no cash
Speaker 2: or anything exchange, he doesn't have to leave his house.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of benefits, right, and this
Speaker 2: is in a very, very poor place. You watch how
Speaker 2: technology change things instantly. Even villagers in the middle of
Speaker 2: nowhere whose parents literally cannot read are learning how to
Speaker 2: read off of YouTube videos in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 3: It's shocked.
Speaker 2: I mean, they don't even have clothes on their back
Speaker 2: and they're learning how to read on YouTube. So, like
Speaker 2: I said, there's a huge amount of benefit to this stuff,
Speaker 2: But what you watch is also the exacerbation of a
Speaker 2: lot of the worst parts of the Internet and of
Speaker 2: what the damage that it can do, you know, to
Speaker 2: a society that doesn't have well established norms and things
Speaker 2: around it. So, if anything, what it highlights to me
Speaker 2: is for policy and for institutional and social norms to
Speaker 2: be formed around let's emphasize the best parts. The best
Speaker 2: parts of the Internet are communication connection. I mean, we
Speaker 2: wouldn't exist, you know, this show would not even be
Speaker 2: possible ten years ago. But we have to put guardrails
Speaker 2: and things around parents, society, schools, et cetera. How do
Speaker 2: we keep this stuff from the worst downsides? I highly
Speaker 2: recommend that Jonathan Heyde book is out. I think he's
Speaker 2: got a phenomenal just like list there of things how
Speaker 2: you should think of a parent around smartphone, smartphones and
Speaker 2: specifically with schools. It's obvious we should bance smartphones from schools,
Speaker 2: like just no question.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, absolutely agree with that. We can
Speaker 1: put the next piece up on the screen. This study
Speaker 1: that just came out, which if you're a parent, like
Speaker 1: none of this will surprise you. Internet addiction ulters brain
Speaker 1: chemistry and young people. This study finds, I mean, it
Speaker 1: just is an addictive behavior. And you know, I see
Speaker 1: this with my kids, and it does, I think tend
Speaker 1: to in my experience with other you know, parents and
Speaker 1: kids that I know, it tends to be the boys
Speaker 1: that have more of the addictive tendency towards the Internet.
Speaker 1: My son, if I let him go, he would never
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding you, like, he would never step away
Speaker 1: from it. My daughters they don't have to have the
Speaker 1: same level of concern and limitations because after they do
Speaker 1: it for what they want to go do something in
Speaker 1: the world like it's doesn't have that quite that same
Speaker 1: sticky addictive pull. But what they found is that it
Speaker 1: will lead to a decrease in functional connectivity and parts
Speaker 1: of the brain involved in active thinking. That's the executive
Speaker 1: control network of the brain responsible for memory and decision making,
Speaker 1: and it fuels other addictive behaviors. So, you know, this
Speaker 1: is really profound for young people who are you know,
Speaker 1: their brains are developing, and you know, you're setting habits
Speaker 1: and behaviors and neural networks that are going to need
Speaker 1: to serve them for their entire lives. And part of
Speaker 1: you know, part of what we've done is because we've
Speaker 1: really opened the internet up to just whatever is going
Speaker 1: to serve capital. Then you have companies that their whole
Speaker 1: business model is based on how do we fuel this
Speaker 1: addictive cycle, And you know, no kid is going to
Speaker 1: be prepared for that. And as an individual parent, like you're,
Speaker 1: the odds are stacked against you because of the way
Speaker 1: they're trying to literally manipulate like the brain chemistry of
Speaker 1: your kids. So it is a it is a very
Speaker 1: difficult situation. You know, you mentioned the banning smartphones from schools.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent agree. My son is going into middle school.
Speaker 1: We went to the middle school orientation. He's going to
Speaker 1: be sixth grader next year. The big deal for me,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready for all that anyway. Putting that aside,
Speaker 1: the one thing that I think it was the vice
Speaker 1: principal who's in charge of you know, disciplinary issues, said
Speaker 1: is please, I'm begging you parents, do not send your
Speaker 1: kid to school with a smartphone. He's like, you will
Speaker 1: not believe the things that I see. You will not
Speaker 1: believe what your kid might say on the messages they'll said,
Speaker 1: the photos. They mean that things they may do on
Speaker 1: the smartphone, like things that you never would have imagine,
Speaker 1: language that you never could have imagined, the way that
Speaker 1: interferes with their school work and interferes with their personal relationships.
Speaker 1: These like please, please, please, do not send a smartphone
Speaker 1: with your kid to school.
Speaker 4: So I think that part to me is very clear.
Speaker 2: Well, as a former four Chan kid, I can imagine it,
Speaker 2: and I definitely don't want.
Speaker 3: I don't want those kids.
Speaker 4: As a kid, you tend to be a little naive
Speaker 4: about these.
Speaker 2: Things as a kid who was four chan and read
Speaker 2: it way too early. I don't recommend, but no, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of studies on this. I highly recommend.
Speaker 2: There's a bunch of New York Times and Jonathan Hyke
Speaker 2: write ups about schools that have banned smartphones. If you've
Speaker 2: ever been to a Joe Rogan show, you know you
Speaker 2: have to put your phone in the yonder bag. That's
Speaker 2: another thing that a lot of schools are doing. So
Speaker 2: you can bring this phone to school, but they put
Speaker 2: the phone in the yonder bag. Yeah, they unlock then.
Speaker 2: But apparently some kids are ringing two phones. So look,
Speaker 2: these kids are going to figure it out anyway.
Speaker 1: They have phones too that are I mean, they're almost
Speaker 1: basically like I mentioned the flip they're almost like that.
Speaker 3: Oh like the call mom, call nine one one.
Speaker 4: Yeah you really, yeah, you have.
Speaker 1: It's very limited. They can't load apps, they can't access
Speaker 1: the internet. There might be a few limited like a
Speaker 1: map app and like a few limited things on there.
Speaker 1: And they can call and they can text, but that's
Speaker 1: really about it. And you've got access to it. So
Speaker 1: there are tools out there for parents, but it's just
Speaker 1: yet it's a very difficult, very difficult landscape. And if
Speaker 1: it's just you and the kids are seeing what their
Speaker 1: friends all have access to, and it's part of the
Speaker 1: social fabric now of that generation is a difficult, difficult situation,