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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics,

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Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of

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Speaker 1: today's best minds. And Elon Musk warns that excessive spending

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Speaker 1: will plunge the US into debt slavery. Yeah, now he's

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Speaker 1: worried about it.

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Speaker 2: We have such a great chill for you today.

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Speaker 1: Risk Reversal's own Dan Nathan stops by to tell us

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Speaker 1: about businesses reactions to.

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Speaker 2: Trump's insane tariffs.

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Speaker 1: Then we'll talk to Alan Alrod about his brilliant article

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Speaker 1: You're not crazy, America has gone mad.

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Speaker 3: But first of the news, so Molly, the CBO, which

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Speaker 3: this weekend, Mike Johnson had to say, you know is

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Speaker 3: a woke institution and you should believe it. But then

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Speaker 3: they pointed out how often he cites it. He says

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Speaker 3: that the trunk tax bill will add two point four

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Speaker 3: trillion to the deficit a leave ten point nine million

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Speaker 3: more on insured. Great work, great work, really serving the

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Speaker 3: American people.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about this bill because I know

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Speaker 1: that I keep talking about this bill, but I just

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Speaker 1: want all of our listeners to just take a minute

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Speaker 1: to realize how stupid this fucking thing is. Okay, first,

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Speaker 1: of all all Republicans in the House signed off on it,

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Speaker 1: everyone from Marjorie Taylor Green to Mike Lawler. So if

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Speaker 1: you're Mike Lawler and you're in a D plus one

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Speaker 1: or an R plus one, you know a very swingy district,

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Speaker 1: which he is. Jesse is now going to look up

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Speaker 1: what his district is, but it's a very tight district

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Speaker 1: that is not supposed to elect a Marjorie Taylor Green.

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Speaker 1: That guy also voted for this, so all of them

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Speaker 1: have voted for this. In it, nearly a thousand pages,

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Speaker 1: is a ton of pork, including crazy stuff like this

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Speaker 1: crazy thing that limits judicial power and oversight of this administration.

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Speaker 1: You're shocked to hear that, but I bet you're actually

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Speaker 1: not shocked to hear that.

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Speaker 2: And in it there's also a ton of other stuff.

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Speaker 1: Work requirements for parents with children over seven for Medicaid

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Speaker 1: and food stamps. That's right, if you have a child

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Speaker 1: over seven, you need to be working. You need to

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Speaker 1: be having a job, Okay, because children.

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Speaker 2: Over seven are adults. I mean, this is what this

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Speaker 2: bill does.

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Speaker 1: And what this bill does is it saves a little

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Speaker 1: bit of money clawing back Medicaid. That means rural hospitals

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Speaker 1: and nursing homes, and then it spends a lot of

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Speaker 1: money doing crazy tax stuff. And I want to have

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Speaker 1: one second to talk about the crazy tax stuff because basically,

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Speaker 1: this bill BBB, big beautiful bullshit is the purest distillation

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Speaker 1: of MAGA. Right, it's a lot of Trump's campaign promises,

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Speaker 1: no tax on tips.

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Speaker 2: How will they do?

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Speaker 1: No tax on tips? I feel like I'm going crazy, right,

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Speaker 1: what's a tip? What's not a tip? There's no way

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Speaker 1: to deliver this, And there's just a lot of more

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Speaker 1: tax bullshit. And then there's also stuff in this big

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Speaker 1: beautiful bullshit that is, you know, besides the judicial power stuff,

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Speaker 1: there's other stuff in there that's just pork. So Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk has said now that it's a bad bill. Now

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Speaker 1: I want to redo something from Jake Sherman at Punchbowl News,

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Speaker 1: who was a really really really sourced congressional reporter, and

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Speaker 1: he said a Republican aid on Elon Musk opposing the

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Speaker 1: Reconciliation bill, the guy was pro the package until he

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Speaker 1: realized he wasn't going to get his way on the

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Speaker 1: ev tax credits. Right, none of these people give a

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Speaker 1: fuck about the deficit. Elon wanted the ev tax credits

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Speaker 1: because he thinks it'll be good for TESLA. I want

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Speaker 1: people to realize, like, nobody here is acting out of

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Speaker 1: any interest but their own self interest.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, strong agree. So we're going to have a real

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Speaker 3: survey of stupidity today, and analysis finds the majority of

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Speaker 3: Trump cabinet tied to Project twenty twenty five groups. What

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Speaker 3: a shocker. It's almost like we said this a year.

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Speaker 1: Ago, since you and I did this whole twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: five thing, this YouTube series, and we kept at every point,

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Speaker 1: we kept being like, I think you and I together

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Speaker 1: would be like, oh my god, these people are just

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Speaker 1: going to do twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, the last episode we did of the thing

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Speaker 3: where like we point out Trump lying and showing all

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Speaker 3: the evidence that he's going to put exactly who he

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Speaker 3: put in, Well, we were right.

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Speaker 1: It's like I definitely spend time in this election cycle

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Speaker 1: thinking about the ways I was wrong. Well here's one

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Speaker 1: where I was fucking right, And so we're you know,

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Speaker 1: this was always the play.

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Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five was the ethos.

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Speaker 1: Now there are things happening in this administration that are actually,

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Speaker 1: I think scarier than Project twenty twenty five, and I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking about like what RFK is is doing right now

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Speaker 1: to research and science and health.

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Speaker 2: But do not.

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Speaker 1: Underestimate the damage that Ross Fought is doing at the

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Speaker 1: Office of Management and Budget. And he was on the

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Speaker 1: Sunday shows last week. He's doing that because they're trying

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Speaker 1: to push this bills through the Senate and he's trying

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Speaker 1: to get senators on board. On this show, Dana Bash asks,

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Speaker 1: is it fair to say what you're doing now is

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Speaker 1: in part enacting Project twenty twenty five, And of course Russvott.

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Speaker 2: Says absolutely not.

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Speaker 1: But this smart reporter pointed out that sixty to seventy

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Speaker 1: percent of Project twenty twenty five's executive action proposals have

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Speaker 1: been implemented or initiated, and those are things like environment education,

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Speaker 1: and then thirty to forty percent of their proposals are

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Speaker 1: being proposed as legislation, and those are Look, you and

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Speaker 1: I both remember the goal of Project twenty twenty five

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Speaker 1: expand presidential power, take power away from Congress. This Congress

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Speaker 1: was really happy to give it to Trump and to

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Speaker 1: sort of make the presidency an imperial presidency.

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Speaker 2: And that's what we're watching happen in real time.

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Speaker 3: Yep. Well, the good news is is what we often

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Speaker 3: see is that the small elections in between the big

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Speaker 3: mid terms and the of course every four years where

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Speaker 3: we pick up president, that we're seeing a lot of

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Speaker 3: really good news in districts that could spell good things

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Speaker 3: for us pushing back against this administration. Since we had

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Speaker 3: just achieved a landslide election when in South Carolina for

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Speaker 3: the Democrats.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know this is like history rhymes right, Remember

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Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, Democrats won every election, and there's a

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Speaker 1: reason why. It's because the Republicans are doing something wildly unpopular.

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Speaker 1: Work requirements for food stamps, for Medicaid, these are unpopular things.

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Speaker 1: The reason Republicans are in such a hurry to get

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Speaker 1: it past is a because they know that when people

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Speaker 1: read the bills they.

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Speaker 2: Won't like it, right like what happened with Marjorie Dale Green.

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Speaker 1: And b because ultimately they know this is super unpopular.

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Speaker 2: So I think we'll definitely see.

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Speaker 1: More of these kind of amazing democratic landslides. You know,

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Speaker 1: there are people listening to this podcast right now. A

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Speaker 1: lot of people listen to this podcast, and you tend

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Speaker 1: to be very civic minded, smart people.

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Speaker 2: So here's my.

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Speaker 1: Question for you. We see that there's going to be

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Speaker 1: this grand swell, we see that Democrats are going to win.

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Speaker 1: Why don't you run for office? If you're listening to

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Speaker 1: this podcast you live in a red state or a

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Speaker 1: blue state, or a city or a town, like, we

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Speaker 1: cannot wait for these people to fix our problems. They

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Speaker 1: are not motivated, they are not capable. So maybe you

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Speaker 1: listeners are the ones that we've been waiting for.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, especially when we see incompetence like this that the

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Speaker 3: White House is being mocked after they admit that they

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Speaker 3: sent letters to remind countries about trade deal deadlines and

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Speaker 3: now we're begging for them to cut deals.

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Speaker 2: Yes, well, you know who we haven't seen in a

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Speaker 2: long time. Tell me Peter Navarro.

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Speaker 3: Oh where is that? Follow?

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Speaker 2: Where is Peter Navarro?

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Speaker 1: Because Peter Navarro promised me ninety deals in ninety days.

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Speaker 3: Mall, you're going to be in DC soon, you're going

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Speaker 3: to put up missing signs.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm going to be like Peter. I think Peter's

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Speaker 2: definitely going.

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Speaker 1: To come to my book reading.

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Speaker 2: He's a known reader. Yeah, so where are those ninety

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Speaker 2: deals in ninety days?

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Speaker 1: You know how many deals. We have tell me one

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Speaker 1: O one, we have one deal. And it's not even

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Speaker 1: a deal, it's a framework of a deal. Dan Nathan

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Speaker 1: is a c NBC contributor and the host of the

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Speaker 1: Risk Reversal podcast.

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Speaker 2: Dan Nathan, Welcome to Fast Politics.

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Speaker 4: Favorite podcast other than my own, Molly Dalnas. Great to

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Speaker 4: be here. I have a book to read, by the way,

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Speaker 4: I'm really excited about I'm excited for you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you. How to was your mother out yesterday? Because

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Speaker 2: you know, we got to self promote.

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Speaker 1: I was on a television show interviewing someone who is

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Speaker 1: a very smart money guy economists, not an economist, but

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Speaker 1: someone who does does what you do, and he was expressing,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of anxiety about the fact that

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Speaker 1: the market seemed to be behaving quite rationally at this moment.

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Speaker 1: Is that still true and can you explain to us why.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, A couple things here, So it depends which market

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Speaker 4: you're talking about, right, So the stock market was the

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Speaker 4: primary focus of most people, most citizens in this country

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Speaker 4: when we were you know, post liberation day. I say

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Speaker 4: that obviously in air quotes, because we saw the S

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Speaker 4: and P koreem lower. That's the largest, you know, stock

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Speaker 4: market in the US or at least indussy. And you know,

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Speaker 4: but there's other markets, right. There's the US treasury market,

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Speaker 4: which you know is basically one of the most important

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Speaker 4: you know, interest rates that a lot of stuff is

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Speaker 4: kind of quoted against. Right. And then there was the

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Speaker 4: currency market, the US dollar.

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Speaker 1: I want you to stop and talk about the treasury market,

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Speaker 1: because that's been the really important indicator of this moment.

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Speaker 2: This treasury market is bond people.

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Speaker 1: Usually when the market goes down by bonds because it's

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Speaker 1: a hedge against volatility.

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Speaker 2: But that's not what's happening right now.

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Speaker 4: Right, So Americans have been accustomed to buying US treasury

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Speaker 4: bonds because the fact that the US Treasury is not

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Speaker 4: going to default, right, And so you have this incidence

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Speaker 4: where if you're pulling money, let's say, out of the

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Speaker 4: stock market because you think it's risky for whatever reason,

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Speaker 4: you can park money in the treasury market. Okay. But

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Speaker 4: the problem is in this last couple months or so,

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Speaker 4: is that some of the biggest holders of our debt

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Speaker 4: of US treasuries are China, are Japan. And when you

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Speaker 4: come at some of these countries with like really exorbitant

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Speaker 4: tariff rates and they are getting ready to go into

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Speaker 4: a protracted trade war because they don't want to be

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Speaker 4: bullied right into basically eating this kind of a whole

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Speaker 4: new world order as it relates to trade in such

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Speaker 4: a short period of time. They have leverage, they own

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Speaker 4: these treasuries, right, if they start selling them, that means

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Speaker 4: interest rates go higher. And you know, when you think

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Speaker 4: back to back in you know, March or so, when

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Speaker 4: Treasury Secretary Besson started to kind of prepare investors for

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Speaker 4: what might come right if they start, you know, kind

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Speaker 4: of putting these big tariffs on, they said, we're more

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Speaker 4: focused on the ten year treasure yield. They want that

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Speaker 4: to go lower. They have to refinance a lot of debt.

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Speaker 4: The higher the treasure yield is, the more expensive it

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Speaker 4: is to refinance that debt. And they said, we're not

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Speaker 4: worried about the stock market. Well, the stock market koreamed

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Speaker 4: in early April, and the US ten year treasure yield

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Speaker 4: went up. Why because there were foreign sellers of our debt.

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Speaker 4: It did the exact opposite of what the Treasury and

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Speaker 4: the White House wanted to happen. And that's why, that's

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Speaker 4: why we had that first taco experience back on April ninth,

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Speaker 4: which got the stock market going back higher. But the

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Speaker 4: real problem is that the US ten year treasure yield

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Speaker 4: is stuck at four point four or five percent, and

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Speaker 4: it was where you know, it basically was in early April.

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Speaker 4: And the US dollar has not rallied because those same

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Speaker 4: sellers of treasuries have also been selling dollars and dollar

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Speaker 4: denominated assets.

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Speaker 1: So the dollar is down, the debt is more expensive, right.

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Speaker 4: I would think about it this way. So the dollar

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Speaker 4: is where it was in early April, and US treasury

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Speaker 4: yields are basically in the ten year about the same spot.

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Speaker 4: So to the point you were making about that market

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Speaker 4: participant who says that the markets are not acting rationally,

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Speaker 4: well that's the stock markets not acting rationally. Basically, investors

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Speaker 4: are saying that the taco thing is going to happen.

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Speaker 4: It's going to happen again. He's going to chick it

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Speaker 4: out again because pretty soon we're going to get to

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Speaker 4: that ninety day period where he pushed out reciprocal tariffs

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Speaker 4: right on the Chinese. He tweeted out last night that

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Speaker 4: g is going to be a hard guy to do

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Speaker 4: a deal with. I think he's already lowering expectations there.

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Speaker 4: So then the question is do they ratchet it back

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Speaker 4: up right, because we know that Chinese are going to

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Speaker 4: ratchet it back up. And it brings me back to

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Speaker 4: the first Trump administration. They put tariffs on China in

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Speaker 4: March of twenty eighteen. They did not have a framework

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Speaker 4: for a Phase one deal until January of twenty twenty.

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Speaker 4: If you think trade wars are easy to prosecute, well

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Speaker 4: good luck with that. We've already seen that they're very difficult.

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Speaker 4: And we also know that our major adversary is going

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Speaker 4: to call our bluff. And it's also interesting to know

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Speaker 4: that the first two countries that we came after, Mexico

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Speaker 4: and Canada to where our biggest trading partners, have yet

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Speaker 4: to come to the table. And I think that emboldens

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Speaker 4: the Chinese. Also.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about Mexico and Canada because what

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Speaker 1: happened there was such a self inflicted wound, right Mexico

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Speaker 1: and Canada. You have to work really hard to make

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Speaker 1: these people furious, and he did right, especially Canada, like

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Speaker 1: they're run by a banker.

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Speaker 2: At this point. He's a liberal.

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Speaker 1: All he wants is to not have drama tried as

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Speaker 1: hard as possible to keep Brexit from blowing up the

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Speaker 1: UK economy. Now, Brexit fucking disaster. But Mark Carney is

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Speaker 1: really like the leader you would want, Like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: isn't he kind of your and mind too a little

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Speaker 1: bit our dream president?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I mean, you know, here's a guy who actually has

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Speaker 4: a strong fundamental knowledge of how markets work.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 4: He understands the inner complexities of what we just went through. Right,

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Speaker 4: what does the treasury market mean? What are interest rates mean?

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Speaker 4: What is FED policy, which is meant to be independent

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Speaker 4: of politics? What does that mean? What does the stock

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Speaker 4: market tell you at certain times? The stock market, you

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Speaker 4: hear this expression all the time, is a discounting mechanism, right,

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Speaker 4: It looks at all the available news, and then investors

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Speaker 4: kind of put their money to work. And so you

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Speaker 4: could say, right now, maybe that is what the stock

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Speaker 4: market is telling you, that the worst case scenarios are

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Speaker 4: off the table and maybe some like cooler heads like

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Speaker 4: Mark Carney might prevail. If you think about Mexico, shine,

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Speaker 4: they haven't really been engaging in a way that's particularly antagonistic.

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Speaker 4: The EU has suggested that they will come to the table,

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Speaker 4: but they don't know who they're negotiating with or what

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Speaker 4: we want that sort of thing. The UK that deal

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Speaker 4: was a bit of a fugazy They just said, let's

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Speaker 4: just get this out.

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Speaker 2: One works of a deal, right.

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Speaker 4: So to your point, I think that there's like some

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Speaker 4: definitely level headed folks. But then let's go to a

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Speaker 4: topic us. Let's go to a topic that I know

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Speaker 4: is near and dear to your heart. Somebody who's kind

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Speaker 4: of off kilter a little bit. That would be Elon Musk,

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Speaker 4: who just left the administration and now all of a

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Speaker 4: sudden he's got some real big issues with the tax policy,

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Speaker 4: the tax plan. And don't think for a second that

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Speaker 4: these things are not kind of related, because they really

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Speaker 4: are important if you think about it. If we're trying

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Speaker 4: to reorient global trade, if we're trying to work on

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Speaker 4: bringing down our national debt, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean, to re orient global trade.

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Speaker 1: In tariffs are that it's like taking a chainsaw, I mean,

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Speaker 1: much better to give incentives to use a carrot rather

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Speaker 1: than a step. I also wonder how much of Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk's newfound frugality is his irritation that EV credits are

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Speaker 1: no longer the I mean, this is a guy who

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Speaker 1: democratic legislation created him, right, he became the richest man

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Speaker 1: in the world, EV tax credits, all of this sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, the help that his company's got.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the one thing I just say about

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Speaker 4: Elon and you know, I think he's a much more

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Speaker 4: effective chaos agent than Donald Trump.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 4: But the one thing that's consistent between the two of

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Speaker 4: them is they always say the quiet part out loud, right,

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Speaker 4: And so Elon coming out this tax bill, he has

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Speaker 4: not really mentioned, you know, these EV tax credits. He's

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Speaker 4: gone back and forth on that. By the way, over

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Speaker 4: the last few years, he's gone back and forth over

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Speaker 4: you know, some sort of trade barriers as it relates

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Speaker 4: to China and evs. We don't really know where he

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Speaker 4: stands on this. I think one of the positions as

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Speaker 4: it relates to Tesla in particular, has been that they're

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Speaker 4: in a much better spot than not say GM and

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Speaker 4: Ford to kind of have these credits go away. But

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Speaker 4: that's actually not the case anymore. The fundamentals of their

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Speaker 4: business could not be worse. Right now, the auto gross margins,

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Speaker 4: the profit that they make on their evs is now

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Speaker 4: in line with that of GM and Ford. GM and

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Speaker 4: Ford are pulling back from the ev market and they're

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Speaker 4: going more for these plug in hybrids. So when I

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Speaker 4: think about the way that he has gone about kind of,

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Speaker 4: you know, dealing with a price war, the Chinese are

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Speaker 4: eating their lunch. He's expected to have the second consecutive

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Speaker 4: decline in deliveries this year at a time where the

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Speaker 4: price war is eating into their margin. So he needs

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Speaker 4: these credits. It's very important. But they haven't said it yet,

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Speaker 4: and Trump hasn't come out and said it yet, and

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Speaker 4: this thing is going to be a bit worse. And

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Speaker 4: I just think that the lobbing of the grenade at

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Speaker 4: the tax bill is something that basically he's trying to

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Speaker 4: maybe reorient the kind of what's going on with tax

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Speaker 4: and the expectations about cuts to lower the taxes versus

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Speaker 4: what's going on with trade and the fact that our

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Speaker 4: government appears to be mired in problems with both of

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Speaker 4: them at the same time. It goes back to the

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Speaker 4: first administration. They went for tats Gary Khan came in.

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Speaker 4: He wanted to get tax cuts through. They got them through.

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Speaker 4: It was a tailwind for the economy, it was a

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Speaker 4: tailwind for the stock market, and then they focused on

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Speaker 4: terrafts and trade. And I'm not saying that was effective,

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Speaker 4: but it was a much more effective way about it.

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Speaker 2: Oh much more right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you choice the economy with the tax cuts

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Speaker 1: and then you go in there with the tariffs and

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Speaker 1: it ends up being actually quite good because it tamps

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Speaker 1: down some of the inflationary you know.

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Speaker 2: I mean that with Gary Cohen is not the same.

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Speaker 1: As you know, the people who are in charge right now,

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Speaker 1: which is Donald Trump's lizard brain. I want to talk

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Speaker 1: about China for another minute, because there's so much anxiety

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Speaker 1: about China right what the next step is here? What's

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Speaker 1: happening with Taiwan? We are really vulnerable to them. Also,

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Speaker 1: the other thing I want to ask you about selling

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Speaker 1: the bonds. I didn't realize that this was actually China

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Speaker 1: Japan selling bonds. So that is now that's indisputable. It's

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Speaker 1: not like technical traders.

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Speaker 4: No, I mean, like there's definitely market participants here and

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Speaker 4: around the globe who basically have a trade on they

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Speaker 4: called the carry trade. They kind of sell over there

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Speaker 4: and they use the proceeds and they buy higher yielding

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Speaker 4: assets over here. And one of the reasons why you

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Speaker 4: saw that market volatility in most markets. You know, this

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Speaker 4: is back in April, but we also saw it in

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Speaker 4: late July in early August. When you see an unwind

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Speaker 4: of that, that's when you see markets go haywire. And

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Speaker 4: so when you think about who has the leverage right

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Speaker 4: in a situation like this, the largest holders of your

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Speaker 4: debt have the leverage right. We also had a situation

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Speaker 4: a few weeks ago where moody is one of the

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Speaker 4: big rating agencies, came out and lowered the rating on

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Speaker 4: our debt, which also makes us vulnerable. Treasury Secretary Bessett

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Speaker 4: said the other day that we will not default on

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Speaker 4: our debt, but we almost did, you know, about twelve

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Speaker 4: years ago. And so there's a lot of unknowns here.

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Speaker 4: And so when you think about I'll just kind of

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Speaker 4: bring it back to China, which you wanted to kind

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Speaker 4: of talk about. You know, Okay, let's take the over

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Speaker 4: on what they might do with Taiwan. You know, some

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Speaker 4: of the easiest things they might do, or some sorts

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Speaker 4: of blockades or some sort of trade sort of situations

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Speaker 4: and that sort of thing. That is important because when

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Speaker 4: you think about generative AI chips and this is the

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Speaker 4: new world order that we live in. This is going

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Speaker 4: to be the most important commodity going forward, especially as

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Speaker 4: we deal with our adversaries going forward. They are made

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Speaker 4: in Taiwan, Okay, so if the Chinese try to disrupt

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Speaker 4: anything as it relates to Taiwanese production of those chips,

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Speaker 4: that could be a real problem for the entire globe. Right,

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Speaker 4: So I think about, you know, how this kind of

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Speaker 4: new world order is going to be set, Well, we

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Speaker 4: can't afford to have any disruption there. So when we

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Speaker 4: think about China, you know, the national security as it

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Speaker 4: relates to supply chains is really important. So how do

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Speaker 4: the Chinese have leverage on our manufacturing? Okay? They are

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Speaker 4: thirty percent of the global manufacturing, right, so we went

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Speaker 4: through this with COVID that was a bit of a problem.

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Speaker 4: They also own a lot of the rare earth materials

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Speaker 4: that into EV batteries and magnets in this sort, and

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Speaker 4: they also own the purchasing power of let's say Boeing planes, right.

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Speaker 4: So a headline that hit today is that they're considering

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Speaker 4: by hundreds of planes from Airbus, which is obviously you know,

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Speaker 4: a European company, it's French, and that would be in

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Speaker 4: place of Boeing planes. Boeing has been mired in problems

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Speaker 4: for the last six or seven years. They had those

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Speaker 4: plane crashes, these issues with the seven forty seven Max,

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Speaker 4: and they've been missed you executing for a while. That

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Speaker 4: could be a real big hit to our economy, not

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Speaker 4: just from a manufacturing standpoint, but really from our stature,

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Speaker 4: you know around the globe for American exceptionalism.

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Speaker 2: American exceptionalism. Ha haha.

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Speaker 1: It's so funny that you just said this thing about Boeing,

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Speaker 1: because I really do think part of what happened with Boeing,

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Speaker 1: right is a question of regulation, right. I mean, things

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Speaker 1: got at a hand because the regulatory environment wasn't what

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Speaker 1: it needed to be to make sure these planes were safe.

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Speaker 1: And remember Trump was in fact president from twenty sixteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty twenty. I just wonder how much like one

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Speaker 1: of the things Trump loves to do is dismantle regulation,

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Speaker 1: and we never ever see why that's bad, right, We

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Speaker 1: only ever see him dismantling regulation and then a catastrophe

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Speaker 1: like that trained derailment in Ohio. I feel like there

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Speaker 1: is a straight line between deregulation and environmental fallout but

439
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:29,760
Speaker 1: also economic fallout.

440
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:32,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's the story of the two thousands, right,

441
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 4: and a lead up to the financial crisis. You know,

442
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:38,160
Speaker 4: we had some significant regulations as it really to our

443
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 4: financial institutions, and you know it was the Clinton administration

444
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:44,040
Speaker 4: that actually rolled a puncture those back, right. And you know,

445
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,199
Speaker 4: as you think about folks who have incentives right to

446
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 4: kind of take financial instruments and kind of repackage them

447
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,040
Speaker 4: and do them in a way where they can make

448
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:54,680
Speaker 4: a lot of money on them and they can get

449
00:22:54,680 --> 00:22:56,960
Speaker 4: around regulations. I mean, that's really what happened in the

450
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,400
Speaker 4: financial crisis, and you have thought on the way out

451
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,679
Speaker 4: of that where so many individuals were really burned. They

452
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 4: were the bag holders in that, and you had you know,

453
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Warren put in the CFPB and all that sort

454
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 4: of stuff. And I think this is the point you're

455
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,360
Speaker 4: getting to, is that the administration comes in in this

456
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,439
Speaker 4: new administration, it's one of the first things they do

457
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 4: they get rid of the Consumer Protection Organization that was

458
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:21,479
Speaker 4: meant to shield everyday citizens from that sort of you know,

459
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 4: predatory behavior.

460
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 2: And so here's because of two thousand and eight.

461
00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,640
Speaker 4: Because of the financial crisis, and then you can look

462
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 4: to twenty and eighteen. So the Trump administration rolled back

463
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:37,199
Speaker 4: some regulation about capital levels for smaller banks. Okay, so

464
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 4: do you remember in March of twenty twenty three, Silicon

465
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:41,880
Speaker 4: Valley Bank went down. There was a handful of other

466
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:44,919
Speaker 4: banks that went down. You can draw a line back

467
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 4: to these capital requirements that were rolled back in the

468
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen deregulation. And we lost some really important banks,

469
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 4: and we also had some threats to the financial system

470
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 4: at the time, different than two thousand and eight, but

471
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 4: in some ways they could have had big not gun effects.

472
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 4: And what did the government have to do And this

473
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:04,880
Speaker 4: was under obviously the biderministration. They had to go bail

474
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 4: them out, right, And so we see this again and again.

475
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,959
Speaker 4: If you give these financiers, if you give these folks

476
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:13,680
Speaker 4: enough room or enough rope, they will ultimately hang themselves

477
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,160
Speaker 4: because the incentives are too great in the near term,

478
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 4: and they know that they can socialize the losses if

479
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 4: things go bad.

480
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just going to say, privatize the gain,

481
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 1: socialize the losses. Speaking of socializing the losses, the BBB,

482
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: big beautiful bullshit bell will in fact cut a lot

483
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:35,719
Speaker 1: of things right. It'll cut snap benefits, food for hungry children,

484
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: it will cut Medicaid, which will cut rural hospitals, nursing homes,

485
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: but it will also provide these insane tax cut no

486
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,479
Speaker 1: tax on tips. I mean, what is that even? Like,

487
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: no tax on tips? How would that even be implemented?

488
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: What does that look like? And what would the financial

489
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,000
Speaker 1: sort of fall out be? Right? I mean, clearly it'll

490
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,679
Speaker 1: juice the public markets, but what do you think it'll

491
00:24:57,720 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: look like in six months?

492
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 4: Well, it's funny that sun tips thing is obviously a

493
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 4: populous sort of move. When he would go to Nevada

494
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 4: during the campaign, he would talk about that and you know,

495
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 4: and again this goes back to maybe some of his

496
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 4: political genius, but his lack of acumen when it comes

497
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 4: to policy and the likes. So to me, that is

498
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 4: probably a bit of a rounding era if you think

499
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 4: about all the folks that will benefit from that, however

500
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 4: they implement it, versus the expected maybe ten thirteen million

501
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 4: people in America. We're going to lose access to healthcare

502
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 4: or to your point about snap or you know, free

503
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 4: lunches and breakfast for you know, students of you know,

504
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 4: lower income sort of families in the like, and I mean,

505
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 4: those are the big things and ultimately, I think those

506
00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 4: are the things that are going to get felt right

507
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 4: out of the gate. Do you feel them? How do

508
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 4: these things get implemented? You know, who knows. But at

509
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 4: the end of the day, I mean this sort of

510
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 4: cuts in a lot of red states. And that's the

511
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 4: other thing. If you think about some of these policies

512
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 4: that were put in place during the Biden administration, you

513
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 4: could say, well, the IRA and the Chips Acts and

514
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 4: all this sort of stuff, they deliberately put them in

515
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 4: some of these red states, so the folks would actually

516
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 4: have all the benefits of this government spend if you

517
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 4: think about it, right, and it goes back to really

518
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 4: a social safety net. If Republicans want to push through

519
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 4: a four and a half trillion dollar tax cut over

520
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 4: the next ten years and throw three or four trillion

521
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 4: dollars onto the national debt, which is the thing that

522
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 4: they're supposed to care about, then they better be prepared

523
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 4: for the repercussions because they lose the soul of the party. Right.

524
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 4: If this is what and this is why Ran Paul

525
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 4: and some of these folks, and even Elon Musk, we

526
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 4: don't know Elon Mus's intention. I never knew him to

527
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:35,440
Speaker 4: be a fiscal hawk by any means, and you think

528
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 4: of the beneficiaries he's been able to enjoy from government spending.

529
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 4: But this is one where I don't think it gets

530
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 4: fixed too quickly. I don't think President Trump, as his

531
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 4: approval rating goes down over these economic issues, especially as

532
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 4: the trade thing gets pushed out, is going to have

533
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 4: this sort of leverage over the Senate as he did

534
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 4: over the House in the last few weeks.

535
00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 2: That's the twenty four tillion dollar question. Danny. Then, thank you,

536
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 2: thank you. I hope you'll come back.

537
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 4: Thanks Bally. Great to be here.

538
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 2: Allan L.

539
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: Rod is the President and CEO of the Pulaski Institute

540
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: and a contributor to Liberal Currents.

541
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: Welcome to Fast Politics, Alan L. Rod.

542
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: You write a bunch of stuff, very smart. You write

543
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: for Liberal Currents, which I think of as a very

544
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: very smart literary magazine in the tradition of the New Republic,

545
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: a little more lefty. And I want to talk about

546
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 1: this essay, which is why I knew we had to

547
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: have you on, because I was like, Holy moly, this

548
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: is how I feel this. Why didn't I write this piece?

549
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: And the title is You're not crazy America has gone mad.

550
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 2: So talk to me about sort of how you got here.

551
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 5: I've only been doing the sort of writing commentary pieces

552
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 5: for a few years, and really it kind of came

553
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 5: out of I head also trying to get this policy

554
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 5: type organization off the ground here in Arkansas called the

555
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 5: Plaski Institution that I started in twenty twenty one, and

556
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 5: it is focused on a lot of the problems I

557
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 5: think I described in this piece and some other pieces,

558
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 5: which is challenges that are happening with democracy and with popularism,

559
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 5: not just in the US, but in really a lot

560
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 5: of Western countries where there's a lot of breakdown in

561
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 5: not just the electoral politics, but also just sort of

562
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 5: broad cultural commitments to the important things that make a

563
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 5: liberal democracy work. But I've tried to think about that

564
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 5: in sort of heartland places, So that was sort of

565
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 5: the idea I started writing to sort of try to

566
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 5: get these ideas out there and bring attention to what

567
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 5: I'm trying to do. And I've been really lucky. I

568
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 5: think that that's turned into its own sort of separate

569
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 5: and really rewarding journey. In terms of I started writing

570
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 5: an arc digital back in twenty twenty two, and really

571
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,239
Speaker 5: clicked with Brady Belvite or there and Nicholas Grossman, and

572
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 5: luckily got to do some pieces for other places. And

573
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 5: Liberal Currents was a place I got connected with thanks

574
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 5: to anac Manus, who's actually a fellow at the plast Constitution.

575
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 5: He said, you know, reach out to Adam Gurry if

576
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 5: you're just sting in pitching them, and I did, and

577
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 5: it was one of those kind of we all just

578
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 5: sort of clicked. I got in the little discord with

579
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 5: the other editors and writers at Liberal Currents and there

580
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 5: was a I think a very happy marriage of thought

581
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 5: and opinion, and so lip O Currens became you know,

582
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 5: I'm a contributing enditor.

583
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, that's so great. But let's talk about what

584
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: this idea is. So you start with a passage from

585
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: Hannah Rand's origins of totalitarianism. Never has our future been

586
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:39,160
Speaker 1: more unpredictable. Never have we depended so much on political

587
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules. And

588
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: I think this is the most important point here, of

589
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: common sense and self interest forces that look like sheer

590
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: insanity if judged by the standard of other centuries. So

591
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: much of Trump administration at this moment. You know, from

592
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: RFK Junior to Elon Musk, there's so many things that

593
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: they are doing in this administration that strike me as

594
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: just completely I mean, obviously there's often profit motives behind it,

595
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: but I wonder if you could just talk us through

596
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: some of these things that you see.

597
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, I think I'm really trying to do at

598
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 5: this piece is to capture something that I think is

599
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 5: happening that's observable at a few different levels. Right, So

600
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 5: when I think about you know, I'm not being sort

601
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 5: of literal, right and kind of madness. I understand mental

602
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 5: illness and that language can sometimes be touchy for people.

603
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 5: But what I am trying to capture is there are

604
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 5: a lot of ways in which we are not behaving

605
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 5: in ways that really makes sense. Right. You know, you

606
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 5: mentioned profit motives, So there's clearly some self interest in

607
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 5: the Trump administration, but there's a lot of things where

608
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 5: the kind of even just rational principles of self preservation

609
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 5: self interest don't feel like they're functioning. I mean, you know,

610
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,080
Speaker 5: what we're doing to our health system right now is crazy,

611
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 5: and even since I wrote the piece, it's gotten crazier. Right.

612
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 5: He said he wants to basically withdraw vaccines for most

613
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 5: age groups. Right, there's all kinds of further downsizing of

614
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 5: the FDA. They want to take fluoride, not just not

615
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 5: you know, earlier they were talking about discouraging fluoride. Now

616
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 5: there's talks about banning it in multiple states. It's really,

617
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 5: I mean, this is just in the wealthiest country in

618
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 5: the world, crazy, right, And he talks about fixing chronic disease,

619
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 5: even and even if you wanted to take him at

620
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 5: face value in that that's not being done right because

621
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 5: they're defunding all of these research initiatives that have run

622
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 5: for a year, some of them decades on the sorts

623
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 5: of disease as he says are important. So I think

624
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 5: the Health Science Fund is a good place to look

625
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 5: at that because you have individual kind of madness, you

626
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 5: have influencers or are sort of peddling this stuff, and

627
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 5: you can see how it got into the groundwater over

628
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 5: time in the US. But you also have the institutional

629
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 5: problem of like, our institutions are not behaving the way

630
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 5: they should behave they are fully at this point captured

631
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 5: by this, I think completely. I kind of feel dystopian

632
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 5: to me world view of yes, it's grift. But I

633
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,959
Speaker 5: always think that grift is a bad way to think

634
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 5: about it sometimes because that implies it's just as simple

635
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,719
Speaker 5: as oh, they're just telling you a lie so they

636
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 5: can get money. And I think that it's just far

637
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 5: more irrational and sort of dysfunctional and chaotic than that.

638
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I wonder what you think about MAHA Make

639
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: America Healthy Again. I wonder how much of MAHA is

640
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: an It seems to me there's a straight line between

641
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: the pandemic, MAHA sort of the corruption of multi level

642
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: marketing and MAGA.

643
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 2: Do you think that's right? And how?

644
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 4: Yeah?

645
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 5: I mean, I do think that that's correct. I think

646
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 5: what you saw on the pandemic was something that was

647
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 5: already starting, which was a lot of these sort of

648
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 5: health influencers who have just deeply on scientific beliefs about

649
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 5: a lot of different things. That was really the I

650
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 5: think the convergence point with them in MAGA, because there

651
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 5: was a huge amount of objection to just the various

652
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 5: health precautions that were being sure. I think in the

653
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 5: pandemic you saw I think a convergence. It had been

654
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 5: building for a bit, but you saw this convergence between

655
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 5: a lot of health influencers and people who were more

656
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 5: I think you're sort of typical RFK type person, voter

657
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 5: or just kind of interested in his stuff. That kind

658
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 5: of person really get into the sort of maga world.

659
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 5: And that's kind of what Maha is right. It is

660
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 5: this convergence of those two things. And some of that

661
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 5: was about vaccine hesititency, but I think a lot of

662
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 5: it was just more broadly about you know, the sort

663
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 5: of existential dread of the pandemic and a lot of

664
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:45,479
Speaker 5: very unscientific and emotional reactions right to the pandemic. And

665
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 5: so I think what is troubling to me about like Maha,

666
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 5: is some of it is absolutely grift, but some of

667
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,720
Speaker 5: it is belief, right, and I think we have to

668
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 5: reckon with that.

669
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: Right.

670
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 5: If I thought it was all just opportunism and grift,

671
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 5: I don't think I would have written an essay called,

672
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 5: you know, We've all Gone mad, because then it would

673
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 5: just be sort of we're all cynical and we're all opportunists.

674
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 5: But really, you know, for people to just kind of

675
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:16,919
Speaker 5: at once in large numbers reject these advancements we saw,

676
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 5: I think the pandemic was just rocket fuel for this stuff.

677
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,760
Speaker 5: It pushed something that had been there for a long time,

678
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 5: existing in a kind of particular corner of Instagram and YouTube,

679
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 5: and it just propelled it into a collision with the

680
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 5: maga stuff that had been coming really since since Trump

681
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 5: came down the escalator, and that combination I think has

682
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 5: been really quite powerful and dangerous.

683
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:40,280
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.

684
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: And I do think like part of it is there

685
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: is real anxiety in modern life about what all of

686
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: the things around us do and what they cause and

687
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,320
Speaker 1: what the possible. You know, we have younger people getting

688
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: cancer things like that, that is real.

689
00:34:58,400 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know my own person.

690
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 1: Pecadillo is why is RFK Junior, you know, not focusing

691
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: on the stuff that he you know, there's some of

692
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,479
Speaker 1: this stuff is not as crazy, right, this stuff about

693
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: organic food or whatever, But that's not what he's focused on, right,

694
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:18,720
Speaker 1: He's focused on the stuff that's really vaccines, the stuff

695
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: that the stuff that we were really scared he was

696
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 1: going to do he is in fact doing.

697
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 5: Yeah, there is a kind of I think fundamental disorder.

698
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 5: And this is kind of what I do mean is

699
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 5: like to his thinking and to a lot of this

700
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 5: thinking where he'll talk about and I think what it

701
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 5: means is that we misunderstand him when we just let

702
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 5: him say, oh, chronic disease is a real problem. We

703
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 5: take that at face value when we say, that's not

704
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,839
Speaker 5: so crazy. But that's not actually the sort of most

705
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 5: front facing part of his belief system, Right, that's actually

706
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 5: kind of a that's really a vestige of all this

707
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:55,839
Speaker 5: other stuff, right, and so, and I think that's made

708
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 5: obvious in the fact that, like, when he actually says

709
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 5: we're going to fix chronic disease, they're not doing that.

710
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 5: And the things he seems to think count as chronic

711
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 5: disease is also a bit strange. Right, So you already

712
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 5: are in a weird place. Once you probe that language

713
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 5: even a little bit, I think what I am kind

714
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 5: of You're right, there's there's this anxiety. There's this huge

715
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 5: amount of anxiety. And I find that really interesting in

716
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 5: the way anxiety has the capacity to disrupt and disorder

717
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,439
Speaker 5: our thinking and get us to cling to sometimes very

718
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 5: sometimes emotionally comforting or persuasive ideas that are also quite

719
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 5: erratic and actually not very good for us. Right. I Mean,

720
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 5: there's a sense in which a lot of this stuff

721
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 5: I think got popular because people turn to things that

722
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 5: made them feel better.

723
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 2: They needed answer, so yeah.

724
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 5: Yeah, and provide answers they kind of I mean, there's

725
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 5: a religious aspect to this right where it kind of

726
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 5: is it's basically sort of like it's providing a kind

727
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,919
Speaker 5: of you know, compass or map for how the world

728
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 5: works and where you stand in it, and a certain

729
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 5: set of truths that can make you feel I guess comforted.

730
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 5: But it's all I mean, it's very it's I think

731
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 5: disaggregated from reality.

732
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 4: And I do think.

733
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,280
Speaker 5: That that that mixture of anxiety and disorder or what's

734
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 5: so troubling because it doesn't feel like people are following tradition,

735
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 5: the idea that the American electorate would say somebody who

736
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 5: wants to put this guy in power is trustworthy. I mean,

737
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 5: I just you know, we talk all the time like

738
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 5: Richard Nixon was a crook and a criminal and an opportunist,

739
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 5: but Richard Nixon also helped, you know, enshrining the EPA

740
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 5: and the Clean Air Act, because Richard Dixon wasn't actually

741
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 5: a crazy person, right, And that's the distinction I think

742
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 5: I'm kind of getting at is like Grift just to

743
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,239
Speaker 5: me does not feel like an explanation for what's happening here.

744
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, a disintegration of ordered thinking feels like a

745
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 5: better explanation. And it's happening at a cultural level, and

746
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,400
Speaker 5: it's also happening at an institutional level. Institutions that are

747
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 5: supposed to mediate our thinking and our actions in rational

748
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 5: ways are not doing that. If we think of them

749
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 5: as communicative communicative sites, they're not functioning the way rational

750
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 5: communication works anymore.

751
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

752
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 1: And I think I think that's a I think that

753
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: irrationality is, you know, And I mean there's so many

754
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: different hallmarks of it, from things like the tariffs, to

755
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 1: things like the anti vax stuff, to the scientific stuff.

756
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 1: Can we talk about something that I am a little

757
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: bit obsessed with, which is this idea that Elon Musk

758
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,520
Speaker 1: is the richest man in the world, has made almost

759
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 1: all of his money on technology, right, stuff that has

760
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: been created from science done in labs like at Harvard, Right,

761
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that's made possible by.

762
00:38:59,160 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 2: Things like Ana.

763
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: So why do you think, I mean that irrationality is

764
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: so striking to me? What do you think the operating

765
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: principle there is or do you think this is all

766
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:16,319
Speaker 1: just kind of like post printing press madness that America

767
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 1: is engaging in.

768
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 5: I'm glad you said the printing press, because I do

769
00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 5: think that, like a the the printing press challenge of

770
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 5: our era, right, which is social media, it is invalant. Like, yeah,

771
00:39:26,920 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 5: I mean, I think with Elon, it's this is a

772
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,879
Speaker 5: guy who you know, I can't speak to like how

773
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 5: smart or insightful Elon might have been a decade ago,

774
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 5: but I think it's pretty obvious that for the last

775
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 5: few years he's spent his time. You know, he admits

776
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,800
Speaker 5: to taking inordinate amounts of ketamine.

777
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 2: Right, and the New York Times just had a big

778
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 2: piece on that.

779
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, go on, he spends like twenty hours a day

780
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 5: just absolutely soaking in social media, and I mean, I

781
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 5: think that is a place that just you know, it

782
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 5: obliterates your sense of up and down. So you know,

783
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 5: I mean, if he's just taking drugs and he's the

784
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 5: richest man in the world, which itself can be kind

785
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 5: of a narcotic, and he's spending more hours a day

786
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 5: than many people are awake on his own social media platform, right,

787
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 5: to me, that's just you're just swimming in a kind

788
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 5: of sea of irrational and sort of disordered behavior. I mean,

789
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 5: social media doesn't bring out our best in most of us.

790
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:23,759
Speaker 5: And then you also have places like what he's turned

791
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 5: to accent to, which is just a full on cess pool.

792
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: Let's go another minute on the printing press here, because

793
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: I do really want to talk about that. I once

794
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: was on a panel interviewing a very famous tech bro,

795
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: you know, and he said everything.

796
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 2: Very you know, a lot.

797
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: Of that kind of stuff, the tech bro stuff. And

798
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 1: then I said to you, do you think we're better off?

799
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: And he said, well, we will eventually be better off,

800
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: but it's like the printing press, we may have one

801
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: hundred years of fuckeray.

802
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,359
Speaker 2: Do you think that it's a one to one there?

803
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 5: No, because I think this is true of a lot

804
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 5: of people who are in kind of the liberally you know.

805
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 5: I came of age under the Obama years camp I

806
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,439
Speaker 5: was at one point fairly optimistic about this stuff, right.

807
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, Twitter in the Arab spring, and

808
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 5: like look at Facebook and like this is pretty great.

809
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 5: I say that as someone who did not start as

810
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 5: a as a kind of lttite.

811
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 4: Or anything like that.

812
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,399
Speaker 5: But no, because I think what we've seen is that

813
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,800
Speaker 5: one we know for a fact that the effect of

814
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 5: screens is different. And I don't mean that in a

815
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 5: kind of screen addiction way, which is its own thing.

816
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 5: I mean we know psychologically that our capacity to recognize

817
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 5: the humanity of a person we're interacting with on a

818
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,720
Speaker 5: phone screen is reduced, Like our brain just doesn't process

819
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 5: it the way we process in person interaction. And when

820
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 5: you read a text that someone wrote, that person is

821
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 5: not there for you to scream at. Actually, right, you

822
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 5: go and find other paper and write about them. Social

823
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 5: media is combining these things, so it's taking like the

824
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:56,399
Speaker 5: text you know, if you're on Twitter, the text based

825
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 5: aspects right of the printing past, and it's fusing them

826
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 5: with a bunch of other stuff that we're not evolutionary

827
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 5: equipped for at all, like just interacting with millions of

828
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 5: anonymous people. And I think we've seen very clearly that

829
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 5: the stuff we're willing to say and do there is

830
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 5: just absolutely unhinged. And there's no you know, because of

831
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 5: the whole debate over you know, we're not a publishing platform,

832
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 5: et cetera. There's no editorial process right too. I stud

833
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 5: wanted to try to write a book about how Molly

834
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 5: is a terrible person.

835
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 2: Right now, you can write it.

836
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 5: I could self publish sure today, but like you know,

837
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 5: at one point there'd be like a process somebody would

838
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:34,280
Speaker 5: have to be like agreed to run that and print

839
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:37,359
Speaker 5: that and like actually do it. And now I could

840
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 5: just go onto these websites and say really anything I want.

841
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,359
Speaker 5: And so I just think the printing press analogy is

842
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 5: it's seductive because what it says is don't worry. Look

843
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 5: how great things are. Thinks to those advancements. That's how

844
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 5: they'll be because of this. But I think it really

845
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:55,880
Speaker 5: obscures all the way is that they're just not the

846
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:56,399
Speaker 5: same at all.

847
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: Oh so interesting, thank you saying you, saying you, saying

848
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you.

849
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 4: Now, Dan Nathan, Yes, Molly jonathast.

850
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 2: You are a special moment of fuckery guest.

851
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: So I'm going to set you up for a doozy Okay,

852
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 1: are you ready?

853
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 4: I'm ready.

854
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: So it involves America's most I want to say something generous,

855
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to worst congress Woman Marjorie Taylor Green.

856
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 2: So in the big.

857
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: Beautiful whatever the fuck that thing is, there is an

858
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: insane little bit of whatever that says.

859
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 2: And I'm going to read it to you.

860
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:43,399
Speaker 1: It basically says that states cannot regulate AI. So it

861
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: is the opposite of everything that Republicans have been saying

862
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: for so long. And but you know, AI companies want

863
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: it full transparency. I didn't know about this section on

864
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:56,839
Speaker 1: page two seventy eight to seventy nine of the obb

865
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: B that strip states for the rights to make laws

866
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 1: or regulate AI for a decade. I'm adamantly opposed all

867
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: caps to this, and it is a violation of state laws.

868
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: And I would have voted no had I known what

869
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: was in there or AKA read the bill, thought Stan Nathan.

870
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, let's read the bills here, people, and maybe

871
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 4: you make these big, beautiful bills something that are digestible

872
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 4: of all people opining on. This is probably not one

873
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 4: that I'm going to take to the bank and listen

874
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:27,360
Speaker 4: to what she has to say here. But at the

875
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 4: end of the day, I think you nailed it. It's like, okay,

876
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 4: if Republican politics, okay, for the last call it, one

877
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty years have centered around whatever the party was,

878
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 4: you know, prior to that have centered around you know

879
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 4: what I mean, the states being able to kind of

880
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 4: make their own laws. And put the power back in

881
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 4: the people's hands as it relates to whatever the demographics

882
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 4: or geographic issues specific to them. It just doesn't make

883
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:52,399
Speaker 4: a whole heck of a lot of sense. You want

884
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 4: to turn this thing upside down, you know. And some

885
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 4: of the folks that are these aisars or cryptosars that

886
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 4: have come into the administration, you know, you would think

887
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 4: that these people have a code, right, like they've kind

888
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 4: of built things over amazing things and so it gote valid,

889
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 4: you know, over the last thirty forty years, that sort

890
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 4: of thing that have actually advanced the quality of life

891
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 4: for so many you know, millions of not billions of

892
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 4: people here, and that's some sort of conformity about this.

893
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,240
Speaker 4: They recognize what the stakes are with AI. That would

894
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 4: make a whole heck of a lot of sense. So

895
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 4: in some ways, you know, taking the power from the

896
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 4: States and taking the power from folks like Marjorie Taylor

897
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 4: Green who don't understand any of it makes some sense

898
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 4: to me. But these people better get their act together

899
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 4: because this technology is advancing at a pace that we've

900
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 4: never seen right now, and it's really at the center

901
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 4: of a lot of the sort of battles that are

902
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 4: going to be fought over the next hundred years for

903
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:50,919
Speaker 4: like global supremacy. I know that sounds really dramatic. Backtion

904
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 4: one hundred years and let's see how important this is

905
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 4: right now that we get it right, because you know what,

906
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 4: you know, who doesn't kind of mess around with this?

907
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 4: I know is the moment fuckery, so I could say,

908
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 4: is the Chinese. They're taking a fifty year view about

909
00:46:05,120 --> 00:46:07,479
Speaker 4: this and we are taking an every two year view

910
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 4: as it relates to our midterms.

911
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dan Nathan.

912
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 4: All Right, Mollie, thanks for having me.

913
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:18,359
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in

914
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best

915
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If

916
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,560
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917
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: and keep the conversation going.

918
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:35,240
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.