WEBVTT - Dan Nathan & Alan Elrod 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.160 Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.120 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:11.640 today's best minds. And Elon Musk warns that excessive spending 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:16.400 will plunge the US into debt slavery. Yeah, now he's 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:17.120 worried about it. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.439 We have such a great chill for you today. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.520 Risk Reversal's own Dan Nathan stops by to tell us 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:26.960 about businesses reactions to. 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.360 Trump's insane tariffs. 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.839 Then we'll talk to Alan Alrod about his brilliant article 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:35.640 You're not crazy, America has gone mad. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.640 But first of the news, so Molly, the CBO, which 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.760 this weekend, Mike Johnson had to say, you know is 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.199 a woke institution and you should believe it. But then 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.040 they pointed out how often he cites it. He says 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.760 that the trunk tax bill will add two point four 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.800 trillion to the deficit a leave ten point nine million 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.360 more on insured. Great work, great work, really serving the 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:58.160 American people. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.080 I want to talk about this bill because I know 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.600 that I keep talking about this bill, but I just 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.080 want all of our listeners to just take a minute 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.800 to realize how stupid this fucking thing is. Okay, first, 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.280 of all all Republicans in the House signed off on it, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:18.040 everyone from Marjorie Taylor Green to Mike Lawler. So if 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:21.119 you're Mike Lawler and you're in a D plus one 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.240 or an R plus one, you know a very swingy district, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.399 which he is. Jesse is now going to look up 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.040 what his district is, but it's a very tight district 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.399 that is not supposed to elect a Marjorie Taylor Green. 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.040 That guy also voted for this, so all of them 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.880 have voted for this. In it, nearly a thousand pages, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.080 is a ton of pork, including crazy stuff like this 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:49.880 crazy thing that limits judicial power and oversight of this administration. 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.400 You're shocked to hear that, but I bet you're actually 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:53.360 not shocked to hear that. 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.000 And in it there's also a ton of other stuff. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:01.720 Work requirements for parents with children over seven for Medicaid 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.880 and food stamps. That's right, if you have a child 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.080 over seven, you need to be working. You need to 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.680 be having a job, Okay, because children. 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.280 Over seven are adults. I mean, this is what this 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:14.839 bill does. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.400 And what this bill does is it saves a little 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.560 bit of money clawing back Medicaid. That means rural hospitals 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.920 and nursing homes, and then it spends a lot of 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.800 money doing crazy tax stuff. And I want to have 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:31.200 one second to talk about the crazy tax stuff because basically, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:36.560 this bill BBB, big beautiful bullshit is the purest distillation 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:41.160 of MAGA. Right, it's a lot of Trump's campaign promises, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:42.600 no tax on tips. 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:44.120 How will they do? 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.600 No tax on tips? I feel like I'm going crazy, right, 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.280 what's a tip? What's not a tip? There's no way 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.880 to deliver this, And there's just a lot of more 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.280 tax bullshit. And then there's also stuff in this big 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:01.200 beautiful bullshit that is, you know, besides the judicial power stuff, 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.440 there's other stuff in there that's just pork. So Elon 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.919 Musk has said now that it's a bad bill. Now 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.919 I want to redo something from Jake Sherman at Punchbowl News, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:16.079 who was a really really really sourced congressional reporter, and 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.960 he said a Republican aid on Elon Musk opposing the 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.880 Reconciliation bill, the guy was pro the package until he 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.560 realized he wasn't going to get his way on the 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.520 ev tax credits. Right, none of these people give a 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.200 fuck about the deficit. Elon wanted the ev tax credits 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.440 because he thinks it'll be good for TESLA. I want 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.880 people to realize, like, nobody here is acting out of 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.680 any interest but their own self interest. 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.520 Yeah, strong agree. So we're going to have a real 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.080 survey of stupidity today, and analysis finds the majority of 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.440 Trump cabinet tied to Project twenty twenty five groups. What 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.760 a shocker. It's almost like we said this a year. 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:01.080 Ago, since you and I did this whole twenty twenty 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:06.400 five thing, this YouTube series, and we kept at every point, 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.920 we kept being like, I think you and I together 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.720 would be like, oh my god, these people are just 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.320 going to do twenty twenty five. 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.120 And yeah, the last episode we did of the thing 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.560 where like we point out Trump lying and showing all 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.480 the evidence that he's going to put exactly who he 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:23.599 put in, Well, we were right. 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.160 It's like I definitely spend time in this election cycle 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:29.599 thinking about the ways I was wrong. Well here's one 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.520 where I was fucking right, And so we're you know, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:33.000 this was always the play. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.120 Project twenty twenty five was the ethos. 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.200 Now there are things happening in this administration that are actually, 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.200 I think scarier than Project twenty twenty five, and I'm 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:46.120 thinking about like what RFK is is doing right now 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:48.800 to research and science and health. 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:50.520 But do not. 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.360 Underestimate the damage that Ross Fought is doing at the 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.359 Office of Management and Budget. And he was on the 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.440 Sunday shows last week. He's doing that because they're trying 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:03.840 to push this bills through the Senate and he's trying 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:08.720 to get senators on board. On this show, Dana Bash asks, 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:10.920 is it fair to say what you're doing now is 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:16.880 in part enacting Project twenty twenty five, And of course Russvott. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:17.240 Says absolutely not. 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.960 But this smart reporter pointed out that sixty to seventy 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:26.039 percent of Project twenty twenty five's executive action proposals have 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:31.000 been implemented or initiated, and those are things like environment education, 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.480 and then thirty to forty percent of their proposals are 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.120 being proposed as legislation, and those are Look, you and 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.880 I both remember the goal of Project twenty twenty five 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:47.520 expand presidential power, take power away from Congress. This Congress 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:49.960 was really happy to give it to Trump and to 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.600 sort of make the presidency an imperial presidency. 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:56.760 And that's what we're watching happen in real time. 0:05:57.160 --> 0:05:59.720 Yep. Well, the good news is is what we often 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:04.760 see is that the small elections in between the big 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.719 mid terms and the of course every four years where 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.599 we pick up president, that we're seeing a lot of 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.480 really good news in districts that could spell good things 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.920 for us pushing back against this administration. Since we had 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.359 just achieved a landslide election when in South Carolina for 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:22.120 the Democrats. 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.000 Yeah, you know this is like history rhymes right, Remember 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:32.159 in twenty sixteen, Democrats won every election, and there's a 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:37.120 reason why. It's because the Republicans are doing something wildly unpopular. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:43.080 Work requirements for food stamps, for Medicaid, these are unpopular things. 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:45.839 The reason Republicans are in such a hurry to get 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.880 it past is a because they know that when people 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:49.800 read the bills they. 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.640 Won't like it, right like what happened with Marjorie Dale Green. 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:58.000 And b because ultimately they know this is super unpopular. 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.680 So I think we'll definitely see. 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:05.159 More of these kind of amazing democratic landslides. You know, 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.640 there are people listening to this podcast right now. A 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.520 lot of people listen to this podcast, and you tend 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.640 to be very civic minded, smart people. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:13.800 So here's my. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.600 Question for you. We see that there's going to be 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.600 this grand swell, we see that Democrats are going to win. 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.480 Why don't you run for office? If you're listening to 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.080 this podcast you live in a red state or a 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.320 blue state, or a city or a town, like, we 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.200 cannot wait for these people to fix our problems. They 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:37.760 are not motivated, they are not capable. So maybe you 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.480 listeners are the ones that we've been waiting for. 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.360 Yeah, especially when we see incompetence like this that the 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.760 White House is being mocked after they admit that they 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.559 sent letters to remind countries about trade deal deadlines and 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.440 now we're begging for them to cut deals. 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.160 Yes, well, you know who we haven't seen in a 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.680 long time. Tell me Peter Navarro. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:01.520 Oh where is that? Follow? 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:03.480 Where is Peter Navarro? 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.880 Because Peter Navarro promised me ninety deals in ninety days. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:09.640 Mall, you're going to be in DC soon, you're going 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:10.680 to put up missing signs. 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.400 Yes, I'm going to be like Peter. I think Peter's 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:14.000 definitely going. 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.120 To come to my book reading. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.280 He's a known reader. Yeah, so where are those ninety 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:21.120 deals in ninety days? 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.119 You know how many deals. We have tell me one 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.720 O one, we have one deal. And it's not even 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:33.480 a deal, it's a framework of a deal. Dan Nathan 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.080 is a c NBC contributor and the host of the 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:38.800 Risk Reversal podcast. 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.360 Dan Nathan, Welcome to Fast Politics. 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.079 Favorite podcast other than my own, Molly Dalnas. Great to 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:47.560 be here. I have a book to read, by the way, 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:49.520 I'm really excited about I'm excited for you. 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.079 Thank you. How to was your mother out yesterday? Because 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:54.880 you know, we got to self promote. 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.520 I was on a television show interviewing someone who is 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.480 a very smart money guy economists, not an economist, but 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.679 someone who does does what you do, and he was expressing, 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.280 I think a lot of anxiety about the fact that 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:16.320 the market seemed to be behaving quite rationally at this moment. 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.480 Is that still true and can you explain to us why. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.240 Yeah, A couple things here, So it depends which market 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.560 you're talking about, right, So the stock market was the 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.280 primary focus of most people, most citizens in this country 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.199 when we were you know, post liberation day. I say 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.959 that obviously in air quotes, because we saw the S 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.160 and P koreem lower. That's the largest, you know, stock 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.840 market in the US or at least indussy. And you know, 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.600 but there's other markets, right. There's the US treasury market, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.040 which you know is basically one of the most important 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.520 you know, interest rates that a lot of stuff is 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.640 kind of quoted against. Right. And then there was the 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:53.480 currency market, the US dollar. 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.839 I want you to stop and talk about the treasury market, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.800 because that's been the really important indicator of this moment. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.480 This treasury market is bond people. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.120 Usually when the market goes down by bonds because it's 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.400 a hedge against volatility. 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:10.480 But that's not what's happening right now. 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.679 Right, So Americans have been accustomed to buying US treasury 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.360 bonds because the fact that the US Treasury is not 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.000 going to default, right, And so you have this incidence 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.200 where if you're pulling money, let's say, out of the 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.200 stock market because you think it's risky for whatever reason, 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.440 you can park money in the treasury market. Okay. But 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:30.800 the problem is in this last couple months or so, 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.360 is that some of the biggest holders of our debt 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.960 of US treasuries are China, are Japan. And when you 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.359 come at some of these countries with like really exorbitant 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.559 tariff rates and they are getting ready to go into 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.000 a protracted trade war because they don't want to be 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:51.400 bullied right into basically eating this kind of a whole 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.400 new world order as it relates to trade in such 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.160 a short period of time. They have leverage, they own 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.640 these treasuries, right, if they start selling them, that means 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.160 interest rates go higher. And you know, when you think 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.960 back to back in you know, March or so, when 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:10.400 Treasury Secretary Besson started to kind of prepare investors for 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.160 what might come right if they start, you know, kind 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.400 of putting these big tariffs on, they said, we're more 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.280 focused on the ten year treasure yield. They want that 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.400 to go lower. They have to refinance a lot of debt. 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.440 The higher the treasure yield is, the more expensive it 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.520 is to refinance that debt. And they said, we're not 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.880 worried about the stock market. Well, the stock market koreamed 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.160 in early April, and the US ten year treasure yield 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.640 went up. Why because there were foreign sellers of our debt. 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.640 It did the exact opposite of what the Treasury and 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.160 the White House wanted to happen. And that's why, that's 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.080 why we had that first taco experience back on April ninth, 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.760 which got the stock market going back higher. But the 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.760 real problem is that the US ten year treasure yield 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.440 is stuck at four point four or five percent, and 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.240 it was where you know, it basically was in early April. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.600 And the US dollar has not rallied because those same 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.320 sellers of treasuries have also been selling dollars and dollar 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:07.640 denominated assets. 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:13.240 So the dollar is down, the debt is more expensive, right. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.360 I would think about it this way. So the dollar 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.520 is where it was in early April, and US treasury 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.400 yields are basically in the ten year about the same spot. 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.760 So to the point you were making about that market 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.360 participant who says that the markets are not acting rationally, 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.240 well that's the stock markets not acting rationally. Basically, investors 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.160 are saying that the taco thing is going to happen. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.040 It's going to happen again. He's going to chick it 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.640 out again because pretty soon we're going to get to 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.439 that ninety day period where he pushed out reciprocal tariffs 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.680 right on the Chinese. He tweeted out last night that 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.080 g is going to be a hard guy to do 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.840 a deal with. I think he's already lowering expectations there. 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.600 So then the question is do they ratchet it back 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.959 up right, because we know that Chinese are going to 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.280 ratchet it back up. And it brings me back to 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.480 the first Trump administration. They put tariffs on China in 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.959 March of twenty eighteen. They did not have a framework 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.920 for a Phase one deal until January of twenty twenty. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.920 If you think trade wars are easy to prosecute, well 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.319 good luck with that. We've already seen that they're very difficult. 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.520 And we also know that our major adversary is going 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:21.920 to call our bluff. And it's also interesting to know 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.040 that the first two countries that we came after, Mexico 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.000 and Canada to where our biggest trading partners, have yet 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.080 to come to the table. And I think that emboldens 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:30.920 the Chinese. Also. 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.400 I want to talk about Mexico and Canada because what 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:38.120 happened there was such a self inflicted wound, right Mexico 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.600 and Canada. You have to work really hard to make 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.720 these people furious, and he did right, especially Canada, like 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:46.679 they're run by a banker. 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:48.360 At this point. He's a liberal. 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.600 All he wants is to not have drama tried as 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.560 hard as possible to keep Brexit from blowing up the 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.400 UK economy. Now, Brexit fucking disaster. But Mark Carney is 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.160 really like the leader you would want, Like, I mean, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.000 isn't he kind of your and mind too a little 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:06.160 bit our dream president? 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:06.960 Yeah? 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:08.920 I mean, you know, here's a guy who actually has 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.360 a strong fundamental knowledge of how markets work. 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:12.640 Right. 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.480 He understands the inner complexities of what we just went through. Right, 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.160 what does the treasury market mean? What are interest rates mean? 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.800 What is FED policy, which is meant to be independent 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.440 of politics? What does that mean? What does the stock 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.080 market tell you at certain times? The stock market, you 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.480 hear this expression all the time, is a discounting mechanism, right, 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.720 It looks at all the available news, and then investors 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:35.920 kind of put their money to work. And so you 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.520 could say, right now, maybe that is what the stock 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.200 market is telling you, that the worst case scenarios are 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.640 off the table and maybe some like cooler heads like 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.640 Mark Carney might prevail. If you think about Mexico, shine, 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.720 they haven't really been engaging in a way that's particularly antagonistic. 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.240 The EU has suggested that they will come to the table, 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.440 but they don't know who they're negotiating with or what 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.360 we want that sort of thing. The UK that deal 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.800 was a bit of a fugazy They just said, let's 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:05.360 just get this out. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:06.960 One works of a deal, right. 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.000 So to your point, I think that there's like some 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.920 definitely level headed folks. But then let's go to a 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.240 topic us. Let's go to a topic that I know 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:17.720 is near and dear to your heart. Somebody who's kind 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.320 of off kilter a little bit. That would be Elon Musk, 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:22.720 who just left the administration and now all of a 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.960 sudden he's got some real big issues with the tax policy, 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.840 the tax plan. And don't think for a second that 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:32.960 these things are not kind of related, because they really 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:34.960 are important if you think about it. If we're trying 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.680 to reorient global trade, if we're trying to work on 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.120 bringing down our national debt, I. 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:41.760 Mean, to re orient global trade. 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.960 In tariffs are that it's like taking a chainsaw, I mean, 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.640 much better to give incentives to use a carrot rather 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.640 than a step. I also wonder how much of Elon 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:58.880 Musk's newfound frugality is his irritation that EV credits are 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:02.080 no longer the I mean, this is a guy who 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:07.200 democratic legislation created him, right, he became the richest man 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.520 in the world, EV tax credits, all of this sort 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.800 of you know, the help that his company's got. 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:17.920 Yeah, I mean, the one thing I just say about 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.600 Elon and you know, I think he's a much more 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.040 effective chaos agent than Donald Trump. 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:23.320 Right. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.560 But the one thing that's consistent between the two of 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.400 them is they always say the quiet part out loud, right, 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.560 And so Elon coming out this tax bill, he has 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.440 not really mentioned, you know, these EV tax credits. He's 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.240 gone back and forth on that. By the way, over 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.920 the last few years, he's gone back and forth over 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.120 you know, some sort of trade barriers as it relates 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.000 to China and evs. We don't really know where he 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.440 stands on this. I think one of the positions as 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.160 it relates to Tesla in particular, has been that they're 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.760 in a much better spot than not say GM and 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.160 Ford to kind of have these credits go away. But 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.800 that's actually not the case anymore. The fundamentals of their 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.880 business could not be worse. Right now, the auto gross margins, 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.280 the profit that they make on their evs is now 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.679 in line with that of GM and Ford. GM and 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.360 Ford are pulling back from the ev market and they're 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.199 going more for these plug in hybrids. So when I 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.120 think about the way that he has gone about kind of, 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.000 you know, dealing with a price war, the Chinese are 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.200 eating their lunch. He's expected to have the second consecutive 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.600 decline in deliveries this year at a time where the 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.560 price war is eating into their margin. So he needs 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.520 these credits. It's very important. But they haven't said it yet, 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.480 and Trump hasn't come out and said it yet, and 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:36.520 this thing is going to be a bit worse. And 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.040 I just think that the lobbing of the grenade at 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.560 the tax bill is something that basically he's trying to 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.879 maybe reorient the kind of what's going on with tax 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.800 and the expectations about cuts to lower the taxes versus 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.360 what's going on with trade and the fact that our 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.960 government appears to be mired in problems with both of 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.600 them at the same time. It goes back to the 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.840 first administration. They went for tats Gary Khan came in. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.440 He wanted to get tax cuts through. They got them through. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.560 It was a tailwind for the economy, it was a 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:09.800 tailwind for the stock market, and then they focused on 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.840 terrafts and trade. And I'm not saying that was effective, 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.360 but it was a much more effective way about it. 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.080 Oh much more right. 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.840 I mean, you choice the economy with the tax cuts 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.000 and then you go in there with the tariffs and 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.680 it ends up being actually quite good because it tamps 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.439 down some of the inflationary you know. 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.360 I mean that with Gary Cohen is not the same. 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.040 As you know, the people who are in charge right now, 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.600 which is Donald Trump's lizard brain. I want to talk 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:42.359 about China for another minute, because there's so much anxiety 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.800 about China right what the next step is here? What's 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:49.520 happening with Taiwan? We are really vulnerable to them. Also, 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:51.639 the other thing I want to ask you about selling 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:55.000 the bonds. I didn't realize that this was actually China 0:18:55.080 --> 0:19:01.240 Japan selling bonds. So that is now that's indisputable. It's 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.159 not like technical traders. 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.000 No, I mean, like there's definitely market participants here and 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.120 around the globe who basically have a trade on they 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.640 called the carry trade. They kind of sell over there 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.000 and they use the proceeds and they buy higher yielding 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.040 assets over here. And one of the reasons why you 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.439 saw that market volatility in most markets. You know, this 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.480 is back in April, but we also saw it in 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.679 late July in early August. When you see an unwind 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:28.879 of that, that's when you see markets go haywire. And 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.160 so when you think about who has the leverage right 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.360 in a situation like this, the largest holders of your 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.120 debt have the leverage right. We also had a situation 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:39.960 a few weeks ago where moody is one of the 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.199 big rating agencies, came out and lowered the rating on 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.840 our debt, which also makes us vulnerable. Treasury Secretary Bessett 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.560 said the other day that we will not default on 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.080 our debt, but we almost did, you know, about twelve 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.760 years ago. And so there's a lot of unknowns here. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:56.480 And so when you think about I'll just kind of 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.400 bring it back to China, which you wanted to kind 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.600 of talk about. You know, Okay, let's take the over 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.840 on what they might do with Taiwan. You know, some 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.040 of the easiest things they might do, or some sorts 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.000 of blockades or some sort of trade sort of situations 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.600 and that sort of thing. That is important because when 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:13.919 you think about generative AI chips and this is the 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.520 new world order that we live in. This is going 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.280 to be the most important commodity going forward, especially as 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.560 we deal with our adversaries going forward. They are made 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.320 in Taiwan, Okay, so if the Chinese try to disrupt 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:31.320 anything as it relates to Taiwanese production of those chips, 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.760 that could be a real problem for the entire globe. Right, 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.240 So I think about, you know, how this kind of 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.800 new world order is going to be set, Well, we 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.240 can't afford to have any disruption there. So when we 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.280 think about China, you know, the national security as it 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.280 relates to supply chains is really important. So how do 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.600 the Chinese have leverage on our manufacturing? Okay? They are 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.640 thirty percent of the global manufacturing, right, so we went 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.040 through this with COVID that was a bit of a problem. 0:20:57.080 --> 0:20:59.760 They also own a lot of the rare earth materials 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.639 that into EV batteries and magnets in this sort, and 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:07.320 they also own the purchasing power of let's say Boeing planes, right. 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.240 So a headline that hit today is that they're considering 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.679 by hundreds of planes from Airbus, which is obviously you know, 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.280 a European company, it's French, and that would be in 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.760 place of Boeing planes. Boeing has been mired in problems 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:22.480 for the last six or seven years. They had those 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:25.320 plane crashes, these issues with the seven forty seven Max, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.280 and they've been missed you executing for a while. That 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.919 could be a real big hit to our economy, not 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.760 just from a manufacturing standpoint, but really from our stature, 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.320 you know around the globe for American exceptionalism. 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:39.720 American exceptionalism. Ha haha. 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.560 It's so funny that you just said this thing about Boeing, 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:46.680 because I really do think part of what happened with Boeing, 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.879 right is a question of regulation, right. I mean, things 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.040 got at a hand because the regulatory environment wasn't what 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.680 it needed to be to make sure these planes were safe. 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.800 And remember Trump was in fact president from twenty sixteen 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.760 to twenty twenty. I just wonder how much like one 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.520 of the things Trump loves to do is dismantle regulation, 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:14.520 and we never ever see why that's bad, right, We 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:19.400 only ever see him dismantling regulation and then a catastrophe 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.320 like that trained derailment in Ohio. I feel like there 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:28.040 is a straight line between deregulation and environmental fallout but 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:29.760 also economic fallout. 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:32.640 Yeah, I mean that's the story of the two thousands, right, 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:34.800 and a lead up to the financial crisis. You know, 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.160 we had some significant regulations as it really to our 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:40.920 financial institutions, and you know it was the Clinton administration 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.040 that actually rolled a puncture those back, right. And you know, 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.199 as you think about folks who have incentives right to 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.960 kind of take financial instruments and kind of repackage them 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.040 and do them in a way where they can make 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:54.680 a lot of money on them and they can get 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:56.960 around regulations. I mean, that's really what happened in the 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:59.400 financial crisis, and you have thought on the way out 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.679 of that where so many individuals were really burned. They 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:04.800 were the bag holders in that, and you had you know, 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.240 Elizabeth Warren put in the CFPB and all that sort 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:08.800 of stuff. And I think this is the point you're 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.360 getting to, is that the administration comes in in this 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:13.439 new administration, it's one of the first things they do 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:17.560 they get rid of the Consumer Protection Organization that was 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:21.479 meant to shield everyday citizens from that sort of you know, 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:23.240 predatory behavior. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.200 And so here's because of two thousand and eight. 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:28.640 Because of the financial crisis, and then you can look 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:32.080 to twenty and eighteen. So the Trump administration rolled back 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:37.199 some regulation about capital levels for smaller banks. Okay, so 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.760 do you remember in March of twenty twenty three, Silicon 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:41.880 Valley Bank went down. There was a handful of other 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.919 banks that went down. You can draw a line back 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:48.600 to these capital requirements that were rolled back in the 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:52.840 twenty eighteen deregulation. And we lost some really important banks, 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:55.919 and we also had some threats to the financial system 0:23:55.920 --> 0:23:58.320 at the time, different than two thousand and eight, but 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:00.840 in some ways they could have had big not gun effects. 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:02.480 And what did the government have to do And this 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:04.880 was under obviously the biderministration. They had to go bail 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:07.240 them out, right, And so we see this again and again. 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.959 If you give these financiers, if you give these folks 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:13.680 enough room or enough rope, they will ultimately hang themselves 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:16.160 because the incentives are too great in the near term, 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:19.080 and they know that they can socialize the losses if 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:19.760 things go bad. 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:22.480 Yeah, I was just going to say, privatize the gain, 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:26.880 socialize the losses. Speaking of socializing the losses, the BBB, 0:24:27.400 --> 0:24:32.200 big beautiful bullshit bell will in fact cut a lot 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:35.719 of things right. It'll cut snap benefits, food for hungry children, 0:24:35.800 --> 0:24:39.639 it will cut Medicaid, which will cut rural hospitals, nursing homes, 0:24:39.720 --> 0:24:43.399 but it will also provide these insane tax cut no 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:46.479 tax on tips. I mean, what is that even? Like, 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:49.840 no tax on tips? How would that even be implemented? 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:52.680 What does that look like? And what would the financial 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:55.000 sort of fall out be? Right? I mean, clearly it'll 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:57.679 juice the public markets, but what do you think it'll 0:24:57.720 --> 0:24:59.040 look like in six months? 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:01.520 Well, it's funny that sun tips thing is obviously a 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:03.880 populous sort of move. When he would go to Nevada 0:25:03.960 --> 0:25:06.439 during the campaign, he would talk about that and you know, 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:08.919 and again this goes back to maybe some of his 0:25:09.000 --> 0:25:11.920 political genius, but his lack of acumen when it comes 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:14.359 to policy and the likes. So to me, that is 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:16.560 probably a bit of a rounding era if you think 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:19.280 about all the folks that will benefit from that, however 0:25:19.320 --> 0:25:23.119 they implement it, versus the expected maybe ten thirteen million 0:25:23.160 --> 0:25:26.440 people in America. We're going to lose access to healthcare 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:29.560 or to your point about snap or you know, free 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:33.080 lunches and breakfast for you know, students of you know, 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:36.000 lower income sort of families in the like, and I mean, 0:25:36.119 --> 0:25:38.960 those are the big things and ultimately, I think those 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:40.560 are the things that are going to get felt right 0:25:40.560 --> 0:25:42.159 out of the gate. Do you feel them? How do 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:45.119 these things get implemented? You know, who knows. But at 0:25:45.160 --> 0:25:47.639 the end of the day, I mean this sort of 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:50.040 cuts in a lot of red states. And that's the 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:52.080 other thing. If you think about some of these policies 0:25:52.080 --> 0:25:54.040 that were put in place during the Biden administration, you 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:55.879 could say, well, the IRA and the Chips Acts and 0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:58.720 all this sort of stuff, they deliberately put them in 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:01.600 some of these red states, so the folks would actually 0:26:01.680 --> 0:26:04.840 have all the benefits of this government spend if you 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:07.160 think about it, right, and it goes back to really 0:26:07.200 --> 0:26:10.560 a social safety net. If Republicans want to push through 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:13.440 a four and a half trillion dollar tax cut over 0:26:13.480 --> 0:26:15.840 the next ten years and throw three or four trillion 0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:19.119 dollars onto the national debt, which is the thing that 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:22.440 they're supposed to care about, then they better be prepared 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:26.200 for the repercussions because they lose the soul of the party. Right. 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:28.240 If this is what and this is why Ran Paul 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:30.399 and some of these folks, and even Elon Musk, we 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:32.919 don't know Elon Mus's intention. I never knew him to 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:35.440 be a fiscal hawk by any means, and you think 0:26:35.480 --> 0:26:39.680 of the beneficiaries he's been able to enjoy from government spending. 0:26:39.880 --> 0:26:42.320 But this is one where I don't think it gets 0:26:42.359 --> 0:26:45.359 fixed too quickly. I don't think President Trump, as his 0:26:46.000 --> 0:26:49.080 approval rating goes down over these economic issues, especially as 0:26:49.119 --> 0:26:51.240 the trade thing gets pushed out, is going to have 0:26:51.280 --> 0:26:53.879 this sort of leverage over the Senate as he did 0:26:54.000 --> 0:26:55.800 over the House in the last few weeks. 0:26:56.000 --> 0:27:00.919 That's the twenty four tillion dollar question. Danny. Then, thank you, 0:27:01.000 --> 0:27:02.720 thank you. I hope you'll come back. 0:27:03.080 --> 0:27:04.520 Thanks Bally. Great to be here. 0:27:06.400 --> 0:27:06.879 Allan L. 0:27:07.000 --> 0:27:10.200 Rod is the President and CEO of the Pulaski Institute 0:27:10.240 --> 0:27:12.400 and a contributor to Liberal Currents. 0:27:12.880 --> 0:27:16.240 Welcome to Fast Politics, Alan L. Rod. 0:27:16.320 --> 0:27:18.960 You write a bunch of stuff, very smart. You write 0:27:18.960 --> 0:27:21.360 for Liberal Currents, which I think of as a very 0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:26.040 very smart literary magazine in the tradition of the New Republic, 0:27:26.359 --> 0:27:29.040 a little more lefty. And I want to talk about 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:31.919 this essay, which is why I knew we had to 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:35.560 have you on, because I was like, Holy moly, this 0:27:35.640 --> 0:27:39.000 is how I feel this. Why didn't I write this piece? 0:27:39.200 --> 0:27:43.480 And the title is You're not crazy America has gone mad. 0:27:43.920 --> 0:27:47.080 So talk to me about sort of how you got here. 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:50.159 I've only been doing the sort of writing commentary pieces 0:27:50.200 --> 0:27:52.040 for a few years, and really it kind of came 0:27:52.080 --> 0:27:55.880 out of I head also trying to get this policy 0:27:55.880 --> 0:27:58.399 type organization off the ground here in Arkansas called the 0:27:58.400 --> 0:28:03.560 Plaski Institution that I started in twenty twenty one, and 0:28:03.880 --> 0:28:06.760 it is focused on a lot of the problems I 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:09.320 think I described in this piece and some other pieces, 0:28:09.359 --> 0:28:15.119 which is challenges that are happening with democracy and with popularism, 0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:18.119 not just in the US, but in really a lot 0:28:18.160 --> 0:28:20.560 of Western countries where there's a lot of breakdown in 0:28:20.880 --> 0:28:23.399 not just the electoral politics, but also just sort of 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:26.480 broad cultural commitments to the important things that make a 0:28:26.520 --> 0:28:29.399 liberal democracy work. But I've tried to think about that 0:28:29.440 --> 0:28:31.560 in sort of heartland places, So that was sort of 0:28:31.400 --> 0:28:33.960 the idea I started writing to sort of try to 0:28:33.960 --> 0:28:35.879 get these ideas out there and bring attention to what 0:28:35.920 --> 0:28:38.440 I'm trying to do. And I've been really lucky. I 0:28:38.440 --> 0:28:42.400 think that that's turned into its own sort of separate 0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:45.640 and really rewarding journey. In terms of I started writing 0:28:45.640 --> 0:28:49.800 an arc digital back in twenty twenty two, and really 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:53.239 clicked with Brady Belvite or there and Nicholas Grossman, and 0:28:53.320 --> 0:28:55.720 luckily got to do some pieces for other places. And 0:28:56.840 --> 0:28:59.680 Liberal Currents was a place I got connected with thanks 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:03.040 to anac Manus, who's actually a fellow at the plast Constitution. 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:05.800 He said, you know, reach out to Adam Gurry if 0:29:05.800 --> 0:29:07.520 you're just sting in pitching them, and I did, and 0:29:07.560 --> 0:29:09.400 it was one of those kind of we all just 0:29:09.440 --> 0:29:12.400 sort of clicked. I got in the little discord with 0:29:12.440 --> 0:29:14.880 the other editors and writers at Liberal Currents and there 0:29:14.920 --> 0:29:18.320 was a I think a very happy marriage of thought 0:29:18.360 --> 0:29:21.400 and opinion, and so lip O Currens became you know, 0:29:21.640 --> 0:29:22.640 I'm a contributing enditor. 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:25.600 Now, yeah, that's so great. But let's talk about what 0:29:26.360 --> 0:29:30.040 this idea is. So you start with a passage from 0:29:30.080 --> 0:29:34.920 Hannah Rand's origins of totalitarianism. Never has our future been 0:29:35.000 --> 0:29:39.160 more unpredictable. Never have we depended so much on political 0:29:39.160 --> 0:29:42.840 forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules. And 0:29:42.880 --> 0:29:45.320 I think this is the most important point here, of 0:29:45.400 --> 0:29:49.800 common sense and self interest forces that look like sheer 0:29:49.840 --> 0:29:53.960 insanity if judged by the standard of other centuries. So 0:29:54.120 --> 0:29:58.320 much of Trump administration at this moment. You know, from 0:29:58.640 --> 0:30:04.280 RFK Junior to Elon Musk, there's so many things that 0:30:04.320 --> 0:30:07.120 they are doing in this administration that strike me as 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:11.600 just completely I mean, obviously there's often profit motives behind it, 0:30:11.960 --> 0:30:15.200 but I wonder if you could just talk us through 0:30:15.320 --> 0:30:17.840 some of these things that you see. 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:20.200 Yeah, So, I think I'm really trying to do at 0:30:20.240 --> 0:30:22.760 this piece is to capture something that I think is 0:30:22.840 --> 0:30:26.240 happening that's observable at a few different levels. Right, So 0:30:26.600 --> 0:30:29.560 when I think about you know, I'm not being sort 0:30:29.560 --> 0:30:32.880 of literal, right and kind of madness. I understand mental 0:30:32.920 --> 0:30:35.640 illness and that language can sometimes be touchy for people. 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:39.080 But what I am trying to capture is there are 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:42.160 a lot of ways in which we are not behaving 0:30:42.160 --> 0:30:44.840 in ways that really makes sense. Right. You know, you 0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:47.840 mentioned profit motives, So there's clearly some self interest in 0:30:47.880 --> 0:30:50.120 the Trump administration, but there's a lot of things where 0:30:50.240 --> 0:30:53.040 the kind of even just rational principles of self preservation 0:30:53.360 --> 0:30:56.440 self interest don't feel like they're functioning. I mean, you know, 0:30:56.640 --> 0:31:00.080 what we're doing to our health system right now is crazy, 0:31:00.120 --> 0:31:02.760 and even since I wrote the piece, it's gotten crazier. Right. 0:31:02.760 --> 0:31:06.000 He said he wants to basically withdraw vaccines for most 0:31:06.040 --> 0:31:10.200 age groups. Right, there's all kinds of further downsizing of 0:31:10.240 --> 0:31:13.120 the FDA. They want to take fluoride, not just not 0:31:13.560 --> 0:31:16.200 you know, earlier they were talking about discouraging fluoride. Now 0:31:16.240 --> 0:31:19.440 there's talks about banning it in multiple states. It's really, 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:22.120 I mean, this is just in the wealthiest country in 0:31:22.120 --> 0:31:26.320 the world, crazy, right, And he talks about fixing chronic disease, 0:31:26.520 --> 0:31:28.840 even and even if you wanted to take him at 0:31:28.840 --> 0:31:31.400 face value in that that's not being done right because 0:31:31.400 --> 0:31:35.400 they're defunding all of these research initiatives that have run 0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:38.160 for a year, some of them decades on the sorts 0:31:38.160 --> 0:31:40.760 of disease as he says are important. So I think 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:42.640 the Health Science Fund is a good place to look 0:31:42.680 --> 0:31:45.880 at that because you have individual kind of madness, you 0:31:45.880 --> 0:31:48.440 have influencers or are sort of peddling this stuff, and 0:31:48.480 --> 0:31:50.880 you can see how it got into the groundwater over 0:31:50.960 --> 0:31:54.240 time in the US. But you also have the institutional 0:31:54.480 --> 0:31:57.840 problem of like, our institutions are not behaving the way 0:31:57.880 --> 0:32:00.680 they should behave they are fully at this point captured 0:32:00.760 --> 0:32:05.920 by this, I think completely. I kind of feel dystopian 0:32:05.920 --> 0:32:09.200 to me world view of yes, it's grift. But I 0:32:09.240 --> 0:32:11.959 always think that grift is a bad way to think 0:32:12.000 --> 0:32:14.360 about it sometimes because that implies it's just as simple 0:32:14.400 --> 0:32:16.719 as oh, they're just telling you a lie so they 0:32:16.760 --> 0:32:19.360 can get money. And I think that it's just far 0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:25.200 more irrational and sort of dysfunctional and chaotic than that. 0:32:25.600 --> 0:32:29.200 Oh yeah, I wonder what you think about MAHA Make 0:32:29.240 --> 0:32:32.600 America Healthy Again. I wonder how much of MAHA is 0:32:32.600 --> 0:32:34.840 an It seems to me there's a straight line between 0:32:34.840 --> 0:32:39.560 the pandemic, MAHA sort of the corruption of multi level 0:32:39.840 --> 0:32:41.400 marketing and MAGA. 0:32:41.560 --> 0:32:43.360 Do you think that's right? And how? 0:32:43.800 --> 0:32:44.040 Yeah? 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:45.800 I mean, I do think that that's correct. I think 0:32:45.840 --> 0:32:47.840 what you saw on the pandemic was something that was 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:50.880 already starting, which was a lot of these sort of 0:32:50.920 --> 0:32:55.600 health influencers who have just deeply on scientific beliefs about 0:32:55.640 --> 0:32:58.280 a lot of different things. That was really the I 0:32:58.280 --> 0:33:00.560 think the convergence point with them in MAGA, because there 0:33:00.600 --> 0:33:03.320 was a huge amount of objection to just the various 0:33:03.360 --> 0:33:06.520 health precautions that were being sure. I think in the 0:33:06.560 --> 0:33:10.160 pandemic you saw I think a convergence. It had been 0:33:10.160 --> 0:33:12.680 building for a bit, but you saw this convergence between 0:33:13.040 --> 0:33:17.320 a lot of health influencers and people who were more 0:33:17.760 --> 0:33:22.040 I think you're sort of typical RFK type person, voter 0:33:22.280 --> 0:33:25.360 or just kind of interested in his stuff. That kind 0:33:25.440 --> 0:33:28.160 of person really get into the sort of maga world. 0:33:28.240 --> 0:33:29.720 And that's kind of what Maha is right. It is 0:33:29.720 --> 0:33:32.440 this convergence of those two things. And some of that 0:33:32.520 --> 0:33:34.680 was about vaccine hesititency, but I think a lot of 0:33:34.680 --> 0:33:37.400 it was just more broadly about you know, the sort 0:33:37.440 --> 0:33:39.720 of existential dread of the pandemic and a lot of 0:33:39.800 --> 0:33:45.479 very unscientific and emotional reactions right to the pandemic. And 0:33:45.560 --> 0:33:49.600 so I think what is troubling to me about like Maha, 0:33:49.760 --> 0:33:52.520 is some of it is absolutely grift, but some of 0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:55.720 it is belief, right, and I think we have to 0:33:55.840 --> 0:33:56.480 reckon with that. 0:33:56.640 --> 0:33:56.800 Right. 0:33:56.880 --> 0:34:00.000 If I thought it was all just opportunism and grift, 0:34:00.040 --> 0:34:01.680 I don't think I would have written an essay called, 0:34:01.800 --> 0:34:04.760 you know, We've all Gone mad, because then it would 0:34:04.800 --> 0:34:08.160 just be sort of we're all cynical and we're all opportunists. 0:34:08.200 --> 0:34:11.040 But really, you know, for people to just kind of 0:34:11.120 --> 0:34:16.919 at once in large numbers reject these advancements we saw, 0:34:16.960 --> 0:34:19.200 I think the pandemic was just rocket fuel for this stuff. 0:34:19.200 --> 0:34:21.760 It pushed something that had been there for a long time, 0:34:21.840 --> 0:34:25.520 existing in a kind of particular corner of Instagram and YouTube, 0:34:25.960 --> 0:34:29.680 and it just propelled it into a collision with the 0:34:29.760 --> 0:34:32.040 maga stuff that had been coming really since since Trump 0:34:32.080 --> 0:34:35.640 came down the escalator, and that combination I think has 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:39.600 been really quite powerful and dangerous. 0:34:39.480 --> 0:34:40.280 Oh for sure. 0:34:40.520 --> 0:34:43.719 And I do think like part of it is there 0:34:43.960 --> 0:34:49.000 is real anxiety in modern life about what all of 0:34:49.000 --> 0:34:52.080 the things around us do and what they cause and 0:34:52.120 --> 0:34:55.320 what the possible. You know, we have younger people getting 0:34:55.360 --> 0:34:57.680 cancer things like that, that is real. 0:34:58.400 --> 0:34:59.920 I mean, I don't know my own person. 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:04.440 Pecadillo is why is RFK Junior, you know, not focusing 0:35:04.480 --> 0:35:07.520 on the stuff that he you know, there's some of 0:35:07.560 --> 0:35:10.479 this stuff is not as crazy, right, this stuff about 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:13.960 organic food or whatever, But that's not what he's focused on, right, 0:35:14.040 --> 0:35:18.720 He's focused on the stuff that's really vaccines, the stuff 0:35:18.760 --> 0:35:21.640 that the stuff that we were really scared he was 0:35:21.680 --> 0:35:23.319 going to do he is in fact doing. 0:35:23.880 --> 0:35:27.640 Yeah, there is a kind of I think fundamental disorder. 0:35:27.680 --> 0:35:29.120 And this is kind of what I do mean is 0:35:29.160 --> 0:35:31.200 like to his thinking and to a lot of this 0:35:31.320 --> 0:35:34.520 thinking where he'll talk about and I think what it 0:35:34.600 --> 0:35:38.040 means is that we misunderstand him when we just let 0:35:38.120 --> 0:35:40.960 him say, oh, chronic disease is a real problem. We 0:35:41.000 --> 0:35:42.600 take that at face value when we say, that's not 0:35:42.640 --> 0:35:45.839 so crazy. But that's not actually the sort of most 0:35:45.880 --> 0:35:49.400 front facing part of his belief system, Right, that's actually 0:35:49.520 --> 0:35:52.640 kind of a that's really a vestige of all this 0:35:52.800 --> 0:35:55.839 other stuff, right, and so, and I think that's made 0:35:55.880 --> 0:35:58.040 obvious in the fact that, like, when he actually says 0:35:58.080 --> 0:36:00.279 we're going to fix chronic disease, they're not doing that. 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:03.080 And the things he seems to think count as chronic 0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:06.600 disease is also a bit strange. Right, So you already 0:36:06.600 --> 0:36:09.719 are in a weird place. Once you probe that language 0:36:09.719 --> 0:36:12.960 even a little bit, I think what I am kind 0:36:12.960 --> 0:36:15.560 of You're right, there's there's this anxiety. There's this huge 0:36:15.600 --> 0:36:18.400 amount of anxiety. And I find that really interesting in 0:36:18.440 --> 0:36:21.480 the way anxiety has the capacity to disrupt and disorder 0:36:21.520 --> 0:36:24.439 our thinking and get us to cling to sometimes very 0:36:24.960 --> 0:36:28.520 sometimes emotionally comforting or persuasive ideas that are also quite 0:36:28.800 --> 0:36:31.560 erratic and actually not very good for us. Right. I Mean, 0:36:31.600 --> 0:36:33.160 there's a sense in which a lot of this stuff 0:36:33.239 --> 0:36:36.319 I think got popular because people turn to things that 0:36:36.760 --> 0:36:38.120 made them feel better. 0:36:38.200 --> 0:36:40.400 They needed answer, so yeah. 0:36:40.040 --> 0:36:42.279 Yeah, and provide answers they kind of I mean, there's 0:36:42.280 --> 0:36:44.600 a religious aspect to this right where it kind of 0:36:44.719 --> 0:36:47.799 is it's basically sort of like it's providing a kind 0:36:47.920 --> 0:36:50.919 of you know, compass or map for how the world 0:36:51.040 --> 0:36:54.080 works and where you stand in it, and a certain 0:36:54.120 --> 0:36:57.520 set of truths that can make you feel I guess comforted. 0:36:58.040 --> 0:37:00.719 But it's all I mean, it's very it's I think 0:37:00.960 --> 0:37:02.560 disaggregated from reality. 0:37:03.200 --> 0:37:05.120 And I do think. 0:37:04.960 --> 0:37:08.280 That that that mixture of anxiety and disorder or what's 0:37:08.400 --> 0:37:11.840 so troubling because it doesn't feel like people are following tradition, 0:37:12.000 --> 0:37:16.400 the idea that the American electorate would say somebody who 0:37:16.440 --> 0:37:20.719 wants to put this guy in power is trustworthy. I mean, 0:37:20.719 --> 0:37:23.120 I just you know, we talk all the time like 0:37:23.239 --> 0:37:27.279 Richard Nixon was a crook and a criminal and an opportunist, 0:37:27.520 --> 0:37:32.360 but Richard Nixon also helped, you know, enshrining the EPA 0:37:32.400 --> 0:37:35.760 and the Clean Air Act, because Richard Dixon wasn't actually 0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:38.839 a crazy person, right, And that's the distinction I think 0:37:38.840 --> 0:37:40.759 I'm kind of getting at is like Grift just to 0:37:40.800 --> 0:37:44.239 me does not feel like an explanation for what's happening here. 0:37:44.600 --> 0:37:48.400 Oh yeah, a disintegration of ordered thinking feels like a 0:37:49.239 --> 0:37:51.880 better explanation. And it's happening at a cultural level, and 0:37:51.880 --> 0:37:54.400 it's also happening at an institutional level. Institutions that are 0:37:54.400 --> 0:37:58.480 supposed to mediate our thinking and our actions in rational 0:37:58.520 --> 0:38:00.799 ways are not doing that. If we think of them 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:05.640 as communicative communicative sites, they're not functioning the way rational 0:38:05.680 --> 0:38:07.040 communication works anymore. 0:38:07.400 --> 0:38:08.600 Yeah, exactly. 0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:12.320 And I think I think that's a I think that 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:19.080 irrationality is, you know, And I mean there's so many 0:38:19.120 --> 0:38:25.000 different hallmarks of it, from things like the tariffs, to 0:38:25.800 --> 0:38:33.680 things like the anti vax stuff, to the scientific stuff. 0:38:33.880 --> 0:38:37.719 Can we talk about something that I am a little 0:38:37.760 --> 0:38:41.560 bit obsessed with, which is this idea that Elon Musk 0:38:42.120 --> 0:38:44.520 is the richest man in the world, has made almost 0:38:44.560 --> 0:38:49.480 all of his money on technology, right, stuff that has 0:38:50.000 --> 0:38:55.920 been created from science done in labs like at Harvard, Right, 0:38:56.440 --> 0:38:59.480 the kind of stuff that's made possible by. 0:38:59.160 --> 0:38:59.799 Things like Ana. 0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:04.640 So why do you think, I mean that irrationality is 0:39:05.000 --> 0:39:07.880 so striking to me? What do you think the operating 0:39:07.920 --> 0:39:10.319 principle there is or do you think this is all 0:39:10.760 --> 0:39:16.319 just kind of like post printing press madness that America 0:39:16.360 --> 0:39:17.279 is engaging in. 0:39:17.840 --> 0:39:20.160 I'm glad you said the printing press, because I do 0:39:20.239 --> 0:39:23.719 think that, like a the the printing press challenge of 0:39:23.760 --> 0:39:26.840 our era, right, which is social media, it is invalant. Like, yeah, 0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:28.840 I mean, I think with Elon, it's this is a 0:39:28.880 --> 0:39:32.879 guy who you know, I can't speak to like how 0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:35.719 smart or insightful Elon might have been a decade ago, 0:39:35.880 --> 0:39:37.719 but I think it's pretty obvious that for the last 0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:40.360 few years he's spent his time. You know, he admits 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:42.800 to taking inordinate amounts of ketamine. 0:39:42.640 --> 0:39:44.799 Right, and the New York Times just had a big 0:39:44.840 --> 0:39:45.279 piece on that. 0:39:45.360 --> 0:39:47.560 Yeah, go on, he spends like twenty hours a day 0:39:48.120 --> 0:39:50.680 just absolutely soaking in social media, and I mean, I 0:39:50.680 --> 0:39:52.520 think that is a place that just you know, it 0:39:52.560 --> 0:39:56.719 obliterates your sense of up and down. So you know, 0:39:57.160 --> 0:39:59.640 I mean, if he's just taking drugs and he's the 0:39:59.719 --> 0:40:01.600 richest man in the world, which itself can be kind 0:40:01.600 --> 0:40:05.520 of a narcotic, and he's spending more hours a day 0:40:05.560 --> 0:40:10.480 than many people are awake on his own social media platform, right, 0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:13.640 to me, that's just you're just swimming in a kind 0:40:13.640 --> 0:40:18.120 of sea of irrational and sort of disordered behavior. I mean, 0:40:18.600 --> 0:40:21.560 social media doesn't bring out our best in most of us. 0:40:21.760 --> 0:40:23.759 And then you also have places like what he's turned 0:40:23.760 --> 0:40:26.080 to accent to, which is just a full on cess pool. 0:40:26.360 --> 0:40:29.680 Let's go another minute on the printing press here, because 0:40:29.680 --> 0:40:33.160 I do really want to talk about that. I once 0:40:33.320 --> 0:40:38.279 was on a panel interviewing a very famous tech bro, 0:40:39.000 --> 0:40:40.600 you know, and he said everything. 0:40:42.239 --> 0:40:43.240 Very you know, a lot. 0:40:43.080 --> 0:40:45.719 Of that kind of stuff, the tech bro stuff. And 0:40:45.800 --> 0:40:48.840 then I said to you, do you think we're better off? 0:40:49.040 --> 0:40:52.160 And he said, well, we will eventually be better off, 0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:53.960 but it's like the printing press, we may have one 0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:55.520 hundred years of fuckeray. 0:40:55.840 --> 0:40:58.359 Do you think that it's a one to one there? 0:40:58.920 --> 0:41:02.440 No, because I think this is true of a lot 0:41:02.440 --> 0:41:04.600 of people who are in kind of the liberally you know. 0:41:04.640 --> 0:41:07.279 I came of age under the Obama years camp I 0:41:07.480 --> 0:41:10.439 was at one point fairly optimistic about this stuff, right. 0:41:10.760 --> 0:41:13.040 I was like, oh, Twitter in the Arab spring, and 0:41:13.080 --> 0:41:15.040 like look at Facebook and like this is pretty great. 0:41:15.160 --> 0:41:17.200 I say that as someone who did not start as 0:41:17.239 --> 0:41:18.759 a as a kind of lttite. 0:41:18.520 --> 0:41:19.399 Or anything like that. 0:41:19.560 --> 0:41:22.399 But no, because I think what we've seen is that 0:41:22.760 --> 0:41:25.800 one we know for a fact that the effect of 0:41:25.840 --> 0:41:27.880 screens is different. And I don't mean that in a 0:41:27.960 --> 0:41:30.000 kind of screen addiction way, which is its own thing. 0:41:30.080 --> 0:41:33.320 I mean we know psychologically that our capacity to recognize 0:41:33.360 --> 0:41:35.480 the humanity of a person we're interacting with on a 0:41:35.480 --> 0:41:38.720 phone screen is reduced, Like our brain just doesn't process 0:41:38.719 --> 0:41:41.319 it the way we process in person interaction. And when 0:41:41.360 --> 0:41:44.600 you read a text that someone wrote, that person is 0:41:44.640 --> 0:41:47.520 not there for you to scream at. Actually, right, you 0:41:47.640 --> 0:41:50.600 go and find other paper and write about them. Social 0:41:50.680 --> 0:41:54.440 media is combining these things, so it's taking like the 0:41:54.520 --> 0:41:56.399 text you know, if you're on Twitter, the text based 0:41:56.480 --> 0:41:59.480 aspects right of the printing past, and it's fusing them 0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:01.719 with a bunch of other stuff that we're not evolutionary 0:42:01.760 --> 0:42:05.960 equipped for at all, like just interacting with millions of 0:42:06.000 --> 0:42:09.000 anonymous people. And I think we've seen very clearly that 0:42:09.040 --> 0:42:11.239 the stuff we're willing to say and do there is 0:42:11.320 --> 0:42:14.719 just absolutely unhinged. And there's no you know, because of 0:42:14.719 --> 0:42:17.160 the whole debate over you know, we're not a publishing platform, 0:42:17.160 --> 0:42:20.680 et cetera. There's no editorial process right too. I stud 0:42:20.800 --> 0:42:23.000 wanted to try to write a book about how Molly 0:42:23.120 --> 0:42:24.359 is a terrible person. 0:42:24.440 --> 0:42:26.160 Right now, you can write it. 0:42:27.120 --> 0:42:29.440 I could self publish sure today, but like you know, 0:42:29.960 --> 0:42:32.120 at one point there'd be like a process somebody would 0:42:32.120 --> 0:42:34.280 have to be like agreed to run that and print 0:42:34.280 --> 0:42:37.359 that and like actually do it. And now I could 0:42:37.400 --> 0:42:40.600 just go onto these websites and say really anything I want. 0:42:41.040 --> 0:42:43.359 And so I just think the printing press analogy is 0:42:43.719 --> 0:42:48.439 it's seductive because what it says is don't worry. Look 0:42:48.480 --> 0:42:51.920 how great things are. Thinks to those advancements. That's how 0:42:51.960 --> 0:42:54.200 they'll be because of this. But I think it really 0:42:54.200 --> 0:42:55.880 obscures all the way is that they're just not the 0:42:55.880 --> 0:42:56.399 same at all. 0:42:56.719 --> 0:42:59.920 Oh so interesting, thank you saying you, saying you, saying 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:07.400 thank you, thank you, thank you. 0:43:04.680 --> 0:43:11.120 Now, Dan Nathan, Yes, Molly jonathast. 0:43:10.600 --> 0:43:12.920 You are a special moment of fuckery guest. 0:43:13.080 --> 0:43:16.600 So I'm going to set you up for a doozy Okay, 0:43:16.600 --> 0:43:17.360 are you ready? 0:43:17.480 --> 0:43:18.040 I'm ready. 0:43:18.239 --> 0:43:23.360 So it involves America's most I want to say something generous, 0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:27.040 but I'm not going to worst congress Woman Marjorie Taylor Green. 0:43:27.320 --> 0:43:28.759 So in the big. 0:43:28.520 --> 0:43:31.839 Beautiful whatever the fuck that thing is, there is an 0:43:31.880 --> 0:43:37.440 insane little bit of whatever that says. 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:38.440 And I'm going to read it to you. 0:43:38.880 --> 0:43:43.399 It basically says that states cannot regulate AI. So it 0:43:43.480 --> 0:43:46.239 is the opposite of everything that Republicans have been saying 0:43:46.239 --> 0:43:49.279 for so long. And but you know, AI companies want 0:43:49.320 --> 0:43:53.000 it full transparency. I didn't know about this section on 0:43:53.120 --> 0:43:56.839 page two seventy eight to seventy nine of the obb 0:43:57.640 --> 0:44:00.520 B that strip states for the rights to make laws 0:44:00.680 --> 0:44:04.680 or regulate AI for a decade. I'm adamantly opposed all 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:07.719 caps to this, and it is a violation of state laws. 0:44:07.719 --> 0:44:10.520 And I would have voted no had I known what 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:15.239 was in there or AKA read the bill, thought Stan Nathan. 0:44:15.239 --> 0:44:17.400 Yeah, well, let's read the bills here, people, and maybe 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:20.480 you make these big, beautiful bills something that are digestible 0:44:20.600 --> 0:44:23.839 of all people opining on. This is probably not one 0:44:23.880 --> 0:44:25.520 that I'm going to take to the bank and listen 0:44:25.560 --> 0:44:27.360 to what she has to say here. But at the 0:44:27.440 --> 0:44:29.840 end of the day, I think you nailed it. It's like, okay, 0:44:30.160 --> 0:44:33.560 if Republican politics, okay, for the last call it, one 0:44:33.640 --> 0:44:37.120 hundred and fifty years have centered around whatever the party was, 0:44:37.160 --> 0:44:39.880 you know, prior to that have centered around you know 0:44:39.920 --> 0:44:42.160 what I mean, the states being able to kind of 0:44:42.160 --> 0:44:44.440 make their own laws. And put the power back in 0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:47.759 the people's hands as it relates to whatever the demographics 0:44:47.840 --> 0:44:50.960 or geographic issues specific to them. It just doesn't make 0:44:51.000 --> 0:44:52.399 a whole heck of a lot of sense. You want 0:44:52.440 --> 0:44:54.600 to turn this thing upside down, you know. And some 0:44:54.680 --> 0:44:57.880 of the folks that are these aisars or cryptosars that 0:44:57.880 --> 0:45:01.120 have come into the administration, you know, you would think 0:45:01.160 --> 0:45:04.160 that these people have a code, right, like they've kind 0:45:04.160 --> 0:45:07.600 of built things over amazing things and so it gote valid, 0:45:07.680 --> 0:45:09.719 you know, over the last thirty forty years, that sort 0:45:09.719 --> 0:45:12.880 of thing that have actually advanced the quality of life 0:45:12.920 --> 0:45:15.719 for so many you know, millions of not billions of 0:45:15.760 --> 0:45:19.200 people here, and that's some sort of conformity about this. 0:45:19.360 --> 0:45:23.240 They recognize what the stakes are with AI. That would 0:45:23.239 --> 0:45:25.000 make a whole heck of a lot of sense. So 0:45:25.360 --> 0:45:27.520 in some ways, you know, taking the power from the 0:45:27.560 --> 0:45:30.080 States and taking the power from folks like Marjorie Taylor 0:45:30.120 --> 0:45:32.920 Green who don't understand any of it makes some sense 0:45:32.960 --> 0:45:35.160 to me. But these people better get their act together 0:45:35.200 --> 0:45:38.560 because this technology is advancing at a pace that we've 0:45:38.600 --> 0:45:41.400 never seen right now, and it's really at the center 0:45:41.719 --> 0:45:44.000 of a lot of the sort of battles that are 0:45:44.000 --> 0:45:46.560 going to be fought over the next hundred years for 0:45:46.719 --> 0:45:50.919 like global supremacy. I know that sounds really dramatic. Backtion 0:45:51.040 --> 0:45:54.040 one hundred years and let's see how important this is 0:45:54.120 --> 0:45:56.279 right now that we get it right, because you know what, 0:45:56.640 --> 0:45:59.239 you know, who doesn't kind of mess around with this? 0:45:59.320 --> 0:46:01.000 I know is the moment fuckery, so I could say, 0:46:01.400 --> 0:46:05.120 is the Chinese. They're taking a fifty year view about 0:46:05.120 --> 0:46:07.479 this and we are taking an every two year view 0:46:07.600 --> 0:46:09.000 as it relates to our midterms. 0:46:09.160 --> 0:46:11.400 Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dan Nathan. 0:46:11.880 --> 0:46:13.279 All Right, Mollie, thanks for having me. 0:46:14.000 --> 0:46:18.359 That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in 0:46:18.680 --> 0:46:24.120 every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best 0:46:24.200 --> 0:46:28.480 minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:31.560 you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend 0:46:32.000 --> 0:46:33.640 and keep the conversation going. 0:46:34.080 --> 0:46:35.240 Thanks for listening.