10/27/25: Billionaire Says He Feels Soybean Pain, Rancher Unloads On Trump, Food Stamps To End, Candace Says Musk Is Not Human

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday. Welcome to Breaking Points.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Emily. Great to see you.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
It's great to be here. Happy Monday, everyone. We have
a big show. The New York City mayoral election is
coming up, and we have some pictures video from a
giant rally that happened last night, actually on the year
anniversary of Trump's Madison Square Garden rally.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
I think today is the anniversary of the Madison Square
Garden rally.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
And have to think about what that means.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I think Zoranda that I'm purpose with the astrology of
that means, Yeah, a bunch of news in the show.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
So we've got potential trade deal with China we're going
to get to.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
We've got trade tensions with Canada over some Ronald Reagan
at I have a lot of thoughts about that one.
We're tracking the government shutdown troops on the verge of
not getting paid. A weird anonymous donor who we just
learned who they are, came in to pay like a
small portion. Anyway, weird stuff going on there. Candas Zones
apparently thanks Peter Chiel is not human and Elon Musk
and Sam Oltman I think we're the three that she

(01:25):
named checked in particular, So.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
That may weigh on your mind as you determined whether
Brigitte Macron is or is not a woman because Candace Batting,
I don't know, maybe five hundred on some of these
some of these diagnoses.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah, I guess I'm becoming more persuaded of Candace fun
a variety of things with this new tape. So anyway,
a lot that's going on there. Binance CEO pardoned in
a corrupt deal, the aforementioned zoron rally plus and being
attacked aggressively by any number of corners from Democrats and
Republicans for his musliming and cream. Jean Pierre is out

(02:02):
with a new book and it is really something, and
the wash Int Post review of it gathing, did you
read this whole thing? Oh my gosh, I sort of
want to read all it's a little too long to
just read the whole thing out. But whoever wrote this
is not a person I was like really familiar with.
She had took a phenomenal job just taking apart not
just creing John Pierre, but this particular style of like

(02:24):
self congratulatory, decorum liberalism.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Yeah, the review is about so much more than KJP.
It's about this era in our politics. And reading the
review and we'll get into this, of course, it's sort
of like a window into the last decade, and you
can kind of feel like this is an era that
is over, like a chapter that's over. So it's actually
a good block to do after the Zorn block.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Maybe yeah, oh yeah, that's a good point. Good point
that works well. So we've got a lot in the show.
We're going to try to get to all of it,
especially because I only really wants to talk about the
kjppiece that we're going to try to keep these blocks
from meandering too long, you know, as the ladies like.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
To just ladyship are low, and then we'll have only
our selves to blame.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yes, indeed, all right, so let's go ahead and get
to this potential Chinese trade deal. Our negotiators have been
talking to their negotiators. Scott Bessen is saying that it's
looking good. Trump is supposed to meet with she later
this week, and so he was making the rounds of
the Sunday shows.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
He got asked specifically.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
About soybeans because this has been a huge sore, sore spot,
that's the words. I'm looking for, a sore spot for
American farmers, you know, major problem. The Argentina thing ties
into that as well. And so in any case, he
gets asked about this and reveals something I was not
aware of, which is he too, is actually a soybean farmer.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
China has been boycotting American soybeans, and American farmers have
really suffered.

Speaker 5 (03:46):
Do you see a.

Speaker 6 (03:47):
Real light at the end of the tunnel there that
may allow soybeans again?

Speaker 7 (03:54):
Well, Martha, in case you don't know what. I'm actually
a soybean farmer, so I have felt this pain too.
And there are a couple of things happening here. One,
the Chinese have substantially dropped their purchases to almost zero,
so they unfortunately have been using American farmers, who are
amongst President Trump's biggest supporters. I think he had more

(04:16):
than ninety percent support, and then this was one of
the biggest crops in twenty or thirty years, so it
was a perfect storm. But I think we have addressed
the farmer's concerns. And I'm not going to get ahead
of the president, but I believe when the announcement of
the deal with China is made public that our soybean

(04:38):
farmers will feel very good about what's going on.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
So never fear American farmers. Treasury Secretary billionaire Scott Besant
is a bit of a soybean farmer himself and is
feeling the pain here too.

Speaker 5 (04:53):
Is he worth a billionaires? Who liked five hundred million?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
He is thought he was a billionaire, but maybe I'll
double check.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
Exorbitantly wealthy, You're.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
A multi hundred millionaire potentially, right.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
And so actually, what's kind of interesting about that clipp
is first of all, this is why people should divest
their financial interests so that you are quote feeling the pain,
because that obviously creates different interests that could be influencing
the way you do policy. I'm actually not saying that's
the case in Scott Vessens position here, although the Argentinian

(05:26):
beef saga, which we're going to get into, seems like
the Argentinian soybean situation had a little bit to do
with maybe Scott Besson's interest is Ryan and I covered
and we interviewed in Argentinian.

Speaker 5 (05:37):
Journalists about all of that.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
But the other thing is a lot of these like
quote soybean farmers are just exorbitantly also exorbitantly wealthy, big
agg people, and so that's another important part of this,
and I suspect we'll get to it with our guests
as well.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, that's a great point. Let's go and put a
two up on the screen. Just we don't know a
lot about this potential deal. I mean, it's not even
been inked yet, but they're describing this as a positive
framework which has been agreed to prior to this Trump
g summit. Some of the pieces obviously that are being
watched with close interest are the soybean piece, some sort

(06:13):
of agreement with regard to Sentinel and the Sentinel precursors
that come from China.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
And then in addition, the.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Rare earth export controls which China had been you know, threatening,
which could just like completely tank or entire economy which
is just one giant bet on Ai. So the rare
earth mineral situation very critical. I think, you know, some
of the leverage that was applied there from China is
probably part of what is helping to potentially bring this
deal together at this point.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yeah, and I mean, the importance of China to the
soybean market can't possibly understate it. It's so crucial and significant.
And so Trump is also in Japan today. He just
he already touched on in Japan, and he'll be going
to South Korea. He's already trying to meet with Kim
Jong un, which has nothing to do with soybeans, of course,
But this entire swing is to shore up deals that

(07:03):
since Liberation Day on that was a April second, April first,
April second.

Speaker 5 (07:07):
They didn't want to do it in April Fool's Day.
This is how many months? Six months? And here's the tour.
I try to shore up some.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
Of these deals and get specifics down and make it
work for Americans.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah, indeed, And at the same time there's a new
blow up with regard to Canada. I mean, this is
just like typical trumpy and the dumbest thing possible.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
The whole thing is extremely annoying to me.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
So Ontario launched this ad buy that featured snippets from
a Ronald Reagan's speech where he's talking about how tariffs
are bad.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Right, Reagan being you.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Know, the like neoliberal, you know, the trickle down economics
guy whatever, not my economic cup of tea. And part
of why me and Sager and I think you and
Brian have been pissed off at the incredibly stupid way
that Trump has gone about doing terror US because it
has created this reaction of just like, oh, the tariffs
in general must be bad, and it's like, well, no,

(08:06):
they're a tool that can be used with industrial policy,
that can be effective. But anyway you get from Canada
this Ronald Reagan speech ad where he's talking about tariffs,
and this apparently deeply upset President Trump.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
So let's take a listen first to the ad.

Speaker 8 (08:22):
When someone says let's impose tariffs on foreign imports. It
looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American
products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works,
but only for a short time.

Speaker 9 (08:38):
But over the long.

Speaker 8 (08:39):
Run, such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.
High tariffs inevitably lead the retaliation by foreign countries and
the triggering of fierce trade wards. Then the worst happens.
Marcus shrink can collapse, businesses and industry shutdown, and millions

(08:59):
of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there's a
growing realization that the weight of prosperity for oral nations
is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition.
America's jobs and growth are at stake.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
This was very upsetting to Trump a four up on
the screen, and we should say too by the way,
I mean what Reagan is articulating. There was like the
standard free trade orthodoxy that reigned in this town up
until quite recently, and you know, really starts to break
under Trump.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Biden moves in.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
That direction as well, and then we've had you know,
Trump two point zero where they've just done all kinds
of wild things. But in any case Trump on true
social size. The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that
Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement which is fake featuring
Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariff's to add U was
for seventy five million dollars. They only did this to
interfere with the decision of the US Supreme Court in

(09:55):
other courts, tariffs are very important to the national security
and economy of the USA. Based on their egregious behavior,
all trade negotiations with Canada are hereby terminated. Thank you
for your attention to this matter, President DJT and Emily.
He went on from there to announce that they were
going to levy an additional across the board ten percent
tariff on all Canadian goods, and.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
He said he doesn't think he's going to be meeting
with Mark Carney again anytime soon now. Reagan is such
an interesting case study because Reagan was criticized relentlessly by
the hyper neoliberals at the time for putting Tariff's very
protectionist tariffs on Japan, and so Reagan is the worst
possible case study for the Doug Fords of the world.

(10:36):
He's in charge of Ontario, Rob Ford the Great, Rob
Ford's brother to embrace, because again, like there's a lot
of daylight between Trump's tariff policy and Raygan's the tariff policy.
But the particular example of Canada actually is instructive because
the rebalancing of the trade relationship with Canada is something
that almost everyone except for the most like libertarian minded

(11:00):
person would tell you was completely necessary.

Speaker 5 (11:02):
And so for.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Canada to deploy Reagan in that way, it's just it's
like insulting on a million different levels. But it's especially
stupid when you think about what the relationship with what
the what the US trade relationship with Canada looked like,
Like what.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
Do they want?

Speaker 4 (11:19):
They want just like completely they want what they were
used to, like what you were saying.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Well, and Rob Ford is an interesting character because he's
a very kind of like Trumpian figure.

Speaker 5 (11:29):
Doug Ford. Rob is the brother. They look exactly like.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
They look a similar character.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
I mean Rob was wilder, for sure, but but Doug
Ford is uh, you know, Trumpian type of character, very bombastic,
very nationalist in his way. And so it's also worth
remembering like this wasn't this actually wasn't Mark Carney, you know,
this wasn't the whole of Canada, right, this is this
one province that decided to spend this this money. And

(11:54):
by the way, again, the idea is this for this
to play in American markets, which is what pissed Trump.
But then you know you have Trump using like the
powers of a king to just like he's pissed off,
so separate and apart from any economic pretext even he's
just like, I don't like your ad. So now the
entire country is going to be tear of ten percent,

(12:15):
which those costs Guess what? Guess who pays those consumers
and disproportionately working class consumers in the US who will
now bear the cost of Trump just being like annoyed
over this stupid Ronald Reagan ad. Scott Bessett was of
course asked about this on the Sunday shows as well,
and didn't have a lot of answers about, Okay, well,
what are we talking about? Is a ten percent truly

(12:36):
across the border? They're going to be any exceptions, etc.
Let's go ahead and take a listen to what he
had to say.

Speaker 10 (12:40):
Why is the president setting trade policy based on a
television ad he doesn't like?

Speaker 7 (12:48):
Well, Kristen, let's think about this, This is a kind
of propaganda against US citizens. It's psyops. Why would the
government of Ontario, I'm told that they've spent they have
spent or we're planning to spend up to seventy five
million dollars on these ads to come across the US order.

(13:08):
So what was the purpose of that other than to
sway public opinion? And you know, it's some kind of
propaganda that the Premiere of Ontario unilaterally launched.

Speaker 10 (13:22):
Will the ten percent tariffs apply to all Canadian goods?

Speaker 5 (13:25):
Mister Secretary.

Speaker 7 (13:29):
Christina, I've been traveling since this unfortunate event happened. I
know that the AD's been taken down, So you know,
we'll have to see.

Speaker 10 (13:37):
Does the President know if the tariffs will apply to
ten percent tariffs will apply to all Canadian goods? Has
he made a determination about that?

Speaker 7 (13:46):
Well, well, I'm sure he. I'm sure he knows, and
I'm sure the Ambassador of Greer knows.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
I'm sure he knows, but I don't really know, so
can as your quest.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
That says it all? That says it all. I'm sure
he knows, and.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
But I'm not sure that he is sure that he knows,
you know, like he's probably go oh, maybe now, but
he's probably didn't really think it through.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
He's just like, yeah, turn percent, I'm pissed off.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
And like that's as much as the that's as much
of the thinking as goes into this.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
I mean, the billions of dollars that are on the
line with these whims is it's truly I mean use
the word king, but like that's why tariffs are supposed
to go through Congress right the most part, or they
were originally supposed to go through Congress for the most part,
because there's just i mean, you're your entire this is
this is planning of the economy. And obviously there's more
to the economy than tariffs. But in a lot of cases,

(14:36):
some of the downstream stuff that we talk about taxes
and the like actually are coming like the tariffs. So
the first part of this, it's like how much business
can you do in the United States? What kind of
business can you do at what cost in the United States?
So other stuff when it comes bacon out of planning
in many cases a downstream of the tariffs, and so
you have the you got the executive on a whim.

(14:58):
The ad is the best example of this because we
know that it's happened before, like even with Doug Ford.
There's been back and forth with Trump and sort of
these these capricious teriffs.

Speaker 5 (15:07):
But that's Trump's point, is that.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
And I think for the first month, like post April
second whatever, it was this uncertainty that Trump was using
it as his leverage kind of made sense because people
were like, whoa, we have no idea what's coming.

Speaker 5 (15:21):
Let's like they were forced to the table.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
But the longer the uncertainty goes on, people don't have
to necessarily come to the table because they say it's
not a good bet, like that, I'm betting on what
I don't know. And it's Trump never made it clear
what he's actually looking for, in particular from these other countries.
So yeah, it's it's it's either one side of the
spectrum or the other. Like Canada either wants their fantasy

(15:46):
of Reagan era free trade or they want they want
some certainty from Trump as to what he's looking for
on that.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, good and good luck with that. And that's why
you end up betting. Secretary doesn't have that, yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
Right, which is where people end up betting in the
other direction, because you don't have the certainty.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, well, Bessen and his hedge fund buddies should be
happy with the results.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
In Argentina last night. I don't know if you tried,
Malay's party secured.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I think forty percent of the vote pretty easy one so,
and I mean basically what happened here is Malay's party
suffered some losses in local elections, and it looked like
the public was turning against you know, I hesitate to
call libertarian at this point when you get bailouts from
all kinds of including our country around the world. But

(16:33):
you know, it was looking like the argent the Argentine
Tenian public was turning on this project. And then the
Trump administration comes in and says basically like, Okay, we're
going to bail you out, but if you don't vote
the way that we want you to, we're going to.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Screw you over.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I mean, there's an overt threat that was made, and
it appears that the public responded to that. So Malay's
party performed well. Obviously, this ties into the soybee market
as one piece of the other piece of this that
we've been covering as well is the cattle ranching industry,
the beef industry, beef prices in this country have been

(17:08):
extremely high and rising. You would think that cattle ranchers,
who have been struggling and screwed in a lot of
ways that we've also been covering over the years, you
would think that would be a good thing, you know,
for them. Maybe they're getting more on their end. But
because of monopoly and consolidation, that has really not come
together for cattle ranchers here in the US. Than Trump
came in and said that to depress the prices, to

(17:30):
further screw the ranchers here, he's going to buy beef
from Argentina. So to talk about all of these things,
we actually have a rancher who also is a journalist
who covers the industry extensively. Mike Cali Crate is going
to join us now. Joining us now to talk about
the president's decision to purchase beef from Argentina is Mike

(17:52):
Cali Crate. He is himself a rancher, he's a journalist,
he's a family farm advocate, and he is also a
founder of Ranch Foods Directly. It's great to have you, Mike.

Speaker 11 (18:01):
Thanks for having me, Crystal.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, of course, So.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Let's go and put a tear sheet up on the screen.
This is some of your writing about this deal. You say,
Colorado Springs rancher, that would be you, says importing Argentinian
beef could hurt us ranchers.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
I'd actually like you, though, to back up a little.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Bit from this present moment and give us a bit
of a lay of the land of the cattle ranching industry.
And also, you know, beef prices have gone up a lot,
certainly American consumers are very concerned about that. Have ranchers
been benefiting from that price increase? What is kind of
the state of the industry right now.

Speaker 11 (18:35):
No, ranchers have not benefited from consumer price increases. There's
a disconnect between consumer prices and what ranchers receive for cattle.
And it's a middleman problem, a monopoly problem, essentially, a
cartail sort of partnership between the biggest meat packers who
now control eighty five percent the big four control eighty

(18:56):
five percent of the slaughter market, in partnership with big
retailers who control a very similar share of the retail market.
And I'm talking about Walmart, Kroger, Amazon, Whole Foods, Safeway, Albertson's,
and so the rancher has really been shut out of

(19:16):
his fair share of the consumer dollar. Really going back
clear to the late seventies when when the book Vicious
Circles the Mafia in the Marketplace detailed how the big
meat packers were cooperating rather than competing and stealing really
the producer's share of the consumer dollars. So we've lost
half our ranchers during this period of time when when

(19:38):
this cartel has been really depressing the price for livestock
at the same time as they're raising prices for consumers.
And we've liquidated ten million cows. So now we've come
to a very very critical time when we just don't
have enough livestock to feed our own people. And that's
been made up for. It's been a it's been a
gradual progression, but it's been made up for with imports.

(20:02):
So we're importing up to twenty percent of the meat
that we eat today, and it's from wherever the cartel
can find it the cheapest to import into this country.
And it's a sad state when producers everywhere, it doesn't
matter whether you're in the United States or whether you're
in Argentina, you're being paid below your cost of production

(20:25):
because of this abusive market power that lies in the
hands of these very powerful multinational corporations.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
And President Trump is obviously concerning about just bringing down
the price of beef overall. Could you speak a bit
to what's happened in the last I don't know year,
couple years, just recent history that's behind this price spike
that consumers are experiencing now. Is it still deeply connected
to those overall trends concentration? Are there micro factors that

(20:54):
have influenced it just in recent history? What's going on now?

Speaker 11 (20:58):
Well, right now, because of the real serious lack of
cattle here in the United States and the fact that
we've shut down the the import of feeder cattle out
of Mexico along with additional tariffs on Brazilian beef, it's
it's inflated that that cost to the retailer, and and
the retailer is absolutely not willing to give up any

(21:20):
of their unfair margins that they've that they've been able
to achieve because of their abusive market power, and and
so retailers are charging all they can uh They're they're
always going to test with the consumers willing to pay
and and so the problem is from that point back,
the producer isn't getting his fair share. Nor is the worker,
the worker in the meat in the meat system, whether

(21:43):
it's a slaughterhouse worker or or a processing worker. Uh,
they're not They're not getting their fair share either, and
so so the and so what we've seen is with
this reduction in imports is retailers saying, oh, this is
a great time to raise prices. But the thing you
need to look at as far as the price of

(22:04):
beef to the consumer, it's about the same. It takes
about the same amount of minutes within an hour to
eat to buy a pound of ground beef as it did,
you know, twenty years ago. And so our beef price
is really too high? Probably not, probably not. But is
the income to the normal family that's trying to buy

(22:26):
beef too low? Absolutely, When you're working two and three
jobs to pay your mortgage, to pay for your technology,
to pay for food, of course it's going to hit
you hard. But right now at Ranch Foods Direct, we've
got six dollars a pound ground beef that is thirty
some cents below the national average. Plus it's local and

(22:48):
it's really good. But the industry has sold America on
the fact that you've got to get big to be
efficient and have economies of scale. All of that was
proven fall during COVID when we had empty shelves all
across to America while our company, the local regional company
in Colorado Springs that has a supply chain that goes

(23:11):
to Saint Francis, Kansas on the Colorado border, we never
ran out, but we have a local regional model that
I think has got to get replicated if we're going
to actually feed ourselves going forward. We have to address
the abusive market power, the monopoly power of big food.
And I know this maybe doesn't matter much when you're

(23:32):
talking about AI and you're talking about Venezuelan regime changes
and you're talking about all of this crazy stuff in
the news. But this is food. This is what we
put on our plates every day to nourish our families.
And it's not just beef. It's everything that we eat
is under the power of a handful of global corporations.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah, it's such a great point I would love for
you to dig into. You mentioned that you've the industry
is liquidated million cows, and that that lack of supply
is part of why we're seeing these skyrocketing prices. Now,
what led to that liquidation, What was the math of
the business logic that led to that outcome?

Speaker 11 (24:16):
Decades of being paid below the cost of production is
what led to that liquidation. I've been at this about
fifty years, and I just remember my in laws at
the dinner table with my sons reminding them, don't do
what we've done. Do not be ranchers, Do not raise cattle.
It is not a great lifestyle. You can't get paid

(24:37):
enough to pay the mortgage and live a reasonable quality
of life there. You know, farmers and ranchers their basic
net income is coming from off farm income. And so
the big food companies have reduced the prices paid to
producers because they have the power to do so, and
so we have. Then in the last few decades, ranching

(25:00):
has not been an attractive business, and so we've not
replaced the cows that they've as they've gotten older with
with heifer's and the bankers are clamoring for for note
payments and mortgage reductions, and we just simply haven't maintained
our cow herd because there has not been a fair,
open and competitive marketplace, and.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
So Trump is saying it's not we don't totally understand
what he's going to do with Argentina yet, but he said,
you know, not a lot of beef.

Speaker 5 (25:28):
You know, it's.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
It's you know, it's not going to be a ton.
But based on all of that, based on what we
know so far, what influence would a modest amount of
imports from Argentina, a modest amount of beef imports from
Argentina have on the industry as you see it?

Speaker 11 (25:47):
Well right now, I don't know that it would have
a lot if you really had a supply and demand market,
which we have not had for probably since the eighties.
We haven't had that. And but but the thing is
thenouncement of it. Let's those cattle futures, you know, the
Chicago MRK just totally crater the price on the futures market,

(26:08):
which then reduces those prices for calves and feeder cattle
and live cattle to the rancher. Right now, but I
don't think Trump understands just how much disconnect there is
between retail prices and ranch gate prices. You know, a
rancher is in the business of turning grass into cattle

(26:31):
and they hope for a competitive market that will give
them a fair share of that consumer dollar. Back in
nineteen seventy when I first started, the rancher got about
seventy percent, The producer of livestock got about seventy percent
of the consumer dollar. That dropped to as low as
twenty seven percent during COVID to now it's around fifty
four to fifty five percent. So we still are not
getting our fair share of what consumers spend, and that

(26:54):
is again a result of the market power of the middlemen.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Mike, I wonder if you could talk a little bit
of politics here with us. You know, you had in
the Biden administration, with Lena Khan, you had a real
renewed interest in an anti trust.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
I remember there was.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Some at least at least rhetorical emphasis on, hey, we
got to break up some of these meat packers and
you know, the cartels that you're talking about. But none
of that seems to have really been rewarded, certainly by
rural America, and you know, your you know, your your
business competitors in the industry overwhelmingly went for Trump. So,

(27:33):
you know, how do you think about the way that
Democrats have over years you know, completely lost this constituenc
You used to have a John Tester or someone like that.
It was you know, very sort of like populist, anti
trust it was able to win in these states, and
I just don't think that it's it's possible anymore.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
How do you think about that?

Speaker 11 (27:48):
Well, I am I'm really disappointed that that no one
politically Democrat or Republican has delivered on antitrust law enforcement.
And I think that the last election would have had
a far different outcome if they would not have kept
Lena Khan with the Federal Trade Commission in the closet.
I mean, she was working to improve competitive markets and

(28:10):
fairness all the way around around consumer welfare and corporate
power and all of that, and we just didn't we
didn't even know about it. Kamala Harris need even mentioned it.
So we've never had support. In fact, going back to
the Obama years when they had the concentration hearings across

(28:30):
the country, we thought full well, with all of that
proof and all of that information about the abusive market
power of big meat packers, that there would be some relief.
And Lena Khan wrote the article Obama's Game of Chicken.
It was in the Atlantic. It was amazing piece of writing.
And then eventually she made her way into the chair

(28:51):
of the Federal Trade Commission and was doing absolutely the
best work we've seen in one hundred years. Trump comes
in and fires her. That is just how how unbelievably
ignorant the the current administration is about the real needs
of consumers and producers around our food system in particular,

(29:12):
although Lena Khan looked at a lot of other things,
but she's the one that blocked the Kroger Safeway merger.
So Safeway Albertson's merger that was absolutely required, and prior
to that, we we blocked the Safe or the Cisco
US Foods merger. But the problem we're seeing now is

(29:33):
these companies that try to merge get to know each other,
and whether it's approved or not, they still cooperate and
work together to maximize their profits. I mean, how is
it that Cisco earns or makes a hundred percent return
on equity ro O Roe right now, if you look
it up on Google, Cisco's rite out one hundred percent

(29:53):
return on equity. That's not a competitive market, and that
comes at the expense of producers and consumers and all
the workers that are in between.

Speaker 4 (30:02):
And your case actually is that that goes straight to
those beef prices that if you have it's essentially like
the greed inflation argument that the Biden administration made a
half hearted attempt attempt to sell to the public, that
when you have consolidation, you're able to just ratch it up.
The retailers themselves are able to just ratch it up

(30:22):
the prices. That is that, Am I getting that right?
Based on what you were expecting?

Speaker 11 (30:25):
One hundred percent? That is exactly exactly right. You give
them the ability to extract wealth and they will do
it to the maximum amount allowable that they're able to.
And you know, that's all goes back to the corporate
responsibility of providing maximum returns to shareholders. But it's honestly
maximum returns to executive level pay.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, my last question to you, you know, what would
your pitch be to Americans who are listening to this
or are like, well, that's all well and good, but
like prices are too high, and if it's going to
help to import beef from Argentina or wherever, why don't
we just why don't we just go for that? Because
my pocketbook is hurting right now. What would you tell
Americans about why they should care.

Speaker 11 (31:09):
Well, I tell Americans they should care because importing Argentine
beef is not going to lower your prices. It might
lower the prices to ranchers, which guarantees that the herd
won't be rebuilt and won't be feeding us in the future,
but it will not lower prices, not with the cartel,
the monopoly power of the middlemen. And think about it
in a minute, from the Argentine perspective, I mean, their

(31:30):
economy is not doing great, their consumers are not doing great.
So we go down there and we're going to take
meat off the plates of Argentine consumers, raise their prices,
only to use it as a lever to lower prices
to ranchers and not lower prices to American consumers. And
the other point that no one is making is when

(31:53):
Argentina gets favorable trade conditions with the United States, the
highest and best consuming market in the world world, how
many animals transship cross those borders into Argentina that then
are able to go into the United States at the
best prices on the globe. Mike cal create and only

(32:14):
the middleman making the money. Yeah, So the Argentine producers
under the same pressure, same big companies JBS marfrigg. You know,
the biggest companies in the world are transacting the deal
and they'll.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Be subject to the same nightmare you've been living here. Mike,
thank you so much for for helping us understand. Tell
people you know where they can find you, where they
can buy your products, all of that good stuff.

Speaker 11 (32:37):
Well, if you go to Mike cal Create dot com,
you'll see what we're up to, and I've got a
blog there. But if as far as the ranch Foods
Direct model, which I would hope others might replicate around
the country to connect producers more closely to consumers, go
to ranch Foodsdirect dot com and you'll be able to
see what we do there.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Just put in my order yesterday. So thank you so much.
See Mike, thank you.

Speaker 11 (32:57):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Great to have you.

Speaker 11 (32:59):
Okay, all right bye.

Speaker 4 (33:03):
We learned not long ago that a mysterious private donor
was jumping in to bail out the government during the
shutdown so that some US troops could continue to get paid.
As Congress continues to take no action, tries to take action,
but hasn't taken any action. To at least make sure
that the troops are paid during the shutdown.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
Here is a little bit of a back and.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Forth between Donald Trump and a reporter about who might
have stepped in with this one hundred and thirty million
dollars donation straight to the government.

Speaker 5 (33:33):
We can roll the clip, so.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Find somebody to pay for our troops during the shutdown.

Speaker 12 (33:40):
He's a great gentleman. He's a great page. He's obviously
a very substantial man. And he contributed one hundred and
thirty million dollars toward the military in order to make
up any different So he wanted to see the military
get paid. So did I. And he's a wonderful man,
and he does in what publicity. He doesn't you know,

(34:01):
he'd prefer I think that his name not be mentioned,
which is pretty unusual that the world they come from.
And he's a big supporter of an American It is
a great American citizen.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
We now know who that donor is. We can put
b two up on the screen. Timothy Melon of the
Mellon family. You actually may remember his name from the
twenty twenty four election cycle when he just was giving
all pumping money into the Trump campaign.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Essentially made a fifty million dollar donation to Trump.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Super Pack fifty million dollars. So he's one of Trump's
largest donors.

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Incredible. He's somewhat of a recluse. He lives in Wyoming.
He's a big supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Junior in
his group. The Children's Health Defense Fund, I think is
the name of it. And so according to two people
familiar with the matter, according to the New York Times,
these are the New York Times sources to people familiar
with the matter, it was Timothy Mellon who came in
and ended up giving one hundred and thirty million dollars.

(34:58):
Let's roll this clip of true Secretary Scott Besant on
whether or not the troops were getting paid.

Speaker 7 (35:04):
We were able to pay the military employees from excess
funds at the Pentagon Medal of this month. I think
we'll be able to pay them beginning in November. But
by November fifteenth, our troops and service members who are
willing to risk their lives aren't going to be able
to get paid.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
What it embarrassing, Yes, embarrassed, that's right now. It is.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
And so now you have Timothy Mellon jumping in which
Crystal is actually kind of interesting because Republicans have used
I mean, it's interesting a lot of ways, but Republicans.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
Have used particularly the troops, just.

Speaker 4 (35:37):
As Democrats did during previous government shutdowns to say, quote,
what an embarrassment.

Speaker 5 (35:42):
Like, get to the table, give us the votes.

Speaker 4 (35:45):
Republicans are typically the ones in the position of withholding
votes on a cr to fund the government. Now it's Democrats,
and Republicans thought this was their leverage. So it's actually
kind of interesting that you have someone in a way
taking away the leverage that a Republican donors is under
their argument that Democrats need to get to the table
to negotiate so the troops can get paid. Obviously, there's

(36:06):
questions over whether the one hundred and thirty million is
enough to really, yeah, make a difference.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Apparently that would be like one hundred dollars to each
service member.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
That's what the time you do it.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
It is one of the weird this is it's weird
and troubling, and it's worth thinking about the principle of it,
even though it's not nearly sufficient to even come close
to actually paying the entire military. What now we've got
like random private oligarchs funding the military. Is this really
the direction we want to go in at a time
when Trump is increasingly using the military as like his

(36:37):
own personal force against whatever people in cities and causes
that he doesn't particularly like. So the principle of it
is disturbing. Potentially illegal by the way, you know, unclear,
completely legally, but potentially illegal.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
So it's like, what is this guy.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Doing when you're not even coming close to solving the problem.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
I don't know, it's.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
To me, the whole thing is very strange and troubling
in you know, a way that often Trump Trump regime
actions are.

Speaker 4 (37:08):
Well, let's put this before on the screen. You can
see already for federal workers. There are some lines outside
of food pantry. So this load federal workers.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
This is Landover, Maryland, which is you know, just outside
the Beltway here in the Beltway area here. And so
I saw some restaurants around town. I was walking around
DC last night, who had, you know, fifty percent off
for federal workers. You know, this thing is really starting
to to bite. It's people are really starting to feel
the pain. You know, paychecks are starting to be missed. Obviously,

(37:42):
workers are for a load you're going to have even
more workers for a load after the end of the month.
As best said, there, you know, come November fifteenth, troops
are no longer going to be paid. Doesn't look like
they've been sort of like moving different pots of money
around again in a way that's not really entirely clear
as legal, but they're moving different pats of money around
to try to make sure the troops are paid. A

(38:04):
lot of times, what happens in these shutdowns is that
Congress will pass a separate bill saying just like, okay, well,
we are going to pay the troops no matter how
long this thing goes. But they have not done that,
so they're really in the same camp as basically everyone
else as this thing stretches out.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
Median average saving for an American is six hundred dollars.
And so you know, it's true that a lot of
these workers end up getting back pay, but that's not
helpful if your paycheck to paycheck or even a little
bit more comfortable than paycheck to paycheck. Because we are
now going into what could end up being one of
the longest government actually it might end up being the
longest government shutdown in history, because there is no end

(38:42):
in sight.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
Whatsoever.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Yeah, and Jake Sherman loath as I am to invoke
any of his wisdom here of punch bawle. He says,
the flaw in this is Democrats have sold their base
in membership that they aren't trying to make a point,
they're trying to enact change. That's actually kind of an
interesting way to put it, because the leverage that Democrats have,

(39:04):
not the leverage, but the sort of the reason that
Democrats did the shutdown was to show the base that
they're fighting. And so what have they gotten at this point?
What can they get at this point out of it?
They make it Republicans to negotiate on premiums as possible,
on something for that, but nobody's even talking right now.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Yeah, No, it's I mean, there's really at this point
is no end insight. We did get that report last
week that we talked about that maybe Republicans were open
to something on the ACA subsidies. You know, I do
think Democrats would take if they could get any kind
of a win. I think they would probably take it.
You know, Schumer and co. Were really forced into this
by the base. It was not the politics they wanted
to pursue, and their persistence in it too, is really

(39:45):
forced on them by the base, which is really interesting.
I mean think there's kind of a tie in here
with some of the Zoron clip that will show of
Kathy Hochel and the crowd channing at her like tax
the rich. You have now leadership and establishment Democrats really
feeling the pressure from just an normally liberal base that
is increasingly disgusted with them and wants a more hardline
and more radical direction for the party. And so the

(40:08):
fact that Democrats, you know, I mean Sager and I
both early on were.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
Like, yeah, they're probably going to fold, because that's just
what they do.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
The reason we were wrong is because they are feeling
much more pressure from their own voters than we expected.
And you know, I think the Trump administration has taken
a lot of the staying out of the you know,
the mass destruction of the federalgarment workforce. They've been doing
that all along. So when you're like, oh, we're going
to hurt them more, it's like, well, you were already

(40:34):
doing that anyway. And when I think they've also been
buoyed by a lot of polls that show the public
are predominantly blaming Republicans, and it makes sense because they
are in control of everything. So people just look at
this and they're like, you guys run the show, so
get it together.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
You got to negotiate with.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
Them, figure something out, and so they feel like Republicans
are taking on water would think this thing as well,
which I think has strengthened some backbones.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Another test, though, is going to come.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
I mean, this is really honestly, really terrible and really
die or it could put B five up on the screen.
Food stamp benefits SNAP benefits are going to run out
at the end of this month. You know, you've got
tens of millions of Americans who rely on SNAP benefits. Originally,
it had looked like the administration was going to use
some emergency funds to keep those benefits flowing. Now the

(41:23):
USDA is saying, nope, we're not going to do that. So,
you know, heading into November, heading into the month of Thanksgiving,
with the potential loss of those benefits, you've got Americans
who are going to go hungry if something is not
done to extend this funding or to get the government
fully back open.

Speaker 5 (41:39):
And I'm just thinking about this now.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
One of the sort of designs behind Doge is that
you kind of can do things right, like Republicans are like, hey,
you can do things. And so I'm wondering if the
USDA snap funds run out, if that becomes a sort
of predicate for some type of permanent reduction. I don't know,

(42:02):
but there may be legal avenues that a RUSS vote
or someone else the administration tries to pursue to make
permanent cuts, like they are with their trying to do
with federal workers. So I'm not sure about that, but
I do wonder if that's part of this. We can
put the next element on the screen. How Democrats are
calling back their members to DC. According to punch Bowl

(42:23):
Laura Weiss, they're holding in person caucus meetings tomorrow so Tuesday,
and events on Wednesday. It's possible we see an end
to this by the I mean it's possible by the weekend.
I don't know that anybody is particularly optimistic, though, if
we put the next element up on the screen. Over
the weekend, there was a ground stop at Lax.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
It disrupted flights from Lax to airport.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
Yeah, and so yeah, the longer this goes on with
people blaming Republicans' I think that's probably stable. Those numbers
of America blaming Republicans. I would probably put some of
the blame on the media for that. I think it's
a contrast and how the media is covered it. When
Republicans literally were the ones withholding their votes. That doesn't

(43:10):
mean there's no blame to go around. There's definitely blame
to go around in this government shutdown. But maybe that's
weighing on Democrats' minds that they're sort of technically, if
the public is blaming Republicans, they have an upper hand
of some sort when they go to negotiation presumably this week.
But the positions are hardened when you look at Republican leadership.

(43:30):
They really are not projecting that they're willing to come
to the table on premiums in the ACA subsidies.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
So we'll see, yeah, we will.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
And you know, I think there's also concern you were
saying that vote might use the you know, the funding
shortage on food stamps to make some sort of permanent cuts,
even though again it should be illegal, that should be
something that has to go through Congress, but you know,
whatever laws don't exist anymore. Apparently, there's also concern that

(43:59):
those federal workers actually who you know, some of them
are working for free right now.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
By the way, don't get back pay a lot.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Because he put on a memo saying we're probably not
going to pay Actually, and again, there is a law
that was passed that mandates during a shutdown, federal government
workers will get their back pay. But this administration just
does whatever the hell they want. So I don't think
that federal government workers feel particularly secure that they're ever
going to see the paychecks that they're missing right now.

(44:26):
You know, this is the guy who said that he
wants to cause them what he say, he wants to
cause them trauma or something like that. Yeah, So, I
mean that is part of his goal, that's his m
he's true ideologue in this regard. And so I don't
think anyone should be surprised that he, in particular would
who is one of the more powerful members of the administration,
certainly one of the more you know, ideological architects of

(44:47):
the direction of this administration, that he would use this
as an excuse to create more pain and suffering among
the federal government workforce and to shrink the federal government
more than they've been able to successfully do.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Doge and already they ran into you know, a doge.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
They ran into things where they'd fire a bunch of
people from the CDC or whatever and be like, oh,
you know what, actually we do want to track at
Bola it turns out, or you know, they fire a
bunch of people from that vein and be oh, you know,
with this whole like error plane scrashing to each other,
situation is not really great. Let's bring some of those
people back. They've already had to do some of that.
You know, we had the situation in Texas with the
floods and a lot of questions over whether or not

(45:24):
some of the cuts that have been made to relevant
agencies there impacted the ability to respond to those absolutely
devastating floods. So they've already run into like hitting the
bone in some of the cuts that they've made. But
there's no sign that individuals like him in particular are
interested in slowing down.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Well. And also, listen, I'm someone who thinks Snap needs
significant reforms and somebody who thinks Obamacare needs significant reforms.
And Stoler has a good post on that over at
Big This Morning.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Yeah frustrating that too.

Speaker 5 (45:51):
Yeah, it's super good.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
But the there's a lot of tramp voters who are
on snaff So that's another As Democrats people turn to
Washington this week, that's another thing, that's another big piece
of leverage. It's another arrow in their quiver as they
try to bring Republicans to the table on something. In
addition to the subsidies, which Marjorie Taylor Green has been
outspoken about the Obamacare subsidies. Snap is that I mean,

(46:15):
if you have most of the country blaming Republicans for
the shutdown, and then you have troops going unpaid lines
at food pantries, snap benefits lapsing, and like potentially increases
in premiums, that's starting to look pretty dire for Republicans
if they don't come to the table. It's again, I
think it's a different situation than another shutdowns. Democrats are

(46:37):
the ones technically withholding the votes, but Republicans, if they're
taking the blame with the public, it's a that's a
recipe for a political disaster heading into a midterm year.
I don't think people vote on shutdowns, you know, a
year from now, I'm not sure that'll be in the
front of anybody's mind. But obviously it's one of those
moments that can make you feel whether this party cares
about you or not, this the MAGA movement, whether it

(46:59):
really true has your best interest at hand. That's something
that can kind of sink into people's psyche.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
They may not vote on the shutdown, but they may
well vote on, Hey, my premiums just went up one
hundred percent, you know. And that's to your point about
this really disproportioning hitting the MAGA base. Seventy three percent
of those subsidies go to Red states because it's it's
overwhelmingly the states that didn't expand Medicaid. That's where these
subsidies are really filling the gap, and those are all

(47:26):
red states. The poor states in the country are all
Red states, so you'll have a disproportionate number of the
stat benefits going to those states as well. So, yeah,
you're you're talking about a lot of pain, specifically for
oftentimes Republican voters and oftentimes some of the most you know,
diehard supporters of Trump himself.

Speaker 4 (47:44):
I mean, yeah, it's one of those It could potentially
be one of those moments actually, sort of like the Epstein,
particularly when when Pambondi said we're closing the case basically
like wipe our hands were done. It's one of those
moments that can make people who who thought, you know,
as Donald Trump was campaigning saying everybody is going to
have healthcare, you know, I think at the Madison Square
Garden rally, he said he was going to cut energy

(48:05):
prices in half and inflation was going to significantly decrease.
And that's why he's so concerned about the beef, as
we talked about earlier in the show, because beef prices
are the things that are going high, and he knows
he's shrewd enough politically to know that that really matters
to voters, because he talked about it on the campaign trail.
So it could potentially be one of those moments where
the working class section of the magabase starts to question

(48:29):
whether or not MAGA really does care about them. You
could see that happening and Epstein was a big moment
where they said, is this.

Speaker 5 (48:37):
Really about what we thought it was about? Does he
really care like he said he did?

Speaker 4 (48:43):
And you know that not everybody in who voted for
Trump loves Trump, but there's a level of he told
you everybody else, he was right to tell you everybody
else was wrong.

Speaker 5 (48:52):
Does that mean that he's right, that.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
He's right right, yeah, and that's really making things better exactly. Well,
I will say I think Epstein landed much more clearly,
squarely at his feet, because it's like cash, it's his
people right right. With this, I could see a lot
of people blaming. I mean, the thing in the Trump
era that we've seen is similar to how Obama had
this particular hold you on a certain population. Trump has

(49:18):
a certain hold and it doesn't translate to the rest
of the Republican Party.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
You know, the midterms.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
He hasn't done well in midterms in particular, and so
the other thing is maybe.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
People still are low.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
It's not Trump's fault, this Congress can't get their act
together or whatever. But that doesn't exactly make them excited
to come out and vote for Republicans in midterm elections upcoming.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
Well, it doesn't also necessarily give you the faith in
a mega candidate that you might have otherwise. Right, they're saying,
you know, because there was the working class at this
idea that the Republicans worked for them for a long time.

Speaker 5 (49:49):
And you know, we've all talked about why that might be.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
But that's always been a problem for Republicans. And it's
especially a problem if you've already traded a lot of
suburban voters for more working class voters, especially in the
Roust belt place like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio. So does the
MAGA candidate lose some credibility if there's still you know,
your typical Republican and they're like Brooks Brothers suit but

(50:13):
they claim to be maga. The trust gap is significant
when voters who vote for Donald Trump A have to
go vote for you?

Speaker 5 (50:21):
Do they even vote? Let alone?

Speaker 4 (50:23):
If they do vote, do they vote for you when
they see their snap benefits lapsing and their premium is
about to explode.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Yeah, it feels like a lot of like twenty ten
level kind of like disillusionment is what I've Potentially we'll
see interesting.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Yeah, you should interview somebody who maybe ran for Congress
in twenty ten.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
I think I have an en see what we could do.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
I actually always love it when you talk about it
because it was such an important year and there's so
many different trends that came to like blossom six years later.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, I had a front rosie because I went to
every I went to so many tea party meetings because
my policy was, like anyone in the strict invites me
to come talk, I will come talk to you. So
I got berated by a lot of angry people who
thought that I was ushering in sodom and gomorrah.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
To be fair, to be fair, you were here, we
are here, we are Have you heard wop?

Speaker 5 (51:14):
I blame it. I blame you for that.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
I blame you for you should do your Ben Shapiro
esque rendition, your own rendition of four.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
All right, moving along.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
Speaking of Ben Shapiro, let's move on to Candas there
we go.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Candice has some very interesting thoughts about some of the
tech oligarchs who are, like, you know, completely taking all
of our fates into their hands with no input from
us whatsoever. So glad to see that she's focusing her
mental energy on them.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
Her take is very interesting, though. Let's take a lism.

Speaker 13 (51:49):
I don't even think people are human, Like I look
at Emon Mosku and Sam Altman and Peter Teel, and
I'm pretty sure they're hybrid, you know what I mean,
Like they just look like a Apple software that I
should be able to download at night, you know, like
my phone's getting an update or something.

Speaker 14 (52:05):
It's something in the eyes, like I don't know. I'm like,
I don't know. I don't I don't know if I stabbed.

Speaker 13 (52:09):
You, if you bleed, you know, I'm not going to
stab them, But I don't know. If they bleed all
the way, I think a battery would fall out, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 14 (52:17):
And I just get that sense.

Speaker 13 (52:18):
I've always known it was demonic, and people just get
on board because, as we talk about in this book,
they are using science and this idea of technology and
this idea of transforming society for the better to indoctoring us.

Speaker 14 (52:33):
Into accepting this.

Speaker 13 (52:34):
And it's wrong and it's backwards, and they weigh they're
the main component of.

Speaker 14 (52:38):
All of this is psychology, right.

Speaker 13 (52:40):
They're able to do it because of psychology, making you
think that society has gotten better. Our kids have objectively
gotten dumber, we've become fatter, we've become less healthy, we've
become less emotionally sound, and yet they are convincing us
that this is like human humanity is great leap forward.

Speaker 14 (52:58):
We put a man of the mood. He just like
called them up and was like, hey, Press, what's up,
I'm up here. Yeah, it's so cool. It's really great,
it's nice starry night up here. Caminet text you.

Speaker 13 (53:08):
I go by in sixty nine and they get these people,
they tell you, look.

Speaker 14 (53:12):
He's a genius. Real, Oh, they're all right away, he's
a genius.

Speaker 13 (53:15):
So we should just accept that you a Muscus is
a genius because like all the writers who are obviously
in doctrine into the occult, are telling us that this
is the next person that we should worship. The establishment
of Hollywood, it was all cults. They were all Alistair
Crowley proteges who were just raping kids and summoning demons,
and demons are real. So at the same time that
they're summoning demons, they are making us all believe.

Speaker 14 (53:38):
That faith is not real.

Speaker 13 (53:39):
And that has been I think the greatest, the greatest
trick that the devil ever.

Speaker 14 (53:45):
Played, right is making people think they didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Emily agree and disagree.

Speaker 5 (53:53):
Uh, she's certainly cooking crystals. She's certainly cooking.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
She also is cooking. Everyone can agree on that.

Speaker 5 (53:58):
She was also a.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
Potentially i mean Trump for her friend Charlie Kirk's assassination.
There's a lot of speculation which we do not mean
to get into because we're not professional medical professionals that
she may be having some type of episode because she
is sort of starting to sound like the person who

(54:19):
has like a like literal tinfoil on their head on
the street corner.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Okay, but I mean she has been doing the whole
Bridget Macron thing for a while now.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Yeah, it's true entirely when you're here, although I will
say that I think that particular I imagine people sense
it in that particular clip, there's a certain usually you
can follow her logic when it's crazy, you know what
I mean, You're you're like, this is wild and wacky,
but I can sort of follow along. There's a sense

(54:49):
of like just listening to her there. I don't know,
it seems different to me. It seems like a little
bit more, a little bit less rational, like we're just.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
We're just her logic on this perfectly.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Crystal is bull myself, I followed this logic personally perfectly.
But I mean, like, let's say it lets humanity off
the hook too much to say that these characters are
not actually human.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
That would be a very yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
I would love to think that these are not fully humans,
that these are some sort of weird hybrid alien beings
who are you know, and that's why they are doing
all of these terrible things. But in reality they are human,
and humans are capable of, you know, terrible destruction and
you know, and the weird thing is that all three
of them, I think, see themselves as like heroes actually,

(55:34):
and this is uh, it's it's also who sort of
has a somewhat directional truth to it though, because they
also are transhumans. They want into the hybrids that she's
talking about. They actually do want to go in that direction,
the merging of the human and the machine and uh,

(55:54):
and are deeply interested, of course, in consolidating all of
his power wealth in their own hands at the expense
of actual humanity. Which is why when Peter Thiale gets
asked you think by ross out that do you think
the human race should survive? He has to sputter and
stumble and mumble and think before he can answer what
should be the easiest question of all time.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
You know, what actually they're doing is turning all of
us into candis OANs like that's actually what's happening is
they're turning all of us into people who are driven by.

Speaker 5 (56:26):
The algorithm into madness.

Speaker 4 (56:29):
And I think she's a glimpse and producers Mac and
Griffin are just saying only crime is being right too
early about bandits, and Mac is like Kandas is onto
something here, Yeah, because like that's what happens is there's
truth to the fact that they want to make us
less human. And there's something very human about wanting to

(56:51):
make us less human because it's driven by greed and
lust for power and utopianism, which has been with us
since the human race has existed. And so this drive
for transhumanism is deeply human. And actually Candice was getting
to that when she was talking about the Devil's best
trick is making people think that the devil doesn't exist.

(57:13):
Like that's what she was getting at with that point.
There's something deeply, deeply human about the pursuit of power
and money that tricks people into buying utopian fantasies, and
even like the rich and powerful people themselves will be
seduced by this idea that there it's not actually about
the money, it's not actually about the power. It's about
the idea that we're creating a better life, a better world,

(57:37):
which I think everybody can see over the last like
what twenty year experiment since Peter Teel's technologies and just
in the last couple of years of Sam Altman's technologies,
and what Elon Musk has done.

Speaker 5 (57:49):
To acts, which I mean, I just look at it.
What that does is it makes us.

Speaker 4 (57:56):
It turns us all into crazy people because the Algori
rhythm has bad incentives, and we communicate, we export all
of our communication.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
This is just a preview of what's to come.

Speaker 4 (58:07):
We've exported so much of our communication onto platforms that
can be the flip of a switch by one person
like Elon Musk can change the direction of.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
The entire political discourse. Yeah, we've seen it. We know
that that's what can be done.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Yeah, and that controls not just what we say, uh,
but it controls the incentive system of what we decide
we're going to say.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
They're colonizing our minds. I mean, that's what they're doing
and successfully, by the way. And so I mean that's
why listen, as you know, wild is what she said
there is. I am glad to see her taking an
interest in this subject because, as we've discussed before, like
this is this is a dire situation we're facing. Yes,

(58:52):
it's dire from a job loss perspective. It's dire from
a resources and energy perspective. It's dire from a cost
perspective in terms of our electricity bills. It's dire from
a controlling our thoughts and minds and being able to
tell truth from fiction and I live in reality together perspective.
It's potentially dire from like an actual, true existential threat,

(59:14):
which I think is a real and genuine risk that
I do not put off the table. It's dire from
a mass consolidation of wealth and power perspective. Like you
want to talk about a democracy crisis, There's no way
a democracy survives if you have someone one of these
characters able to achieve AGI and all of the incredible
economic power, power and benefits that come along with that.

(59:36):
So you know, which is why someone like Elon Musk,
who was very concerned about the things we're talking about,
and that's why he started open AI with Sam Altmithie, Okay,
we can develop this, but we'll do it in this
nonprofit way.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
No, I'm not saying that the conception was.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Like was like great from the start, but he had
some mind of we have to do this in a
safe way. It can't be for profit. It needs to
be in the public interest. And then once he sees
everyone x by the way, yep, and once he sees
everyone else is off to the races, then he's off
to the races too. So it's it is an actually
existential conversation, in my opinion, And if you listen to that,

(01:00:14):
it's an existential conversation because they'll tell you we're trying
to eliminate human labor, we're trying to rewrite the social contract.
We want to completely upend society as it exists today.
So I am glad to see figures on the right
late Candice occasionally see Bannon, you know, certainly like figures
like you, Sager, who are looking at this with clear
eyes and going this is this is horrific, and we

(01:00:36):
have to come together and take control in some way
because otherwise, you know, we are barreling towards an incredibly
risky and dire future.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Well and again, like it gives rocket fuel to those
conspiracy theories that people aren't like actually human, and it
makes those things much more believable as you break down
the law, break down the wall between fact and fiction
with your technologies and your algorithms, and so again, they're
they're turning us all into cana zons. And for a
bit more cogent, I would say argument along the lines

(01:01:06):
of what she is making about, Like, if you want
a faith based argument, I recommend Living in Wonder by Roderer,
which came out recently. It does a really good job
with this. But it's all happening so quickly. In fact,
we should get to the clip of THEO Vaughn who
asked Sam Altman if he feels fully human along the
lines of the ros Daltha interview of Peter Teel that

(01:01:28):
Crystal reference. These guys are having conversations in public because
they think they're untouchable, and to.

Speaker 5 (01:01:34):
Some extent they are.

Speaker 4 (01:01:35):
I mean, think about the Amazon Web servers outage last week,
the consolidation of power combined with AI. So when you
have consolidated, consolidated power that's running on AI, they have.

Speaker 5 (01:01:46):
Lost control of their AI. Are ready, Yeah, they and
they admit it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
So think of how consequential the AWS outage was last week,
and then think of what happens when you have massive
consolidation and AI together all at the same time, and
people like Sam Altman running the show.

Speaker 5 (01:02:03):
Here's c two.

Speaker 6 (01:02:04):
Yeah, I'm just always oh my god. Yeah, these people
are able to see things differently and quantify things differently.
Do you always feel because some tech guys they just
have a different understanding of possibility, right, a different understanding
of feeling and things. Do you feel human all the time?

Speaker 15 (01:02:21):
I do feel human all the time. But I feel
like I I have noticed that I think extremely differently
about the future, about exponential change, about compounding technology than
almost anybody else that I kind of come across in
regular life. So that's cool. I feel extremely human. I
feel like, you know, driven by crazy emotions as much
as anybody, but I am like very aware that I'll

(01:02:43):
have a different lens than a lot of people.

Speaker 6 (01:02:46):
Have you met some people in tech space You're like, whoa,
that guy is only six or seven percent, he's low,
he has not a lot of human in him. Yes, yeah, okay, I.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Love how Sam's like, yes, I've met people who are
not human, but me and myself, I'm totally Even.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
His interview with Tucker Carlson came out like I think
it was a couple of days before Charlie Kirk was assassinating,
so it kind of got buried.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Yeah, I never got actually got around to watching it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
You have to watch it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:12):
So Tucker asked him how he sleeps at night, and
Allman's just like, not, well, it's so wild that he
goes out and says these things in public, not doing
a great job in installing confidence in the population.

Speaker 5 (01:03:27):
Meanwhile, Crystal, who is working on behalf of these oligarchs.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
But Kristensen, of course, I had to let the pause
hang because I know it's surprising to people.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Oh yeah, that she's doing the most evil thing imaginable
in the wake of her senatorial career. You know, I
might be open to the hybrid hypothesis when it comes
to Carson Cinema. So here she is testifying at a
local town hall, basically saying to that listen, I'm working

(01:04:02):
to push these data centers into communities, and you can
either cooperate with us, or the federal government is just
going to come in and force you to accept this
and then you're not going to have any say over
how it goes for you or you know or like
it's coming. So you can either work with us. We
can do this the easy way or the hard way
is the subtext of what she says here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Let's go ahead and take a listen.

Speaker 16 (01:04:21):
I'm here tonight on behalf of ACT in Infrastructure. I
also am the founder and co chair of a national
coalition called the AI Infrastructure Coalition. We are a national
coalition formed earlier this year, and we're cand in glove
with the Trump administration as we prepare for AI American dominance,

(01:04:43):
to prepare against a competing PEP from China, but also
to ensure that domestically that we are prepared for the
AI revolution that is coming here. The AI Action Plan
set out by the Trump administration says very clearly that
we must continue to proliferate AI and AI data centers
throughout the country.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
So there she goes hand in glove with the Trump
administration to make sure that AI data centers proliferate throughout
the country. And I'll tell you, you know, I live
in a town where one of these data centers may
be coming. There are it's and it's a very conservatives
rural areas, very conservative, you know, about like sixty five
percent for Trump or something, and you see tons of

(01:05:22):
signs like stop the data center.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
I mean, this is it really is something.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
That there are a wide variety of cross partisan concerns
here including about local autonomy, you know, as cinema is
basically threatening them, like it's coming whether you want it
or not. Local autonomy is one of them. You know,
there's the water usage. You've had wells that have gone
dry near these places, you know, especially in rural areas.

(01:05:46):
I'm personally on well water. A lot of people in
my county and in the area are. You have the
noise concern, the light pollution concern. You have the skyrocketing
electricity energy costs, so you have you know a lot
of just like immediate concerns about these massive construction projects
that are just like proliferating across the country and that

(01:06:06):
you know, people like her are pushing onto communities that
really don't want them.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
Well, And there was a great semaph report, I think
it was a Dave Wigel report from a couple of
weeks ago about how this is like the sneaky issue
in the midterm cycle that because so many communities are
experiencing problems related to the data centers, that anybody who's
actually able to do the anti cinema here is probably
whichever party is able to do in some of these

(01:06:31):
like congressional races, the anti cinema approach that'll behoove them
because in many, many communities this is becoming a significant problem.
And on that note, guess who is on this Bernie Sanders,
Let's roll see four.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
Do you think open AI and CHATCHPT should be broken up?

Speaker 9 (01:06:48):
I do, But it's a deeper issue than that. We
need to take a deep breath and understand that. It's
like you know, media are coming to it. We got
to be prepared to deal with in all of its complexity. Economically,
I worry about massive loss of jobs. In terms of
what it does to us as human beings, there are
products not being sold. Is you don't need to relate

(01:07:10):
to a human being anymore. You will have somebody hanging
around your neck is your AI buddy. And in a
country where there's a lot of emotional distress, what do
you worry about that? How we continue community, how we
relate to each other as human beings. And then, of course,
in terms of AI, we worry about the super intelligent AI,

(01:07:35):
which supersedes human intelligence. And one day the AI says
to the human being, sorry, but actually no, you worry
about a terminator like scenario something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
So that was Senator standards in an interview with Alex
Thompson of Access Crystal, showing a path forward not just
for Democrats but for Republicans if anyone is smart enough
to take it.

Speaker 5 (01:07:58):
And that's where the question.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
Is, right, Yeah, Well, at the federal level, certainly, the
Trump administration has decided that they're all in, you know.
And obviously jade Vance is very much back by Peter Thiel,
has been throughout his career.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
They're thinking he's their guy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
They've decided we're going to take any breaks that were
on the car, we're going to take them off, right.
We are going to make sure in terms of regulatory
breaks or to make sure the funding is there. We're
going to make sure there's no sort of like, you know,
any sort of sec enforcement actions coming your way. We're
going to go all in in the most reckless manner
possible because we've got to win this, you know, war

(01:08:37):
against China. We've got to win the race to Agi
before China gets there. And so that is the full
thrust from the national level of the UH, you know,
the Trump administration certainly right now, and if jade Vance
is the predecessor to Trump, then I fully expect him
to continue in that direction, and of course Trump is
out there. Steve Bannon is zaygo. Trump is going to
be the guy again in twenty twenty eight. I don't

(01:08:58):
think we can put that off the tape either, And
he's clearly decided that, you know, being fully in bed
with these tech oligarchs was the best thing for him
politically in the direction that he wanted to go in.
So it does leave a massive opening for someone to
articulate all of these fears. And as I said, the
fears are both immediate and medium term in terms of

(01:09:20):
job loss and long term as Bernie articulates there as well,
in terms of these more existential concerns about what it
would mean to have a superior intelligence on the planet, Like,
has anyone thought about that? There are people who have
thought about it, most of them have concluded that it's
going to be really bad for human beings. Yet we
continue a pace anyway. So if you know, eighty something

(01:09:42):
year old Bernie Sanders can figure all of that out,
I think a lot of Americans are thinking the same direction.
And it seems to me like we're at an inflection
point as these data centers increasingly crop up, especially in
rural areas where there's more and more awareness of what
is happening and the speed and pace of you know,

(01:10:03):
at which it is occurring, and the massive impact that
it could have on all of our lives in the future.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
And most conservative Catholic intellectuals are deeply suspicious of AI,
which puts JD Vance in a fascinating position. And we
did a long segment on why Peter Thiel is talking
so much about AI, the Apocalypse, the catacon recently, and
I think the conclusion that we landed on is he's

(01:10:30):
trying to seduce, especially religious conservatives, in the midst of
this nationwide religious revival that everyone'saw on display at the
Kirk Memorial. He's trying to convince those people, which are
such an important part of the Republican coalition, to put
their faith in AI and to put their faith in

(01:10:51):
big tech. And if he's able to do that, if
you bring the Jdvances on board and start making this
argument a faith based argument, a faith based argument for accelerationism,
that's a huge win because you can see the argument
that Bernie just made their being appealing to people around
the country who are are honestly like conservative Trump types

(01:11:17):
or just normal you know, suburban parents who are freaked
out about what's happening to their children. So that's a
huge reason why we're starting to see Teal. I think
Teal is smarter, honestly, and he's more politically savvy, much
more politically experienced than Elon or Sam Altman. I mean,
his political involvement goes back a long time, and so

(01:11:37):
I think that's where you're trying to see, where you're
seeing him try to get out ahead of some of
these arguments to bring so like Candicetone's Conservative Catholic actually
interesting point, big audience among conservative Catholics, trying to make
the point that hey, we don't know where any of
this is going, but we have to put our faith
in this accelerationist because otherwise the de Growthers sure look

(01:11:58):
a lot like some biblical prophecies about the dark forces.
So that's that's I think all of this, I think
lends credence to the conversation that we had the other day.
And on top of that, where does I mean the
Trump administration. We heard a lot in the lead up.
You probably remember this last year this time last year
about little tech right like accelerationism, little tech. We have

(01:12:22):
to open up everything, make a much more liberal, lowercase
L regulatory environment for all of these little tech companies
to thrive and to innovate.

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
Crystal.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
I feel like the regulatory environment right now, since Donald
Trumpery took office is pretty much designed to favor big tech, right, Like,
are we seeing this flourishing?

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
The tech itself is designed to favor big exactly because
at least the theory of all the American companies, you know,
Deep seek Proof potentially a different direction as possible, but
the theory of all the American companies is basically, you
just throw as much money at this thing as possib
You build out as many data centers, as much compute
as possible to the tune them hundreds of billions of dollars,

(01:13:07):
and that's the way to win the race. And so
of course, like you're not going to have some plucky
startup that's able to pull that off.

Speaker 5 (01:13:17):
Especially with all the lobbying here that's going on.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Yeah, I mean, it's gonna be the giant players. And
which is why I always thought the little tech thing
was complete nutter bullshit. And I think it was complete
nutter bullshit. I don't think that Mark Andrees and these
other people that are pushing it are so like out
of touch with the nature of the tech to not
understand that it was going to be the big players
that dominate the space.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
Now are there going to be.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
You know, startups that are using the tech and you know,
ancillary pressure, But in terms of who is developing the
core technology, it's going to be one of the giants.
And that's why all of these guys have thrown in
so hard for it, because they want to be the guy.
They want to be the master of the universe. That's

(01:14:02):
the way that they see it. And Emily, your points
on the on what Teal is doing and your insights
into that, I think are really important for people to understand.
Whether or not he believes what he's saying or not,
who the hell knows, It doesn't really matter, but he's
trying to square the circle of convincing religious people that
this technology, which on his face looks anti creation and

(01:14:24):
anti human is actually actually it's fine, and actually we
have to do this, like the proper religious course to take,
you know, with if you're in the Christian faith, is
to pursue this at all costs. And take all the
breaks off the car and just trust that it's going
to work out, that that is the like, the proper

(01:14:45):
thing to do, and just turn your mind off all
your concern don't worry about it, right, We've just got
to We just got to go drive this car a
one hundred miles an hour.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
Yeah, yeah, And you know it's it's It's interesting because
I think a lot of people are engaging with the
teal argument as it's in entirely sincere, and I think
it's probably both sincere. He does seem entirely sincere about it,
but it's not just sincere. It's sincere in a very
particular direction. And there's an audience that he would have

(01:15:14):
a motivation to try and persuade right now, And so
I think that's an important les to look at what
he's doing through. Man, what a time to be alive, Crystal,
What a time to be alive.

Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
Indeed,

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