11/25/25: Google Passes OpenAI, Trump Healthcare Plan Collapse, GOP Pushes Venezuela War

Krystal and Saagar discuss Google surpassing OpenAI, Bannon says AI will destroy MAGA, Trump healthcare plan collapses, Republicans push blood for oil in Venezuela.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 1 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. I have an
amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Indeed, we do a lot of interesting things happening in
the AI raised Sam Altman is actually sounding the alarm
internally over OpenAIS standing after Google releases their latest LM.
So that is a fascinating one there. The Trump administration
announced they had a healthcare proposal, and then they pulled
that healthcare proposal after a revolt from congressional Republicans. Dig

(00:58):
into that, Scott the Lesson says, maybe the way to
bring costs down is to invade Venezuela. Seems to be
a full blown propaganda push towards war and full on
invasion of Venezuela. So we will see where that goes.
Republicans in the House are furious apparently with the White House,
and more are threatening to resign, putting the majority in danger.
Jim Comey and Letitia James have had their prosecutions thrown

(01:22):
out by a federal judge. Pete Hegseth is threatening Mark
Kelly after he was part of that video saying hey,
if you are a service member, you should not follow
unlawful commands. And we're going to take a look at
what that Thanksgiving turkey is going to cost you. It's
our most like Morning Show coded segment ever. We do
it every year, though we usually also do one about
like how to talk to your relatives about Thanksgiving? But

(01:45):
you know whatever, you're just gonna have to work that
one out here.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
At this point, there's been enough discourse about relatives. You
guys can figure it out. Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I actually you know what, let me offer one tip,
one unifying thing. I think you should talk about data
centers and AI and I think you share you go
because it's very it's very cross partisan. I think there
is something about the rise of AI for all of
us to be concerned about. So perhaps it can be
both an educational and a unifying moment at the Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I like that. That's the Breaking Points approved talking point,
that you can have politics at dinner and everybody will say, Wow,
that's crazy. We should do something about that. I like it.
Thank you to everybody who's been signing up Breakingpoints at
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you're going to want to be a premium subscriber. You
know why because during the a m. A. Crystal is
at home. So producer Mac is going to join me
and we are going to taste test live the taco

(02:35):
bell Baha blast. Is it a cheesecake or is it
a pie? It's one of those, Emily, it's a cheese.
It's a cheesecake.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
The box an interesting question.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Whether our cheesecake is also technically a pop.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Anyway, Yes, that's Emily decided that this was something that
we should give the world.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
So she is.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Emily Uber Eats Stocker and me and we are going
to try it live on camera. Only available for our
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helps other people find the show. But let's go ahead

(03:13):
and start with the economy. As we said, let's go
and put a one up here on the screen. This
new rollout is absolutely fascinating simply because we can look
at the exponential growth in a lot of these lms
between Google, Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, what is it, drop Box,

(03:34):
all these other companies, salesforce, people are all competing against
one another, and Google's new Gemini rollout has many of
its competitors reeling. And the implications for this are actually titanic,
mostly for Open Ai, but also for the entire chips industry.
So let's read a little bit here from the Wall
Street Journal. With the release of the third version this week,

(03:56):
Google's Gemini LM search pass chat Chiput's become the most
capable AI chatbot, as determined by Consensus Industry benchmark tests.
The reason why this is interesting is that they Google
has been able to do this by bypassing some of
the other choke points that open ai has had, and
because it is a monopolistic company. I mean, the truth

(04:17):
is the vast majority of people who are even watching
this are doing so on a Google product. They're doing
it on YouTube. Google has YouTube, it has ai search
as YouTube TV, it has all of these different things
that roll up into this gigantic company which prints all
of this money. They don't have to have the shortfall
that open ai has some seventy eight billion dollars in losses.
They've been able to come in have this technological breakthrough

(04:38):
with Gemini three, which has quote outperformed competing models on
more than a dozen benchmark tests, scoring a range of
intelligence categories. But I think what's also very interesting is
the Chip story Crystal behind all of this, The way
that they're using of their own intern the way that
they're not having to rely on some of the more

(05:00):
vendor finance type deals, and so that puts at risk
kind of the pyramid scheme potentially that we had begun
to see with Opene and many of the other deals
they had out there. This has major ramifications for the
future of open ai, its ability to fulfill its trillion
dollar commitments if they can't maintain their technological edge.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, this is a gigantic deal for a bunch of reasons,
and a tremendous threat to the other AI competitors. For
the first time, Google has been seen to take the
lead in terms of the AI race. As you were saying,
on these sort of benchmark tests, it outperformed all of
the competitors on every single test save for one, so
it's sort of widely being seen as the most advanced
model at this point. The other reason, as you were saying, Soccer,

(05:41):
that this is considered so significant is that Google has
their own proprietary chips that were used to train Gemini three,
and Gemini three is largely being run on those proprietary chips,
So that is really, you know, a significant sort of
shakeup in the industry and could potentially give them an.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Edge as well.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Not to mention, as you said, the fact that this
is something that Stolar has been all over, the fact
that they have this gigantic monopoly already gives them a
huge edge as well, both in terms of customer positioning
and also in terms of the data that they have
available to train these models, and the training obviously very
important in terms of LLMS, because it's not like normal

(06:20):
tech where you code it. It's actually, you know, being trained,
it's being grown. And so the more that you have
to feed into this thing from everybody's searches and all
of the content on the web, that's going to give
you an advantage as well, to give you a sense
of how significant the chips aspect of this is and
how central Nvidia has become less but a two up
on the screen. I don't know if you guys followed

(06:41):
all this drama last week about Nvidia's earnings. They did
actually exceed their earnings expectations, and their founder said, I
think quite accurately, the whole world would have fallen apart
if in Nvidia missed earnings expectations because basically our entire
economy is centered around that one now infamous chart of
Nvidia and all the deals they have with all these

(07:02):
different AI companies, So in Vidia has been like the
central player. This maybe breaks apart that notion that Nvida
is absolutely everything within the economy, but yeah, I mean
we're still in this situation where things are incredibly concentrated,
and for these other companies that are taking gigantic trillion
dollar bets on their model winning, you know, this has

(07:25):
got to be incredibly unsettling.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, exactly. The chips angle to this, the open AI angle,
and also just the monopolistic one. I think this is
the one I want to spend more time on because
it's not just search. It's Google, Chrome, it's Gmail, it's YouTube.
Google had already built, you know, the perfect search engine,
the perfect YouTube recommendation.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
I mean, the.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Truth is is like we owe our careers right to
YouTube recommendation algorithm a lot of other people there. You
go on YouTube and it's the best at being able
to find something else that you want to watch. Now.
YouTube TV is one of the major players in the
cable replacements. They've got all this stuff going on with culture.
They own all these massive troves of data of the
Android operating system, which is global, so they know more

(08:10):
about human behavior than anyone else already before LM's And
then you roll that all up into Sundhar Pachai, who
apparently made this the single priority inside of Google. Very recently,
I was reading some background from my friend Alex Kanstowitz,
he's a tech reporter, on how they revamped the Gemini
product and they said this will be the pre eminent

(08:31):
one in the space. So it shows the monopolistic benefits
to a Google and it also shows you some of
the dangers here with OpenAI specifically and what that means
for our overall economy. And that's probably what we want
to spend the most time on here. Let's go to
A three. I flagged this specifically because it goes back
to our interview that we did last week, specifically about

(08:52):
when will we know that we're going to start having
issues with AI in terms of it starting to leapfrog.
Google is actually having Gemini I build the user interface
in its latest Gemini updates, so the AI is already
doing some of the tasks around the AI itself. This
is what I say is super interesting. I think about
how they're not only having the monopoly, do having the

(09:16):
monopoly to benefit its current product, but now having the
AI not just train the AI, but build some of
the user interface of AI. So it demonstrates what they
have long promised as the productivity benefits again for themselves,
not necessarily for all of us. Now with open AI,
what Wall Street is beginning to notice, and you're going
to start probably seeing this in stock price soon, is

(09:38):
how much this kind of screws over a lot of
their growth plans. So let's put the next one up
here on the screen. So this was from CNBC, and
what they say is that Google's new AI model puts
open AI the great conundrum of this market on shakier ground.
I do want to say this is written by Jim Kramer,
so you know, I mean take it with a great assault.
That said, you know, every once in a while, you know,
broken clock is right twice a day. And what he

(09:59):
does say is that if you look at this and
some of the promises of the market, specifically around these
vendor finance deals and open AI, while openly acknowledging that
they're going to have some seventy eight billion dollars or
whatever in losses by twenty twenty eight, everything is built
on exponential growth and their ability to maintain the leading

(10:21):
and bleeding edge for exponential growth the best in consumer
facing AI. What this does makes it is so that
it calls into question their competitive edge that they've long
had by being one of the first movers with one
of the best user friendly chatbots, and it makes it
so that that could be challenged, which would decrease its growth,

(10:42):
which would of course not have them be able to
fulfill all of the trillion dollar deals, which would mean
that the market valuations of all these companies save for
Google would start to go down. And en VideA in particular,
go to the next one. Please. This is from the
Information a tech focus outlet, and they got their hands
on this new memo that forecasts quote rough vibes during

(11:07):
due to a resurgent Google. Now I don't love using
the word rough vibes in internal company memos, but what
we say is that this November memo, it leaked a
couple of days ago, says that the rough vibes and
potential revenue growth toward five percent, which would be a
collapse inside. And that was actually written before Gemini three

(11:28):
actually launched. On November eighteenth, Altman praised Google's excellent work
where he declared a shift to a wartime footing inside
of the company. Now, remember they're valued at five hundred billion,
their annual revenue needs to exceed some twenty billion this year.
Their cash burn surpasses already eight billion in twenty twenty
five cumulative losses of one hundred and fifteen billion, potentially

(11:49):
up to twenty twenty nine forward sales needs some twenty
five times now currently. Meanwhile, Google has one hundred billion
dollars in cash, They have four billion users, They have
an incredible competitive edge, and so you could see very
quickly how this company, even if it maintains you know,
some good growth and it continues to have you know,

(12:09):
large user base twenty billion and all that, it's going
to be very very hard to reach some twenty five
times expected growth and keep that exponential edge. And this
is really what all these AI guys, people like Meta
and Google have been kind of telling everyone behind the scenes.
They're like, yeah, look, open ai is great, but we
actually make money. We make a shitload of money, and
then we have this monopolization let's say in social media

(12:31):
and or in Google search, and we can use that
to prop up our trillions of dollars that are being
spent here. Open ai is kind of the cornerstone of
a lot of the stock growth for some of the
other you know, some of the other areas like data center,
n VideA and others. And I think that's where a
lot of the concern comes from from a potential collapse
at the very least from open AI that wouldn't bring

(12:53):
down the entire economy, but would pump the brakes. And
pumping the brakes, as we've said, is potential enough to
already see a major decline in a lot of stock indices,
and potentially also even a modest decrease in the amount
of data center growth would mean that GDP itself would
begin to put us into recession territory.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yep, that's right, that's right. Let's put a six up
on the screen. Actually, David Sachs was saying yesterday, is
something to the effect which I found very disturbing frankly,
that we have so many chips on placed on the
AI boom that we cannot go back, we cannot afford
it to slip. And that's what this article really releases reveals.

(13:29):
It says the SMP four ninety three reveals a very
different US economy. So we've seen the stock market go
basically up and up and up and up and up,
breaking new records, et cetera. And we've mentioned this before,
but if you strip out those seven companies, the Magnificent seven,
that are all, you know, sky high valuations basically based

(13:51):
on the promise of AI. If you take that out,
the stock market picture is, the picture of growth is
very actually weak. It looks like a completely different economy.
And of course, for most people out there, you know,
you who are living in the real economy, they're already
feeling a downter and they're already feeling the pinch. They're
not participating in this speculative fever. Certainly not mostly benefiting

(14:14):
from the speculative fever unless you're someone who's at the
higher end of the income spectrum and benefiting from the
rise in the stock market. But one possibility, sager, that
we've been talking about for a while is, you know,
the expectation is that the AI boom is going to
be a sort of winner take all economy. And I
mean that in the sense that whichever company is able

(14:37):
to achieve super intelligence first and get to this pivot
point where their AI is not only training the new AI,
but is also doing significant decision making, where basically everything
is sort of handed off and you just have humans
who are overseeing the best they can managing this development.

(14:57):
Whoever achieves that first is going to basically get all
of the games, so you can have a situation where
the promise of AI is actually fulfilled. Now I'm sort
of terrified of what that world looks like, but you know,
if you're a techno optimist, there could be a world
where the promise of AI is fulfilled.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
But still all of.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
These other companies that are betting, making trillion dollar bets
on their AI future lose the race, and you still
have a massive crash and bubble pop once someone does
actually achieve that level of super intelligence. And so to me,
this development is a reminder that even you know, with

(15:36):
the structure of the way this AI race is playing out,
that in and of itself creates massive risk in the
economy because you are probably going to have basically a
monopolistic winner take all situation where whether it's Google, and
I do think Google, you know, it makes sense that
they have a lot of advantages here, whether it's Google
or some other player, when they achieve this breakthrough, they're

(15:59):
going to leap frog far beyond everyone else, and you know,
cause a major cratering of the valuation and the bets
of these other companies. Now, if you're a company like Microsoft,
you've got a lot of other revenue streams. If you're
a company like open Ai, you've placed all of your
chips on, you know, trying to get to superintelligence as

(16:20):
quickly as possible and spending as much money as it
takes and becoming too big to fail. That's basically where
you've placed all of your chips. Now, we should say
at this point they are the leaders in terms of
you know, the largest user base of their LLM chat
GPT is the most used. I think they have like
eight hundred thousand users something like that, So they're ahead

(16:41):
in that perspective. But you know, I think this really
shows a lot of risks for their direction and their
business model.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah. I mean, what you can see at the very
least here is with questions and uncertainty that enough is
because of where the markets and how it's all worked,
would be enough to bring down some sort of downturn, which,
again we have to keep underscoring, is the only thing
propping up the US economy in terms of the big
numbers that people in Washington care about GDP and stock market. Now,

(17:11):
I know the vast majority of people watching this that
doesn't affect you all that much, although I would say
it does affect you in the way that interest rates
work in terms of if there is a crash, you
can be sure you may not have benefited on the
way up, you definitely will suffer the consequences on the
way down. It can you know, liquidity, There's all kinds
of downstream things. But I think just to hammer this home,
this Washington Post has a graph at a six please

(17:34):
so the S and P. Four ninety three, and what
it shows is that one hundred and thirty two percent
growth excluding the Magnificent seven, since twenty nineteen, whereas from
twenty twenty five it's one thousand and five, it's one
fifty seven percent, which includes the Magnificent seven. This just
people don't appreciate just how powerful these companies have been

(17:58):
to the illusion, say of growth, and if the four
hundred ninety three of the five hundred companies are not
actually doing all that well, although you know it's I'm
not saying that they haven't done as well, but they're
not compounding at a level which is so exponential. That
alone just demonstrates some of the pushback the draw that
could happen with some of those valuation. You got to

(18:23):
give credit to Steve Bannon, he actually definitely has his
eyes open about this. Let's go to the next part
here and put this on the screen. Steve Bannon now
tells ABC News he is warning the Trump administration that
their AI agenda could quote crush the working class fracture,
MAGA cost gop in twenty six and twenty eight. He
is working to quote turbocharge the base to revolt against
it inside magas fight to stop the AI revolution. And

(18:47):
this really fits with the launch of a new candidate
down in the state of Florida, James Fishback. He is
running against Byron Donnell to succeed Ron DeSantis as the
next governor of Florida, and he specifically calls out AI
data centers in his new ad in his launch video, literally,
let's take a listen to that, guys, that is a eight.

Speaker 5 (19:10):
My name is James Fishback, and I'm running to succeed
Ron DeSantis as Florida's next Republican governor. I'm running for
Florida governor so i can make life more affordable for
you and your family. I'll stop the construction of any
AI data center that threatens to raise our electricity bills
or poison our water supply. If he goes out and
supports the building of AI data centers that threaten our
electric bills and our water supply, he can't be our

(19:32):
next governor.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Is he talks about. He talks about banning large companies
like hedge funds and others private equity from buying homes,
and three is AI data center.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
So look you, we'll say Sager.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
In the longer list, he also says abolished property tax.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
I know that, Yes, I was going to get before
we get to the downside, we have to get to
the upside at the very least. I will say this
definitely demonstrates the thesis that AI data centers will be
a cornerstone of a lot of the election. They're coming
up in twenty twenty six, and there's already been all
of these revolts on a local level. It was not

(20:06):
difficult to see this coming. But this was I think
a major flash in the pan for a lot of
the big tech movement because this is the big fight
in the White House right now, and they're not wrong.
They're like, sir, When they go to Donald Trump and
he hears about some of this pushback, he goes, sir,
we're the only thing saving your economy and he needs that,
especially in the midst of tariffs. He's like, you, if

(20:27):
you stop this gravy train, we're dead. Like you're going
to be facing serious questions about tariffs, about the economy,
You're already having problems with affordability, and not to mention
many of us gave you, you know, hundreds of millions
of dollars when you were running for a president. And
on the other side, though, is if you look at
the way that the political wins are shifting, it's obvious
that for people who aren't in those established power centers,

(20:49):
the best move is to run against them. That's why
James fishback car that kind of carve that lane out
for himself. I believe Byron Donald's had said something which
was pro data center very recently, which demonstrates how you
know he himself, because you know he's more inside the
system type politician. He kind of thought it was a
gimme in terms of this race, and now that might

(21:10):
really come back to buy them.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
I mean, it's the politics of it are fascinating because
certainly at the grassroots level, really doesn't matter whether you're
a Republican or a Democrat. There's a lot of concern.
You know, a lot of these data centers are being
built in rural red Trump areas, and you know, whether
it's Mingo County, West Virginia or we played the some
of the more perfect Union reporting from a small town

(21:33):
in Louisiana where you know this metadata center is going
in is a major major issue. There's problems with an
one of Elon's data centers outside of Memphis that we
talked to Justin Pearson about. Abdolsayat has been sounding the
alarm about issues in Michigan. Grand Platner has been going
very hard on the paint against these tech companies, and
so it was interesting to see a Republican really this

(21:56):
is maybe the first time I've seen a Republican candidate
really jump this aggressively into the freight because the reality
is and I think this is another sort of sign
of Trump's weakness at this moment. This is the major
push of his administration, I mean in terms of the
sort of economic planning and what they've been building and
who they've thrown in with in a massive way. From

(22:19):
the beginning of this administration. It is this gigantic bet
on AI. The very first executive orders. Among them were, hey,
any sort of regulation that existed in the Biden administration
of AI where previously companies were supposed to be sending
in all of their safety tests to the federal government,
there was at least some visibility of what they were
up to. It's like, nope, we're taking all the breaks

(22:41):
off this car. We're going all the way in. He
just signed yet another executive order seeking to speed the
proliferation of AI throughout the government and throughout society. So
the Financial Times headline that the US economy is all
just one giant bet on AI is absolutely true. Whether
it's the data center bill outs, whether it's the stock
market just across the board. And so now even if

(23:03):
Trump wanted to go in a different direction, he can,
and he doesn't really care. I mean he basically when
he took in all this money from the tech guys,
he basically sold this part of the administration to them.
They've made him fabulously wealthy through his crypto shit coins
and all of the you know deals that he's been
striking as well. So I don't think he has any
interest in backing away from it. Meanwhile, at the grassroots level,

(23:23):
you have this burgeoning revolt. And Steve Bannon has been
you know, talking about this from the beginning, even during
the early days with Elon Musk, he had some concerns
about that. He's saying they're going to go all in,
you know, really sort of on a war footing against
this bill out and this no holds barred AI development.
But you know, it's his guy who's in the White

(23:43):
House who has really enabled this gigantic push. And you
not only have the dynamic of so much of the
economy is built on it at this point, you also
have the you know, oh and we're in a race
with China dynamic of it as well, which makes it
very difficult for politicians to sort of step back from
hurdling towards whatever we're hurdling towards.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, definitely. And Chris, can you break down this power story?
I know that you were interested. This is a seven
about con Edison.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, so it's not just about con Edison.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
This is just about overall.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
You know, we've been tracking, of course, the way that
electricity bills have been going up and up, huge increases,
and you know, certain states more than others. But as
a consequence of as a very predictable consequence of that,
you have more customers who are having their electricity shut
off because they can't pay their bills. Overall, they say

(24:34):
Americans are paying eleven percent more for electricity than they
were in January, but that number varies really widely. So
for example, they find in Missouri, costs have risen by
thirty seven percent. There are a couple of states, maybe
three different states, that have seen some declines, but overall

(24:56):
the picture is one of utility prices rising rapidly. They say,
utility prices have risen roughly three times faster than overall
inflation this year at a precarious time for the economy.
Nearly one in twenty households are about fourteen million Americans.
We're so behind on utility debt it was reported to
collections agencies or in arrears. As of June, the average

(25:19):
overdue balance of seven hundred and eighty nine dollars has
risen thirty two percent. And they talked about you know,
codd Edison in particular. The number of shutoffs in New
York that they've already done this year is one hundred
and eleven thousand. That's as compared to last year thirty
thousand for the whole year, so you've more than tripled

(25:40):
the number of shutoffs and we're not even obviously through
with the year of twenty twenty five, so you can
see how this is just you know, I mean, one
more thing that is absolutely squeezing consumers and they cannot
keep up. You know, people cannot keep up with these
bills which just continue to go up and up and up.
And we've seen legislative efforts in states like North Carolina

(26:03):
to pass on more of the data center electricity usage
costs to consumers. So you know, this is an incredibly
powerful industry, whether you're talking about these tech giants or
whether you're talking about the utility companies, and you know,
they are putting the squeeze to people in a way
that's absolutely extraordinary.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Soccer.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
When we talked to that AI expert last week, you know,
he was sounding he was saying that by twenty thirty
we could be facing massive issues with the grid, and
you know, we don't seem to be building out power
at nearly rapid enough rate to deal with the increase
that this demands, right.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Thirty two percent increase in overdue balance and you got
one in about five percent of all American households behind
on utility debt. State of Pennsylvania, which is a swing state,
you've got a twenty one percent increase they're in power bills,
and then you said there was a fivefold increase in
New York City. So you can see how this is all.
Just look, it hits the poorest first, but the middle

(27:00):
class and others. Just because they can't pay the bill
doesn't mean that doesn't mean they're struggling. And it also
means if you combine grocery store bills and others, that
you increasingly feel as if the fixed cost of living
is slipping away from you. And that leads to for carrity,
and that's what leads to a lot of the politics
that we see today. So I thought it was smart
for James fish Back to put that in his ad,

(27:21):
and I hope and expect to see many other politicians,
aspiring politicians of all stripes across the spectrum that are
going to start running on this issue. Because if you're
an upstart and you're living in an anti institutional moment
like we are today, there's no reason that you shouldn't
be attacking this head on. It'd be interesting to see
where Zoron falls on it. Actually, considering how many people

(27:42):
in New York City are being affected, this would be
a very smart thing to try and attack. Your governor
of one of the largest cities in the entire country,
probably the largest city in the entire country, the mayor
of the entire city. You have all these millions of
people there. I mean, it's New York, it's cold, so
it's like a place that you actually need it especially,
that would be exactly the type of issue that he
would want to pick up on.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Well, he mentioned in that meeting with Trump, they mentioned
that they talked about Colin Edison, and I think it
was Trump that said something about, you know, the rates
are going up too high and we need to do
something about that. So he realizes starting to realize the
potency of this as well. But yeah, I mean the
politics of it are fascinating. I think they're incredibly important.
You know, a grassroots push back is really our only

(28:24):
hope to sort of stabilize things and take some Democrat
small d democratic control back over what's going on here.
And so, you know, I'm sure I have lots of
issues with this fishback character or whatever you do too
on the property taxes issue. But I'm just happy to see,
you know, I really am, am genuinely glad to see

(28:45):
some on the right really seizing on this as an
issue as well, because right now, it doesn't code as
like a you know, left wing or right wing issue.
It's there's something in it for everybody to be concerned about,
whether it's the character of their community, whether it's environmental degrity,
whether it's the you know, just their electricity prices going up,
or whether it's the job's concerns. And the goal here,

(29:05):
obviously is to take everybody's jobs. They don't really have
a plan for what we're all going to do after
that happens, or even the you know, most apocalyptic potentially
existential nature of this technology. Steve Bannon calls it the
most most dangerous technology ever developed. I agree with that assessment,
I genuinely do. And the reason why I would say
that is because, you know, when you're building nukes, everybody

(29:27):
knows what we're dealing with, right It's not a mystery
like I don't know what will happen if we, you know,
nuke the world, Like everybody understands that this is extremely dangerous.
I think What makes AI development, like, like completely un
unleashed AI development so dangerous is that it has that

(29:48):
level of potential cataclysmic harm without the same level of
understanding or awareness that that harm exists. And the amount
of hubris that you see from these guys is just,
you know, really something.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
To totally agree, all right, it's good to healthcare.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
So we may or may not be approaching a new
concept of a healthcare plan from the Trump administration. So yesterday,
actually during yesterday's show, we were starting to get some
indications that the Trump White House had come up with
some sort of a healthcare plan. Various news outlets starting
to started to report on it, and then this happened.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Let's take a look.

Speaker 6 (30:26):
We're learning President Trump is planning to unveil a new
healthcare proposal, and at this point we're still waiting to
know exactly what's in it, but we're told it could
include a temporary extension of the Enhanced Affordable Care AC subsidies,
which are due to expire at the end of the year.
They were at the center of the government shutdown. However,
the subsidies could come with some fresh guardrails that could
include new income limits and a requirement that everyone pay

(30:50):
some form of a premium. Now, we should note that
if the subsidies do expire, millions of Americans are expected
to see their premiums more than double next year. Zach
Cooper's joining us now. He's a professor of health policy
at Yale University. Zach, thanks for being here. As I noted,
we are very much still waiting for specifics here. But
I'm sorry this has actually been Sorry, Zach, we're getting

(31:11):
breaking news while I'm talking to you. I have learned
that the White House is postponed it's inspected unveiling of
this new healthcare proposal. It was expected to be unveiled today.
We'll learn more, hopefully about that in the coming moment.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Whoops, and breaking news. Actually, they're not going to move
forward with this at all. And the outlines of the
deal are basically what she had said as far as
we know, which is effectively like a two year extension
of the ACA subsidies and then some tinkering around the
edges of the eligibility and you know how much income
you can earn in this provision with regard to premiums.

(31:49):
But effectively it's like, all right, fine, we'll extend the
Obamacare subsidies for two years. Can put the next piece
up on the screen, which indicates why they decided to
pull this proposal at the last minute. Apparently they hadn't
really gone to any members of Congress Republican members of
Congress to see how they felt about the proposal. So
it says new White House to delay a healthcare proposal

(32:10):
after significant congressional backlash. Coordinated to two White House officials,
the announcement has been delayed, with one of those officials
citing strong congressional backlash to Trump's proposed plan. Trump planned
to make an announcement as early as Monday, proposing a
framework to address healthcare costs, which included an extension of
Obamacare subsidies.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
So there you go, Sager, that's where we are.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yes, I think it's deeply hilarious. So I do. Although
I want to sit in terms of how we talked
a lot about this and during the whole shutdown thing,
this still just shows you how we are so screwed
in the healthcare convo because the Democratic response was we
have to extend these subsidies to these healthcare companies, and

(32:51):
now the Republican cave is to also potentially give some
subsidies but with income caps or whatever to the same
healthcare company. Nobody wants to address or do anything about cost,
And I think the hilarious part about it too. Let's
give it. I'll give you an example is Bill Cassidy
put B four up here on the screen. So Bill Cassidy,
he's the doctor, and his alternative plan is swapping at

(33:15):
ACA tax credits which with HSA's like HSA but by
the way, I'm a fan of HSA accounts. If done well,
they can do actually are very effective in a lot
of other different countries. But this is basically the same thing.
So instead of giving the dollars to the healthcare company,
will give you HSA dollars which you can spend on

(33:35):
the healthcare company. All of it comes back to propping
up this ridiculous system where nobody wants to do anything
about cost. Like it's just so crazy to me. I mean, honestly,
the only good thing that I've seen Trump do recently
on healthcare is when he's been talking about striking deals
on ozempic in his Trump Care government, you know, pharmaceutical

(33:58):
deal wor will be it a flat pre for what
Americans could pay for if they have a prescription. That's
what we need more of. And nobody actually seems to
want to do anything about that, even the Biden administration.
If we think back to their whole negotiating drug prices thing,
they were like, oh, well, we'll negotiate like the ten
largest drugs that we do. Then of course Trump just
basically rolled you know, quite a bit of that back.

(34:18):
There hasn't been a lot of development actually in terms
of lowering the overall costs. And meanwhile, what's happening is
that the drug hospital prices all continue to outpace inflation massively.
And then on top of this hell healthcare subsidy conversation,
the average premium for people on Obamacare ups a minimum
of some sixteen seventeen percent. As I said, mine was

(34:39):
seventeen percent. I have shared my in laws that got
up by like two hundred, three hundred percent or whatever,
which is the same problem that a lot of people
on these things have. And let's even leave us Obamacare
customers out. The average increase even for employer subsidized healthcare
is up some twenty five twenty six percent. Like that
is the whole ball game is the cost of the

(35:01):
deductibles and all of that are continue to balloon out
of control. And I think that's what kind of discussed
me and makes me upset about this entire thing.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
I mean, look, yeah, the truth of the matter is
the only political group that has had serious answers that
would deal with the costs in the system are the left,
the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Party, you know, and they've always focused on it and
they are right to do so.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, And here's the thing is, actually, this is one
of the issues that's playing out in the Democratic primaries
right now. I mean, you see someone like Abdul Sayad,
who is a doctor himself, running aggressively on Medicare for all,
Graham Platner also running on Medicare for all. This is
becoming a real central sticking point in terms of the
Democratic Party and their future and their direction. There was

(35:47):
kind of a mutual agreement, I feel like, between Kamala
and Trump not to really talk about healthcare in the
twenty twenty four campaign, because Biden run on, hey, let's
do a public option, But then as soon as he
got through the primary just sort of tossed that to
the side and never even attempted to move in that
direction whatsoever. He just did like a little bit of
you know, price negotiations on a handful of drugs. Okay, fine,

(36:10):
it's an improvement, but it's not exactly revolutionary. Kamala just
decided not to really talk about this whatsoever. Trump famously,
when he was asked about it, said he had concepts
of a plan. And the thing that really happened going
back to Republicans is that they did have a healthcare solution.
It was Mitt Romney Care. It was crafted originally by

(36:30):
the Heritage Foundation. He implemented it in Massachusetts, and then
Obama stole that effectively that plan almost identical plan, and
made it Obamacare. And since then they've never really had
an answer because Obamacare is the like, market driven health
care solution and guess what, it fucking sucks. Like, Yes,
it's modestly better than what was before in terms of,

(36:53):
you know, people can't be kicked off for pre existing conditions,
et cetera, but it has not dealt with the core issues.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
At the center of this.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Maybe if they had implemented a public option at the time,
maybe that would have improved things, because then you have,
you know, competition that is setting the prices coming from
the government that everybody else is going to have to
deal with and work with. And frankly, I think at
this point that's the position that Republicans should adopt. That's
still sort of like, you know, technically free market solution.

(37:20):
The Democrats in the left should push medicare for all,
and we should have a big debate about which direction
makes sense because this you're right about. You know, I
think we should apply the band aid right now. I
think we should extend the subsidies so people don't just
get completely screwed in the interim. But this is not
a sustainable direction. It's not good for any of our pocketbooks.
It's not good for our health. This is the reason

(37:41):
why we have such poor health outcomes as compared to
the entire rest of the developing world. It's part of
the picture of why our life expectancy is literally declining.
And the cost of this, you know, we pay more
than anyone else and.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
We get worse results.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
So so yeah, I mean, you know, Trump's solution here
is kind of laughable of like, hey, how about we
go ahead and extend the subsidies for two years instead
of one, and like tink around the edges, but the
health Saving its account direction is also sort of you know,
absurd and pathetic and not really substantively different. So they've
been lost at sea ever since Obama stole their plan

(38:19):
originally effectively.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
Yeah, and the thing is is then this kind of
gets to my point. And the reason I agreed with
you about the left always talking about the issue is
the very least they're trying to address costs. And you know,
this is my issue right now is everything is about
subsidizing the healthcare industry. This whole market based thing is
fake because it doesn't actually address the monopolized and cartel
controlled costs within there. You don't have to have a

(38:43):
universal healthcare system. Singapore has universal coverage. It's like a
called managed competition. That's what I was talking about with
HSA's You have a very easy, you know, so called
universal coverage system which you can implement, which takes care
of lower income households, which price controls with hsas to
make it extremely affordable and efficient if you want to,

(39:03):
But it requires intense government intervention to make sure that
there are caps. Remember we talked about Japan here on
the show before. There's private health insurance in Japan. That's fine.
Nobody cares about the private aspect. What they care about
is the cost. And the government comes in and is like,
here's a sheet for exactly how much different services costs.
End of story. There's no internal negotiation or anything. Now,

(39:27):
let's be honest though, for the doctors, for somebody of
the doctors listening, they always get upset when I say this,
some of you aren't going to be getting paid nearly
as much more. Sorry, you know, that's just how it's
gotta gonna be. Now that said, we also perform the
education system, so you don't need to make three hundred
and fifty four hundred thousand dollars to pay off three
one hundred and fifty or four hundred thousand dollars in debt.

(39:49):
If you net it out, it should be more equal.
That's how it is in the most of the rest
of the world. So, I mean, I don't know, from
top to bottom. We have so many problems here, every
single idea. I just want to underscore. While yes, you know,
it probably would be better in the interim to extend
this for a year just to bring down the overall costs,
it's still just so you know, repulsive to hand billions,

(40:09):
I mean tens of billions of dollars to these disgusting
insurance companies. B three, let's go and put that up
here on the screen. Republicans pushing the Obamacare tax credit
alternative potentially as enrollment deadline looms. This, by the way,
is just like classic GOP policy. They're like, well, what
we'll do is we'll create a tax credit which you

(40:29):
eventually have to claim in some way, and that should
offset the cost of enrollment. And it's like, that's not
how people make decisions, right. This is what they always
try to come back to with these complicated kind of schemes.
This is the way that they did Social Security is
by you know, manipulating deductions and such that you still
have to technically pay tax on Social Security, but you'll

(40:50):
get it back or somehow in the way that you
pay it. And all it does is when people can't
understand it's complicated. It's too much like engineering with the
tax system, and it makes it again so that yes,
the cost will continue to go out or the price
will continue to go up on your overall premium. However
it nets out on taxes. I'm not exactly one hundred
percent sure, but that the end result is still the same,

(41:14):
is subsidizing the healthcare system and the current healthcare system.
I just feel disgusted by it, I really do, just
because I know so many people my own experience certainly,
but it's really not about me. It's just like everybody
else who Nobody has a good story. Everybody has some
insane tale. You know. I'm friends with a lot of
new parents just about how they're you know, if your

(41:35):
kid had to be in the nick you like minded,
Oh it didn't transfer properly. I got a horrible bill
in this hospital, out of network network the healthcare they
deny the pediatrician visit. It's just nuts, right, and you're
sitting there in the hospital worrying about whether your kid
can breathe, and then two weeks later you say, you know,
I have a sigh of relief, and somebody's sending you

(41:56):
a bill for fifteen thousand dollars. I can't deal with that.
It's it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
You talk and you talk to anyone who moves to
this country and is used to a different healthcare system,
and they're just like, what the like this is incomprehensible.
It's impenetrable. I have a close friend who had to
go through a series of surgeries. She's going through physical
therapy now, before every appointment, she calls the health insurance
company and is like this is covered, right, They're like yes,
and then she goes to the appointment and gets a

(42:23):
giant bill with denied stamped on it after the fact,
like it's just I mean, it's just unacceptable what we
what we do to people, and the rising cost of
it all has just made it completely unsustainable. But B
five up on the screen. This was I think some
polling that was done during the shutdown about you know,
where people how people felt about the ACA tax credits,

(42:44):
whether they wanted them extended, And even a majority of
Republicans said, you know, yes, we should extend these ACA
tax credits because the consequence of not a failing to
do it is so incredibly dire. So I'm sure this
is part of what the Trump White House is looking
at and they're realizing, like, we've got a big problem
with affordability. We just got our asses handed to us

(43:06):
in these off year elections. The midterms are looking extremely dire.
But then instead of consulting with anyone, you know, who
actually is responsible for passing legislation in the House of
the Senate. They're like, we're just going to announce some stuff,
and this is a good preview for a segment we're
going to do later about the number of Republicans who
may be thinking of resigning because they're just sort of
disgusted with the way they're treated like potted plants. Now,

(43:28):
I would say that they've allowed themselves to be treated
like potted plants, and a lot of examples, so in
my opinion, that road goes in both directions. But you know,
this is another example where the White House just like
came up with something on their own, didn't talk to
anyone about it, was ready to do some big announcement
after they came up with this idea, I don't know,
like on Saturday, and Republicans who just spent all of

(43:51):
how long was the shutdown fight? It was like, you know,
it was the longest in history. Yeah, it was like
six weeks long. They just spent the whole time inveighing
against these subsidies, and now you're going to just pull
the rug out from under them and be like, actually,
we're going to do it for two years now, so
what were we fighting about in the shutdown? Then why
couldn't we have just done this at that point and
saved everybody a lot of pain and heartache and suffering

(44:15):
that you know that was caused by the length of
that shutdown.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, it's all just so silly and stupid. But it
also though, you know, the only thing is what the
only reason I would have said, don't consult Congress is
because I know most of the Republican Congress doesn't care
at all. So it actually would have been good for
Trump to just come out and be like, this is
my plan, and all of you have just cramming down.
All of you are going to vote for one of
the good times.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
That they probably and they probably would probably would have
exactly why they.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Get treated like pott plants because they act like them.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, I like it, all right, Let's go to Venezuela.
All right, turning down to Venezuela before Thanksgiving. Wanted to
make sure that this is on everybody's radar. The likelihood
of things popping off with Venezuela are very high over
the next week or two weeks because of some decisions
that have to be made in the military, because some

(45:03):
deadlines that are being imposed by Secretary Rubio, and there
are high stakes negotiations that are all happening behind the scenes.
There is a full on propaganda campaign happening at the
Fox News level and from the government about why invading
Venezuela would be good actually for all of you. Here
you get a little bit of a preview from the
Secretary of the Treasury, Scott beston why invading Venezuela will

(45:23):
bring costs down. Here's what we had to say the
peace deals.

Speaker 4 (45:27):
We are seeing a peace dibenend from that. And I
think there's a very very good chance that if something
happens with Russia, Ukraine, if something happens down in Venezuela,
that we could really see oil prices go down even more.
Oil and gasoline prices are down substantially under President Trump,

(45:50):
and that is really the key to affordability is lower energy.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Right, So it'll bring down fuel prices. We'll avoid the country,
hopefully we'll all go. Well, then we'll take the Now
here's the thing that would all make sense if Maduro
didn't also say you can have all the oil. He said,
you can have any oil that you guys want. And
it's amazing how they're really relying on everybody to ignore
the fact that from the beginning of these negotiations Maduro

(46:17):
has been willing and able to sell whatever oil to
the United States that he has. He said, you can
have all of it if you want to. Just don't,
you know, don't bug me too much. Let me resign ish.
You know, I'll leave in a few years. But with dignity.
Why is that not enough? Oh, because it's not about
the oil. It's a completely ideological war pushed by the

(46:39):
contingent of South Florida, from which unfortunately, our Secretary of
State happens to come from. And just to give you
a little taste of what that looks like, here's one
of their congresswomen on Fox News talking all about this
and setting again the groundwork for a potential invasion. Take
a listen.

Speaker 7 (46:56):
So, I mean, I would love to see a change
in government. My wife's from Nicaraugula. We know how terribly
the dictators there rely on Venezuelan oil. But at the
same time, a lot of Americans don't want actual US
participation in regime change in Venezuela. They would much prefer
the Venezuelans to do it. On their own. Do you

(47:18):
think the pressure that Maduro has received will force him
to leave on his own?

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (47:25):
I think Maduro is not Fredel Castro. Maduro is not
a brave boy. So now that he has understood that
he's on that very nefarious list of the terrorist organization,
that the airspace above Venezuela has been closed off and
the commercial airlines from the United States are not flying,
he's understanding that we're about to go in. He understands
that he is he has been our enemy for the

(47:48):
last twenty five years. Venezuela. For those Americans who do
not understand why we need to go in for three basically,
for three reasons, you're in fox business. Venezuela for the
American can oil companies will be a field day because
it will be more than a trillion dollars in economic activity.

(48:08):
American companies can go in and fix all the oil
pipe and the whole oil rigs and everything that has
to do with the Venezuela and petroleum companies or anything
that has to do with oil and the derivatives.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
So everything that has to do it'll be a field
day for American companies. I mean, has anyone you know
The one thing I appreciate is opposed to Iraq is
at least this time they just say it. They're like, yeah,
it's about the oil, it'll be good.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
But you know, crazy thing is like it's not even
really true.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
You know, it's not true point.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Like, I mean, it's like it's almost like the aspirational
thing is for it to be about the oil, but
it really is this like cold war holdover mentality. They've
tried every argument they could think of to get Americans
somewhat on board with this in a very slappy, sloppy
and haphazard and frankly insulting way. You know, we're not
going to buy into like we're spreading democracy, and so

(49:02):
we have to do it. Like people are like, yeah, sorry,
they can you know, no, we're not doing this again.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
We've learned those lessons.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
So they're like, oh, but the fentanyl and the gangs
and the you know, it's it's they're terrorizing us, and
that's why we have to do it. And then even
seemingly the president realized that this was such total, incomplete
bullshit that that was not landing either. So now they're like, oh, okay,
affordability was big and twenty twenty five, we saw zoron

(49:32):
Mike You Share all these people like got elected talking
about affordability.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
That's what it is. It's the oil. It's going to
bring down our energy prices. That's what we're going for here.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
But to your point, like I mean, first of all,
that's a disgusting reason to invade a country, Number one, discusting, immoral.
Any other era of politics, they would have denied tooth
and nail that that was what was behind their motivations
and wrap themselves in some sort of like you know,
freedom and human.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
Rights or whatever.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
But now they're like just nakedly claiming it's about the oil.
And that's not even true because you could have a
deal with Maduro. And if you do go in and
invade and overturn this regime, whether through kinetic action or
some sort of CIA covert ops, which are probably already
ongoing as we speak, if you do that, you're much

(50:19):
more likely to end up with a failed state and
an even larger more difficulties in striking any sort of
a deal that's going to be beneficial for the world,
let alone the American public. So the whole thing is
like layers of insanity honestly.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Right, and so then let me give again. I'll give
you two sides of it. And this is a live issue.
This is all playing out in the public, okay. So
let's put this up here on the screen. The ground
is set for a potential invasion southcom which is the area.
The military command which would be in charge of carrying
out an invasion or decapitation, is restricting and limiting leave
for its soldiers over the Thanksgiving Christmas holidays in preparation

(50:58):
for possible land strikes in the next ten days to
two weeks. This was reported by Kelly Myers, who's the
White House correspondent for News Nation Now. At the same time,
just yesterday, huge flights show of strengths that have continued.
Let's put this up there on the screen. Two US
flights of B fifty two stratospheres departed from their Air
Force base to the Caribbean Sea, basically a power and

(51:21):
a force projection near Venezuela. They just fly along the
coast and make it very clear, Yeah, we can bomb you,
you know if we want to. This is right here,
it's all coming. C three, let's go to the next
part please, and it'll just show you is that there
were actually members of SOUTHCOM and others who resigned because
they did not believe that the strikes on the drug

(51:41):
boats were legal. And behind that there was multiple general
counsels and others that had to be fired and removed.
And these are not just so you got this is
one thing to explain here. These people who resigned or
were removed. These are not liberals. These are not resistance
James COMI or whatever types. These are. They're actually, like

(52:04):
I very rarely say this, but like, these are actual
pros and in many ways they want to make it work.
I mean, think about it. If you got firing and
removal people are working for CIA, NSA and others. They've
greenlit some sketches shit. Some of these are the people
who like, these are the organizations was greenlit the killing
of American citizens, including you know, so called terrorists and others,

(52:27):
in order to kill them with no due process. That's
what they have done and have signed off on. Not
exactly the squishiest folks of that are out there drone
strikes in Pakistan. So if they're coming out and being
like this is real dicey, you know right here, that
is kind of the biggest red flag is instead of
looking at it as like some deep state liberal of
looking at it as like, man, the people who have

(52:48):
greenlit like drone strike, murder on weddings and the killing
of anwar alwiki with no due process. If even they
come out and say this is you know, this is
on the edge there, that actually is probably the one
that made me like actually wake up and be like,
oh man, they must be taking things to a whole
new level. If even these deep state guys they don't

(53:10):
care one iote about killing anybody, so for them to
say something that made me actually be like, oh god,
this is not good. This is fair.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
I know, I mean, this shit isn't sane. Like the
reporting about the memo that's been used as legal justification
makes it clear that they're just using the claims of
Trump rather than any actual analysis or reality. And their
claim is that effectively, drug cartels their real business is
violence and terrorism, and the drug money is to finance

(53:39):
the violence and terrorism, rather than that like the common
under and accurate understanding, which is that their core business
is selling drugs and making money, and the violence is
the result of this lawless and criminal behavior. And then
there's the whole you know, inventing this cartel that Maduro
is supposedly the head of. I mean, it's just all
utterly preposterous. And what they're claiming the power to do

(54:02):
is literally murder anyone anywhere that they say has some
connection to the drug trade. I mean they're literally using
you know, this legal nonsense to try to justify whatever
extra judicial assassinations they want to commit. So even for
these you know, cia ghoul lawyer types, they're like, Yo,

(54:25):
this is really far. This connects to We'll talk later
about the Mark Kelly stuff. And you know, this is
the subtext of the video the Democrats put out, like, hey,
you shouldn't be obeying unlawful commands.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
This is the area.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
I mean, they're doing all kinds of illegal shit, but
this is the one that is like the most brazen
and the most glaring. And you can tell that from
the fact they've had to fire a bunch of people
just in order to coerce some sort of a memo
with some sort of a justification for this insanity.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
Yeah, I mean, I just look beyond the whole legal thing.
It's just a bad idea. It's a horrible idea. Let's
go and put C four up here on the screen.
Just to underscore all of this. The leaks are galower.
These are all coming out of the State Department, from
the Rubio camp us to launch new phase of Venezuela operations,
and they say the United States has points to launch

(55:16):
this new phase in the coming days. Reuters did not
establish exact timing, but it would include CIA and potential
military operations on Venezuelan soils, including demands that Maduro leave power.
I do want to say, and this is important, is
that at the same time, there is kind of a
dual track that's happening. So a lot of what we're

(55:38):
showing you right now is coming from the military and
from the Secretary of Rubio. But there's a recent report
and this confirms a little bit of what I've been
hearing behind the scenes as well. Trump wants to talk
directly to Venezuela, to Maduro. There you know why, he
doesn't trust that he's getting all the information from Marco
Rubio and from the National security establishment. In a way,
he can feel that he is himself getting played, and

(56:00):
so before anything kicks off, he does want to speak
directly with him, potentially on the phone or you know,
some sort of summit. It's not exactly clear, but what
he did say is that with this talk and all
this backed up by the whole quote gunboat diplomacy that's
happening down there, that there is at the very least
some potential here of an off ramp. Who knows, you know,

(56:23):
Maduro himself, he's been quite a salesman recently. He's been
trying actually to relay all of these things in Trump.
He's like, I'll sell you the oil, give you what
you want. You know, this isn't really about socialism or whatever.
You're being played, you know, by your neo con secretary
of State. So the fact that Trump is willing to
speak to him is actually one of the most positive developments.
I'm not gonna say it's going to solve everything, but

(56:44):
there's been an ocean of propaganda that's been sent to
Donald Trump's desk. Trump actually speaking to Maduro could potentially
solve at least something. I'm gonna hope. That's my last
holdout for hope. That's all I'll say.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Tager.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
It's interesting that you say the leaks to Reuters in
other places about hey, we're kicking off a new phase
of operas in Venezuela that you think that's coming from
the Rubio camp, because the other possibility would be it's
coming from people who don't want to see this going
forward and trying to raise red flags. I mean, what's
your sense of that.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yeah, uh, you're not wrong. But part of the reason why. Look,
they they believe in the political upside and the benefit
of this. In some ways, they're not one hundred percent
wrong in that is Venezuela really a huge story outside
of this show? And if you I mean, is anyone
on cable news even talking about Venezuela other than Fox
News to not really right? So they pretty much think

(57:32):
they can take care of this in the clear. They're
telling them it'll be a cakewalk, no boots on the ground,
just a couple strikes, no failed state. You know, he's
getting a wash in propaganda. Look at Iron, Sir, Midnight Hammer.
You took him out and we came out.

Speaker 5 (57:45):
Now.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
I mean, you know, we can talk about all the
downstream implications and all of that if we want to,
But like the nuts and bolts of it are they
think that the American public are paying attention and they
don't care even though the vast majority of people when
they are polled say that they oppose it. They're like, yeah,
they'll get over it, do something and won't require a
huge force. Now you may have heard that story before
in a little place called Libya, but you know they're like, well,

(58:08):
this is different. We have our Maria Machado who's ready
to go. So in a lot of way, you know,
they're bragging about this, and also a lot of this
is pressure. Their ideal scenario is that Trump is that
Maduro just steps down out of nowhere and you know,
basically hands power over to Maria Mashadow. I mean, they
just don't. That's a total misunderstanding of Even if he did,

(58:29):
let's say, step down, there's a whole apparatus, military and
others that depend on him and his regime staying in Poway.
You think he's just gonna give up power. Let's say,
if you really believe their own propaganda is the head
of this global car or this venezuela and large cartel.
Do cartels just stop operating when El Chappo and these
people go away? No, Okay, so even by their own logic,

(58:50):
it doesn't make any damn sense.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, So it's all.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
Maduro will tell you, we have plenty of mineral and
oil wealth. We don't need to sell drugs. Why would
we do that.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
He's always like, you know, I've heard this from multiple
people who met him. He's like, guys, I don't sell drugs.
I don't need to. You know. It's one of those
things where we call him corrupt, like okay, you know,
it's like, yeah, but you're corrupt to we say you
stole the election. It's like, oh, well, you know. But
it's like the drug thing is like where does this
shit come from? He's like mystified at the idea that
he's a drug mutle.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Yeah, it really feels it really does feel like and
it feels like this new messaging from Bessen and Salazar
and who knows who else, it's really aimed at Trump
to try to convince him like, oh, they can see
now Trump's fixation is like, oh, affordability. I got to
focus on affordability. So whereas before he was fixated on
like fentanyl and the drug dealers and trend de ragua,

(59:45):
now they're like, oh, okay, now he's moved on and
he's focused on affordability. So we're going to make that
pitch to him now and see if we can get
him to and you know, and if this effort fails,
they're not going to stop right whatever his next interest is,
they'll be like, hey, if you you take on Maduro,
it's going to help you build the ballroom.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Or whatever it is that he's interested in.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
They're going to keep cycling through whatever rationales they possibly can,
is what it feels like to me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Yeah, that's a good point.