12/5/24: Healthcare CEO Assassinated, Crypto Mania Takes Over DC, Obama Aid Gaslights On Mistakes

Krystal and Saagar discuss Healthcare CEO assassinated, crypto mania takes DC, Obama aid gaslights on mistakes.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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amazing show for everybody to day.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do so. As
you probably know by now, the CEO of United Healthcare
was murdered in midtown Manhattan. That manhunt continues, as does,
of course, the online reaction, So we will get into
all of that. Trump packing his cabinet with billionaires. We
have new details about what that administration may look like
and what they are planning. Ram Emmanuel is being rehabbed
over on the Democratic side, planning what his future in

(00:59):
the democratic part. He may be making some pretty wild
comments given his own past history, so we'll take into
all of that. Also at morning, Joe once again in
meltdown mode after apparently David Frum now too spicy for them.
They had to like apologize after some of his comments.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
This is the Iran Iraq war here.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Morning Joe Scarborough just this morning had some whole like
ran meltdown whatever. So we're going to bring you that.
I think you guys are going to enjoy and appreciate that. Also,
some news from overseas. Manuel Macroln's government has now collapsed,
is somewhat predicted, but leaves the French government a lot
of uncertainty and chaos, So we'll tell you all of
the details there. And Biden is considering pardnering a salw

(01:38):
of officials and Democratic politicians and Liz Cheney and all
kinds of people who could be targets of Trump's retribution.
And the view was reacting and arguing with Charlemagne about
many of these things.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, that's right, that'll be fun. Doctor Fauci apparently needs
a pardon. Interesting Carl toldly he's never did anything wrong anyways.
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And apparently people freaking loved the Dave Smith versus Vosh debate.

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(03:04):
Let's get to the United Healthcare CEO murder. This is
some shocking stuff. So we have some surveillance video that
has emerged of the killing itself. We've gone ahead and
edited it so you can't actually see it. But let's
go ahead and put this and play this for everybody
up on the screen so you can walk here. The
United CEO is walking there. He brought six forty five

(03:25):
am outside of a midtown hotel in Manhattan. You could
see the gunman there. He raised his gun and he
shot several times into the CEO. He went forward, walked
towards him, apparently basically make sure that the man was dead,
and then begins to flee across the street, where he
got onto a city bike and went uptown to this

(03:45):
day now, some twenty four hours later, he is not
currently in police custody. Although we have some of the details.
The NYPD itself broke down some of the details of
the crime. Let's get to it.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
The suspect approached from behind fired several rounds, striking the
victim at least once in the back and at least
once in the right calf. Many people passed the suspect,
but he appeared to wait for his intended target. The
suspect fled first on foot, then on an e bike,

(04:18):
and was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive.
Early this morning, the victim was removed to Roosevelt's Hospital,
where he was pronounced. We've been in touch with his family,
his friends, and his colleagues, and they are very much
in our thoughts and prayers at this hour. The full
investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are

(04:40):
well underway, and we will not rest until we identify
and apprehend the shooter in this case. The women and
men of the NYPD take enormous pride in the work
that they do each day and each night to drive
down crime and violence in our city. Right now, we
are asking the public for your help. Have any information

(05:01):
about this case, call crime Stoppers at eight hundred five
seven seven tips. We have increased the reward in this
case to ten thousand dollars. I want to be clear
at this time, every indication is that this was a premeditated,
pre planned, targeted attack.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
That is really what all the details began to describe.
We've seen ballistic experts and other people who have come
out just to look at all the circumstances, and they
are genuinely shocking. I mean, this is one of the
busiest areas in all of Midtown Manhattan, six forty five am,
full on like pre work traffic and all of that.
It appears that he had either a suppressor or some
sort of pistol which was using subsonic ammunition to try

(05:46):
and to keep the sound as quiet as possible. From
ballistics experts in others that I have read, they just
show a couple of things that you can see in
the details of the crime. Number one, the photo that's
been released of the man so far shows him wearing
a face and a hood pulled up all over. It
appears he had a change of clothes in the backpack,
was able to immediately flee get onto a bike. Apparently

(06:08):
was waiting outside of the hotel some full five minutes
before he emerged. This United Healthcare CEO knew he was
staying there. He cased it out, was very he was
clearly very planned assassination. And that's what a lot of
the details around this and professionals as well. So just
before we get a reaction, this is the Felipe Rodriguez,

(06:28):
former NYPD detective, just talking about this thing. It's one
of the most detailed assassinations that he's ever seen. Let's
take a listen.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Is it possible that police may have to close the
bridges or how are they surveiling those areas at.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
This point you know what's going to end up the
CCTV footage. But I'm telling you the way he planned
this out, I can see him having a change of clothes,
everything hidden somewhere in Central Park because he's aware of
the canvast. That's why, you know what he did have
that mask on. That's why he's trying to, you know,
hide his identity, trying to make sure that we don't
have any facial recognition in place. So once again, this

(07:03):
is one of the most detailed assassinate, you know, assassinations
I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, I mean, it's truly shocking. Take place downtown in
the middle of New York City. It appears the wife
says that mister Thompson had been receiving threats. Can we
put that tear sheet please up on the screen over
quote insurance woes in the details that she said, she
said something about denied coverage in terms of threats that
he had been receiving. And we also have some stuff

(07:31):
that broke just very late last night. NYPD detectives have
discovered the words quote, deny, defend, and depose, which were
written on shellcasings that were found at the scene. Deny, defend,
and depose is the title of a book which is
specifically about how insurance companies deny coverage to patients. So

(07:54):
it does appear to be an act of retribute or
appears to be some sort of act of retribution against
the United Healthcare CEO. The book itself here, I can
pull up the cover in front of me. Is delay, defend, delay, denied, defend,
Why insurance companies don't pay claims and what you can
do about it? Apparently it's a well known kind of

(08:16):
Moniker and a playbook that people have always talked about
these insurance companies. So does appear to be an active
revenge Crystal. And obviously that alludes also to kind of
the reaction around this, which has certainly run the gamut.
I guess we could say that.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I don't think it has run the gamut. I think
by and large, listen, let's let's all be adults here.
Nobody here condones murder and broad daylight, targeted assassinations, etc.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
It's insane.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, yes, of course. But we also have at this
show made it clear when a powerful person who did
great evil in the world, we don't mince words when
that person dies, is killed, et cetera. And this is
a person who caused great harm, death, bankruptcy, debt, and

(09:05):
injury to probably millions of Americans. And so you know,
there was a lot of like, oh, the left is
like celebrating this viciously. Let me tell you it wasn't
just the left. We're going to show you later on.
If you go on Facebook, Facebook not exactly like the
bastion of the socialist revolution, and you look at the
reaction there, if you look at the reactions on TikTok,

(09:27):
I mean, it was across the board, and so I
think people should think like political class, executive class, billionaire class,
need to think really deeply about how people feel about
this disgusting, evil system that this person was a part of.
So we can put you know, up on the screen.

(09:47):
You talk about the motive. Obviously yesterday it was day
it was all speculation because obviously there would be many
people who would have a motive to do harm to
this individual. And quite frankly, you know again and this
is us being adults, he or not condoning, But it's
shocking that something like this hasn't happened before given the
amount of pain, death and suffering that this industry overall causes.

(10:11):
And this was a very you know, powerful person in
terms of that industry. You know, we've got we can
put a five up on the screen. In terms of
claim denial rates, United Healthcare was apparently the worst thirty
two percent of claims denied by this company. We also
know that you know, they are being sued right now

(10:31):
because they've been using this AI that, reportedly, according to
the lawsuit rejects has some ninety percent error rate to
reject people's claims. And you know, I mean, you're hard
pressed to find an American family that hasn't been negatively
impacted by this disgusting, horrible system. So, you know, if

(10:53):
people are shocked by the reaction that has sort of
flow down of the entire nation in response to this killing,
I don't think that you should be shocked, because most
people have some sort of story. I mean, in my
own family, like Kyle's dad very possibly would still be
alive and have been at our wedding if it wasn't
for o fucked up health insurance system. So you know,

(11:14):
there's a lot of anger and horror at what this
looks like in this country.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, the denied defend deposed gets to some patients in
terms of denial of coverage in the way that the
insurance companies are able to work that system. Yeah, I mean,
as you just said, let's all be real and adults
like murdering people in vigilante or not even vigilanti, just
like murdering people in cold blood in the middle of
New York City is bad. And ironically what we have

(11:39):
seen though, is honest, I'm even surprised by it, and
I've seen a lot of social analysts and others who
have reacted to the killing itself in terms of the
outcry from a lot of the public where there is
some deep seated rage here, and we can talk about
that just analytically in terms of, Look, we just had
an election, right, Donald Trump won the White House. People

(12:00):
are very a lot of rage there too the system. Yeah,
and I was thinking, I was actually thinking back to it.
Alex Berenson made the analysis. He's like, I don't think
anything like this has happened in the post World War
two era. I think he's right in terms of a
major targeted assassination of a CEO. But this really harkens
back to some of the violence and anarchist violence in

(12:21):
the period of like nineteen hundred Gilded in nineteen thirty seven. Yeah,
it's like post guild more like the latter age of
the Gilded Age, a lot of the violence around labor
and the you know, the relationship between the major company
and the citizen. But also just like literal anarchists and others,
theory of like we have to strike back through genuine

(12:41):
violence against people who are like this. You know, we
saw some of that. Actually, like you said on the
comments reacting to this, we can go ahead and put
nien please on the screen, and this was put out
in For example, some of the top comments people are like,
I'm sorry. Prior to authorization is required for thoughts and prayers,

(13:02):
sending prior authorization denied claims, collections and prayers to the family.
Was his trip to the er really emergent? And it's
crazy what my first thought was, and that I look
at the comments and realize that I am not alone
in my thoughts. So clearly there's a lot of people
who are out there who are very, very upset with
the healthcare system, you know. Even bringing it back to
just the crime, I saw some analysis where they're like,

(13:24):
this is an insane crime because there are twenty million
people who could be potential suspects in carrying this out.
And if you look at some of the if you
look at currently, the fact is is that when you
murder someone in New York City, actually pretty much you
can murder someone anywhere. It's not all that difficult to
narrow down the range of suspects, and especially New York

(13:46):
is one of the most surveiled countries in the world.
I mean in terms of not only police officers, this
is Midtown Manhattan, anybody'sho've been there. There are police everywhere
across Midtown Manhattan. You also have you also have cameras
blanketing the entire place. That surveillance footage is just like
private one in terms of what the NYPD has access

(14:09):
to and the NYPD counter Terrorism Bureau and all of that.
That entire city is like basically wired with cameras. So
the fact is is, while they have released a photo
of the suspect, they are probably able to track some
of his movements and others. For now, he has not
been apprehended, well not bypass, which is shocking.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
They don't even have a person of interests.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
They don't have a name a person of interest that
they have.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Nothing photos they put out. I mean you can't see anything.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
You basically can see it. I think you can see
his eye color, yeah, and his nose, like that's that's
about it. It's like, I mean, he's a white male.
That's basically all you know. But that's all we know.
It's really crazy. There was a actually analyst who was
able to determine that which city bike was actually taken.
Can we put a six please on the screen. This

(14:56):
isn't uh, this looks like there was an analysis and
it says I am fairly confident here that United Healthcare
assassin was escaped on an electric city bike. It remains
unclear right now because NYPD told Lyft, which operates City Bike,
that their bikes don't appear to have been used in
the shooting. So it's a little bit up in the
air right now as to how exactly he was able

(15:19):
to get away, because there was some at least initially
there appeared like he was using some sort of electric
bicycle to get away from the scene. But it's a
little bit confusing in terms of whether this was correct
or well.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
It's also like, I mean, if you're planning to do
a targeted assassination, you probably have your bike already out
of the dock, you know it run from another part
of the city or whatever. So I don't know, I
don't know if this is really relevant or not, but
it does illustrate the point that you were saying, Zager,
that like there's cameras on every corner, there's place everywhere,
especially in midtown minute Like just as you guys understand

(15:54):
if you aren't you know New York City people, like
this is very close to Times Square, It is the
tour's hub. Like I'm sure many people have stayed in
that Hilton that I mean, I know it very well.
I used to live very close to there. That is
really well known and completely centrally located, and there's all
kinds of police and surveillance and whatever around, And so
for him to have been able to do this, you know, yea,

(16:17):
I was kind of early in the morning, but in
basically broad daylight, and have the skill and the wherewithal
to get away, and still the police appear to have
very little to go on is quite quite astonishing. To
get back to some of the conversation about the reaction

(16:38):
you had, that TikTok reaction, I honestly was probably most
shocked by if we put a twelve up on the screen.
And of course Kenklippenstein going hard in the paints during
the pod, as he often does, but he he tweeted out,
people loathe our healthcare system. The pearl clutches should ask
themselves why what you're looking at? Here is the post
from United Health Group, the company that he was the
CEO of, on Facebook. Again, not an exactly bastion of

(17:02):
the socialist revolution. It's a lot of like Maga Grandmas
on Facebook frankly, and this was early on, the bulk
of the reaction was the laughing emoji, and it had
fifty five hundred people who had done that. The last
I saw it, just from like eight hours ago, it
was like eighteen thousand people who had posted the laughing emoji. So,

(17:24):
you know, I know, there's like a lot of especially
mainstream liberal journalists and politicians. I saw Dean Phillips, I
saw Richard trre As, I saw some others who were
kind of like, you know, tut tutting this reaction, and okay,
fair enough, but you all are the people in a
position of power to change this truly vile, destructive, damaging,

(17:44):
deadly system, And like, what have you done other than
many of you being complicit in blocking and quashing the
movement that was, you know, pushing to totally overturn the
system and make sure everybody has health care access like
every other developed nation in the entire world. I was
just looking up the stats just to check my memory.

(18:06):
Forty percent of all bankruptcies are because of medical debt.
Forty percent. You know what bankruptcy does? I mean that
is so devastating, Like putting the denial of care and
the sickness and the avoidable death to the side. Just
that kind of crushing debt destroys people's lives, pushes them

(18:27):
to suicide. So you know, this is this is a
horrible evil set and there's something too about there is
something about like the sort of banality of evil or
the fact that this is a system that we've sort
of accepted and the harm of it is kind of
depersonalized that makes you know, politicians feel like, oh, this

(18:47):
is you know, it's unacceptable to pin that blame on
this one person. But you know, again, this is someone
who was a powerful individual in an industry that has
caused unbelievable damage to American lives, health, well being, etc.
And so Democrats have effectively you know, I'm remember in
twenty sixteen, Trump ranal, I'm gonna give everybody healthcare, and

(19:09):
then he tries to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That
doesn't work. He has his own health care plans, like
a ten percent approve rating or whatever. He just gives up.
Publicans gave up completely on healthcare. Now they're trying to like,
you know, pretend like they care about legalizing raw milk
or you know, getting the toxins ount of the food products,
which seems unlikely that they're going to accomplish that. But
they don't really have anything to say about healthcare. The

(19:29):
Democrats have collapsed from They don't even talk about like
a public option anymore. I mean, Joe Biden ran on
a public option and as soon as the primary was over,
that gets dropped. He doesn't talk about it at all anymore,
never gets brought up during his tenure. And I think
partly because of this whole like popular theory, they're like, well,
if we lower the prescription drug prices on a few

(19:51):
drugs for seniors only too, by the way, you can
just run on that and that'll be enough. And I
think very clearly from this reaction that is not enough.
And so you know, not to turn everything into a
freaking political point, but there is a political point to
be made here, which is Democrats look at this energy
that's out there to upend the system, to have some

(20:11):
sort of something that approaches a more just and human
first versus profit first healthcare system that is all out
there for the taking. So as you wander in the
wilderness and wonder what you can do to get back
into political power, maybe try actually challenging powerful interests and

(20:32):
trying to improve people's lives. Maybe try to write the
injustices in a disgusting and vile healthcare system. Just a
thought there for you as you move forward.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
It is I think it has now passed into the
realm of just even interesting in the group, which and
by the way, the crime itself is insane, right, is
now into a sociological I've seen a lot of analysts
and others just be like, hey, look like, you know,
nobody's condoning this, but you've got to go out and
take a look at some other response and just say like, wow,
this is pretty crazy. It can tell you a little
bit about something.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, and this isn't just like the dirtbag left. This
isn't just like the chopo guys.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
I will say, there is a lot of like really
annoying just yeah, there's a lot of cosplay about there.
It's like, okay, guys, you know, like let's let's keep
it down a little bit.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
But some shit posts.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, look, you should post what you want. But then
people should rightfully just be like, oh, it's a really
interesting right in terms of what selective application of what
good violence is or not whatever. We can get into
that like a little bit later. And then, by the way,
how did it all work out? Whenever you were all
riot posting during BLM, the country was really with you,
wasn't they. The point is is that clearly sociologically the

(21:36):
response has been devastating. I would thank for the healthcare industry,
for the public itself, and even for trying to solve
the crime. That will be one where it like, I mean,
just imagintive they are able to apprehend this person. You
could imagine some sort of like trial by trial of
the century type, you know, stuff in terms of him,

(21:58):
you know, whoever this perfect trader is. Let's say he
had a relative or himself was affected by the healthcare
system trying to put them on Try, but it could
become like a real thing if that does happen, And
if they don't catch him, that's even more insane that
somebody was able to get away with this. So we're
some twenty four hours now post the shooting. NYPD basically
has gotten nothing from what we're The only clue they

(22:22):
have right now is that, you know, the carvings that
were put on the bullet casing. So we'll keep everybody updated.
But certainly you know, even when even when they do
catch somebody as well, Like, there's going to be a
lot of what's the.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Story, what led? What led to take this action?

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah? I mean this person put a ton of planning
and time and know how into executing this, taking the
time to literally etch things on a bullet that's some
stuff out of like peaky blinds for people want to
watch the show to send him out. Exactly. It's like
literal joker stuff. That's that's like what that's what this is?
So exactly what this is?

Speaker 2 (23:00):
All right, let's move on to the latest from Trump.
We had actually a pretty positive pick for his cabinet.
I'm going to get to some not so positive ones,
but let's start with the good news here. Put this
up on the screen. He's nominated Gail Slater as Assistant
Attorney General for the Anti Trust Division at the Department
of Justice. This is the position currently held by Jonathan Cantor,

(23:21):
who's been a real warrior ally of Lena Khan in
terms of the new anti trust movement. He goes on
to say big tech has run wild for years, stifling
competition our most innovative sector, and as we all know,
using its market power to crack down on the rights
of so many Americans, as well as those of little tech.
I was proud to fight these abuses in my first
term and under a Department of Justices Anti Trust team

(23:42):
will continue that work under Gail's leadership. Gail previously served
at the FTC in my National Economic Council, most recently
advising JD Vance, so this is like a JD Vance
ally it appears in his Senate office. Gail's also worked
in the private sector in media at Fox, in the
tech sector at Roku, and our new role, Gale will
help ensure our competition laws our enforced both vigorously and fairly,
with clear rules that facilitate, rather than stifle, the ingenuity

(24:05):
of our greatest companies. Congrat scale. Together, we'll make America
competitive again. Is this someone that you had familiarity with previously, Sarka, I.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Personally day Gaale. I know a lot of people who
do know her. They speak very, very highly of her.
She's kind of been in the big conservative anti trust movement,
not a surprise by the way, that hated desperately by
a lot of the Heritage Foundation types and others, but
has been on the front market sign specifically on Google,
Facebook and others. You also should take a look at

(24:33):
the text there, which is very important of what Donald
Trump actually said in his release, and he was specifically
talking here about quote we will know big tech. Big
tech is run wild and using its power market power
to crack down on the rights of many Americans as
well of those of little tech. So little tech has
become an acronym kind of pushed forward by White Combinator

(24:56):
and a few others, which is about the emergence of
the startup eCos system and its inability to compete fairly
on grounds. The reason little tech is actually so important
I did a monologue about this previously with respect to AI,
is that AI itself naturally lends itself to people with
a shit ton of money, people like Amazon, Facebook and
other BECs. The server cost is so high. The problem

(25:17):
with that is that it means that whatever the next
innovation is is likely to be built in house by
these already massive giants. So what you want is actually
to create an open source ecosystem which allows the emergence
of new players and is not allowed to be totally captured.
That is something that little tech has really become an
important war in and actually it gets to Mark Andriesen,

(25:38):
who we talked about previously has been a big little
tech quote unquote fighter. But there are a lot of
other individuals out there, Gary Tan who I recommend people follow.
He's a head of y Combinator currently. Luther Lowe who
currently works for y Combinator. He previously worked at Yelp.
That guy's absolute anti trust warrior. People should go and
follow him on Twitter. There are a lot of people
here in DC and others who've been involved in this movement,

(25:59):
and I would say this is a major victory for them,
and it is interesting. It's an ideological fight. It also
will show you what the Titanic showdown of the century is,
because there's a reason that Mark Zuckerberg has his ass
down in ma A Lago and that Jeff Bezos yesterday
at the New York Times Deal Book conference was like,
Trump is great. He's really learned about how to quash regulations.
These people they know that this is probably the single

(26:24):
largest existential threat to their business, Like if you really
believe that AI is the future, which all of them do,
and all of them have poured Matt billions of dollars
of their profits into They don't have to do that.
If they didn't think it would be commercially viable, then
your inability to capture that future market would both kill
your current investment and possibly could put you out of

(26:45):
business in the future, or at the very least have
to compete. God forbid that they would have to do that.
So you have a lot of stuff going on right now.
There's a lot of ideas about splitting Google Search away
from Google Ads, or from the rest of the alphabet
company a Amazon, which Bezos of course used to helm
the ideas you would split like aws away from their

(27:06):
retail business. There's a lot of unfair competition that happens
in this sector. So anyway, I think it's I think
it will be. It could be one of the most
positive developments. And the fact that he picked her is
a very very good So.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
I actually think this is a more important development than
while you were out. We covered the Labor secretary who
had like vote for the pro act, but then if
you look at the rest of her record, she only
has a ten percent record of voting with the AFLCIO,
So Like backing the pro act was an attempt to
win in the swing district. And also the Labor secretary
is in a lot of ways less powerful than whoever

(27:38):
you put in at the NLRB, So that one's still
very like I'm not sure how much we're getting out
of this one. This one, to me is more significant.
You know, I take my cues on anti drust from
Matt Stoller because he just knows way more about it
than I'll ever dream of me.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
He's probably worked with you, and he.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Clearly knows who she is, probably has worked directly with her.
And it's funny because he had just tweeted like the
Trump administration has studiously avoided put any economic populist into
their administration, and then within minutes they made this pick.
So you know, we should have overstate it because there's
still very few people you would consider to be like JD.
Van's allies who've been put into the administration. And those

(28:15):
tensions you're talking about, I mean, that's not just outside
of the Trump world. The Zuckerbergs and the Sunda Pachai
who and Tim cook who or Tim Apple as Trump
likes to call him, who you know, called Trump and
are trying to get in good with him and trying
to reassure him and make sure that their companies don't
end up being targeted. But you know, obviously he has
and we're about to get to he has a lot

(28:35):
of billionaire, more libertarian minded people who are in his
administration or who are influential with his administration, who are
not interested in going in this particular direction. So you know,
those typical like Chamber of Commerce business interests still have
a lot of sway in the Republican Party in particular

(28:56):
and in Washington in general. So this will be quite
a battle to see how this all ultimately turns out.
And let's get to the next one. Speaking of, you know,
some of the ideological indications of this administration. This is
zero surprise but still worth taking note of. So the
current SEC Commissioner is a guy named Gary Gensler, who,
among other things, has believed that cryptocurrencies should be regulated

(29:21):
by the SEC, and the SEC, of the various financial
regulatory agencies, is the most aggressive in terms of enforcement.
That created all kinds of you know, conflicts and recriminations.
There was a whole fight about, okay, which agency should
really be regulating or not really regulating the crypto industry,
and to be honest with you, probably whether it was

(29:42):
Kamala or Trump, because the crypto industry has spent a
lot of money in our electoral system on both sides
of the aisle, you were going to get an se
cheric who was going to be, you know, much more
crypto friendly. And that is exactly what Trump has picked here.
He picked Paul Atkins to run the SEC. They describe
as a pro business conservative. He'd previously been an SEC

(30:04):
commissioner under George W. Bush. And what he is known
for is he's on the advisory board of securitized digital
asset firm that promotes the use of digital tokens. He's
considered to be very friendly to the crypto industry. Will
probably push the regulation of this over to one of
the other one of the other bodies that will do
a lot less in terms of enforcement. And then one

(30:27):
of the other big things they'll have to decide right
away that's pointed out in this article is the SEC
had filed charges against Coinbase, which is obviously a massive
crypto exchange. They charged the company with violating securities law.
We had covered this here by failing to register as
a broker, allowing unregistered crypto assets to be sold on
its platform. So that will be one of the first questions,
and it's one of the current SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler's

(30:49):
signature cases. Are they going to continue that high profile
enforcement action. I would say it is very unlikely.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Oh no, I mean listen for anybody he was paying attention,
Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss and who else, all of
the other the entire crypto industry. The Bitcoin conference. They
did not give one million dollars to Trump for free.
Donald Trump did not change his mind on crypto for free.
I actually remember when he was president because I freaked
out about it whenever he tweeted against bitcoin. Bitcoin itself, hilariously,

(31:22):
is actually a very counter to Donald Trump. Donald Trump
is obsessed with the strong dollar. That's why he loves tariffs,
and that's why he wants to impose tariffs on the
bricks countries who are pursuing an alternative currency. But the
truth is is that the immense amount of wealth and
bitcoin is now basically undeniable. As of this morning, bitcoin
officially crossed the one hundred thousand threshold, something I wouldn't

(31:42):
I never dreamed in a million years that I would
actually get to see this day. I was shit posting
memes about bitcoin goin to the moon when it was
at nine thousand dollars. Just for context, I bought, I
was talking about it. Should have listened, should have listened,
bought my verse bitcoin. I think think in twenty fifteen,
just four context, and I thought I was late. I

(32:03):
was like, there's no way and it's all going to
go to zero. So worked out. But the point is
is that with bitcoin itself, it has now become extra. Look,
I mean this is a multigajillion dollar industry because we're
not even talking about bitcoin. We're talking about platforms like Gemini,
which are owned by the Winklevy. Then you've forgot the
coin coin base itself, multi billion dollar company. I mean,

(32:26):
this is clearly here to say, there's just no getting
around it. You've got bitcoin ETFs now that have happened.
What the sec did just this is nerdy to stick
with me, is that they decided crypto should be regulated
as a security and that every transaction on the blockchain
would have to comply with securities laws. There's a specific
test that the Supreme Court has determined, or maybe some

(32:47):
other court. I forget for the financial guys can explain
it to me, but effectively, there's like a type of
regulation which goes into play legally that requires an immense
amount of compliance if you want to be able to
transact like that. Under the current SEC regime, it has
been the basically betmar of the crypto industry since that

(33:10):
went into place in twenty twenty two under Gary Gensler
to have that guidance reversed, and it was one of
the main reasons that a lot of these Teche people
decided to back Donald Trump. So again, they're going to
get what they paid, that's right, and you know they're
probably going to get some of it under Comblin they
were Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
I mean you remember Mark Cuban was sweating himself for SEC.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
That's why.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah. And you know, it was clear like there was
a war on Gary Chenceler and that war had already
been won before this election. And one of the seminal
moments was because it's crazy because you have the whole
Sam Bankman free thing, right, this massive fraud is exposed
and how this was just like a house of cards
and a total Ponzi scheme. And he goes to prison
and you know, it's he's giving all kinds of money

(33:53):
publicly to Democrats and more secret leader Republicans, and so
you would have thought that that would have dealt a
blow to their influence in DC, but not at all.
On the contrary, you know, they sort of got smart
from there. They lobby and organize super packs just like
every other major interest. In fact, Crypto was one of,
if not the largest contributor to the twenty twenty four

(34:18):
elections by industry in this entire you know, in this
entire election. But one of the seminal moments in this
fight was Katie Porter, who had been you know, adversarial
to them. And it's not like they're like, oh, we
have to get rid of bitcoin. It's like we're going
to enforce you know, securities regulations Asaba was explaining, using
the sec and so they're more adversarial, is with Warren

(34:39):
being part of that wing as well. So in any case,
they dropped millions of dollars in Katie Porter's race and
they were able to defeat her, and that really sent
a chill across any legislator who had been more adversarial
to Crypto, and since then they've all just been folding
like a deck of cards on both sides.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Of the aisle.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
So yeah, even before you know Trump made was able
to win, they had already basically locked in a more
friendly regime, whether it was Kamala or whether it was Trump.
And of course we can't forget Trump himself has his
own stupid crypto currency at this point as well, and
you know, there's a lot that's disturbing about that in

(35:21):
terms of the possibility for corruption. Last time in the
Trump administration, the way for people to get in good
with Trump was to stay at his hotel and like
very like, you know, demonstrably and performatively spas day at
his hotel and secure a large block of rooms and
spend lots and lots of money. Now they can just
buy a bunch of his crypto crypto coin what is it,

(35:42):
is it called trump coin, whatever it is called. Anyway,
they can do that. And there's already a lot of
indication that that's already happening, by the way, So yeah,
he's all in with them.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
Bristol is a Hawktua coin. Oh my god, she apparently
Look I am pro.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Look you kind of have to admire this lady for
the way she's capitalized on her.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
I toltally about this morning. I've been involved in the
sports gambling fight, and by the way, I will do
a very long magnum opus about why sports gambling online
is very bad. But honestly, I am just resigned at
this point. Americans are obsessed with pissing their money away.
I just don't know what to do at this point.
Like they love weed, they are addicted to weed. They
want to send it all to OnlyFans, addicts whenever they
eventually win, only fans models when they win, they just

(36:23):
want to gamble and to buy meme shit coins. It's like,
I don't know what to do at a certain point.
It's like, you know, should we just should we stop
people from doing what they want at a certain point?

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Like I just don't know you were gambling right?

Speaker 1 (36:36):
No, But that's what I'm saying. I'm like, what what's
the point of the fight at this You know, the
token for Hawktua hit five hundred million dollars. That's how
much people pumped into the didn't force anybody, no, not for.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Like, but there have been a lot of like out
and out SCA.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
I agree, but they want not people want.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
To be people want to be I think they do.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
I mean serious.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Then the promise of crypto was always is like you
know that, what is it? Fortune favors the.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Brave, Ohscrypto dot COM's yeah, that's not to be confused.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
I know, But I'm just saying, that's like the ethos.
You have a bunch of people who, you know, we
have this society where it's impossible by a fucking house.
It's impossible to afford healthcare, not like you know, die
for one of coverage, et cetera. It's impossible ford an education.
All these things take so many more years, wages don't
keep up with inflation, and so this is like sold

(37:28):
as a chance to be one of the players, like
to have a shot. It's almost like a.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Lot of ticket, right, Yeah, it's like, I mean that's.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
What it feels.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
It is.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
It is gamb I mean, it's gambling. It's not any
different really than the sports betting thing. It taps into
that same sense of like this at least gives me
a chance of being able to make it and have
the life that I envision for myself and my family.
And I think anytime you're tapping into that, you know,
it's I'm not saying I'm you know, more probably more
libertarian on these things than you are. Soccer, I'm gonna

(37:57):
say you should be banned, but it should be regulated.
It should definitely be regulated. And obviously we've seen in
our lifetimes how when a massive speculatory bubble emerges, how
can be absolutely devastating, not only for the people who
are directly implicable for the acconimulation.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
So that's my point, and that's why I get annoyed
is everyone's like, let me gamble on my phone. It's like, okay, fine,
but then don't come crying to me whenever we have
to send police officers to your house because you're pissed
drunk and you're beating up your wife and by the way,
that's been happening tremendously all across the entire nation, or
whenever you know you, you know you, you drink yourself
near to death and we have to send EMTs and

(38:32):
we have to pay for your health care bills, or
I mean go on forever in terms of the social
services that all of this stuff is going to cost.
But people are addicted to it. I just I honestly
I feel very blackpilled today just with the response on
online gambling with you know this Hawkta thing, and it's
like how many RUG polls do we go throughree twenty twenty,
how many? And people are still doing it. I don't

(38:53):
know should we save people from themselves at this point?
Like what's the point. It's they're addicted to it. It's
like whatever, I'm sure SOMEONEI clip this out.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I think we should protect people from scammert.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
I agree with you, But they don't want to. They
don't want it.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
But nobody wants to be one wants to be scammed,
old lie.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
Every time you bet a parlay bet on sports gambling,
you're getting scammed. Guess what the number one most profitable
and most bet thing on sports gambling parlay bet. What
are we supposed to do at a certain point, you know,
they like it, they think it's fun. You know, it
probably is whatever you put a little money into hawk
Tour or whatever. Also, to be fair, when I pought bitcoin,
it was specifically because of the the stateless promise. I
never thought it would become some etf like gold speculative asset.

(39:33):
Well I brought into the OG vision around the idea
of like getting around the state people in Argentina used
to buy houses.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
And at this point, I mean that's just that. I mean,
that is a small percentage. It's just speculative, like you know, yeah,
it's just it's just scambling.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
I think the promise of it is that now actually
now it is so much money that you actually could
start to use it. I mean, at this point, they're
I mean a sizable portion of the world billionaires are
now bitcoin billionaires. None of us will ever know who
they are. But I mean once you once bitcoin crossed
one hundred thousand, which it did in the last several hours,
that's genuinely like a shocking moment for the world economy.

(40:11):
If it ever passes five hundred thousand or a million,
that's when you're I think the majority of the world's
billionaires would be a bitcoin billionaires. So I don't know,
maybe it will change something. I still believe in some
of that thing.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Should be honest with the old days. I actually do too,
maybe from a somewhat different, not that different though, perspective
from you of like you know, using bitcoin to evade
US sanctions regime and things like that, But like that
part I support, you know, oh.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, but remember the Canadian truckers thing, and like that
was a real wake up call. Whenever they were still
able to go down on the on the on the
exchanges and be able to seize their crypto, there's still
a long way to go. The point is is that guys,
now we actually there's a ton of money out there.
If you bought bitcoin, you know early there, you're sitting
on some sizable profits. You could actually invest in some
of this alternative ecosystem like you were talking about with sanctions.

(40:59):
But I mean there's all use cases which on ironically
could be good and I would like to see some
of that, but unfortunately a lot of it has evolved
into ft X hawk to me, what was the other
one's Safe Moon? I think that was another favorite one
that people were talking about. So anyways, look, I don't know,
this is a long this is a more psychological thing.
But I'm just I am a stunned and amazed at

(41:22):
people's want an addiction to want to piss their money away.
I don't get it.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
I do. I get it. It's because I mean it
does come out.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Of this like at a certain point, it's like.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
There's a few I mean, there's a few things. There's
like I was saying this sense like I have no
other shot, Like this is my shot. You know. It's
the people that you see lined up at the gas
station buying a lotto tickets like, yeah, you know it's
this is this is my shot. It's that that same energy,
and then you know there's a lot of sophisticated scammers
out of there. Is definitely definitely part of it. And yeah,

(41:57):
I think I think that we have a responsibility as
society to at the very least try to regulate and
protect people from the most overt scams and try to
make them whole when they are scammed, rather than just
being like, oh, well, you're an idiot and you shouldn't
have gotten scammed, you know, because sometimes these things can
be very sophistic and be targeted at any number of
vulnerable groups who can be manipulated into thinking that this

(42:19):
is their right shot.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
But even when it's regulated like lotto, they have to
tell you the odds, right, how many people when I
go to seven eleven to go buy a big gulp
die coke, by the way, how many people are right
next to me buying these scratch off lotto tickets. They
know the odds and they still play it. Yeah, I
just don't. If you ever come into a Union station
here in DC, they have a DC Lotto store, the
line is out the door. For people who are purchasing

(42:42):
these things, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Man, at least those usually go to fund like education
in the state. Okay, you got to make likes. You
think the rich people richerd.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
But think about how disgusting that is that Like here
in the city of Washington, if you bet line out
the door, half the guys are homeless. Okay, I mean
they're the ones who are paying for it so people
can go to school.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
Your No, I agree with. I mean, it is a
tax on them poor, and that's why I think there
should be a lot of protections in place. But I mean,
do you have the same, Like do you think sports
gambling should be banned? No?

Speaker 1 (43:12):
I think I don't think sports gambling online should be
legal period.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
I don't think you don't think it should be legal.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
No sports gambling online? So like the difference is that,
Look for vice, I have come to the terms. People
are going to do it. There's nothing you can get around.
You should have to go to a casino. A lot
of the in the UK and elsewhere they have like
physical shops in people's neighborhoods where you have to go
to place your bet. And one of the reasons why
is that online. First of all, the actual products that

(43:37):
are sold to people online are the most degenerate, like
horrible financial products that exist.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
So you are but so you are in favor of
some level of protection from people.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I mean, but they don't want it. If you put
that on the ballot, it would go down by eighty percent.
People love on the phone.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
I mean, but so, I mean, I'm just trying to
see what if the position is consistent here. So when
it comes to sports gambling, you want to have some
level of protection people can't do it on their own
right when it comes to like crypto gambling, which I
think is the same.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I'm pro regulation on a lot of this stuff. My
point is just that I feel at a complete resignation
of the fact is is that every single time this
comes to a test of the Vox popular Life, people
don't want more regulation. They want to be able to do,
you know, whatever they want.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
I don't know about that. Soccer, I really don't know
about that because I don't think people want to just
be like fed to the wolves. You know, I think
they want their shot. I think, yes, they want to
be able to have that dream. And then it also
gets a deeper, like you know, social conversation similar to
the one we were having before, about how much of
our social contract here is centered around like consumption and
what that means, and also how difficult it is here

(44:46):
to be able to just like achieve a basic you know,
stability and like things like healthcare, and that contributes to
the sense of desperation that leads you to take what
would seemingly be irrational risks.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
Maybe, Yeah, certainly, this is a much deeper thing. I
will do my magnum opus. I'm gonna ride it. It's
gonna be like thirty forty minutes long. At this point,
I've been thinking about it a lot. But you know,
just to give you an example, sorry to monopolize this,
I went on the Matt and Shane podcast, right, and
this is the Ultimate bro podcast, and I use it
intentionally as a platform to speak against the dangers of
weed and of gambling. I have never received more hate

(45:23):
in my life.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, but then the audience.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
But that's why I did it. I did it with
that purpose. Is I wanted to go into the Lions
then yeah, and just be like, look, you're never gonna
hear this from anybody else, at least in the circles
that you people. Oh just oh, this is the fun police,
buzz Killington and all of it. It's like, okay, it's
like if if if your version of fun is coming
home from work from an underpaid job, pissing your money

(45:47):
away on alcohol and then getting on your phone to
watch the game and then throwing even more of your
money away on parlay bets, like what can I do
for you at a certain and then getting mad by
telling you you are losing money, you are wasting it away,
you are taking away your chances to build a better life.
I don't know. At a certain point, I don't know
what to do a response I got to that it

(46:08):
was shocking, it was hilarious. I mean, it is funny.
I'll be fine, you keep doing what you want to do.
But it's one of those where I don't know what
at a certain point, how can you help people who
actively want to participate in their own distruction?

Speaker 2 (46:21):
But it's so like, I mean, these companies, they spend
so much money researching like how to tap into these
deep human inclinations I know, and manipulate you. I mean,
it's very similar with like, you know, the way that
everything's gamified and algorithmically generated on the phone, and how
impossible it feels as a parent to be able to

(46:41):
like pull your kids away from the concert. It's the
same like systems of dopamine that are just being manipulated
by these companies. So I don't know, I have like
I don't really get it myself. Gambling isn't something that
has a poll for me, but I know enough people
who for whom it it really does, had that pull,
and I have a lot of empathy for that.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
I'm open about it. I like to go to casino
and amble. I have set limits and all these other
things around it. But you know what's so important about it.
You have to go physically. You have to be around
by the way other real degenerates. When you see people
who haven't showered in three days, seeing that is really
important because you're like, oh my god, I'm want to
end up like this person. But when you're on your phone,
you're the sucker. That's the thing. They don't tell you.
You have no idea how many other suckers that are

(47:25):
out there on top of you just talked about the algorithm.
It's very true. They use it specifically, like exactly imagine
Facebook adification applied to gambling. I mean the things that
the DraftKings and FANDU will get away with. They dream
in Las Vegas of being able to get away with
the quote unquote hold of what they do, except it

(47:46):
happens every day on the couch. I mean, I've talked
about this before. New Jersey betters lost two hundred million
in a single month betting online casino games on their phone. Total,
they lost about five hundred million in the month of
September just gambling. New Jersey is not a big state.

(48:06):
That is, it's like a giant suck hole, like like
of wealth predominantly from the least you know, what is
it from the least affluent part of society, Like I
don't know, you know, at a certain point, it just
we could talk about this more.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Yeah, little well, I just I would just actually I
actually think the idea of you have to go to
the casine. I don't think that's a bad idea. I'm
kind of open. I'm like a little ambivalent because I
got to think about it a little bit more, but
I'm kind of open to that. I just you know,
I also I feel a similar way about Like I
don't feel any different about crypto betting and gambling than
I do about online sports betting. I think it taps

(48:43):
into the exact same thing, which is why I think
it was important what Gary Kensler was doing, just to
bring it back to where we started conversation. So let's yeah, indeed,
we're gonna save the Trump billionaire cabinet conversation for I
will hold that for one for next and maybe I'll
do a monologue about it. But in any case, there's
a lot of billionaires in Trump's cabinet, and that's something

(49:05):
that we should be thinking about and what their influence
is going to be. Elon Musk being the most important,
you know example there, since he's literally the richest man
on earth. Let's go ahead and move over to the
democratic side of the equation, though here with Rama Manuel,
who you know, extremely important in the Obama era, but
really with this guy, you could go back to any

(49:27):
number of democratic crimes that were committed against this country,
including Naviga was important advisor under Bill Clinton as well,
and you can find Rama Manuel there. There's all kinds
of stories about him during the Obama administration. Apparently he
did not want Obama to try to reform healthcare at all.
He pushed against that. He famously, you know, we went

(49:48):
out and recruited all these quote unquote like moderates, neo
liberals who were very pro corporate. That was his whole
orientation when he was, you know, running effectively running the party.
And so now he is, he's actually ambassador to Japan's
where the Biden administration stuck him after being mayor of Chicago.
Very controversial tenure as mayor of Chicago, and now he

(50:10):
has come back out of the wilderness, so to speak.
David Axod floated him for d NC chair. He's already
sort of rolled down. He doesn't want that particular position,
but he's clearly trying to position himself as an important
voice in the party going forward and probably for some
new elected position. So he went on CNN and he

(50:31):
made some of the most extraordinary comments, given his own
complicity in the rage that this country justifiably feels about
both the lack of accountability on the Iraq War and
the lack of accountability with regard to the financial collapse.
Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
In Iraq War, which American people were deceived, spent two
millions of dollars, thousands of soldiers lost their lives, people
named for life were deceived and led into a war,
and not one person responsible for that deception ever was
held accountable. Six years later, the financial industry lies to
the American people. People lose their homes, their livelihood, and

(51:14):
the bankers are screaming for their bonuses.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Nobody held accountable.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
He's right, but rom who was going to hold them accountable?
You were chief of staff to Barack Obama when the
decision to not hold these people accountable when those all occurred,
whether it was the Iraq War or whether it was
the scamming, the mass scamming, we're just talking about this
on Wall Street of ordinary people that led to ten

(51:41):
million homeowners being kicked out of their homes in a
near global economic collapse and catastrophe which we are still
recovering from, by the way, and which has created the
entire political era that we live in right now. So
for him to go on CNN Socer and just like
you know, be able to correctly identify the problem and

(52:01):
absolve himself of any blame or complicity on This is
really quite extraordinary, and it's also very clear what he's
doing because you have to say some of these things
at this point, it's just undeniable. You have to say
some of these things.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
But it's Fife twenty years too late.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Well, yes, that, but also it's an attempt to rehab
himself and his political project. The very people who made
these disastrous and evil ultimately decisions at the time to
rehab them and pretend like they were not themselves the problem.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Yeah, and David Sirota makes a good point. Let's put
that one up on the screen from C two about
Ram Emmanuel saying, quote, it's the corruption stupid and you
can see here former mayor Rom Emmanuel spend six hundred
thousand dollars on sendoffs for himself weighing quote third term
Emmanuel relies on campaign donors who get city hall benefits.
Emmanuel was the quintessential Wall Street Democrat. I actually really

(52:57):
recommend people go and read some early histories of the
Obama era because rom is probably one of the most
important people in that and he embodied the Clintonian machine.
He worked for Bill Clinton and for Hillary Clinton. He
was a bundler. He comes from a very powerful family.
His brother Ari Emanuel is he's like the biggest superagent
in Hollywood. He's like a he's like a billionaire, you know,

(53:20):
head of wm E, etcetera. But the point is the.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Other brother very involved in healthcare.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah, I was gonna say, so his other brother, what's
his name, Zeke? I think seek Emmanuel is Uh. I
think he was the head of CMS or something like that.
One of the most powerful people in American healthcare. These people,
in particular Rom I mean, embodied the Terry mccaulliffe ideal
of like wheeling and dealing and raising big money. I
once saw big Terry in action at the Palm, and

(53:47):
I've never seen anybody in more at home in Washington
handing r machine.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
He loves to work a room.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
He's a fundraising machine. He live there. I asked, They're like, oh, yeah,
this guy. This is regular table here at the Palm
here in Washington, which is like a god, I don't
even know. It's not even that great of a restaurant.
It's fine. But anyway, that's the tradition that he comes
from and the background in the ninety two campaign, and
he was built up by the Clintons. So Obama really
picked him because he wanted a wheeler dealer kind of

(54:20):
Chicago connection as well to be there and lo and behold,
look at the decisions that were made, you know, both
in advisory over healthcare, but actually even more importantly it
is about bailouts and about the general political direction of
the Obama administration on Iraq as well. I mean, he
was the chief of staff to Barack Obama when Obama
decided the half ass maneuvers in Afghanistan, the surge, and

(54:42):
then the nonser I mean, everything that happened under that administration.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
If you wanted to pinpoint, if you wanted to blame
on one person, why Obama goes from running on change
and being a different sort of politician to just being
a continuation of the Clinton era. Like Rama Manual would
be a good person to situate that, I would just
I mean, yes, of course, ultimately, but you know, this
is the guy who was the chief of staff, so
he's involved in all of the staffing decisions, the you know,

(55:08):
direction the administration, like he is at the scene of
the crime on all of the bad decisions that were
made in the Obama administration. So for him to come
out and be like, you know what, people should have
been held account was like, Oh, yeah, you think where
were you when people during the Obama administration were not
being held accountable? Oh, that's right, you were in one
of the most powerful and influential positions in the entire

(55:28):
United States government. I do want to say, in fairness
to as Recline, I read the transcript of the entire
podcast that he did with Rom Emmanuel, and he actually
raises a good number of these points with Rom, and
Rom totally tries to reinvent history for himself and position
himself as like, well, I was there behind the scenes

(55:50):
saying that we need some quote Old Testament justice, that
that's what we need in this moment. But he goes
on to say not even in the form of it's
kind of a slight of hand here because he says
we need some Old Testament justice when it comes to reform.
But you know, this was not someone who was for
breaking up the big banks. And even in this rehap,

(56:11):
he doesn't say that any of these bankers should have
gone to prison. He's just saying like, oh, we should
have had we should have been more aggressive about how
we messaged about reform. Basically is his take here. So
I don't know what he has planned. We can put
this up on the screen the Chicago sometimes say he's
ruled out being DNC chair, but as far from done
with politics, do you think this man? I think he

(56:33):
might have the arrogance to think he could run for president.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Oh definitely, because the.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Other logical thing would be governor of Illinois. JB. Pritzker
is already in there, and I think he can run
for reelection again, and I think is planning to. And
rom has already said he'll be one hundred percent behind JB.
Pritzker were he to run for governor again. But maybe
that's what he has in mind, is that governor cee
baby JB is thinking he's going to run for president.

(56:57):
I don't know, but you definitely have not heard the
last of ram A manuals.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
He never gave up. By the way, it's funny, I
just came from Japan. He pissed a lot of people
off in Japan. Oh really, as our ambassador, Yeah, he
did some social meddling over there where. It's it's complicated,
but basically they were there debating gay marriage in Japan,
and Rama Manuel tried to insert himself and he actually
tried to like pursue like a big media profile. It

(57:22):
actually caused like a major diplomatic incident in the country
in general. From what I heard when I was at Tokyo,
he's not one of the most well liked ambassadors to
ever be in the country. It was actually weird that
he decided to go over there at all, especially because
maybe it was a decision by Biden to get him
out of the country very very possible.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Yeah, well, we were all, remember we were tracking closely
at the beginning of the Biden administration, like, oh my god,
they're going to bring Rama Manuel back because he was
floated for a lot of like actually influential position. I mean,
not to like downplay ambassador in Japan. I'm sure that's
important blah blah blah, but it's not that influential in
terns of unfortunate actual policy setting. So we were all
kind of relieved. We're like, all right, fine and rams
in Japan, let them deal with And my guess it's a.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
Side thing, but it's really sad. Actually, have you seen
that show the diplomat I've only watched it now. This
is terrible in my like, realistically, it's awful. I don't
know about the actual plot. I just couldn't get over
the differences. But the biggest conceit of the show is
the idea that the ambassador matters and guys ambassadors have
not mattered since Peple can pick up the phone and
talk to each other, like ever since that red line

(58:21):
or what was it the red phone between John F.
Kennedy and Khrushchev that killed great ambassadorships. That's why billionaires
love it because they get to go over there and
just live in the official rent residence in Galivant around
the country for like four years. But that's an aside.
So anyway, the Diplomat fake show, completely fakeness.