3/6/25: Markets Plummet Amid Tariffs, Trump Hamas Negotiations, AI General Intelligence & MORE!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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Speaker 3 (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 Thursday. We have an
amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Indeed, we do many things to get to of course,
as pretty usual, we got some updates on the tariff situation,
what is on, what is off? We've got some more
warning signs with regards to the economy. Also, increasingly clear
AGI artificial general intelligence is really just around the corner.
Expected to be here during the Trump administration. Is anyone

(00:56):
ready for that? I really don't think, so we're going
to take a look at that. Also some really contradictory
signs about what Trump's approach is with regards to Gaza.
So we'll give you all of the indications and all
of the developments there. Andrew Tait now saying, actually, I'm
just like ready to leave America anyway, guys, I was
just going to stay here for a couple of days.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
And I'm out.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So a lot going on there and some political interesting
sort of like political ramifications there as well. I'm taking
a look at if Trump is going to cook the
books on the economy, some pretty clear indications in that direction.
And we have the socialist candidate for New York City
mayor who is going up against Andrew Cuomo is going
to be on the show. He actually was on with

(01:37):
Emily and Ryan before. His campaign has come a long
way since then. He's actually polling as the top sort
of progressive candidate in the race, which is pretty surprising
kind of coming out of nowhere. So excited to talk
to him as well.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
All right, So with all of it, by the way,
thank you to everybody supports the show. We appreciate it
very much. Been a very busy week here at breaking points.
So let's go ahead and get to the tariffs. The
most important economic news the White House announcing yesterday that
there will be some terriff exclusion, specifically for automakers.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
We spoke with the big three auto dealers.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
We are going to give a one month exemption on
any autos coming through USMCA. Reciprocal tariffs will still go
into effect on April seconds, but at the request of
the companies associated with USMCA, the President is giving them
an exemption for one month so they are not at
an economic disadvantage. So the three companies that he spoke

(02:29):
to are Stilantis, Ford in General Motors.

Speaker 6 (02:31):
One on the reprieve that is being granted to these
three automakers for one month on the tariffs on Canada
and Mexico, how did the President settle on one month?

Speaker 5 (02:41):
The reciprocal tariffs will go into effect on April second,
and he feels strongly about that no matter what, no exemption.
So that's where the one month come from.

Speaker 4 (02:49):
So sure does he expect them to be able to
shift production within a month.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
He told them that they should get on it, start investing,
start moving shift production here to the United States of
America where they will pay no tariff.

Speaker 6 (03:00):
That's the ultimate goal.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
So there was some initial confusion there from that announcement.
It initially appeared as if it only applied to the
Big three automakers, but the White House systems clarified that
those terrif exemptions are for all automakers. The reason why
that this is most significant is because part of USMCA
and of NAFTA is that many of these car companies
are vertically integrated across all three countries, and that many

(03:24):
of these parts Crystal will move across the border, some
almost forty or fifty times in the most extreme example,
and so the idea was if it was going to
get hit with a twenty five percent tariff every single
time that across the border, you would famously have those
examples of a car going from from fifty thousand to
like eighty or ninety thousand dollars something like that one
month exclusion. Though as the question there was like, that's

(03:46):
not exactly time. This seems to be part of the
chaos blunt force strategy to try and see as much
progress or announcements or whatever Trump can.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Squeeze out of them.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
But the market reaction has been all over the place
over the last couple of days, and so the pendulum
continues to swing back and forth and back and forth.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, indeed, I mean, is it crazy for him and
to think that he saw that Fox News segment with
the car dealer guy who was like, this same truck
is going up twenty k like right now instantly, and
Maria Barbaroma being like, oh my god, what is going
on here? Like, I genuinely think that may have been
part of the calculus going into this. I was a
little bit surprised there wasn't more of a rollback of

(04:27):
the tariffs that is just.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
Applying to the auto industry.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
The other part that was kind of funny to me
is like, the one group that came out and was like,
actually we like the tariffs was the United Auto Workers,
and now that's the one industry where it's being rolled back.
The other thing that was surprising to me is you
were alluding to the markets, is how positively the markets
responded to this news since you are just talking about
one sector of the economy. Granted, of course it is

(04:52):
a significant sector, but you know, the plan is for
them to go back in place in a month. All
of the tariffs on Mexico are still there. The teriff
announced on China's still there. All the rest of the
tariffs on Canada is still there, and Justin Trudeau and
Canada is still talking pretty tough saying listen, unless all
of the tariffs a rolled back, we are continuing with
our retaliatory tariffs. So you know, people should be really

(05:14):
clear about what this means. It will have significant impact
on a lot of produce coming from Mexico, you know,
from Canada.

Speaker 4 (05:22):
The tariff on energy.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Is lower, but still there, still expecting significant gas price increases,
including I think in New England was the first place
that you're likely to see gas prices go up some
twenty to forty cents pretty quickly. Here new construction materials,
a significant amount of that comes from Canada. And then
depending on how long this lasts, eighty percent of the
fertilizer that's used in the US comes from Canada as well.

(05:47):
So even with the rollback of this one particular sector,
which is again it's significant, you're still going to have
quite significant and reverbting impacts across the economy if they
continue to move forward with these.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, there's been so there's been some crazy movement on this.
So you reference the markets. The markets were up yesterday,
the S and P erased its one day loss, and
yet as of this morning you and I are talking,
the S and P futures have now erased yesterday's gain,
So we're basically back to where we were two days ago.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
So I don't know, don't don't ask me.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
I'm not some you know, stock analysts that can only
go off of what the Wall Street Journal and the
Financial Times and all of them are saying. They're saying
that right now the Dow future and all of that
dropping is from a weakening dollar. And also they are
saying that the invert indexes will reverse the rally of
the partial rollback yesterday, also apparently in response to the

(06:41):
German government and European bond market.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
So there's a lot going on right now.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Actually, interestingly enough, almost all that comes back to Trump,
both on the German side and on the tariff side.
The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik Commerce Secretary, by the way,
is the person who is most in charge of the tariffs.
Their responsibility under the current law is that they're the
ones who write those justifications for them implement the teriffs. Specifically,
let's take a listen to what Secretary Lutnik had to say.

Speaker 7 (07:06):
The Big Three say they produce cars that are compliant
under US MCA, which means they have sufficient US content
in them to be part of the US MCA agreement.
So I think that's part of our discussion and the
President's really thinking about that.

Speaker 6 (07:25):
It's not really the concemption.

Speaker 7 (07:27):
Remember, it's it's we're trying to end fetanyl coming into
the country. So we're trying to set a message that
fetanyl has got to end coming in from Mexico and Counada.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
It just has to end.

Speaker 7 (07:39):
And they've done a reasonable job on the border, and
they're going to do a better job on the border.
But this is memory, it's a key about fentanyl for
this month April second, we could talk about the rest
depths in America have not decreased in a way that
is sufficient depths of feris in America.

Speaker 8 (07:58):
Yesterday though, the President question the fairness of Canadian banks,
So what is it about. Is it about Canada's banking
system or is it really about fentanyl.

Speaker 7 (08:08):
So this month right now is about fentanyl. When we
talk about April second, we will talk about the bigger
trade picture between our trading partners Canada and our trading
partners of Mexico.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
So just to reiterate here, they have to say fentanyl
because it's the only way they can get that national
security exemption through law, because otherwise you can't just say, oh,
I don't agree with Canadian banking or whatever, because we
have a USMCA agreement that's been ratified by Congress. This
is the only way that you can actually get around that.

(08:42):
We do, though, need to flag that the problem with
all of this strategy is that Americans need to feel
as if there's a big strategy behind it, and we
flag this in our pre State of the Union coverage.
But this is very important. Let's put this up there
on the screen from the New York Times. Here is
how Americans feel about TERRA. So you've got some twenty
nine percent of Americans to fifty six percent of Americans,

(09:04):
depending on how the question is asked, who are in
favor of tariffs. Now, the tariffs that have the highest
support in the mid fifties are when you ask a
question specifically about China. Now, if you mention Canada and Mexico,
the support for the tariffs starts to fall. Now the
tariffs however, almost at a fifty percent approval rating if
they're to bring back American jobs. But if you add

(09:27):
the caveat of even if price increases, then you drop
down to thirty percent.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
And that's not a surprise to me at all.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Americans are some of the most cost conscious people literally
on Earth, where seventy percent consumer based economy.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
And the real thing.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Is is all of this would have to be communicated
in a way as if people feel that there is
a big strategy behind this, because if you're going to
jack the price of a car up, or groceries or
all of that, you need to have a reason.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And look, I've spoken about Canada and Mexico.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
I do think our trade imbalances are ridiculous with those
two countries. However, the problem is right now is that
these people are the American people, are not being sold
a coherent vision on how this is all going to work.
And that's evidenced by the constant roll in and roll
back of the strategy.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
So, the automaker is the perfect example because out of
all of the industries that most need and deserve tariffs
specifically from this bring back American jobs, it's the automaker
specifically that one industry where it should be most applicable,
and not say on groceries. We talked here about avocado
berries is probably a better example. I don't think we
grow any berries in the continental United States. But so

(10:37):
if you're giving an exemption to one, jacking the price
up on another, rolling back something here, and people are
also saying it's about fentanyl, and people are just going
to be like, Okay, what the hell is this all about.
And I think that's the biggest problem that the White
House has right now.

Speaker 4 (10:51):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
I do think we grow some berries in California, and
I know that we grow some strawberries there and some
other things. Yeah, but in any case, your point still stands.
It's significant. And you know there's certain things too that, Okay,
we can grow them here in one particular season, but
we're all used to getting everything we want all the
time in the grocery store whenever we want it, even
when it is the dead of winter. Those are the

(11:12):
sorts of things products that are really going to have
pressure put on them here, you know, at a time
when people are particularly cast conscious. Obviously, inflation has been
one of the major political stories of the past several years,
you know, towards the end of COVID and certainly post COVID,
So you know, that's what I've mentioned before, is the
economic landscape now and the economic priority of Americans is

(11:33):
also different from when Trump first came into office. So
I think even if he was telling a coherent story
about what these tariffs could deliver in terms of reindustrializing
America or you know, American jobs, and yes, we're going
to have some pain in the short term, but in
the long term it's all going to run at work out.
I think even if he was telling that story, it

(11:55):
would be a tough sell. And he's not telling that story.
The message is completely confused. Even Mexico and Canada don't
really know what the hell he's doing or what the
hell he wants his advisor to sow.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Peter Navarro go.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
On last night and be like, Canada is being taken
over by Mexican cartel, so they're really pushing the fentanyl line,
even though we all know that that's just a pretext
for him to be able to have as much authority
as he wants and do whatever he wants. And I
think your point about the auto industry is a really
important one. Like if you were going to make the
case for these tariffs in any industry, the auto industry

(12:30):
is the place where you have actually the most compelling case,
where you can say, Okay, we want to have a
really strong auto industry here. This is important to our
manufacturing base. It's certainly important in a number of key
swing states. We're going to really invest in this industry.
We're going to put some protected barriers around it, We're
going to bring back, you know, all these supply chains
into the US that have gone over to Canada and

(12:51):
Mexico since NAFTA was instituted. But instead that's the one
that is getting the break. So yeah, I think, you know, politically,
I think this is really a non starter in terms
of the way that it is.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
I mean, it's not being sold, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I don't think the policy makes sense anyway outside of
you know, there are some theories of some sort of
grand plan to weaken the dollar and for that to
cause the reindustrialization.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
But again, if.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
That's your goal, you need to be explaining that to people.
And at the same time, you see you're really flirting
with disaster economically, which we're going to talk about more
in the next block as well.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yes, exactly, you really got to keep these things. You
need to keep things such that they are explainable and understandable,
especially if you're going to suffer. And part of the
other problem is I've seen the Secretary say things like, oh,
well it's not and people aren't going to feel it
because we're gonna be taking in so much money. And
it's like, okay, well, you know, then you've got to
have a pretty explicit redistribution program. Maybe people could get

(13:48):
behind that. I don't see the Republican Congress going tomorrow
yet for some sort of external revenue service that's constantly
just cutting checks to Americans in terms of their tariff dividend.
If you did that, yeah, maybe it'd be popular, But
it's one of those where it actually it would mean
that you would have to dramatically change the entire system,
of which I don't see a lot of congressional support

(14:08):
for right now. So you could have the worst of
all worlds. You could have higher prices and you could
not have any redistribution. If not not even that, you
could actually have cuts there and or a diminishment of services.
And so if you do feel like it's a price
is going to go down, your government services are also
going to go or price is going to go up
and your government services go down.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
That's not a very good trade, is it. So let's
continue here on this.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
On this front, there have definitely been some There have
definitely been some CEOs who are doing everything they can
to get Trump's ear. Let's put this up there on
the screen. The latest gambit is to meet one on
one with the president. You've got to give five million
dollars to one of his organizations. And now that doesn't
directly go to him, but it goes to MAGA Inc.

(14:51):
Or the Make America Grade again ink, it's a super
pack that supports the Trump twenty twenty four campaign somewhere
between one million dollars a piece to dine with him
in a group setting five million dollars for a one
on one. And so did the Big Three pony that up.
Not sure, I mean they probably can get his ear anytime,
but this has certainly been something that we have seen

(15:13):
in the nearest future, is that people mar a Lago
members and others I mean getting in his ear and
has had significant changes on policy. The best example is
probably Jeffyass who has a huge share in TikTok and
a Byte Dance, probably single handedly most responsible for Trump's
about face on that. We haven't talked a lot here
about the crypto industry, but this is kind of this

(15:34):
is unprecedented, to say the least, because what do you
need the money for.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
You're not running for anything.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
It's like, what is all this money being funneled into
your campaign or your super pack for. And you know,
it's a little grotesque, especially to have basically pay for
play with the president at his private club. Not saying
it hasn't happened, you know, previously with Trump or I
guess with other presidents, but this is just a little
bit on the nose right now.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, absolutely no doubt about it. And we also know
the way that he's able to round trip some of
that those funds out of the campaign account into his
personal bank account by like, hey we're going to rent
Mara a Lago for this event for the Republican Party.
Hey we're going to use this or that vendor that
actually is under the Trump family umbrella. So one of

(16:18):
the things that is unprecedented about him, in particular with
his business interests, is the ability to funnel that campaign
cash actually directly into his bank account, and then the
shit coin is just something else entirely. I mean, we've
talked before about this crypto dude who had a big
SEC investigation going. He gives seventy five million dollars while he,

(16:39):
you know, buys seventy five million dollars worth of Trump
crypto tokens and lo and behold, SEC dropped the investigation.
Huh isn't that nice for him? I mean, it just
it truly is like, listen, we're none of us are
Pollyanna here. We know corruption in politics is nothing new.
This is like on a truly another level that's hard
to describe just how corrupt it is. And then also

(17:01):
because you've had so much power consolidated with Trump and
Elon in particular, it also becomes much more important to
create direct favor with him. So Elon yesterday was meeting
with the Republican Caucus and saying like, oh, I'm going
to set up a phone line so you guys can
call directly if there are programs in your district, in

(17:23):
your state that are important that are getting cut. Well,
guess who's not going to have access to that phone line?
Any Blue state representative. So it truly is just like
if you're in the favored class, either because you gave
money to Trump, you bought his shit coin, you happen
to be a Republican, especially a Republican of state that
matters to them politically, then you're going to get your favors,
You're going to get your goodies, and everyone else is going.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
To be screwed.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
So you know, that's why you see the tech oligarchs
lining up at the inauguration, why you see them betting
the knee, why you see them donating millions of dollars
to the Inauguration Fund, etc. Because they want to make
sure their mergers go through. They want to make sure
when the terriff is t gets put into place, they
get their particular carve out and their interests are looked after.
And you know that's very much the story of how
this administration is being run.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Let's go to the economy then, in terms of the
warning signs.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
So this all sort of ties in. Harry Anton did
a great segment breaking down some of the polling numbers
about how Americans feel Trump is doing on the economy
and specifically whether they feel like he is focusing on
economic issues. Enough, let's take a listen to what he
had to say.

Speaker 8 (18:30):
The answer the question is no, Trump and the economy
he should prioritize here on planet Earth eighty two percentsent.
It's almost as if Trump is on planet Krypton. Look
at this. He is prioritizing the economy just thirty six percent.
My goodness, gracious, I don't understand how this mathematical formula works. Right,
If the economy is the number one issue, if that's
what Americans think you should be prioritizing, and well less

(18:51):
than half think that you are. No wonder Trump is
having problems with the economy because, simply put, he's not
putting it to the top of his list the.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Way Americans are.

Speaker 8 (19:00):
American adults who have a job currently at least in
January with sixty one percent the percentage that own a
stock either directly or indirectly. Perhaps you're four oh one
k sixty two percent sock. The stock market is as
important to economic perceptions in my mind as is the
unemployment number, given that it's about the same percentage of Americans.

(19:20):
In fact, if you believe it, though, it's within the
margin ververa one point more of the American folks actually
own stock than actually have a job.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
I'm not sure about that last part.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
I'm not sure I'm really buying that people are more
concerned with the stock market than the employment. I mean,
stock market ownership is still very very skewed, but it
is an important point that, Look, a lot of people
are paying attention to this. Trump himself has always paid
very close to attention to what the stock market says.
In fact, there's some old tweet of his that's like,
you know, if the stock market drops this much two
days in a row, that.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
President should be impeached.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
That people have been circulating around here soccer. It made
me think back to his speech this week and what
we talked about that the front part was really frontloaded
with the and that's, you know, the first part is
what most people will stick around and watch, and then
you'll see the clips that circulate after the fact. But
that first portion of the speech really frontloaded with culture war.

(20:12):
If anything, it feels much more like Elon is the
mover and shaker on the pieces relevant to most directly
relevant to the economy. Now that sort of changes with
Trump stepping up and instituting these tariffs, but changes in
an even more negative way because the tariffs are pretty
unpopular when you look at what people want him to
be focusing on, which is getting prices down, not issuing

(20:34):
tariffs that are very likely to raise prices even further
than they already are.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yeah, and just again like if it was part of
a major strategy, then okay, then people may be willing
to put up with it. No, although I'm not so
sure because the real reaction that we've seen currently, I
mean that poll really tells the truth. They go, even
if prices increase, most Americans just don't want to put
up with it.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
I can't say I blame them, you know, I get it.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
I would make a case for why it would be
worth it and perhaps some ways to mitigate all of
that pain. But the problem is is that that's not
what the White House is saying right now. And I've
really become convinced that this is an existential problem for
all of them, because without that message and without that
FDR like feeling of I am doing something for you,

(21:19):
you were just going to end up like Joe Biden.
And let's go ahead to the Atlanta FED because this
was the most important actually indicator out of them alls
put it up there please on the screen, which is
that their GDP model now forecast has actually been revised
for the first quarter of twenty twenty five down to
minus two point eight percent. So that is one where

(21:41):
economic contraction combined with consumer sentiment plunging over tariffs and
of uncertainty, also combined with persistent high inflation, all three
of those things, not to mention flat unemployment, which we're
about to get to in a second, that is a
recipe for disaster. And so, as I have said here,

(22:02):
you have some runway America is listening. That's one of
the more interesting things that you and I have seen
is that the amount of interest in news left and
right remains sky high right now. So it's not like
people are not paying attention and they're generally willing to
give you the benefit of the doubt in the first
hundred days or so. But you have a very very
short period before some serious stuff is about to start

(22:25):
hitting you politically. And the biggest danger I see for
the Republicans is, let's say things just continue down this
road for the first hundred days. Well, Crystal, you and
I know what is the first major thing they're going
to do after the first hundred days, they're going to
pass the Republican tax bill, that tax bill which massively
increases or the current tax cuts for large corporations and

(22:46):
for rich people.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Let's be honest here, Let's be honest, right.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
They made a case for it back in twenty seventeen,
and they haven't really reduced from it. So that, as
I always say, the lowest day of Donald Trump's presidency
in terms of approval rating was the day that that
tax bill pass. Well, if you combine that with persistent
high inflation, with the economic contraction, with unemployment, inflation, etc.
Well plus the tax bill, that is a recipe really

(23:10):
for a George W. Bush style pushback even after you've
won the popular vote. Bush basically nuked his presidency over
trying to privatize Social Security, Andy Rock and I haven't
even mentioned any potential crisis. It's all just floating out
there right now. Hurricane season, you know, it's not that
far away, could be right around the same time as

(23:30):
the tax bill.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
The optics would be a disaster if anything like that.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
And who in you and I know the global system
is very uncertain Ukraine obviously, but Gaza, I mean that
could start up any minute now. It already has escalated
a bit with the Israelis cutting off AID. There could
be any sort of terrorist attack, anything, some sort of
major shock to the global system. So with all of

(23:54):
us uncertainty right now and these economic problems, people want
to feel as if there's a st at, a hand
on the wheel. I don't think that they're getting that
right now, and I think that remains a big.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Problem for Trump.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
I mean, you have terrists that are likely to spike prices.
You have GDP growth dropping, potentially going negative. I mean
that is the definition of stagflation, which is the most
disastrous economic situation that you could imagine. And then the
GOP economic priorities are tax cuts for the rich and
cutting social safety net programs. There was a new report

(24:27):
out from the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office that says
what you and Izager obviously already knew, which is that
the amount of cuts that Republicans are pushing, there is
no way to achieve them without cutting Medicaid or Medicare,
and we know Medicaid has been in their sits in particular.
So you got the richest man on the planet who's
consolidated all this power you've got him giving himself contracts

(24:48):
and goodies. There's more updates on that on how he's
finding more money for and more contracts for Starlink, seemingly
every day at the same time that you're pursuing this agenda.
That's great for rich pe that's great if you want you,
if you're wealthy, if your big corporation, you want your
tax cut, and it's terrible for ordinary people who are
already suffering and who many of whom voted in this

(25:09):
election because they thought Trump as a businessman, would do
a better job manning to be managing the economy, and
they remembered back to his first term and felt like
they were personally doing better, especially because prices were lower
at that time and their dollar was able to go further.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
We alluded to this.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
We've got another negative indicator here that's significant. This is
the ADP Jobs Report. Could put this up on the screen.
So companies added just seventy seven thousand new workers for
the last month. This is the chart showing at that
last little blue bar there that's really quite low in
comparison to the other blue bars on the chart.

Speaker 4 (25:45):
That's where we are.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
That's also a lot less than what January was one
hundred and eighty six thousand, and it was much below
the estimate of one hundred and forty eight thousand jobs added. So,
you know, this is something Ryan's been talking about out
how all of the federal government cuts. It doesn't just
impact those particular people who get fired. You end up

(26:10):
with universities freezing firing, You end up with the healthcare
system freezing hiring. You end up with an economy that's
just kind of on standstill as people wait and see
what the reverberations and what the ripple effects are ultimately
going to be. You add to that consumer confidences down.
I know, Target came out and said that they're spending
their revenue was soft in the past month as well,

(26:32):
So you've got a lot of indications that consumers are
pulling back and getting really nervous as well. And when
you ask consumers what their expectations are for both job
losses and for inflation, they are expecting things to turn
south this year as well. And to be honest with you,
I feel like the American people have been better at
understanding prediction predicting the economy than many of the analysts

(26:54):
who do.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
This for a living.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, good point.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
I mean, because they feel it and you can just
really look around, I will say, you know, thermostatic public
opinion is also a hell of a drug. I was
just looking the other day at approval for the economy,
and the day that Trump took office, Republicans went from
net negative to net positive, and their approval of the
economy Democrats went from net positive to net negative. So
there's a lot of vibes talk out there as well.

(27:17):
If we're all being honest, let's all be honest. That's
I remember looking at economic data and Arizona during the
right before the election, where if people were asked, how
is your state doing, they would be like, oh, plus
twenty five percent? Things are great, it's boom times here
down in Arizona. They're like, how is America doing it?
They're like, oh, it's a disaster, and you're like, well,
the moment that Trump gets elected, they're like, oh, it's

(27:39):
just we're booming. America's back for business again. So just
saying partisanship is also a.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
Hell of a drug.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Let's put this next one up here on the screen
of This is about the stock market. This is something
I've been warning about here for quite some time from
the Financial Times, the US has quote to nearly two
thirds of global equity market value. But they say, analysts
are seen danger in the huge bet on AI.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
So they say, if you hold a.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Global tracker by definition, then two thirds of that is
the United States and a lot of that is Silicon
Valley specifically. That means you are very vulnerable to this
huge bet on AI. Now, our economy has significantly benefited
from the fact that these tech stocks have gone vertical
since two thousand and eight. That's how a huge portion

(28:25):
of Americans who do have assets, who are not asset
light individuals or persons inflicted with asset lightness have been
able to capture some value and actually be able to
retire with these great year over year gains in the
S and P five hundred. But the real issue is
that over the last five years, in particular, this huge

(28:46):
explosion of value in these technology stocks means that Americans
are very exposed to any correction, even a modest ten
to twenty percent correction in the technology sector, which would
have massive ramifications for the economy. It would mean unemployment,
it would mean change to federal reserve. So it's not
just something that would affect tech employees. It would affect

(29:06):
all of us, There's no question about it. And really
that's what they're appointing to right now with the current
stock market and with all of these bigger questions too.
About an Nvidia which currently saw a huge reduction the
other day, we didn't get a chance to talk about it,
but it was really because there are indications of how
much they are currently inverting export controls to China, and

(29:29):
so actually just enforcing US law huge impact there on
end video. So you've got geopolitical attentions, you got the
whole deep Seek thing in terms of efficiency, and then
you still have these companies just pouring hundreds of billions
of dollars into AI development every single quarter. Now they're
doing that for a reason, and we're about to get

(29:50):
to that in a little bit. But you know, if
that comes up short, it could have serious problems. We
could be in for a bad five years, is what
I would say.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, and it doesn't even have to come up short.
It just can be that, you know, deep Seek and
other open platforms are able to suck up a lot
of the value as well, So it could even be
that it's not that they underperform in terms of their
technological development. It's just that there's far more global competition
than has anticipated. I mean, I'm quite convinced that we

(30:19):
are in a bubble. Just a question to me of
whether or not that bubble is going to pop and
the lengths that politicians will certainly go to to make
sure that the stock market continues to churn, because that's
you know, that's been a goal, in a priority obviously
for many years now. But we talk about the Magnificent
seven group of stocks, and you're talking about how dominant

(30:40):
the tech sector is. That's Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft,
nvidiaan Tesla. They hold almost a third of the S
and P five hundred's market value, and this article points
out that the price to earnings ratio of that index
is at its highest level since the early two thousand
since yep, you guys remember what happened to the early

(31:03):
two thousands. That's when you had the dot com bubble
and ultimate crash. So again, they're going to keep trying
to do what they can to keep the stock market inflated.
But I don't to me, it's pretty undeniable that we
are in a fairly significant bubble, and the fact that
these handful of companies comprises such a large portion of

(31:24):
the stock index, and that that stock index comprises such
a large portion of the overall market activity is another
just looming massive risk and exposure as we're looking at
these things. And this is a good segue too into
our next segment, which is specifically about AI and where
we're headed with that, which is also kind of terrifying.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yes, artificial general intelligence.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
So Azra Klein over at the New York Times just
had a really good interview with Benby Cannon, and he
was a White House advisor on AI and a professor
at Georgetown, and he has a prediction that AGI, artificial
general intelligence is in the Trump administration. I will say,
if you watched our coverage during the inauguration, I'm pretty
sure we were both talking about that and we're like, listen,

(32:07):
you know, all of this doge everything it could be
could be a footnote to what the actual story of
the entire Trump administration actually is, which is the development
of artificial general intelligence. Just as when people go back
and write the history of the first Trump term, it'll
be the Trump Revolution of twenty sixteen and COVID.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
Those are the two things.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
It probably the most important things actually came out of
those years in retrospect. So let's take a listen here
to some of ben By Cannon's analysis on artificial general intelligence,
his predictions, and also some of the major policy implications
behind it.

Speaker 9 (32:41):
So it sort of pretty big off on this question
a little bit. By saying you're not a labor economist,
I will say.

Speaker 10 (32:45):
That I have not a labor economist here or not.

Speaker 9 (32:47):
I will promise you the labor economists do not know
what to do about AI. Yeah, you were the pop
advisor for AI. You were at the nerve center of
the government's information about what is coming. If this is
half as big as you seem to think it is,
it's going to be the single most disruptive thing to

(33:08):
hit labor markets ever, given how compress the time period
in which it will arrive. This right, It took a
long time to lay down electricity, it took a long
time to build railroads.

Speaker 10 (33:20):
I think that is basically true, But I want to
push back a little bit. So I do think we
are going to see dynamic in which it will hit
parts of the economy first. It will hit certain firms first,
but it will be an uneven distribution process.

Speaker 9 (33:31):
I think it will be uneven, and that's I think
what will be destabilizing about it in part. Right, if
it were just even, then you might just come up
with an even policy to do something about it. Sure
you must have heard somebody think about this. You guys
must have talked.

Speaker 10 (33:43):
Yeah, we did talk to economists and try to texture
this debate in twenty three and twenty four. I think
the trend line is even clearer now than it was then.
I think we knew this was not gonna be a
twenty three and twenty four question. Frankly, to do anything
robust about this, it's going to require Congress, and that
was just not in the cards at all. So it
was more of an intellectual exercise than it was a policy.

Speaker 9 (34:03):
Policies begin as intellectual exercises. Yeah, yeah, this is a
kind of like. The ways that I'm pushing on this
is that we have been talking about this, seeing this
coming for a while. And I will say that as
I look around, I do not see a lot of
useful thinking here. And I grant that we don't know
the shape of it. At the very least, I would
like to see some ideas on the shelf for if
the disruptions are severe, what we should think about doing.

(34:25):
Does everybody move into the trades? What were the intellectual
thought exercises that all these smart people at the White
House who believe this was coming. You know, what were
you saying?

Speaker 4 (34:34):
So?

Speaker 10 (34:34):
I think, yes, we were thinking about this question. I
think we knew it was not going to be a
question we were going to confront in the president's term.

Speaker 9 (34:42):
I guess I'm trying to push like, was this not
being talked about? There were no meetings, there were no
you guys didn't have claud write up a brief of options.

Speaker 10 (34:50):
Well, you know, we definitely didn't have Claude Ripe a
brief because we had to get over government use of AI.

Speaker 9 (34:55):
See, but that's like itself slightly damning.

Speaker 10 (34:59):
Yeah, I mean, I I think, you know, I agree
that the government has to be more forward leaning on
basically all of these dimensions.

Speaker 9 (35:06):
You sit down with somebody and you start the conversation
and like, the most transformative technology perhaps in human history,
is landing into human civilization in a two to three
year time frame, and you say, wow, that seems like
a really big deal. What should we do? And then
things get a little hazy right now. Maybe we just

(35:27):
don't know. But what I've heard you kind of say
a bunch of times is like, look, we have done
very little to hold this technology back. Everything is voluntary,
you know. The only thing we asked was a sharing
of safety data. You know, now income the accelerationists, you know,
Mark Andreson has criticized you guys extremely straightforwardly. Is this
policy debate about anything? Is it just the sentiment of

(35:50):
the rhetoric? Right like, if it's so big, but nobody
can quite explain what it is we need to do
or talk about, except for maybe export control is like,
are we just not thinking creatively enough? Is it just
not time?

Speaker 1 (36:04):
So I thought that that was a very good exchange.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Our producer Griffin cut that together because what Ezra keeps
trying to get at is he's like, so, did you
guys think about this at all? And the answer was like, no,
not really in terms of how it's all going to come.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
And here's the thing, I don't think very much has changed. Now.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
There are some great people who are working in the
White House, people like Shri Ram Krishnan or a few others,
But that's one person I mean, is this being discussed
at like the very highest levels and beyond that, you know,
it's not just up to the White House. This would
be a whole of government Congress approach if we're going
to even think about rules and guidelines for the future.

(36:41):
And I think the biggest worry right now, and this
is actually fundamentally what's so crazy about AI, is that
the breakthrough is most likely to come, at least in
America in a pre existing technology monopoly. So if you
look at all of these other breakthrough technologies, they can
come from outside competitor. They don't necessarily come from you know,
everyone a famously says like, oh, Kodak invented the digital camera,

(37:02):
but you know they put it to the shelf because
they want to disrupt themselves. These guys are all actually
aware of that, and they're the ones who are pumping
all the money into this tech, and it's not necessarily
some new value capture startup or something that would be
the break I think that probably.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Has to do more with AI economics.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
But I think that's part of why I'm so worried,
is that if you give these people already have immense
power even more immense power basic control over the whole
US labor market. I think that's the really terrifying part
behind the development.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
There's a lot about this that like gives me panic attacks,
and listening to that. I listen to that whole podcast,
and it confirms my terror, which is that, you know,
even the people who are at the bleeding edge of
this really don't know exactly what it's going to do
to society and don't really have any answers about how

(37:50):
to address it. And I think everyone really needs to
wrap their head around the fact that the social contract
is going to need to be completely re written. And
I don't think that there is I get that it
is hard to fathom what this is going to mean.
It feels very like, oh, I use chat GPT and

(38:10):
it's fun to asking questions, just kind of like a
better Google.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
But what is coming is something profoundly different.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
And the goal is to automate, to use AGI to
basically make human intellectual labor irrelevant.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
So what does that do to a society?

Speaker 2 (38:28):
What does that do to the world when human beings
are no longer the most intelligent species on the planet. So,
you know, the Biden administration clearly didn't have any answers
for that, and I don't know that anyone. I mean,
at this point, there was these different factions in Silicon
Valley thinking about AI development, and you have people who

(38:49):
were like, you know, the AI safety people and people
who are dumers. I'm probably kind of in the Dumer camp,
and the acceleration ists at this point have just completely won.
And the idea is just like we're an a race
with China. We're going to throw as much money and
you know, effort in this into this as we possibly can.
We're going to develop it as quickly as possible, even
though the problem of what they call alignment has not

(39:12):
been solved.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
An alignment is like a really.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Uh, sort of sterilized word, anti septic word for how
do we make sure that this AI isn't just going
to like decide to destroy us all or have catastrophic
consequences that we aren't envisioning. They haven't figured that out,
but they're still pushing forward. And sorry you're mentioning, you know,
this is going to come from likely from some big

(39:35):
tech monopoly and less unless China does get to AGI first,
which I think is certainly a possibility at this point.
But the other thing that's different there is that the
previous major technological advances, like if you think about the Internet,
if you think about computers like personal computers, if you
think about nuclear energy and weapons, all of that was

(39:58):
developed within the government. So the government also there was
some ability to have a democratic check on what purposes
this would be developed for, and you know, a sort
of studied approach to it. Not that that is perfect
in any way, but when you just are developing it
in the private, capitalist markets and where the goal is

(40:20):
just like who can get there first and who can
capture the most the biggest profit margins, like the impacts
are almost unfathomable. And you know, I talk a lot
about the labor market piece. The surveillance piece is also
I think something we should all be pretty terrified about.
And then the last thing I'll say before we get
to the clip that specifically talks about the race with
China is I think one of the things that's happening

(40:43):
with DOGE, as best I can tell, is they want
to use the federal government as kind of like a
laboratory for how many human beings can be replaced right
now by AI even before we get to AGI. So
we're getting an announcement probably today that they're working to completely,
you know, dismantled the Department of Education. We've already had
indications that they're using AI to go through all sorts

(41:07):
of data, and you know, I've seen indications like, oh,
maybe they're going to cut the Social they are cutting
the Social Security Administration. Maybe those people on those hotlines
are going to be replaced by AI. I do think
it is sort of a test lab for how many
human beings can we get rid of and replace with machines,
and the basic functions still more or less work. So

(41:29):
I think that is part of what's going on here too.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, all right, let's go to the next part here.
As you said that specific interview question on AGI and
the race, let's take a listen.

Speaker 9 (41:40):
There are a lot of arguments in America about AI.
The one thing that seems not to get argued over,
that seems almost universally agreed upon and is the dominant
in my view, controlling priority and policy, is it we
get to AGI, a term I've heard you don't like. Yeah,
before chin to us.

Speaker 10 (41:57):
Why, I do think there are are profound economic and
military and intelligence capabilities that would be downstream of getting
to AGI or transformative AI, and I do think it
is fundamental for US national security that we continue to
lead AI because we think AI could represent a fundamental

(42:20):
shift in how we conduct cyber operations on offense and defense.

Speaker 6 (42:23):
And I would not want to live.

Speaker 10 (42:23):
In a world in which China has that capability on
offense and defense in cyber and the United States is not.

Speaker 9 (42:29):
They want strength and dominance and to see the next
era be a Chinese era. So maybe there's nothing you
can do about this, but it is pretty damn antagonistic
to try to choke off the chips for the central
technology of the next era to the other biggest country.

Speaker 10 (42:49):
I don't know that it's pretty antagonistic to say we
are not going to sell you the most advanced technology
in the world. That does not in itself. That's not
a declaration of war, That is not even self a
declary of a Cold war. I think it is just
saying this technology is incredibly important.

Speaker 9 (43:03):
Do you think that's how they understood it.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Yeah, I thought it was interesting, And I don't know,
to be honest, I think that, as your question incredibly stupid,
like what people are just entitled all across the world
to whatever product the United States produces. That's absurd. If
you guys are so good that you could build it yourself,
which they did. I mean that's the other thing. It's
not one thing that we always do in America is
we underestimate the Chinese. I mean, look at BYD. Yeah,

(43:26):
they were stealing our ip and there was all this
other stealing from US, et cetera. And then they were like, yeah,
we stole it, and then we actually made it ten
times better than everything that you have in your market.
They are already doing that with their chips. Will we
sell them to it or not? It's absurd to think
that they're entitled to it. So in a way, it's
almost like weirdly paternalistic. It's like, oh no, it's all good.

(43:48):
We have to sell them this brand new technology. I
just think that's completely absurd. But you know, look the
question that Ben raises, and this is one too, that's
kind of like nuclear weapons, is there just is a
mutually disturbed destruction through city's trap element to this. Like
it's nice to pollyann and be like, oh, maybe we
can all get along. It's like, now we're not going

(44:09):
to getlong because they don't want to get along with us,
and you know, most Americans don't necessarily want to get
along with them in terms of allowing total dominance or
being subject to their economic or market control. That's something
that we all are, you know, pretty wedded to, at
least at a consumer level here in America. And if
you look at SPOTNAK or any of these other moments
is pretty much born out in the population data. So

(44:31):
I don't know, I have some mixed feelings on that one.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, I was looking at there's this Australian technology index
that looks at which countries are most advanced across a
number of different technologies, called the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's
Critical Technology Tracker, And we went from being number one
and basically everything to now China, according to this index,

(44:54):
leads in thirty seven out of forty four evaluated technologies,
including things like defense, BA botox, energy, biotech, AI, advanced
materials in quantum technology. I don't know if you saw this, Sagra.
I mean, this is a different sort of quote unquote technology.
But McDonald's is no longer the largest fast food chain
in the world. A Chinese brand that just went public

(45:15):
in Hong Kong actually has the I think it's called.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Like mixy or something like that. I think it's called
mix Y.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
I might be made, that might be wrong, But anyway,
now has more locations than McDonald's, and not a single
one is in Europe or the United States of America.
Ninety percent of them are just within China themselves. So
I think it's I mean, it's it's a chain. I
sell ice cream strings.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Is that what it is? Though?

Speaker 2 (45:44):
I mean, and this is our no had a tweet
about this, Arno Bertrand which is like, listen, this is
going to be new for those of us in the
West to have these brands that are like the largest
brands and the new big thing that we don't have
any idea. We've never heard of. They don't exist here.
We don't know what they are. And so your point about,

(46:05):
you know, being arrogant with regard to where China is
and how far along they are in their development, I
think people need to wrap their heads around the fact
that actually in many technologies they have surpassed.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
Us at this point.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, and there is no reason to think there's any
guarantee that we're going to quote unquote win the AI
arms race, because you know there, they are quite advanced,
and they are right there along with us, and the
innovations with regard to deep seek, you know, really pushed
the boundaries in terms of efficiency and you know, requires

(46:37):
much less power usage than the models that were developed here.
So yeah, that's it's a very real dynamic. But that
mcdonald'son kind of blew my mind absolutely, like a Sputnik
moment in a weird way.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Yeah, it's a good point.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
I'm not sure I will care so much about the
largest place being bubble Tea, but I'll try it.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
I'll be happy to try it. Apparently it's all over Asia.
I would love to go.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
Not usually a bubble tea guy, but they have soft
serve so that sounds pretty good. But yes, no, you're
absolutely right, and this is part of the chauvinism in
the United States. I've recently started been looking back at
the Soviet atomic bomb industry or the Soviet atomic bomb program.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Absolutely fascinating time.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Everybody can tell you the story of the Manhattan Project
or watch Choppenheimer, etcetera, but nobody really thinks about, you know,
that four year period where the Soviets went from not
having an atomic bomb to be able to compete and
actually the hydrogen development which sparked the arms race. And
I think what was so fascinating about that time period
of the early Soviet Union was a chauvinism here in
the United States of you know, even in the early

(47:39):
days of the Cold War, where they're like, we've got it,
we don't really have to do all that much, and
there's no way that these backwards Soviets could be able
to compete. And that's where Sputnik came in. Deep Seek
obviously is a version of that. But part of the
other issue is culturally right now, is we don't appreciate
the ability of alternative systems to deliver extraordinary results. We

(47:59):
had foolish notion here in the West that by cutting
Russia off from the international banking system they would collapse.
What we forgot is that countries are not stock markets.
They are places that have natural resources, and the ability
to produce guns, bullets and pull oil out of the
ground is actually all that really matters whenever you're in
a time of war.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Same with the Chinese.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
I mean they have all of these minerals and factories,
industries and supply chains that are totally vertically integrated that
have enabled these incredible breakthroughs in their car industry and
their battery technology, and now you know, with AI, I
have no doubt that in the next ten years they'll
be on parody with us on the chips as well,
and we have to grapple with that. This is something

(48:41):
that all Americans. I'm watching the Europeans do this right now.
They're having huge debates over I saw a headline in
the Financial Times like Europeans, we must slash our welfare
states to compete on defense. I was like, man, that'd
be a bitter pill to swallow if I was a
Frenchman or if I was a German. And I've been
used to a life of seventy five years of universal healthcare,

(49:03):
so I'm curious to see how that works out for them.
But that's my point too, is that you know, you
everything is a trade off, and to just sit here
and think that you know, we are just naturally will
inherit the earth is ludicrous and you will find out
very very quickly. I do I encourage. That's why I
talk about those Chinese evs all the time. I don't
think people know like and you can just go on YouTube.

(49:23):
You can go watch it for yourself. It's crazy. You
would buy one too. If we're all being honest, every
one of us would buy one if we're talking about
the price, and so think about it and just say like,
how do you get there? Well, it's it's not that easy.
And you need a government. We need a plan, you
need supply chain, you know, you need you need your
elon and you need the government to like come together

(49:45):
like this otherwise you need to left in the dustl on.

Speaker 4 (49:47):
China's got got elon too.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
Good point.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
The BYD guy, that guy is crazy.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
He is, like I said, Charlie Munger said, he was
the smartest guy that he's ever met his entire life,
which I think is extraordinary.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Well, and last thing on this part of the hubrist
is assuming that our version of capitalism is the one
that is going to create the most innovation.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
You know, we just assume that that's the case.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
And part of what has happened that, you know, is
something that Matt Stuller certainly shines a light on, is
since we allow these giant tech monopolies to grow, oftentimes
they focus more on you know, financial tricks and games
than innovation. They have few competitors because they're giant monopolies,
and so it certainly has not been the best way

(50:36):
to encourage innovation and keep us at the leading edge.
China obviously has a very different economic system, and you know,
parts of it are effectively socialist, and that has the
way that they've been able to marshal state resources in
critical industries and you know, create supply chains and actually
yes efficiencies that have enabled this technological development. And it

(51:01):
also you know, made some intentional decisions to keep their
society from going down the path of just everything being
financialization and all of their top graduates going into you know,
the equivalent of Wall Street. You know, that's also a
significant part of the story as well, and part of
the hubrist because you know, after we won the Cold
War versus the Soviets, we're like, all right, our system

(51:23):
is the best. This kind of capitalism is amazing, It's
going to win forever. And here comes another economic model
that is you know, rivaling or in a lot of ways,
out innovating and out competing us. I don't think a
lot of people here have wrapped their heads around that
or want to wrap their heads around what that means.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
Yep, you're right.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Turns out to just eating McDonald's all day, watching only
fans or Netflix or all of that doesn't produce the
best scientists.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Shocking, shopsolete, shocking. All right, let's get over to Gaza.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
Yeah, so we have some significant developments here. Only go
with the latest one first. So Trump put this message
up on I guess this was truth social to begin with.
Let's put this up on the screen. So he writes,
Shalom Hamas means hello and goodbye. You can choose release
all of the hostages now, not later, and immediately return

(52:15):
all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered,
or it is over for you. Only sick and twisted
people keep bodies, and you are sick and twisted. Unmentioned
is the fact that Israel is holding hundreds of bodies,
but we'll put that aside. I am sending Israel everything
it needs to finish the job. Not a single Hamas
member will be safe if you don't do as I say.
I have just met with your former hostages, whose lives

(52:37):
you have destroyed. This is your last warning for the leadership.
Now is the time to leave Gaza while you still
have a chance. Also to the people of Gaza. A
beautiful future awaits, but not if you hold hostages. If
you do, you are dead. Make a smart decision. Release
the hostages now or there will be hell to pay later.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
Donald J.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Trump, President of the United States of America. Now this
comes at the same time as let's with this next
piece up on the screen. The Trump administration is actually
meeting directly with Hamas. Now, uh, to me, when you
are engaged in negotiations, it is a no brainer that
you want to engage in those negotiations directly with the

(53:17):
people who you are negotiating with. But this is not
the way things are normally thought of in Washington, d C.
And of course, if the Biden administration had negotiated directly
with Humas, of course there would have been like massive
breakouts all across the right, et cetera about negotiating with terrorists.
But the Presidential Envoy for hostage Affairs, Adam Bowler, actually
you know, has been communicating directly with Hamas, and so

(53:41):
you know that.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
To me is the fact that you.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Even have talks occurring in that way is certainly an
encouraging sign. But then countervailing forces. You have that very
belligerent Trump message on true social and you have the
fact that he seems still committed to his insane mass
you know, complete ethnic cleansing plan in the Gaza Strip,
and it all amounts to it like I don't really
know where things are and what is going to happen next. Also,

(54:05):
last thing, befere I get your reaction tagers to keep
in mind, as we covered on Monday, that Israel has
completely backed away from the ceasefire deal.

Speaker 4 (54:14):
You know, Bibe had always told.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
His domestic fanatic partners that they were only going to
do Phase one and then they were going to go
back to the war. Now what they're doing is they're
reinstituting the complete siege, including considering cutting off water to
the Gaza Strip as well.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
So you know, the situation is quite dire at this point.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Yeah, it is if the signals are everywhere.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
So on the one hand, talking with the MAASA is great,
that's what you should be.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Doing from day one.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
And of course all these idiots in America, oh, we
don't negotiate with terrorists or whatever. I'm like, well, Israel's
tried to kill him for two years and they're still standing.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
So what do you want to do? You know, and
their answer is actually simple.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
They're like, oh, just kill them all and they're like, okay,
well that didn't work, or at very least I don't
want any part of that. So this is the alternative option.
How do you think you got out of Afghanistan?

Speaker 1 (55:04):
You do what? Trump?

Speaker 4 (55:04):
Did?

Speaker 3 (55:05):
You sign a deal that says we are negotiating with
the Taliban. It was an absurd this idea that the
United States is not going to negotiate with the Taliban
over a twenty year occupation of that country and an
insurgency with the same problem here. So let's just put
that on the table. I do also this is the
problem with Trump. I've been thinking about this. He already
gave that ultimatum previously and nothing happened. He said, they

(55:25):
have to release all the hostages they didn't really help,
or they will be held to bad Literally, not a
single thing happened. My guess is that this is part
of trying to pressure the negotiations and the direct US
talks right now with Hamas. But in terms of the
credibility that they will be received, that's a bit of
an issue. I would also say at the very end there,

(55:45):
he said, people of Gaza release the hostages or you're
all die. I'm like, okay, so America's going to do
it now, We're not even gonna let the Israelis do it.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
I mean, that's, you know, pretty insane.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
I think Jeremy Scahill has an official response now from
Hamas that just came out.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
Yeah, here we go, just in the last hour.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
I can read it here, in response to Trump's statement
directed to Hamas, only sick and twisted people keep bodies.
On February twenty third, the Palestinian National Campaign for the
Recovery of Martyr's Bodies announced they're going through the bodies thing.
They say, according to the bodies they're among retained, they're
talking what you said about Israeli bodies, and finally they
say the campaign noted these figures do not include bodies
held in the Gaza Strip since the onset of aggression. However,

(56:25):
Israeli sources have revealed the occupation is holding over fifteen
hundred martyr bodies at the what that taie at I
forget exactly how to say it. Where the rape occurred
in occupied Southern Palestine. So you can see that they
are hitting back on the bodies claims. But they are
not actually talking specifically about this claim over Hell to pay,

(56:45):
so there is an open question. I will also say
it's funny that this is such a subversion and of
the Israeli strategy, because Israel's previous strategy was to kill
all of the people who were reasonable ish inside of
Hamas so that there was nobody to negotiate with. And
yet even still, as we can see here correctly at
this time, there's still no bombing yet, and perhaps there

(57:06):
is some path to some sort of.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Phase two deal.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
This is how we would actually get there if it
were to ever exist. Is the United States is the
big brother, just as in Ukraine. Yes, you have to
talk to Putin sorry people, that's how it works. Same
here in Hamas. No, they don't have a nuke, but
they exist and they have at least some number of
fighters in the Gaza strip who were still able to
able to mount our resistance. They have some support there,

(57:31):
nobody really knows how much, but yeah, you have to
talk to them. So this is the duality I guess
of Trump and the two directions where he's torn. His
Israeli supporters want him to just blow them all away
and basically bomb and give. That's the other thing. I
will give Israel everything they've already been given. What are
they asking for that they're not getting? Is there any evidence?
I have not seen one. And you and I both

(57:52):
know if there's a weapon system they wanted that they
weren't getting, they would leak in.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
They would have leaked it. You know, last week. I
can't think of.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
A single thing that they're getting that they don't have,
other than a nuke, which they also have.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
So it's like, well, what do you want?

Speaker 2 (58:04):
Yeah, and they just rushed through a quote unquote emergency
you know, yeah, like billions of dollars of weapons to Israel.
So yeah, we all know Israel's getting everything they want.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
Don't worry. Not a question.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Remember there was like one shipment of two thousand pound
bombs that got held up, and you know they were
up at arms over at how dare you withhold this
one shipment that made no difference in terms of their
ability to completely decimate the Gaza strip. You know. The
other thing that was not encouraging is we could put
the next piece up on the screen is a bunch
of Arab nations came together and put together, you know,

(58:37):
pretty reasonable plan for next steps in terms of Gaza,
and Trump and Nat Yahoo immediately rejected it, like, you know,
this was a considered plan, multiple nations involved. You know,
significant planning goes into this, and then it's just sort
of rejected out of hand.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
They said this in Haretz.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
They said it's the result of a month's long diplomatic
effort to create an off ramp that would end the
war and let reconstruction began. The plan contains hundreds of
pages and appendices, yet the Trump administration seemed to have
killed it with a single paragraph. That paragraph was quote,
the current proposal does not address the reality that Gaza
is currently uninhabitable and residents cannot humanely live in a

(59:19):
territory covered in debris and an unexploded ordinance. Of course,
that's consistent with Trump's plan of like, oh, we got
to ethnically cleanse all of these people out of the
Gaza strip and by the way, they're never allowed to return.

Speaker 4 (59:31):
This was a.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
Spokesman for the National Security Council, adding that President Trump
remains committed to his plan to forcibly evacuate the entire
population of Gaza claim the territory for the US. Netanyahu
rejected at without even putting out a little paragraph saying
why so you know this is the other piece is like,
if that idea is a negotiating tactic, then okay, well,

(59:54):
the Arab Nations got together, they came up with the counterproposal,
so let's negotiate. But the fact that they immediately stuck
so hard to his just like both evil and absurd
and preposterous notion of the US is going to take
over the Gaza strip and push out every Palestinian and
not allow them to return. That is obviously deeply troubling

(01:00:18):
and listen, maybe they'll come back. The Arab Nations said, okay, well,
we don't consider that to be final answer, so we're
going to keep working on it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
We'll see where it ultimately goes.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
But my biggest signals there, My biggest signal was he
didn't mention it at all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
At the State of the Union.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
He made one thing about the he made one mention
of the hostages. There was not nothing a ceasefire about
the Gaza plan. Even though I do think he is serious,
he did not mention it there. I don't know, I
have no idea what to say. I just hope Steve
Wikoff just keeps sending him there. He's got a good
track record. Keep talking to Hamas. Let's get to some

(01:00:53):
sort of phase two. Whatever this Gaza moronic idea is.
I don't even know about that. But in the interim,
you know, it's still better, at least for now. But
if Trump does start to provide not only just weapons
to Israel, let's par for the course. If he starts
to directly intervene from the US military, I think you

(01:01:14):
would see a titanic pushback here in the United States.
I genuinely don't think a lot of people would stand
for that, about a direct military and a bombing campaign.
In fact, it would be a nightmare for Israel and
for a lot of their supporters because people would start
asking all kinds of questions whenever it's actually US military weapons,
jets and others that are directly being used inside of

(01:01:36):
the Gaza strip. So we'll see, maybe they will catch
their own tail, because that will create serious pushback I
think from the UNITEDS. Are both also in terms of
backlash against the United States, very very troubling situation. All right,
let's get over to the Tate brothers, and so I
will let me just say, at the top. I have

(01:01:58):
not had the time time to explicitly parse every statement
by Andrew Tate, every one of his human trafficking claims
or all of that. I do know that he has
definitely advocated some stuff that I definitely am against it,
of which I guess the Romanian authorities found and bear investigation.
But the funniest thing that I have seen now so

(01:02:20):
far is this civil war happening right now over Andrew
Tates basically what fleeing slash vacationing according to him, back
to the United States, and a split overall in the
conservative movement where many people We've had Ali Bethstucky on
the show, for example, to be like, I, actually, no,
Andrew Trade is not really a male model at all

(01:02:40):
for anybody who is conservative or wants to see like
family life or you know, there's some I could go
down the list in terms of so many of the
different things that the guy has said. But the split
now has opened up a fight legally here in America,
where the Attorney General of the State of Florida said
he is going to pursue an investigation of Andrew Tad
specifically around these human trafficking allegations.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 11 (01:03:04):
Yeah, look, these guys have themselves publicly admitted to participating
in what very much appears to be soliciting, trafficking, preying
upon women around the world. Many of these victims coming forward,
some of them miners. You know, people can spin or
defend however they want, but in Florida, this type of

(01:03:25):
behavior is viewed as atrocious. We're not going to accept it.
They chose to come here and set their feet down
in this state, and we're going to pursue every tool
we have within our legal authority to hold them accountable.
So we are in the process today. We have secured
and executed subpoenas and warrants, and we're going to continue
to move forward with full force of law. This is

(01:03:46):
an ongoing criminal investigation and we're going to use every
tool we have to ensure that justice has served.

Speaker 12 (01:03:51):
A criminal investigation.

Speaker 11 (01:03:53):
There is an active criminal investigation.

Speaker 6 (01:03:55):
Yes, do you believe that they're giving any details of what?

Speaker 11 (01:03:59):
I can't come on an pending investigation, But what I
can tell you is if these guys did criminal activity
here in Florida, we will go after them with the
full force of law and hold them accountable.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
So the Florida Attorney General saying there was an active
criminal investigation. Andrew Tait then responded us to put this
up there on the screen. He put out his tweet
saying Ron DeSantis is attacking me because he was worried
I would support Byron Donald's over his wife. Knowing I
have monumental political weight and trust our commander in chief,
President Trump's recommendations completely, they attacked me to prevent me

(01:04:34):
from destroying his wife's political ambitions. Interestingly, I had no
interest in Florida politics until I learned how communist the
DeSantis administration.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Is game on.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
Well, it might surprise everyone to learn that actually, even
Byron Donald's not really play involved with all this. So guys,
can we go ahead and play E three. Please, let's
take a listen.

Speaker 12 (01:04:56):
Andrew Tait and his brother Tristan, because in Romania they
just came to Florida from there were charges of rape,
sex with minor and human trafficking. Do you support the
Attorney General's actions here?

Speaker 6 (01:05:07):
I do.

Speaker 13 (01:05:08):
I think those those allegations have to be fully investigated
and then we go from there. We go from there.
The key thing is we don't tolerate the trafficking of
women or frankly, the abuse of women. We do not
tolerate that. So if the Attorney General finds calls under
Florida law to investigate that, then I wish him the
best and I support whatever he's going to do on

(01:05:28):
that matter.

Speaker 12 (01:05:28):
Are Andrew and Tristan Tate welcome in Florida?

Speaker 8 (01:05:31):
Now?

Speaker 13 (01:05:31):
Quite frankly not, because if you listen to some of
the dialogue, I find it to be demeaning and disgusting.
That's not about being that's not about being an alpha male.
It's not about being a strong man. But they stand for,
in my view, with something totally different.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Woo all right, so Byron, it's actually backing up the
Attorney General here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
So a bit of a plot twist.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
And Andrew is now saying Andrew Tate says, let's see
E four.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Can we put that on the screen please?

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
He is now claiming that his flight to the United
States is that its flight to the United States was
just a vacation. It's a strange feeling to be so
adored that when you go on a two week holiday
to Miami, the entire world talks about it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
It's wild. I'm going back to Romania in a few
days anyways, So there we go.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
Crystal before I played crazy Andrew Tates reaction, but I
wanted to get yours first.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
Back to Romania is a surprise. I guess he feels like.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Yeah, an investigation there, I wouldn't want to go back
to Romania.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
I mean maybe he feels like because I mean, it
looks very much like the Trump administration intervened directly with
the Romanian government, So maybe he feels like you've got
more protection in Romania at this point, courtesy of Trump
and Rickernell in particular, than he does clearly in the
state of Florida. I mean, I don't know if you
guys have seen the videos floating around both of things
that he has said, which you know, if true, if

(01:06:47):
acted upon, certainly would constitute criminal behavior, or some of
the alleged videos that are floating out there of actual abuse.
I mean, it truly is horrifying. So for a party
that has any semblance of caring about family values can
understand why there's some contingent that's like, you know, maybe
this guy really isn't the role model that we want

(01:07:08):
to embrace here, and it is utterly discussing that the
Trump administration intervened on behalf of this dude. Like whatever
you think of him, that they spent their diplomatic resources
getting this guy free is I think just absolutely disgraceful.

Speaker 4 (01:07:22):
With regard to the politics.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Of it, it is kind of interesting because I'm curious
how you read it, Cyber, but to me, it reads
like Ron de Santis.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
First of all, I'm sure bitter about.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
The presidential campaign and blah blah blah, and he wants
his wife to get the Senate seat and a Senate
seat right or governor which one is governor governor, Yeah,
after he goes, and so there's that piece. But also
I think he's positioning himself for a theoretical post Trump GOP,
where you know, in theory, at least this is the

(01:07:53):
last time Trump can run for president, and I think DeSantis,
perhaps foolishly, is calculating that maybe after this term there
will be a desire for someone who showed a little
bit of independence from Trump, had a little bit of
principle on something somewhere that they can point to that
was distinct from just being part of, you know, the

(01:08:14):
Trump band of sycophants. But you know, I'm not really
sure that he's right about that, But I do think
that that's kind of the.

Speaker 4 (01:08:20):
Calculus that he's that he's engaging in here.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
It could be, But then I don't know why Byron Donald's,
who is like as maga and as Trump as it gets,
would back him up because and that's actually the other thing.

Speaker 4 (01:08:30):
I think that's political calculate.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
I mean, because most people are going to look at
this dude and be like, yeah, this is imhorrent. So
if he wants to run, you know, if he's running
in the state which he is, I just read that
is feeling some political pressure to take a stance against
something that would be wildly unpopular.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
I think it's possible.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
I will tell you that whole Trump thing is not
confirmed one hundred percent. It was according to the Financial Times.
They claim Rickell Grenell denies it. So that that's the
only thing that's come back to. Don't forget. I mean,
he is an American citizen. He's a dual Romance, an
American national, has full entry rights to the United States.
It could come and go, as he pleads, not in defense.
I'm just saying he's got the US passport, okay, so

(01:09:08):
like he doesn't have to he doesn't have to apply.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Or whatever to be released.

Speaker 3 (01:09:12):
It is, of course noting that he was barred from
leaving the country for almost two years while that continues.

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
Like I said, you could spend ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Hours going back and forth, as you said about there's
things on video, things he said it claims never did them.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
There are people who have anonymously suit him.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
There are multiple people, I think in the UK where
they want and seek his extradition. I know there is
an American unidentified woman who claims to have been, you know,
a victim of the so called human trafficking network, etc.
You could even put all that criminal stuff aside and
actually just focus purely on all this like demonization of
family life, marriage, you know, so many of the views

(01:09:55):
that he has espoused in the past. Look, I think
he has the right to say them, but you know,
I don't think necessarily is a good thing or whatever
to be celebrated. And that's part of the reason why
I find it pretty annoying. It's also pretty I had
this discussion with Andrew Schaltz. It's like, as much as
this guy shits all over America and he's like pushing
his like weird quasi Sharia slash. It's like Islamic hedonism.

(01:10:19):
Whatever his brand is now currently, it's like, oh, you
can come back to big, big bad America. Whatever it
suits you now. Doesn't it as much shit if you
talked now over the years. So even pinning down this
guy's like personal views or whatever is like pretty difficult.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
I find it. I'm all, like, pretty abhorrent and gross.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
I understand why, you know, if you're a fourteen year
old dude online, yeah, I get why it might resonate
a little bit with you. But overall, politically, this from
the dysantist administration, I haven't seen much organic pushback against it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
I could be.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
Wrong, but I do think that the damn has broken
a little bit. He's on the conservative commentariat and all
of that that are backing up Desantas. And I don't
see like some grand army that's going to be going
against uh, going against Byron Donald's and or Ron DeSantis
for either accepting or pursuing this investigation against the Tape Brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
It is a fascinating saga though, in and of itself.

Speaker 4 (01:11:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Well, and he was on with Candice Owens and you know,
explaining his you know, his Irisian and very upset and whatever.
Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.

Speaker 14 (01:11:30):
Arrest me, purp, walk me, put me on the news.
Tell one I'm human, draft or you think I'm all verse,
you think I'm already I'm a baby seal in this
shit fucking Come get me right in my house, take
my stuff. You think I sleep with a phone full
of evidence. You think I don't wipe my phone every night,
You think I'm dumb, Come get me, arrest me, Let's
do this all over you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
I've better every time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I was gonna say, actually, do you think you're kind
of tomb because if you're like I don't sleep with
a phone full of evidence, I wipe it every night,
It's like, okay, well what evidence was on there that
you're trying to hide? So that's weird, really the kind
of thing that people who are innocent of these said
allegations typically do.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
But there you go, so innocent to proven guilty.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Yeah, I mean I tell to me was oh, I'm
going back to Romania because I'm like, okay, well, then
here a lot more. And by the way, you should
be more afraid in Romania. Look, I'm only assuming no offense.
Romania but it seems like a place we could probably
buy your way out of some trouble. You're here in
the United States of America. You're gonna need a few
billion dollars to buy yourself out of trouble, not a

(01:12:33):
few hundred million or whatever from your multi level marketing schemes.
So anyway, it's fascinating, fascinating story. We'll continue to keep
everybody updated. Already sure that this will go extremely viral.
Just in terms of in terms of this all this
coverage of this fascination over the Tate brothers, I do

(01:12:53):
recommend everybody go watch our Ali Betstucky interview about Andrew
Chain that maybe from a year or two ago.

Speaker 1 (01:12:58):
I thought she did an excellent on that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Yeah, she really was kind of a leader on it
because at that point, I think it was much harder
for someone who's conservative to come out and say the
things and be critical of him in the way that
she was, So she was, you know, principled on that.

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
And then the last thing I'll say.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
In terms of just like investigations in charge is just
keep in mind that if it was state charges that
were filed against him, like Trump can't pardon him for those,
So you know, I think that would be another part
of the calculus of flag.

Speaker 4 (01:13:25):
Yo, I was just here on vacation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
I'm just like I'm leaving now, headed back to Romania.
See you guys later. Was never really planning on staying.
But yeah, some interesting pseudo divides in the MAGA coalition
that remind me also of some of the discussion which
we also talked to Ali Bestechi about about Elon and
Ashley Saint Clair and the you know, the whole baby

(01:13:48):
Mama drama situation there with him too.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
Yep, absolutely so, Crystal, what are you taking a look at?

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Well, we've just received some new troubling a news. According
to ADP, private employers added just seventy seven thousand jobs
last month. That is far fewer than the one hundred
and forty eight thousand that they expected. Now this adds
one more sign that the economy is teetering on the
brink of a crash.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
But the Trump.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Administration they've got a solution. They're implementing a plan to
cook the books and make it look like things are
going better than they actually are. So it all started,
as most things do, in Trump two point zero, with Elon,
who offered some significant cope on Twitter and response to
a new projection from the Atlanta Fed that GDP was
set to fall off a cliff, so Elon tweeted this,

(01:14:38):
a more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending. Otherwise,
you can scale GDP artificially high by spending money on
things that don't make people's lives better. For example, you
could shift everyone who is building cars to working at
the DMV. That would result in no cars and a
much worse standard of living, but GDP would appear to
be the same. So, as is often the case, his

(01:15:00):
this post was hit with a community note, as users responded, Hey,
we actually already have that metric that you're looking for.
It's called value added by private industries. What's more, that
metric has continued to rise as a percent of overall GDP,
even under supposed big government Democrats like Obama and Biden.
But since Elon is our unelected CEO dictatorator King, his

(01:15:22):
random Twitter musings are now rapidly becoming government policy. Days later,
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik took to Fox News to announce
he was looking at changing how GDP is calculated in
line with exactly what Elon just said, take a listen.

Speaker 15 (01:15:36):
How worried should we be about an economy that is slowing?
In all of this, we saw the GDP last week.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
There are new worries.

Speaker 15 (01:15:44):
That the Wall Street Journal wrote about worries mounting that
the Trump agenda testing economies resilience.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
The Lindsay Group out.

Speaker 15 (01:15:50):
With a report can doge induce a recession?

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
Are any of these moves worrying.

Speaker 15 (01:15:56):
You that we're actually going to see it cut into
growth over the near term?

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
Negative?

Speaker 7 (01:16:02):
No, no, no. So let's you know, the Commerce Department
runs the statistics of GDP. You know the governments historically
have messed with GDP. They count government spending as part
of GDP. So I'm going to separate those two and
make it transparent that lower government spending. It's one thing.
It goes like this, If the government buys a tank,

(01:16:23):
that's GDP, but paying a thousand people to think about
buying a tank is not GDP. That is wasted inefficiency,
wasted money, and cutting that while it shows in GDP.
We're going to get rid of that. We're going to
show you how that is.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
So let me just to code that for you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Since Republicans led by Elon are in the middle of
destroying the government, mass buying workers, and attacking medicaid. They
don't really want the numbers to accurately reflect the way
that their austerity for you, socialism for the rich agenda
is actually really bad for the entire economy, so instead
they're just going to hide it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:00):
But that's not all.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
The Trump administration just announced they're completely disbanding two different
committees that both assist in producing accurate economic statistics. According
to The Wall Street Journal, one of the committees was
particularly important for tracking inflation, employment, economic growth. Seems pretty
important to know about those things. So GDP is being
quote messed with, and committees that helped to keep statistics

(01:17:23):
accurate are being eliminated. They're asking you to not believe
your lying bank accounts. Now, Lutnik and Elon's alliance is
actually an important one to watch. Is kind of interesting.
This isn't the first time they've been hand in glove
with their ideological agenda, which mainly centers around austerity for
you and billions for them and for their rich buddies.
You might recall Elon backed Lutnik for Treasury Secretary, which

(01:17:46):
is generally considered a more powerful position than Commerce secretary.
He tweeted at the time that Lutnik would quote actually
enact change over the quote business as usual, Scott Bessant now.
Lutnik also famously introduced Elon at that infamous Madison Square
Garden rally, asking him how much he would rip out.

Speaker 4 (01:18:04):
Of Biden's wasted budget. Let's take a listen for the
greatest capitalist in the history of the United States of America,
Elon must.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
I've only got one question.

Speaker 7 (01:18:24):
For you that I'm getting out of here because this
is your stage.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
But we set up doge.

Speaker 14 (01:18:29):
Yes, how much do you think we can rip out
of this wasted six point five trillion dollars Harris Biden budget?

Speaker 6 (01:18:38):
Well, I think we.

Speaker 16 (01:18:39):
Could do at least two trillion, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
Yes, two trillions.

Speaker 16 (01:18:45):
I mean, at the end of the day, you're being taxed.
You're being taxed old gouvern spending, taxation. So whether it's
it's direct taxation or old gum spending, it either becomes
inflation or it's it's direct taxation. Your money being wasted,
and the Department of Government DIVISIONCY is going to fix that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
So I suspect Elon sees Lutnik as a pretty useful
ally in advancing Elon's agenda, and that's of course to
gut and defenestrate the government so it can't check the
power of his own companies, and also of course, to
loot the treasury so he can become a trillionaire and
make it to Mars, two goals he must have realized
were really pretty impossible without hijacking the whole of the
US federal government. This new scheme to cook the books

(01:19:27):
on GDP also aligns with Elon's and arco capitalist ideology,
which views all government activity as quote non productive, except
of course for that government activity which blows into the
bockets of Elon himself personally and helps to finance and
further his own ambitions. Changing GDP to ignore government inputs
both backs up his tech feudalist ideology of mass privatization

(01:19:49):
and also is going to help cover up the damage
that DOGE is causing in real time. Now, Listen, GDP
is far from a perfect metric. It certainly shouldn't be
used to judge general well being if that's the only
thing you're looking at. In fact, assuming GDP growth is
the end all be all, was one of the core
failures of the neoliberal era. Who cares after all, GDP

(01:20:09):
grows if all the gains are ultimately flowing to the top.
But as with most everything in the Trump administration, the
proposal here would take something that is already bad and make.

Speaker 4 (01:20:18):
It much worse.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
Do we really believe that government spending and investment is
meaningless and contributes nothing to the economy. We're talking about infrastructure, research,
electricity generation, public schools, all meant to be ignored as
drivers of real productive economic activity.

Speaker 4 (01:20:34):
It's insanity, it's stupidity.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
It also creates absurd situations like a private four higher
fire department being counted towards GDP and the traditional government
backed variety not or private school teachers counting but not
public school teachers. This new selective metric would do more
to confuse and hide than to illuminate.

Speaker 4 (01:20:53):
But of course that is exactly the point here.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
Now the economy is turning sour fast, not that it
was really amazing before. Again the theme of taking something
bad and making it even worse. But consumer spending has
dropped by the largest amount in years, Consumer confidence of
falling off a cliff. The housing market is truly paralyzed,
the stock market, it's all over the place. Job creation
is plummeting, and contrary to what Elon and Lunnik wants

(01:21:16):
you to think, gutting government, firing workers, slashing social safety
net programs, that is going to be really bad for
the economy overall and specifically for regular people and their
experience of the economy. In fact, the oligarch agenda that
has been rapidly implemented is deeply destructive to the non
GDP metrics that actually really do matter for people's lives.

(01:21:36):
The Wall Street Journal recently reported a record breaking amount
of our economic activity now is just from rich people
spending money, since increasingly they're the only ones who actually
have money to spend. The top ten percent of all
earners make up now half of all spending. Just three
decades ago, back when I was a teenager, they only
made up a third of all spending. That represents an

(01:21:58):
extraordinary concentration of wealth and power among the few, a
realignment of resources, a collapse of prosperity for ordinary people
at a record breaking pace.

Speaker 4 (01:22:08):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
The response this new gilded age by the trumpet admin
is a cartoonishly pro oligarch agenda. They'll hype prices through
Tariff's massively or progressive impact. There, gut the agencies that
curb the scams that benefit the rich, destroy the threadbare
programs that working class and poor Americans rely upon, and
implement a four trillion dollar tax cut that goes straight

(01:22:29):
to the rich, all while opening new foreign opportunities for
American billionaire plunder. So how successful do I think these
efforts to cover up economic reality will ultimately be? How
will their cooking of the books go? Since people have
their own personal experience of the economy, I kind of
doubt that it's going to be all that successful. You

(01:22:49):
can ask Soviet Russia how these sorts of projects typically go,
or you could ask the Democrats who wanted to deny
the reality that for ordinary people, the Biden economy was
far from great. The fakery will be unable to fully
mask economic reality. But I will say Elin and Trump
they are both masters at concocting alternative realities, with far

(01:23:09):
greater talent at it than people like Biden and Schumer.
They have hardcore cult followings who've proven willing to suspend
reality in order to believe the pronouncements of their dear leaders.
These manipulate economic statistics will be one weapon of gas
lighting to feed their fabricated fantasy lands and further their
postmodernist project where facts and truth are discarded in favor

(01:23:31):
of vibes and narratives. How successful this elaborate gaslighting is
going to be, well, that depends on how undeniable the
fact of economic pain becomes. All right, guys, we've got
Zoron Mondami for us. Next, let's take a listen. So
you've really got a pretty interesting race shaping up for
New York City mayor. You've got the scandal plaggued Eric Adams,

(01:23:52):
who still is refusing to resign at this point. Andrew
Cuomo has just entered the race, also sort of scandal plagged,
but kind of a political juggernaut as well, and leading
a pack of the more progressive candidates right now is
a really interesting upstart Democratic socialist candidate. He's an assembly
member named Zora Mandami. Let's take a look at a

(01:24:12):
little bit of his campaign.

Speaker 4 (01:24:14):
Ada.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
New York Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by.

Speaker 6 (01:24:22):
A federal Every politician says New.

Speaker 4 (01:24:26):
York is the greatest city own a global but what good.

Speaker 6 (01:24:28):
Is that if no one can afford to live here?
City Hall is engulfed in corruption. The cost of living
is the real crisis. New Yorkers are being crushed by
rent and childcare, the slowest buses in the nation, robbing
us of our time and our sanity. Working people are
being pushed out of the city they built. A mayor

(01:24:49):
could change this, and that's why I'm running. I'll make
busses fast and free.

Speaker 4 (01:24:57):
So i can just get where I'm going.

Speaker 6 (01:25:00):
I'll make childcare available to all New Yorkers at no costs.

Speaker 4 (01:25:03):
I want to raise my kid in New York.

Speaker 6 (01:25:05):
And I'll freeze the rent for every single rent stabilized tenant.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
These Eric Adams rent ike are killing us.

Speaker 6 (01:25:13):
Life in this city doesn't need to be this hard.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
And Zorn Mandami joins us now. Welcome, great have you.

Speaker 6 (01:25:20):
Thank you so much for having me in such a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
Yeah, of course, So it's been really exciting to see
you know, your polling numbers have taken off. Of course,
Quomas jumped in the race, and like you said, he's
kind of a political juggernaut. But just talk to us
a little bit about who you are, your platform and
why you think that it is resonating at this point
with New Yorkers.

Speaker 6 (01:25:39):
Absolutely I was born in Kompala, Uganda and East Africa,
and I grew up here in New York City. I
moved here when I was seven years old, and I
am now in my third term as a State assembly member.
And in my time in office, I have fought alongside
taxi drivers to secure more than four hundred and fifty
million dollars in debt relief for the working class drivers

(01:26:00):
who were sold alive by the city. I have defeated
the eighth largest carbon emitter in the country when they
sought to build a frat gas power plant in Astoria,
and one more than one hundred million dollars in an
increased subway and bus service, as well as a reduction
in the fair hike, alongside a historic fair free bus
pilot in New York City. And all of those things
are driven by a politics whose north star is the

(01:26:21):
fight for working people. And that is ultimately what this
campaign from AYR is about, making this city more affordable
for the working class who built the city but are
being priced.

Speaker 4 (01:26:30):
Out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
I want to play a little bit of Quomo's announcement
video here, which was quite lengthy, I must say, but
I just want to get your reaction to it and
the way he's positioning himself. Let's go ahead and take
a listen to a little bit of what he had
to say.

Speaker 17 (01:26:45):
You feel it when you walk down the street and
try not to make eye contact with a mentally a
homeless person, or when the anxiety rises up in your
chest as you're walking down into the subway. You see
it in the empty store, the graffiti, the grime, the
migrant influx, the random violence. The city just feels threatening,

(01:27:08):
out of control and then crisis.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
So what did you think of his video and the
way that he is sort of situating himself in this race.

Speaker 6 (01:27:18):
Well, I'd be interested to know when the last time
was that Governor Cuomo actually walked down the stairs and
took the subway, because I can't recall that off on
the top of my head. When it comes to him,
given the fact that he hasn't lived in New York
City for more than two decades, you know, he is
trying to portray this as a city in chaos that
requires someone like him to deliver a steady hand through

(01:27:39):
that time. And the irony of it all is that
he is the chaos. Many of the issues that he
has identified are ones that are direct results of policies
that he pursued as the governor of the state, whether
it was shuddering hospital capacity across the city, whether it
was cutting funding for New York City, whether it was
stealing money from the NTA. There is so much of

(01:28:01):
what we are living through right now that is a
direct result of his time and Albany as a disgraced governor.
And I understand why Andrew Cuomo is running away from
his record because if that was my record, I would
try to do the same as well.

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
What do you think will be different for you in
this campaign versus other progressives who ran against Eric Adams
last time, Because I mean, I hear this Andrew Cuomo message,
it sounds very similar. They're stylistically somewhat different, but very
similar to the way Eric Adams positioned himself on the
tough on crime. The chaos is going to be over.
We're going to, you know, deal with this issue of

(01:28:35):
your personal safety, et cetera, and kind of a law
and order approach. So he's very much trying to put
himself into that lane at this point.

Speaker 4 (01:28:43):
And look, last time around, it was successful.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
So how do you sort of respond to that and
reassure people that you know you're going to be serious
about the issues that they're concerned about that led them
to vote for Eric Adams in the first place.

Speaker 6 (01:28:58):
You know, to your point, Andrew Cuomo is running for
Eric Adams the second term. It's the same agenda, the
same donors, the same chaos, the same corruption. And I
think a lot of New Yorkers can see through that.
But to your point about twenty twenty one, one of
the things that I recall is Eric Adams running on
a promise to New Yorkers that they need not choose
between safety and justice. And I think it's easy for

(01:29:21):
us to characterize him as a candidate then, as if
he was a full representation of him as a mayor now,
when in fact he did run with messages beyond that
of the mayor he has become. And that's why so
many New Yorkers feel betrayed, is that they did vote
for him in the hopes that it was the son
of the working class, deliver the outer Burroughs into city Hall.
And yet he has been a mayor for the millionaires

(01:29:44):
and billioniers of the city and described himself as real estate.
And with the campaign, we are running is a campaign
laser focused on the cost of living crisis. It is
a campaign that says, while we must tackle the crisis
of corruption in City Hall, that most New Yorkers cannot
even afford to worry about that crisis because of the
cost of living. Because if they can't afford their rent,

(01:30:05):
or their childcare, or their groceries or their Metro card,
they can't afford to worry about anything that's happening in
local politics. And that also means being serious about safety.
And I'm excited that in the next month we're going
to be putting forward a proposal that will be unveiling
a new department within city government called the Department of
Community Safety that will tackle these issues that Andrew Cuomo

(01:30:27):
is pretending to address and actually deliver substantive solutions. Because ultimately,
what we're seeing, whether it's from Cuomo or Atoms or
a whole host of establishment politicians, are the same ideas
to the same crisis that is pervaded for years and
is only going to deliver us the same results. And
what New Yorkers deserve our outcomes, and what we're excited
to present is data driven proposals that are built off

(01:30:51):
of the successes we've seen in cities across the country
that New Yorkers finally deserve to call their own.

Speaker 2 (01:30:56):
You know, zooming out a little bit from your race,
and to the comments you just made, you know, the
knock on people like you and me who have very
similar politics is that, oh, it only appeals to this
like sort of small sliver. Sure, an aoc Can win
in New York City, but it doesn't have a broader appeal.

Speaker 4 (01:31:13):
It's these you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
Know, affluent, young, mostly white people in Brooklyn that are
sympathetic to your style of politics. How do you get
beyond that caricature? How do you build a truly working
class base, you know, multi racial working class coalition, And

(01:31:34):
what also are the lessons for the broader Democratic Party
about how to achieve that? As you know, those constituencies
have been fleeing or just staying home or moving over
to the right and voting for Republicans.

Speaker 6 (01:31:47):
You know, I think there's often a temptation in the
Democratic Party to treat non white constituencies purely through the
prism of race, as opposed to also addressing the immense
way and when class shapes every person's life in this country,
And what we've found is an incredible amount of success
in speaking to Black New Yorkers and Brown New Yorkers

(01:32:10):
and every kind of New Yorker with that same focus
on an economic agenda, because when we look at the
impacts of this crisis of a cost of living, these
impacts are racialized, and what I mean by that is
they disproportionately push black and brown New Yorkers out of
New York City. From twenty ten to twenty nineteen, we
lost nearly twenty percent of the city's population of black

(01:32:32):
children teenagers nearly twenty percent because of how expensive the
city had become and that their families had to leave.
That is something that needs to be tackled head on
at the source of it, which is the fact that
rent is too expensive, childcare is too expensive, even our
metro cards are becoming too expensive. And I think that
the way that we actually build a message that resonates

(01:32:53):
beyond one strip of the waterfront is by ensuring we're
taking this message to all five boroughs. And I was
very really heartened to see in the last fundraising period
we had the most donations for more than one hundred
different zip codes across New York City that we raised
more money than any other campaign, did so from more
New Yorkers than every other campaign combined, and ultimately an

(01:33:16):
inspiration for this politics is also thinking about Bernie's runs
for president, where even when he came to New York City,
he managed to win more than forty percent of the
vote on Staten Island, which is often considered a place
where Democrats are that simply a name only, when in
fact Staten Islanders are just like any other borough where
people are feeling left behind by the economic policies of

(01:33:38):
this mayor and of this party. And it is an
urgent moment for us to respond by putting forward an
alternative path that actually speaks directly to work keep people.

Speaker 2 (01:33:48):
What has your reception been from the sort of mainstream
Democratic Party I've you know, I've seen some people a
Queen Jeffrey is unwilling to say, like, hey, Eric Adams,
maybe you should resign Kirston I brand being sympathetic to
Andrew Cuomo, even though you know she's was at the
forefront of the me too movement previously. But what if
some of the you know, what has the overall reception been.

(01:34:12):
Have people from the mainstream Democratic Party reached out to you,
because I think it's undeniable the way you've been communicating,
and certainly your grasp of social media and how to
make viral content and how to understand the attention economy,
like these are things that the Democratic Party really should
be like trying to learn from. Do you get any
sense of that or are they just, you know, afraid

(01:34:34):
because you represent a different brand of politics that's not
going to be beholden to be the corporate and the
billionaire class.

Speaker 6 (01:34:42):
I think there's definitely a little bit of that fear.
I think also there's been quite a bit of surprise.
You know, when we launched this campaign, there were many
who treated it as an interesting idea at best, and
it was discussed as if it was something that would
come and go in the span of maybe a few
weeks at best, maybe a few months. And now being
the best place progressive challenger to the failed mayoralty of

(01:35:04):
Eric Adams and the disgraced governor of Andrew Cuomo, that
is something that many did not expect. Now, we always
believed that there was a pathway for this kind of politics,
because ultimately, I think there's been a misreading of our
political context in New York City, where people have thought
that Trump winning more votes than a Republican nominee for

(01:35:24):
a president in many years in this city, a right
word shift across New York State, the most of any
state in the country, is all indicative of a shift
towards the right wing, when in fact, almost five times
as many people who voted for Trump over Democrats as
they had in twenty twenty instead stayed home. And what
I think that speaks to is the need for a

(01:35:46):
politics that is for something that is fighting for working
people that requires no translation. That when I say the platform,
you know what it means in your life, and that's
freezing the rent, making buses fast and free delivering universal
child wildcare, building two hundred thousand affordable homes. These are
things that people understand because it's the very things that
they're missing in their life. And I think that's what's

(01:36:08):
created this pathway for us, and we'll continue to do
so over the next three and a half months.

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
Last question for you, what is it going to take
to be able to defeat Andrew Cuomo and how can
people support you if they're so inclined.

Speaker 6 (01:36:22):
I would say there's two things. The first is money,
Andrew Cuomo's allies are already setting up a superpack with
the goal to raise fifteen million dollars. We're lucky in
New York City that we have a public matching fund
system where the city matches a New Yorker's contribution eight
to one. We've already raised four million dollars. We can
raise another four million through this program. And so I

(01:36:43):
would ask anyone who's interested in supporting us and then
defeating disgrace New York executives, whether past or present, to
visit Zahran for NYC dot com. And the other thing
I would say is that we are going to knock
on a million doors across the city. So if you
would like to canvass go to that same website and
you will find many in our opportunity to knock on
your neighbor's doors and tell them that there is a
city we can win, and it's one that their neighbors

(01:37:05):
can actually afford.

Speaker 2 (01:37:06):
Well, I know from my New Yorker friends that you
have really captured people's imagination and generated tremendous energies. So
congratulations on that to begin with, and good luck to
you as well. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 6 (01:37:18):
Thank you so much with such a pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
Yeah, it's our pleasure, all right, guys, thank you so
much for joining us.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
You know, Crystal was at home. But everything will be
all normal next week. At least for now, I'm going.

Speaker 4 (01:37:28):
To say whatever whatever that means.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
Wait, Something's going to happen. You know, Emily's actually going
to be in for me three days.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
We have a joke, well, and we do.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
We are planning on doing some kind of mini show
tomorrow as well, so keep your eyes out for that
and we will see you guys back here next week.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
See you guys later,

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