4/25/25: Trump Caught Lying About Xi Meeting, Trump Pleads With Putin, Bannon Eviscerates Trump!

Krystal, Emily and Ryan discuss Trump fantasizing about a meeting with Xi, Trump pleads with Putin on Ukraine negotiations, Steve Bannon wrecks Elon and much more.

Timestamps:

(00:00)Intro

(6:09)Stock Markets

(19:38)Trump's Russia Comments

(28:41)Tariffs

(38:01)Steve Bannon/ActBlue

(57:37)EoS

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 3 (00:30):
Hey guys, welcome to the Friday Show. Ryanan, Emily, great
to see you. Guys.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Nice to see you.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
So now that we have officially codified the Friday Show,
I guess it's no longer a mini show, and we
also are recording some bonus content that is for premium
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Speaker 3 (00:51):
We're going to roll through.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
We've got stuff on tariffs, Trump can ask questions about Russia, Ukraine.
We got huge moves in the courts in terms of deportations,
a bunch of interesting stuff going on the Democratic side,
and also some Steve Bannon like Elon Musk drama which
is always interesting to take a look at. And some
updates with regard to Israel. So a lot to get
through this morning, guys and.

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Ryan, everything good on your end, Yeah, everything's everything's going
really well, and you know, thanks everybody for all the
kind wishes, the you know, for people just tuning in.
Me and my wife got surgery on Tuesday to get
the to and removed, and they went in there and
they could basically couldn't even find it. These this antibody

(01:34):
called her septin, developed in the ninety nineties and two thousands,
is just an absolute miracle drug for her two positive cancer.
It was also in the lymph nose, and they were
worried and they were going to have to pull a
whole bunch of lymph nos. But they went in and
the first two that they took out, which were not systematic,
were tested negative, and they're like, all right, let's let's

(01:57):
wrap this up. Let's sew this thing up and move on.
So we'll find out next week if she's cancer free. Obviously,
none of this is ever over. You know, then there's
radiation and then there's antibodies continue, and then you got
to continue testing because you never know when it's going
to come back. But this is what one of the
doctors called like a best case scenario. So things things

(02:19):
are going well, so so good, covering for about another
week or two and then yeah, then start the radiation.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
That is awesome, That is so incredibly good to hear Ryan.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this stuff can go lots of different ways.
And oh yeah, you know, as as everybody watching.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Those, is this the drug you were talking to Saga
about a while back that it was like two researchers
at a conference had like shared ideas and that's how
you end it.

Speaker 5 (02:44):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's called her sept And the story
is remarkable. It was this guy who was at a
conference and heard a lecture by somebody not in the
oncology field, and he was like, you know what, I
think that has implications for cancer treatment. And the UCLA
doctor he now runs their cancer clinic, their cancer situation

(03:04):
whenever they have at UCLA and genin Tech was the
one that had come up with the initial advances and
research but didn't want to do anything with it because
cancer drugs at the time were considered to be financial losers.
They kept going through FDA trials and finding that they
weren't actually more effective than anything else because cancer is
so awful, and so they'd failed FDI trial and gen

(03:27):
and Tech was like, no, if we go in through
another FDA trial and fail, it like it's it's going
to be brutal for our stock price.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
So they're like, I don't care. We don't really care
about this.

Speaker 5 (03:37):
And so he went out and got you know, NIH
funding and and other grants and did the work kind
of on his own and then proved that it actually worked,
and it turns out to be one of the most effective.
It's the reason that breast cancer has gone from a
death sentence to so many people to now something that
you can say that this was a rough experience and

(03:58):
now I'm moving on with my life. Yeah, thank you
to the NIH, and thanks a lot RFK Junior Fort
and burning your way through that.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, Elon has to say in that as well. But
you know, I wanted you to share that again because
sometimes these things can feel very abstract, but you know,
cuts to medical research it's going to have a huge
impact because all of the new drug molecules that have
been developed over the past couple of decades, it's been
with public funding because of exactly the reason you talk
about what the drug company is, what they spend most

(04:26):
of their like research and development on, is like how
do I game the patent system? How do I do
a new formulation of viagra or ozebic or whatever is
their hot selling drugs, so that I can You're looking good.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
You're hanging in there, Ryan, You're hanging.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
In there, hanging in for now.

Speaker 5 (04:45):
And the other thing that the dose folks are so
upset about is what they call overhead and these NIH grants, right,
and a conference or you know, a conference is the
definition of overhead. But differences are where into intellectual capacity
is exchanged.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
The guy was sort of research is not alwaysquote unquote efficient, Right.
It requires sort of like you know, creative, haphazard process
that isn't going to necessarily be linear.

Speaker 6 (05:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
I've seen people say I only want to fund the
effective research. It's like, how do you know ahead of time? Like, yeah,
obviously scientists don't want to like spend years doing research
into something that turns out to be a whole hypothesis.
But another another example of overhead would be this guy
who he was apparently or is still to this day,

(05:37):
a hoarder of biopsy samples, like at UCLA had this
like absolutely massive freezer of biopsy samples from like years
and years and years, and that's overhead, Like that's expensive
to maintain, and there was it wasn't obvious that it
was going to necessarily yield a whole lot. But when
this new breakthrough came came around, he was then able

(05:59):
to test this against all of his old biopsies that
he had and get his graduate students working on it.
And that's how he was able to initially prove, without
a huge influx of money, that there was actually a
lot to this. So all of that would have been
they'd be like, you know, you'd have a you'd have
a twenty two.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
Year old with a doge like little.

Speaker 5 (06:18):
Lanyard saying why do you need to freeze all these biopsies?
Like this is this is done? Pull the plug on
this stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Well, we are all really really happy for you and
your family and very relieved alongside you, so and thank
you for keeping everybody updated because I know, people were
definitely concerned and thinking.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
About you guys.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Yeah, very relieving.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
All right, let's check in with the Marcus this morning,
and what the hell is going on?

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Latest in terrors. Apparently futures are down. It's nine thirteen,
so Marcus haven't opened yet. But I saw an article
on the CNBC website that Amazon sellers are starting to
hike their prices. And you know, that is kind of
where we are in the whole trade war situation. Is
we know, even if Trump wacks away from everything now,
there's still going to be pain and disruption that is coming.

(07:06):
What we don't know is the size and the scope
of that, And I don't think anyone really knows, but
we have a lot of indications that should be very
worrying to people. At the same time, you know, Trump
had backed off this Maximus China position, saying one hundred
and forty five percent tariffs. No one thinks that that
is going to last. He also indicated that there were
ongoing talks with China, to which China is saying, I

(07:29):
don't know what you're talking about. There are no ongoing talks.
So Trump got asked about this yesterday. Let's go ahead
and take a listen to what he had to say.

Speaker 7 (07:37):
Yeah, please questions.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
They're saying they.

Speaker 8 (07:45):
Had a meeting this morning, so I can't tell you.

Speaker 9 (07:47):
It doesn't matter who they is.

Speaker 8 (07:51):
Later, but they had meetings this morning, and we've been
meeting with China, and so I think we have Jeff
as usual.

Speaker 7 (07:59):
I think you have your reporting.

Speaker 9 (08:00):
Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
So there you go your thoughts. It doesn't matter they
are It's fine.

Speaker 10 (08:06):
Yeah, this is their big I mean, listen, like, if
you are making deals, there's a way in which this
scenario is so much better for the Trump administration. If
you're like actually inking deals, countries are coming to you,
you have something on the table with China, and there's
a light at the end of the tunnel for people

(08:28):
who are looking for certainty in the American market, then
there's a world of which again like this, there's a
scenario in which this can the sort of bleeding can
be staunched.

Speaker 7 (08:38):
And that's why where I don't know.

Speaker 10 (08:41):
What you guys think, but for me, it seems like
there's increasing desperation to project that and maybe to use
it as a strategy to bring other people into deals
by publicly being like, yes, we're doing X, Y and Z,
and then there's not a ton of evidence of that.
The Japan does aster that Soccer and I covered earlier
in the week. I think probably rattled them a lot,

(09:04):
because this is not I don't I mean, I don't
want to say that they thought it was easy, because
I don't think anybody thought that this was easy. But
it's proving to be a lot harder than My guess
is that then they anticipated. And part of that is
probably because you guys have made this point the.

Speaker 7 (09:20):
Way allies were roped in.

Speaker 10 (09:23):
I think maybe that just people have lost trust, and
so it makes the deal making, the art of the
deal becomes a lot more difficult.

Speaker 5 (09:31):
Well, it's it's really embarrassing for Trump here, and it's
almost rude now on the part of the press corps,
because this is like a situation where you've got some
guy who keeps telling everybody that he has that he
has a girlfriend in Canada. Everybody knows he has no
girlfriend in Canada, and the press is now being these
like jerks who like, actually investigate.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Is shan in Montreal?

Speaker 4 (09:54):
What's the name of your girlfriend?

Speaker 5 (09:57):
Scapschat Like look, it's like just just leave it alone,
Like he doesn't have a girlfriend.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
There's no negotiations going on with China.

Speaker 5 (10:05):
Like it's super embarrassing, Like, just leave this, Leave the
guy alone. The whole thing has been a total humiliation.
Just let him come to terms with it on his own.
But yes, your point is exactly right. He had he
had one play. His play was, I'm going to do
this thing, and China is going to cave to me.
You know what they're going to capitulate to. I'm not

(10:27):
sure because I don't even know what I'm necessarily asking for,
but they're going to cave and our allies are going
to stand with us. Instead, the allies shockingly got upset
that they were also attacked by Trump. They did not
stand with us, and China did not cave, and so
he has no Plan B.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
Plan B is tanked the economy.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well, and here's the thing is, like, even putting the
terriffs aside, this administration had gone out of its way
to be, you know, to piss off the Europeans, sending
jd Vance over there to like a to them about
their free speech, which you know they'll look, there are
some valid points there, but hey, buddy, have you seen
what your own administration is doing here at home.

Speaker 5 (11:07):
We let people say whatever they want inside the van
on the way to the detention center that they're being right,
that's right against Israel. But inside that van they're free
to say whatever they want.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Let it fly, Let it fly. Yeah, and listen.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
It's okay if you know you mostly okay if you
criticize our own government. Just god forbid you say anything
negative about Israel. But yeah, so you know, they they
went on like a world tour making it clear that
you can't rely on us and basically like we don't
like you, and piss off and then launch this trade
war against the entire world and are surprised when countries

(11:45):
are like, you know, if you're making me pick between
you guys in China. Number one, we get a lot
more stuff from China at this point than we give
from you.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
And number two, you.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Made a crystal clear that you are not a good
and reliable partner and that you have nothing but utter
contempt and disdain for us. So perhaps there's another direction
that we should go in here. And then also this
is astonishing reporting from Jeff Stein, who just is you know,
incredible on all of these things. Apparently, you know, one
of the first moves that China made in retaliation was

(12:15):
to say, Okay, well, we've been spending all these years
locking up these rare earth supplies and you're not going
to get access to them anymore. You know, We've all like,
I don't really understand what these things are, but apparently
they're really important and you know, go into evs and
important for defense and all of these different things. And

(12:36):
this has been discussed for years and years, and yet
the Trump administration are only now holding these high level
meetings to try to figure out what to do about
the fact that China made the most obvious chess move
on the board out of the gates, which was to
block our access to this. Jeff Here says Beijing does
not feel like it is going to back down, and

(12:57):
that the US is in no position to dictate terms.
A bit big part of that is where Earth where
they feel they have the capacity to do significant harm
to American manufacturers. And they talk to people in this piece,
companies that rely on these and they're saying, you know,
they're already really drawing down their stock files and are
going to be in a very difficult situation if this
isn't resolved quickly. Meetings have involved White House, National Security Council,

(13:19):
National Economic Council, Council of Economic Advisor's, Commerce Department, Energy Department,
Office of the Trade rep among several other agencies. Financing,
capital financing, permitting, and other ideas kicked around, but timeline
for scaling up domestic capacity uncertain.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
So apparently when you do that first.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
You would think that you would have your in your
four deals.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
Yeah, you might have.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Considered the most obvious thing that China could possibly do
to like hit you the hardest down of the gates.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
Trump Trump brought his queen out on this like the
second move, Like that's that's what This.

Speaker 10 (13:53):
Is not a kind way to refer to Peter Navarro.

Speaker 5 (13:56):
Yes, actually yes, Peter navav is Trump queen. Trump brought
him out on his second move, and the queen is
now just dancing around the board. Anybody who plays chess
nos like one of the first things that a rookie
player does.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
The queen is such a cool player.

Speaker 10 (14:13):
It's an online chess obsessive by the way.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
You bring it out right away.

Speaker 5 (14:17):
But if you bring your queen out and there's and
you haven't done any prep for it, your Queen is
just going to get chased around the board while they
set up their positioning. Eventually it's going to get trapped
and killed, and then you're gonna get mauled. And that's
where he's in. The He's in the queen is trapped
position right now and next is us getting mauled.

Speaker 7 (14:36):
The Libs won't let us mind the rarest.

Speaker 5 (14:40):
Just you just tip your thing over and you give up.
Like so they just need somebody put needs to put
the finger on the top of Trump's orange head and
just tip it's over.

Speaker 10 (14:49):
But he, I mean, he does have an uphill battle
to get the rarest mineral mining domestically done because that
has been and Ryan, you and I have talked about
that they're like all kinds of environmental obstacles to sing
that political and environmental obstacles to achieving them.

Speaker 5 (15:03):
Yeah, and also manpower and industrial and yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
I mean, but we also don't have a stockpile of
everything that we would need, Like, we don't have everything
that we would need here. And you know my understanding
is and this is also part of you know what USAI.
Do you remember when Chris Murphy like accidentally told the
truth about what usaidea is about it's like, well, we
do a little bit of healthcare and then we get
access to like these minerals that we need, you know.

(15:29):
So we've been going in the opposite direction of securing
the lithium or whatever it is that is critical and
that we don't have sufficient quantities of. And apparently this
didn't really occur to the Trump administration until now. There's
one other piece of this that I wanted to touch on,
which I just think is extraordinary. So Charles Gasparta with
Fox News reports this. He says, scoop people inside the

(15:50):
Trump White House are alerting Wall Street executives that they
are nearing an agreement in principle on trade with India.
According to my sources who are senior Wall Street, which
ties to the White House, no details on timing, and
recall that we have been here before with Japan, only
to have the goal post change in terms renegotiated. But
if this holds, the India deal being in vision will
include agreed upon.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Goals and issues blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
So and they think it could be potentially a template
for a deal with Japan, South Korean on Australia. So,
you know, The sub story here is that the administration,
as Emily was saying, seems kind of desperate to say, hey, there,
you know, I promise there are going to be deals
and we're really close with India, and that's that's going
to set off this you know, firestorm of deal making,

(16:34):
et cetera. But the headline here, which guess Brino seems
to not really notice, is wait a second, you're giving
Wall Street executives knowledge on things that are going to
be incredibly market moving at a time when we've seen
extraordinary volatility. And I mean, it's just like it's just
classic from this administration. It's it reminds once again of

(16:54):
Charles Schwab being in the White House and Trump bragging
about him making two point five billion dollars in a
single day based on Trump's moves to you know, roll
back some of the initial quote unquote reciprocal tariffs. So
now here you have this you know, administration aligned reporter.
It's like bragging about the fact that they're giving out
inside information to Wall Street executives so they can front

(17:15):
run Trump's announcements.

Speaker 7 (17:17):
Here.

Speaker 10 (17:17):
Well, and if this is real, I'd like to hear
more publicly about what that is not through leaks to reporters.
I would like to see, you know, if that's true.
It's obviously significant, which is why they're using it to ease.

Speaker 7 (17:31):
Concerns on Wall Street.

Speaker 10 (17:34):
But if it's true, they should be very public about
the details because I just I mean, that could go
in a lot of different directions and just vaguely gesturing
at it behind closed doors to Wall Street executives, I mean,
maybe it's not even insider trading. Maybe it's actually them
just trying to ease the markets without having anything to
back it up.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
Actually, it could be, and that's an interesting point.

Speaker 5 (17:58):
And I actually think in gas Reno's defense that he
did recognize what he was reporting and he phrased it
that way so that everybody else would see what was
going on, but that he'd maintained.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right, he's going back and forth with Wisenthal and a
bunch of other people on Twitter about how this is
not there's nothing to see here and it's no problem
and it's not insider trading.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
Well, the separate reason it might not be undercider trading
is insider trading is when you get credible information that
you can act on what if this White House indible
not credible all, Like, okay, you talked to them. Like
when I dropped to L's an officer first appointment on Tuesday,
I saw Peter Navarro. I talked to him briefly. He's

(18:39):
not credible. I don't like, I don't care what he says,
like you can't you can't trade on that. And also
Trump is such an idiot that it gives other countries
huge advantages in these negotiations. Like if he had somebody
like Lightheiser in here telling him, here's what we need
from India from a strategic perspective from the United States,
then they could make an interesting deal with India that

(19:02):
might be useful to us.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
He doesn't.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
He's got Navarro and he's got his own adult mind,
and so he's like, they don't we don't have enough
Fords on the roads in India. And so India knows
that he's such a moron that all he wants is
like to reduce the tariffs on American cars going into
India without understanding that you can do that, and we're
still not going to sell, you know, more than a
trivial number of American cars inside India for lots of

(19:25):
different reasons, and so they'll like be like, yeah, sure,
we'll lower our tariffs on your American cars. Uaw is happy,
he gets because he's a moron and it's the only
thing he understands. He's like, great, we won this. And
and in the end, you're barely going to sell any
extra cars into India. So can you trade on that? Like,

(19:48):
I guess you can try.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
I mean sort of, since so much of the market
is just like vibes vies, you know, Like I do
think if they announced even something that was sort of
pathetic with India, there would be a big market spike
and they'd get all excited about the deals are coming,
et cetera, et cetera, a.

Speaker 5 (20:03):
Short Indian car company and then you know, buy it
back in like twenty minutes and yeah, take some money.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Exactly, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
All right, let's go ahead and move on to some
of the comments Trump made about Russia yesterday. I'm sure
you guys saw his Vladimir Stop truth social that you
put out, which is just incredible.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
It really was giving for me.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Remember when Hillary said that she went to Wall Street
and told them to cut it out.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
That's what it was.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
That's what that tweet was giving for me.

Speaker 5 (20:35):
Do not come, Vladimir, do not come right.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
That's right, Kamala, that was her right.

Speaker 10 (20:41):
No, it's giving Jersey shore Ron stop because Ryan gets it.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Ryan gets I'm.

Speaker 7 (20:49):
Sorry, Crystal serious.

Speaker 4 (20:52):
Oh you lost me?

Speaker 3 (20:54):
All right?

Speaker 2 (20:55):
So he gets asked about, you know, how he feels
about because Russia genuinely opened up, you know, a series
of new brutal strikes, including on Kiev, and so he
got asked about, Hey, I thought you were working with
these Russians. What's going on here with your buddy, with
your body, vlad Let's take a listener what he had
to say social post.

Speaker 11 (21:12):
Use the words Vladimir stop. That seemed like a slightly
different message of personal message. What is your level of
frustration with President?

Speaker 8 (21:21):
I didn't I wasn't happy with it, and we're in
the midst of talken peace and missiles were fired and
I was not happy with it. That's what I meant,
and that's you know, I assume that.

Speaker 11 (21:36):
Sorry that if the bombs keep falling, will you consider
additional sanctions toward Russia? Or what will you do if
President Putin does.

Speaker 8 (21:45):
Not question in a week, I want to see if
we can have a deal. No reason to answer it that,
but I won't be happy.

Speaker 10 (21:51):
Let me put it that way.

Speaker 11 (21:52):
Things things will happen.

Speaker 10 (21:55):
You're not putting more pressure on Russia.

Speaker 11 (21:57):
I know a lot of.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
Europeans would like to see that.

Speaker 8 (22:00):
You know what pressure I'm putting on Russia?

Speaker 9 (22:01):
They're dealing.

Speaker 8 (22:02):
You have no idea what pressure I'm putting around. You're
putting a lot of.

Speaker 9 (22:05):
Pressure, I'm sure are you putting on the Russia in Russia?

Speaker 8 (22:10):
And Russia knows and some people that are close to
would know, or he wouldn't be talking right now. The
Prime Minister understands that better than anybody. He wouldn't be
talking right now. He's talking, and we're putting a lot
of pressure. I think he wants to make a deal.
We're going to find out very soon. But it takes
two to tango, and you have to have Ukraine want
to make a deal too, and they're being hit very hard,

(22:32):
and I do believe they want to make a deal.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
So and this turns out to be the longest twenty
four hours in history, since he said he was going
to get this deal in twenty four hours from the
time that he's inaugurated and By the way, I just
got a news alert on my phone that a senior
Russian officer was killed in a car explosion near Moscow.
So almost certainly you know Ukrainian ops going on, and
this is a pattern we've seen from them before, sort
of potential retaliation for what for these strikes within Ukraine.

Speaker 7 (22:58):
And let's just pull those social post up. This was
from Thursday.

Speaker 10 (23:02):
I'm not happy with Russian strikes and Kiev not necessary
and very bad timing. Vladimir stop five thousand shoulders a
week or dying, let the peace deal get done.

Speaker 7 (23:11):
So that's what he was being asked about.

Speaker 10 (23:13):
And I mean he Another interesting thing about Trump is
what we just saw him being like, you have no
idea what's happening behind the scenes, which of course is
why the press is there to kind of sus some
of that out. But it's just his This is why
he thought he could end it in twenty four hours,
because maybe he'll land the plane, Like maybe he'll be

(23:35):
able to land the plane in a couple of days.
And I think the outlines of the peace plan look
like pretty legitimate that we've seen and look like they
can be worked with. But all along everyone has said
Putin will gesture at this and not ultimately be serious
about any of it.

Speaker 7 (23:50):
And does Trump end up I don't.

Speaker 10 (23:53):
Want to use the phrase taking that bait, but does
does he end up just with egg on his face
and Putin just walking away? It seems like that's what's
inching closer and closer to the reality.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
I mean, Ryan, when jd Vance and then Trump like
exploded on Zelensky in the Oval office, that was basically
what he was trying to say. It's like, you can't
you know, it's very hard to negotiate with these people.
And I mean in a sense, I'm somewhat sympathetic because
I just don't think there are any easier answers at
this point.

Speaker 7 (24:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
The time to deal really ideally was at the beginning
of this war, with the peace negotiations that Biden intentionally
blew up because they thought they could play regime change.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
You know games.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
And now here we are in a situation where Zolensky
does not want to give up anything, including CRIMEA, and
the Russians are like, why should we deal?

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Like we're in a strong position. We can just lock
in here for the long term.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
Yeah, And the Trump administration is trying to give them
as much as they can think of. It seems like
he's you know, they're offering recognition of Crimea as Russian territory,
and they're offering you know, significant amounts of Ukrainian territory
as recognized you know, Russian territory. And the thing that
Trump says, he's uh that he's that that Putin is

(25:05):
conceding in exchange is not taking over the entire country, which,
unfortunately for the Ukrainians at this point, does appear to
be an actual concession because you know, the Russians, you know,
have the industrial capacity and the manpower capacity to to
continue this war. Now, if they did try to take
over all of Ukraine, they would face a decades long

(25:28):
kind of insurgency funded by the United States. Victoria Neulan
said that like out loud.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
I think it was on.

Speaker 5 (25:34):
NPR, or maybe she said it in congressional testimony. She said,
you know, if when it when it looked like Russia
was going to like roll in to keieve and take it,
she was saying, well, you know, look out, because we're
going to fund a guerrilla campaign against you and and
just bleed you for for decades to come.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
And in some ways US would almost prefer that from
a strategic perspective, because then they get to you know,
fund their guerrilla campaign and cause lots of problems for Russia. So,
you know, so Putin has to look at that as
a cost of doing business there, Like does he just
want to take them take a massive win here sees

(26:13):
enormous amounts of Ukrainian It seems like he wants to
you know, push you know deeper into the Black Sea
and fully turn Ukraine into a you know, complete rump country.
That that then he can he can go back to
the original Russian plan for Ukraine, which was to have
of the Ukrainian friendly you know, proxy government now in

(26:35):
place in Kiev. It would be a nominally sovereign country,
but effectively kind of under the sway of Russia.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, I think the the you know, this is in
some ways the least important part. But I think the
politics here are difficult for Trump too. Like everybody likes
the idea of him coming to the table and trying
to get some sort of a peace deal and end
this conflict, but the public is very negative on the
idea of Russia being able to annex Ukrainian territory. And

(27:03):
you know, I think we obviously saw with the end
of the Afghanistan war, the way that winding these conflicts down,
when you have to actually deal with the reality of
where things are, you know, it can be very ugly. So,
you know, I when you're looking at we've been covering
this week some of the you know, the polls in
the fall and approval rating and where Trump is on
various issues. His foreign policy is now one of his

(27:26):
lowest rated issue areas when you ask, you know, how
do you think he's doing? And I do think that
this is part of it because you know, and this
part I'm not sympathetic too. He said We're going to
have a deal in twenty four hours. He made it
seem like this would be easy. Psy, I've got a plan,
don't worry, We're going to get it done. And that
was just not honest, Like, it just wasn't either He's
a complete fool, I mean fully and a liar. But yeah,

(27:47):
so I think it could be all of the above.

Speaker 10 (27:50):
And you know, honestly, again, like I didn't think that
was completely insane because well, first of all, what they
did with the ceasefire, the first ceasefire all apart was
start working with the Biden administration and pressuring the Biden administration,
and they were able to just sort of make something work. Now,

(28:10):
U can I think is you know, obviously, because it's
it's they're looking to something very very long term, like
a demilitarized zone, like conversations about those types of things
is going to be a very very heavy lift. But
at least having like a significant breakthrough in the first
twenty four hours didn't seem completely insane.

Speaker 7 (28:27):
But I'd prove me wrong.

Speaker 10 (28:30):
It really proved me wrong because it just hasn't the
the attempts so far to operate, like to do an
art of the deal on Putin. Uh, it's that's not
Trump one point zero anymore. It's it's not quite the same.
So we'll see if you can land the plane. I mean,

(28:51):
it's possible, And this is actually I mean, it would
be a good thing. It would be a good thing
if he could land the plane. Yeah, land the plane
on the road. But that's not like I'm genuinely cheering
for them to land this plane. Because this absolutely looks
like something that could have been negotiated by the Biden
administration a year plus ago and at the time, every

(29:13):
single Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
That's update on our first segment.

Speaker 5 (29:17):
By the way, on China, producer Griffin sent this to
our chat. Trump told Time Magazine that she called him
and the Chinese embassy is denying it.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
Like, so, not only is he claiming that there are non.

Speaker 5 (29:29):
Existent talks that are happening between they, he said his
Canadian girlfriend like visited him over the weekend, and the
Canadian girlfriend is like, no, we're not.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
We're not We're not together. No, I've never seen I
don't even know what.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
This person is, not even not even unofficial.

Speaker 7 (29:46):
He's just talking to.

Speaker 10 (29:47):
Like a Chinese businessman or something.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, somebody called him and was like, hey, Howard Stern
pranked him.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
Like He's like, I have three trillion dollars in trade
locked up in an account. If you send a billion
dollars to this account, I can unlock it.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
And show your Social Security number.

Speaker 5 (30:07):
And for some reason it has to be it has
to be in crypto, has to be in Trump coin.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
This is one of the interesting Like he does seem
like so desperate for this conversation, keeps asking for it,
keeps doing I mean, they.

Speaker 7 (30:19):
Have to the inauguration, that's right, Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 5 (30:23):
And also, if he wanted to meet with she, all
he had to do was send out a polite request,
like She's entire thing is China is not going to
be bullied and humiliated. And that's been his thing since
he became premiere. Right, That's all he wants is to
be treated with respect, and it's the only thing Trump
won't do, so weird.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah, yeah, no understanding of the psychology.

Speaker 4 (30:49):
There, ask him anything to be nice.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
And the other thing that's funny, just as a side note, is,
you know, the Canadians have their elections next week, and
the way that Trump has like rallied liberals around Canadian
patriotism and opposition to him is truly extraordinary. And you
know he's sort of having that effect of like unifying
the world against us and bolstering some of the like

(31:16):
sort of liberal internationalist forces that he's ideologically most opposed to.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
This is like James Uchanon level like incompetence, Like it's
it's incredible. None of this had to ask that every
other tongue, but every other crisis that a president has
faced has had some external element to it, right, that
was out of their control. Right, And then they screwed
it up or they responded well to it. He created

(31:45):
this and then responded terribly to it. Yeah, it's utterly incredible.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
I mean, if you're going to take if you're going
to try to do some global economic reordering, right, like
you know, we're going to get rid of the Breton
Woods system and we're going to figure out this, you know,
like the thing that Janis Verifac has laid out that
he thought the dambit was here, Like we're gonna maintain
the dollars reserve currency, and we're going to get the
Treasury bond yields down, and we're gonna use these stable

(32:14):
coins to force people to stay on the dollar. But
we're going to reduce the trade and balances so that
we can reindustrialize. Like, if you're going to do this giant,
extremely risky, massive gambit, like there needs to be some
thought in preparation put into into this. And I mean,
I don't even know if I buy that that was
the level of you know, maybe some people had some

(32:35):
ideas about that. Maybe you know, to me, for Trump,
he just likes terrists because it gives him power and
control and you know, puts him in the position of
being this ultimate deal maker, and I think he likes that.
I don't know that he was doing all the like, oh,
the dollar will do this, and the reserve, you know,
the bonds will do that, and here's how we'll rectify
the trade ballot, and here's why we're getting right. Like,

(32:57):
I'm not sure that he was operating on that level.
I think he just instinctively likes terraces because he likes
the feeling of being in that position. But if you're
going to go for it like this, you have to
have thought through. Okay, here's how the world's going to respond,
here's how China's responded, here's how we're going to support
our small businesses. Here's how we're going to lock down
our rare earth mineral supplies. And none of that happened. Yeah,

(33:19):
And that was never more clear than when we learned
that the way that the terrorists got rolled back was
because Peter Navarro was tricked into going to some meeting
on the other side of the White House and Bessett
and Lutnick are able to sweep in and force Trump
to type out the tweet in real time while they're
sitting right there.

Speaker 5 (33:37):
And I think Trump one was able successfully to jawbone
Mohammed bin Salmon twice into making moves on oil prices
that he wanted, which changed changed the global economy in
directions that were favorable in each case to Trump. And
he was also able to jawbone Powell into lowering interest

(33:58):
rates twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, and Janet Yellen is
as well in the early days. And so I think
that like he took that experience away. It's like, oh,
I could like tweet at these people and use American
power and they will do these things for me, and
then he extended it to the entire world.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
I also think they live in the sense of unreality
and because genuinely, like you know and Trump one point zero,
they did some tariffs, like there was some protectionist policy.
There was a lot of economists freak out about prices
are going to go up and it's going to escalate,
and it's going to be tit for tat, and that
you know, there were not no impacts. There were impacts,

(34:38):
but it was not this sort of more catastrophic scenario
that some had sketched out. And so I don't know,
I just I also feel like there's an element of
their brains are so cooked by being online all the
time where nothing ever feels like it's real. Everything exists
in this state of like suspended or mirror reality that

(35:00):
they can't really comprehend that what you're doing is going
to have these like real, massive, reverberating, terrible impacts with
no real compensating upside on the other side of it.

Speaker 7 (35:11):
I think it's their brains are like that.

Speaker 10 (35:14):
It's this on the LIBS reflex and the idea, it's
it's in a way, but the idea was just basically
to give a middle finger to the global financial system
and say, because the chips are in the US hand,
that it'll be the shock to the global financial system
automatically will reward the United States in the long term

(35:35):
because just giving the giving everyone else the middle finger
and exploding the foundation of the global financial system, that
will just people will have to come to United States.
And you can see the kind of like logic behind
that argument. But what happens in the immediate aftermath of
you have to like if you if you buy that,

(35:55):
and that's your philosophy, you have to manage really carefully,
even by your own even by your own argument and
your own strategy, which is told, just blow things up,
you have to then augment it with all kinds of
different policies. The chips are not just going to fall
in a way that's automatically better for the United States
when you also have China on the other side offering

(36:16):
all of these other alternatives. So I think a lot
of it was just screw everyone. They will come crawling
back to us. And that's where the details got completely
I don't want to say like overlooked or lost. I
think the details were like intentionally not ironed out by

(36:36):
the President's inner circle and the President himself because it
was like that'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
It was just like a gut instinctive, which I mean
even Trump said like I'm just doing this by my gut,
Like that's insane. We're going to talk more about the
some of the stuff going on with the Democrats in
the premium portion of the show, but I did want
to ask you guys. Did you guys see Hennania's tweet
where he was like, AOC is going to be the
Democratic nominee and these people are going to make me
like have to vote for her.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
And I've something to us. I don't know that you
read everything. I said them, Oh, I do.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
But but I was thinking about that, and also I
was thinking about I think it was Wisenthal who tweeted out,
you know, Trump just recently came out and said that
they're not going to do a tax on millionaires because it'd.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Be too disruptive, too disruptive.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Imagine this guy saying something is too disruptive and that
millionaires would leave the country or whatever. And he said,
if you pulled millionaires, the choice between like I'm going
to have to pay a little more in taxes and
this whatever this is, they would overwhelmingly be like, I'll
just pay a little bit more in taxes, It's fine.
And so it did make me think of you know, now,

(37:45):
I'm like going back in history, and the way that
FDR was able to forge this New Deal coalition is
that there was a threat of something that was much
worse for capital on the other side.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
At the time.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
It was communism, right. It was like, listen, you're going
to pay more in taxes, you're gonna have to fund
the government, you're going to set up social safety debt,
we're going to have labor regulations. That's happening, or those
people over there can just totally take your shit, like
which one do you want? And I almost feel like
this Trump maw kind of approach is setting up a
similar dynamic where this has been so destructive and so

(38:18):
terrible for corporate America unless you're one of the Wall
Street executives that gets the like insider trading info that
when you compare on the other hand, like oh, or
we could just like pay a little more in taxes
than people get healthcare, like that doesn't seem so bad
and so crazy in comparison to what's being done right now.

Speaker 10 (38:38):
Well, this is the argument that Bannon kind of made
yesterday about how it was like do you see Luigi Mangioni?
Do you do you see that people genuinely really like him?
And he's like looking out in this crowd of elites
saying the reason people like him is because they don't
have healthcare, Like people are not doing well, and so

(39:00):
you have to like, if your alternative is paying a
little bit of higher taxes, you know, that's probably better
than continuing to let the world burn. And that's a
different version of the argument that you made, Crystal, But
it's Bannon. I think maybe he's even drawing on that
exact example, saying, you know, the pitch to the elites
right now is that this, this populism is your better

(39:24):
alternative to what comes after if the populism isn't sort
of dealt with through policy. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:34):
I saw I saw Mike Cernovich saying that too. Oh
really yeah, yeah, that And he was saying, look, we're
trying to take our country back. And if if you oligarchs,
I don't know if you use the word oligarchs, but
if you oligarchs screw this up and and don't allow
us to successfully you know, implement our populist revolution here

(39:54):
and you get AOC instead, do not come to us
asking for help. We're stepping aside that do not come.
So's he said, We're gonna step aside.

Speaker 4 (40:03):
We tried.

Speaker 5 (40:04):
We're not fighting for you, We're fighting for us. And
if you, if you screw this up, we're just gonna
let let AOC run her communist you know, tyrannical empire
or whatever whatever you deserve. Because he he was like,
his argument was like, Magga, is the compromise right the
same way that you know FDR, you know, was the

(40:26):
and the New Deal with a compromise stopping either a
communist revolution or a fascist revolution like that.

Speaker 4 (40:31):
That's kind of the argument being made.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Let me go ahead and jump forward then too. I
have some of the banning comments about both him saying
like we need to tax millionaires more and also really
taking the moment where Elon seems to be able down
and out to to really go after him as well.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
Let's go ahead and take a listen to this.

Speaker 9 (40:54):
So the day of reckonings here, folks. The simple math
is unless you raise the taxes at the upper bracket,
the math doesn't work. The math ain't that great with
doing that. But that's kind of a starter.

Speaker 6 (41:07):
And so anybody wants to show the come back with
the math, and you know what they're gonna say is
like what Elon said, it was gonna be a five
percent growth rate. What Elon said a lot of stuff,
and none of it's turned out to be accurate. Like
where's my two training cuts, where's my one training cuts?

Speaker 9 (41:23):
Where's my one fifty billion cuts?

Speaker 6 (41:24):
You just show me any cut that's not programmatic because
the programmatic.

Speaker 9 (41:28):
Were being done by other people. Show me waste, fraud
and abuse.

Speaker 6 (41:33):
You've been over the Pentagon for two months, bro, that's
a Viper's nest of wait for it, hang on, wait wait, waste,
fraud and abuse.

Speaker 9 (41:42):
Yeah, nothing, and you're gonna have to cut the defense budget.

Speaker 6 (41:47):
All these fantasies people got fan people running read they
got fantasies.

Speaker 9 (41:50):
They're fantasizing. Now the global bomb market gets a vote here.

Speaker 6 (41:55):
Don't forget the equity market, right, that's just long a
the cost of equity capital for the the companies.

Speaker 9 (42:01):
It's important, it's very important, but it ain't the main thing.

Speaker 6 (42:05):
The main thing is the bond market because the world's
got three hundred trillion dollars of debt at every level.

Speaker 9 (42:11):
And guess what, we're having a margin call there.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
You got a lot packed in there, Ryan, You got
the taxes on the Rits, you got the like Elon failed,
he didn't even touch the Pentagon. What's going on here? Bro,
show me even a single cut that you made. And
then the reference to basically, you know, bond market being
the real deep state.

Speaker 5 (42:32):
Yeah no, no, lives detected there. I've told this anecdote before,
but you know James Carville, when he was Clinton's top
advisor that you know, they ran on this big agenda
that they were going to launch after winning in nineteen
ninety two, and the economists, their economists came to them
and said, if you do this, the bond markets are
going to freak out. Interest rates are going to spike,

(42:55):
and here's what will happen to the economy, to mortgage rates,
to unemployment. And James Carville later said, you know, when
when he dies and gets reincarnated, he wants to come
back as the bond market because it's the most powerful
thing in the world.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (43:08):
He understood that at the time, and unfortunately it is true,
and now Trump is finding out. It's it's kind of
shocking that Trump didn't know that because one of the
only things he does understand is interest rates is debt. Yeah,
interest rates and debt. Because his entire real estate stick
was basically a cash flow play using an arbitrage between

(43:29):
the money coming in and the and his and his
refise and is different and and the way that he
was playing with you know, different interest rate movie.

Speaker 10 (43:37):
He's basically said that by the way he's he's come
out and basically he's not like ashamed of that. Mostly
this is like very trumpy and most people would see
that as like a very shameful predicate for wealth.

Speaker 5 (43:48):
But yeah, no, he get but he so he he
completely understands the role of debt and interest rates in
the there's and their centrality to our economy. So for
him to make this fundamental mistake is just comically inept.
But yeah, so Bannon's right about everything there.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Emily, how are magotypes feeling about Elon these days? Because
I thought it was interesting, you know, Bannon initially was
taking some shots at him H one B. By the way,
New York Times had a fascinating analysis of how Laura
Lumer and all of those like aligned accounts who were
going after Elon over H one b they got crushed
in Elon's Twitter algorithm, which interesting side note here. But

(44:32):
Bannon kind of laid off for a little while when
Elon seemed to be writing a little bit higher in
the President's esteem, and now that he's relegated to like
meekly being at a cabinet meeting, like well, actually, maybe
the cuts are more like one hundred and fifty billion.
And by the way, I'm on my way on a here,
and Tesla's stock is.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
Greater as like, let me see one hundred fifty billion.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
It's like I gotta go yeah, right, exactly.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Now, Bannon is coming back at Elon in those comments,
and also he said something at a conference where he
was like, you know, Elon's looking out for his own interest,
not the nations.

Speaker 7 (45:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (45:04):
So this is what I mean we predicted on this
show is that there wouldn't ever be like a big
kinetic blow up between Trump and Elon Musk. But what
would happen would be the sort of quiet quitting, the
conscious uncoupling of the relationship, that it would gradually wind
down in a way that saves face for both parties.
And I think Elon is throwing in the towel. Clearly

(45:24):
he's throwing in the towel a little bit early.

Speaker 7 (45:27):
You know.

Speaker 10 (45:27):
Again, there are limitations on the special government employee status
that he has, but.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
And we know they're all very you know, get sure
not to exceed the proper time period of the special
government employee status.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
That would be important to them.

Speaker 10 (45:43):
He's also supposed to be delivering regular like getting exceptions
for conflicts of interest according to the statute.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
So right, yeah, sure, what's that going?

Speaker 7 (45:52):
Yeah, So, but.

Speaker 10 (45:54):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Like, I don't think that
they particularly could have come up with a different role.
Maybe he could have been an advisor to the campaign,
or they could have actually created Doge as like an
outside group, which it was originally intended to be to
avoid any of these problems, and Elon could just indefinitely be,
you know, an advisor to this outside group. And if
he had a lot of momentum, I think that obviously

(46:15):
would have been the case if he had this like
big political capital behind him that was growing. But that
is not where he is right now. And because he's said,
especially on that Tesla investor's call Crystal that we covered Wednesday,
that was a Tuesday call, nobody is even like, at
least that I can see. Nobody's even really fighting bitterly

(46:36):
about Elon anymore because he's fading into irrelevance. And that
doesn't mean he's not going to be powerful. It just
means he's not going to be running the show. So
it's like, why are people, why would you at this
point waste your own political capital getting over getting in
a fight over someone who is giving a bunch of money.
The Republican Party is still going to be a powerful

(46:57):
backer of Trump, but is not going to be at
the center of the action and the administration in Washington,
d C.

Speaker 7 (47:03):
It's almost not worth it for people.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
But but his stench is going to linger, and as
crises pop up over the next three years, people and
we are unable to respond to them effectively, which always
happens uh with with government. Uh, people are going to
be able to point back to what he did to
the government. Already You've got you know, bird flu ripping

(47:25):
through everything, and you have the FDA saying that it
can't actually you know, keep up with the different you
know you cole I inspections and then and they can't
really inspect milk like they would like to.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
You can't do the same kind of quality control.

Speaker 5 (47:38):
You got the measles outbreak, you got like uh, you know,
Arkansas is being told it can't have emergency.

Speaker 4 (47:44):
Declaration Kentucky to.

Speaker 5 (47:46):
Kentucky like and all of these things are then going
to go back to the stench of elon. And so
right now, bird flu is like, you know, somewhat contained,
and people aren't like it's it's not having the it's
not contained. It's contained as a story. But that might
not always be the case. And when if that is

(48:07):
not the case, people are gonna be like, oh yeah,
that guy came in and destroyed everything out of spite
to own lives and arrows.

Speaker 4 (48:15):
Yeah right.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Government spend.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
I mean, you know, I never thought this was about
government spending, as you guys know, but government spending is
higher than it has ever been. They're doing a trillion
dollar budget, Pentagon budget. They're giving massive taxes for the rich,
and even Steve bann Is out here like, show me
any of you, like, show me a single cut that
you made, just one, so you know the in terms

(48:37):
of the numbers, it's gotten to a point where you
either just have to blatantly close your eyes or it
is clearly obvious that they either failed or in my opinion,
that was never the real goal to start with. But
to Ryan's point, that doesn't mean that their actions didn't
have extraordinary impact and won't have extraordinary consequences, some of
which I think will be really unpredictable going forward.

Speaker 7 (49:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
It could be something that's on our radar, like bird
flu or like you know, airline safety or something like that.
It could be something that we're not even aware of
or thinking about that got slashed in the melee that
turns out to be really critical and really important and
you know, the other thing I was thinking about politically
is like, first of all, I think that Supreme Court
race genuinely was a turning point for Elon's power. That

(49:24):
really seems to have been the moment when it was like, Okay,
well this guy doesn't have.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
The juice, so goodbye.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
And number two, you know, the two big stories now
that are dominating the news are deportations and tariffs and Elon,
I mean, Elon's actively opposed to the tariffs and told
his has said that before and ideologically been very clear
and also reiterated that on his Tesla investor call. He
has apparently been trying to lobby Trump behind the scenes
to back away from this, and there's no indication that

(49:50):
his entreaties had any impact on Trump whatsoever. So he's
irrelevant effectively to the terror story. Is also irrelevant effectively
to the deportation story. So you know, in a cultural
in a culture within the Trump administration that values who's
able to trigger the libs and who's able to grab
attention and hold on to it, his currency in that

(50:11):
regard is also really diminished at this point.

Speaker 7 (50:14):
Yeah, I think that's a good point.

Speaker 10 (50:15):
I wonder actually if his lobbying on terraces behind closed
doors maybe diminished him in Trump's esteem, because Trump is
an ideological protectionist, and he does have this like bitter
hostility towards people who are you know, what he sees
as like not America first. And that's where Elin got
really offended by Peter Navarro saying that, because he's like,

(50:36):
and his supporters are like, look, we're doing so much
more in the United States than a lot of other
auto manufacturers.

Speaker 7 (50:42):
Like what are you talking about.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
That they're actually the most American car in terms of
the parts and the assembly taking place to the largest
extent in America.

Speaker 10 (50:52):
Yeah, Peter Novara is an auto assembler, not a manufacturer.
But I think that's a I think Trump will probab
we agree with that seriously, and I think he's he's
much more in the Navarro camp. So I wonder if
that also he found He was apparently really upset when
he that leak happened about Elon potentially getting briefed at
the Pentagon on China.

Speaker 7 (51:13):
The leak suggested that Trump was actually furious.

Speaker 10 (51:15):
About that, probably whatever, probably because he sees it as
something that's really damaging to him. He knows that his
grassroots is more aligned with the Bandon wing, and it
sounds like he was furious about that. So it's possible
that Elon started greeting on him from those sorts of
things too.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Well, it's not a people person either. He doesn't know
how to you know, Trump requires a lot of massaging
and like tiptoeing and jiu jitsu to try to make
your point, and Elon is not. Really that's not really
his particular skill set. Quite the opposite, Ryan, I wanted
to get you in particular way, and just quickly on
this piece, this Trump targeting apt lou in this presidential

(51:55):
memorandum basically directing the Justice Department to investigate them. Your
Republicans have this. They've really just completely lied about what
ACTBLU even is. Act BLU is just this payment platform
so that democratic candidates are causes can raise grassroots dollars.
They're framing this as being some you know that ACTBLU

(52:16):
is some way that George Soros can nefariously funnel foreign
contributions into democratic causes. And then of course that's before
we even talk about the fact that, you know, one
administration ago, it would have been absolutely blockbuster news for
the President to direct the DOJ to investigate the you know,

(52:37):
anything to do with his political rivals. So just wondered
your reaction to that executive order, which has been rumored
for a while.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
And I've argued with a bunch of people on the
right about this. But you know Act Blue who think
that ACTBLU is this giant scam that allows billionaires and
people from overseas, you know, to funnel you know, hard dollar,
small contribution to Democratic candidates and organizations. And that misunderstanding

(53:06):
about what Act Blue is flows from the same mistake
that Democrats and on the left sometimes make about Republicans,
just not believing that their opponents are real people. Like
they saw Kamala Harris raise hundreds of millions of dollars
in the first day and then like a billion within
the first month or whatever, and they're like, that's impossible,
Like nobody likes Kamala Harris. This must be like George

(53:28):
Soros money that's being secretly funded to her, funneled to her.
It's like no, Actually, you know a lot of people
do like Kamala Harris, like a decent number of like countries,
middle class people do like her. And also they really
hate you, yes, like they hate you so much.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Think about that.

Speaker 5 (53:46):
They don't like her at all, but they despise you
with enough of a passion that they will send fifty
dollars in there. What and so when Red does the
basically exact same thing as Act Blue on the Republican side.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, it was modeled on Blue technology.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
It totally and Trump is not acting asking the dj
to go after when read what he's saying is that
and what the EO points to are instances of fraud
that Act Blue itself identified and publicized and then kicked
off of their platform. Act Blue will allow you to

(54:21):
like keep your information saved, just like say Stripe or
something like that. So it's easier than when you get
another email or to see a tweet or a Facebook
post to then donate to this person because you're mad.
And what the Trump administration wants to do is put
more obstacles in the way of people and basically make them,
you know, re enter all of their card info and

(54:42):
all of their you know, their occupation data and everything
each time they make a contribution. Because the data analysts
know that, you know, every hurdle that you put in
front of somebody is going to make it less likely
that they convert all the way. And we understand that
over here at breaking points, you know, you go to
break point dot com, and that the more complicated that

(55:03):
it is made for people to subscribe, the fewer number
of people are going to subscribe by the time they
get through the maze and their entire you know, business
models built around making it easy, because there's nothing more
frustrating in this world than when you're trying to like
donate your money to something or give your you know,
subscribe to something and you keep running up against error

(55:23):
messages or like oh you didn't fill in this thing,
and then so you're like, you know what, I'm out
of here.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
I don't have time for this.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
The one that drives me crazy is when I'm trying
to pay a bill and it's like that, I'm like.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
You're money, really trying my best here, you know, take take.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
My money, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you?

Speaker 4 (55:40):
Now? ActBlue.

Speaker 5 (55:41):
What ActBlue is telling people in the democratic space is
that this is gross and the threat and all that,
but that they're not.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
They're not worried, scared, worried.

Speaker 5 (55:50):
You know, it's going to cost some money, but they
said they're not shutting down, they're not changing anything. They're
going to sue, They're going to counter sue. They're going
to fight this in court, and they think that they
will win, Like it is flagrantly criminal what Trump is
trying to do here, and they don't and they and
they're confident. Maybe this is naive, but they're confident that
the courts are not going to not going.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
To allow this.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Okay, interesting, Yeah, And I mean I do think there's
an element here too. Obviously it's aimed at Democrats, but also,
you know, the more difficult you make it for grassroots
donors to contribute, the more important the big donors, the
people like Elon Musk are to, you know, to campaigns.
So I think there's an element of that as well,

(56:36):
of like, let's get these small dollar donors out of
here and just make sure it's us, you know, the
people are able to stroke the big checks who really.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Have all the power.

Speaker 5 (56:45):
Democrats themselves have been trying to get the small small dog.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
I think it's just like true.

Speaker 10 (56:50):
I think it's just like mob mentality, Like that's how
Trump thinks it's okay to run politics, and it was
just fueled by the way the like Russian investigent, Like,
this is all downstream of right and this was.

Speaker 5 (57:04):
Sparked by this Jack Pasoviac, Right, didn't Jack pasbec Jack
Pisobiac pulled like some data from the FEC and like
posted it and went viral on the right. Oh really,
and it was like you totally read this wrong. It's
like it was like literal fake news and they're now
they're doing an EO based on it.

Speaker 10 (57:22):
But no, yeah, I mean, it's it's all downstream of
the this correct upset about what happened with the FBI
and what happened with these law firms, and it's all
saying this is the this is fighting the fire with
the fire. And again my argument is not that makes
it right, but that's the mentality that I think is

(57:44):
behind it. It's just we're we're doing this, We're we're
roy coning it now.

Speaker 6 (57:48):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
I want to get you, guys reaction to one more
thing on the Democratic Party side. All right, guys, thank
you so much for watching the free portion of the
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