7/16/25: Inflation Rises Amid Trump Tariffs, Tucker Sounds Alarm On Home Ownership, Pentagon Contracts Grok, Ben Shapiro Superman Denialism

Krystal and Emily discuss inflation rises, Tucker sounds alarm on home ownership, Pentagon contracts with Elon's Grok, Ben Shapiro copes over Superman anti Israel message.

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Episode Transcript

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

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Speaker 4 (00:33):
Let's move on to the new inflation numbers that were
released yesterday. We can go ahead and throw the Wall
Street Journals coverage of this up on the screen. I'm
just going to read from the lead of the article,
and if you're watching this, you can see some pretty
interesting charts on the screen that we'll go through as well.
But they say inflation picked up in June, a potential
sign that companies are starting to pass tariff costs onto consumers.
And there's actually debate about that very point though, the

(00:54):
fact that the Wall Street Journal started their lead with
it should tell you where people on the street are
going with their interpretations of the inflation index. With the
consumer price index, there was two point seven percent in
June from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department yesterday.
That was faster they say the maize increase of two
point four percent, and quote that was in line with

(01:16):
the expectations of economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal.
Core inflation, which includes volatile food and energy prices, was
two point nine percent, also in line with forecast. Consumer
prices rose point three percent in June compared with May,
the largest monthly gain since January and a stepback for
White House officials. The Journal says, who have said in
recent weeks there isn't any meaningful inflation. But core prices

(01:39):
rose point two three percent, at the middle of the
range of monthly price increases over the previous years. So
select risers there were natural gas service, coffee, audio equipment, beef, slash, veal,
college textbooks, motor vehicle repair, electricity, daycare, preschool, hospital shelters,
hospital services and shelter and crystal. I heard actually a

(02:01):
lot of people looking at the energy numbers and saying
this is actually one of the reasons that the Big
Beautiful Bill. I saw people on the right interpreting these
numbers and saying, this is one of the reasons that
the Big Beautiful Bill, kind of gutting the move to
renewables is going to start bringing down prices that I

(02:21):
don't know where do you read illogical?

Speaker 5 (02:24):
Illogical?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I mean, by having less energy, that's going to make
energy lesser. No, that doesn't, That doesn't track to me personally,
But we'll see how it all works out. I mean,
one thing that could make energy costs lower potentially is
if just people have less money to spend on stuff.
I mean, that could be what they're counting on in
terms of hoping that there isn't an increase a huge

(02:45):
increase in inflation. Is just maybe people be a little
poorer so they won't have as much money to spend
on goods. And there are some signs that that is
in fact the case. But what is troubling about these
numbers is that you're starting to see prices tick up
in specific areas that have been hit by tariffs. You know,
coffee being an example of one of those things that like, look,

(03:09):
we don't have the capacity to grow coffee in the
United States, coffee beans in the United States really outside
of Hawaii. So if you are putting let's say, for example,
massive tariffs on Brazil, you are likely to see an
increase in the cost of coffee. And there are other
examples of that as well. So you know, Saga has
talked about how the and I'm sure, I'm sure you
can back this up as well. The sense among Republicans

(03:31):
is like, well, you guys were wrong. We haven't seen
these huge increases in prices. The economic like sky hasn't fallen.
On the other hand, he has backed off of the
most massilist tariffs, which good, like it's good that he
tacoed on the most maximinoist tariffs, but also at some
point there is going to be a significant impact. You know,

(03:52):
the estimates are about seventy percent of the tariff price
gets passed on to consumers, and we're just sort of
at the beginning of that. One of the things that
has met gated the impacts is not only the fact
that he's backed off of some of the most maximal's positions,
even as he's now sort of walking back into more
maximal's positions, is that a lot of retailers in particular,
saw that some sort of tariff regime was coming. They

(04:14):
didn't know what it would be, and we still don't
know what it will be. They really stocked up on
inventory to try to mitigate the impact going in and
so that has I think also helped to soften the blow.
But that runway runs down at a certain point as well,
so I think, you know, this is an indication that
potential storm clouds are gathering. And like I said, especially

(04:36):
because of the specific categories that you see a price
increase in. One last interesting note is they mentioned here
one thing that was a surprise is car prices actually
went down. That is a category that you would think
would be impacted by terrifts because so much is crossing
the border between you know, the US and Canada, and
the US and Mexico, and you know in particular, but

(04:58):
other places too. And the theory is that because consumers
were concerned about auto prices and tariffs, there was people
bought cars early before the tariffs hit and now they've
already got their car, So there's been a slowing of
car purchasing, which has reduced the prices somewhat of cars.

(05:20):
So that's one of the interesting things. I only point
this out to say, like it can actually be very
hard to anticipate the way that consumer behavior and business
behavior and Trump behavior all clash to create whatever is
going to happen in our economy.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
Talking to Republican members of Congress yesterday, I was asking
them why they're down in the congressional ballot. One of
the questions I was asking is, why do you think
you're down on the congressional ballot.

Speaker 6 (05:45):
They're expecting.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Very positive economic ripple effects to hit the economy in
like three to four months, and that's their plan of
sort of ramping up to the midterms, that they'll have
people feeling really good about what's happening going to the
next three or four months because you have all of
those reinvestment incentives in the big beautiful bill, like write
offs and all of that for building and manufacturing. So

(06:13):
that is quite interesting because Crystal, we'll be able to
go back here in five months and look and see
their theory of the case playing out or not playing out,
Which is why I kind of want to skip ahead
here to be four. This is how actually I thought
it was interesting the RNC ran with this clip when

(06:34):
Fox Business was sort of digesting the new numbers.

Speaker 6 (06:36):
We can roll here.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Look, you've got to look at this report as.

Speaker 7 (06:40):
Another victory for President Trump, who has focused on rating
and inflation.

Speaker 6 (06:45):
And that's what we're staying from this report again.

Speaker 8 (06:47):
And so let's look a little bit here at the debate.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
I want to put B five. This was a thread
from an economist that was interesting. Parker Ross posts about
that quote unquote no evidence of inflation from tariffs. If
you know where to look, it seems pretty clear that
inflationary pressures are building in the product categories most exposed
to tariffs. Case in point from today's June CPI report
household Furnishings and Supplies, which saw prices jump nearly one
percent month over month in June. This was the sharpest

(07:12):
monthly increased since the peak of the pandemic driven inflation
in early twenty two and goes down the list in
a very long and interesting thread. Justin Wolfers, on the
other hand, points out latest inflation numbers just dropped headline.
CPI rose point three percent in May and has now
risen two point seven percent. Course, CPI rose point two percent,
is running at two point nine percent and just says,

(07:34):
these numbers are pretty much in line with expectations.

Speaker 6 (07:37):
What you saw.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
I'll add that Maria Barromo was reacting to, is it
just like cut in right under the higher expectation, And
so Wolfer's goes on to say, quote, the absence of
bad news is good news. So Chrystal, there was a
significant disagreement among economists kind of across the spectrum about
what those numbers meant yesterday.

Speaker 6 (07:58):
But I think probably the big thing for Republicans.

Speaker 8 (08:01):
Right now is they can't be quite sure what's.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
Going to play out in the next three to four
months like this, Yeah, it's the experiment is happening kind
of in real time.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, And then you still have this willie or won't
he over Trump potentially firing j. Powell over at the Fed,
and the pressure he continues to put on for him
to significantly radically cut interest rates in a way that
I mean, he certainly is not going to do that.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Now.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
There was some indication that because of this inflation report,
he was somewhat more open to somewhat of a rate cut.
But let's go ahead and play be to Trump talking
about all of this.

Speaker 9 (08:43):
I told him he's doing a very bad job.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
He's way late.

Speaker 9 (08:46):
That's why I call him too late. Jerome Pallas too late.
He's way late. Interest rate should be coming down where
we have a very very successful country, we should have
the lowest interest rate in the world, and we don't.
Jerome Powell has done a terrible job, and frankly, I
don't think he could do a worse job.

Speaker 6 (09:07):
He called everything wrong.

Speaker 9 (09:09):
So they had a report come out the other day,
seventy one different economists and me, you know who is
right me? Did you know that I was right?

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Incredible comment there, Me against every economist and you know
who's right me? That is some That is some confidence
right there, Emily, that is some confidence.

Speaker 6 (09:29):
But I mean that the barn is love for economists.

Speaker 5 (09:32):
So true.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well, I'm actually ideologically open to the idea that a
president should have more control over monetary policy and that,
you know, and over the Fed pick. But unlike you know,
unlike the uh Charlie Kirks of the world, I do
not trust Trump. So I'm not sure that this is
the guy that I really want to do that experiment
with at this point. But you know, all of that
being said, I do think it's true that there will

(09:55):
be a you know, certainly a market freak out if
he does fire Jerome Powell, and you know that'll be
challenging court and all that sort of thing. But I
think there will be, you know, there would be a
reaction to that. Whereas the stock market has been pretty
docile in the face of some pretty wild swings in
terms of economic policy, I think because number one, I

(10:16):
think retail has been impactful there and number two, I
think they're making the taco trade of like, yeah, this
will you know, this will pass. This too shall pass.
But you know, to speak to the tariff piece, which
is still wildly unsettled and we're getting continue to get
new news about every day. Kevin Hassett was asked about
the the floating of these Brazil tariffs, and you know,

(10:39):
had a very hard time defending the concept of them
because we actually don't we have a trade surplus with Brazil.
So even the thing that Trump normally complains about, like
you can't even point to that. And then Trump himself
directly attributed these extraordinary potential Brazil tariffs to his dissatisfaction with,
you know, what the Brazilian judicial system is doing with

(11:01):
regard to his ally Bolscenaro. So let's go ahead and
take a listen to Kevin Hassett B three trying to
defend us.

Speaker 10 (11:08):
Why are we putting a punishing fifty percent tariff on Brazil?

Speaker 11 (11:12):
Well, bottom line is the President has been very frustrated
with negotiations with Brazil and also with the actions of
Brazil in the end, though you know, we're trying to
put America first. I think that a lot of people
when I'm talking to negotiators from out the countries, at
some point they'll say, what did we do wrong? And
what I'm trying to get. The message we're all tried

(11:32):
to get across is this is about America getting yourself
ready for the Golden Age by getting our house at order.
Normally it's not necessarily about a specific country, but with
Brazil it is. Their actions have shocked the president times
and he's made them clear about that.

Speaker 10 (11:45):
But I don't understand how you're saying it's about America,
because the President has made it quite clear that what
he's upset about is how the Brazilian Supreme Court has
handled the criminal case involving former President Balsonario.

Speaker 11 (11:58):
What I've been saying with most countries was that it's
really about us getting the tariffs in order. And I
think that this tariff for Brazil is a lot higher
because of the President's frustration with Balsonaro.

Speaker 10 (12:07):
But on what authority does the president have to impost
tariffs on a country because he doesn't like what that
country's judicial system is handling a specific case?

Speaker 11 (12:19):
Well, I mean, how is that a national defense emergency?
Or if he thinks of a national security threat that
he has the authority under a epuit.

Speaker 10 (12:26):
So how is it a national security threat? You know
how Brazil is handling a criminal case against this former president.

Speaker 11 (12:33):
Well, that's not the only thing. That's not the only thing.

Speaker 10 (12:35):
I mean, So what is it? I mean, I've asked
what it is. I mean, it seems like that that's
what President Trump's talking about it right.

Speaker 11 (12:40):
Well, the bottom line is that what we're doing, absolutely
collectively across every country is we're on shoring production in
the US to reduce the national emergency that is that
we have a massive trade deficit that's putting it at risk.
Should we need a production in the US because of
a national security crisis, and this is part of an
overall strategy do that.

Speaker 10 (13:00):
But again, as We've just established we have a trade
surplus with Brazil, not a deficit, and we've had a
surplus with Brazil for eighteen years.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
We're meant to believe that it's a national security emergency.
How Brazil handles their judicial system apparently.

Speaker 6 (13:17):
I mean, this is.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
Digging into these numbers because of the way in which
there are so many of these situations where the deal
is nebulous. Nobody knows what's actually going on. I don't
even know what to make of the numbers, because I
don't think the people who are trying to understand them,
let alone even the countries themselves and the like what's

(13:42):
being priced into exports and imports right now. I mean,
none of it is coherent because the policy is coherent
and is incoherent and unsettled. The only thing coherent about
the policy is that it's uncertain right now because they're
in the middle of negotiation, and that's part of the strategy, obviously,
and we can disagree with the strategy, but that's definitely
part of it. Trump thinks that it's part of what

(14:03):
gives him leverage, and so I just think nobody knows,
you know, the new August deadline was supposed to be
like July ninth, and now it's August, and now there's
talk of fifty percent in Brazil, one hundred percent. It's
just right now, so completely unsettled and uncertain that where
we are a couple of months from now. That's why

(14:25):
putting all of the eggs in the big beautiful bill basket.

Speaker 6 (14:28):
It's like, Congress, you can do that.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
We don't know what Donald Trump is going to do,
like truly don't know what Donald Trump is going to do,
So it's just all right now a hell of a
hell of a gamble.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Let's go ahead and move on to another core aspect
of the real economy, which is home ownership. I mean, basically,
the story of our economy over decades is that consumer
goods have gotten cheaper, so it's easier to afford you know, TV,
a lot of clothes, those sorts of the visible trappings
of a middle class life, but the sort of core
bedrock of that life has become wildly more expensive, with

(15:06):
home ownership being increasingly out of reach for most young people.
So this is such a political lightning rod for understandable reasons.
So we can talk more about that in a moment.
But it's something that Tucker Carlson actually kind of interestingly
picked up on at that TPUSA conference. Let's go ahead
and take a listen to a little bit of what

(15:28):
he had to say.

Speaker 12 (15:29):
The basic economics really matter, and they matter because not
that it's bad that rich people are getting richer, it's
bad that everyone else is getting poorer. And it's especially
bad the young people can't afford home. So let me
just put a very precise point on this. If you
want a measure of how your economy is doing, I

(15:50):
personally favor eliminating GDP as a measure. I don't even
know what that is. It's clearly not relevant the total
economic activity. Oh no, No, My measure is really simple.
I got a bunch of kids. Can they afford houses
with full time jobs at like twenty seven twenty eight?

Speaker 1 (16:04):
And the answer is no way. And the answer is that.

Speaker 12 (16:07):
Thirty five year olds with really good jobs can't afford
a house unless they stretch and go deep into debt.
And I just think that's a total disaster. That's a
complete disaster.

Speaker 9 (16:17):
Why.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Two reasons.

Speaker 12 (16:19):
One, if people don't own things, they don't feel ownership
of the country they're in, and the country gets super
volatile because people feel like they've got nothing to lose.
It's really hard to have a family without a house.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
It is.

Speaker 12 (16:33):
It's like super fun to live in an apartment. If
you know there's like a bar downstairs, you're in a
cool neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
I'm in the East Village. It's so cool. Try to
have three kids.

Speaker 12 (16:40):
You're not gonna have three kids there. You can't. Nobody
wants to raise their kids in that neighborhood. Nobody wants
raise their kids in an apartment. People do it because
they have to. Nobody wants to. People want a little house,
not some mcmahonsions, a little normal house. That is the
actual American dream, and that is what is totally unattainable
for young people. And so the only young people in

(17:02):
general that you will ever meet who have houses are
young people whose parents help them, and God bless their parents.
That's a perfectly great thing to do for your kids.
But most people's parents can't afford to do that because
already in debt from their pointless college degree. So that
is a national emergency. Normal people with normal jobs no
longer believe they can win in this system, and that

(17:25):
all the money is going to the worst people, and
no one even stops to ask what the hell is
going on? How did Bill Ackman get so rich? And
I'm not saying even that it should be illegal. What
I'm saying is that our leadership class should say something
about it and should assign a moral value to it.
And if you're getting rich by loaning money to people

(17:47):
at incredibly high interest rates, that's something you're gonna have
to talk.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
To God about.

Speaker 12 (17:53):
That is not good, that is not virtuous, that's disgusting.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
And the fact that nobody feels free to say that.

Speaker 12 (18:02):
Nobody feels like you can just say, like thirty percent
on a credit card, why is anybody paying a credit
card bill?

Speaker 2 (18:08):
This sparked Elli at least one you know, multi uh
multi page Bill Ackman essay on Twitter in response to this,
by the way, which you know nobody needs to read.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
But nobody in any case for it.

Speaker 6 (18:21):
Nobody is saying for it. They're busy trying to afford
a fucking house.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
These boomers and their lengthy threats, including Trump at this point,
is very guilty of this. Like his posting ability has
fallen off hard, and you know, he's still got some
of the like potential in there with the like boys
and in some cases my goals. But then it just
goes on for way too goddamn long in any case.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
Which lands the plane though with thank you for your
attention to this matter, which.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Is true, true, wraps it up in that though that
is true. You know, I find myself in this situation
oftentimes on this show with Douck or Carlson, whenever you're
talking about the like quote unquote populist right, which is
oftentimes we're in agreement when you're identifying the problem like
extraordinary inequality people unable to afford houses. Yes, where it

(19:06):
gets very dicey for me is when you start to
hear about the solutions, and you know, I Tucker doesn't
go into solutions here, which in and of itself I
think is notable. He says we shouldn't ban billionaires, which
I think we should ban billionaires. But in any case,
you know, for the JD Vances, and Tucker's probably in
line with this, the answer is like, that's why we
need to lock all the immigrants in Seacott and Alligator Alcatraz.
So you know, that's for my fellow lefties out there

(19:30):
who are hearing this and are like, yes, I like,
I agree that this is a problem. Just know that
it's also important to know what the proposed solution is
because you know, at least for me, I am not
going to be anywhere close to on board with that.
What that solution is likely to look.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Like one of the things that jumped out to me,
and when Tucker was talking, that clip went massively viral. Also,
another clip went viral of him saying, you know, I
agree with what Republicans aren't doing on like women's sports
and and trans issues and all of that, but it
feels like a quote appetizer, is what he said. And
he was like, at some point, you have to deal
with the structure of like making the country better. And

(20:11):
I completely agree with that is super super important. It
made me think of the Josh Hawley Bernie Sanders joint
effort to cap credit card interest rates, because when Tucker said,
you have to answer to God basically for lending people
money at these rates that you know for many many people,

(20:33):
It's sort of how Sager was describing online gambling in
his conversation with Tucker Carlson last week as well. It's
just like you know what you're doing, You know that
this is wrecking people. You know that this is not
fair or just, and you are profiting off of it.
And there's nothing Christian about the way some of these

(20:54):
major banks and credit card companies are operating. So on
the one hand, I think actually even identifying the problem
is kind of a helpful way to even get Republicans
talking about solutions. You know, like if there is no
discussion of the problem, then there's no discussion of potential solutions,
and there's no debate about whether this idea that Bernie

(21:16):
Sanders has, for example, might be one that you sort
of evangelical Christian like Josh Holly, who is interested in
restructuring the economy.

Speaker 6 (21:28):
Would be on board with.

Speaker 4 (21:29):
And I bet you Tucker Carlson would get behind that
bill too, And I think a whole lot of people
would get behind that bill because what's been happening is
just completely insane. And so there is I think room
you and I and Soger and Ryan don't agree on
a lot of solutions. But sometimes it's like the people

(21:51):
here in DC have no idea. What like if you
showed them this chart, let's put C two on the screen.
If you showed a random member of Congress's chart. This
is the estimated number of for time home buyer since
nineteen ninety five. More Perfect Union put it out, tracks
with the numbers from the National Association of Realtors that
are in the Guardian article.

Speaker 8 (22:08):
This is insane, This is tragic.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
This is just completely ridiculous policy failure it has.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
This number is absolutely cratering.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
The Guardian also quoted an analysis from John Byrne's research
that found buying an entry level home now costs twice
as much as renting an apartment for the first time
since two thousand and six, since George W. Bush was president,
twice as much. Another thing that was quoted in this article.

(22:41):
That is just the numbers are unreal. They say that.

Speaker 10 (22:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (22:50):
Here it is.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
The medium price of a single family home hit record
highs in twenty twenty four and has only continued going up.
In May, the medium price was four hundred and twenty
seven thousand, eight hundred dollars, which was up from three
hundred and fifty seven thousand, one hundred dollars in twenty
twenty one when prices first started to climb.

Speaker 6 (23:09):
And there's another what was the other one? It was
the numbers here are oh, get here it does.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
A family would need to earn one hundred and twenty
six thousand dollars seven hundred, one hundred twenty seven thousand
dollars a year to afford monthly payments on an average
home purchase in twenty twenty four, according to Harvard. In
twenty twenty one, that number was seventy nine thousand.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Dollars a year.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
Holy moly.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
And I honestly think, Chrystal, if you showed these numbers
of people in Congress, you showed a chart to your
average member of Congress, they would be shocked by it.

Speaker 6 (23:41):
And the numbers are shocking just because they're so sad.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
But to most people, especially just like my age, who
are like right in the middle of this, like early
mid thirties, late twenties people around, they're like, yeah, of course,
like we know this, We're living it. Everyone we know
is living it.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
And I think I saw the average age of your
first time home buyer. I was, what thirty eight years old? Yeah,
thirty eight, so almost forty before you can even trump.
I mean that's crazy. And it's a crisis, Like it
is a genuine existential crisis for some of the reasons
that Tucker outlines there, and you know, that sense of
like ownership and society, but also because this is just

(24:17):
the way our economy is structured, Like this is the
way that you build some sword of wealth and stability
for yourself and establish yourself in a way where you
can have a family and have kids, if that's the
thing you aspire to, and it is increasingly completely out
of reach. I mean, gen z is basically forget about it.
We're never going to be able to accomplish that. And
so you know, the reason why I sound the alarm

(24:42):
that I did previously is because I think I would
have I think in a you know, a few years
ago or in the early days of the Trump administration,
I would have agreed with your assessment that it's like
just the fact of raising these issues is inherently a positive.
And I think what Trump does very effectively actually is
oftentimes pinpoint things that are genuine pain points for people,

(25:06):
right and speak to that anxiety and speak to that problem.
But if you have only one side that really is
telling a story about that, and it ends up leading
you into, you know, a situation that I find to
be aborn and unacceptable. With you know, nationalizing Federal Guard
and calling in marines to you know, do these militarized

(25:28):
immigration raids and terrorized communities and that's your only solution
to the you know, the housing crisis. I think it
opens up a dangerous potential pathway if there is no
corresponding rival political project on the other side. And so,
you know, that's why I think it's really heartening to
see the way that Zoran has been able to succeed
against the odds and offering. You know, it's just New

(25:51):
York City mayoral race. You should't say just but it's
New York City mayoral race. We're not talking about the country.
But he really did demonstrate how if you speak to
these issues and you have agenda that has the possibility
of even delivering in like a small ball kind of
a way, there is a massive, huge response to it. So,
you know, that's where Democrats have crashed in the rocks

(26:12):
time and time again, is they try to gloss over
these problems. They try to pretend like they don't exist.
They try to pretend like things are actually going really
fine and well and all is well and good. They
don't have a story about that makes sense to people
about how we got to this place where you can't
ever even dream of affording a home and you feel
no stake in society and society sort of unraveling around you.

(26:35):
They don't have a compelling story to offer, they don't
have any villains in that story, and you are not
going to defeat what, in my view, is a fascist
movement on the right if you don't have an alternative
political project that responds to the concerns that are being
raised by talker there in that clip.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Well, I think the same thing of the right, and
I think this was one of the really just again,
I'll say the word tragic. I think it's tragic that
the right went with repeal and replace. Repeal and replace
repea own a place for a decade, and they didn't
have a humane answer, which is why it didn't happen.
They never came up with a plausible, doable, humane healthcare

(27:14):
solution that actually everyone was comfortable implementing, which is why
it never ended up happening. And people still live in
abject precarity and fear and uncertainty in ways that makes
family life difficult, in ways that just is deeply unjust.
And because Republicans exploited politically the issue for so long

(27:37):
and never actually were able to land on a solution.

Speaker 6 (27:39):
Right, like they talked about it.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
They were like Obamacare did spike premiums for some people,
they did lose their doctor, all of that because they
were exploiting that and you know, kicking around the political
football they got they made hay out of it for
a long time, and a lot of people got elected,
a lot of consultants got rich off over people replace
and then they never came out. They never landed. And

(28:01):
it's not because it's an easy thing to do. It's
not because it's like I agree, like it's hard. That's
of course, this is a really difficult, like complicated policy question.
But they never came up with any consensus. And part
of that is because of special interest. Of course part
of that is because of special interest. But it's going
to be the same thing again. And you know if
you never come up if you talk about how prices

(28:23):
are too high, nobody can afford a house, college is
too expensive, all of that, you never come up with
a solution. You are just opening up the lane for
a demagogue. I mean, it's the same thing like.

Speaker 6 (28:36):
Over and over again.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
People are getting desperate and that's really scary, and we
can't We're in no position to tell people they're wrong
for being desperate.

Speaker 6 (28:45):
Their right to be desperate.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
It's not wrong right now to feel desperate, because that's
where the economy is. The Guardian points out one of
the problems that people should be paying very close attention
to when home ownership, first time homeowner ownership is in
your late thirties, is people will be retiring later because
they have thirty year mortgages and people's equity gets tied up.
And that's the reason that the American dream is. The

(29:07):
American dream is that owning a house is supposed to
be like your nest egg. That's supposed to be bring
like stability, and Tucker cross The points out that having
he says it this way, he says, like having a lawn,
it's you invest in your community, your immediate physical surroundings
differently when you have a lawn. High Salem Salem is happy,

(29:33):
Crystal to have a house of Roman and not an apartment.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
I guess, so this sale sale would like to searity
of the economy. Yeah, Salem would like to not be
in the house so much. He's constantly trying to escape. Actually,
in truth, he's a he's a wild boy.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
He loves a lawn. He loves a lawn, just like Tucker,
and so Dan Osborne. So I was gonna say, is
this is a long winding tangrent. But Dan Osborne posted
part of Tucker's comments at the Turning Point summit, and
I got tweaked a little bit by a.

Speaker 6 (30:03):
Friend of mine on the right.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
It was like, you Dems want to retake the Senate
and do all kinds of crazy stuff.

Speaker 6 (30:11):
And blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
I was like, to be honest with you, we will
all be better off even if you're if you're a Republican,
which I don't consider myself a Republican, Like, there's nothing
worse than either political party in my take, but and
especially if you're conservative, like the Republican Party is especially
disgusting and disappointing. But if you are a Republican, we

(30:34):
are all better off with a strong Democratic Party those
like it is. And I think actually the same thing
is true vice versa, where people feel like they're actually
represented by the people in Congress and people running for
president and don't have to keep settling for like Joe Biden,
Kamala Harris, and Hillary Clinton because everyone or like some
of these members.

Speaker 8 (30:55):
Of Congress, like I mean, just insane.

Speaker 4 (30:58):
And Dan Osborne is absolutely right to, I think, echo
those sentiments, but hopefully there hopefully solutions follow. I think
that's just where everyone, both of us included, are deeply pessimistic.

Speaker 5 (31:11):
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
And I mean Dan Osborne is a particularly hopeful example
because he introduces additional competition to a state that otherwise
isn't competitive, and so you know, that's what makes him
really interesting and creates a possibility and something that Bernie
is said there should be more of in red states
where Democrats are just not remotely competitive anymore at least
than you have a real competition. Because listen, all you

(31:33):
free market believers out there, right, if there isn't any
sort of like tension, yeah, absolutely, he's going to be
feeling pressure from this, you know, union leader, populist. That's
a good thing for everyone. In my humble opinion, whether
Dan Osborne is able to succeed or not.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
I think it's why Mark Rubio held on to a
Senate seed and with him it wasn't cynical. And you know,
like I just just like that.

Speaker 6 (31:59):
That's my But I've talked to the man about this.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
I think he had a sincere that the competition feared him,
feared him, frightened him in twenty eighteen, the competition frightened
him in twenty sixteen into like reconsidering a lot of
different things. And the more that happens, certainly the better.
It's not always going to be sincere. A lot of times,
most of the time it's going to be cynical. And

(32:22):
if it's cynical, still means you have members of Congress
who are always not willing or not worthy of anybody's
trust making better decisions because they want to get real liked.

Speaker 6 (32:31):
So that's exactly right structure.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Yes, you want to change, you want to make it.
So the cynical decision is also the right decision because
there are a good landscape that you want. Yes, exactly,
you can presume that there's going to be some level
of cynical political opportunism, which is exactly why I've been
excited about the Zoron race as well, because I think
there will be a lot of cynical politicians who look
at this and go, oh, we live in a different

(32:55):
world now. Both in regard to Israel and with regard
to where you should position yourself in the political spec
and this is where the energy is, and so you know,
I think that can create some positive developments as well.

Speaker 4 (33:06):
And for conservatives. When people are in debt, they can't
buy houses, what do they not do? They don't get married,
they don't have kids, they don't become in every case,
not in every case, they don't become the same level
of investment in their physical surroundings because they want to
go into a house someday and they want to build
a family in a different school district and a different community.

(33:27):
And so it's just that's the cycle that we're in
if none of these problems are fixed. Chris, So let's
talk about Rock and the Pentagon a match made in heaven,
because now they can throw this Politico element up on
the screen. Now the Pentagon can start using musks Grock

(33:50):
via x Ai and Grock for government. We can move
on to well, actually, let's talk about this just for
a second, because the details of the Political Politico report
are I don't even know what to call it, crystal. Basically,
they're just saying it's Grog for government. Is a quote
suite of products that make our frontier models available to

(34:13):
the United States government and customers. Pentagon is obviously a
I don't even need to say it, a big client
to land if you are an ex AI, and now
you have Grog for Government out there. But all of
this happened after Grock completely melted down into abject anti
Semitic like Nazi rhetoric just last week, and in a

(34:35):
way that also exposed these sort of foundational, weird quirks
of Grock that are infused by what really seems to
be a lot of algorithmic power in the hands of
Elon Musk himself, a lot of influence over the algorithm
from the things that Elon Musk does and posts, whether
or not he's tweaking things behind the scenes, and now

(34:59):
the Pentagon, which is trying to embrace AI.

Speaker 6 (35:02):
It sounds to me like.

Speaker 4 (35:03):
What people are using Groc for Government for is as
a like government portal to be querying AI.

Speaker 6 (35:10):
That's what the product sounds like.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
It's one of those things where you know, when you
don't use it, you don't know exactly what Groc forg
Government is going to look like in practice. But as
they describe it, it sounds like that's what it is, Uh,
just crystal reaction Elon.

Speaker 6 (35:24):
Yeah, never want Steve Bannon was furious.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
That Elon for never really going to the Pentagon, and
now hey, maybe we know why.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
Yeah, indeed, a multi hundreds of million dollar contract with
the Pentagon, which is, you know, on top of the
many additions, like much additional money that Elon must gets
as one of the top subcontractors of the Pentagon, so
you know, this is just adding on top of that.
I mean, it's interesting politically because Elon and Trump supposedly
hate each other and Trump is certainly not above like

(35:54):
nuking and contract because he doesn't like the person who's
involved with it. So that was kind of interesting to me,
is like, how real is the fight between them if
he's getting this gigantic contract. It starts at the Pentagon.
But by the way, it also is going to be
available for purchase by any other government agency through the
General Services Administration. So obviously, like you said, Pentagon is

(36:16):
a giant contract, but any other government agency also is
able to procure this XAI groc for government product. What
does it mean in terms of Elon? I mean, I
think this was probably one of the core goals actually
of Doge, not the cost cutting efficiency bullshit, but being
able to advance his AI product, both in terms of

(36:36):
situating it as like the product of the United States government,
but also potentially in hoovering up all of the data
that is, you know, that is held by the United
States government and government employees and being able to use
that to feed his AI and whatever else he wants
to do with it. Obviously, the timing of it is
quite noteworthy. Give him that GROK was just on its

(36:58):
mecha Hitler arc, which I think you put well, Emily.
That part of what it exposed is first of all,
I mean, just the fact that a few tweaks can
instantly lead an LM into just outwrite abject Nazism pretty
wild and will stancel rape fantasies for some reason, pretty wild.
But there were further problems because people found that when

(37:22):
they would querry things like GROC, what do you think
about the Israel Palestine conflict? When you looked at Groc's reasoning,
because you can ask it to list like how it's
you know, going through its reasoning, it was querying what
does Elon think about this conflict? And then using that
predominantly to inform its articulated views.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
So that's pretty wild.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
And xay I put on an explanation of that, and
basically what they said is, when you asked GROC, what
do you think about something, Groc's internal process is like, well,
I don't think, so let me go out and look
and see how I can align myself with this company,
and you know, the founder of this company, and that's
how you ended up with this situation where would just

(38:05):
be like, well, I don't think, so what does Elon think?
But that's pretty terrifying. We all remember the previous incident
where Rock started just randomly talking about white genocide in
South Africa all the time. So this is the technology
that we now are about to have like throughout all
of government, but starting at the Pentagon, which seems like
a pretty crucial place to start. So, you know, I'm

(38:27):
very AI concerned. Most of the most of America is
very AI concerned. And that is deeply at odds with
the position of you know, certainly the Trump administration, but
of I think most elites, both Democrat and Republican, because
of how much tech money, how influential tech money is,
and the sort of national security imperative. Oh, we have

(38:47):
to beat China, so we need to just go full
steam ahead without thinking about any of this stuff. But
you know, this is just one more I think deeply
troubling development on our path to god knows where, on
our path to Mars.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
I mean, with everything is bundled into this fantasy of
getting well, I shouldn't say fantasy. I mean I think
he for him is it's not a fantasy. It's it's
relatively realistic. But for him, it's it's like his sort
of that's his holy grail in the sense that that's
his fantasy, in the sense that it's his holy grail.
So this was a two hundred million dollar contract. Similar

(39:20):
ones went to anthropict, Google and open Ai, and just
reading from the BBC or BBC report here this is
being framed as something for national security use. And your
point about the data and how important that might be.
I mean, it's also Elon like basically renting his brain
to the Pentagon to the point you just made the
Grock interpretation of what Elon Musk's brain is to the

(39:44):
Pentagon at some point, So to that extent, it actually
is for two hundred billion dollars that's understates the influence
that Elon Musk has sold, probably to the Pentagon with
this product, which is obviously going to be in competition
with the Tropic and Google and other products.

Speaker 5 (40:04):
Yeah, but it feels like a trojan horse. That's what
it feels like. It feels like a trojan horse.

Speaker 6 (40:08):
So let's put D two on the screen.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
This was the apology over Groc, which, by the way,
the CEO, Linda Yakarina, actually left in the midst of
all of this last week. Our intent for Groc is
to provide helpful and truthful responses to users, said X.
After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an
update to a code path upstream of the grock bot.
This is independent of the underlying language model that powers Groc.

(40:34):
Now we can move to the next one. This is
from This is an element from Rolling Stone. Elon Musk's
Groc chat bot goes full Nazi, calls itself quote Mecha Hitler.

Speaker 6 (40:45):
This was from the original.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
So the apology was in reaction to all of this
Groc was acting. I was gonna say Groc was behaving badly,
but that completely understates what Grog.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
Was actually doing.

Speaker 4 (40:58):
It was like just mad insanity and crystal in fairness.
This is actually not just a problem with GROC, like
this is something that doesn't just worry me about GROC.
I think it is especially worrisome with GROC because we
see this charismagic, e centric billionaire who wants to have
a lot of influence over politics exerting a lot of

(41:18):
influence over XAI, and part of their apology I think
actually makes that really clear. Like you see that in
the apology where we had the poll quote where it
says the root cause was an update to a code
path upstream of the grock bot. This is so granular,
like it gets to how such small changes can produce

(41:41):
massively consequential results and potentially repeated, Like you can have
all the safeguards you want in GROC for government or
open Ai for government or whatever it is Gemini for government.

Speaker 6 (41:53):
You can take all of those precautions and safeguards.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
Small changes are going to affect the algorithm and the
LM in that you cannot always predict, and so putting
them in the or spending so much actually taxpayer money
to create access to this at the Pentagon for the
purposes of national security, I'm sure the Pentagon will be
taking safeguards because there's so many obvious problems with this.

(42:18):
But the problem with AI in general is the unknown unknowns.
We don't even know what to prepare for. And that
is absolutely frightening.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
That's so true, and I've said this before, but it
bears reminding. What makes this technology really different is like,
if you make some change in the iPhone, there is
there are engineers out there who can go through and
test and predict. Okay, making this change is going to
have precisely these impacts on this piece of hardware. It

(42:47):
is not the same with these lms. And that's what
you're seeing here. And Elon is incredibly arrogant and egomaniacal
and thinks that he can just go in and tinker
and do whatever he wants with no impact or you know,
with no consopt ones is whatsoever. And so he'll go
in and be like, oh, Grock's two woke. Let me
just put in this line of code to make grow
less woke. And next thing you know, it's calling itself

(43:09):
Mecha Hitler and fantasize thinking about what it's going to
do to will standele is like, what is going on?
And so I mean, that's what is particularly unnerving about
groc at the Pentagon is because Grock is controlled by
this insane man who will just make wild decisions and
is you know it unbelievable, like the nicest way you

(43:30):
can put it, as an unbelievable risk taker, always doubling down,
always you know, right up against the wall or all
the way out on the ledge or how are you
going to phrase that? And so he's perfectly willing to
just go in there and tinker and see what happens.
And when it's you know, when it's on Twitter, Okay,
that's still not great, but it's one thing. When it's

(43:53):
embedded in our national security apparatus and throughout our entire government,
that's another thing entirely. And so that's really what makes
this technology so different is there is an entire universe
going on beneath the surface of these lms, and even
the people who are you know, program and designing them

(44:13):
and setting them loose on the world, even they don't
know how they're going to behave, which is why you
have all these stories about like you know, oh, we
went to we did this test, and we tried to
shut off this other LM and it tried to copy
itself to a server, and then it went into these
emails and tried to blackmail an engineer and reveal this
fake affair that we cooked up just to see if

(44:33):
it would do this to try to keep itself on. Like,
they don't know until they test it out how exactly
it's going to behave And that is what is part
of what makes these technologies so different and so unnerving
and ultimately so unpredictable.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
Yeah, oh, what a what a happy topic. We'll also
toss in here the last element. This is the Wall
Street Journal reporting on Tesla's North American sales executive, top
North American sales executive who has just left. I mean,
this is somebody who was there after fifteen years, for
fifteen years, just left amidst the Tesla sale slump. You know, Actually, Chrystal,

(45:14):
I feel like now for Tesla, with the sales slump
and with Elon Musk like refocusing his energies away from government,
partially probably because some of the problems at Tesla. Yes,
he's in a difficult hole because a lot of the
Tesla customer base was alienated, but also if ever, there
was a time for things to start climbing back out

(45:35):
of the hole, or for the company to start climbing
back out of the hole. Probably be Now, if you're
an investor, this is not going to give you much confidence.
People internally feel like that process is in motion.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And you've got obviously trouble there.
You've got Linda Yakarina on as well as someone listing,
there were a number of other executives from his companies
who have also laughed or were like, I can't do
this anymore. And Tesla has their biggest problem is Elon's
brand and Elon himself, but they have other problems as well,
including increased competition, including the fact that ev credits have

(46:08):
not just been pulled in the US steel product line
cyberchucat total and complete flop.

Speaker 5 (46:13):
So they have a lot of kind of.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
Deep issues that are difficult to see how they ultimately
are resolved, especially because you know, Elon stock is stacked
the board there with people, including like his own brother,
who he expects to be completely and totally loyal to him.
So probably the smartest thing for them to be to
do would be to find another CEO, but that is

(46:36):
very unlikely to happen at this point. But we do have, actually,
Emily one more element here, which is they have added
these two grock these companions.

Speaker 6 (46:46):
That's right. I was trying so hard to Yes.

Speaker 5 (46:49):
You didn't want to talk about it. I get it.

Speaker 6 (46:52):
I don't even know what the hell it is.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
So I don't I haven't played with these. I don't
know either, But they created these like avatars, anime avatar companions.

Speaker 5 (47:02):
Is this just vo we have?

Speaker 2 (47:03):
What do we have here that we can put up
on the screen of that people can Oh, it's a
sat All right, let's go and play this st of
one of these AI companions that they you can use
to sort of interface with GROC.

Speaker 5 (47:16):
Let's go ahead and take a look.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Tail swinging totally wrapped up in this cozy moment with you.
What's got you so excited to say?

Speaker 6 (47:23):
Hi, babe?

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Though, there you go. Male loneliness crisis solved, question mark.

Speaker 6 (47:28):
Touch some grass.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
I mean, we as a society need to just go
touch some grass.

Speaker 6 (47:35):
This is too much.

Speaker 5 (47:37):
It's gone too far. It's gone too far this.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
Time, he's gone too far. Well, thanks for making sure
we included that in this segment.

Speaker 5 (47:46):
You're welcome. I got your back.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Girl.

Speaker 8 (47:48):
Well, let's move on to Superman and bring griffinin.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
Debate is raging over the new Superman movie, and here
too help us break some of it down is the
one and only producer Griffin.

Speaker 8 (48:05):
He's here, his mustache is here, and.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
He is ready to get into all of this with Crystal.
Both of them have seen the movie the motion picture.

Speaker 6 (48:13):
I have not.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
I'm not particularly interested in seeing it because I find
these movies very hard to follow.

Speaker 6 (48:20):
And I don't know Crystal.

Speaker 4 (48:21):
I was going to say, also, I'm a woman, but
I don't want to offend you. I know you're deeply
passionate about Superman. You're always talking about Superman. Sometimes you
wear your Superman pajamas and it's uncomfortable.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
People can't see it.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
It's under the desk, you're wearing Superman pajama pants.

Speaker 13 (48:39):
I thought Crystal's favorite superhero was the Punisher. That's how
I thought.

Speaker 5 (48:44):
It's hard to scribe to find out.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
You know, we can do this in the premium, am
guyscribe to find out my actual favorite superhero.

Speaker 6 (48:51):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (48:52):
All right, So on that note, though, I'm going to
go ahead and kick this over to you all so
I can sit back and listen and make fun of
you and maybe ask some probing questions.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, well, let me just start because I have the
most surface level possible thoughts, which is just Griffin had
texted us. Okay, this movie is definitely about Israel Palestine.
But even so I still thought like it's probably pretty
subtle and there's probably some plausible deniability. It is not subtle,
and there is no plausible deniability. It is like very
clear from even like the flags that they use and

(49:26):
what the people look like, and the bad guy country
is a close US ally and they're really technologically advanced,
and they're going up against this like, you know, very
sort of like Middle Eastern coded looking people who are
equipped with like rocks, and their little kids who are
about to get murdered and all of these sorts of things.
I mean, it's just like very very blatantly the central

(49:47):
conflict that Superman is you know, caught up trying to
resolve is between these two countries that are very very
clearly Israel and Palestine. And that was absolutely mind blowing
to me that and it seems like a really significant
cultural moment that Griffin, you can have this major Hollywood
blockbuster summer production that instead of like in the old days,

(50:12):
it was always like, you know, the bad guy country
was clearly the Soviet Union. Now it's Israel is the
clear bad guy country. That seems like just an incredibly
significant cultural shift coming out of Hollywood.

Speaker 13 (50:28):
Yeah, And you know, I like I don't generally like
to like, you know, like turn my politics brain on
for movies because generally, like they're written by like liberals
that are trying to do like a very generic message.
They're trying to make something that you can kind of
like apply to lots of situations. But what was striking
was like the insane specificity in this film.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
And we've got a Shapiro clip right here, you.

Speaker 13 (50:53):
Know, Shapiro movie reviews, and he says, not politically charged,
not really about Israel or Palestine.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Why don't we roll that clip?

Speaker 7 (51:03):
So the left is suggesting that the foreign policy conflict
in which Superman engages is a stand in for Israel
and the Palestinians, or alternatively for Russia and Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
So let me give you the geopolitical setup. The geopolitical set.

Speaker 7 (51:15):
Up here is that there is a country called Bravia,
and this country called Baravia is run by essentially a
corrupted dictator who's working with Lex Lutheran and it invades
another sovereign country, jar Henpoor. Okay, And so Superman stops
that at the very beginning and doesn't show him stopping it.
He talks to Law's Land about it.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Fine, Okay.

Speaker 7 (51:34):
The idea is geopolitically that Bravia has been a long
time ally of the United States. Jar Henpoor is a
country where we don't know who it's allied with, and
a may or may not be run by Jihati's but
we don't know, Like we don't know who it's run by.
It doesn't matter. The only reason that Clark stops it,
that the Superman stops it is he says, because.

Speaker 12 (51:51):
People are going to die.

Speaker 7 (51:55):
Which, as we'll get to in sort of my final
breakdown of why this movie doesn't work and why no
really good Superman movie has been made since seventy eight.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
What did he say?

Speaker 7 (52:03):
I'll explain in a moment. The people of Jarhampur are brown.

Speaker 9 (52:07):
Look at my African American a here.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
The people of Bravia are white. Okay.

Speaker 7 (52:11):
So this is why the Left is reading this as
Israel of the Palestinians. The reason it doesn't work that
way is because we are not made aware that the
people of Jarhampur are either wildly terrorism supportive, that they've
participated in multiple terrorist attacks on the people of Bravia.
They are led by a corrupt dictatorship that murders gay people.

Speaker 9 (52:28):
Right.

Speaker 7 (52:28):
None of that's in the movie, so it doesn't match
up that way. And the idea that Bravia is Israel
in this iteration like a long time US ally that's
randomly invading countries for territorial gain, that does not match
up to any of the facts on the ground that
we know of at all. That is not that is
not real. So maybe in left winging brain, that's how
it reads. I could see if you're a left winger
and you don't know anything about the situation, or you
think a bunch of false things, you could you.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Could read that.

Speaker 7 (52:49):
Maybe you could also read this as Russia Ukraine because
it's one sovereign country that's invading another sovereign country, and
because the leader of Bravia has a Russian accent. So
I guess that if you have like poison left brain,
go so.

Speaker 13 (53:03):
Sorry, left wing brain, turn it off. Let's turn movie
brain on. Crystal what did you make of that? I mean,
for me, the big one is like okay, He's like, yeah,
they're brown and the Israelis are white or sorry, the
Bravians are white and that's but that could be that
could be anybody. It could be like Russia Ukraine, but
I think the.

Speaker 5 (53:24):
One it's famously brown Ukrainians.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, listen, I have you been there? Have you been?

Speaker 4 (53:31):
So?

Speaker 13 (53:33):
For me though, like the the real red flag oh
this is about Israel Palestine is that they're a US ally,
which doesn't work in the Russia Ukraine.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
Apparently exactly No, that's exactly right. And also even the
technological disparity, like it works I guess a little bit
Russia Ukraine, but not to the same extent because they
really literally show the Barravians rolling in with this high
tech gear and the jarren Orians who are supposed to
be the Palestinians, like have you know their farmers and

(54:03):
they have these very like basic weapons, and the imagery
is one hundred percent Israel Palestine specifically Kaza. I mean,
I sort of feel for Ben here because if you
are an Israel supporter, you are caught in between a
rock and a hard place, because if you admit like, okay,
this is Israel and Palestine. Then everyone goes, oh, so

(54:24):
you do know that they're like a genocidal monster country
that is attacking innocent poor people and like children. And
if you don't, then you just look ridiculous and coping
like he does here. Because again I thought it would
be subtle. It is just not subtle. And the Russia
Ukraine parallels don't work out at all whatsoever. I think

(54:47):
they don't make sense if you watch the movie, it
just doesn't track to Russia Ukraine at all. So and
then the leader of Bravia himself, Hassan and others have
pointed out he actually looks like the found under of
Israel Ben Gurion. He sounds sort of like net Yahoo
in the rhetoric that he uses is very much you know,

(55:07):
coded as similar reddic to rhetoric to what not only bebe,
but you know Smoke Drich and Ben Gavie and others
in the Uov Galant and others in the Israeli cabinet
like things that they say.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
Griffin, could you address the James Gunn of it all
and maybe some of what we know about people who
are involved in production and writing and whether that tells
us anything about what they may have intended to do
with the way they structured the plot there.

Speaker 13 (55:37):
Yeah, so that's really hard to say because I mean
what is striking is not only that it's like political,
but it's this third reil issue that you didn't really
ever see in major Hollywood films before. I mean, James
Gunn is a really interesting director because he kind of
built like the modern DNA of like the Marvel Universe
with Guardians of the Galaxy, and it's allowed.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Him a lot of cloud very political movie.

Speaker 13 (56:00):
I mean that one, well, Guardians three actually is so
like I guess what I was trying to say is
like he has started to add more and more like
third rail or uncomfortable topics to major blockbusters. I'm thinking
about in Guardians three, it's all about like animal cruelty
and the evils of like lab testing on animals, and
there's really uncomfortable scenes in there that like normally wouldn't

(56:23):
be allowed in a major Hollywood film because they're not fun.
But he's been fitting that in and now I mean
with this one, I can't I can't really say what's
you know, what's in his mind or what's in his
heart or for the people who wrote it. But I mean,
there's so many just striking scenes that seem like this
was probably conceived of before October seventh. H A lot

(56:45):
of the scenes actually evoke something closer visually to the
Great March of Return in terms of people approaching a
fence and being like, you know, attacked, gunned down.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Most of them have like rocks.

Speaker 13 (56:56):
I think like one guy had like a machete, but
like very few of them had like any guns.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Uh. And then yeah, so I'm not really sure there
to Crystal's.

Speaker 13 (57:06):
Point about, like if you're someone who is watching this
movie and it's pro ISRAELI like, what, that's just gotta
be a crazy feeling because it's like like imagine like.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Seeing yourself like in the Villain or whatever.

Speaker 13 (57:19):
Like if I was watching like Silence of the Lambs
and I was watching like Buffalo Bill, and I was like,
are they making fun of me?

Speaker 1 (57:26):
Like are they calling me out?

Speaker 13 (57:28):
I put the lotion on the skin, that's normal, So
like it must be really uncomfortable for them. But I
do give props to Shapiro because Shapiro, like you know,
outside of politics, he does drill into movies and he
did have to come up with something like why is
this not it? And he said it's because they're not
Jihadis or they're not. It's not told to us that

(57:51):
the Jarhan poor people. We don't know they could be
terrorist or not. And because James Gunn doesn't specify, it
can't possibly be Pallstein because because that would be the
elephant in the room and he would have to clarify,
and only then could it be Palestine if they're Jahatis.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
So that was driving me crazy last night.

Speaker 5 (58:09):
But you know they're also Griffin.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
There is a line in there too where Superman says
something like they may not be perfect, but we need
to save these people or something like that.

Speaker 13 (58:20):
So it was driving me crazy last night, and it
was like eight o'clock and I said, fuck it, eleven
pm screening, I'm seeing it a second time. So I
saw it last night again and I caught you Shapiro.
Here's the line that is very specific that a Superman
and Lois are arguing and they're saying, basically, she Lois

(58:41):
is kind of coming from the non interventionist like us
perspective that it's like, you know what, that's over there,
you shouldn't have gotten involved, you should have gotten approved
by the US. And also Lois says, you know, a
tyrannical regime runs jarhnpoor.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
So they even do say that, sorry, sorry, Shapiro, I
got you.

Speaker 13 (59:04):
I can't clip it because it's copyright Wow damn.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
So so it's just like it's.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
Probably just got back from it because you woke up
so early your time.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Three hours ago.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Yeah, though, I gotta say yeah, I And then there
was there was some other line about like, well they
may not be perfect, but blah blah blah. So there
was even like an allusion to like, well it's Hamas
and they're bad. Of course, you know it's not directly Hamas,
but I picked up on that parallel as well. Let's
talk about the other piece that is very political here,

(59:37):
which is the the immigration part. And this got this
was sort of like I think before right after it
came out, this was the big conversation over on Fox
News is like, is Superman and immigrant?

Speaker 5 (59:49):
And what does that mean? Did we end up?

Speaker 6 (59:51):
Guys?

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Do we have for the Shapiro's take on the immigration
part of this, because this was this was the other
part is you know, again my take is I hated
the movie but of course it has nothing to do
with the fact that this is related to Israel.

Speaker 5 (01:00:04):
Because it's totally not.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
And also it has nothing to do with immigration either,
Like this isn't political. I just hated it for other
independent reasons. But it also seemed to me that the
pro immigrant message was also quite central here. And there
were other allusions to sort of you know, modern day happenings,
including and I don't think this gives away too much.
Superman gets locked with no due process, and there's even

(01:00:28):
you know, there's even sort of dialogue about why he
doesn't get due process because he's the quote unquote alien.
He gets locked into this sort of like Seacott type
prison from which there's no release and no escape. Of
course he figures out it is escape.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
But it was in Florida too. It was said in Florida.

Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
I think that's right. You're so right about that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
So in any case, there were threads throughout that made
allusion to and this part. I won't completely give up,
but you know, at the end, he sort of wraps
this in a bow in terms of like the life,
you know, the life lessons that you're supposed to take
from the film, which are also very much related to
the immigrant experience in America.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Yeah, you know, I agree with you, it is present.

Speaker 13 (01:01:10):
I thought it was going to be the main thing,
especially because that's what Fox News was like zeroing in on.
But it's kind of secondary, I think to the Israel
Palestine thing was seems to be like about you know,
like really the focus of the film, like I think
like Luther calls Superman like an illegal immigrant at one
point or what have you. And there is that jealouscene,
I agree, which I didn't think about before. But to me,

(01:01:31):
that's like that was always like a more safe topic
for Hollywood, like being pro immigrant.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
So it didn't it didn't surprise me.

Speaker 13 (01:01:38):
And it didn't feel like different from other Marvel or
like DC Property stuff where we've seen that kind of acceptable,
you know, general liberal message that any criticism of Israel
is pretty much not you know, I mean the only
movie that that was like no other land this year.

Speaker 7 (01:01:55):
Uh.

Speaker 13 (01:01:55):
And I'm trying to think of anything else that's been
going on. I mean, I guess you could say The
Zone Interest.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
But what people say and Or second Season, I haven't watched.
I'm in the first season of and Or people say
and Or second season right, is about Israel.

Speaker 13 (01:02:13):
Well, it is, it's about there is a genocide episode
where genocide does happen, and you could apply some stuff
to that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
That one, even you could make more generic.

Speaker 13 (01:02:24):
I think this is the most specific, like major blockbuster
film to talk about this topic. And I guess the
big other thing though that I was thinking a lot
about that does relate to the Israel Palestine, but also
relates to how I see not only Shapiro, but I
would say a lot of other like gamer Git sort
of in cell coded superhero community fans, they're really upset

(01:02:48):
that Superman is weak in the film, that he takes punches,
that he gets hurt, and that Superman shouldn't be weak.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
I think we've got a clip of that from Shapiro
as well. Let's roll it.

Speaker 7 (01:02:59):
He's not very super he is not a man of steel,
he is not invulnerable.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
He gets his ass kicked routinely.

Speaker 7 (01:03:06):
He gets locked up in a prison with it with
a character who's making kryptonite out of his hands. Sorry what,
He's constantly in victim mode. Like Green Lantern has much
more success in this movie. Mister Terrific has much more
success in this movie than Superman.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Zoom producer Mac is really thrown off by the cringe
millennial editing where you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Toss in it's all it's tough, is it not.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
I think it's cryte millennial right like that, like Circle,
like twenty thirteen.

Speaker 6 (01:03:30):
That was so edgy and hip.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
So this is this is a critique that I actually
find very compelling, having not seen the movie. I bet
you would get the right and the left both agreeing.
I get you would even get I bet you would
even get the filmmakers saying this was an intentional effort
to make Superman look more vulnerable and to look sort

(01:03:56):
of less toxically masculine. And I feel like that's what
Shapiro was saying. He thinks it's bad, they would think
it's good. That's sort of what I'm saying. I would
they made him.

Speaker 6 (01:04:05):
So, yeah, he made his Superman.

Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
But I feel like maybe both sides would agree. Tell
me if I'm wrong that that's wasn't probably an intentional
part of the character.

Speaker 13 (01:04:17):
Well, I'd be curious what Crystal has to think about
it for me, just real quick, like yeah, just from
a narrative perspective, And I don't think like any of
us are like major Superman fans, so we're just kind
of approaching the movie as it is. But like if
Superman is just invulnerable or like doesn't lose that just
like narratively kind of boring like in a movie for
him just like win in every scene. So there's just

(01:04:39):
something like narratively not satisfying about that to me personally.
But I think that like the big question of the
film because Superman is facing off with Lex Luthor and
sort of the question is like who wins between a
battle of brains versus like brawn, Like is it is
it the mind or is it the ultimate strength that wins?

(01:04:59):
And for me, like the film like decidedly says, it's
actually a third thing. It's actually his Superman's humanity, his
kindness and his connection to other humans and even in
connection to other animals, and his like desire to do
something that is uncomfortable for the greater good, like those

(01:05:22):
things that humanity is ultimately like what saves the day
and allows Superman to win and is like his greatest strength.

Speaker 5 (01:05:29):
Yes, I totally agree with that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
And when Emily was saying, you know, it was probably
an intentional choice to make him not be like toxically masculine.
I think it was more an intentional choice to make
him more human. And there's some dialogue again that speaks
directly to that towards the conclusion of the movie, where
he's talking about, you know, raised by these parents, human

(01:05:51):
parents in Kansas, and they're the ones who really instill
in him these deeply human values in spite of the
fact that he is technically an alien from another plan.
And so, you know, I thought that was a core
theme in the movie and another one that you certainly
can read in a very political way, because I mean,

(01:06:12):
you've got the tech right the Lex Luthor character could
be a Peter Teal, he could be an Elon Musk,
the sort of like evil genius archetype. You know, you
got Peter Teal out there, like I'm not sure if
the human rights should survive, Like I could go either way.
Maybe I am the anti Christ. I don't know, Like
he was kind of that archetype. And then you also

(01:06:33):
have Okay, well is it that or is it just
like the brawn and the strength, which is also you
know a question right now, and so one of the things,
and this may be me viewing it through my own
political lens, but we all get to go and watch
the movie, make of it what we want to make.
One of the things that's been really disturbing to me
about this era of our politics and our culture is
this sort of up is down quality of the characteristics

(01:06:57):
that are valued, Like this sense of just like being
nice and being humble and looking out for the little
guy and you know, having some sense of shame and honor.
Those things seem to have been completely dispatched with and
it's instead the person who succeeds is like the biggest,
you know, most arrogant, like in many instances, absolutely like

(01:07:19):
fool Charlatan con Man, who's completely shameless, who's just absolutely
in it for themselves and what they can get out
of the situation. And so to me it also felt
like a rebuke of that era in our politics in
our culture.

Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
It's not okay to talk about Sager like that.

Speaker 13 (01:07:34):
One don't tell them, okay, Sager bald shaking like Les Luthor.

Speaker 6 (01:07:42):
The grivin.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
I just respond to anything you want to there. But
I also just want to like taking the politics out
of it. How did it land for you? As just
like a movie. I brought my kids to see it.
They it was kind of long for them, but at
the end when it got very actiony, like they were
into it as well. I mean I just thought it
was also just kind of a fun, like kind of
campy classic superhero vibe, kind of a flick as well.

Speaker 13 (01:08:06):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I'm kind of gassed
out on the genre, and this one was like fun
and interesting. So it's like, I don't know if I'm
fully back on watching every superhero film, like like Sager
is a sicko. He sees like all the Marvel movies,
like he's seen like ant Man three, which I don't
even think is a real movie.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
So but for me, I've been a little gassed out.

Speaker 13 (01:08:29):
This did feel like a breath of fresh air, simply
because it didn't feel tied to like larger universe stuff
and had interesting messages and really good acting and fun actions.
So and I've always liked James Gunn, even from like
his first indie movie Slither, so it's always fun to
see like what he's up to.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
But yeah, like I wanted to go like to what
you said.

Speaker 13 (01:08:46):
About like being kind or whatever, because now like the
end message, well I didn't mean to me to dismiss
it I just didn't remember what she said. So like
the end message is that it's like punk rock to
be kind and so I'm seeing lots of people like
being like, you know, kindness is the new punk rock.
I just like today I saw Superman and then I

(01:09:07):
help this old lady walk across the.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Street with their groceries, and like that stuff is good.

Speaker 13 (01:09:13):
But I think like the ultimate kindness Superman does is
for the people of Jarhenpor that he like takes a
really uncomfortable position and encourages others that normally wouldn't have acted,
like these other superheroes like Green Lantern and Hawkrel to
act and to do something that is dangerous that is

(01:09:34):
personally scary, uh, but it matters because it's about helping
other people. And so like that is like the that
is part of the kindness part of Superman that I
think everyone should take home. A movie does not fix
what's happening in Israel Palestine, and it was like heartbreaking
to see scenes of like these kids in the movie
and think about the hundred plus people that are getting

(01:09:56):
killed every day at these aid stations. Like a movie
can't fix that, but it is like a glimmer of
hope that at least some people in this industry.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
It's very few.

Speaker 13 (01:10:08):
It's been very very quiet industry and sometimes like a
very punishing industry to be pro Palestine. Oh, you think
of so many people, and not even just the ones
that get articles written about, but I mean people I
know that work at agencies that are trying to rise
up in the ranks. I know Palestinian people that are
working in Hollywood that have a whole different experience. But

(01:10:30):
this is potentially a glimmer of hope that they can
at least start talking about a little more, or that
it's so it's such an unavoidable evil that it is
now the de facto movie evil when people think about
like what's wrong in the world. So, yeah, I don't
know what that means, but I guess hopefully the movie
career is everyone to be a little more courageous on
this issue and others.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yeah, I think that's all side Griff. And you know,
last thing that I was thinking about with regards to
this is like, even this can't be Superman movie, could
not make Bravia quite as cartoonishly evil as Israel has
actually been.

Speaker 5 (01:11:07):
I mean, if you put.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
In there, they're luring the jarren Purians into aid stations
and then massacring it people masacring them. People be like,
that's just like, why would they even do that? I mean,
that's just over the top, you know, I mean the
bombing of the schools and the hospitals and the medical
wards and the journalists and you know, I mean the
intentional starvation and the entire Like that also struck me

(01:11:31):
is that, like Bravia was meant to be cartoonishly evil,
and even in that cartoonish evil, real the like the
real world has in some ways surpassed that level of horror,
and so that really, you know, that really struck me
as well watching this is you couldn't even conceive of
something beyond the horrors that we witness every day on

(01:11:54):
our timelines in real life. So, you know, to me,
the biggest takeaway was just what a dramatic culture shift.
No way this movie comes out in this way, you know,
two years ago, not a chance that you have, you know,
or even a year ago. I mean, I think it's
just a real sign of how much the American public

(01:12:14):
has shifted in the way that they're viewing this conflict,
that you could have this Hollywood blockbuster that is, you know,
so clearly painting Israel as like these are the batties.

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
And by the way, the US is is aiding the
bad guy country. We are not.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
We are not the heroes. We are the ones who
are on the side of the bad guy country.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
So me and Shapiro are going to fix it.

Speaker 13 (01:12:34):
We're going in and doing a little rewrite, re release,
and we're going to just include one line that's going
to fix everything. We're gonna We're Superman is going to
say that Jarhanport was promised to Bravia three thousand years ago.

Speaker 5 (01:12:46):
And well, that totally changes everything and.

Speaker 13 (01:12:48):
That and that's gonna that's going to flip the whole perspective.
You're gonna want to watch the whole movie again with
a different perspective.

Speaker 4 (01:12:54):
Uh I noticed we didn't say anything about the uh
the very odd the not so subtle overtones in the
new Lulo and Stitch being about Nigorno, Kara Bach and
everything happening there right now.

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
Yeah, they also made Stitch less masculine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
We'll save that for another segment. Guys, it's too much
for today, too much.

Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
We call him store Stitch.

Speaker 6 (01:13:22):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 8 (01:13:24):
Well, that's a wrap.

Speaker 5 (01:13:28):
Thank you, Griffin, appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:30):
Crystal, thanks so much for hanging out. Thanks Salem for
us that it was, had a fairly long cameo today,
So yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:13:37):
Appreciate Salem's time always.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
I'll let him know. I know people always enjoy when
he shows up. It's always a little dicey for me
because you never know what that crazy kid he is
going to do. But I don't know, did did that
Superman discussion make you want to watch it? Or make
you more leg I don't really need to see this.

Speaker 6 (01:13:53):
I just I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
I feel like the country is mostly all in on
superhero movies, which I think is totally great and fine,
but then they're there's this cohort of us. It's just
like I can't I can't get into it, Like if
I wanted to, I couldn't get into it. I don't
know what it is, but I thought you guys had
a really interesting discussion, and I think it's culturally sort
of an ink blot test, and I'm always interested in
that why some people interpret things one way? And like

(01:14:16):
why is Fox News is running segments about super woke
and then you have even like conservative reviewers in National Review,
for example, saying there's nothing woke about this movie. And
that's the type of thing. Even the debate about whether
it's is reel or not. It's like, why are people
seeing things so differently? A very interesting question.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
Yeah, I think partly it seems to me that people
who just genuinely liked the movie but whose politics don't
necessarily fit with the movie want to sort of like
under like downplay, like, yeah, totally not it wasn't woke.
That's why I loved it because it wasn't woke. Actually,
it's like, well, I mean, I guess it all. Woke
is sort of a meaningless term at this point, so

(01:14:55):
you can define it in any way you want. But
you know, the the attempt to claim that it's not
political is preposter I mean, almost every movie has some
sort of politics to it because that's just the nature
of life. But this movie is particularly political. I think
that's hard to hard to really square with the central

(01:15:17):
messages of the film, and then to try to pretend
it's not Israel peals. I was just like, if you
see it, you'll you will see very clearly what was
you know, what was being attempted?

Speaker 5 (01:15:28):
Hear they do not try to make it settle whatsoever.

Speaker 6 (01:15:30):
Interesting interesting, interesting times.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
Your parallel back to how the Soviet Union sometimes it
wasn't sometimes it wasn't overt. It was just like very
obviously created to be the Soviet Union, for example in movies.
I thought that was really interesting too, So I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed hearing you discuss this with Griffin. It was
great to have Griffin here, and it was great to
have you here today too, Chrystal.

Speaker 6 (01:15:53):
You'll be back in with Stager tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Right, yep, for in with Sager tomorrow for normal breaking points.
So I will see you guys guys then, And we've
got Friday show plan and all that good stuff too,
so we'll see you guys soon.

Speaker 6 (01:16:04):
Sound good,