January 23, 2025 • 48 mins
What do the decisions Trump has made so far tell us about his strategy for his second term? And what strategic options do the Democrats have? Nate and Maria talk birthright citizenship, tech CEOs, memecoins, and pardons.
And, Nate and Maria answer a listener question about the status of their driver’s licenses.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I'm Nate Silver. Today will be talking about the
new president, the forty seventh President, Donald John Trump, who,
in a funny coincidence, happens to be the exact same
man who was the forty fifth president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You don't say, wow, hey, I think this is the
first time I've ever heard you call him with his
middle name.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I think this is the like Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
But let me tell let's let's start with this, right.
If you listen to this show, we're too people who
voted for Kamala Harris. You know, I'm not sure if
i'd say enthusiastically on my part, but it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I didn't find it that deaf of choice.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And here we are kind of like laughing in and
I don't quite sense the mood of like Gallows humor, right,
but like the rec it feels very different than eight
years ago. Right, I mean, do you remember kind of
how you felt in twenty seventeen or twenty sixteen when
Trump was declared the winner.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So I definitely remember twenty sixteen because back in twenty sixteen,
on election night, I was actually doing a live event
on stage at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. Slay was doing
this thing with some of their podcast hosts and I
was part of the Just podcast. I did a asidement
called is that Bullshit? So I was on stage commenting
(02:01):
on this, and the mood in the room just like
went from like yay, happy to like holy shit, what's
going on? To the point where I actually left, tapped out,
went home and said, you know what, you guys can
can cover this and I will not.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's a nice venue, the Bell House, It's very Brooklyn, right,
and you can imagine the panic in this nice warm
room that mcainst Sue and Sue is as all the
returns are going to trim.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yep, That's exactly what happened, and I just couldn't take
it anymore this time around. You know, I think it
was more expected in a sense, like, of course I
really wanted Kamala Harris to win, but I was not
nearly as shocked. I do think in many ways this
(02:48):
is actually a much more dangerous. It's so funny, right, ironically,
I think that this is actually a much more dangerous
moment than the last presidency because and we've talked about
this on the show before, when you're talking about kind
of the ability for people to make sweeping changes, we
have a lot of institutions in place, a lot of guardrails,
(03:09):
a lot of things that have been weakened, as we've
talked about over over Trump one point zero. And I
think that Trump right now is feeling much more empowered,
much more confident, and has surrounded himself with very different
people from the first time around. So in some ways,
I actually think that this is a more dangerous and
(03:30):
difficult period that we're about to enter. But as you,
as you correctly point out, like I think all of
us are exhausted, and how it feels a little different
in that sense, I'd say it's.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
A higher and here's where I probably show my comparative centrism.
It's a higher leverage moment, I think, right, And Trump
seems to sense that, right. He's promising like a new
I guess that century, but promising like a new era
of American greatness, which is unambiguously a conservative era, but
like talking about Americans.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And technology to William McKinley, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And talking about hey, you know, maybe that Panama Canal deal.
You know, maybe we don't like the term so much, right, Yeah,
but like you know, look, I think the kind of
old regime, the regime that produced Biden, who Biden. I
don't know how much you want to talk about Biden.
Maybe we'll look back around him, but like this kind
(04:25):
of sclerosis sclerotic regime, like wasn't governing effectively, and I
think wasn't persuading people effectively. And I don't know, I
don't think we'll look. You know, there's a chance we
could look back and say Trump did a lot of
crazy things and also some things that were okay, right,
and sometimes the whole point of democracies you have to
have like sweeping change. I mean, yeah, look, it is different,
(04:48):
I think, you know, not only so Trump.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I looked this up.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Trump had a what are we forty seven seat majority
in the US House in twenty twenty or twenty sixteen. Rather,
it is confusing with the skipping the one Trump term,
which is much larger than he's going to have this year,
which is just a few seats and vulnerable to retirements
and cabinet appointments and things like that. Right, he didn't
(05:14):
win the popular vote this time by a point and
a half, roughly one point five one point six, which
you didn't of course in twenty sixteen. But like it does,
it does feel different. Let me point out like six
or seven factors here that I think make this feel different.
And I know if you want to jump in and
cretins or agree or whatever else. Right, first of all,
(05:36):
it's much harder we got into this to write this
off as a fluke. He won the popular vote. You know,
there's also like no, you know, on the one y
people are taking it more calmly, but there's no like
protest activity against Trump instead of surging, you know, subscriptions
to these liberal newspapers like the Washington Post.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
They have lots of issues.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Frankly, but like are down MSNBC ratings and I'm sure
they were good yesterday. Aren't doing that well?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Right? You know, mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Are fighting the Biden and Harris teams are fighting over
who's fault. It was mostly Biden's by the way, ninety
eight ninety eight point nine percent. Biden's no maybe eighty percent, no, no,
ninety percent, and also like other ten percent of Harris's fault,
Like it's mostly because you hire the fucking stupid Biden people, right,
(06:28):
So one hundred percent, it's it's Biden's fault. Right, Never
hire anybody who worked in the senior Biden administration if
you want to win a campaign. Again, is my advice. Personally,
there's this whole intervention from the tech right is a
term that's sometimes used. It overlaps with my term the river.
But yeah, you have all these Ola garcs and now
(06:50):
I'm adopting Biden's term. But you know, I'm not sure
that's so bad. I mean saying rule by powerful rich people.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Power, I mean I think I think it's accurate. Yeah,
so Trump is showing, whether it's good or bad, I
think it's accurate.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
By young thereon Trump on stage was sitting Elon Musk,
and next to Elon Musk is who was there? Mark Zuckerberg?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And you had who else? I mean was there? Right?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
All the rich people Stok CEO of TikTok and Facebook
is making all these changes, some of which I agree with.
I think the way that fact checking was being done
was often politically biased. But like they're getting rid of
all their DEI initiatives and stuff that often just seems
like symbolic, right, you know, removing tampons from the men's room.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Like who cares? Right? Why?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I mean, why are why are you picking these minor fights?
But clearly the right and the center when we can
debate with the center to the center of the center,
right or whatever else, feels like they have wherewithal to
do kind of whatever they want right now. Right, the
referees have been dispreaded, the teachers have left the room, right,
and it's a recess with no rules in place anymore so.
(07:59):
And by the way, it's not just the United States.
We've had a revolt against incumbent parties all around the world.
You know, I would have to a little more time
with it to say is it is it mostly against
liberalism as opposed to whoever happened to be in power.
But certainly there's like an anti immigrant, anti immigrant tide, right,
(08:19):
which is the first thing that Trump emphasized, you know,
that's priority number number one really for Trump is the immigrants.
And given that executive discression plays a big role in
immigration policy, kind of an area where he'll be successful
probably given kind of what he's finding on. And then
(08:40):
there's all this new stuff he announced initiative today to
invest a lot in AI, which is very interesting giving
the politics of Silicon Valley, where Elon Musk is quite
worried about AI acceleration and risk, whereas other people the
Mark and Reasons of the world are accelerationists or at
least accelerationists adjacent. So I've talked a lot, Maria, what
(09:00):
are you thinking about here?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Well, I'm thinking about a lot of things, including one way,
you know, I think that what you were saying about
kind of the the teachers are out and we're at
a supervision free recess is actually a really nice way
of looking at this because last week on the pod
we talked a lot about the fact that irrational exuberance
is still alive and well, and I actually think that
(09:25):
that's kind of a theme in how the types of
decisions that Trump is making, and how he's thinking about risk,
and how his kind of the people surrounding him are
thinking about risk right now, which is infused with this
irrational exuberance that, oh, we can get away with anything,
and I think that is prompting some things that are
clearly overreach, right, like trying to do an executive order
(09:47):
that gives gets rid of birthright citizenship. You can't do that, right, Like,
that's just unconstitutional. That is part of the constitution. That
is going to have to be an amendment process, and
he and there are actually multiple things I'm not you know,
I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a constitutional expert. So
I'm not going to spend the time right now to
go through every executive order and being like this one's
going to get challenge, this one's going to get challenge, right, Yeah,
(10:09):
but there are a lot that are going to get challenged,
a lot that are just flat out illegal that he
can't do. And yet he's doing it because some of
it is kind of theatrics, right and showing that like,
oh look, I'm not going to be able to be stopped.
But some of it is also just showing, you know,
I am the strong guy. I'm the bully, right, I'm
(10:30):
the one who can just throw all of this at
you and what are you going to do about it?
At least in the immediate term. And it's very funny
that you have someone who's comparing himself to McKinley, you know,
us history lesson. That's not a president that normally people
compare themselves to, because that was not necessarily kind of
(10:50):
the finest moment of American history, but someone who liked
to take things. And so at the same time, he's saying,
you know, let's grab the Panama Canal. I'm going to
rename this is no longer going to be Gulf of Mexico.
And I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So all the Canadian provinces are eligible, Greenland, Panama Canal.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
What's your first pick?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Ontario, British Columbia.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, I mean I think that Ontario is probably it's
probably a good one, a good first pick.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Big, it's a big blue state. It's what's gonna be
like probably twenty six electoral votes or so. That might
be a mistake. For it might be a mistake.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
But you know, he's not gonna want Quebec because you
know those are French speakers and you know we don't
like foreigners around around here. Got to go for the
nice English speakers. And I think that we just need
to kind of put this, try to figure out like
obviously we know where he's coming from, right like, and
(11:52):
it is this very hubristic like I can just do
anything right now. But also, as you as you said
in the beginning, like with the like, what kind of
shift is this going to be? Will that lead him
to kind of taking it a little bit too far
where there will be pushed back because he doesn't have
the majority that he had before, Right, he doesn't have
those numbers. Is he going to bring it to the
(12:13):
point where people, even in the Republican Party are going
to say enough? So far, we have not seen evidence
of the fact that this is going to happen. Right,
It seems like all of his confirmations are going to
go through, you know, it seems that people are just
not not caring and they're going along with it for now.
But what's going to happen, you know, in six months?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Look, so yeah, that's one important difference is that you
have these much narrow congressional majorities and in fact, relatively little.
I was making a list of predictions of like what
Trump Willer won't do.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Very little of this.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Involves passing legislation through Congress in the first place, right,
very little of it, Right, I mean, they've already passed
the Republican House some bill to on youth gender participation
in sports. Right, they can't pass that through the Senate
anyway without getting a filibuster proof majority. I don't think
they will. Democrats are unified enough to prevent them getting
(13:12):
sixty votes, right and so like so like, you know,
so that'll have to be done by executive order and
then litigating it in the courts, and the Chief Justice
Roberts and the other Conservatives will have to decide where
they draw the line. I think birthright citizenship is one
place where they probably will, right, or Trump running for
third term or things like that. I mean, you know, look,
(13:34):
I'm not a constitutional scholar, but it seems pretty clear
to me. But like, so, one big difference is that
we aren't the only ones who were less surprised by
Trump's win as compared to eight years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
I think Trump himself was pretty surprised by twenty sixteen, right,
And there weren't a lot.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Of people who.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Who looked at this piece of real estate the Trump
twenty sixteen campaign versus trom twenty twenty four campaign and
began to plant their flags there. Peter Teel was a
notable except it's been quiet actually in this election.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Relative. I don't think he was there necessarily.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
But this time people are like, okay, look, Democrats are
so fucking stupid. They're running Biden again, right, and so
we might own the presidency, perhaps also the Congress, but
most importantly the presidency right for four years, and it's
a powerful executive and Biden I think did little to
diminish the power of the executive, by the way, and
(14:30):
so and so, Yeah, let's actually have a fucking plan
of things that we can actually accomplish, some of which
are intended as free roles. We would use a poker term, right,
Like if you were if you want to remove the
birthright citizenship stuff, right, what's the.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Chance the court will have pulled that.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I don't know, I'm guessing ten percent or something, right,
or maybe there's another ten percent chance of some halfway
in the door.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
But it doesn't cost you.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Anything, really, right, you get liberal tiers and liberal outrage
no matter what you distract them from.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, I think that the distraction is part of it.
That's what I'm saying, Like, just try to overwhelm people, right,
and you throw stuff that is just blatantly unconstitutional in there,
But then like you're putting out all of these fires,
and it does prevent you from doing something else. I
have a question for you, Nate, on another topic that
(15:22):
we've talked about many times on the show pe Doom.
So because of what Trump has kind of done with
AI in his first twenty four hours. So first he
rescented the executive order that Biden had put into place,
right that had asked big AI companies to loop in
the US government, right and to kind of tell them
be transparent with what they were doing with the technologies,
(15:45):
et cetera. That no longer has to happen. And because
he does seem to be on like team Yay, let's go.
And even though Musk is close with him as of now,
you know, it seems like Musk is right now more
trying to placate Trump and stay in a position of
power than he is necessarily trying to kind of counteract
him and say no, no, like this isn't good because
(16:06):
he you know, he didn't say as much as bad
and I about the electric vehicle stuff either, So it
seems like he's trying to be kind of on team
Trump right now. So I think they're My question for
you is what do we think the p doom probabilities
from Aire, Like, are there things that he's going to
do in the next four years? Right in terms of
(16:26):
of his policies that are going to be much more
difficult to roll back, much more difficult too to talk about.
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Look, I mean Elon won this big fight against Trump
or against MAGA on H one B or whichever visas
on skilled immigration visas. I guess the kind of narrow
issue is, Yeah, Look, I think Trump is probably good
for technology growth in the US relative to Democrats, maybe
(16:56):
with if tariffs don't interfere with that too much, right,
But that also probably means.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
That, Yeah, I think I think P doom risk is
up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And I also wonder whether this is going to polarize
because actually, if you look at public opinion data, people
are in the abstract pretty worried about P DOOM. I
think we maybe overestimate kind of how much the average
person thinks or knows about this. But but if if
we reach even I mean Sam Melton's talking about how
we're going to achieve artificial general intelligence at some point
(17:24):
in the next three is years or something, right like,
I imagine this is going to become a pretty big
campaign issue in twenty twenty eight. And if it polarizes,
maybe Dems are the parties saying we are the ones
who have to restrain AI. And like, I think it
could actually be kind of like a popular message, right,
(17:44):
I mean, what's the path forward here?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Is it like oligarch versus oligarch or is it oligarch
versus everyone else? And Democrats have to, like I think
pick one of those two lanes over a timeframe of
like of like ten or something years, right, because it
is absolutely true. And again I don't think these oligarchs
could go on a case by case basis, right. The
(18:06):
super rich Silicon Valley people, I don't think they're dumb
people or bad people necessarily, right, But they have economic interests,
and they have a philosopher's actually quite predictable in some
ways and transparent, and they've kind of realized now that
we have ways to like actuate our interests.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right. So there are various questions here, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
One question is whether you know there are a lot
of Silicon Valley types who are either liberal liberals or
like classic liberals, right, or just might say, okay, well,
maybe I want to try to like rekindle this Obama
era alliance in the Democrat Party with you know, with
the tech sector where you know, two thousand and eight
was the Facebook elections supposedly whatever else and all the
(18:47):
Obama people worked at Facebook and vice versa and things
like that. You know, but you kind of have to
pick one, right, if you're Democrats, you should either be
criticizing the oligarchs and AI by twenty twenty eight will
become a tangible issue there in which public opinion might
be on your side.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Maybe climate.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think it's a little more complicated, right, but because
they tend to be a little bit more sensitive to
climate change. Or do you want to like draft your
own Mark Cuban or dissident or like who knows how
long Elon's relationship with Trump will will last? Right, maybe
Steve Bannon wins that fight eventually. Vivic Ramaswami has already
been ousted from STOG.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That was fast.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Well, he made this very cringe tweet about how like
you got to pull you know what was his reference,
like saved by the bell and how nerds don't get
enough respect and like yeah, it's like never heard from again.
He made he's running for governor of Ohio, so maybe
he'll governor of Ohio. I think you may never be
heard from again. It was just such a cringey tweet,
right that even Elon was like, bro, it's too much.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
But Democrats have to like pick a lane.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And I think the stuff about the fact that there
is this concentration of wealth and power is like, is
quite it's true, right, I mean, it's a it's true that,
like and again I'm a fucking neoliberal capitalist, right, but
it is true that that more and more wealth and
power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially
(20:15):
at the very very very very very top end.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The ten most, literally the ten most are twenty richest
and most powerful people in the world, and they're increasingly
actuating their political interests, right, Like, I think that line
of critique is more promising electorally and fresher and maybe
truer than just calling Trump a fascist.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
If that didn't work that, I mean Joe Biden thought, oh,
January sixth was so bad, We'll just have to I
don't know what voice I'm doing here, but like, but
that just screaming democracy, democracy, democracy, right, Like, that didn't work.
People are sick and tired of that. And the fact
is that the democratic system delivered a verdict that people
are sick and tired of these candidates Democrats are nominating,
(20:59):
and Democrats can rebound for that system, and I think
they probably will in twenty twenty six, I think there
could be a bad mid term for Trump. This global
anti incumbent mood could easily come back around to bite him.
You know, I think is kind of like the efficacy
of governance, right, Like, you know, Democrats are the expert
class and and fucked lots of things up, right, It
(21:19):
doesn't mean to me that like the non expert diletant
class is going to do any better necessarily, right, Like
maybe on every third maybe one out of three things, yes, right,
maybe four out of ten things? Right, that still us
there are six out of ten things that might break
and might break badly. The pandemic happened under Trump's watch,
you know, though I think he deserves more credit for
(21:40):
like Operation Warp Speed and the first stimulus package. You know, Look,
if you look at American history, there are big catastrophic
fuck ups and that's what produced just back, particularly in
a liberal direction.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Right, So the Iraq War was one of.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Those, plus the financial crisis that produces a huge shift
toward a guy named Brockosine. Obama becoming president for two terms.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And we'll be back right after this. This start of
Trump two point zero, we're in a very very different
place economically politically than we were in Trump one point zero, right,
(22:32):
So we have the inflation and kind of recessionary kind
of things and high interest rates that we didn't have
back when he assumed power. The economy that he's inheriting
is in much worse shape. And as you saw by
the way he didn't immediately like say tariffs, tariffs, tariffs,
even though he said, now Mexico and Canada, if you're leading,
(22:55):
you're letting immigrants into our countries, I'm going to put
tariffs on you, and I will. You know, I'll see
what else happens. But it will be very interesting to
see because one of his promises was, oh, you know,
will we'll make everyone more prosperous, and we're going to
do all of these different things. But that might actually
be a moment where as we've talked about before, incumbents
(23:18):
have been blamed for kind of this global economic malaise.
But he's going to be the incumbent. And unless you know,
it really depends on what we see in the next
four years in terms of economic policies in terms of
how the average person feels when they go shopping. So
I just want to kind of make sure that that
we understand that as we as we look at the
(23:40):
next four years. But I do completely agree with you
that I actually think it's much more promising and very
accurate for the Democrats to attack the oligarchical shift in
the in the US government, because it is I wouldn't
say it's unprecedented, but it's unprecedented in modern times, and
(24:00):
it is very eyebrow raising when you see kind of
who you know, who is in, who is next, who
is at Trump's side as we kind of enter this
era and think through the implications of that for the
common person, right for your just like normal voter who
(24:21):
just wants to live a normal life. And I don't
think that people have necessarily thought that through, but I
think it will be if Democrats can seize upon it.
I think it could be a way to differentiate and
get people actually excited. Because, by the way, even if
a lot of what Trump has done is fascist, and
you know, we don't have to go into it, but
(24:41):
we have the Hile Hitler salute form Elon Musk controversy.
But as you said, that hasn't worked.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
No, it hasn't worked, and it's because it's fucking stupid, right, Like,
out of all these things, I mean, how many executive
orders did Trump issue in the past twenty four I
guess twenty six hours and we're taping this a lot,
Like you know, he repealed the Biden Ai executive I mean,
like focus on shit that, like, I mean, don't repeat
(25:08):
the mistakes of like of eight years ago.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
The thing that wasn't a mistake.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I mean, you have like the women's markets in like
organized opposition, Like that seems to be like something you
should do anytime you're the opposition party. I'm like, who's
in charge of the Democratic Party right now? I mean,
you know who's the leader of the Democratic Party right now?
Right Barack Obama?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I guess kind of.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Beats me.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, I mean it requires.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I mean, the Trump people spent more time strategizing for
this moment, and I guess that makes it easier when
you know it's Trump's player the highway and the GOP
right where there's no no kind of equivalent figure in
the Democratic Party. But like, look, ordinarily there would be
a strong case for for mean reversion, meaning there are
(25:56):
all these ways from the effectiveness of governance to overreach.
I mean, we talked a little bit about kind of
like pent up recess ladies away for a few minutes,
kind of frustration.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I think there might only be.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So much tolerance for beating up on immigrants and trans
people and kind of once the needle moves on some
of these issues, then like then it will become kind
of gross and like tiresome and things like that. Right,
I think there might be a limited tolerance for that
with some corrections of like free speech and the fucking misinformation.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
People, right, like fuck them.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
But like I think, you know, I don't think America
went and we moved back to the nineteen fifties or
something when it comes to how we view sexuality and
gender and things like that.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Right, But.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
You think there might be some mean reversion between like
the fact that Democrats are competitive and all these elections, Right,
No Democrats lost a popular vote by more than two
and a half points since nineteen eighty eight, Right, so
every year that's been a you know, within a field goal,
and they've lost some of those, and one some of
those Democrats will probably take over the Senate, excuse me,
the House, probably not the Senate. In twenty twenty six,
(27:10):
they own a lot of these governorships.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
They have.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
A bench of younger governors who were all better than
the last three people they nominated for president. Frankly and yeah,
and now if you have this continuous anti incumbent sentiment,
then that benefits Democrats in twenty twenty or twenty God
damn it so confusing, so many years twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I know, I know everyone's timeline is fucked up, But like, I.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Look, if you have work, hey, let's let's run back
the playbook, but nominate a better candy at the Kamala Harris,
and this time, inflation and the fuck ups of the
White House help us and not hurt us.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I mean, there's.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
A fifty to fifty chance that works, maybe better than
fifty to fifty. But I don't know if that actually
kind of like wins the culture war or the political
war in the long run.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Really well, I think that the pendulum shift is an
interesting way of looking at it because to go back
to kind of where we started the show, which is
kind of part of this irrational exuberance that that Trump
is exhibiting. He may push things too far, even with
the tech stuff like we saw, you know, he has
(28:21):
in the last week, we've seen the launch of a
Trump meme coin and a Milania meme coin, and even
the crypto community is like, dude, right, like, what is
going on here? This is not a good look. This
looks like very scammy, icky type of thing. And rather
than being like yeah, you know, you go, they're like, wait,
(28:44):
hold on a second, right, like this might be a
step too far. And these were some of his biggest supporters.
And so if he keeps kind of doing things like this,
if he keeps attacking immigrants the way he has and
attacking you know, transgender like oh there are only men
and women, all of these things where he's really just
pushing it way too far, including things that you mentioned
(29:07):
like oh, no more tampons in the Facebook bathroom, which like,
no matter who you are, you're like what the fuck? Right, Like,
what in the world are we been talking about? Right?
I do think that maybe then people will start finally reacting.
Maybe not right, I'm choosing to believe that humanity will
react against.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I mean, you did have a lot of under the
Democratic presidents, but actually more under Biden than Obama. Right,
you did have a lot of like officials government spaces
and corporate spaces. Because Silicon Valley we had thought of
as being quite left wing. I think it never really was.
We can talk about that, right, but you did have
(29:45):
a lot of kind of policy changes that people felt
like were superimposed on them. And then what further than
public opinion might right, usually you think that like, you know,
corporate institutions are more centrist, but you know, on a
lot of these issues, and they were pretty far to
the left during the latter years the Biden term, And
(30:08):
so I think I think the GOP has a little
bit more mileage and usual of that because you're kind
of rolling back from a point where like it was
not reflecting public opinion to begin with. But like, at
the same time, though, I mean, look at so why
did Biden fail? And there are a few themes here.
I have another article about this. What is he was
seventy eight years old. Trump is seventy eight years old
(30:31):
at the start of his second term. You know, unlike
fortunately for Trump, he can't run for a third term
unless he tries to get the constitution changed, and so
and so there's not that temptation, right, but like, but
you know, you have issues of like performance and cognitive
fitness that I think are valid to ask of any
seventy eight years old too. Biden thinks he has this big,
(30:53):
sweeping mandate, and he does win a majority of vot
which Trump didn't in a wider popular vote margin about
the same electoral college. But it was kind of conditional, right.
It was kind of like, oh, the last guy really
fucked up, especially in COVID, and so he kind of
over reached and overread that mandate. And three he was
kind of like bogged down by lots of policy commitments
(31:16):
to groups who were acting in their own interests and
not in the long term interest of the country or
a Biden's party.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Just last week, Biden claimed that we have a new
twenty eighth amendment, right, this equal rights amendment, which was
simple amendment that just kind of said, okay, we're supposally
saying that women are equal to men, right, I don't
know the exact terminology, I mean basically just asserted, and
Kamala Harris's account asserted that, oh, now it's the law
(31:44):
of the land, when it very much isn't.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
You'd have to go through a whole process with the
constitutional archivists to do this. Right, Congress in the nineteen
seventies I think, approved this era amendment. Then it went
to the states to ratify, and they sent a seven
year timeframe saying you have to have thirty seven I
think three quarters states, it is it thirty eighth then
(32:07):
ratify this within yeah, thirty seven and a half. Right,
So thirty eight thirty eight states must ratify this, and
I believe seven years, and they didn't get there. It
was like thirty six or something, right. A couple of
saints then rescinded their approval of it. Right, But then
(32:27):
later like Nevada and Virginia, like in the past five years,
approved this and so and so it's a radical judicial
overreach argument that, oh, well, actually this thing that Congress
put in the law that's overridden by other provisions of
the Constitution. Oh and by the way, by the way,
the fact that five or six states rescinded this, just
ignore that too, right, But this is something that like
(32:51):
you know, I would say, radical left groups that have
a different interpretation of the Constitution, we're pushing Biden to do.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
And so it just looks fucking stupid your last week.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
In office, right, you're like doing this, making this fake
amendment up and then pardoning your family.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I mean, what are what are we doing? Right?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Anyway, I'm on a on a Biden rant. But the
point is that like the overreach of like an old
president who has a lot of people who are pushing
for things and pulley for things in this limited.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Amount of bandwidth.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
And and you know, and I watched Biden's speech from
four years ago, and like Trump kind of thought he
was this or Biden thought he was a savior.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Right, Oh, I've been this difficult time.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But I'll deliver justice from systemic racism on top of
solving the COVID pandemic and the economy, right and climate change.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I'm going to sell it, all right.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And Trump says the same thing, and he's like, well,
God saved me from that assassin's bullet. I was put
here for a reason. And then like and like, I
don't know, neither man is very introspective.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I would say, I want to clip your last thirty
seconds and then run it. If risky business still exists
in four years, which I hope it does, run it.
At the end of the Trump presidency because what you
just said basically could be exactly like word for word.
You know how Trump is acting right now, seventy eight
year old man thinks he has you know, this mandate
(34:16):
is going to be overreaching and doing all of these things.
And I really want to see kind of how we'll
be able to cut and paste that. And I mean
I hope we will in the sense that I hope
that he doesn't manage to be kind of more effective
in some respects, if that makes sense. The courts are
(34:37):
something we've talked about a lot on the show, haven't
talked about today, don't need to talk about much today,
but that is something that has changed in the last
eight years.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Can you make a request of like the internet or
not the internet of the media?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I would love to have a people I can rely
on for Supreme Court analysis that I think are looking
at it from like an arm's length point of view,
because what tends to happen is a lot of you
know area, and they always think that like everything is
going to be ruled in a conservative direction. When as
(35:15):
a five to four court it showed, you know, it
legalized gay marriage, which by the way, is probably not
vulnerable because it was also legalized by by statute. There
are some things that so you know, as I've been
researching this, so NATO, Congress passed a law saying the
president can't pull out of NATO. Trump can and maybe
will try. But like that goes to litigation. But like
(35:37):
I would, I would I want more court analysis from
people who isn't who aren't super blue pilled and can
be quote unquote objective both about the law and about
kind of just how the court empirically behaves. I do
think the court will see it. I mean, look, if
it says, oh, there's some end around to birthright citizenship,
(36:01):
I mean that would be I think a very bad
sign because then it means there's like not really any restraint.
My priors are that you're going to have some a
fair amount of restraint. But I would love to read
I would love to have more go to sources on that.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So what I By the way, eighteen states while we've
been taping, have already sued to and to challenge the
Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, so that has already entered into
the legal system. We always knew that was going to
be the first thing right that was going to be challenged,
but so we are already we're seeing some of it.
(36:44):
And yes, I think that if the Supreme Court, by
the way, rules that there's a way around this, then
that's just going to kind of confirm everyone, including mine
worse fears that like this is just a complete sham, right,
So let's hope that they don't. But the legal system
has changed a lot in the last eight years, and
(37:06):
that is one of the guardrails that has become shaped. Ye,
So you know, it's it's interesting that you obviously that
that you're pointing out that, well, gay marriage is protected,
but they're you know, there's no guarantee that things like
that will remain protected if we start going down the
slope of like let's get rid of all of these
(37:28):
rights that that have been protected for a while. So
I hope it it remains protected, but it's one of
these things where you know, I think we all have
to be on alert.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I guess part of what I'd say is like, I
you don't need slippery slope arguments because a people aren't
persuaded by them and be like, there's so much shit
happening right now, right and this is like yeah, I
mean this is, you know, because it's not going to
be a legislative driven presidency unless unless somehow Trump wins
more seeds at the midterms, which is pretty rare. The
(38:00):
big fights are happening right now. Right now is important
a moment as you'll ever have in the Trump administration
because it doesn't take time to build up a coalition
and things like that. He's acting as like a unitary executive.
It's probably some term that legal terms. So he's acting
is like a strong president right through executive order and
so and so. Look, I mean, look, you're also an environment.
(38:23):
People have incentives. I mean, I'm sure that the elon
making the some person called it it's an Italian salute,
you know, I know, I mean, probably a bad look,
but like don't don't waste bam with cycles on that.
But like I'm also sure that like alarmist Roman salute,
our producers are saying, hey, look just a Roman salute.
(38:44):
But like focus, but the incentives are not the focus.
The incentives are for your X feed or your blue
sky or your or your substack or whatever else.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
The incentives are for outrage media, right, and I think
that we like we need to band together and instead
of the outrage media. As you said, focus try to
figure out what what what can what's happening, like, what
are the fights? How do you like make a logical argument,
and how do you kind of how do you what
do you do about it? As opposed to get outraged
(39:14):
at every one of these little things. Because Trump is
going to win that fight. Trump is incredibly good at
getting outrage media on his side, and right now he
has Musk on his side and must controls X, so
he is very good at kind of that thing that's
his forte right, the social media kind of outrage type
of thing. So I think not falling for that and
(39:35):
to remain focused, as in my mind, one of the
best things that we can do is how we allocate
our attention and then how we allocate our resources as
opposed to just you know, getting getting distracted and going
all over the place, which is what he wants us
to do. So let's let's you know, I think this
is like a good battle tactic from from the old
(39:57):
grades of you know, Sun Sioux and Klauswitz and all
of the battle tacticians that I read, you know, way
way back when don't when the enemy tries to distract
you don't. Don't fall for right, figure it out, get
focused and have a good plan of attack yourself. Don't
let them set the rules. Figure out how to set
the rules yourself.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You know, I don't even see it as a we
or that, you know, I you know, I see myself
as like an intellectual free agent. I think I'm never
going to become to Trump per se. But like, look,
I like the pro growth stuff and the free speech
stuff and some of it right and so like, And
I don't think democratic The Democratic Party has offered very
strong leadership over the past couple of cycles, necessarily, and
(40:40):
so you know, I see we as like an American suggestion.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I'm saying, we as like protecting the American people.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
You know, what should be the twenty eighth Amendment. What
is is an amendment limiting presidential pardon power at the
very least to like self pardons and the family and
things like that. Right, we need amendment to the Constitution
to prevent presidential pardon powers from being abused.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
I agree with you that presidential partners pardons are being
misused right now. I don't know that that's our number
one amendment priory, but I but your point, But your
point is taken, and I do think that it's been
you know, it's a little bit ridiculous, this kind of
tit for tat type of presidential partons that we've that
(41:24):
we've seen in the last forty eight hours. And yeah,
well we'll just we'll see who. Let's uh, I think
that we can go back to end with our like
little kids on the playground or recess analogy. Let's see
who who can become adult more quickly? Right, Like, who's
(41:45):
going to be able to emerge from this and stop
finger pointing and doing silly stuff and getting distracted and
like get their shit together and actually think through the
future of the country in a mature way. This is
a challenge to both Republicans and Democrats. I think this
is a challenge too, to our entire government, and I
(42:06):
hope that they rise up to the challenge.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
We'll be right back after this message.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
This week, we're going to answer a listener question why
don't Nate and I have a driver's license?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Which, by the way, the listener is wrong about one
of those two people.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
This is true. We have a question from Kenny in Detroit,
and the question is, why the hell do neither of
you have a driver's license, Kenny, I now have a
driver's license. I have after Yeah, I've driven, Nate has
driven with me, and I did not crash us. Right,
I did a good job. I took driving lessons after
(42:54):
I moved to Nevada. You need to have a driver's
license and know how to drive. So I took lessons
and I am now the proud possessor of driving skills.
Before that, I did not have a life license because
I've always lived in the city. Right as an adult,
I've lived in New York and my entire adult life.
(43:16):
And you do not need a driver's license. You do
not need a car. It's very hard to have a
car in New York. We talked last week about congestion pricing,
but even before that, you know, parking is a pain
in the ass. Driving is a pain in the ass.
And I grew up in Boston, and I think Boston,
a lot of people will say is the worst city
in the country to drive, because Boston drivers are very aggressive,
(43:38):
very unpredictable, and Boston streets are horrific. So I'm also
the youngest of four kids, so people always drove me
around and I skipped a few grades in school, skipped
one grade, but was young to begin with. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so I couldn't get a license until after I graduated,
and by that point I went to college.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Our producer is asking if you drive like a Bostonian.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, no, I do not drive like a boston question
you were to.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Me, Maria.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
No, I didn't notice any any I thought. I thought
Maria drove pretty well. I think we got lost in
the casino parking lot and mid mixing this up, but
like maybe it was with someone else.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
It's confusing, though.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Those casino parking lots are you go around in circles
and they change it.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
But the driving itself seem seemed good.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I appreciate that. No, that was with me. I drove
us in circles a few times, but then I got
us out of there. I hate casino parking lots. They're
designed like casinos. Casino design is meant for you to
get lost in there, so that you, you know, end up
having to walk past all the different machines and like
you just get if you look at the old casinos
right like a Caesar's, you just your sense of orientation
(44:51):
goes out the window. It changed Steve Woyn actually changed
the design elements and it's much more pleasant and open,
and you don't get lost like at an Encore the
way that you do at Caesar's. But I feel like
casino parking lots were designed by the same principle, like
how the fuck do you get out of there? And
it's impossible some times to figure out, like where the
exit is, where the exit is not, and you find
(45:13):
yourself going in circles. And I just want to say,
there are no slot machines in the in the garage.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Just make it easy. Don't want to solve that problem.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
But nay, Yeah, you're a New Yorker, so so I
think that that answer is why you don't have a license.
But you didn't grow up in New York.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Well I wasn't originally, I grew up in Michigan. I
grew up in Michigan the automotive state. The short ish
version is like I was kind of a klutzy kid.
I failed my initial driving test. I then got I
didn't pass nate, I didn't know that I'm more coordinated
now than I used to be, then passed uh. I
then got However, I took a class at like Seers God,
(45:55):
I'm fucking old, right, and got a permit and my
dad was like, but you gotta drive another fifty hours
with me before I sign off on the license and
then and then I do some of that, but then
I go to college in Chicago and then and I've
lived in Chicago when in New York my whole life
since then. So and my partner drives. We do you
(46:19):
have a car? So it just kind of isn't like,
hasn't quite been worth the investment, but it'd be fun.
It'd be fun to like, yeah, I know pretty people wrong,
I know, but I feel like, would I be a driver?
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Probably not. I vary.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I think, well, yeah, well we'll we'll just we'll see
in a few years whether you've learned how to drive
or not. I'm glad I now know how to drive.
But it was really really nice. I'll end on this.
It's really nice not being able to drive because no
one can ask you to do shit, right, Like you
can't run errands and you can't pick people up and
you can't do anything like that because you're like, sorry,
(46:58):
I don't know how to drive. But now that excuse
no longer applies. So there was part of me that
actually really liked the facts that no one could ever
ask me to run any related errands.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
No, it is interesting, right, you don't want to give
people the option. I'm trying to think of some is
there some name like burning your bridges? There's gotta be
some other more updated feeling heuristic, right, but like denying
people the option?
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Right?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, yep, I think I think that's good. So yes,
that that is the answer to your question. Kenny from
Detroit and so far I have Christine driving record knock
on wood. Let us know what you think of the show.
(47:45):
Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot Fm.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannikova and by
me Nate Silver. The show is a co production of
Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter.
Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer
(48:07):
is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too. And if you
want to listen to an ad free.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Version, sign up for Pushkin Plus.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
For six, ten and nine a month you get access
to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning in
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I'm Nate Silver. Today will be talking about the
new president, the forty seventh President, Donald John Trump, who,
in a funny coincidence, happens to be the exact same
man who was the forty fifth president of the United States.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You don't say, wow, hey, I think this is the
first time I've ever heard you call him with his
middle name.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I think this is the like Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
But let me tell let's let's start with this, right.
If you listen to this show, we're too people who
voted for Kamala Harris. You know, I'm not sure if
i'd say enthusiastically on my part, but it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
I didn't find it that deaf of choice.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And here we are kind of like laughing in and
I don't quite sense the mood of like Gallows humor, right,
but like the rec it feels very different than eight
years ago. Right, I mean, do you remember kind of
how you felt in twenty seventeen or twenty sixteen when
Trump was declared the winner.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So I definitely remember twenty sixteen because back in twenty sixteen,
on election night, I was actually doing a live event
on stage at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. Slay was doing
this thing with some of their podcast hosts and I
was part of the Just podcast. I did a asidement
called is that Bullshit? So I was on stage commenting
(02:01):
on this, and the mood in the room just like
went from like yay, happy to like holy shit, what's
going on? To the point where I actually left, tapped out,
went home and said, you know what, you guys can
can cover this and I will not.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It's a nice venue, the Bell House, It's very Brooklyn, right,
and you can imagine the panic in this nice warm
room that mcainst Sue and Sue is as all the
returns are going to trim.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yep, That's exactly what happened, and I just couldn't take
it anymore this time around. You know, I think it
was more expected in a sense, like, of course I
really wanted Kamala Harris to win, but I was not
nearly as shocked. I do think in many ways this
(02:48):
is actually a much more dangerous. It's so funny, right, ironically,
I think that this is actually a much more dangerous
moment than the last presidency because and we've talked about
this on the show before, when you're talking about kind
of the ability for people to make sweeping changes, we
have a lot of institutions in place, a lot of guardrails,
(03:09):
a lot of things that have been weakened, as we've
talked about over over Trump one point zero. And I
think that Trump right now is feeling much more empowered,
much more confident, and has surrounded himself with very different
people from the first time around. So in some ways,
I actually think that this is a more dangerous and
(03:30):
difficult period that we're about to enter. But as you,
as you correctly point out, like I think all of
us are exhausted, and how it feels a little different
in that sense, I'd say it's.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
A higher and here's where I probably show my comparative centrism.
It's a higher leverage moment, I think, right, And Trump
seems to sense that, right. He's promising like a new
I guess that century, but promising like a new era
of American greatness, which is unambiguously a conservative era, but
like talking about Americans.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
And technology to William McKinley, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And talking about hey, you know, maybe that Panama Canal deal.
You know, maybe we don't like the term so much, right, Yeah,
but like you know, look, I think the kind of
old regime, the regime that produced Biden, who Biden. I
don't know how much you want to talk about Biden.
Maybe we'll look back around him, but like this kind
(04:25):
of sclerosis sclerotic regime, like wasn't governing effectively, and I
think wasn't persuading people effectively. And I don't know, I
don't think we'll look. You know, there's a chance we
could look back and say Trump did a lot of
crazy things and also some things that were okay, right,
and sometimes the whole point of democracies you have to
have like sweeping change. I mean, yeah, look, it is different,
(04:48):
I think, you know, not only so Trump.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I looked this up.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Trump had a what are we forty seven seat majority
in the US House in twenty twenty or twenty sixteen. Rather,
it is confusing with the skipping the one Trump term,
which is much larger than he's going to have this year,
which is just a few seats and vulnerable to retirements
and cabinet appointments and things like that. Right, he didn't
(05:14):
win the popular vote this time by a point and
a half, roughly one point five one point six, which
you didn't of course in twenty sixteen. But like it does,
it does feel different. Let me point out like six
or seven factors here that I think make this feel different.
And I know if you want to jump in and
cretins or agree or whatever else. Right, first of all,
(05:36):
it's much harder we got into this to write this
off as a fluke. He won the popular vote. You know,
there's also like no, you know, on the one y
people are taking it more calmly, but there's no like
protest activity against Trump instead of surging, you know, subscriptions
to these liberal newspapers like the Washington Post.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
They have lots of issues.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Frankly, but like are down MSNBC ratings and I'm sure
they were good yesterday. Aren't doing that well?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Right? You know, mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Are fighting the Biden and Harris teams are fighting over
who's fault. It was mostly Biden's by the way, ninety
eight ninety eight point nine percent. Biden's no maybe eighty percent, no, no,
ninety percent, and also like other ten percent of Harris's fault,
Like it's mostly because you hire the fucking stupid Biden people, right,
(06:28):
So one hundred percent, it's it's Biden's fault. Right, Never
hire anybody who worked in the senior Biden administration if
you want to win a campaign. Again, is my advice. Personally,
there's this whole intervention from the tech right is a
term that's sometimes used. It overlaps with my term the river.
But yeah, you have all these Ola garcs and now
(06:50):
I'm adopting Biden's term. But you know, I'm not sure
that's so bad. I mean saying rule by powerful rich people.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Power, I mean I think I think it's accurate. Yeah,
so Trump is showing, whether it's good or bad, I
think it's accurate.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
By young thereon Trump on stage was sitting Elon Musk,
and next to Elon Musk is who was there? Mark Zuckerberg?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And you had who else? I mean was there? Right?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
All the rich people Stok CEO of TikTok and Facebook
is making all these changes, some of which I agree with.
I think the way that fact checking was being done
was often politically biased. But like they're getting rid of
all their DEI initiatives and stuff that often just seems
like symbolic, right, you know, removing tampons from the men's room.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Like who cares? Right? Why?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I mean, why are why are you picking these minor fights?
But clearly the right and the center when we can
debate with the center to the center of the center,
right or whatever else, feels like they have wherewithal to
do kind of whatever they want right now. Right, the
referees have been dispreaded, the teachers have left the room, right,
and it's a recess with no rules in place anymore so.
(07:59):
And by the way, it's not just the United States.
We've had a revolt against incumbent parties all around the world.
You know, I would have to a little more time
with it to say is it is it mostly against
liberalism as opposed to whoever happened to be in power.
But certainly there's like an anti immigrant, anti immigrant tide, right,
(08:19):
which is the first thing that Trump emphasized, you know,
that's priority number number one really for Trump is the immigrants.
And given that executive discression plays a big role in
immigration policy, kind of an area where he'll be successful
probably given kind of what he's finding on. And then
(08:40):
there's all this new stuff he announced initiative today to
invest a lot in AI, which is very interesting giving
the politics of Silicon Valley, where Elon Musk is quite
worried about AI acceleration and risk, whereas other people the
Mark and Reasons of the world are accelerationists or at
least accelerationists adjacent. So I've talked a lot, Maria, what
(09:00):
are you thinking about here?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Well, I'm thinking about a lot of things, including one way,
you know, I think that what you were saying about
kind of the the teachers are out and we're at
a supervision free recess is actually a really nice way
of looking at this because last week on the pod
we talked a lot about the fact that irrational exuberance
is still alive and well, and I actually think that
(09:25):
that's kind of a theme in how the types of
decisions that Trump is making, and how he's thinking about risk,
and how his kind of the people surrounding him are
thinking about risk right now, which is infused with this
irrational exuberance that, oh, we can get away with anything,
and I think that is prompting some things that are
clearly overreach, right, like trying to do an executive order
(09:47):
that gives gets rid of birthright citizenship. You can't do that, right, Like,
that's just unconstitutional. That is part of the constitution. That
is going to have to be an amendment process, and
he and there are actually multiple things I'm not you know,
I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a constitutional expert. So
I'm not going to spend the time right now to
go through every executive order and being like this one's
going to get challenge, this one's going to get challenge, right, Yeah,
(10:09):
but there are a lot that are going to get challenged,
a lot that are just flat out illegal that he
can't do. And yet he's doing it because some of
it is kind of theatrics, right and showing that like,
oh look, I'm not going to be able to be stopped.
But some of it is also just showing, you know,
I am the strong guy. I'm the bully, right, I'm
(10:30):
the one who can just throw all of this at
you and what are you going to do about it?
At least in the immediate term. And it's very funny
that you have someone who's comparing himself to McKinley, you know,
us history lesson. That's not a president that normally people
compare themselves to, because that was not necessarily kind of
(10:50):
the finest moment of American history, but someone who liked
to take things. And so at the same time, he's saying,
you know, let's grab the Panama Canal. I'm going to
rename this is no longer going to be Gulf of Mexico.
And I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
So all the Canadian provinces are eligible, Greenland, Panama Canal.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
What's your first pick?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Ontario, British Columbia.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, I mean I think that Ontario is probably it's
probably a good one, a good first pick.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Big, it's a big blue state. It's what's gonna be
like probably twenty six electoral votes or so. That might
be a mistake. For it might be a mistake.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
But you know, he's not gonna want Quebec because you
know those are French speakers and you know we don't
like foreigners around around here. Got to go for the
nice English speakers. And I think that we just need
to kind of put this, try to figure out like
obviously we know where he's coming from, right like, and
(11:52):
it is this very hubristic like I can just do
anything right now. But also, as you as you said
in the beginning, like with the like, what kind of
shift is this going to be? Will that lead him
to kind of taking it a little bit too far
where there will be pushed back because he doesn't have
the majority that he had before, Right, he doesn't have
those numbers. Is he going to bring it to the
(12:13):
point where people, even in the Republican Party are going
to say enough? So far, we have not seen evidence
of the fact that this is going to happen. Right,
It seems like all of his confirmations are going to
go through, you know, it seems that people are just
not not caring and they're going along with it for now.
But what's going to happen, you know, in six months?
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Look, so yeah, that's one important difference is that you
have these much narrow congressional majorities and in fact, relatively little.
I was making a list of predictions of like what
Trump Willer won't do.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Very little of this.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Involves passing legislation through Congress in the first place, right,
very little of it, Right, I mean, they've already passed
the Republican House some bill to on youth gender participation
in sports. Right, they can't pass that through the Senate
anyway without getting a filibuster proof majority. I don't think
they will. Democrats are unified enough to prevent them getting
(13:12):
sixty votes, right and so like so like, you know,
so that'll have to be done by executive order and
then litigating it in the courts, and the Chief Justice
Roberts and the other Conservatives will have to decide where
they draw the line. I think birthright citizenship is one
place where they probably will, right, or Trump running for
third term or things like that. I mean, you know, look,
(13:34):
I'm not a constitutional scholar, but it seems pretty clear
to me. But like, so, one big difference is that
we aren't the only ones who were less surprised by
Trump's win as compared to eight years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
I think Trump himself was pretty surprised by twenty sixteen, right,
And there weren't a lot.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Of people who.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Who looked at this piece of real estate the Trump
twenty sixteen campaign versus trom twenty twenty four campaign and
began to plant their flags there. Peter Teel was a
notable except it's been quiet actually in this election.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Relative. I don't think he was there necessarily.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
But this time people are like, okay, look, Democrats are
so fucking stupid. They're running Biden again, right, and so
we might own the presidency, perhaps also the Congress, but
most importantly the presidency right for four years, and it's
a powerful executive and Biden I think did little to
diminish the power of the executive, by the way, and
(14:30):
so and so, Yeah, let's actually have a fucking plan
of things that we can actually accomplish, some of which
are intended as free roles. We would use a poker term, right,
Like if you were if you want to remove the
birthright citizenship stuff, right, what's the.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Chance the court will have pulled that.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I don't know, I'm guessing ten percent or something, right,
or maybe there's another ten percent chance of some halfway
in the door.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
But it doesn't cost you.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Anything, really, right, you get liberal tiers and liberal outrage
no matter what you distract them from.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Yeah, I think that the distraction is part of it.
That's what I'm saying, Like, just try to overwhelm people, right,
and you throw stuff that is just blatantly unconstitutional in there,
But then like you're putting out all of these fires,
and it does prevent you from doing something else. I
have a question for you, Nate, on another topic that
(15:22):
we've talked about many times on the show pe Doom.
So because of what Trump has kind of done with
AI in his first twenty four hours. So first he
rescented the executive order that Biden had put into place,
right that had asked big AI companies to loop in
the US government, right and to kind of tell them
be transparent with what they were doing with the technologies,
(15:45):
et cetera. That no longer has to happen. And because
he does seem to be on like team Yay, let's go.
And even though Musk is close with him as of now,
you know, it seems like Musk is right now more
trying to placate Trump and stay in a position of
power than he is necessarily trying to kind of counteract
him and say no, no, like this isn't good because
(16:06):
he you know, he didn't say as much as bad
and I about the electric vehicle stuff either, So it
seems like he's trying to be kind of on team
Trump right now. So I think they're My question for
you is what do we think the p doom probabilities
from Aire, Like, are there things that he's going to
do in the next four years? Right in terms of
(16:26):
of his policies that are going to be much more
difficult to roll back, much more difficult too to talk about.
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Look, I mean Elon won this big fight against Trump
or against MAGA on H one B or whichever visas
on skilled immigration visas. I guess the kind of narrow
issue is, Yeah, Look, I think Trump is probably good
for technology growth in the US relative to Democrats, maybe
(16:56):
with if tariffs don't interfere with that too much, right,
But that also probably means.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
That, Yeah, I think I think P doom risk is
up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
And I also wonder whether this is going to polarize
because actually, if you look at public opinion data, people
are in the abstract pretty worried about P DOOM. I
think we maybe overestimate kind of how much the average
person thinks or knows about this. But but if if
we reach even I mean Sam Melton's talking about how
we're going to achieve artificial general intelligence at some point
(17:24):
in the next three is years or something, right like,
I imagine this is going to become a pretty big
campaign issue in twenty twenty eight. And if it polarizes,
maybe Dems are the parties saying we are the ones
who have to restrain AI. And like, I think it
could actually be kind of like a popular message, right,
(17:44):
I mean, what's the path forward here?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Is it like oligarch versus oligarch or is it oligarch
versus everyone else? And Democrats have to, like I think
pick one of those two lanes over a timeframe of
like of like ten or something years, right, because it
is absolutely true. And again I don't think these oligarchs
could go on a case by case basis, right. The
(18:06):
super rich Silicon Valley people, I don't think they're dumb
people or bad people necessarily, right, But they have economic interests,
and they have a philosopher's actually quite predictable in some
ways and transparent, and they've kind of realized now that
we have ways to like actuate our interests.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right. So there are various questions here, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
One question is whether you know there are a lot
of Silicon Valley types who are either liberal liberals or
like classic liberals, right, or just might say, okay, well,
maybe I want to try to like rekindle this Obama
era alliance in the Democrat Party with you know, with
the tech sector where you know, two thousand and eight
was the Facebook elections supposedly whatever else and all the
(18:47):
Obama people worked at Facebook and vice versa and things
like that. You know, but you kind of have to
pick one, right, if you're Democrats, you should either be
criticizing the oligarchs and AI by twenty twenty eight will
become a tangible issue there in which public opinion might
be on your side.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Maybe climate.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I think it's a little more complicated, right, but because
they tend to be a little bit more sensitive to
climate change. Or do you want to like draft your
own Mark Cuban or dissident or like who knows how
long Elon's relationship with Trump will will last? Right, maybe
Steve Bannon wins that fight eventually. Vivic Ramaswami has already
been ousted from STOG.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That was fast.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Well, he made this very cringe tweet about how like
you got to pull you know what was his reference,
like saved by the bell and how nerds don't get
enough respect and like yeah, it's like never heard from again.
He made he's running for governor of Ohio, so maybe
he'll governor of Ohio. I think you may never be
heard from again. It was just such a cringey tweet,
right that even Elon was like, bro, it's too much.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
But Democrats have to like pick a lane.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
And I think the stuff about the fact that there
is this concentration of wealth and power is like, is
quite it's true, right, I mean, it's a it's true that,
like and again I'm a fucking neoliberal capitalist, right, but
it is true that that more and more wealth and
power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, especially
(20:15):
at the very very very very very top end.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
The ten most, literally the ten most are twenty richest
and most powerful people in the world, and they're increasingly
actuating their political interests, right, Like, I think that line
of critique is more promising electorally and fresher and maybe
truer than just calling Trump a fascist.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
If that didn't work that, I mean Joe Biden thought, oh,
January sixth was so bad, We'll just have to I
don't know what voice I'm doing here, but like, but
that just screaming democracy, democracy, democracy, right, Like, that didn't work.
People are sick and tired of that. And the fact
is that the democratic system delivered a verdict that people
are sick and tired of these candidates Democrats are nominating,
(20:59):
and Democrats can rebound for that system, and I think
they probably will in twenty twenty six, I think there
could be a bad mid term for Trump. This global
anti incumbent mood could easily come back around to bite him.
You know, I think is kind of like the efficacy
of governance, right, Like, you know, Democrats are the expert
class and and fucked lots of things up, right, It
(21:19):
doesn't mean to me that like the non expert diletant
class is going to do any better necessarily, right, Like
maybe on every third maybe one out of three things, yes, right,
maybe four out of ten things? Right, that still us
there are six out of ten things that might break
and might break badly. The pandemic happened under Trump's watch,
you know, though I think he deserves more credit for
(21:40):
like Operation Warp Speed and the first stimulus package. You know, Look,
if you look at American history, there are big catastrophic
fuck ups and that's what produced just back, particularly in
a liberal direction.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Right, So the Iraq War was one of.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Those, plus the financial crisis that produces a huge shift
toward a guy named Brockosine. Obama becoming president for two terms.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And we'll be back right after this. This start of
Trump two point zero, we're in a very very different
place economically politically than we were in Trump one point zero, right,
(22:32):
So we have the inflation and kind of recessionary kind
of things and high interest rates that we didn't have
back when he assumed power. The economy that he's inheriting
is in much worse shape. And as you saw by
the way he didn't immediately like say tariffs, tariffs, tariffs,
even though he said, now Mexico and Canada, if you're leading,
(22:55):
you're letting immigrants into our countries, I'm going to put
tariffs on you, and I will. You know, I'll see
what else happens. But it will be very interesting to
see because one of his promises was, oh, you know,
will we'll make everyone more prosperous, and we're going to
do all of these different things. But that might actually
be a moment where as we've talked about before, incumbents
(23:18):
have been blamed for kind of this global economic malaise.
But he's going to be the incumbent. And unless you know,
it really depends on what we see in the next
four years in terms of economic policies in terms of
how the average person feels when they go shopping. So
I just want to kind of make sure that that
we understand that as we as we look at the
(23:40):
next four years. But I do completely agree with you
that I actually think it's much more promising and very
accurate for the Democrats to attack the oligarchical shift in
the in the US government, because it is I wouldn't
say it's unprecedented, but it's unprecedented in modern times, and
(24:00):
it is very eyebrow raising when you see kind of
who you know, who is in, who is next, who
is at Trump's side as we kind of enter this
era and think through the implications of that for the
common person, right for your just like normal voter who
(24:21):
just wants to live a normal life. And I don't
think that people have necessarily thought that through, but I
think it will be if Democrats can seize upon it.
I think it could be a way to differentiate and
get people actually excited. Because, by the way, even if
a lot of what Trump has done is fascist, and
you know, we don't have to go into it, but
(24:41):
we have the Hile Hitler salute form Elon Musk controversy.
But as you said, that hasn't worked.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
No, it hasn't worked, and it's because it's fucking stupid, right, Like,
out of all these things, I mean, how many executive
orders did Trump issue in the past twenty four I
guess twenty six hours and we're taping this a lot,
Like you know, he repealed the Biden Ai executive I mean,
like focus on shit that, like, I mean, don't repeat
(25:08):
the mistakes of like of eight years ago.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
The thing that wasn't a mistake.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
I mean, you have like the women's markets in like
organized opposition, Like that seems to be like something you
should do anytime you're the opposition party. I'm like, who's
in charge of the Democratic Party right now? I mean,
you know who's the leader of the Democratic Party right now?
Right Barack Obama?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I guess kind of.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Beats me.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, I mean it requires.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
I mean, the Trump people spent more time strategizing for
this moment, and I guess that makes it easier when
you know it's Trump's player the highway and the GOP
right where there's no no kind of equivalent figure in
the Democratic Party. But like, look, ordinarily there would be
a strong case for for mean reversion, meaning there are
(25:56):
all these ways from the effectiveness of governance to overreach.
I mean, we talked a little bit about kind of
like pent up recess ladies away for a few minutes,
kind of frustration.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I think there might only be.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
So much tolerance for beating up on immigrants and trans
people and kind of once the needle moves on some
of these issues, then like then it will become kind
of gross and like tiresome and things like that. Right,
I think there might be a limited tolerance for that
with some corrections of like free speech and the fucking misinformation.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
People, right, like fuck them.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
But like I think, you know, I don't think America
went and we moved back to the nineteen fifties or
something when it comes to how we view sexuality and
gender and things like that.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Right, But.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
You think there might be some mean reversion between like
the fact that Democrats are competitive and all these elections, Right,
No Democrats lost a popular vote by more than two
and a half points since nineteen eighty eight, Right, so
every year that's been a you know, within a field goal,
and they've lost some of those, and one some of
those Democrats will probably take over the Senate, excuse me,
the House, probably not the Senate. In twenty twenty six,
(27:10):
they own a lot of these governorships.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
They have.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
A bench of younger governors who were all better than
the last three people they nominated for president. Frankly and yeah,
and now if you have this continuous anti incumbent sentiment,
then that benefits Democrats in twenty twenty or twenty God
damn it so confusing, so many years twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I know, I know everyone's timeline is fucked up, But like, I.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Look, if you have work, hey, let's let's run back
the playbook, but nominate a better candy at the Kamala Harris,
and this time, inflation and the fuck ups of the
White House help us and not hurt us.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
I mean, there's.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
A fifty to fifty chance that works, maybe better than
fifty to fifty. But I don't know if that actually
kind of like wins the culture war or the political
war in the long run.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Really well, I think that the pendulum shift is an
interesting way of looking at it because to go back
to kind of where we started the show, which is
kind of part of this irrational exuberance that that Trump
is exhibiting. He may push things too far, even with
the tech stuff like we saw, you know, he has
(28:21):
in the last week, we've seen the launch of a
Trump meme coin and a Milania meme coin, and even
the crypto community is like, dude, right, like, what is
going on here? This is not a good look. This
looks like very scammy, icky type of thing. And rather
than being like yeah, you know, you go, they're like, wait,
(28:44):
hold on a second, right, like this might be a
step too far. And these were some of his biggest supporters.
And so if he keeps kind of doing things like this,
if he keeps attacking immigrants the way he has and
attacking you know, transgender like oh there are only men
and women, all of these things where he's really just
pushing it way too far, including things that you mentioned
(29:07):
like oh, no more tampons in the Facebook bathroom, which like,
no matter who you are, you're like what the fuck? Right, Like,
what in the world are we been talking about? Right?
I do think that maybe then people will start finally reacting.
Maybe not right, I'm choosing to believe that humanity will
react against.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I mean, you did have a lot of under the
Democratic presidents, but actually more under Biden than Obama. Right,
you did have a lot of like officials government spaces
and corporate spaces. Because Silicon Valley we had thought of
as being quite left wing. I think it never really was.
We can talk about that, right, but you did have
(29:45):
a lot of kind of policy changes that people felt
like were superimposed on them. And then what further than
public opinion might right, usually you think that like, you know,
corporate institutions are more centrist, but you know, on a
lot of these issues, and they were pretty far to
the left during the latter years the Biden term, And
(30:08):
so I think I think the GOP has a little
bit more mileage and usual of that because you're kind
of rolling back from a point where like it was
not reflecting public opinion to begin with. But like, at
the same time, though, I mean, look at so why
did Biden fail? And there are a few themes here.
I have another article about this. What is he was
seventy eight years old. Trump is seventy eight years old
(30:31):
at the start of his second term. You know, unlike
fortunately for Trump, he can't run for a third term
unless he tries to get the constitution changed, and so
and so there's not that temptation, right, but like, but
you know, you have issues of like performance and cognitive
fitness that I think are valid to ask of any
seventy eight years old too. Biden thinks he has this big,
(30:53):
sweeping mandate, and he does win a majority of vot
which Trump didn't in a wider popular vote margin about
the same electoral college. But it was kind of conditional, right.
It was kind of like, oh, the last guy really
fucked up, especially in COVID, and so he kind of
over reached and overread that mandate. And three he was
kind of like bogged down by lots of policy commitments
(31:16):
to groups who were acting in their own interests and
not in the long term interest of the country or
a Biden's party.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Just last week, Biden claimed that we have a new
twenty eighth amendment, right, this equal rights amendment, which was
simple amendment that just kind of said, okay, we're supposally
saying that women are equal to men, right, I don't
know the exact terminology, I mean basically just asserted, and
Kamala Harris's account asserted that, oh, now it's the law
(31:44):
of the land, when it very much isn't.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
You'd have to go through a whole process with the
constitutional archivists to do this. Right, Congress in the nineteen
seventies I think, approved this era amendment. Then it went
to the states to ratify, and they sent a seven
year timeframe saying you have to have thirty seven I
think three quarters states, it is it thirty eighth then
(32:07):
ratify this within yeah, thirty seven and a half. Right,
So thirty eight thirty eight states must ratify this, and
I believe seven years, and they didn't get there. It
was like thirty six or something, right. A couple of
saints then rescinded their approval of it. Right, But then
(32:27):
later like Nevada and Virginia, like in the past five years,
approved this and so and so it's a radical judicial
overreach argument that, oh, well, actually this thing that Congress
put in the law that's overridden by other provisions of
the Constitution. Oh and by the way, by the way,
the fact that five or six states rescinded this, just
ignore that too, right, But this is something that like
(32:51):
you know, I would say, radical left groups that have
a different interpretation of the Constitution, we're pushing Biden to do.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
And so it just looks fucking stupid your last week.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
In office, right, you're like doing this, making this fake
amendment up and then pardoning your family.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I mean, what are what are we doing? Right?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Anyway, I'm on a on a Biden rant. But the
point is that like the overreach of like an old
president who has a lot of people who are pushing
for things and pulley for things in this limited.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Amount of bandwidth.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
And and you know, and I watched Biden's speech from
four years ago, and like Trump kind of thought he
was this or Biden thought he was a savior.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Right, Oh, I've been this difficult time.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But I'll deliver justice from systemic racism on top of
solving the COVID pandemic and the economy, right and climate change.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
I'm going to sell it, all right.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And Trump says the same thing, and he's like, well,
God saved me from that assassin's bullet. I was put
here for a reason. And then like and like, I
don't know, neither man is very introspective.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
I would say, I want to clip your last thirty
seconds and then run it. If risky business still exists
in four years, which I hope it does, run it.
At the end of the Trump presidency because what you
just said basically could be exactly like word for word.
You know how Trump is acting right now, seventy eight
year old man thinks he has you know, this mandate
(34:16):
is going to be overreaching and doing all of these things.
And I really want to see kind of how we'll
be able to cut and paste that. And I mean
I hope we will in the sense that I hope
that he doesn't manage to be kind of more effective
in some respects, if that makes sense. The courts are
(34:37):
something we've talked about a lot on the show, haven't
talked about today, don't need to talk about much today,
but that is something that has changed in the last
eight years.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Can you make a request of like the internet or
not the internet of the media?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I would love to have a people I can rely
on for Supreme Court analysis that I think are looking
at it from like an arm's length point of view,
because what tends to happen is a lot of you
know area, and they always think that like everything is
going to be ruled in a conservative direction. When as
(35:15):
a five to four court it showed, you know, it
legalized gay marriage, which by the way, is probably not
vulnerable because it was also legalized by by statute. There
are some things that so you know, as I've been
researching this, so NATO, Congress passed a law saying the
president can't pull out of NATO. Trump can and maybe
will try. But like that goes to litigation. But like
(35:37):
I would, I would I want more court analysis from
people who isn't who aren't super blue pilled and can
be quote unquote objective both about the law and about
kind of just how the court empirically behaves. I do
think the court will see it. I mean, look, if
it says, oh, there's some end around to birthright citizenship,
(36:01):
I mean that would be I think a very bad
sign because then it means there's like not really any restraint.
My priors are that you're going to have some a
fair amount of restraint. But I would love to read
I would love to have more go to sources on that.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
So what I By the way, eighteen states while we've
been taping, have already sued to and to challenge the
Birthright Citizenship Executive Order, so that has already entered into
the legal system. We always knew that was going to
be the first thing right that was going to be challenged,
but so we are already we're seeing some of it.
(36:44):
And yes, I think that if the Supreme Court, by
the way, rules that there's a way around this, then
that's just going to kind of confirm everyone, including mine
worse fears that like this is just a complete sham, right,
So let's hope that they don't. But the legal system
has changed a lot in the last eight years, and
(37:06):
that is one of the guardrails that has become shaped. Ye,
So you know, it's it's interesting that you obviously that
that you're pointing out that, well, gay marriage is protected,
but they're you know, there's no guarantee that things like
that will remain protected if we start going down the
slope of like let's get rid of all of these
(37:28):
rights that that have been protected for a while. So
I hope it it remains protected, but it's one of
these things where you know, I think we all have
to be on alert.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I guess part of what I'd say is like, I
you don't need slippery slope arguments because a people aren't
persuaded by them and be like, there's so much shit
happening right now, right and this is like yeah, I
mean this is, you know, because it's not going to
be a legislative driven presidency unless unless somehow Trump wins
more seeds at the midterms, which is pretty rare. The
(38:00):
big fights are happening right now. Right now is important
a moment as you'll ever have in the Trump administration
because it doesn't take time to build up a coalition
and things like that. He's acting as like a unitary executive.
It's probably some term that legal terms. So he's acting
is like a strong president right through executive order and
so and so. Look, I mean, look, you're also an environment.
(38:23):
People have incentives. I mean, I'm sure that the elon
making the some person called it it's an Italian salute,
you know, I know, I mean, probably a bad look,
but like don't don't waste bam with cycles on that.
But like I'm also sure that like alarmist Roman salute,
our producers are saying, hey, look just a Roman salute.
(38:44):
But like focus, but the incentives are not the focus.
The incentives are for your X feed or your blue
sky or your or your substack or whatever else.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
The incentives are for outrage media, right, and I think
that we like we need to band together and instead
of the outrage media. As you said, focus try to
figure out what what what can what's happening, like, what
are the fights? How do you like make a logical argument,
and how do you kind of how do you what
do you do about it? As opposed to get outraged
(39:14):
at every one of these little things. Because Trump is
going to win that fight. Trump is incredibly good at
getting outrage media on his side, and right now he
has Musk on his side and must controls X, so
he is very good at kind of that thing that's
his forte right, the social media kind of outrage type
of thing. So I think not falling for that and
(39:35):
to remain focused, as in my mind, one of the
best things that we can do is how we allocate
our attention and then how we allocate our resources as
opposed to just you know, getting getting distracted and going
all over the place, which is what he wants us
to do. So let's let's you know, I think this
is like a good battle tactic from from the old
(39:57):
grades of you know, Sun Sioux and Klauswitz and all
of the battle tacticians that I read, you know, way
way back when don't when the enemy tries to distract
you don't. Don't fall for right, figure it out, get
focused and have a good plan of attack yourself. Don't
let them set the rules. Figure out how to set
the rules yourself.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You know, I don't even see it as a we
or that, you know, I you know, I see myself
as like an intellectual free agent. I think I'm never
going to become to Trump per se. But like, look,
I like the pro growth stuff and the free speech
stuff and some of it right and so like, And
I don't think democratic The Democratic Party has offered very
strong leadership over the past couple of cycles, necessarily, and
(40:40):
so you know, I see we as like an American suggestion.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I'm saying, we as like protecting the American people.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
You know, what should be the twenty eighth Amendment. What
is is an amendment limiting presidential pardon power at the
very least to like self pardons and the family and
things like that. Right, we need amendment to the Constitution
to prevent presidential pardon powers from being abused.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
I agree with you that presidential partners pardons are being
misused right now. I don't know that that's our number
one amendment priory, but I but your point, But your
point is taken, and I do think that it's been
you know, it's a little bit ridiculous, this kind of
tit for tat type of presidential partons that we've that
(41:24):
we've seen in the last forty eight hours. And yeah,
well we'll just we'll see who. Let's uh, I think
that we can go back to end with our like
little kids on the playground or recess analogy. Let's see
who who can become adult more quickly? Right, Like, who's
(41:45):
going to be able to emerge from this and stop
finger pointing and doing silly stuff and getting distracted and
like get their shit together and actually think through the
future of the country in a mature way. This is
a challenge to both Republicans and Democrats. I think this
is a challenge too, to our entire government, and I
(42:06):
hope that they rise up to the challenge.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
We'll be right back after this message.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
This week, we're going to answer a listener question why
don't Nate and I have a driver's license?
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Which, by the way, the listener is wrong about one
of those two people.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
This is true. We have a question from Kenny in Detroit,
and the question is, why the hell do neither of
you have a driver's license, Kenny, I now have a
driver's license. I have after Yeah, I've driven, Nate has
driven with me, and I did not crash us. Right,
I did a good job. I took driving lessons after
(42:54):
I moved to Nevada. You need to have a driver's
license and know how to drive. So I took lessons
and I am now the proud possessor of driving skills.
Before that, I did not have a life license because
I've always lived in the city. Right as an adult,
I've lived in New York and my entire adult life.
(43:16):
And you do not need a driver's license. You do
not need a car. It's very hard to have a
car in New York. We talked last week about congestion pricing,
but even before that, you know, parking is a pain
in the ass. Driving is a pain in the ass.
And I grew up in Boston, and I think Boston,
a lot of people will say is the worst city
in the country to drive, because Boston drivers are very aggressive,
(43:38):
very unpredictable, and Boston streets are horrific. So I'm also
the youngest of four kids, so people always drove me
around and I skipped a few grades in school, skipped
one grade, but was young to begin with. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so I couldn't get a license until after I graduated,
and by that point I went to college.
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Our producer is asking if you drive like a Bostonian.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Yeah, no, I do not drive like a boston question
you were to.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Me, Maria.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
No, I didn't notice any any I thought. I thought
Maria drove pretty well. I think we got lost in
the casino parking lot and mid mixing this up, but
like maybe it was with someone else.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
It's confusing, though.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Those casino parking lots are you go around in circles
and they change it.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
But the driving itself seem seemed good.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
I appreciate that. No, that was with me. I drove
us in circles a few times, but then I got
us out of there. I hate casino parking lots. They're
designed like casinos. Casino design is meant for you to
get lost in there, so that you, you know, end up
having to walk past all the different machines and like
you just get if you look at the old casinos
right like a Caesar's, you just your sense of orientation
(44:51):
goes out the window. It changed Steve Woyn actually changed
the design elements and it's much more pleasant and open,
and you don't get lost like at an Encore the
way that you do at Caesar's. But I feel like
casino parking lots were designed by the same principle, like
how the fuck do you get out of there? And
it's impossible some times to figure out, like where the
exit is, where the exit is not, and you find
(45:13):
yourself going in circles. And I just want to say,
there are no slot machines in the in the garage.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Just make it easy. Don't want to solve that problem.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
But nay, Yeah, you're a New Yorker, so so I
think that that answer is why you don't have a license.
But you didn't grow up in New York.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Well I wasn't originally, I grew up in Michigan. I
grew up in Michigan the automotive state. The short ish
version is like I was kind of a klutzy kid.
I failed my initial driving test. I then got I
didn't pass nate, I didn't know that I'm more coordinated
now than I used to be, then passed uh. I
then got However, I took a class at like Seers God,
(45:55):
I'm fucking old, right, and got a permit and my
dad was like, but you gotta drive another fifty hours
with me before I sign off on the license and
then and then I do some of that, but then
I go to college in Chicago and then and I've
lived in Chicago when in New York my whole life
since then. So and my partner drives. We do you
(46:19):
have a car? So it just kind of isn't like,
hasn't quite been worth the investment, but it'd be fun.
It'd be fun to like, yeah, I know pretty people wrong,
I know, but I feel like, would I be a driver?
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Probably not. I vary.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I think, well, yeah, well we'll we'll just we'll see
in a few years whether you've learned how to drive
or not. I'm glad I now know how to drive.
But it was really really nice. I'll end on this.
It's really nice not being able to drive because no
one can ask you to do shit, right, Like you
can't run errands and you can't pick people up and
you can't do anything like that because you're like, sorry,
(46:58):
I don't know how to drive. But now that excuse
no longer applies. So there was part of me that
actually really liked the facts that no one could ever
ask me to run any related errands.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
No, it is interesting, right, you don't want to give
people the option. I'm trying to think of some is
there some name like burning your bridges? There's gotta be
some other more updated feeling heuristic, right, but like denying
people the option?
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Right?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, yep, I think I think that's good. So yes,
that that is the answer to your question. Kenny from
Detroit and so far I have Christine driving record knock
on wood. Let us know what you think of the show.
(47:45):
Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot Fm.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannikova and by
me Nate Silver. The show is a co production of
Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter.
Our associate producer is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer
(48:07):
is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too. And if you
want to listen to an ad free.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Version, sign up for Pushkin Plus.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
For six, ten and nine a month you get access
to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning in
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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