Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday I was perusing hot air dot com, as I
am prone to do on occasion, and I saw a
couple of stories by my friend David Strom, and he
emailed him immediately and said, not one, but two things
I must speak with you about. So, David Strom, welcome
back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
First of all, it's always my pleasure he did.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Say anything for you when I said, you want to
come on the show tomorrow and talk about it.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
So here you are. Let's start. I'm going to no I.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Will ask you what you're going to do for a
klondike bar, though, I mean, that's really what everybody wants
to know. Let's start with a tariff story first, because
I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong. You
and I have shared a viewpoint on Trump's use of
tariffs that perhaps the endgame was not the tariff itself,
but the tariff was a tool to push, shove, cajole
(00:54):
whatever you want word you want to use people that
were cutting trade deals with to achieve other goals. Is
that a fair assessment of your view thus far?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Absolutely, I think the evidence is very clear that that
that is what he has done. When Trump started talking
about tariffs months and months ago. I thought it was
an open question because he talked about terriffs, big beautiful tariffs,
as if they were good in themselves. And I wrote
(01:28):
several pieces saying Trump's terifts strategy can either be pure
genius or a recipe for disaster, depending upon what he
was trying to do. And I was at about sixty
five thirty five thinking this was negotiation, not that he
thought tariffs were good in themselves. And I think that
(01:52):
has turned out to be ninety percent correct with one edition,
which is Trump had a goal to create what's essentially
a cover charge for foreign countries to get in the door.
You know, basically, you pay fifteen bucks and you have
(02:15):
a two drink minimum.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You say cover charge, I say cost of admission, right,
I mean, is it's the price to ride you want
you want access to our markets.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Here's what it's going to cost you.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right, And it's based
upon Trump's really genius recognition that there is no alternative
for companies to be successful if they cannot get into
the United States. There's just no other economy out there
(02:51):
that has this much consumer power. And it's based the
reason why a lot of people don't understand this is
they look at the United States and say, well, they're
the largest economy, but there's still only twenty to twenty
five percent of the world. But that actually hides an
(03:13):
important fact, which is we're about seventy five percent of
the consumer economy in the world, which is a totally
different thing. I mean, there's a we have a lot
more disposable right.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And that that there's the rub Yeah, I would some
of the most interesting commentary that I've seen on this
is the commentary about the fact that this is an
upending of the world order since World War Two. Because
after World War Two, we were the lone industrial power,
we were the we were everything, we were a superpower,
(03:51):
and the Cold War was going on, so we had
to have this aggressive footing that we had. But since
the Cold War is over, essentially, I mean, we still
have conflagrations around the world. But as the Cold World
was over, we were still in the same position, especially
when it came to Europe. And this is some of
the commentary scene on the deal that they made with
(04:11):
the EU. Europe has always been a benefactor of the
United States in terms of our military prowess. They've had
pretty unfettered access to our markets up to this point,
and in return we sort of accepted or were given
that unchecked superpower status by them.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's like, oh, it's the United States.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
We're going to get access to their markets, but they're
going to take care of us militarily. Trump is the
first guy to come along and say no, that's not.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Good enough, that dynamic needs to end. And he's one
hundred percent right about that.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
What I find fascinating, David, is that there are still
commentators out there who don't understand how Trump views things. Right,
He's viewing things like you need me more than I
need you. Let's do a deal that reflects that. And
that's what we saw in this EU deal.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Oh that's one, right.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
I mean, US trade policy for the post Cold War era.
It was essentially the same as US trade policy during
the Cold War. And we had that policy during the
Cold War basically because we wanted, you know, Europe basically
to bend to our will. So what the deal was,
(05:32):
you're going to get economic benefits. You know, you're not
going to have to spend money on defense as you
as you might otherwise have to. And you're going you know,
from the Marshall Plan to favorable trade and all of that.
But that means that when foreign policy comes along, you
guys are going to do what we say. That was
(05:54):
the deal, and you know, during the Cold War it
made a lot of sense to do that. But in
a lot of ways over the past fifteen twenty years
things have totally inverted.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
We still have this position.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Where we've been given europe An incredible deal and they've
been trying to bully us net zero, all the censorship stuff,
the regulating American companies, they're looking down their noses and
trying to bully us. They're interfering in our politics. Actually
far more than Russia does. I mean the UK actually,
(06:33):
you know, the Labor Party sent campaign workers for Donald Ayrris.
You know, compare that to anything you know Putin was
supposed to have done.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It's far worse.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
You know, the EU tried to keep Trump off of
Twitter or X. I mean they literally threatened Elon Musk
with billions of dollars of fines for allowing Donald Trump
to speak on X. So you know, we really got
to rebalance things. And you know, Trump basically kicked him
(07:08):
in the shins and you know, about two feet higher.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I was going to say, I was going to say
kicked him a bit higher, but then you added that
on there.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I do want to correct myself. One of our texters.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Pointed out, I said beneficial benefactor instead of beneficiary. Europe
has been our beneficiary for all of these years. It's
been really interesting to watch Trump negotiate, not just the
trade deals, but also the way he has approached dealing
with Putin, you know, with the just the wild flattery
(07:39):
leading up to negotiations, but then once Putin demonstrated clearly
he doesn't really give a ratspetutity what Trump thought. Now
the rhetoric has changed. So do you think that because
we are now two days away from the sort of big,
beautiful tariffs, the blanket tariffs to go into effect on
all of the nations that.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Have not cut trade deals with us.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
We were told we're gonna get two hundred trade deals,
how many of these smaller players begin to fall now
that the EU, Japan and somewhat of China has been announced.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Well, uh, you put me on the spot, because you
know the short answers. I don't know, but I think
that most of the dominoes are going to fall.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I mean the EU. I mean you have to remember
they started out.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
As said China with you know, basically flipping Trump the bird,
thinking that, uh, you know, he was going to back off.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Remember the whole taco thing.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Trump always chickens out that the Democrats were pushing.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Uh and uh, you know, clearly.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
The Europeans figured out, no, he's not going to chicken out.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Uh, you know, he's he's going to squeeze us by.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You know, he's got to buy the short hairs and uh,
you know, Trump understands that now with Putin, a lot
of people don't understand the reason why he always flattered
Putin is not because he loved Putin, but because he
saw that Putin is driven often by this sense of insecurity.
(09:15):
Russia has been for actually centuries, has always seen itself
as inferior to Europe.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You know, if you.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Look, Russian food is just modified French food because they wanted,
you know, France was the big player.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
You know, in the eighteenth century.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
They always wanted to be a Western European country and
they always knew that they weren't. And that same thing
is true today. So he's trying to he tried to
flatter Putin now I think he wants to crush him.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, oh, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I mean he did the exact same thing in his
first term with Kim young un of North Korea. Remember
that whole flirtation with Kim Young un. And then when
he realized I'm young own is crazy and cannot be
reasoned with, he just moved on. I don't think you
said the guy's name in the last eight years. I mean,
I just he just ceased to exist, so because he's
not important enough to need any time. So you know,
(10:15):
the tariffs so far have not been have not caused
a direct rise in prices of any real significance.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
We have not seen that yet.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
It remains to be seen what kind of impact on
prices this is going to have in the long term.
But I do think coming off the heels of inflation.
This is going to sound so crazy, but coming off
the heels of that massive jump in prices that we
just went through in the last few years, I think
companies are going to be far less likely to pass
those costs on to the consumer because they know the
(10:45):
consumers have hit their breaking point on.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
A lot of stuff. So it's going to be very.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Interesting to see how this all plays out, and I
do think it is a fair statement to say that
thus far on tariff's Trump is winning.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah, oh absolutely, And even economists are saying this. There
are a bunch of economists who have come out and said, well,
I think we were wrong on this, And you know,
some of that has to do with the fact that
they misunderstood Trump's strategy, and a lot of it has
to do with the fact that if you look at
(11:21):
this is always the case in economics or any social science,
or any science for that matter, you break things down
into little chunks and you look at them in isolation.
You create models, and the only way that you can
do that is to disambiguate by throwing out all other variables. So,
(11:44):
you know, it's like when you're doing ballistics when you
first learn it, you leave out wind resistance, You leave
out all sorts, you know, all sorts of variables, just
so that you understand, in principle, here's how things work.
You know, principle, you drop a feather in a bowling
ball and they'll fall at the same rate. Only in
(12:05):
the real world they've got because all the other variables.
Same thing with the tariffs. There are just so many
variables in there that the economists just you can't model
the real world well.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
In the same economists kind of suck at human behavior
when you get right down to an economists do a
bad job mitigating for human behavior, which is in a
lot of a lot of areas kind of predictable. You know,
we're all moved in a very similar way. We could
do that conversation another time, but I want to talk
about something different before I run out of time. Talking
(12:40):
with David Strong from hot are dot com. Yesterday he
had an article Glen Kessler of the Washington Post, he
of the fact Checker page, giving out the pinocchios.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
We won't have Glenn.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Kessler's fact checks to kick around anymore because he's out
at the Washington Post. He has taken a buyout by
Jeff Bezos and David. I don't know if you saw
on X yesterday, whenever anyone would comment about this, people
would start lighting up the replies with all of the
absurd fact checks that Glenn Kessler has done.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Over the recent years.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
That turned out to be completely wrong, right, just totally wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It's been a wild time.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
What do you think is happening over at the Washington
post right now, where does this thing end up?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Well, they're.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Jeff Bezos is clearly really tired of all the drama
over there. If you look, you know it's not just
Jack Glen Kessler, it's Taylor Lorenz's gone, Jennifer Ruben, Philip Bump.
I mean, you can go down the list and all
the most irritating people are being kicked out, and they
(13:52):
you know, not once, but several times. There have been
memos that have gone out. They haven't named names, although
you don't know what conversations took place behind closed doors,
but they were all basically of the you know, get
on board or get out variety.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I love that, by the way. I love that.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's almost like there's a new sheriff in town, and
if you want to play ball, then we'll play ball.
But if you don't, don't let the door hit you
where the good Lord split you. Kind of thing, you know,
like bye bye.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I would love to know.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
If the fact check industry as it really exists right
now hopelessly left wing, every major fact check out at
PolitiFact left wing. We've got these guys left wing. We've
got Snopes, which is just whack of do a left
wing like, don't even bring me a Snopes fact check anymore.
Are we seeing the end of the fact check industry
(14:50):
because they were so demonstrably wrong, especially during COVID, Yes.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
And no, I mean they certainly. I think that the
fact check industry is dying. It will survive to some
small extent because there's a market for it, in the
way that there's a market for MSNBC. Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
You know, it's it's not.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Dead dead dead, but it's going to be really a
niche thing. And I you know it's going to be
you know, the Los Angeles Times probably won't have anyone
doing it, The Washington Post won't have anyone doing it.
You'll still have the nonprofits like Politi fact that are
out there.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I don't even know if they're going to survive because
I think AI is going to kill fact checking.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And here's why.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Because right now I can go to groc Or, I
can go to chat GBT, my best friends, by the way,
we're pals, we hang out all the time, and I
can say to Grock, give me this side of this issue,
give me the left version of Medicaid expansion, and GROT
can pull up all kinds of data and give me
a very clear picture of the left view of that issue,
(16:07):
and then I can say, give me the right version
of this, and GROT can do the same thing. So
I can essentially fact check myself. I don't need to
have someone else interpret the data. I can look up
what I want to look up. AI can spit out
the information, and then I can figure out my own mind.
And I think it's more people realize that than I
think that a human fact checker with the notion of
(16:29):
bias and all of that other stuff. And I realize
AI has bias as well, But the perception that a
human being is probably more likely to inject their bias
in still exists, even though AI is not perfect.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Though.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Oh, there is a midway class out there, the people
who I call them the one point fifteen iq SAT.
You know, they are above average and intelligence but think
they're way smarter than they actually are.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and they.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Love credentials, They love authority. They love being able to
say I read it in the New York Times or
at the Atlantic, and you know it massages their ego.
They don't actually want to know what the reality is.
They want someone to confirm their prejudices, right, And so
(17:22):
you know, they're the people who love MPR because it
tells them they're good people because they hate Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And I like you.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I like that, I like the midwit class. I'm going
to use that the midwit class gonna have to remember
that David trum well above the midwit class over at
hot air dot com. You should go read everything he
does over there. That they're one of my resources. First
thing in the morning, after I go through our local news,
hot air dot com is the first place that I visit.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And this is not a paid endorsaw.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I'm just saying I but well, first of all, I
like I like the writing style.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Everybody you work with has the right.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Out of fact and sarcasm in one column, so I
do enjoy that greatly.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
But David does great work over there.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
We didn't even get into the Sidney Sweeney situation.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
How many times do you have to.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Watch that commercial before you could write your article on
Sidney Sweeney yesterday, David, we should talk.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
About this because I've got an article coming out tomorrow
about it, because there is actually a new angle. There's
now a woke right version of this. Really it's the Jews,
Oh of.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Course, yeah, it's always the Jews.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, yeah, no, I I just have a firm policy
that I have a BS limit for stories on the show,
and that one did not cross the threshold of the
BS limit, so it's out. David Strom, a joy to
talk to, is always my friend.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
All Right, thanks a lot, Bandy.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
All right, well, talk to you soon. That David Strom
from Modern Doc gumb
Yesterday I was perusing hot air dot com, as I
am prone to do on occasion, and I saw a
couple of stories by my friend David Strom, and he
emailed him immediately and said, not one, but two things
I must speak with you about. So, David Strom, welcome
back to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
First of all, it's always my pleasure he did.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Say anything for you when I said, you want to
come on the show tomorrow and talk about it.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
So here you are. Let's start. I'm going to no I.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Will ask you what you're going to do for a
klondike bar, though, I mean, that's really what everybody wants
to know. Let's start with a tariff story first, because
I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong. You
and I have shared a viewpoint on Trump's use of
tariffs that perhaps the endgame was not the tariff itself,
but the tariff was a tool to push, shove, cajole
(00:54):
whatever you want word you want to use people that
were cutting trade deals with to achieve other goals. Is
that a fair assessment of your view thus far?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Absolutely, I think the evidence is very clear that that
that is what he has done. When Trump started talking
about tariffs months and months ago. I thought it was
an open question because he talked about terriffs, big beautiful tariffs,
as if they were good in themselves. And I wrote
(01:28):
several pieces saying Trump's terifts strategy can either be pure
genius or a recipe for disaster, depending upon what he
was trying to do. And I was at about sixty
five thirty five thinking this was negotiation, not that he
thought tariffs were good in themselves. And I think that
(01:52):
has turned out to be ninety percent correct with one edition,
which is Trump had a goal to create what's essentially
a cover charge for foreign countries to get in the door.
You know, basically, you pay fifteen bucks and you have
(02:15):
a two drink minimum.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You say cover charge, I say cost of admission, right,
I mean, is it's the price to ride you want
you want access to our markets.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Here's what it's going to cost you.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right, And it's based
upon Trump's really genius recognition that there is no alternative
for companies to be successful if they cannot get into
the United States. There's just no other economy out there
(02:51):
that has this much consumer power. And it's based the
reason why a lot of people don't understand this is
they look at the United States and say, well, they're
the largest economy, but there's still only twenty to twenty
five percent of the world. But that actually hides an
(03:13):
important fact, which is we're about seventy five percent of
the consumer economy in the world, which is a totally
different thing. I mean, there's a we have a lot
more disposable right.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
And that that there's the rub Yeah, I would some
of the most interesting commentary that I've seen on this
is the commentary about the fact that this is an
upending of the world order since World War Two. Because
after World War Two, we were the lone industrial power,
we were the we were everything, we were a superpower,
(03:51):
and the Cold War was going on, so we had
to have this aggressive footing that we had. But since
the Cold War is over, essentially, I mean, we still
have conflagrations around the world. But as the Cold World
was over, we were still in the same position, especially
when it came to Europe. And this is some of
the commentary scene on the deal that they made with
(04:11):
the EU. Europe has always been a benefactor of the
United States in terms of our military prowess. They've had
pretty unfettered access to our markets up to this point,
and in return we sort of accepted or were given
that unchecked superpower status by them.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's like, oh, it's the United States.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
We're going to get access to their markets, but they're
going to take care of us militarily. Trump is the
first guy to come along and say no, that's not.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Good enough, that dynamic needs to end. And he's one
hundred percent right about that.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
What I find fascinating, David, is that there are still
commentators out there who don't understand how Trump views things. Right,
He's viewing things like you need me more than I
need you. Let's do a deal that reflects that. And
that's what we saw in this EU deal.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Oh that's one, right.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
I mean, US trade policy for the post Cold War era.
It was essentially the same as US trade policy during
the Cold War. And we had that policy during the
Cold War basically because we wanted, you know, Europe basically
to bend to our will. So what the deal was,
(05:32):
you're going to get economic benefits. You know, you're not
going to have to spend money on defense as you
as you might otherwise have to. And you're going you know,
from the Marshall Plan to favorable trade and all of that.
But that means that when foreign policy comes along, you
guys are going to do what we say. That was
(05:54):
the deal, and you know, during the Cold War it
made a lot of sense to do that. But in
a lot of ways over the past fifteen twenty years
things have totally inverted.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
We still have this position.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Where we've been given europe An incredible deal and they've
been trying to bully us net zero, all the censorship stuff,
the regulating American companies, they're looking down their noses and
trying to bully us. They're interfering in our politics. Actually
far more than Russia does. I mean the UK actually,
(06:33):
you know, the Labor Party sent campaign workers for Donald Ayrris.
You know, compare that to anything you know Putin was
supposed to have done.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It's far worse.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
You know, the EU tried to keep Trump off of
Twitter or X. I mean they literally threatened Elon Musk
with billions of dollars of fines for allowing Donald Trump
to speak on X. So you know, we really got
to rebalance things. And you know, Trump basically kicked him
(07:08):
in the shins and you know, about two feet higher.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I was going to say, I was going to say
kicked him a bit higher, but then you added that
on there.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I do want to correct myself. One of our texters.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Pointed out, I said beneficial benefactor instead of beneficiary. Europe
has been our beneficiary for all of these years. It's
been really interesting to watch Trump negotiate, not just the
trade deals, but also the way he has approached dealing
with Putin, you know, with the just the wild flattery
(07:39):
leading up to negotiations, but then once Putin demonstrated clearly
he doesn't really give a ratspetutity what Trump thought. Now
the rhetoric has changed. So do you think that because
we are now two days away from the sort of big,
beautiful tariffs, the blanket tariffs to go into effect on
all of the nations that.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Have not cut trade deals with us.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
We were told we're gonna get two hundred trade deals,
how many of these smaller players begin to fall now
that the EU, Japan and somewhat of China has been announced.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Well, uh, you put me on the spot, because you
know the short answers. I don't know, but I think
that most of the dominoes are going to fall.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I mean the EU. I mean you have to remember
they started out.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
As said China with you know, basically flipping Trump the bird,
thinking that, uh, you know, he was going to back off.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Remember the whole taco thing.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Trump always chickens out that the Democrats were pushing.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Uh and uh, you know, clearly.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
The Europeans figured out, no, he's not going to chicken out.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Uh, you know, he's he's going to squeeze us by.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
You know, he's got to buy the short hairs and uh,
you know, Trump understands that now with Putin, a lot
of people don't understand the reason why he always flattered
Putin is not because he loved Putin, but because he
saw that Putin is driven often by this sense of insecurity.
(09:15):
Russia has been for actually centuries, has always seen itself
as inferior to Europe.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
You know, if you.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Look, Russian food is just modified French food because they wanted,
you know, France was the big player.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
You know, in the eighteenth century.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
They always wanted to be a Western European country and
they always knew that they weren't. And that same thing
is true today. So he's trying to he tried to
flatter Putin now I think he wants to crush him.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, oh, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I mean he did the exact same thing in his
first term with Kim young un of North Korea. Remember
that whole flirtation with Kim Young un. And then when
he realized I'm young own is crazy and cannot be
reasoned with, he just moved on. I don't think you
said the guy's name in the last eight years. I mean,
I just he just ceased to exist, so because he's
not important enough to need any time. So you know,
(10:15):
the tariffs so far have not been have not caused
a direct rise in prices of any real significance.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
We have not seen that yet.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
It remains to be seen what kind of impact on
prices this is going to have in the long term.
But I do think coming off the heels of inflation.
This is going to sound so crazy, but coming off
the heels of that massive jump in prices that we
just went through in the last few years, I think
companies are going to be far less likely to pass
those costs on to the consumer because they know the
(10:45):
consumers have hit their breaking point on.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
A lot of stuff. So it's going to be very.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Interesting to see how this all plays out, and I
do think it is a fair statement to say that
thus far on tariff's Trump is winning.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah, oh absolutely, And even economists are saying this. There
are a bunch of economists who have come out and said, well,
I think we were wrong on this, And you know,
some of that has to do with the fact that
they misunderstood Trump's strategy, and a lot of it has
to do with the fact that if you look at
(11:21):
this is always the case in economics or any social science,
or any science for that matter, you break things down
into little chunks and you look at them in isolation.
You create models, and the only way that you can
do that is to disambiguate by throwing out all other variables. So,
(11:44):
you know, it's like when you're doing ballistics when you
first learn it, you leave out wind resistance, You leave
out all sorts, you know, all sorts of variables, just
so that you understand, in principle, here's how things work.
You know, principle, you drop a feather in a bowling
ball and they'll fall at the same rate. Only in
(12:05):
the real world they've got because all the other variables.
Same thing with the tariffs. There are just so many
variables in there that the economists just you can't model
the real world well.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
In the same economists kind of suck at human behavior
when you get right down to an economists do a
bad job mitigating for human behavior, which is in a
lot of a lot of areas kind of predictable. You know,
we're all moved in a very similar way. We could
do that conversation another time, but I want to talk
about something different before I run out of time. Talking
(12:40):
with David Strong from hot are dot com. Yesterday he
had an article Glen Kessler of the Washington Post, he
of the fact Checker page, giving out the pinocchios.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
We won't have Glenn.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Kessler's fact checks to kick around anymore because he's out
at the Washington Post. He has taken a buyout by
Jeff Bezos and David. I don't know if you saw
on X yesterday, whenever anyone would comment about this, people
would start lighting up the replies with all of the
absurd fact checks that Glenn Kessler has done.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Over the recent years.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
That turned out to be completely wrong, right, just totally wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It's been a wild time.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
What do you think is happening over at the Washington
post right now, where does this thing end up?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Well, they're.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Jeff Bezos is clearly really tired of all the drama
over there. If you look, you know it's not just
Jack Glen Kessler, it's Taylor Lorenz's gone, Jennifer Ruben, Philip Bump.
I mean, you can go down the list and all
the most irritating people are being kicked out, and they
(13:52):
you know, not once, but several times. There have been
memos that have gone out. They haven't named names, although
you don't know what conversations took place behind closed doors,
but they were all basically of the you know, get
on board or get out variety.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
I love that, by the way. I love that.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's almost like there's a new sheriff in town, and
if you want to play ball, then we'll play ball.
But if you don't, don't let the door hit you
where the good Lord split you. Kind of thing, you know,
like bye bye.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I would love to know.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
If the fact check industry as it really exists right
now hopelessly left wing, every major fact check out at
PolitiFact left wing. We've got these guys left wing. We've
got Snopes, which is just whack of do a left
wing like, don't even bring me a Snopes fact check anymore.
Are we seeing the end of the fact check industry
(14:50):
because they were so demonstrably wrong, especially during COVID, Yes.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
And no, I mean they certainly. I think that the
fact check industry is dying. It will survive to some
small extent because there's a market for it, in the
way that there's a market for MSNBC. Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
You know, it's it's not.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Dead dead dead, but it's going to be really a
niche thing. And I you know it's going to be
you know, the Los Angeles Times probably won't have anyone
doing it, The Washington Post won't have anyone doing it.
You'll still have the nonprofits like Politi fact that are
out there.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
I don't even know if they're going to survive because
I think AI is going to kill fact checking.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And here's why.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Because right now I can go to groc Or, I
can go to chat GBT, my best friends, by the way,
we're pals, we hang out all the time, and I
can say to Grock, give me this side of this issue,
give me the left version of Medicaid expansion, and GROT
can pull up all kinds of data and give me
a very clear picture of the left view of that issue,
(16:07):
and then I can say, give me the right version
of this, and GROT can do the same thing. So
I can essentially fact check myself. I don't need to
have someone else interpret the data. I can look up
what I want to look up. AI can spit out
the information, and then I can figure out my own mind.
And I think it's more people realize that than I
think that a human fact checker with the notion of
(16:29):
bias and all of that other stuff. And I realize
AI has bias as well, But the perception that a
human being is probably more likely to inject their bias
in still exists, even though AI is not perfect.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Though.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
Oh, there is a midway class out there, the people
who I call them the one point fifteen iq SAT.
You know, they are above average and intelligence but think
they're way smarter than they actually are.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and they.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Love credentials, They love authority. They love being able to
say I read it in the New York Times or
at the Atlantic, and you know it massages their ego.
They don't actually want to know what the reality is.
They want someone to confirm their prejudices, right, And so
(17:22):
you know, they're the people who love MPR because it
tells them they're good people because they hate Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
And I like you.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
I like that, I like the midwit class. I'm going
to use that the midwit class gonna have to remember
that David trum well above the midwit class over at
hot air dot com. You should go read everything he
does over there. That they're one of my resources. First
thing in the morning, after I go through our local news,
hot air dot com is the first place that I visit.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And this is not a paid endorsaw.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I'm just saying I but well, first of all, I
like I like the writing style.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Everybody you work with has the right.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Out of fact and sarcasm in one column, so I
do enjoy that greatly.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
But David does great work over there.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
We didn't even get into the Sidney Sweeney situation.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
How many times do you have to.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Watch that commercial before you could write your article on
Sidney Sweeney yesterday, David, we should talk.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
About this because I've got an article coming out tomorrow
about it, because there is actually a new angle. There's
now a woke right version of this. Really it's the Jews,
Oh of.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Course, yeah, it's always the Jews.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
Okay, yeah, no, I I just have a firm policy
that I have a BS limit for stories on the show,
and that one did not cross the threshold of the
BS limit, so it's out. David Strom, a joy to
talk to, is always my friend.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
All Right, thanks a lot, Bandy.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
All right, well, talk to you soon. That David Strom
from Modern Doc gumb
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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