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Language: en
What's up, guys? To wrap up one of the
best years yet, I have put together some
of the most incredible advice that we
heard on Impact Theory this year. Hope
you guys have a great holiday season and
I will see you next year. Till then, be
legendary. Take care. Peace. Do you
think that Trump is um somebody who has
the elite view of like, hey, the right
people are in power. Let's make these
decisions for everybody else. or do you
believe that he actually sits outside of
that system and is actually trying to
help the everyday person uh in the way
that he presented himself while he was
campaigning?
>> Yeah. So, as far as my perspective on
Trump goes, it tends to do with the view
it tends to uh revolve around the view
that he is a businessman at heart and
that the focus of his um political
style I guess is deal making. Um, and
you know, I wrote a lot um in my book
about uh Trump's mentor uh Roy Conn, who
was um among other other things, the
general counsel to McCarthy uh during
the McCarthy hearings. He was also, you
know, a New York City lawyer uh that
represented a lot of unsavory figures,
including some uh tied to organized
crime, and also had the ear of Ronald
Reagan and top politicians in the United
States and sort of bridged um a variety
of worlds. and he uh very much uh
essentially taught Trump the art of the
deal as it were. And you know a lot of
his close cones close associates uh like
the Pope family for example uh were very
politically connected also connected to
organized crime arguably um but were
very much in the business of uh making
backroom deals uh and that that's how
you know power political power in the
United States functions. Um and so you
know fundamentally I think uh a lot of
what um Trump likes to focus on and
promote about his political style is um
around negotiations whether those are
diplomatic negotiations or negotiations
with businessmen that lead to uh big
number investments he can tout uh to the
public which is you know I think part of
the impetus behind his uh having the
project Stargate press conference you
know at the White House on his first
full
um you know at at his second term. And I
think that was all that's also kind of
consistent with what we saw from Trump
during his first term um as well. So
when you're sort of focused on those
metrics, I don't necessarily think um
that the focus is necessarily on how do
I help uh how do I help everyday Joe? Um
I'm sure that you know in his mind well
I don't really necessarily want to speak
for him. Uh but if you're, you know, of
the opinion that I'm going to tout this
big multi-million dollar investment in
US AI infrastructure for, for example,
uh perhaps he view he views that as
helpful for the American economy and
thus helpful for the American people.
And I think it is very likely that over
the next four years there certainly will
be some Americans that economically
benefit uh you know from Trump's
economic policy, but I don't necessarily
think that's going to be um everybody.
And I think you know generally um based
on what we've seen so far there's been a
lot of courting um of big tech
executives and and a lot of talk about
making the US the AI and crypto capital
um of the world. Um and how much of that
is necessarily going to translate or
trickle down to sort of refer to you
know reanite econ economic terms um you
know to the everyday American public. Um
it's really hard to know. Uh but again,
you know, I just want to go back to
someone like Eric Schmidt, for example,
who as I noted earlier had sort of an
outsized role in developing the AI
policy of the military intelligence
community. Uh he wrote a book called The
Age of AI with a with Henry Kissinger
and also I believe a professor from MIT
who I'm sorry his name escapes me um at
the moment, but basically that book
posited that essentially AI is going to
make a two-tiered society. There's going
to be the top tier of people who develop
and maintain AI and set and determine
what its objective functions are and
then sort of a a second class who uh
which we would assume is larger than the
first class. So they don't explicitly
say that uh but who AI acts upon and
eventually that that group uh will lose
the ability to un to understand and
really be able to conceive of um how how
AI is impicting their uh impacting their
lives and will develop some sort of
dependency on AI for things like
decision-m sort of leading uh to this
phenomena that they refer to in the book
as cognitive diminishment which I sort
of see as this idea of um you know we've
all heard it before if you use it, you
lose it. Sort of the idea of like mental
math. You start using a calculator or a
phone calculator or something like that
and it becomes more difficult over time
and eventually very difficult to be able
to do uh mental math in your head when
perhaps when you were in grade school it
was much easier to do that because you
were sort of you had to use that ability
regularly. And so they sort they
essentially argue that by not making
those decisions and outsourcing that uh
to AI, this particular class uh will
lose the ability to make those decisions
over time. And when you also factor in
uh that there's a lot of effort to sort
of outsource creativity, art and music
to artificial intelligence. Will that
have an impact on people's ability uh to
create? And what sort of impact will
this have on society? And you know,
these are things that I think sort of
get left out of the public discussion
and I don't think they're really on
someone like Trump's radar as a
businessman. He's focused on sort of the
bottom line, the number uh the success
of the negotiation and how successful it
it looks, frankly, whether it's to his
base or to businessmen he wants to
court, um or you know, other people,
foreign leaders, you know. Um and you
know, I I I I'll stop there, I guess.
No, that was great. Uh, so how do you
feel when you hear about AI creating
this two-tier system?
>> Oh, I certainly don't think that's
positive. I think it's sort of the
technocratic model that we discussed
earlier where you sort of have an elite
class that sort of set um, you know, the
system that will micromanage the masses
at the end of the day. I mean, they
don't explicitly say that um in the
book, but if you're familiar with
someone like Henry Kissinger, for
example, and some of his more
controversial views um on on the masses
and the public and some of his more
infamous quotes, you know, I mean, uh is
that a system that he um wants to
happen? I don't really know. He's dead
and so no one can ask him. But, um I
think it is kind of disturbing um in a
sense that
>> some of his more infamous quotes. I I'm
not I'm not super familiar with Kster. I
know who he is, but I couldn't quote
him.
>> Uh, well, he created a national security
memorandum, for example, that viewed uh
people that live in the third world
birth rates and and you know, in the
global south as national security
threats to the United States. Um, and
wanted to implement policies to reduce
uh their population size, uh, for
example, and sort of had what I would
argue was a eugenicist bent to some of
his policies. Um and he was one of the
mentors of course to people that have
become infamous in recent years like the
World Economic Forum chairman Klaus
Schwab. Um and um you know some of his
more infamous quotes that he's known for
refer to you know soldiers uh being you
know pawns of foreign policy essentially
sort of like you know people's lives are
just you know pawns on a chessboard for
the sort of the elite figures to move
around you know for for their benefit.
That's sort of the mentality as I see
it. um uh of someone like him, but
obviously he's been, you know, praised
as a model statesman and all of this
stuff and has uh mentored Trump in his
first administration, mentored Hillary
Clinton, you know, people on both sides
of the aisle. Um, and but I personally,
um, you know, I think the more you look
into someone like that and his
connections with sort of dubious
oligarchs like David Rockefeller going,
you know, significantly back in time,
um, you know, he's sort of someone that,
uh, promotes this idea of of a global
technocracy.
>> Okay. So, do you have the impulse to
want to see AI slow down or stop?
Well, I don't necessarily want to say
that I'm like a lite and we we should
all go back uh to the stone age or
things like this, but I think uh there
needs to be like an actual public
discussion on this, particularly on the
fact that our outofc control national
security state um and Silicon Valley are
have essentially been fusing over the
past few decades and what necessarily
that means um because a lot of people be
you know will say stuff well it's AI and
the private sector but when that private
sector company has multi-million dollars
there's conflicts of interest with the
national security state. I think that
should um you know be part of the
discussion uh necessarily and I think
also there needs to be a way to sort of
know um whether some of these algorithms
are hyped or whether what the company
says their accuracy is for example is
actually accurate uh before uh decisions
are made to outsource major
decision-making whether at the
government level or the local level or
really on any level you know to an
algorithm. So, you know, as an example,
uh during CO 19, uh the pre the governor
of Rhode Island, Gina Rayondo, sort of
gave a green light to this Israeli
company called Diagnostic Robotics, uh
to use, you know, the health data in the
state to predict, uh CO 19 outbreaks, uh
before they could happen, right? and
Gina Raando by the way
>> laws.
>> Well, uh I'm I'm sure a lot of those
were sort of suspended uh under the
emergency justification of CO 19, but
I'm not exactly familiar with the legal
or potential legal snafoos of that um at
the time. Or maybe they justified it by
alleged, you know, saying they d they
sort of took anonymize the data. I don't
really know. But the idea was to sort of
use that data to identify local hotspots
and predict outbreaks before they
happen. And so obviously if you know the
algorithm of this company predicts an
outbreak there would be sort of these
localized lockdowns and people would
lose their ability to uh engage in
in-person commerce and freedom of
movement etc. So you know consequences
that are pretty significant to the
people uh living there um and when I
reported on at the time as I recall but
it's been a few years but I do know that
the algorithm per the company was under
80% accurate. I think it was somewhere
in the 70s and so that's the company
right? So if it's not independently
vetted um and it this is sort of you
know company PR um at the end of the day
is that overinflated it's quite possible
right and so what if the accuracy of
that isn't really in the 70s it's in the
60s or near the 50s it's no better than
a coin toss right is it really worth
putting uh that kind of power in the
hand of an algorithm that isn't
necessarily going to be more efficient
and accurate but all this hype that's
been generated around AI as an industry
suggests that that has sort of created
this public perception that AI is
inherently um smarter than human
decision makers and more efficient and
more coste effective for example. Um, I
think these are kind of problematic
scenarios that need to be considered.
And I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer
or poo poo on on innovation, but I
think, you know, civil liberties do
matter. And I think people need to be uh
very mindful of that, especially
considering again the Silicon Valley
fusion with the national security state
and the national security state's
tendency uh to opportunistically whittle
down American civil liberties uh for
their benefit.
It's a really interesting intersection
that I clearly need to start thinking
more about. We will be right back to the
show in a second, but first I want to
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let's get back to the show. The way that
I would look at that, and this ties into
uh something you mentioned earlier, uh
during the inauguration of Donald Trump,
you had all these uh tech billionaires
there by him and it gave it certainly
gave me like, ooh, this is why people
are paranoid about oligarchy vibes. Uh
and I'm not super prone to that kind of
thinking. So, the fact that it hit me
like that, I was like, okay, definitely
it's good that people are being
paranoid. Uh but the intersection feels
like it's a very natural intersection to
me. So the reason that national security
would be fusing with technology is that
technology is going to be the front
where these battles are fought. And so
anybody that's seen, you know, the
however many thousands of drones uh that
China can launch and get to, you know,
dance like a dragon is very compelling
when you see it. It looks so cool. Uh,
and then you imagine, well, what happens
when 10,000 drones like that are able to
go over a aircraft carrier and each one
drops a uh reasonable size payload that
by itself would do next to nothing, but
you drop 10,000 of those uh little
somethings on that ship and you turn it
into Swiss cheese, you realize, ooh, the
way that we've been doing uh national
defense is not going to work in a modern
combat scenario. And so it is going to
be these tech guys that we're going to
need even if you just grant me that AI
is going to get really good at hacking
which there was a recent uh announcement
I forget if it was from Deepseek uh I
can't remember but there was a company
that was doing this where they wanted to
see um how well their AI was at hacking
and it was unbelievably good and so they
were doing it as a red team inside of a
company so they can say okay here's how
we broke our own systems now we need a
blue team that can come in and shore
these up. Uh but you're going to have to
have that. Like if you are living in a
world where one country has AI and
another does not, uh the country without
it will lose. And so to me, this feels
like an arms race we cannot afford to
not engage in. Uh and so it just becomes
a question of all right, well given the
stakes, how do we actually navigate
this? So I I would not want to pull
apart the national security apparatus
from uh the tech bros to be dismissive.
Um so what do you do? I don't know if
you want to stay in the lane of like I
just want people looking at the right
things or if you actually have an
insight there. Uh but I'd be very
curious.
>> Um you know I do prefer to stay in in my
lane as much as possible. uh frankly um
especially on sort of these uh sticky
stickier issues but I do have some
opinions. So um first of all um as I
referred to earlier with the national
submission uh commit national security
commission on artificial intelligence
and some of these foyad documents that
came out of there. There is the
promotion of the idea that essentially
the US needs to do what China has done
and and replicate this civil military
fusion model in order to win the AI arms
race. And sort of the argument inherent
in that is that in order to beat China,
we must become China even more than
China is. Um and and you know a lot of
the justifications
um you know around um China as an
adversary are related to how uh China uh
is not as um protective of civil
liberties as the as the United States at
least postures itself as being for
example and a major difference in the
value system between the China between
China and the United States and so if
you're willing to adopt exactly that
model. Civil military fusion in my
opinion is really not that different
than um fascism at the end of the day.
Um it's it's the corporatist model and I
don't think it's uh necessarily what
what Americans want. Um and yeah, there
is a trade-off and I think people should
consider it. Um, but again, I'm not um
in the business of telling people what
to think. But what happens if we go so
far out of a desperation to win an AI
arms race with China, for example, uh
that we completely surrender our the
value system that supposedly makes us a
freer, better society in the process. I
think uh that is complicated.
Um and I would also point to the fact
that uh you know transnational capital a
lot of that has enabled China's AI arms
race. There's a lot of cross-pollination
in these uh you know Chinese government
adjacent tech corporations um and the
United States uh you can look at people
like Larry Fank for example um who
definitely have a lot of eyes
to Chinese industry uh for example and
people like Steve Schwarzman um quite
similarly very much uh tied there who's
you know head of Blackstone and uh
they're both very close personal friends
of Donald Trump and also of course Fink
has ties to the Democrats um as Well,
um, and a lot of, you know, Henry
Kissinger, who I mentioned earlier, a
lot of top CCP officials have pictures
of them with Henry Kissinger in their
offices. They love the guy. Um, and
there was that effort, of course, to
open up China, uh, to to commerce and,
uh, partnerships with, uh, Western
companies, for example, um, you know,
back several decades ago. And a lot of
that involved um you know uh US capital
and and some firms like Beal for example
that were very much tied to the national
security state of Ronald Reagan for
example. A lot of top people that served
in his and top national security
positions under him were involved in
Bectal which was building a lot of the
infrastructure that helped enable China
to become uh this you know the power
that it is. And why is that not being
talked about? And I mean this is really
isn't exclusive to Democrats either,
though they often get rightly pointed
out for having some conflicts of
interest of this nature. Uh but someone
like Howard Lutnik, for example, who was
head of the transition team uh for Trump
and is his uh incoming secretary of
commerce um has the same his his company
he runs um has the same uh tie, arguably
a more direct tie uh to a Chinese
government majorityowned uh financial
entity that was a big scandal for
conservatives when Hunter Biden's
Rosemont Sena was also tied to it. But
there's been no conservative uproar over
this tie. Um, and you have to kind of
ask why that may be and why you have a
lot of um, these big tech people, Elon
Musk included, who has a major role in
the national security state of the
United States as one of the top
contractors to Space Force in the
Pentagon, for example, and Starlink
and all of these things. um had you know
through Tesla has a lot of ties to you
know Chinese commerce and and tech
giants that also have uh rather cozy
relationships with the Chinese
government as well. Why is that not
being discussed as you know a potential
national security risk if we do really
need to become China to beat China? You
see what I'm saying? like if it was
really that was really the key driver of
our issue, shouldn't we be scrutinizing
uh the ties of these oligarchs to both
China and you know some of and our own
national security state and you know
again I think
um if people are familiar with my books
and my work there is a scandal that
really uh exposed a lot of this uh that
happened uh during the Clinton
administration and was not properly
investigated at all. it's remembered as
as China gate and it was really of uh
you know sort of today is I would argue
misremembered as a campaign finance
scandal for the Clinton re-election
campaign but what was the sc what what
was the alleged bribery of the Clinton
re-election campaign meant to accomplish
and if you look at what these you know
forces gained what these what these
figures gained by sort of you know for
all intents and purposes bribing the
Clinton uh reelection campaign It was
facilitating um exports of sensitive
national security technology to China.
Um and a lot of that was done through a
company called Laurel uh which has uh
since uh become I think part of Loheed
Martin. And um the guy that that ran
Laurel at the time, Bernard Schwarz, uh
nothing ever happened to him at all
despite the fact that he uh helped pass
uh very sensitive satellites and other
military technology from the US uh you
know directly to the Chinese military.
um and nothing was done about it and he
was actually a major backer of Biden in
2020. Why was that not covered? Don't
you think conservatives should be all
over that story? And um you know, again,
this sort of um makes me concerned
because I think there's not enough talk
about um transnational capital in these
types of situations. And there's a very
urgent need to go back and reexamine a
lot of the past scandals of our national
security state China specifically
because as I note in my book uh the the
death of commerce secretary Ron Brown
and a lot of people at the ITA
department at commerce those were the
most people targeted as this bribery
scandal at China because the commerce
department oversees the export of
sensitive technology to foreign powers.
Right. And
um the fact that most of the employees
that knew about that scandal were all
essentially blown up in the same uh you
know aircraft accident and that Ron
Brown had a bullet hole in his head when
his body was discovered in the plane.
Why has that not been Well, it's true.
You can look at the evidence
>> um and it's absolutely there. And um
>> you know, why can't we examine this? And
shouldn't it be disturbing that the
incoming head of the commerce department
has a direct tie to the Chinese
government in the context of that type
of scandal of China and targeting the
commerce department specifically?
>> Is that Howard? Who are we talking
about?
>> Yes.
>> The ugly under the hood minations of the
world came up to the surface and people
are just like there's no way I'm going
to let you see how things actually work.
Um Drew, my producer who's just off
camera right now, hi Drew. uh has said
you'll never get the Epstein files. Like
he's been saying that from day one. H
what's happening? Give me the FBI angle.
>> Yeah, there's there's a um the truth is
somewhere in between the two extremes,
which is what so often turns out to be
true, right? So um
Jeffrey Epste was doing a lot of illegal
stuff on his own.
In the eyes of the justice system, a bad
guy doing bad things is useful. It's
helpful. That's so wild
>> because bad guys doing bad things are
almost always connected to other bad
guys doing other bad things.
>> And that opens up this access route,
this utility for the Justice Department
to say, "Oh, well now we have a smorgas
board of bad guys, but we only have
access to these bad guys through this
one bad guy here." So they created this
process called a CI, a covert informant
or a clandestine informant. The CI's job
is to inform and to gain and grant
access to a wider net of bad guys.
>> And this is specifically an FBI thing.
>> It's specifically a a law enforcement
thing.
>> Okay. So
>> So be CIA or FBI.
>> CIA is not law enforcement.
>> Interesting.
>> Yeah. CIA's job is is intelligence
collection. Not not
>> lawend to kill people.
>> They used to be more able to kill people
than they currently are. So law
enforcement falls under under the
judicial branch. Intelligence collection
falls under the executive branch. That's
why the president can do whatever the
hell he wants to with CIA, but the
president cannot do whatever he wants to
with the FBI.
>> Right? That's that's how it was that FBI
could could investigate the president
and how he decided to have a backlash
against the FBI. CIA, he just says no.
He just shuts off their budget and and
tells them he doesn't listen to them and
and stops using them. And that's how you
have the max the mass exodus of 2016
that you had at CIA during Trump's first
administration. So you have these two
different branches of government. One
controls CIA, the executive branch. One
controls FBI, the judicial branch. That
also means that Donald Trump can say
release the Epstein files and that
doesn't have any impact on the judicial
branch. They don't have
>> is Cash Patel that makes that decision
or someone else.
>> So they can they can be pressured into
acting when the legislative branch and
the executive branch both work together
in a checks and balance way. But like if
Pam Bondi and Cash Patel say we're
releasing it is there's nobody else,
right?
>> Not really. Yeah. They can they can
choose to do that on their own as long
as it it fits American law. American law
is dictated by the legislative branch.
So here's why I'm saying this. I'm
saying this because even if
our legislative branch votes to have the
judicial branch release the files, that
does not mean that they control what
gets released or where it's released.
So, the files might be released only to
the Senate Intelligence Committee or
only to a subcommittee in charge of law
enforcement, not to the American people.
You're not going to they're not going to
vote today and then tomorrow you're
going to have full access to every file.
They also might only release redacted
files because there's going to be lines
and details inside all of the files that
have law enforcement, intelligence, or
national security relevance. So, it's
all going to be redacted. You're already
seeing that in the emails that were
leaked recently from House members. Who
makes those redactions? The Department
of Justice makes those redactions. Why
do they make those redactions? Because
they're protecting other cases that
they're trying to close for criminal
conviction. So release the files. What
what's laughable to me is that they can
release the files and the average
American still won't see them because
they're not going to be released to the
public. They'll be released to
subcommittees. They'll be released from
the current kind of bucket of control
they're in in the justice department and
they'll be released to the legislative
department and then the legislative
department and the subcommittees there
will determine whether or not it should
be released to the public or it should
go right back to the judicial department
because we have to protect XYZ case.
Epstein as a CI was incredibly valuable
because as much as he did bad things,
the people that he had in his sphere of
influence did worse things in the eyes
of the law. This is an uncomfortable
truth that people need to understand in
the eyes of national security. A
pedophile is not that big a risk. Yo,
that sucks, but it's true. If you're
trying to protect a country, if you're
trying to protect national secrets, if
you're trying to protect our ability to
win a war against China, a guy having
sex with an underage child is not that
important. But when that pedophile is
connected to other world leaders, when
that pedophile is connected to
politicians that might be corrupt,
politicians that might be allowing
foreign influence in American policy,
now all of a sudden that person can be
granted amnesty in exchange for their
cooperation in advancing the cases for
all these other targets. That makes the
most sense in in any research I've done,
in any expert I've spoken to, in any
review of the evidence that we've gotten
so far on Epstein, that explanation
makes the most sense of any other that
the United States said, "Hey, you're
doing shitty. You're doing bad things.
Here's a whole list of things that we
can arrest you for and and convict you
for today." And he saw that list and
then they said, "Or you can cooperate
with us to bring down bigger fish." And
what's a guy like that going to say?
This isn't the mafia. He doesn't have to
worry about somebody, you know, whacking
him. He didn't think. So, he's like,
"Okay, I'll cooperate with you because
then if I cooperate with you, you bring
down some big fish. I don't ever go to
jail for the things that I have to do to
stay influential in my network." And now
I'm protected. Right? At the end of the
day, we all have two instincts that we
have to deal with. Our survival instinct
and our tribal instinct. And those those
are the two instincts that drive us.
Sometimes we're very survival based.
Sometimes we'll sacrifice our survival
to be part of a group. In that moment,
Epstein was like, I need to survive. I
need to take care of me more than I need
to take care of my friends, which are my
tribal instinct. And then life just is.
That's just how human beings are wired.
All of us have that same decision matrix
every day. And what do you think about
um was he exfilled by the FBI so they
could either protect their sources or
did somebody actually have him killed or
was this just a guy that was like I
don't want to go through the trial.
>> Yeah, I don't think he killed himself. I
I will say that
>> because of evidence.
>> What has been released to us so far when
I look at it, it just it doesn't make
biological sense to to be able to hang
yourself essentially off of a doororknob
at low at at a low distance from the
ground. It's a very difficult thing to
do. So it it just seems biologically
improbable, not impossible, but
improbable. And then even though I have
I have I have supported wealthy people
who have been convicted and are going to
prison, I I provide counseling and I
provide um training.
>> Oh [ __ ]
>> To sh to shape their mindset before they
go into prison.
>> Whoa.
>> Because they're going to come out of
prison, too, right? So I've I've helped
people in that way.
>> Okay. I've helped people in that way and
they all have that same thought that
Epstein most likely had where they're
like, "It's all over. My wealth is gone.
My reputation is gone. My family will
forever hate me. My kids are better off
without me. So, I'm just going to kill
myself in jail. I'm just going to give
up and never talk to anybody again."
They all have that moment and it's just
a mindset moment that they have to work
their way through. Without a doubt,
Jeffrey Epstein had a consultant like me
who came in and coached him on his
mindset. Without a doubt, his attorneys
would have done it for sure. He had too
much wealth behind him for someone not
to invest in that way for him. So when I
think of probability, probability is he
would not have killed himself.
Probability is even if he tried
biologically it wouldn't have been
successful. So then what did happen? Was
he killed in an organized criminal
activity or was he or was he killed as a
political martyr of some sort? But most
likely, most probable to me, he was
violently attacked. Whether they
intended to kill him or just intimidate
him, I don't know. But that seems the
more likely case. That's completely
separate from his role as a CI. If he
would have been discovered as a CI, he
would have been even more likely to be
killed. If he was not known to be a CI,
they still wouldn't want to release the
details because to release the details
of his role as a CI would be to
undermine the all the other CIS in the
world right now who are providing
information about worse bad guys than
them to the FBI. The promise the FBI
makes, the promise CIA makes to all of
their assets is we will protect you. You
will provide us information. We will
protect you to the best of our ability.
The best of their ability when they're
protecting a US citizen in the United
States is pretty high.
It is uh like this one is wild to me in
terms of um what what does it say about
the state of the government I guess or
just how dandy new that we've all been
we've all believed that we're good we've
all believed that we're on the right
side of humankind and we're a good and
decent government. Why?
>> When I watched House of Cards, it didn't
seem plausible. So, it was fun. I
enjoyed it. Very over the top. I'm like,
get out of here. And then Epstein
happened. I was like, oh my god.
>> Like, this might actually be like the
level of chicainery that's actually
going on. That That's where I'm like,
wow, this is really hard to metabolize.
Again, you have to look at those two
razors that we talked about, right?
AAM's razor and Hanland's razor. Is it
more likely that we only recently became
corrupt as a federal government? Is it
only recently that we became highly
politicized and and survival oriented?
Or have we always been that way, but the
advent of technology has made it more
transparent to the lay person? Which one
of those is more likely? Well, if you
keep if you take the most simplest
explanation, we've always been that way.
So it meets AAM's razor to believe that
we've always been this way. We've always
been this way. It's just that technology
has made it so that you and I can now
keep up with it at a faster pace. And
then if you look at Hanland's razor,
don't subscribe to conspiracy that which
can be explained through uh idiocy. Then
again, we've always been this way. It's
not that we've been able to keep a
secret. It's just that nobody's had real
time access into so much information
about what's happening in government.
We've never had so many leaks. We've
never had so much press interest. We've
never had so many channels to
communicate the information that we're
collecting. We've never had, like you
were saying before, um, podcast
journalism or social journalism or
community journalism, whatever, whatever
isms you want to call them. We've never
had that before. Everybody was too busy
working on an assembly line or trying to
scrape together two sticks to make a
light, right? We never we never had that
in the past. So, when I look through the
laws of analysis, it just confirms for
me what I learned when I was at CIA. The
average American has no concept of how
the government works. And the average
world citizen has no concept of how
their government works. And for sure
they have no concept of how the US
government works. The largest,
wealthiest, most militarily powerful
government in the world. You think that
we became that way by playing fair? You
think we became that way by by standing
on the moral high ground? That's not how
government works. That's never been how
government works. That will never be how
government works. The whole reason we
have a representative government is so
that we don't have to have blood on our
hands as the voters. We can elect
someone else to go do the dirty work.
>> Are we ever going to get transparency
into who Epstein was and what he did?
>> I don't believe we will. I don't believe
we will because it doesn't benefit our
national security infrastructure to tell
the true story. We might get answers,
but we'll never know if the answers that
were given are complete, accurate, or
truthful because every government knows
you have to give the people something to
follow. And then you that doesn't have
to be the truth. Just like what's
happening right now in the Caribbean.
Why do we have a military buildup in the
Caribbean? Because of Venezuela? Run
that through the two razors that we
talked about. It doesn't make any sense,
but that's what we're being told. And
because we're being told that, we accept
that. Nobody's questioning whether or
not our military presence in the
Caribbean is due to something else.
>> You think it's China?
>> That's what I believe.
>> We'll get to that in a minute. If you
were advising the Trump administration
right now, how do you get enough Epstein
file out there, lie or otherwise, that
people go, "Cool, got it. Check. Thanks.
We finally got the transparency that we
needed." You don't want people to say,
"Cool. I'm done." You always want to
have this red herring. This is the
definition of a red herring. A red
herring is is a useful tool that you can
use to to distract people. You want the
Epstein case to always be available as a
red herring. So, if I was advising the
Donald Trump organization, I would say
do exactly what you're doing right now.
Donald Trump, you tell the people
officially, I think that you should let
the House vote on releasing the files.
Even though the president as the leader
of the executive branch could do it
himself, he could tell the the judicial
branch to do it and and they would
arguably as commander-in-chief be
hardressed not to listen to him. But
he's not doing that. Instead, he's
making it the House's problem. He's
making it Congress's problem. So he's
like, "Hey, Congress, you do this thing
from the legislative branch and I'm
going to be the one that's the
figurehead saying the leader saying you
do the thing that's going to help the
American people." And then
simultaneously you're telling Cash
Patel, release whatever you need to
release that doesn't compromise current
investigations and anything that looks
bad on our current administration,
redact. Now Cash Patel, the leader of
the FBI, Pam Bondi, the the head of
Homeland Security, they can both go in
there and they can they can redact
anything that they that they decide
looks bad on the current administration
or is related to a current criminal
investigation and release that. And the
American people will say, "Oh, now we
have all the files, but what about all
these redactions?" And now the Justice
Department can always say those
redactions are critical for national
security because the stability of the
federal government, the survivability of
the current administration is considered
a national security priority.
>> Yeah, this is going to get weird. like
this has not been good for his
presidency and his inability to fix the
economy in a timely manner which I think
is impossible but nonetheless uh is a
double whammy. We we shall see
happening.
>> I think Donald Trump is also
>> he's a very practical personality. No
matter how you cut it, you can kind of
accept that there's a pragmatism when
you look at it through the lens of
Donald Trump protecting Donald Trump.
that survival instinct.
He's any any failure that he has in a
campaign promise
is something that he can distract from.
He also promised to not start any new
wars and he's gone back on that several
times, right? He's turning into a very
conflict-oriented president, not only
with Iran, but also with Venezuela. That
complet that goes completely against the
campaign promise. He's done an about
face on releasing JFK files. He's done
an about face on releasing Epstein
files. Those were also campaign
promises. Uh you you see him
trying to like trying to boost the
economy in traditional ways. The
traditional ways are not that different
from the way Biden or Obama tried to
boost the economy either. Even though he
tries to make it look different, he
knows that probability wise this is his
last term and coming out of this term he
wants all the benefits of being a former
president and he wants to shore up as
few risks as possible that carried over
with him into the presidency. So Donald
Trump's there to take care of Donald
Trump and the United States will be a
secondary benefit, but that's his
primary goal.
>> The election is existential now on both
sides. So, uh, Trump is obviously going
after his political rivals. If the
Republicans win, I would imagine that
whoever comes into office will pardon
Trump just to end all of that. Uh, I
believe he can't pardon himself, so
that's off the table. But if the
Democrats win, they're going to go after
him legally in a big way. So the bad
news is that becoming president is now
existential in office and out of office.
And this is why if I were advising
Trump, I would say whatever you do,
don't pursue Obama. That would be a huge
mistake because they will come after you
tfold. And then when it switches again,
they will come after them tenfold.
So anyway, we're in a super weird death
loop, but um talk to me about Venezuela.
So, China is the thing that I'm very sad
anytime people get distracted because,
uh while I would love to hold hands and
march into the future with China as an
ally, um but we not decouple, but we get
realistic about not letting anyone
control certain aspects of our way of
life. uh certainly not somebody who has
proven that they will very rapidly
become an adversary. Um what is
Venezuela all about? How does China
figure into this and what should we do?
>> I'll I'll answer your question directly
first and then I'll kind of backfill it
with why I think I think the way I think
I believe Venezuela is a red herring. I
believe that all of the Venezuela talk
and the Venezuela focus is not actually
the focus of the president, not actually
the focus of the Department of War as
it's now called. I believe that that is
all a red herring that's being given to
us as a pill that we'll accept because
we all kind of agree Venezuela's we
don't know anything about it. That's
what we all really believe. We don't
know anything about Venezuela except
Maduro bad
and we all hate drugs. So if you can
>> speak for yourself Andrew Bamante now
>> so if you can if you can affiliate
Venezuela with drugs then boom yeah of
course we're against it. Rah rah rah
let's let's blow up boats and let's show
American power off the coast of our own
country. I mean, who doesn't want to
cheer for that? I lived in Tampa. It
gives you a giant erection every time an
F-22 takes off and you're like, "Fuck
yeah, that's America, right?" Like, when
you're standing in the field and there's
Abram tanks that are driving by, the
whole world rumbles and you're like,
"Fuck yeah, that's America." Trust me, I
get it. I get it. And now we get to do
that off the coast of Florida. And of
course, Texas and of course Mississippi,
Louisiana, we're all like, "Fuck yeah,
that like we're awesome because we get
to do it here. We've been projecting
that power worldwide. We don't get to
rah rah rah when it's, you know, off the
coast of Israel.
But here it's different. So all of that
to say I believe Venezuela is a big red
herring. Now why do I believe that
that's a big red herring? When you look
at the actual evidence, the objective
realities of the claims that are being
made. We're fighting a drug war against
naroterrorisms or naroterrorists. Right?
The term narotist
has an actual definition, right? And
that definition for a terrorist has to
be the use of violence to gain a
political change. That's that is what's
required of a terrorist. They must use
violent lethal attacks in an effort to
force political change. Narotists would
just be drugfunded or drugreated
terrorists. That's the definition that's
out there for everybody to look up.
Well, the cartels aren't doing that. The
cartels aren't using violence,
particularly not violence against the
United States, to change politics.
That's where the argument comes from
recently that they're trying to say,
"Oh, no, Maduro weaponized cocaine. He
weaponized cocaine specifically to
attack Americans." Even if that was the
case, what's the political change that
he's trying to drive? Because that's the
important part about a terrorist. They
have to be driving a political agenda.
Secondly, only 15% of all the cocaine at
most only 15% of the cocaine that enters
the United States comes through
Venezuela. 100 of 100% of it almost is
created in Colombia. But then a small
fraction is sent through Venezuela and
then shipped up to um Puerto Rico where
it goes into the American postal system
and then it can be shipped all over the
United States. A small percentage
upwards of 90% of all cocaine goes
through Mexico. So why are we focused on
Venezuela? If we're trying to fight
cocaine, why wouldn't why wouldn't we
focus on Mexico? Why are we focused on
Venezuela? Doesn't make any sense in
terms of volume. Then you start to think
about other issues. What one of
Venezuela's top two military weapons
partners are Russia and China. Russia
historically, China more currently.
Venezuela also maintains one of the
largest amphibious assault forces in all
of Latin America. And guess who provided
all of their amphibious assault weapons?
>> China.
>> China. So if you really want to know
what an amphibious assault would look
like of China against Taiwan, you want
to get a look under the hood of what the
amphibious assault looks like in
Venezuela. What do their capabilities
look like? What do the weapons look
like? How would they use them? China's
number one trading partner is actually
Pakistan. So China's number one weapons
importer is Pakistan. Pakistan buys the
most Chinese weapons. But almost all of
the weapons that Pakistan buys from
China are focused on ground warfare and
airborne warfare, radar detection, uh
ballistic missiles, etc. that they're
using against India. It doesn't give us
any and Pakistan's a
we need to know about Chinese weapons
because our Pakistani partners are
probably giving us the information. But
we know very little about China's
amphibious assault capability. But
Venezuela would be our best insight into
that. Add into that mix the fact that
the Panama Canal was a major focus of
Trump during the presidential
administration because he claimed that
China controlled the Panama Canal.
That's not fully correct. The more
correct way of saying it would be that
China controlled the entrance and exit
ports of the Panama Canal. They were
predominantly owned by a Hong Kong
subsidiary. In March of this year, Trump
demanded that that Hong Kong subsidiary
sell a majority stake to US investment
company Black Rockck, I believe it was.
So then in August of this year that that
transfer actually happened. So it was
only in August, August 25th of this year
that the Panama Canal became majorly
owned by US investment firms instead of
majority owned by Chinese investment
firms. And then within two weeks after
that date, the first drug boat was blown
up off the coast of Venezuela. really.
So, I'm not saying we have smoking guns,
but I'm saying we have multiple verified
uh independent sources of information
that point to the fact that our conflict
in Venezuela actually isn't about
Venezuela.
>> So, uh the boats that we're blowing up,
are they us going, "Oh, these are narco
boats or these boats that China is
working with them to do a thing and we
want to keep sending a message to
China."
>> No, I I believe that they're actually
carrying drugs. And if you look at some
of the drug, not only the drug boats
between Mexico or between Venezuela and
United States, but even the drug boats
that are going to Europe, like they're
busted old boats. They're handmade.
They're leaky. They're they're they're
they're not
they're not um significant enough that
you would imagine they'd be worth a six
figure missile to blow them up,
>> right? But that's what we're doing.
>> Maybe it's five. Maybe it's a $50,000
missile, not a $100,000 missile that
we're using to blow up the boat. Either
way, it's a $50 boat. So, I do believe
that there really are drugs. I do
believe those drugs really are moving.
And I do believe that we really are
impacting the flow of drugs, but we're
impacting a part like a a fraction of
the 15% maximum of cocaine flow that's
actually coming into the United States.
If we really
>> I totally buy that. That's all a red
herring. But now I want to understand.
So, if this is really I think we're
already in a cold war with China. That
seems patently obvious to me. So in in
the rubric of this is a cold war with
China, why what are we doing blowing up
the boats? Is it just a reminder we have
these missiles? I mean, it seems
>> to consolidate our military in the
Caribbean
>> to justify sending them there.
>> Yeah. To justify sending our military to
the Caribbean because China not only
predominantly owned the entrance and
exit port for the Panama Canal,
>> they predominantly own mult Panama, not
Venezuela. So do you
>> It's that it's that part of the ocean.
Mhm.
>> But do you think there's a clandestine
battle that's happening that we just
aren't aware of?
>> Uh, so I think the answer to that is the
simplest answer is yes. My the book that
I wrote about my own experience with CIA
talks about the start of what we call a
shadow conflict with China, right? An
intelligence battle, an intelligence war
with China.
>> And the big difference between the Cold
War that you and I live through the tail
end of with Russia and
>> Oh, I lived through the whole thing. I'm
older than you, my friend. Not the whole
thing, I suppose, since it started at
World War II, but
>> but the big difference between the Cold
War with Russia and I don't know, we
should come up with a name for it. Let's
just call it the rice war. I'll be I'll
be racist.
>> Damn.
>> The rice war that we're dealing with now
first, everybody.
>> The rice war that we're dealing with now
is that during the Cold War, the United
States had no economic reliance on
Russia.
>> They were two completely separate
economies.
>> Yep. But now we have a major economic
reliance on our largest geopolitical
adversary. So it's not so easy to have a
standard cold war where we just turn a
cold shoulder and we put up an iron
curtain. Now we have to meet over rice.
We have to talk. We have to pretend like
we're friends even though we wonder
who's poisoning the rice, right? On both
sides. I kind of like this this analogy
right now. Nice, right? Especially since
I think we grow the rice and they
actually buy our rice. There's all sorts
of interesting [ __ ] up things about
our relationship with China,
>> but that's what we're dealing with. So,
we can't just out China. If we out
China, we go back into a tariff war. We
stop getting plastics. They stop getting
chips. It all gets really [ __ ] messy.
So, we have to find this way to like be
in bed together, but still kick each
other under the sheets. It reminds me It
reminds me of the sport water polo. I
don't know if you follow water polo.
>> I know enough about it to know exactly
where you're headed.
>> Yes. I I knew nothing about water polo
till I went to college and then I became
friends with a water polo player and I
only then discovered it's a dirty
[ __ ] sport under the water. Yeah,
they do horrible things to each other
and then they just pass the ball up top.
So when we watch we get to see all this
cool action above the water, but all the
nasty shit's happening under the water.
That's what this war is like with China
right now. So
>> China owns huge chunks of the Caribbean.
China has massive leases on
infrastructure and military bases and
ports all across the Caribbean. They
have rare earth mineral rights across
the Caribbean. Their major shipping
routes go through the Caribbean. We move
all of our [ __ ] to the Caribbean just to
tell the Chinese, "Don't forget. Don't
forget this is our house." And that's
what we're doing here right now. We've
consolidated our forces. Look how fast
it happened when we were fighting
Venezuela. How fast do you think it's
going to happen if you mess with us? How
fast can we take your car your Caribbean
investments? How fast can we cut off
your flow not just to the American uh
the American market, but also to all of
your own rare earth minerals and all of
your supply chains in the Caribbean? And
oh, by the way, if you think that you're
going to continue to grow influence in
Latin America and South America, which
it has, China's increased its
partnerships all across Latin America,
>> massively
the gold corridor.
>> Yeah, by the way, don't forget that
we're their neighbor. It's a huge
message. It's a huge message that was
arguably effective enough to walk China
off the tariff cliff that Trump just
closed with them recently. That is a
very good breakdown. I knew that this
was a move about China, but to be
honest, I had not started putting the
pieces together of specifically what
they're doing. I didn't realize how much
of China's shipping went through the
Caribbean. That is very interesting. Um,
how do you see this playing out? is
China. So, first of all, this is one of
those I have to be very careful because
I really want to believe this. Uh, but
I'm hearing reports that Xi is losing
power in China. Now, for anybody that
follows the timeline of China, Deng
Xiaoing, listen, he was the Tianaan
Square guy, so only clap so hard, but
he's also the one actually responsible
for China's great leap forward. Um,
Xi is a reversion to
>> Ma.
>> And so seeing Xi come into power and
turn the mouse picket on and start
purging a whole bunch of people uh start
really going back to their communist
ways. That makes me uneasy
uh for the Chinese people. Now they may
tell me not to worry and they love it.
Entirely possible. But as somebody who
has just an absolute allergic reaction
to um Mao, Stalin, Lenin, like a a
massive allergic reaction. I'm looking
at this going, I really hope he's losing
power. Do you um have you paid close
attention? Is he losing power? Is that
just a pipe dream on my behalf?
>> Well, I don't think it's just on your
behalf. So, Xiinping is one of the
strongest leaders that China has ever
seen. Um he is very much like a Putin.
He's very much like a Netanyahu to the
Chinese. There are many people who
celebrate him as a hero, not necessarily
as any kind of villain.
>> Right?
>> So your allergic reaction is a valid
reaction as a westerner, but as an
eastern, we have to try to look at the
situation through their eyes. under
Xiinping in the last 10 years their
country has modernized increased their
GDP increased their global positioning
increased the their um reduced their
reliance on manual fabrication and
manufacturing increased their reliance
on high technology which increases their
overall standing not only as a as a
center of excellence in a modern first
world country but also as a global
alternative to the United States. That's
what she's goal is. The reason he's
turning back to Mauist tendencies isn't
because he believes that communism is
the way of the future. It's because he
understands that consolidated power
means he can move faster. Whereas
>> I think he also looked at Russia and was
like, "We're not going to let that
happen here."
>> And so these capitalists like, "Yeah,
useful, but they get a bit uppety." But
I know how to handle that
>> possibly. But the the the point is what
what all of the world authoritarians are
trying to do right now, whether it's
Putin or whether it's Netanyahu. I do
classify him as authoritarian, right?
Again, Israel is different than Jews.
>> Israel knows that Netanyahu is an
authoritarian. You know, I'm talking to
you, Israel.
>> Um, but either way, Xiinping understands
that he needs to bypass the process to
move fast enough. When you look at their
when you look at I mean, the most
obvious thing to look at is their is
their fighter aircraft. If you compare
Chinese fighter aircraft to American and
Russian fighter aircraft, there's only
like seven of them that are in
production right now. Every one of their
aircraft is almost a carbon copy of
either an American model or a Russian
model. It's crystal clear that they're
fabricating based off of stolen stolen
plans.
>> Right?
>> They even number them the same way.
>> Right? We have an F-35. They have a J35.
Why is it called J35? Because the J
stands for gin, which is the word
fighter in Chinese. So it's literally
the F-35, right? They they have they've
modeled this all the way down to the to
the Sue 10. So they've got this they
they copy and then they refabricate on
their own. And that largely took off in
2017. In 2017, you started to see a huge
reduction in Chinese importing of
technology, specifically technology that
was related to their military
infrastructure. And it was because they
had finally grown their own indigenous
capability to create high performance
weapons, high performance engines, high
performance avionics, high performance,
you name it, technology.
>> And that started to become their new
mantra. China knows that the United
States gained global dominance because
we stopped creating corn and soybeans
and we started creating
financial tools and we started creating
software and we started creating weapons
and we started creating digital
healthcare devices, storage devices,
computers, software, the cloud, etc. So
that's what China's been focusing on.
Telecom technology, AI, robotics,
they've been focusing on that the whole
time that we were focusing on a war on
terror. So from 2001 when we got
distracted by a global war on terror,
they started focusing in on how can we
just suck the west dry of technological
information and use this as an
opportunity to build our future economy.
That's all under shei's guidance. So the
average Chinese person sees the rise of
their middle class. The average Chinese
person sees more money, more power, more
influence, more global standing. They
can reach more parts of the world. The
world welcomes the Chinese in a way it
never did before outside of the United
States. Do they still have a real estate
crisis? Yes. Do they still have an aging
population? Yes. But so does South
Korea. So does Japan. So do lots of pro-
Western Asian countries. So does the
United States. So is it really such a
big deal? Like we we try to keep a
scorecard. You can't keep a scorecard
between East and West that you couldn't
imagine two more different cultures than
American culture. Is Trump right to call
for the lowering of interest rates or is
Jerome Powell actually wise to be
holding off
>> in fiscal dominance? Almost everything
the central bank does is wrong. That's
the problem is that because if they hold
interest rates high so go back to kind
of what we said earlier. The primary
purpose of raising interest rates is to
slow down bank lending. The problem is
that the the whole period of inflation
we've had for the past 5 years was not
caused by excessive bank lending. It was
caused by those fiscal deficits. Uh
Originally, it was intentional stimulus
and now it's just kind of this this
background higher deficit. So, the Fed
in some ways has been trying to raise
interest rates to slow down bank lending
to offset the real problem which is the
the federal deficits. Uh but by doing
so, because the debt's over 100% GDP by
keeping interest rates high, they're
also actually keeping the deficit high
because they're keeping uh federal uh
rates high. Uh and yet if they if they
cut interest rates while you have stocks
at all-time highs, gold at all-time
highs, Bitcoin at all-time highs, uh you
know, property values at all-time highs,
then they're adding fuel to the fire,
too. And that's why you get to that
statistic where 98% of economies when
they reach these debt levels tend to
have some sort of default, which which
can be through purchasing power because
their own central bank kind of runs out
of options. Um, and so I I think that,
you know, it's probably due for a mild
cut uh just based on the on the
deterioration of economic conditions,
but I view that as a much like a smaller
lever uh to pull than the fiscal
situation. uh kind of one way of putting
it is that when the money's weak, people
will monetize other things and then by
doing so they make those things uh less
available to those who just want to hold
them for their actual utility use not
their monetary use. Uh and so by
monetizing our equity market, by
monetizing our real estate market, uh at
because our money's weak, it causes all
these more structural imbalances and
therefore they causes periods of
malinvestment and it causes that kind of
along with other policy decisions is
those high levels of wealth
concentration.
>> Okay. So, if I'm understanding you
correctly, the way that Jerome Powell is
looking at this, uh, he knows what you
know, which is I don't really have any
great options. But the one thing that if
the real problem is the government is
taking on too much debt that's causing
them to print a bunch of money that's
causing the high inflation. Um, then it
seems like I should be trying to pull
down the interest rate. Obviously, I
need to find a sweet spot, but I should
be trying to pull down the interest rate
um knowing that I'm going to have a
bigger impact on the government,
certainly at first, than I would have on
the banks than suddenly going crazy
because I have a bigger problem with the
acrual of uh compounding interest
because we're adding right now a
trillion dollar every 100 days to the um
government uh deficit, which is just
absolutely insane. So, why wouldn't that
alone be a signal to like, bro, look,
there's obviously a breaking point and
then you're going to trigger the private
market too much, but uh we we've got to
bring this public debt uh interest
payment down.
I think because the optics are so bad,
like a key part of central banking is
that they're supposed to have some
degree of kind of optical independence,
which is that they're they're focusing
on their mandates, you know, employment
levels, uh inflation, things like that.
And they're not really supposed to take
in account uh the the fiscal situation
of the country. Uh and yet in practice,
of course, you find that that they, you
know, when the when the rubber meets the
road, they do. So when there's a war,
when there's a fiscal crisis, the
central bank's options shrink because at
the end of the day, they have to kind of
support that bond market. And so we saw
this um you know in in recent years. And
basically from their perspective, they
can't say out loud that because the the
debt's a problem that we have to kind of
change how we would otherwise do things.
And I think actually like that going
back to my prior point where I would say
it's hard to criticize the the head of
the central bank even though I'm kind of
critical of the whole practice of
central banking. The one thing I think
that it's fair to be critical of is the
asymmetric um uh talking point they've
had around the fiscal deficit. So for
example during co during the depths of
it the the federal uh the head of the
Fed called for more fiscal. He basically
said our tools are limited here given
what's happening. We need more fiscal
spending. uh and they got that there was
of course very large uh stimulus efforts
and now on the other side of that they
won't go out and say that the opposite
they won't say that our our ability to
control inflation and kind of tweak all
this is being hampered by the fiscal
side that basically our tools are not
geared to to doing that and if anything
could make it worse uh so they have to
kind of show confidence and say look we
got this our tools can fix this but the
problem is that I I think it it doesn't
uh that basically that their their tools
are largely unrelated to what the core
issue is. Uh and and you know, I think
that the first step is basically to say
that uh and they're not doing that part.
>> That's interesting. So, let me give you
uh my layman's counterpoint to this,
which would be I'm the Fed. I'm J.
Powell. I look at this and I know one
simple thing. If I jack up interest
rates, you're going to have to spend
less because you are going to hit a
point where it is just absolutely
untenable for you to keep spending what
you're spending. Um, is it that Jerome
Pal knows, oh, we'll hit a political
crisis first, they'll oust me. They'll
find some way. They'll oust me before
that because other than that, like this
is one of those where he once said
something akin to um I want to be in a
position where uh I can raise interest
rates because it's essentially breaking
the leg of the economy and I know how to
heal a broken leg. Uh so he like gets
that that's exactly what would happen.
So why isn't he doing that if if he's
really trying to control inflation? He
has to do that.
>> Yeah, I think I think that's what he has
been trying to do, which is by holding
interest rates high. Uh it makes the
dollar fairly strong compared to other
currencies. It kind of puts pressure on
the rest of the world. Uh it does keep
commodity prices in check. For example,
you know, oil, generally speaking, it's
hard to have out of control inflation if
oil prices are pretty low, which they
are. Uh so it's having those effects,
but then the problem is it's grinding
out more and more of this public debt uh
which is actually ironically spewing
more dollars into the market. The
problem is that in in kind of no world
if there was like an acute bond crisis
would they kind of blink and just let it
happen because one of their kind of
shadow mandates is financial stability
and that goes at the heart of financial
stability. A really good example is the
Bank of England uh which which was under
similar strain. So back in 2022, uh
inflation there was like 10%. Um the the
Bank of England was going to do a speech
around balance sheet reduction. Uh so
quantitative tightening and then the
guilt crisis happened. So for people
that that aren't familiar, uh the UK's
sovereign bond market kind of broke. Uh
it was just kind of this leveraged uh
vicious cycle. So yields were rapidly
rising, causing more entities to sell.
And ironically, the the Bank of England
had to cancel their speech on balance
sheet reduction and they had to go and
buy the bonds uh despite the fact that
inflation was 10%. Uh so they they did
something that is normally only done
>> uh in a low inflation environment. Uh
and they basically had to do it out of
an emergency uh to maintain kind of just
functioning like sovereign bond markets
because everything would have kind of
ground to a halt. And you know I think
we would see the similar thing in the US
that basically they can try to pretend
as though uh that by increasing interest
rates that they would maybe change the
the fiscal trajectory of the country but
I think in practice the problem is that
the fiscal side would pretty much just
ignore them uh as they have recently for
example the big beautiful bill doesn't
really have deficit reduction as part of
it. The only thing that that kind of
some ways is is deficit reduction is the
tariffs. Um but basically there's
there's been kind of no change during
that process and if they actually were
to get called out on it with some sort
of bond issue um I think we'd see that
the Fed pretty much right in there. We
also saw this back during the uh 2023
regional bank crisis. So inflation was
still above target back then even more
than it is now. Um and you know if they
let banks fail that does destroy part of
the money supply. Uh but they were more
worried about the cascading perceptions
of bank instability. So they actually
went to a period of temporarily balance
sheet increases and liquidity provision
to put out that fire despite the fact
that inflation was above target. So
generally speaking whenever they
actually run into a true crisis uh they
do generally heir toward allowing that
inflation uh keeping things nominally
together uh and then trying to slow
things down in the future.
>> Okay. So, uh, if I remember correctly,
it was Vulkar that raised rates north of
10%, I want to say north of 15%. Like,
it was wild. Uh, he was what? Able to do
that because government debt was so low.
Like, why couldn't we run that playbook
now?
>> Exactly. He was able to do that because
total total debt levels, both public and
private, were low. And in particular,
the primary cause of inflation, in
addition to the oil shortages, was that
elevated rate of bank lending. So he
went after the actual kind of root cause
uh which was the the accelerated bank
lending and he made bank borrowing bank
lending less attractive by raising
interest rates. So in addition to
solving the oil constraints that was
kind of the one-two punch that helped
get that inflation under control. The
problem in this environment is excessive
bank lending is not the cause of
inflation. And both in the private
market and the public market debt's very
high. So if you jack up rates super
high, you actually blow out the deficit
even more. Um, and that's that's I mean
that's for example why Argentina, I mean
they had very high rates for for quite a
while and it didn't really slow down
their inflation or their deficit because
it's not a bank lending issue primarily.
It's a fiscal issue. So certain tools
work when the problem is coming from
certain things. So in this case, the the
Federal Reserve has tools to deal with
bankdriven inflation, but they just
don't really have the tools to deal with
fiscal uh driven inflation. That's
mostly a president and Congress uh
thing. And that's, you know, that that's
the part that has to be addressed and
it's not.
>> So what I'm hearing uh is that this is
where we realize that the Federal
Reserve, the central bank really isn't
independent. Uh because if the
government wants to spend, they are
going to spend because he has assuming
that there was true independence. The
Fed could just say uh you guys are $2
trillion a year over budget and we're
going to keep cranking up the interest
rate until you balance your budget and
then we will um you know lower it again.
Uh and then the government would be
like, "Oh my god, like this would be
disastrous. So we're going to have to
balance our budget." That clearly
doesn't happen. I mean, I'm hearing you.
You're being very clear. minus a
political problem that seems like
basically set another way, when it's
people, the private sector that's
getting out of hand, too much bank
lending, the Fed just slaps them around,
raises interest rates until they calm
down. But when it's the government doing
the same thing, printing too much money,
they're like, "Oh, gee, well, we don't
have anything that we can do to stop
this." Yes, you do. Raise interest
rates.
>> Yeah, pretty much. if they were willing
to let the sovereign default uh or have
basically illquid action in its bond
market um then that could affect it. Um
but kind of if you just look at
>> so it's purely that it's you're you're
going to end up doing a hard default and
that's why we're going to keep going. Uh
one did I understand that correctly and
two are you like yes dummy that's what
they should do?
um I actually don't because it go it
actually ends up hitting their mandate.
The problem with the default is then it
cascades through the whole system. So
for example, banks uh they hold
treasuries. Uh so if if the US
government defaults uh basically banks
risk becoming insolvent. So then
people's accounts at the banks risk
becoming insolvent. Same for their
insurers. Uh same for retirees, right?
Uh that's generally speaking why they
wouldn't just say, you know what, let
let's let default happen. uh they always
instead say look we can do a gradual
default through debasement and inflation
that's almost how they always do it. Uh
and the problem is that if if the if the
if they start doing that approach which
they almost always do and they currently
are uh but then the actual things remain
unresolved. So we have entitlement form
that doesn't happen or you know a
Pentagon audit and and clear out you
know pork in in defense spending and
make sure that's all right sized. If
none of that happens then it just kind
of keeps
over time accumulating. And so people
going back to my earlier point, it's not
that we have one big debt crisis, it's
that we have a bunch of little mini ones
all in a row. So think about that that
UK guilt crisis was a debt crisis even
though it wasn't, you know, wasn't the
end of England. It was just a a crisis
that they put the fire out, they kicked
the can down the road, they'll have
another one. And the same thing happens
generally speaking in the US where it
generally comes out in the form of
inflation, comes out in the form of
populism. And then the problem is it
just keeps getting worse until there's
some sort of pretty radical change. And
if you look at public polls, people
don't want to cut Social Security. They
don't want to cut Medicare. They don't
want to cut uh a lot of these key
things. Uh and so I think we have to
probably go through a lot more pain
before we potentially come out on the
other side of this uh stronger. I agree
that this is a super precarious moment
and boy do I wish that everybody could
just say can't we all get along but we
won't. That that I I'll just take off
the table. That's not going to happen.
And given that that's not going to
happen, how else do you play it? When we
get to the point where we take out the
capitalist
arbitrage which was the entire idea of a
capitalist is how can I get labor or you
know manpower to do the work for less
than what I can sell it for. Right now
interestingly as we take humans out of
the workforce it equalizes across the
world it's 5 years away okay could be
sooner by the way if we start with
interesting industries. The the second
is and I say that with a ton of respect
is when at war war does not have to be
aggressive.
Okay. So, so the idea here of pissing
off Taiwan uh sorry, pissing off China
around Taiwan
makes makes China who also depends on
Taiwan for for the chips of everything
that they make, right? Uh basically
think the same way. So, so if America
has foothold over Taiwan, we China are
afraid. So, you're escalating the fear.
Okay. The opposite is true. The opposite
is to say again like we said with CERN
you know can we agree that Taiwan is
just going to be uh continuing to
support everyone right and and I think
that's a conversation that is very
difficult to have but if it is the the
switch between humanity's existence and
continuation and not it will get
resolved the third which I think is
really where the core issue is is
you know when times get tough we tend to
do more of what we know how to do best.
Okay, which is normally what got things
to be tough any in the first place,
right? So when when when you know when
America competes with China on
artificial intelligence, for example,
they sort of say, okay, only H80s, no
H100s in Nvidia chips, uh you know,
we're going to sanction you from this,
you know, we're going to make it illegal
for people to invest in China. We're
going to do this, we're going to do
that. Uh you know, no more uh Chinese
students can come and study in America.
Da da da da da. Okay. And and those
tactics
could work if China was 70 years ago
starving to death. Okay. When you do you
take those tax tactics against this
China, they immediately say, "Okay, how
much does it cost for us to create our
own fabs and create our own microchips,
right? How much does it, you know, what
can what do we need to change about our
students so that they become the best in
the world?" 42% of all AI scientists in
America are Chinese. Who's being hurt by
that fight? It's America.
Okay. And and it's, you know, it is
interesting that the American people are
not fully informed of this that that,
you know, those bully strategies are now
met with the world saying, "Okay, you
know what? If if you're going to
sanction Russia by taking $300 billion
out of the Russian oligarchs, then by
definition, okay, every other oligarch
in the world is going to deolarize.
Now, instead of you saying, you know
what, I'm going to, you know, tap the
table and I'm going to shout at everyone
and I'm going to be even more bully.
Okay, you might as well say, okay, guys,
you know what? I understand that upset
you. Can we talk? Right? because the one
that's being hurt by this is the
American people. Okay? The the American
policy somehow is running in a way that
basically says do more of what you know
how to do best. Now the the more
interesting part of this Tom and I I
really urge you to think about this is
that Russia sorry uh China historically
has never in all of history invaded
outside its border ever. Okay, there was
one case in Vietnam which was again
instigated by the US, right? And it
didn't last for long. Now the the other
side of this is that if you look at the
war at the map of the world today with
with America having 180 plus bases, you
know, military bases across the world,
China has one that protects shipping
through the the the Red Sea. Okay. They
explicitly are giving the world signals
that all we want we don't want to
dominate the world like the empire.
Okay. We want to become prominent for
the world mainly economically so that we
can feed our 1.4 billion people. Okay.
And I may be wrong but but but there
there has not been a sign of aggression
issued by China in your lifetime or
mine. There hasn't been one. Okay. So,
what are we reacting to? We're either
reacting to manufactured signs so that
we can continue to have our forever war.
Okay. Or maybe we're exaggerating and
hurting ourselves in the process. And I
think this is where the conversation
needs to happen. Now there could be this
could mean that millions of people die
in Vietnam like we saw in the in the
1960s and 70s and the you know
un unbelie I mean some place like
Vietnam across the world which is
unacceptable if you ask me but you know
what American people will not feel it
right but to bring the war home
economically the way America is doing
it is clear if you're sitting in my seat
outside the
that everyone everywhere in the global
south is saying I don't want to be
bullied anymore and the minute you give
them an alternative through bricks or
whatever that says hey can you you know
ship to me using my currency they take
it okay and and somehow it's not that we
don't like America it's just we don't
want to be bullied anymore and and in
very interesting way it's the benefit of
America to suddenly say you know what
while I'm still taller than all of you
I'll make you my friends, okay? So that
when you're taller than me or as tall as
I am, we can play together.
This cold war is working, believe it or
not, against America. And this cold war,
believe it or not, even in tech, in AI,
is being lost by America. Okay? So
deepse comes in, a manus comes in,
quantum computing chips comes in, come
in. They have 105 cubits now in China.
Okay? And and I don't know how much more
I can tell the politicians in America,
you're not losing, you're not winning
this through aggression. Win it through
diplomacy. Everyone wants your market.
Everyone loves you. Loves the movies you
send us. They we love your music. We we
we really we have nothing against
America. But the rest of the world needs
to also protect their own sovereignty.
And more aggression is not helping
anyone.
>> Okay. So let me see if I understand. Um
what you're saying is that
you you America need to understand that
you
uh China is a rising power. Uh that the
whole world has
>> No, no, no, no. I'm sorry to interrupt
you. I'm sorry to interrupt you. China
is the world's superstar. It is the
world's superpower in in purchasing
power parity. They are a bigger GDP than
America and have been for a very long
time. And most of the world is much more
dependent because of the trade deficit
of America for for so many years. Most
of the world is much more dependent on
China than they are on America.
Okay. So
you guys have already been passed
economically by China. Uh, so the cold
war that you're trying to wage with them
does not make any sense because not
you're the only ones that are going to
get hurt, but you are going to be
disproportionately hurt. Um,
I'm going to stop there because I think
the next thing I'm going to say is going
to be a prognosticate. It's going to be
I think that statement makes a
prediction, but first I just want to
make sure that I got that far correctly.
>> I I I I don't I don't think you're going
to be disproportionately hurt is
accurate. Nobody knows. Okay. I think
the rest of the world will probably pay
more than the two two superpowers,
right? But but you're going to be hurt.
Like there is a way where this doesn't
hurt anyone. So So there's no need for
the pain. So walk me through the way
that this doesn't hurt anyone because
you're your what you're about to say is
going to be based on your assumption
that China is not an aggressive
nation. They're a nation of influence to
be sure, but they're not going to uh put
military bases everywhere. They're not
going to go into foreign incursions the
way the US has. And so therefore, you
have I don't know that you'd use these
words, but you have nothing to fear
essentially from a strong China. From a
military point of view, the day China
puts in a second base against your 187
or whatever, start to worry.
Okay, but it's one military base outside
China versus more than 180 for America.
You're still the world's superpower
militarily. Okay, so nobody wants to
attack anyone. This is not a war. Okay,
from an economics point of view, from an
economics point of view,
the biggest threat I believe America has
is not debt. Okay, because you have the
military power to back your debt. The mi
the biggest challenge in my point of
view I'm I'm not an economist is
inflation and how inflation will hit
your nation and inflation is two sides.
One is the cost of goods on on you know
American soil which is going up because
of tariffs for imported goods and
locally manufactured goods which will
have a margin to increase their prices
in. Okay. But more interestingly it's
because everyone is sending you your
dollars back.
Right. So I I'll tell you very openly.
I'm very interested in classic cars. H
now I buy most of my classic cars in
America.
Why? Because then I can send you dollars
and get the goods.
Okay. I can send you dollars that I'm
afraid will be inflated into lower
value.
Okay. And then if I if I keep the
classic car here, I can sell it here or
I can sell it in Europe or I can sell it
in Japan
for money that is real money as the US
dollar loses it loses its value. And the
risk the risk of of inflation in my mind
is that American people are paying for
it. Okay? And America is not the safest
place on earth if people become hungry
because of the second amendment.
This truly in my mind I'm really sorry.
I don't have the right I honestly do not
have the right to comment on American
policy. I'm just looking at it from a
very big
>> This is so helpful. I I get it. You have
to worry more about the comments than
you have to worry about me. But I hunger
for perspectives that are not my own. Uh
and so getting a chance to look back at
America through your eyes is incredibly
useful. So if at the risk of you having
to deal with whatever uh people will
think, I am grateful. Uh so
>> I have all I have all good intentions by
the way for for people who are about to
comment. I only have good intentions.
I'm not against America or against China
or against anyone. I'm just basically
saying my daughter and everyone's
daughter is at risk.
And and if that means you're going to
comment negatively on what I say, thrash
me. It's okay. But keep my daughter
safe.
Okay. So, uh, one, we certainly share a
belief that inflation is, oh, my
audience has heard me talk about this so
much. Uh, inflation is the devastating
force that everybody has to worry about.
Um, you
you've given me a perspective on China
that is very fascinating.
Uh, one, I'd be so curious to get more
data on my understanding of the Chinese
economy is that they beat us in some
areas and they lose to us in others that
overall GDP we still win. But you're
saying that's inaccurate. That's
basically Western spin.
>> That's in Yeah, it's US dollars GDP.
>> Yeah. So, that's very interesting. Um,
also I have a formulated vision of the
Chinese economy as being weak at this
point. uh given all the crazy
investments that they made in getting
their own populace to buy housing.
Again, I'm perfectly willing to accept
this is all spin, please.
Yeah, there is a huge spin on that. So
what what ended up happening when
America declared economically that they
are going to try to slow down China is
that China is China is very different
than America when it comes to economics
because they're able to make a decision
at a state level that they don't need to
convince the capitalists of right they
basically they simply instructed their
banks to stop paying mortgages because
housing is less important than
industrial capacity. Okay. So what you
see if you want to to slice the the the
the economy and look at housing and the
mortgage crisis and what hap what's
happening in China, it looks like an
economy in decline. But as those funds
are being reinvested in the industrial
capacity, they're building industrial
capacity in the in the spaces where
America threatened to starve them. So
when it comes to microchips for example,
you know, a lot of the Chinese officials
will tell you within 6 to 8 years, we
will be we will be building chips that
are more powerful than Nvidia.
Okay. So, so this this shift
economically doesn't mean they're poor.
They're just using a different strategy
to invest in a different part of their
economy. Talk to me about Trump. Give me
a report card. So people may have
thought they were voting for one thing.
What have they actually gotten? I think
many people, certainly people on the
right, are going to be surprised to hear
you say that Trump is more socialist
than mom Donnie. Um, so give us the the
litany of receipts there. What is Trump
getting wrong? Certainly. Uh, and then
if you think that he's gotten anything
right, I'll take that as well.
>> Trump's instincts are often very strong.
It's just his execution. I think he
recognized before other people the uh
asymmetric trade relationship with
China. I think you got to give him
credit for that. I thought I think they
were taking advantage of it, stealing
our IP and then selling back selling it
back to us less expensive and gutting
our manufacturing sector. I think he saw
that. Uh I think that he saw immigration
as
a big problem. You know, the vice
president, her big thing was supposed to
be enforcing the border. She didn't do a
great job. when a quarter of a million
people can come over in December of 23
by just raising their hand and saying
asylum,
>> you know, they had to say asylum and
then boom, they were in, that's a
problem. So, I think he recognized
immigration. I think his messaging
around affordability was the right
message. Um, I would argue that the
level of corruption we have seen under
the Trump administration is
unprecedented in history in the west.
you know, cramming launching a
cryptocoin, a memecoin the Friday before
his inauguration under the cover of dark
such that someone could put in 10
million bucks into that thing and then
say, "Please stop shipping arms to
Ukraine and we would never know that
that happened." I think overrunning
co-equal branches of government, just
basically ignoring Congress.
Um, you know, I could go sending in a
mass secret police to terrorize cities
and people who've been here for 20 or 30
years when he could just show up with a
clipboard and say, "Hi, car wash. You
have social security filings for these
people. I need proof of their
documentation or I'm going to find you
$10,000 a day."
We have turned a blind eye to the
immigration problem for 40 years.
Because the sad truth of or the
uncomfortable truth about immigration is
that people say it's the secret sauce of
America. Okay, that's nice. That's a
Hallmark commercial and part of that is
true. But the most profitable part of
immigration is illegal immigration
because they come across the border when
our crops are coming due or grandma
needs our ass wiped or we want cheap
food at a restaurant and then when the
jobs dry up, they don't go on
unemployment. They don't collect social
security. They melt back to their
countries. They usually don't stick
around longer to cause to they they pay
social security taxes, but they usually
don't get them. They commit crimes at a
lower rate than nativeorn citizens. They
don't call 911 or use the police. So, we
have turned a blind eye to illegal
immigration for 40 years on purpose. Has
it gotten out of control? Yes. Has it
created real structural problems in the
US? Yes. Should we have borders? Yes. He
was good at leveraging that and people's
frustration, especially in border
states. And also a lot of young
struggling men like to blame women for
their romantic problems and immigrants
for their economic problems. He tapped
into that. He flew right into the
manosphere. Genius political strategy
focusing on affordability, the
asymmetric trade relationship with
China. The implementation,
it's as if he went to Chad GPT and said,
"I want to reduce the prosperity of
America elegantly and consistently." And
it would come back and say, "I know
tariffs.
I know scare the best and brightest PhD
students from coming to the US. I know
reduce the greatest ROI investment in
history, investing money through our
great academic institutions that produce
medical and technological breakthroughs.
I know make people feel bad about
America by showing these horrific videos
of people who are so ashamed of what
they're doing. It's so their activity is
so depraved and vile they have to wear
masks. And people say, "Well, they could
be docks." judges put mob bosses in
prisons. They don't wear masks.
So, some of his political instincts, I
think, are correct. I think he's a great
campaigner.
I would argue that the economic policies
of America right now, putting drunks in
charge of the Department of Defense,
putting conspiracy theorists who believe
that vaccines cause autism in charge of
our health and human services. I mean, I
feel like this is a literally a clown
car running the nation right now. It's a
corrupt crime family. All right. And the
even worse news is Michael is running
the grift and Fredo is running the
government. I wish they brought half the
competence to their grift that they're
bringing to the government. trolling
around the Gulf and and not going to the
democracies, Turkey and Israel, because
they know they can't give you a plane or
a golf course or a building. Only going
to the nations that are comfortable
saying, "Hey, take this $400 million
plane." Wink wink. Oh, and then, oh,
what do you know? You're going to what?
You're going to give us Article 5 NATO
protection for free? We basically just
give Qatar NATO protection, a security
guarantee. Oh, and he accepted a $400
million plane a few months before. I
mean, that's just not that erodess the
very fabric of what it means to be
American. And it hurts us. It hurts our
reputation around the world. It makes us
much weaker. Let's start bombing fishing
boats that would take 20 stops to refuel
and get to Miami in a nation where
there's no evidence there is no fentanyl
while we let Ukraine fall.
I I mean the the poor decisionmaking
here, the incompetence and the
corruption are noxious. They're
stifling.
The optimism is that we have been in
worse places than this before. Americans
are narcissists and we always tend to
think this is the worst thing ever. We
were interning Japanese families in
camps because they were Japanese. Slave
owners used to be the most powerful
political force in America. We opened
fire on veterans marching in front of
the White House after the Great
Depression protesting economic
conditions. We have been in worse places
before and America has come back
stronger and I believe we are going to
come back stronger here. So yeah, I do
think Trump gets some stuff right. I
think he has good instincts around
certain things. I think he's an amazing
campaigner. He is a stain on the
American experience.
Now, do you think this is a great man
theory of history where he just brought
these things randomly got elected or is
he a symptom of something that the
populace is going through?
>> Well, okay. So, I want to acknowledge
I'm a hammer and everything I see as a
nail. I think the reason we elected an
insurrectionist, I focus a lot on the
struggles of young men and young men are
doing worse than fallen further faster
than any cohort in American history.
four times as likely to kill themselves,
three times as likely to be homeless and
addicted.
And what happened was he recognized this
and he flew right into the manosphere.
As Vice President Harris was going on
MSNBC and CNN, he went on Rogan, Andrew
Schultz, The Ovon, Crypto, World
Wrestling Federation, Rockets. He went
right into his campaign riaked of
testosterone
because
if you look at the three groups that
pivoted hardest from blue to red 2020 to
2024 in order, one was Latinos. That
says nothing. We should stop tracking
them as a group. Mexicanameans in
Southern California have much different
priorities than Cubanameans in Florida.
It's stupid to make any reductive
generalizations about the Latino
community. Number two, hardest pivot.
people under the age of 30, they're not
doing well. When you're not doing well,
you don't want to parse nuance. You just
want different, even if it means chaos.
And then the most interesting thing is
the third group that pivoted hardest was
45 to 64 year old women. And my thesis,
Tom, is that's their mothers. And that
is if your son is in the basement
playing video games and vaping, you
don't give a [ __ ] about territorial
sovereignty in Ukraine or transgender
rights. You just want change. So, and
also what we don't like to admit is
there are a lot of women in America who
will vote for who they perceive as being
in the best interest of their husbands
and sons. We talk about the patriarchy,
men versus women. Women's rights were
supposed to be the defining issue of
this election. It did not show up. 54%
of white women voted for Trump. So my
sense is if we want to stave off, if we
want things to be better in America, if
I were to do anything, it would be
economic programs that lift young people
up. And just as the economic bludgeoning
of young people in America has
disproportionately hurt young men who
are disproportionately evaluated on
their economic viability, lifting young
people up economically will have a
disproportionately positive effect on
young men. I get I just wrote a book
called Notes on Being a Man. I get
attacked by all these therapists. By the
way, 80% of therapists are women. It's
always work on yourself. Therapy is the
answer for everything. And I want to be
clear. If you struggle with mental
illness or have mental illness in your
family or you can afford it, have at it.
I I believe it's hugely beneficial. But
this dogma online, if if therapy solves
all problems, you know what would be the
best therapy in America? 8 million homes
in 10 years. $25 an hour minimum wage,
universal child care, eliminate 40% of
the medical debt on households. You know
what makes you mentally [ __ ] stressed
out? When you can't afford your
16-year-old's root canal. When you don't
make enough money to pay your rent. So,
while I'm a big fan of blood pressure
medication and statins and diabetes
medication, here's an idea. Get everyone
working out first and see if we can
avoid that. So I think the mental health
in America I think the the stress young
people feel feel the anxiety they feel
is nothing
no amount of mental health or therapy is
going to replace economic procarity
and
mental I want to detonate a nuclear bomb
of mental of therapy called minimum
massive increase in minimum wage tax
holiday for people under the age of 30
massive explosion in new home
construction, more third places, more
mating opportunities for people to meet,
uh universal child care, dignity around,
lower the cost of education through
competition, and then the three per
10,000 people who are actually
therapists
won't need to go on TikTok and say that
therapy is the only solve for our
issues. I'm a little triggered by
therapists right now, as you can see. I
see that. I I like it to be honest. I
think that there's a lot of truth in
that. Um I want to get explicit though
about why exactly you consider those
things therapy especially for young men.
I feel like and this is one of the
questions I wanted to ask you. I feel
like you're dancing around there's sort
of an archetypal beneficial male path.
Not the only I I do not think you think
that and I'm not certainly not trying to
put those words in your mouth. But that
there is an archetypal path that nah
I've never met the kid. Never going to
meet the kid. Don't know anything about
him. if he were to follow this kind of
path, uh, we might be in better shape.
Um, one, is that accurate? And two, if
so, what is that archetypal path?
>> Yeah. Look, so I want to be clear. I'm
guilty of projecting what's worked for
me. I got economically secure. I worked
really hard. I got the skills, the
certification, took the risks. I also
had unfair advantage being born a white
heterosexual male in the 60s.
And then I found I've had great
relationships, great friends. So, I feel
like money and relationships are kind of
the solve. And I think some legitimate
feedback is Scott, winning capitalism
and having a romantic partner sometimes
isn't the end all beall for everybody.
That some people do there's different
paths for different people. I get it.
So, I you know, I understand that. And
also we need to figure out a way to
recognize more of the emotional labor
that women have been expected to give
around caregiving and start to recognize
that a form of masculinity and surplus
values when men do that. So I think that
society needs some
what I'll call nuance and calibration
and manicuring.
And now let's talk about the world we
live in. 75% of women say economic
viability is important in a mate. Only
25% of women. The likelihood of divorce
does not increase when a woman gets
fired or her income goes down. When the
female in the relationship is now earns
more man money than the man, the
likelihood of divorce doubles and the
use of of erectile dysfunction drugs
triples. Beyonce could work at
McDonald's and marry Jay-Z. The opposite
is not true. And I don't care how many
subscriptions to the Atlantic or the New
York Times you have. That's not going to
change in a few years. And I get all I
I'll give you an example that triggers a
lot of people. I tell my sons when
you're in the company of a woman, you
pay for everything. What? What
you you you that's the patriarchy. You
do not own women. You do not you should
not have expectations from them. They
are not your sexual. Of course they're
not. Women aren't responsible for
servicing men. Men's problems aren't
women's fault. I women entering the
workforce probably won World War II for
us. It's the only reason we're not a
second rate power to China. Women making
a lot of money is wonderful. We should
do nothing to get in the way of that. I
had a single immigrant mother who lived
and died a secretary. It did not work
out for her with my father or other men.
But the biggest strain in our life was
she didn't have a lot of economic
opportunity. If you were a woman without
a college degree back in the 70s, you
could be either a travel agent or a real
estate broker. You couldn't even be or
secretary. You couldn't even be a
teacher. You had to have a a college
degree. That was the biggest strain in
our life. So, I'm all for the economic
liberation of women. A lot of women are
doing the math. Threearters of divorce
filings from women because they wake up
and go, "Okay, I'm ascending
economically and boss, you're flatlining
around domestic and emotional,
logistical contribution in the home. I'm
out. I get it. I get it." And I put a
lot of pressure on young men who have
more agency than they think to raise
their game. And then pressure on people
our age to join big brothers. Three
times as many women joining big sisters
as big brothers. Men our age need to
step step step up. We need more economic
programs that put money in people's
pockets. I genuinely believe that young
people having more economic opportunity,
more third places to meet and
demonstrate excellence to each other and
establish more friendships, more uh
romantic relationships and then policies
that regulate big tech such that they
don't have an economic incentive to
sequester young men from their
relationships from work, from school
with their more dopah hungry, immature
brains would solve a lot of our
problems. So, are there different ways
to demonstrate masculinity and be happy?
Should you be more supportive of your
partner who happens to be better at that
money thing than you? Absolutely. In the
in the short and medium run before we
become a more evolved species, I'm here
for it. I'm here for the world where the
man is celebrating in those
relationships where the man wants to
stay home. Until then, we have to
acknowledge the reality and that is men
are disproportionately evaluated based
on their economic strength, women on
their aesthetics. And an economically
unviable man feels really bad about
himself and generally speaking has very
little currency in the mating market. So
where I start is how do we create
structural changes that maintain the
momentum of women? Maintain it. I don't
buy this Charlie Kirk [ __ ] of of women
were sold a bag of goods and they were
told if they just worked really hard and
they end up being partners in law firms
and then they're miserable and
childless. So what's the answer? Have
them be broken alone? Of course they
should continue to kill it. That's
great. Good for them. But at the same
time, let's figure out ways that young
men, one in seven young men aren't
neats, neither in employment, education,
or training. That one in three of them
aren't living at home under the age of
25. that one in five of them aren't
living at home under the age of 30. What
are the programs that do that? Male
affirmative action. No, I don't want to
go there. Programs that lift all young
people up. Best thing for men, universal
child care that takes an economic strain
off of young families. More college
freshman seats such that we can get more
gay kids, more Republican white kids,
more men, more women in college, which
still is a fantastic upward lubricant.
$25 an hour minimum wage. give people
incentive to work and that would not
hurt us if productivity if minimum wage
kept pace with productivity and
inflation it would be 23 bucks let's go
crazy and raise it to 25 let's more
housing the archetype of of a man I get
it maybe what works for me doesn't work
for young people but
we don't want to recognize the world we
live in um marriages become the new
luxury item one in four men in the lower
quintile of income earning households
get married. Three and four men in the
upper quintile get married. And well,
marriage isn't the answer. Well, it's a
pretty good answer for men.
Men live four to seven years longer in a
relationship. Women live longer, 2 to
four years. But what it ends up is that
men benefit more from relationships than
women. Which isn't to say women owe men
anything. It's to say that men do really
well in relationships. And there are a
lot of women out there that would like
more economically and emotionally viable
men. So, let's lift let's lift up young
people. Let's let's figure out a way.
Are you married?
>> I am. Yeah.
>> Okay. Do you enjoy being married?
>> Aggressively.
I I look I didn't want to get married. I
didn't want to have kids. It has given
me purpose and meaning in my life which
I did not have. So, I am projecting it
on other people. And by the way, my
first marriage didn't work out. 84% of
people, all this, all these Tik Toks
about marriage is a failed technology.
Well, then why do 84% of people who did
it once and it didn't work out get
remarried within 5 years? So you you I I
anyone listening to your podcast, Dom,
is not going to be surprised by this. I
struggle with depression and anger. So I
decided I'm going to write a book on
happiness. I wrote a book called The
Algebra of Happiness. I have read I
think every peer-reviewed research study
on happiness. It all comes down to the
basic things. Number two, a basic level
of economic sustainability. You don't
have to be rich. You just have to be
able to have some level of healthcare
and education. But the number one number
one source of happiness is the number of
deep and meaningful relationships you
have. And unfortunately for a man, his
relationship with himself and his
ability to have a primary relationship
with a romantic partner is unfairly
and absolutely inextricably linked to
his economic viability. And until our
species changes,
that's not going to change. So let's at
least have an honest conversation around
how we level up the mental health, the
prosperity, and the purpose of our young
people. Should it come at the cost of
women? 100%
no. Are women responsible for fixing
this? No. Are they responsible for this
problem? No. First and foremost, young
men need to level up. I hate the term
incel. When I coach young men and he
describes himself as an incel, I'm like,
"No, I met you. You're not Brad Pitt,
but you're not badl looking. You're
you're you're not disabled. You're e
you're you you have you're physically
fine. You're a little [ __ ] up in the
head, but you're you wouldn't you
wouldn't be described as clinically
depressed. You are a vill. You are
voluntarily celibate, right? I wanted a
girlfriend desperately when I was in
high school. I wanted to have sex
desperately. I could not find anyone to
do that with me. Uh so quote unquote, it
was an incel. I worked on myself. I
worked out. I tried to develop
excellence. I went to college. I
developed a sense of resilience. I
started talking to women and I entered
into a series of skills such that I
could develop the most important things
that have given me purpose and meaning
in my life. Friends, colleagues at work
and uh a wonderful mate I get to raise
these wonderful kids with. I want to
create the infrastructure such that more
and more young people have access to
that. And if they decide they don't want
it, have at it. Watch Netflix all day,
do your own thing, go to Sanrope, be
alone. But 60% of 30-year-olds used to
have a child in the house. Now it's 27%.
Is that because they've all discovered
that ch children suck and they don't
want children? No. It's because they're
having trouble finding a viable mate and
they have less money. So I want to go to
the world where men are celebrated on
their character and their per and their
self worth. Call me when we get there.
If you like this conversation, check out
this episode to learn more. America is
in a precarious position. We show no
signs of being willing to cut spending.
So without massive growth, we will go
bankrupt. But where is that growth going
to come from? We're supposed to be the
ultimate dealmaker on the global stage.
were supposedly the ones holding