UAE Quits OPEC + Trump & King Charles | PBD #787

Patrick Bet-David, Jeff Snider, and Brandon Aceto are joined by the Hoover Institute's John Cochrane as they cover the UAE exiting OPEC and global oil implications, Trump’s currency swap hint with the UAE and meeting with King Charles III, debate over the U. S. leaving NATO, Trump rejecting an Iran peace deal, Elon Musk on AI and robots fixing the U. S. deficit and his clash with Sam Altman in the OpenAI lawsuit, and California’s billionaire tax ballot measure. ------ 🦁 THE VAULT 2026: AUG 31ST TO SEPT 1ST: https://bit.ly/4mZdLhD ✍️ JOHN COCHRANE'S SUBSTACK: https://bit.ly/3P4CbcZ 📺 JOHN COCHRANE'S "GOODFELLOWS" VIDEO SERIES: https://bit.ly/3P4Cftf 📺 JEFF SNIDER'S EURODOLLAR UNIVERSITY: https://bit.ly/4i5uz3W Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH JEFF SNIDER: https://bit.ly/4c27s9x Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH BRANDON ACETO: https://bit.ly/4anHnR3 Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 🇰 KALSHI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://kalshi.com/pbd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://kalshi.com/pbd⁠ 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US:Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  My handshake is better than anything I ever signs, right here.

• 0:18Patrick Bet-David?

  You are a one of one?

• 0:19Speaker 00

  My son's right there. I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 0:26Patrick Bet-David?

  It's your time. We don't want to be a grandpa this early. Anyways, good morning. We have some special people here with us. We have Brandon Osseto. We have Jeff Snider and then we have a allegedly he's called a grumpy economist. And that was the title of a sub stack that was given to him by his kids. So who knows him better, but we have the great John Cochrane here with us. Thank you for making the time for being here.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Thanks, pleasure.

• 0:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Also has four kids. You know what's special about having four kids? Jeff, how many kids you got?

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Three.

• 0:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Three? Okay, good. Three is good because we gotta be above 2.1.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, we gotta be, right? As long as we're above 2.1, we're good. But we got a lot of stuff to talk about. I mean, yesterday, there were shots being taken about the French language that we were supposed to speak French or, you know, because of America, Trump made some comments about King Charles. Then there were some moments where Trump brought the revolutionary. I mean, you have to see some of the things that there was so much lobbying and gamification and, you know, posturing going on. It was great for TV. And then we saw a very, very special monumental emotional moment when we saw the House, Congress, Democrats getting up for a king. And it was, it was such a great moment that that no king's protest went out very quickly where they stood up for a king that quickly. They were so enamored by King.

• 1:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Special moment. Then on top of that, you have this, this place, John, I don't know if you follow it or not, this place called UAE. They're kind of a big deal. Okay? And they sell a lot of oil. They would like to sell more. Right now they sell about three and a half to five million barrels a day. They don't want the limitations. They want to dictate their own prices. They decided to leave OPEC. And I think that day is going to be May 1st, if I'm not mistaken. So there's a lot of talks. They're not the first to leave. It's happened before. Qatar left in 2019. I think Ecuador left in 2022. Angola left in 24. Indonesia, I think, left, came back, left. They're kind of left now on what they're going to be doing. There's 13 members or something. And some people are saying, well, wait a minute, what does this have to do with NATO? Is this like the season two leave? Can somebody leave?

• 2:25Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, is that possible? Who knows? We'll talk about that. What is it going to do to oil prices? I know you have a lot of strong opinions on that as a senior fellow yourself. And at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. And at the same time, you were a former top professor, finance professor at University of Chicago Booth. And being in Stanford, the reason why that's important is because you're in an area where all these people want to tax these billionaires. I don't know what they're trying to tax these billionaires and they got one and a half million signatures yesterday Snyder.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  It's not a tax. It's not a tax.

• 2:55Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what they're calling it. But they're saying it's tax. They're saying.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Well, they can call it whatever they want. What did Sergey Brin say? It's socialism.

• 3:02Patrick Bet-David?

  But why wouldn't you want to help these poor people out? Don't you think these politicians can make better decisions than free market? Do you not trust politicians more than free market?

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Well, they're lying right now, right? The whole point of the tax is we can't afford healthcare unless we tax billionaires.

• 3:17Patrick Bet-David?

  See, so John is supposed to be the grumpy economist, but today it's Snyder.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Well, he's got me all fired up.

• 3:24Patrick Bet-David?

  All right, this is good. We're already starting off on a good note.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Working as intended. They're going to lose money and they're going to get rid of the evil billionaires and purify the city of California.

• 3:33Patrick Bet-David?

  How does that make? I want to hear from you because I want to know what people are saying there. I want to know what not billionaires are saying, what millionaires and average people are saying. Where you're at. And then aside from that Fed meeting today. I think Powell's got a meeting at 2:30. You know, the whole FOMC, I think it's like 13 members, 11 members, whatever the numbers, they're meeting today to make a decision. They met yesterday and today. So today's their second meeting. So I'm curious to know what you guys think is going to happen. Comey got indicted, I think for the second time. This was for the Todd Blanch, the 86, 47. Took about a year, but they went after him. Who knows what's going to happen. Some people are saying this could actually turn into something. You know, but we'll see. We'll see what's going to happen there. We will talk about the billionaire tax. Sam Altman, right? Elon Musk, the stuff Elon said yesterday.

• 4:16Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know if you guys read this. He flat out said this guy's a liar. And so. Yeah, we have Brandon, you said early this morning with your buddy that you never see, but you guys live together, Humberto. That. What's it called? That you think chat GPT is gonna be gone in five years?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Done.

• 4:31Patrick Bet-David?

  So done in five years. That's a massive, you know, statement to say, but I'm curious how you're gonna defend your position. And so Sam Altman's been having a rough week, although, you know, there was a lawsuit that didn't go through with his sister, which kind of maybe that's good news for him. A little bit. Uh, then you have FCC branding card to call in Disney stations for early license review and wake up camel saga. Good idea, bad idea. Are you almost empowering? The next administration to come in. What are those guys gonna be doing? I don't know if this is a good idea. Short term, long term, maybe it's a short term thing because of what camel said, even Melania jumped in there. And said a few words. I thought it was a dumb move. By Jimmy, but it is what it is. Today I was watching the 2011 White House correspondence.

• 5:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Dinner with, uh, what was it? Seth Meyers and I was watching Obama's speech. And I was fun. It was fun watching the president sitting there and he kept taking shots, taking shots, taking shots. You know, but you know, it, it, who ends up winning there? Trump ends up winning because the story was a very good moment. It was funny. But to go and talk about, you know, expected widow, it's a little bit crossing the line. But we'll process it with you guys. Iran made their demands. They made three asks. They want the Strait of Hormuz to open back up. They want the, the blockade to be permanent, the ceasefire to be done.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  I thought, I thought Iran controlled the Strait of Hormuz.

• 5:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, that's what they're, that's what they're saying.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  What is it? We want them to open it and we control it at the same time?

• 5:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Jeff, don't, don't, you're pissing off some people, man. I mean, don't, don't talk like that. You're gonna upset some of the people. On what they're saying, but, uh, Trump is saying, we're not having it like, yeah, why don't we do the lift the seas? Lift the, you know, blockade and then let's talk nuclear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Let's do this, Jeff. Let's get together and sit down.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Send him some money too.

• 6:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Send him some money to the 30 billion dollars that's sitting in that account. Uh, tariffs, I do want to go through tariffs because I know Johnny got a lot of thoughts on that with US tariff, uh, changes. Could raise deficit by 1.1 trillion, CBO chief says. I wonder what you think about that? And then we got a couple of the things if we get into it, um. UAE officials warned they may be forced to use yuan or other currencies if they run low on dollars amid the Iran war. And then we got a couple of the stories. Elon Musk said something very interesting. He says, you don't need to save for retirement. He says, don't worry about saving for retirement. You have no need for it. We got robots and all these other guys that are going to create so much economy that you'll be getting paid for the rest of your life without needing to work. So do you trust it?

• 6:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Musk says America 1,000% will go bankrupt due to debt. So I'm sure there's some thoughts. Their pawn shops are seeing something the stock market isn't, and it has economists concerned. Anytime the business of pawn shops is blowing up, you're in trouble, just so you know that. So anytime they're doing well, we got some problems and we got a few other stories. Hopefully we'll get into that. Having said that, for those of you guys that are small business owners or you're executives, you got big plans for 2026, we host an event once a year. It's a Super Bowl of our events and it went from a small event that we had to now, you know, expecting 12,000 people this year. It's a phenomenal event to go to. Here's why, Rob, go ahead and play the clip.

• 7:39Patrick Bet-David?

  23 years old, I've gone to four to 10 business conferences every year. It doesn't matter if it's a family conference, generational wealth conference, you know, investment conference, where to invest your money or raising your family, or even a revival church conference. I wanted to put a business conference together where we can talk money, business, family, faith, politics, and nobody walks on eggshells. And that's exactly what we did with the Vault Conference. The first one we hosted, 440 people showed up. I had no idea how many people were going to show up. Now for the first time, we're coming to the MGM Grand Arena. The lion's right behind me, Leo the lion. We're expecting 12,000 people August 31st till September 3rd to cover this manual, 296 pages.

• 8:21Patrick Bet-David?

  If you've never attended the Vault Conference, do yourself a favor, bring your wife, bring your husband, bring your kids, bring your peers, bring your clients and business owners. I cannot wait to see you here at Las Vegas MGM Grand Arena for the first time at the Vault Conference. We'll see you here. We have people that came for the first time and they've never missed it and now they bring 50. We had one company that brought 150 employees of theirs last year to the Vault Conference. If you're somebody that wants, and we're about to make the announcement with speakers as well here pretty soon, click on a QR code, go on the link below, or Rob, what's the website by the way? TheVaultConference.com? TheVaultConference.com, if you can go to, my screen disappeared Jake. If you can go to TheVaultConference.com, get yourself a ticket, your spouse,

• 9:03Patrick Bet-David?

  your business partners, your sales guys, and let's spend four days together in Las Vegas, August 31st through the 3rd of September. With that being said, let's get right into it. The first story I want to get into is UAE and OPEC. I think that's a top story, okay? So, we hear the story yesterday. Everybody's like, "Wait, is this real?" Yes. UAE to leave OPEC amid Hormuz oil crisis, a blow to Saudi Arabia. What do you mean? Is this really happening? Yes. In the middle of everything that's going on? Yes. So, UAE announced Tuesday that would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, along with wider group of partners known as OPEC effective May 1st,

• 9:44Patrick Bet-David?

  in what could be a blow to control over prices by the group, long fed in practice by Saudi Arabia. The move reflects the UAE long-term strategic and economic vision involving energy profile, read in official statement carried by UAE State News, as turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz continue to affect supply dynamics. Reports that the UAE would leave have circulated for years, and the country has had disagreements with Saudi over oil production quotas. President Trump has long criticized OPEC for its role in determining global oil prices, calling it a monopoly during his first term in office. Addressing the World Economic Forum in 2025, Trump urged OPEC countries to lower prices. Rob, do you have a clip on this or no? Because I see a yellow color here. It was just a news coverage from Reuters. Okay, so we're good with that. Jeff, what do you stand with the story?

• 10:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Why is this such a big deal?

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Well, it's a big deal because, um, we gotta go back to 2022 first of all. Where this really comes from is when OPEC announced in 2022 as oil prices came down off the top, OPEC decided they wanted $100 per barrel oil. They wanted that forever into the future and they thought, "Well, okay." We'll cut some supply back and get oil prices to firm up and then, you know, the global economy will pick up and we'll be $100 per barrel oil forever for Ford. Well, they made a huge mistake there because the economy never really came back and oil prices were soft the entire time. So the UAE and all the other OPEC members were losing money for years because they were trying to, you know, reduce production but maintain price so revenues would largely normalize out and balance out.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  But instead, what ended up happening is with oil prices softened and pumping less oil, a lot of these Gulf states are in big trouble. Saudi Arabia is a big one. So the UAE is finally saying, look, we need to correct this mistake. You guys bet on the wrong horse here and we don't want to be beholden to the Saudis for continuing to make these decisions, especially if they're going to go in the wrong direction. So UAE, which has always had a rivalry with Saudi Arabia to begin with, what they're saying is, look, this is it. This is the last straw. We're done. We don't want to be beholden to the OPEC cartel who has all sorts of non-economic reasons for whatever decisions they make. We'd like to just pump more oil. We want more money flowing into the country. They say they can get five...

• 11:50Patrick Bet-David?

  You can't blame them.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  No, that's what I'm saying, not at all. So, I mean, what they're basically saying is we want to be more of a market-based system. We want to respond to market forces, not to political forces next door.

• 11:59Patrick Bet-David?

  John, what are you saying with this?

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Well, in the short term, the problem is not restricting output. The problem is getting the output out through the Straits of Hormuz. So this isn't going to make a huge difference in the short term. It's a longer-term question and I get this 1970s feeling like, you know, get out the bell-bottom jeans and the long hair because when does OPEC matter? We got the US is a huge, we're the biggest oil exporter in the world. Russia, like them or not, they're a big oil exporter. Venezuela's coming back online. Anybody, the North Sea, everybody in the world who has some oil is drilling like crazy right now. So it's not clear to me that they have that much pricing power.

• 12:35Patrick Bet-David?

  This 35 to 38%, though. 35 to 38% comes from OPEC.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, of which a small fraction comes from the UAE. So, you know, great, I'm all for more oil supply, but it's not going to stop the immediate problem. And it's going to be, you know, a little bit less oligopoly in the long run. It's not clear how much.

• 12:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Who is upset by this the most? Who does this impact the most?

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Saudis.

• 12:58Patrick Bet-David?

  In what way? Tell me in what way?

• 13:00Speaker 02

  It's politics, right? This is not really about oil necessarily. I mean, yes, UAE, like you said, this is a longer term thing. So, yes, the short run disruption is the excuse to do it, but this is a longer term political project. The UAE wants to run their economy the way they want to run their economy. They want the Saudi influence and the OPEC influence on what they're doing.

• 13:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Who does this benefit? Who does this?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  The United States.

• 13:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Because of supplies coming to it.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  And Japan and Europe and China and the whole world.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  But I think on the political context, this helps the Trump administration because what they're basically saying is, look, there's more to this story. There is much more to this story that we're not getting.

• 13:35Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you think the Trump administration was involved in this? Phone calls were made, negotiations?

• 13:41Speaker 02

  It would be silly not to think that.

• 13:43Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm kind of with you there.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  First of all, the UAE goes to Washington for IMF meetings a couple of weeks ago. A couple of days later, we hear UAE asked for a dollar swap line with the Treasury Department, really through the Federal Reserve. Then suddenly, a couple of days after that, UAE says, hey, guess what? We're out of OPEC. So, there has to be financial guarantees. They had to have top level discussions with the Trump administration, saying, look, this Iran conflict, we're on your side here because Iran is, we're getting hit more than Israel. You know, Iran's our enemy. We need some security guarantees. We need some financial guarantees. We need some economic guarantees. And oh, by the way, we also probably need a dollar swap line, too. And the Trump administration said, yeah, okay, we understand you're under pressure. We're here to help you, but what are you going to give us? Give us something, too. The UAE said, I'll give you an easy one. We'll get out of OPEC.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  We want to leave anyway. So, it makes it, the UAE is moving away from the Gulf, the Gulf regime or the status quo in the Gulf and moved toward the more.

• 14:38Patrick Bet-David?

  And they were number three, number four, right? Number one is Saudi, number two is Iraq, number two, it used to be Iran, number three, and then UAE, but I think UAE passed up Iran by like 100,000 barrels a day, whatever the number is. And even on the OPEC list, I think Venezuela falls as number seven. So, it's funny how US has got the control with Venezuela that's on that list. And you can kind of, now that you get UAE out, there's a lot of leverage here for them. Do you agree with Jeff's assessment on this?

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we're deep into Middle East politics, which, you know, bring your rug negotiating skills. I kind of want the UAE and Saudi Arabia to get along. I'd like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to get along. And, you know, be unified about Iran. So, there's a lot of politi-- you know, what are they going to do about Yemen and stuff going on there? So, yeah, what a mess, but competition in oil markets is always good.

• 15:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think the bigger thing, the more concerning thing is that they're dangling out the idea of accepting oil payments and something aside from the dollar. They're talking about, oh, if we don't have enough dollars, we're going to have to take payments in yuan. And it was a couple of years ago, too, that even Saudi Arabia started floating around the idea of taking payments in yuan. And if, I mean, I don't know how serious or feasible that is, but if that starts happening, then everything falls apart. I mean, I think overall, the decoupling of OPEC is a good thing because it's, you know, not something that's good for the market. It's just like a controlled agreement between the biggest oil producers and countries to, you know, have a collective agreed upon price of oil. So, I think, yeah, the detangling of that is a good thing. But the notion of these countries taking payments in currencies other than the dollar, that's something that we have to fight against vehemently.

• 16:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you see the oil tanker arriving in Japan? Did you guys see that? Did you see this or no?

• 16:20Speaker 04

  No.

• 16:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Oil tanker with 910,000 barrels of Texas light oil at a refinery near Tokyo through the Panama Canal, avoiding the Strait of Hormuz. Watch this here. They're announcing it. Rob, go a little bit lower so I can hear the audio. If you can raise it.

• 16:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you translate, Jeff, please?

• 16:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I just want to make sure we heard that. 910,000 barrels. So, these are the types of things where you're sitting there saying, wait a minute, like, so you ever wonder, you watch Trump, you're like, why is this guy just sitting? We're going to attack. Doesn't attack. We're going to attack. Wait, I'm telling you, we're going to attack. He's not doing anything. He's got the blockade.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:59Patrick Bet-David?

  He's kind of sitting around like, "All right, take your time."

• 17:02Speaker 02

  But you see-

• 17:02Patrick Bet-David?

  "How long you can go with it?"

• 17:03Speaker 02

  The big picture, zoom out big picture. Again, the framework here is Cold War 2.0. And what's really happening is the world is realigning. The world is realigning away from, you know, we had an alignment during the Cold War. It kind of went away in the 1990s and 2000s and, you know, things got mixed up a little bit. But the world is now realigning and the Trump administration, at the very least, is recognizing the dangers as well as the potential opportunities. And he's trying as hard as he possibly can to realign the world in a way that's more favorable to the United States. So, John, you're right. I mean, we'd love Saudi Arabia and UAE to get along. I don't know if that's ever possible. But this is part of, you know, it's another chess piece on the board that says, "We need to move, we need to break down some of the blocks that have been, not necessarily, you

• 17:48Speaker 02

  know, against the United States in the past, but, you know, OPEC has been a thorn in the side for quite some time." Not tremendous, not huge, not a huge threat, but it has been a thorn in the side. So if you can break OPEC down into pieces and then realign some of those pieces that are more friendly to the US national interest, that is a strategic goal that fits with the Cold War 2.0.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  That tanker, actually, is a wonderful visual of the great power of supply and economics and substitution, all these things we keep saying. You know, if prices go up to $100 a barrel, all of a sudden, there's a lot of oil lying around that can get rearranged to different places. It can't happen instantly, so you go through some months of pain. But basically, the Middle East is shutting itself out of the market in many ways. You know, maybe Europe will discover, "Um, I'm putting the fracking is not the best thing in the world." And all of a sudden, they're sitting on this enormous amount of natural gas if they'd only let it out of the ground.

• 18:43Patrick Bet-David?

  That was actually very good action. I was very impressed. Can you, can you pull up the clip of what the president said? Here's the president. Because, you know, they're talking about, "Well, you know, we may need to use one and we may use..." And both Besen and the president have some thoughts on this. Go ahead, Rob.

• 18:58Patrick Bet-David?

  If you have time, I want to ask you one more question. Go ahead. And, you know, we have allies now in the Middle East. Maybe some are, we can maybe count on more than allies in other parts of the world, but... That's true. They're much better allies than NATO, that I can tell you. The UAE asking the US for some type of financial lifeline. I don't know if it's a solvency problem, it's more of a liquidity problem. And I know we did, Secretary Besse did something with Argentina that worked out. Is there some type of swap possible, currency swap with the UAE to help if they need it? And do you think there would be backlash because it's such a wealth, or perceived to be such a wealthy country?

• 19:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that under consideration? It is, but it's been a good country. It's been a good ally of ours. And, you know, these are unusual times. They were, more than anybody else, I mean, it was shocking because we thought that they'd shoot missiles at Israel, but not every other country in the area. And, you know, UAE got hit with 1,400 missiles. Now fortunately, they had the Patriots and they had a great defense and they were able to shoot down most of them. But they did get hit hard. They were hit the hardest of the group, actually. And they're really led by incredible people. And, yeah, I mean, I'm surprised because they are really rich. You know, they invested, a year ago, I went there and I got them to invest $1 trillion

• 20:26Patrick Bet-David?

  in the United States, building a tremendous plant in a great state called Oklahoma, aluminum plant, melting plant, beautiful, incredible, top of the, it'll be the best anywhere in the world. You know, they're very good for this country, so, yeah, if I could help them, I would. I mean, we're helping them much more with what we're doing with the war. You're positive right there. So that's the president. What do you think about what he's saying here?

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Great state called Oklahoma.

• 20:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, exactly. Beach is beautiful over there.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Exactly. The dollar swap issue, I think, is a big one. It's not because UAE is not wealthy, when, as John said, I mean, when you don't have oil coming in, you have no dollars coming in. And the UAE has a lot of dollar commitments through financial channels and other things. And if they don't have the oil... Revenue coming in, plus investors kind of get cold feet. The UAE, especially through Dubai, and the Dubai International Financial District, whatever it's called, they have been turning themselves into an international monetary hub, supposed to be the gateway to the global south, and funded in, operating in US dollar denomination, other currencies too, but primarily US dollar denomination. So, a shortfall of dollars coming in is a big problem for the UAE regardless of their wealth or oil status, or even the amount of reserves that they

• 21:38Speaker 02

  hold, because the market is saying, we're a little bit nervous about what's going on over there, we're nervous about the fact that UAE is right in the middle of the conflict. Without the oil revenue and dollar backing, it could, they could get into a situation where if the marketplace gets cold feet and starts to pull back on dollar funding, it leaves them in a situation, not unlike 2009, where the UAE was at the forefront of a second crisis that actually erupted afterwards. So, the dollar swap is about liquidity, as John pointed out, it's not really about wealth, it's about the fact that the conflict is really, is really squeezing them pretty hard.

• 22:08Patrick Bet-David?

  We talked about this earlier, and John, I want to come to you with this, is that this isn't the first time somebody left OPEC, right? Qatar left, 19, Ecuador left, 22, Angola left, 24, and then Indonesia left and came back, and they left, they suspended, they're not with them anymore.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  They left because they were, you know, they weren't pumping enough oil, Ecuador just didn't have enough oil.

• 22:28Patrick Bet-David?

  They're not, they're not major players, but they, so it's not like the first time. When you think about NATO, France left once in 66 or something, and then they came back, it was like a quick thing, it wasn't even a major thing. NATO, no one's ever left NATO, it's a whole different thing. Do you think that now that Qatar and UAE are out, in the last seven years, there are other players that may be leaving and following their lead? What do you think, John?

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Well, I think the whole thing has become less and less important. As you saw, they said, we want oil at $100 a barrel, well, it goes $65 a barrel, so much for your vaunted power to do the price well. And the swap line, the crucial thing that it's doing is the UAE pegs its currency to dollars. So, if you're going to peg your currency to dollars every now and then, people say, hey, I want my dollars, and, and you need that temporary liquidity to support the currency, that's the major feature of what's going on. I like people pegging to the dollar, so, it's a fairly minor issue, though.

• 23:19Patrick Bet-David?

  So, do you think on the NATO side, now that we're looking at OPEC, on the NATO side, no one's ever left? A lot of people are saying, hey, Trump's threatening to leave. He's been threatening to leave for a long time. And if you, one of the most important charts, I don't know if you guys seen this chart or not. Rob, if you want to pull this chart up. Humberto, Connor, if you can send this chart to Rob, it shows from the moment Obama wasn't president to today, how many NATO members started paying their minimum 2%. I don't know if you've ever seen this. It's from 2011 to 2025. It shows that at first, it was only two or three that were paying their minimum 2%. Connor, Humberto, if you can text it to him. Humberto's working on it, Rob. You're gonna get the text any minute now.

• 24:03Patrick Bet-David?

  And it goes from two, three, three, three, four, three, five. Nothing changing under Obama, under any of the previous presidents. And then all of a sudden, Trump gets in, and then that three becomes a four, it becomes a five. This is by far the most important chart to show because this leads to something. Rob, have they sent it to you yet? Not yet. I just texted them again. Connor, Connor has it. This chart has to be shown because it's all part of, it's all part of what it leads to. But then when you go into this chart, there's one thing Biden did in 23, if Biden did it or somebody else, who knows?

• 24:43Patrick Bet-David?

  In 23, they put something in law through Congress, I believe, that in order for US to choose to leave NATO, you need two-thirds support from Senate. We've never had that before. They just did this 23. So imagine how much the Biden administration knew, or NATO knew that, hey, if we're negotiating, we need help with Ukraine. Give us money for Ukraine, support us. And at the same time, can you kind of put that thing in there that if US chooses to leave, you need two-thirds Senate? So what happens if you got two-thirds Senate? You're not gonna leave. Who the hell is gonna get two-thirds Senate? Yeah, nope. You're not gonna be able to leave. So these guys either knew, either NATO knew that Trump would leave because he offered those threats to everybody publicly, or number two,

• 25:26Patrick Bet-David?

  US kind of sat there and knew Trump's gonna get elected. Either way, to me, the way I read it is the fact that, hey, we knew this guy's gonna come back. If he does come back, we- need to be protected. How are we protected? I don't know. This is the chart. Watch this. So in 2014, only three countries from NATO were paying. If you look at the bottom left blue, in 2014, only three were paying the minimum 2%. 15, 3. 16, 4. Trump comes in. Oh shit, he's not calling out. Nobody pays their minimum. Trump's first term begins in 17, goes to 5. 18, 7. 19, 9. Then 11, then he's out. Biden comes in, it drops. They're like, ah, I don't need to really pay. 23 goes back to 11. Trump gets back in there, look what happens. 23, and then 30 plus.

• 26:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So now 32 out of whatever the number is, they're not paying their minimum 2%. Uh, uh, Spain, who is sitting there bitching and saying, well, you can't come use our milita- I'm sorry, you can't do what? Well, you can, but we pay 65, 67, 68% of all the- We spent a trillion dollars on our military. You guys don't. Spain's all the way at the bottom of doing 1.1% their GDP, by the way. 1.2% their GDP.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, where's that money going?

• 26:36Patrick Bet-David?

  That's, but, but the point where I'm going with this is, do you think that gridlock was intentional to not allow Trump to be able to leave? Cause now, how the hell is he gonna leave? He can't even, he can threaten all he wants, he can't leave because he needs Senate support.

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Oh, explain so much, because we've been asking why, like, what gives NATO the audacity to do these things and to say, um, you know, things are straight up against the Trump administration, but, uh, I, yeah, I had no idea they slipped that in there.

• 26:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, you didn't know that? Right. Can you pull up the bill? There's a bill that they passed. Humberto, can you send the bill here, so we have it?

• 27:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, was it part of the bigger bill?

• 27:07Patrick Bet-David?

  So quietly. They did it so quietly, that to do it now, apparently you need two thirds. Uh, um, two thirds to pass, to leave.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  That's everything. So like, where, where's the leverage come from?

• 27:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Where does the leverage come from? Where does the leverage come from?

• 27:24Speaker 04

  It almost has to get creative and, uh, like, find another way to, I guess, not give them money or not give them support and stuff, straight up leaving, but-

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Or you create parallel structures. You say, okay, we're stuck in NATO, but we'll start to create another alliance over here and just hope NATO kind of goes away.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Um, which, again, I think that's what's, that's the intent here. Like, the, the OPEC business and UAE by itself is really not that significant. Its significance is in it's an example of this realignment that's taking place. So if you're the Trump administration, you think NATO is worthless, but you can't get out of it. You got to try something else. You got to try to, you know, like the peace conference or whatever that was. The kind of recreating the United Nations, a group of peaceful people coming in and doing what the United Nations is supposed to do. So you create parallel structures, which starts by demolishing some of the old, some of the old alliances, some of the old structures.

• 28:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Here it is.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Organizations.

• 28:14Patrick Bet-David?

  It's called the Section 1250A, National Defense Authorization Act Fiscal for 2024 Law, Designed to Prevent a President from Unilaterally Withdrawn from NATO. And by the way, you know who signed on it? Kane and Rubio, which is very interesting.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 28:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Very interesting. Two thirds on the bottom of two, to withdraw from NATO. One of the following must happen. Two thirds of Senate has to prove it or Congress passes a law authorizing withdrawal.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  What the, I couldn't think of two more different people out there too. Tim Kaine and Marco Rubio.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, I think you guys are losing your minds.

• 28:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell us. Bring us back home.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  If you don't want to, you can just let something rot if you don't like it. But NATO is really important. It's kind of sad that we have pissed off NATO and they're pissed off at us. Vladimir Putin had a lot to do with the Europeans starting to spend more money on defense. And they're realizing they need defense. Just spending money. Europe is really good at spending money down rat holes. What counts is military effectiveness, spending it in the right place. And that actually was even worse in Europe's case than than the mere spending of money. So Putin's there. Europe's woken up that it needs to provide its defense. This is a good and great thing. These are our allies, our friends, the best democracies we got around the world, big trading partners. I don't know why you guys want to.

• 29:33Patrick Bet-David?

  You're naive. You're so sweet. You're part of the, I thought you were the grumpy economist. So you mean to tell me you don't want your commander in chief to have the ability to leave NATO? And NATO is afraid to make sure they stand up to.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Absolutely not. I want the, I want the Senate and Congress. There's a major treaty, a major US commitment.

• 29:53Patrick Bet-David?

  So you support.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Wait, wait. A major commitment of them to the US?

• 29:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  I want to go back to the nice world where we had treaties that were ratified by the Senate and agreed to and lasted over multiple administrations. We don't go back to Trump's in, Biden's out, Trump's in, Gavin Newsom's out. That's a crazy way to run a country.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  But that's the world we live in.

• 30:12Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but wait a minute. I just want to qualify this.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  The world of rule by executive order that changes every four years? Let's, uh...

• 30:19Speaker 02

  I'm not saying it's good. I'm just saying that's the... be pragmatic and realistic. By the way, NATO, NATO is not that important anymore, anyway. The, the, the focus needs to be on the Pacific.

• 30:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Be careful, you're gonna upset... To him, NATO is very important.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  I told you, it got me fired up.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  It was built on a false concept in the first place.

• 30:33Patrick Bet-David?

  But go ahead, tell us what NATO's not on, because originally he said OPEC is not important. You're saying NATO's not important.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  No, what we should be focusing on is, uh, Japan, Philippines, Australia, Indonesia. It should be a NATO of the Pacific. That's where all the focus should be, because that's where the flashpoints are right now, today.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  So you like NATO and you want another one out on the other side?

• 30:53Speaker 02

  No, what...

• 30:54Speaker 03

  I'm with ya.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  I don't... No, the idea is, what is NATO today? Is NATO today what it's supposed to be? It's supposed to... I mean, I understand in Cold War framework of the, you know, pre-1980s, or before the 1990s, that NATO was essential, it was crucial.

• 31:09Speaker 04

  I think NATO just antagonized Russia, so I think NATO, um, caused problems with Russia more than anything. Was, like, was Russia ever gonna really proactively do something against Europe if NATO wasn't approaching on that?

• 31:19Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, that is, that is Putin propaganda. We actually wanted to invite Russia to join NATO. We wanted Russia to join the civilized world, and it almost did.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  But that was back when George Bush looked into his eyes and saw Putin's soul, or whatever that was.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  No, that was actually when Bill Clinton wanted to join NATO.

• 31:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, you know what happened with Bill? But you know what happened with... But, but, but what happened? What happened, though? Finish the story.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  We gotta...

• 31:41Speaker 04

  We didn't want to join.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Which part of the story you wanna finish?

• 31:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, no, no, no, the part about Putin and Clinton are having a call, and he says, "Look, let's just finish this. I'll join NATO." And then Clinton's like, "Let me make a phone call." And then what happened? He calls somebody. Nobody knows who he called. You know the story.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Well, Putin turned out to be not the world's greatest Democrat and, uh, free marketer and all the rest of it. Look, when, when, if Putin goes on the offensive and invades Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, you're gonna be damn thankful you got a NATO to fight back, because you need that combined force, good structure. And NATO could have won in Ukraine in about a week if they felt like it.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  So then there's no danger of invading Poland.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Well, there wasn't a danger of invading Ukraine either, until it actually happened.

• 32:22Patrick Bet-David?

  But, I'm really curious, because you realize there's a complete audience that's against the narrative that you have of, of, of NATO, and, and I want to go a little bit deeper into this. So Putin says, "Listen, I don't want any problems with NATO. I'll join NATO." Calls Clinton, they're talking. Clinton says, "You will?" "Yes, let me make a phone call." Makes a couple of phone calls. Calls Putin back and says, "Look, I can't do anything, not right now, maybe later." So the guy is trying to talk to Clinton about trying to eliminate all war, and NATO members don't want him to be a part of it. Why wouldn't they want him to be part of NATO?

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Well, you gotta join the club, a little bit of democracy before you join NATO. Or actually, NATO is a little unsure about Turkey. You want people on your side in NATO if you're gonna, you know, have a joint military there. So, it's too bad Russia developed the way it did into a dictatorship oligarchy. But you can't put Russia in NATO now, that makes no sense, we're basically at war with each other.

• 33:21Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but if you put Russia, well, not now, I mean, listen, you know, there's-

• 33:24Speaker 02

  That was never realistic. I mean, let's face it, Russia was on a path to that direction anyway.

• 33:29Patrick Bet-David?

  To which path?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  To where they are today. I mean, that was Putin's plan from the very beginning.

• 33:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, everybody knows that, but there's also the completely different faction that, if you accept Putin to join NATO, people are gonna be like, "Uh, did you guys forget a history? Why we started NATO? What's the purpose of NATO? It was against Soviet Union. Now that he is part of us, what the hell are we doing spending this money? And relying on America to protect NATO?" So, it-

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Well, I'm with John on that. You know, Putin wasn't gonna join NATO to be a friend. Putin was gonna join NATO to undermine-

• 34:03Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not what I'm saying.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  But before Putin, this is Russia before, when Russia went to Putin, then kind of the die was cast. But in the early 1990s-

• 34:10Speaker 02

  I don't think it was ever gonna be any different, though.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  There was a world where Russia became like what Poland is today. Because Russian people want freedom, democracy, all the things. They want us, like everybody wants us if they get the chance. And there was a world where Russia would do that, become a regular country, heaven knows, join the European Union. NATO would cease to be that important at that point, because there's no Russia. Maybe we'd be fighting against China or something of the sort.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  But once the 97 currency revaluation happened, oh, but that was it.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  There was no going back. That was, die was cast, and then it was forever.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  Remember what James Baker said, though? He said, "If the Berlin Wall comes down, we're not gonna expand NATO a foot past the Berlin Wall." And, you know, I just sent you a chart, Rob. We expanded well past the Berlin Wall, and all the way up to Ukraine. And that was the red line where Putin started going to Ukraine when we started trying to put missiles into Ukraine. So, I don't know, would Russia have gotten aggressive if we can expand NATO all the way up to its doorstep?

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  Possibly not.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  NATO is a defensive alliance.

• 35:07Speaker 04

  It acted like an offensive alliance over the last 20 years, though.

• 35:10Patrick Bet-David?

  He supports that.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  No, I support, I support the expansion of democracy, freedom in the European Union into Eastern Europe, which has been one of the most wonderful things in our lifetime.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Well, one person's democracy expansion is another person's aggression encroachment on your doorstep.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  I think there's a big difference in democracy between Poland and Russia.

• 35:28Speaker 04

  What about what happened in Ukraine's governments, like when we, they had a democratically elected president and then we went in and stirred up a riot and had them ousted? Gorbachev and not, or was it Perashenko?

• 35:40Patrick Bet-David?

  By the way, just so you know, you have to know his background. So this is not a regular guy. He has, he's one of the only few people in the world that got a bachelor's in national security and a master's in national security. That's his background. So this, this, this is the argument. This is the argument where now it's being had. And for me, to be honest with you, I don't like the fact that they have gridlocked the president to not be able to threaten NATO that we can't leave because we're funding it and we're protecting everybody in NATO. Who are the only three countries in NATO that have nuclear weapons? Forget us, put us out, that's only two others.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  France and UK.

• 36:12Patrick Bet-David?

  France and UK. So who has majority of it? We do. You know, they're, they're kind of pushing around their weight and then when we need them, you don't want to be there for us? I have a problem with that.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Well, it was kind of nice that we had control over the nuclear escalation and Europe is now figuring out, well, maybe Europe wants control of the nuclear. Here's, here's the problem in getting them to pay. The guy who picks up the bill chooses the restaurant. Back when we picked up the bill, we chose the restaurant, we picked the wine. If they're going to pick up the bill, they have rights to do what they want with the, with the money and you might not like it anymore.

• 36:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Ah, it's not how it works. That's not how, you're, you're paying for water. I'm paying for the bone and ribeye wagyu beef. You ain't paying for nothing. You paid for that little sorbet.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Two to 3% of GDP is couch change. No great empire has, has spent less than 10% of GDP.

• 36:59Patrick Bet-David?

  They'll pay the minimum.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Europe is paying 50% of GDP on social programs. So we're arguing.

• 37:04Patrick Bet-David?

  That's their problem, though.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, but 2% to 3% relative to 5%.

• 37:09Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but, but there's a difference.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Even in the US, 2% to 3%.

• 37:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Listen, everybody's got to pull their little red wagon and if you don't, there's a negotiator that shows up and makes everybody uncomfortable. By the way, go back to that chart again, Rob. Go back to the chart. Up until this Donald Trump guy showed up, nobody was paying their fair share.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  That's also when this Putin guy showed up and showed up in Ukraine.

• 37:28Patrick Bet-David?

  You think that's why they? They started doing it?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 37:30Patrick Bet-David?

  You think that's why they started doing it?

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Talk to the European.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Then why wouldn't they do it under Biden? Why did flat line under Biden then?

• 37:35Speaker 03

  They got, they got, they got, took them about a year to get really serious about defense. And Europe is now woken up.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  But a flat line under Biden?

• 37:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  And he was still invading.

• 37:44Patrick Bet-David?

  No, no, no, this, but this is good. This is good that there's differences here. I like it. Let me get to our next one. So now there's a meeting that's, that happens at the White House with King Charles showing up. Okay. And what made this very interesting with the timing of it is there was a lot of shots fired at each other. It was fun. It was humor. It was comedy. They had a meeting together. The Trump told some jokes. King Charles told some jokes. The president did something to make sure that we won the war. That had to be there. But let's start off with, Rob, let's start off with King Charles getting a standing ovation in Congress. Something President Trump has a hard time doing, but he got it. And even President Trump commented on this afterwards. Go for it.

• 38:23Patrick Bet-David?

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• 39:27Patrick Bet-David?

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• 39:56Patrick Bet-David?

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• 40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Chuck Schumer. Hmm. What? Mark Kelly.

• 40:31Patrick Bet-David?

  God, I'm kidding me. You got Pelosi standing up? AOC standing up? And Rob, I send a clip to you. If you want to play this clip, what the president said afterwards. President Trump brings up on how, uh, no, I just texted it to you right now. I think this is the clip. Check to see if it's just played. Let's see if it's the clip or not. Uh, he said this afterwards. Go ahead. And we welcome their majesties, King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom, to the White House. Very special place, very, very special. And I also want to, before we really begin, I want to congratulate Charles on having

• 41:15Patrick Bet-David?

  made a fantastic speech today at Congress. He got the Democrats to say, and I've never been able to do that. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. They liked him more than they've ever liked any Republican or Democrat, actually. So. So there you have it. So how big of a deal is this to have this meeting?

• 41:37Speaker 02

  With King Charles?

• 41:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Symbolism, right? I mean, it's it's maintaining the old alliance with the UK that has definitely been strained.

• 41:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  And trying to fix everything. And it's, you know, it's part and parcel of the discussion we're just having about NATO. Whose interest is all these alliances? Is are we going to be antagonizing our allies? Or are allies going to be antagonizing us endlessly? And does that make them not allies? And is there anything worth preserving as far as this, you know, special friendship? Or has it gone too far in the other direction? Does it even matter? I think this is a it's one of those things where it's it's raising issues that need to be talked about. It's symbolism.

• 42:15Patrick Bet-David?

  John.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Well, as the UK is sort of falling apart, our relations aren't good with them. Relations should be better with them. That's nice. The clip you showed was interesting that I'm surprised that the king, who is usually very polite, said that line limits on executive power. You know what we're talking about here. The consistent line from the Democrats that Trump is an aspiring dictator autocrat and so forth. That's why they were standing up. Of course, who invented the phone and the pen exactly? There's a lot of the imperial presidency to blame on both sides here. And America's limits on executive power are pretty darn healthy as, you know, Trump regularly loses in the Supreme Court as often as he wins in the Supreme Court.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  So I think it's kind of a political kerfuffle and sad that the king decided to step into that a little. But I don't think there's much you can you can't say hello in Washington without stepping in a political kerfuffle. So good luck to him.

• 43:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, what clip do you have here? Which one is this? This is one of the jokes that he told?

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 43:14Patrick Bet-David?

  He told a lot of jokes. It was like a stand up what he was doing. Go ahead. And by the way, I think Bezos was in the room. Who else was in the room? Quite a few people were in the room as well. Of the billionaire class that folks in Stanford want to tax, but go ahead.

• 43:29Patrick Bet-David?

  This said, our French friends can feel equally at home with a glance at a map. Indeed, you recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French.

• 43:55Patrick Bet-David?

  By the way, this clip went bonkers on X. This clip right here. Brandon, your thoughts?

• 44:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, if he's saying what I think he's saying, that's such a stupid joke. I mean, I had to look it up because of how like small and insignificant the thing he's referencing is. It's literally called the quasi-war where we like slightly had some engagement with France and UK where we were fighting. But so he's comparing that to us literally saving them from not existing anymore during World War I, World War II. Like we nearly bankrupted our country, helping them in World War II and World War I. So to compare those two things, it's crazy and it's not even on the same plane.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  I think he's referring to the French and Indian Wars in which George Washington fought on the side of the British. And in fact, there was a big issue about how much of the continent would be run by us versus France.

• 44:42Speaker 04

  Compared to World War II, though, I mean, come on, man.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  You know?

• 44:46Speaker 03

  It was not World War II size. Come on, this is after dinner speech. Give the guy a break. What I find most funny about this, of course, is that the Democrats, who are the no kings and Trump autocrats and stuff with, they love British royalty. They all tune into PBS for Downton Abbey. There's nothing they like more than the aristocracy.

• 45:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Who's this? The Brits?

• 45:05Speaker 03

  No, the Democrats.

• 45:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, the Democrats. Yeah, they don't like more than...

• 45:08Speaker 04

  Well, King Charles is one of them anyway. I mean, he is...

• 45:11Speaker 03

  He had to put in a climate crisis there. I don't know if you noticed.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  Of course, yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  The Arctic, which is, I forget the exact quote, which is melting, you know, incredibly fast and has been, you know, for decades now.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  They say no kings, but they would take him in a second.

• 45:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, this is the beautiful part. How much of this is like, let me just expose their hypocrisy. What's that one clip? That went viral with the president showing that we won the war? Is this the one? Which one is that, Rob? What's the one you have right there?

• 45:38Speaker 02

  So the two I have is Trump talking about his mother loving King Charles.

• 45:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, this is funny.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  Aren't they cousins or something?

• 45:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, there's some kind of, this is the one of how long they were married and he looks at his wife and says, this'll never...

• 45:50Speaker 02

  ...upper clip, but they're back to back.

• 45:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, go ahead, Rob. Let's have some fun with this.

• 45:55Patrick Bet-David?

  I just see it so clearly. She loved, and I told the king this, she loved the royal family. And she loved the queen. And anytime the queen was involved in a ceremony or anything, my mother would be glued to the television. And she'd say, "Look, Donald, look how beautiful that is." She really did love the family. But I also remember her saying very clearly, "Charles, look, young Charles, he's so cute."

• 46:35Patrick Bet-David?

  My mother. My mother had a crush on Charles. Can you believe it?

• 46:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Amazing how, I wonder what she's thinking right now.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  I can't believe you told him that.

• 46:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, is this the one about marriage?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 46:50Patrick Bet-David?

  This one's funny. Go ahead, Rob. She came to America at 19, met my incredible father. We loved him so much. We all loved him. We loved her. We loved him. Fred, and they were married for 63 years. And, uh, excuse me if you don't mind. That's a record we won't be able to match, darling. I'm sorry. Just not gonna work out that way. We'll do well, but we're not gonna do that well. 63 years.

• 47:29Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think about it? What do you think about his humor? What do you think about the stuff that he's saying, you know, the jokes? He looks like he's having fun.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  That's the point, right?

• 47:37Patrick Bet-David?

  In the middle of a war and he's having this much fun right now.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  That's the point. You know, it's, why did FDR connect to people? Is he connecting with people?

• 47:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  He's connecting with, there's a political purpose behind this. Um, who was it that used to say that George Bush never said nuclear? It was like act. He was trying to make himself more relatable. Um, so politicians, that's what they have to do. Especially when you're trying to do big things, you gotta connect with people. So he's connecting with people. And the thing is, like Bill Clinton, Trump is really good at it.

• 48:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Because he's really good at it, that's where a lot of his power comes from.

• 48:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. I don't know if he's as good as Biden, though. Biden was on a whole different level. His ability to connect.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  It was a different game.

• 48:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. It was, it was very unique ability he had. So, all right, let's get to next story here. Next story. Trump skeptical of Iran's Strait of Hormuz proposal. Now, we saw it, we've all seen it, they asked for three different things. Those three things are, you know, lift the sanctions, open a blockade, and then let's talk nuclear, right? There's a clip on this as well. President Trump and his national security team are skeptical of Iran's offer of a deal that would see the Strait of Hormuz open. Discussions about nuclear work tabled. U.S. officials said Trump had discussions with aides Monday morning about the offer. While he didn't reject it outright, officials said Trump sounded notes about Iran not dealing in good faith or being willing to meet his key demands, ending nuclear enrichment and

• 48:55Patrick Bet-David?

  vowing never to make a nuclear weapon. They didn't agree with that. What's this, Rob, here? Is this? This is MSNBC reporting on that. Okay, go for it. President Trump appears unlikely to accept Iran's latest proposal to end the war. Tehran's offer includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz while requiring the U.S. to lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports and setting aside questions about the country's nuclear program for later negotiations. The New York Times cites multiple people briefed on discussions in the White House Situation Room yesterday who say the president has told advisers he is not satisfied with that proposal. The paper goes on to report, "It is not clear precisely why Trump is skeptical of the offer,

• 49:39Patrick Bet-David?

  but he has repeatedly insisted that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons." That is a sentiment Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed. While we're looking at that, Trump warns Iran better get smart soon as he waves military options over Strait of Hormuz. He's been saying this nonstop, and Trump tells aides to prepare for extended blockade of Iran in a Wall Street Journal article that came out, causing oil prices to jump to 115 after reports of extended Iran blockade. So, what do you think is happening here, Jeff?

• 50:08Speaker 02

  Did she really say it's not clear why he rejected the... Did she really say that with a straight face?

• 50:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you surprised that she would say such a thing?

• 50:14Speaker 02

  No, I know, I know. Look, this is a game of chicken. It's been a game of chicken from the very beginning. The Iranians are betting that Trump will fold because of the midterm elections. If they can keep oil prices high enough, the economic pain will be sufficient that the US administration will try to save face and come to the negotiating table in a weakened position and therefore they can get a deal that allows them to survive. That's all this has been. What Trump has done repeatedly is say, "Look, I am willing to take the short-run pain. I know this is gonna be bad. I know the longer it goes, the worse it's gonna get. But the long-run strategic goal here is worth the short-run pain." And so, everybody keeps underestimating the strategy here. And we've talked about this before. You know, how the Trump administration has behaved very differently.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  They started with Panama, they went to Venezuela, they've got Cuba. There is a strategic goal here. And they have shown, first of all, that they're willing to go past lines that people had thought they were... You don't take out Venezuela's leader. You don't do that. They've shown a resolve to be able to do things that nobody else does. And they've also shown here that they're willing to take this as far as it needs to go. We'll sacrifice the midterms if we have to, because this is worth it. This is one of those things that you don't negotiate. You don't... This is not something you can just set aside. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That's it. That's the starting point.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Well, we'll see if that works. You're right, that's where we're trying to strangle Iran with a blockade. They're trying to strangle us with the Straits of Hormuz and see who blinks. The capacity of a dictatorship like that to withstand economic pain is something we might have been misestimating. You know, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela were able to inflict enormous pain on their citizens and stay in power as long as they're ruthless about doing it. I think we are not here negotiating a treaty with the United Kingdom. We're negotiating with the IRGC, basically a criminal gang that's taken over the country. Who knows, actually, who we're negotiating with? You know, is the Supreme Ayatollah even alive or is it an AI creation at this point?

• 52:18Speaker 03

  Promises from Iran vows to never create a nuclear weapon for the next 20 years. What do you think? These guys want to know if they're going to wake up tomorrow morning. So that whole business just seems kind of silly that that's what we're negotiating about.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  Well, that's another point.

• 52:31Speaker 03

  We need to reopen the Straits. And we're unwilling to do it with any, we're unwilling to do what, we could reopen them in a week if we wanted to, but it would take a military commitment we don't want to do.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  And something you just said is really important, that you're not negotiating with the United Kingdom. One of the reasons why is that for the Iranians, at least the Iranian regime or what's left of it, this is a war of survival. There is no tomorrow. If they lose this, I mean, it's very likely they're going to be hauled up into the streets.

• 52:57Speaker 03

  And so, you know, why don't they just say, sure, we'll give up the nukes?

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Because they can't make nukes anyway.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  If they try to move anything, these Israelis will pound a taxi cab going down central Tehran. Well, I think that's a, it's a public relations thing for them to say, we're still going after the nukes.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Just like they keep saying that, you know, they got all these ships going through the blockade and...

• 53:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Abbas Al-Razi, who was the main negotiator, went out there, met with Putin. Putin made a very clear, we have each other's back. Okay, so that was a very, he went, I think he went to Pakistan, Islamabad first, then went to Oman, then went to, met with Putin, and they had a public meeting, and Russia said, hey, we're supportive, our relationships are strong. So that was a statement, is this it, Rob, that we have? Go ahead. See how courageously and heroically the people of Iran is fighting for their independence, for their sovereignty. This is obviously optics. You want to show to say we're on the same page, okay, as we're going through this. Rubio says the Iranians are serious about making a deal to get themselves out of the mess they're in.

• 53:58Patrick Bet-David?

  So Rubio's saying one thing, Trump is saying something else. Okay, you got Fredric Mart saying the US was humiliated by Iran. So everyone's saying their own thing. This is it, Rob, go ahead and play this clip. They let them travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result. A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called revolutionary guards. And in that respect, they let...

• 54:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon, where are you at with this?

• 54:27Speaker 04

  It's why they call it the fog of war, because everybody has a completely, you know, if you're listening to somebody from that side, somebody from our side, you think a completely different thing is going on. But, you know, fact of the matter is that, yeah, dealing with a ruthless regime like that, we don't even know who's in charge anymore. But you have to take it all the way at this point. You have to be as ruthless as possible in return, because they only respond to one thing, and that's strength. And, you know, we're not going to have anything amicable happen. It's not going to be a negotiated thing. It's going to be like a brute force, savage outcome, where we have to, you know, be kind of ruthless.

• 54:55Patrick Bet-David?

  So, John is saying...

• 54:56Speaker 03

  So, Brandon, would you go, you were a little bit pacifist earlier. If you want to open the straits by force, the US can do it. There's never been an overwhelming match. Well, it's going to take boots on the ground. There's no way to do it without the possibility of boots on the ground, suffering, casualties. Absolutely, yes.

• 55:16Speaker 04

  Well, the straits open, though. I think the problem with the straits is that the ships won't, the insurers won't insure ships going through, because you still have the threat of drones hitting ships.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  Exactly. The US has to remove that threat, which the US could do if we wanted to.

• 55:27Speaker 04

  But that threat could come from anywhere, though, which I think is the problem. It's like, the chance of that happening is why they won't get insured. So, how would the US go about removing that threat?

• 55:34Speaker 03

  It's not going to come from Saudi Arabia.

• 55:35Speaker 04

  No, but, I mean, you could send drones from anywhere, from Iran.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  Exactly. I don't think this ends while that regime is in power.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  Right. So, that's one thing we have to go all the way.

• 55:43Patrick Bet-David?

  So, if you're saying that, and if you're saying to open up the Strait of Hormuz, don't you think if you open up the Strait of Hormuz, you give them leverage?

• 55:50Speaker 03

  I think you can open up the strait in a short, in the short run, at tremendous cost. You can come with some deal, and they agree to stop shooting for a while, at which point you've lost. At which point, you've handed them perpetually the power to shut it down whenever they want. And if the US is willing to go along with that, you might as well send Xi Jinping the keys to Taiwan.

• 56:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, we can't have that. We can't, we can't give them the power to shut it down.

• 56:15Speaker 03

  So, we are, we are actually, we're on the edge of a no way out. The US, I think, and you think, cannot just give in, have a short-run deal, they stop shooting for a little while, you know, we get to the midterms. No, because then we have lost strategically a tremendous amount. They can't give in either, because they want to get up there the next morning, and they are willing to murder their people in an enormous... ...quantities in order to stop anything that comes up because of the economy. So there's a scenario here where, you know, once all the oil tankers that are on the sea have reached port, the the oil situation gets really bad for the rest of the world, not so bad for the US because we make it.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  And things are really tough all around.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  There is no short run solution here. This isn't, I think you're right, we're in a place where it's an either/or. Either we go all the way or we stop short and the US loses and they don't they don't achieve their objectives. And I think, again, going back to the the framework here, the Trump administration has said, we realize this, we're gonna we're gonna tolerate the short run pain to achieve our long run goals. What they're betting is that they can break the Iranians before.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  But can you achieve that goal with the IRGC, which is the government of Iran, still in power? I mean, this, what I love about the administration.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  That's the goal, though.

• 57:23Speaker 03

  They have pushed all of our enemies to the five yard line. Venezuelans, the Cubans, the Iranians, nobody, we were stuck on our own 30 yard line and and just sitting around in an eternal huddle for 20 years. So they just, but there's no points till you get to the goal.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  Right. So, I mean, yeah, there's, obviously, there's a tremendous argument whether they can execute the plan, but I think that's the plan. There's not, there's not gonna be a short run, hey, let's get the Hormuz thing open and we'll negotiate later. This is either/or. Either the Iranians break or we leave.

• 57:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. And the tough part is that there's the absence of a rebel group and there's an absence of a clear next leader in the country, which is normally something you have.

• 58:01Patrick Bet-David?

  You know who the leader is today? Pull up the the guy I sent you, that's the that's the guy today. Forget about Khamenei, this is the guy, this is the commander in chief of IRGC right now, appointed March 1st. Just so you know his background a little bit, he previously served as a deputy commander of IRGC, and then he took over. Argentina's High Court formally charged him in 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina issued an, no, no, this is who we're negotiating with, okay? Bahidi is considered a regime hardliner, he publicly warned Iranian women that security forces would punish those breaking the rules with respect to hijab compliance. So imagine what kind of a player you have that you're negotiating with. This is the, this is the commander in chief. Now, go to the Wall Street Journal story that came out two, three hours ago, Rob, this morning, with how the economy is impacting the people.

• 58:44Patrick Bet-David?

  25 million people or so in Iran work, 1 million directly lost their job, another million indirectly lost their jobs. Inflation is up 67%. The price of meat right now, I think a pound of it right now, if you go a little bit lower is 360. Not a pound, I'm sorry. If you go a little bit lower, 360 an ounce, if I'm not mistaken. A pound. Yeah, 360 a pound, beyond the reach of most in country where the minimum wage is $130 a month. Iran's national security, look at the number. 1.8 million real to the dollar. The people are getting destroyed. The people of Iran, the day-to-day average, day-to-day people are getting destroyed. And while you're reading this, a story comes out, which this may be the biggest story, and I want to come to you guys.

• 59:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Trump says Iran has days left before it's forced to halt oil production, okay? Now, others say it could go for another two months. Two months puts us where? July 1st, right? May 1st? Yeah. Right, July 1st is two months. World Cup starts when? June, can you find out when the World Cup starts? I don't know when the World Cup starts, but it starts in the next... And this story, as you read it, it says President Trump's mid-April blockade of Strait of Hormuz is largely about forcing Iran's oil industry to confront a shut-in date when its oil storage capabilities, exhausted and production, literally stops. That would be a dramatic economic development for Iran. As oil wells are difficult to restart, then there's a risk of permanent damage. The White House's logic is that Iranian economy will be under such strain that the political leadership will accept a deal that Trump can announce.

• 1:00:13Patrick Bet-David?

  The problem is that few know that deadline will hit, and estimates vary considerably. Bremer own group has suggested that Iran might have about a month's time to hold out. Others suggest that things will come to a head earlier in May. Still, others have suggested June is a possibility. Trump, as is his wont, offered the most dramatic take when the Fox News told that they only have about three days left. I don't know if it's three days. So, you're playing this game, saying how much time they have. They just went to Russia, God knows what promises were made behind closed doors. Gas prices in America, when you look at it right now, national average is 4.23. It's up 33.6%, okay? National average is 5.43 for diesel, up 50%.

• 1:00:58Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, you already look at the stats with economy, some of the stuff, you know, first-time buyers, right now it's only 26% of purchases. Historically, it's been around 40% historically, average age 36. So, economy isn't the best today. To put this even a little bit more on them, it's putting too much pressure. So, who's gonna be able to manage that pressure more? It's what it's gonna come down to. Jeff, your thoughts on this? This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast.

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• 1:01:51Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, again, it's a game of chicken. The US economy is not good, and historically, oil shocks lead to recessions. That's just how it goes. Trump knows that. This is not a surprise to him. They've been planning for it. I don't think there's any set schedule. I know they started out and say, hey, we'll get this done in six weeks, but that was just for public consumption. I don't think that was a realistic target. And we talked about that, you know, back then. It was going to take longer than six weeks. We all knew that was the case. They knew that. They know that's the case. So what they're really trying to do is they're betting that the damage that they're inflicting on Iran will be so substantial that they don't have to negotiate with the IRGC guy because somebody else will take care of him. The pressure on the Iranian population, there'll be a popular uprising, or some other faction will take control.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  It's the strategic calculus here is the United States plus all these other groups against the IRGC. And so how much ability is the IRGC, how much ability does the IRGC have to withstand all of these consistent pressures all over the place? We don't know. Nobody knows. Maybe they have an idea, maybe they think they have an idea, but we have no clue. But that's, that's, that's the strategy that's going into it.

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  We're not talking about that anymore. We're talking about, oh, you know, want them to make a deal because of the pain. And there, I think, you know, you look at-

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  I don't know many trying to make a deal.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  How many people did Mao starve? How many people did Stalin starve? How many people did North Koreans starve? They are immune to economic pain unless somebody else, maybe the regular army, somebody says-

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  It's the uprising.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  There has to be an uprising.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  They're not making a deal with IRGC. That's what I'm saying. That was never the option. The option here is, I've been saying from the beginning, is regime collapse.

• 1:03:50Speaker 03

  I agree entirely, but that's not what we're hearing out of Washington right now.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  And they're not going to say that, though. I mean, nobody in the Trump administration's going to say that we can't negotiate with these people because they're fanatics. What they're going to say is, like they said before, they're going to bring the public along slowly. First, they say, "We're going to have this wrapped up in six weeks." "Oh, then we're going to do a ceasefire and then we'll wrap it up." They're going to string along the idea of a deal, but I don't think that's their realistic-

• 1:04:12Speaker 03

  There's no midterm elections in Iran.

• 1:04:14Speaker 04

  The thing that makes it tough, though, is that, you know, the IRGC has guns and the people in the country don't have guns. You know, so regime collapse, you have to have one side that's having guns as well.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Historically, what makes a population rise up and get guns?

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  A rebel group?

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Starvation.

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, but wouldn't you say a rebel group typically exists with the help of an intelligence agency in situations where-

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  I think in Iran, the hope is that the regular army, they have guns. The other way regimes collapse-

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  Thirty percent of them are IRGC and the regular army.

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. The other way regimes collapse is the people with the guns realize, "This is completely rotten. I can't do this anymore." That's how the Soviet Union collapsed. The soldiers refused to fire.

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  Right. And which percentage of the army is religious zealots and which ones aren't? You know, that's a part of the question, too. In terms of US economy having trouble, I think we're due for a good recession, let some inflation die down a little bit. So I think that's fine, aside from the midterms.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  Except we're going to get stagflation. Welcome to your 1979. I was there. It was not fun.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  I know. Look, the midterm election, I think they realize they've lost the midterm. So the midterms isn't even a calculation here. This is, look, this is the long-term goals here. Again, it's short-term pain, long-term-

• 1:05:21Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know about that. I don't know about that. When I- You're not dealing with a guy that throws in the towel that quickly. You're not dealing with them.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  You're talking about Trump?

• 1:05:34Patrick Bet-David?

  You're dealing with a guy that thinks he can turn anything around. He is wired in a very different way than the average person tries to understand him. In my opinion. Now, having said that.

• 1:05:47Patrick Bet-David?

  You know how quickly we were talking about, everything was Epstein. Story went away. Everything is Iran. Everything is World Cup. We move so quickly. The average person moves on so quickly that it's like. You know, when somebody attacks you and you're maybe a newer influencer? Oh, my God, they wrote a hit piece on you. They lose sleep every night. Well, you know what the guy that's been around the block for a while says? Bro, this story is going to be done in 48 hours. People have lives to live. They're going to move on. But if it goes, my opinion, John, and please push back. I want you guys to disagree with me if you don't. If, my opinion. If they're able to figure it out before World Cup, we're scored away.

• 1:06:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Because World Cup is the biggest positive distraction they will have. Something massive is going to happen in the World Cup. And then we move on. Then you have 4th of July, 250 year anniversary. Then you got the, you know, UFC fight at the White House. You have so many positive distractions. That market's going to be like, and by the way, you know how this guy works. He's going to tweet something and say. You know, we have come to an agreement. We are very close for Cuba to be the 51st state or Cuba to be a, you know. And I was, oh, my God. We have come to Greenland and the next topic is that. So as much as I want to say I'm with you 70% on midterms. I don't think he's wired like that and I don't think his team is wired.

• 1:07:10Speaker 03

  And it's not, it's not just Trump because, of course, he's not doing the voting. I think what you said about Iran is true of the US. You need somewhere to run to, not just somewhere to run from. And the average voter says, I'm tired of Trump or the war or whatever. And then he looks at his average Democrat and says, oh, wait a minute, do I really want that team in power? But we'll see what happens.

• 1:07:27Patrick Bet-David?

  It's interesting you're saying that.

• 1:07:29Speaker 02

  The one pushback I have for you is that the one issue that Americans have focused on for year after year after year. Talking about five years now, that's kitchen table issue.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Cost of living.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  So you can distract them all they want and they go home and try to fill up the gasoline.

• 1:07:43Patrick Bet-David?

  No, no, you're right. No, you're right. And I'm telling you, you're right when it comes on to that right now. Do you know how bad farmers are doing right now? You know, farmers right now, I think bankruptcy for farmers last year in 2020. Was up fifty, uh, forty-six percent bankruptcies. You know the Strait of Hormuz? How much they're relying on the fertilizer that's coming from the Strait of Hormuz? How big of a liability this is for them? And when you go through all the different kinds, what they needed for price going from three hundred dollars to six hundred fifty dollars in months. So they're dealing with regulation, they're dealing with prices going up for, you know, fertilizer, they're dealing with all this stuff. So I think that that economy, so, oh, my God, farmers are charging up. Farmers are not making any money. If you look at the average farmer's margins, they make three to twelve percent if they're lucky.

• 1:08:27Patrick Bet-David?

  And they make zero to five percent on average year, and most of the time they're losing money. So we gotta make sure they're good. We gotta make sure the younger guys are buying houses, having kids. You know, and you're saying first time buyers dropping from forty percent to twenty-six percent. So they can't afford to buy house. I, I think that affordability issue was there before Iran, but this just kind of ratcheted things up a lot.

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  We can't do it the European way by writing everybody checks, because that'll just cause more inflation.

• 1:08:52Patrick Bet-David?

  But we are doing that with farmers. We get forty-four billion point three this year.

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  Sometimes it's necessary.

• 1:08:57Patrick Bet-David?

  With farmers, it may be, but I want to hear his thoughts on farmers.

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  That's where, you know, back, it would be lovely if they could score a victory. If Venezuela would actually have a change of regime, if Cuba would have a change of regime, if Iran would have a change of regime. That would be, hey, we actually notched one big victory. Otherwise, you know, yes, you and I, we say, oh, in the long run, this is a good thing for the US strategically, but at some point you want to win a political goal.

• 1:09:20Patrick Bet-David?

  That's massive. If they do flip Iran.

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  If.

• 1:09:24Patrick Bet-David?

  If, that's a big if. It's a five, ten percent, by the way. I'm putting it very low, but if they're able to flip that. This may be a complete.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  I think it's a higher percentage of success, and it will, if it does happen, it'll certainly be worth, that's again, it's short term pain. I think they realize this is going to cause short term pain, and this food issue is much bigger than people are giving it credit for.

• 1:09:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:43Speaker 02

  Not only will you have people who are pissed off about the economy for the last couple of years, now you jack up the price of gasoline. It's going to get to five, maybe five fifty, six dollars a gallon. You're going to see food prices rise not next month, but three, four, five months from now. So there'll be a delayed effect right before the midterms. And it's baked in the cake at this point. There's no going back. If they get the Hormuz problem solved tomorrow. It's too late. There's still gonna be some short-term. So you get by, by the time you get to November, you're gonna have gasoline prices are still relatively high, even if they start to come back down. You have food prices that are gonna be up. There's gonna be a lot of unrest around the rest of the world. So I think Trump administration being pragmatic.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  This is much worse than the rest of the world, and that's gonna spill over to us.

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:10:22Patrick Bet-David?

  You said this is much worse for the rest of the world?

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, much worse, much worse.

• 1:10:25Speaker 03

  The food and energy issue.

• 1:10:26Patrick Bet-David?

  They rely on us, so we have to lead the way.

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  Well, the fertilizer issue is hu- underappreciated. We could see, I mean, if it continues to go this way, you could see countries fall. You could see regimes collapse. That's, that's the real downside scenario.

• 1:10:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh my God, when you look at the data of how bad it's impacting farmers, it's pro- you know, you don't just ten year, this year we're gonna give, we're committing to forty-four point three billion dollars to farmers because less than nine percent of farmers are under the, uh, uh, under the age of thirty-five, which means young guys are now growing up saying, I wanna be a farmer. Everybody's above thirty-five. Forty-four point three billion dollars, we have to give them this year, farmers. Ten years ago, that was only eleven, twelve billion dollars. In ten years, it's four X.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Well, I, I will challenge the have to. So Franklin Roosevelt started giving money to farmers. We've been doing it ever since. The fraction of the US who works on farms, way under two percent right now, most of which are, are illegal immigrants. So, you know, this is a tiny slice of the US economy.

• 1:11:22Patrick Bet-David?

  They lost some of those.

• 1:11:23Speaker 03

  Well, that's another problem for farms is you, you can't get Americans to do it. So there's stuff rotting on the vine right now, because you can't get, can't get workers.

• 1:11:31Patrick Bet-David?

  You can't, that's the one thing you can't, God loves farmers.

• 1:11:34Speaker 03

  For the US, it's a small fraction of our economy that, God forbid, could be allowed to be the free market. If you're in the Philippines, if you're in Thailand, if you're in Malaysia, you know, they're.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  South America.

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  South America. This is really hard on the overall economy, as well as just.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I always wondered about that. So, um, play that out. What does that look like if we don't do farming subsidies? Because I always wondered if that was necessary, or if they did it so that, um, farmers could sell it, um, you know, lower prices, so they didn't have to, uh, kinda raise the prices with the market fluctuations? What would that look like if we stopped with farming subsidies?

• 1:12:03Speaker 03

  We would get cheaper food at.

• 1:12:07Speaker 02

  More productive.

• 1:12:08Speaker 03

  More productive and cheaper food.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  But you end up subsidizing all the unproductive farms.

• 1:12:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  Because they can't make the, they can't make enough food to make it profitable to pay it to sell at the market.

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  Are they worried they would go out of business though if they had to lower the price that much?

• 1:12:22Speaker 02

  They will. They will. You eliminate some of the unproductive producers and the overall system, you know, they get absorbed by the larger.

• 1:12:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, the mom and pop car company went away in the 1920s. Sorry, they were cute, but you know, big companies are more efficient.

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  So why doesn't Trump understand that though? Because Trump does the law of farming subsidies and he seems like a free market guy, so.

• 1:12:40Speaker 03

  Trump is not a free market guy and everybody has understood this since about 1955 and farmers vote and the senate is very, very biased towards rural areas. Let's say, why do we have corn ethanol?

• 1:12:52Speaker 04

  Are you saying there's a big farm out there? Big farmer, there's big farm.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Trump just went back in and we do more corn ethanol now, which is, this is, anybody wants industrial policy, my answer is corn ethanol. Complete waste, doesn't save the climate, but boy, oh, boy, they vote in Iowa.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  Hmm, interesting. Yeah, no, I always wondered about that, if it was actually necessary or not. And that's interesting. I wonder how that would play out if we let that, the free market dudes thing there. I always wondered if it was different than the rest of the industries.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  No, it's, there's almost no anti-free market argument you could make about food. I mean, all the fancy arguments my fellow economists like to make. Food, it's you plant stuff in the ground, you grow it, you sell it. Sometimes prices are high, sometimes prices are low. There's no failure free market there.

• 1:13:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you hear the things about them like destroying a certain amount of crops or whatnot to keep the prices elevated, right?

• 1:13:42Speaker 03

  Yep, that's what the government does.

• 1:13:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  So we pay artificially high prices, then the government buys the artificially high priced stuff and gives it away for free via food stamps, another way of supporting the farmers.

• 1:13:53Patrick Bet-David?

  It is, it is, but it is a form of it getting nationalized. Like, you know, we used to have 14,000 banks and we had a lot of small loans being given away. And then all of a sudden, the banks started picking them up. We saw what happened during COVID. We saw what happened during the recent crisis. When JP Morgan Chase started buying up a bunch of smaller bank, the signature bank, whatever it was. One by one by one, but the model was, hey, we need more loans and even during quantitative easing. When they say we're gonna give seven, eight hundred billion dollars and it's gonna be loans going to the small business owner, never went to the small business owner, got stuck up there. So. The same thing happened with defense. We used to have fifty-five defense companies that we would buy from. And they would compete. Now it's down to five because they're all picking each other up. So nationalizing that, nationalizing banking, nationalizing farming.

• 1:14:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Makes me a little bit uncomfortable, you know, on the, on the, on the, on that side, but. It, it is happening, you know, these guys like even on the insurance side, people are picking up the smaller guys. And it's getting more and more power going to five, seven, ten, twelve players.

• 1:14:51Speaker 03

  Well, large can be very competitive, so don't confuse. Large can be efficient and very competitive, so four or five is, is, is fine if they're competitive. The banks. Are very much protected from competition by the Fed.

• 1:15:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You, you know, they're, they're on the same team. They eventually end up being on the same team and they don't really. They, they, it's the wink, wink business model. I'm not. Uh, I'm not with that. And by the way, there's a lot of other manipulation that happens as well. We saw this in Florida since two thousand and five. Where a blithe was, uh, uh, you know, all of a sudden came in to different farms and. And ninety percent of our groves in Florida were destroyed, orange groves since two thousand and five and. Some are speculating, does it, the disconformation, the farmers have a lot of different risks that they deal with. It's almost like forcing them to say, sell. Sell, sell to the bigger guy, sell. And they have so many deceptive, dark ways of forcing the smaller guy to sell to the bigger guy. And, uh, you know.

• 1:15:44Patrick Bet-David?

  It, it, long term, long term, if the small business owner. If the barrier to entry is tough for the small business owner to get in and it's all gonna flow from the top. I don't, I don't look at capitalism, free market capitalism as that being a good thing for us, but. We'll see, we'll see what's gonna happen. Let me get to the next story here. You, you look like you wanna say something.

• 1:16:03Speaker 03

  Well, if we're gonna go to a capitalism versus socialism debate, uh, it's gonna take a while. Let's go on to the next story.

• 1:16:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, we, we make your.

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  There's not gonna be much debate here.

• 1:16:11Speaker 03

  Capitalism, crony capitalism or socialism, I'll, I'll take freedom. Capitalism is, is the freedom one.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  But let's be clear about capitalism. Capitalism is, it's core competition.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  Competition.

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  Competition, that's the key here, so.

• 1:16:23Speaker 03

  Competition by the right to enter, not, we don't need a big.

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  We don't get to decide what.

• 1:16:27Speaker 03

  The Federal Trade Commission approving any delivery deal, that, that's not competition.

• 1:16:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Milton Friedman said, let her, let her rip, let them go compete. I'm, I'm, I'm part of the. Milton Friedman.

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Competition solves so many problems.

• 1:16:38Patrick Bet-David?

  But let me tell. But let me tell. But but let me tell you which is bullshit. And this is the bullshit I'll call. Is if you want the free market and let the guys compete, great. Get rid of the lobbyists. Get rid of the crony stuff. Get rid of the other stuff. Or else hey, if I can afford to spend billions of dollars on lobbying and you can't. And you're a small guy coming up. That that that is that is that is a problem we'll be facing. If the small guy cannot compete. The heavier guy gets to control the market.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  Kind of monopolistic behavior is supposed to be something that the government takes care of. That's where you take the Teddy Roosevelt view and say, look, if you're going to act like a monopoly, we're going to break.

• 1:17:11Speaker 03

  But the monopolies are granted by the government. The reason the big guy can go and get lobbyist. Is because the lobbyist can get in with the regulator. The regulator can pass rules. It's you need limited government.

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  The lobbyist can hire the regulator after the regulator has given it.

• 1:17:26Speaker 03

  Exactly. Because of the the government is so powerful and putting its nose in so many places.

• 1:17:30Patrick Bet-David?

  What phone do you?

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  That's what's going on with with tariffs right now.

• 1:17:33Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm gonna go to I'm gonna go to the tariff story.

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  The sad part about tariffs is everybody's in there saying, oh, give me an exemption. It's just catnip for crony capital.

• 1:17:40Patrick Bet-David?

  John, what phone do you use?

• 1:17:41Speaker 03

  I have an iPhone.

• 1:17:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you use?

• 1:17:43Speaker 02

  I use Samsung.

• 1:17:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Samsung, Rob.

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  iPhone.

• 1:17:46Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you?

• 1:17:47Speaker 04

  iPhone.

• 1:17:48Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm an iPhone. So this is what? Five out of four out of five? Is it four out of five? Four out of five is Apple. Okay, if I were to ask the guys over there. Apple's a what percentage of US users iPhones? It's fifty seven percent, fifty five percent? It is a better product.

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  I disagree.

• 1:18:06Patrick Bet-David?

  But by the way, there's also, there's also.

• 1:18:08Speaker 03

  They're two darn good products which compete like crazy, even though there's only two.

• 1:18:12Patrick Bet-David?

  What are monopoly laws in America?

• 1:18:15Speaker 04

  Fifty percent.

• 1:18:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, wait a minute, they're at fifty five percent. So I don't even know if we're implementing the monopoly laws that we have in America.

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  We're not, no.

• 1:18:21Patrick Bet-David?

  No, so you said monopolies are granted.

• 1:18:24Speaker 03

  The monopoly law is not about size. So it's just size of the market. It's supposed to be about, it used to be about consumer welfare. Can we prove that you're hurting consumers by raising prices? That was the standard.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  Or restricting other competition. Anti-competitive. What used to be a big part of the mandate was, are you engaging in anti-competitive practices? Which, everything John just said, could be categorized as anti-competitive.

• 1:18:47Speaker 03

  It's kind of subjective.

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  Monopolies are granted largely by the government looking the other way.

• 1:18:51Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I'm saying. Yeah. When he said the word granted, I agree. So you're allowing this monopoly to be there and I'm going to look away.

• 1:18:57Speaker 03

  The teachers' union has a monopoly, and that's because nobody can enter unless, you know, in a given market. That's a government-granted monopoly.

• 1:19:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I mean...

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  Banks, you have to have a charter in order to become a bank. Okay.

• 1:19:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Let's go to the story. So you said tariffs. U.S. tariffs charges could rise, raise deficits by 1.1 trillion dollars, CBO officials say. Rob, is this the clip?

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:19:16Patrick Bet-David?

  22 minutes, Rob?

• 1:19:17Speaker 03

  Well, he gets to it right in the beginning.

• 1:19:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Go ahead, Rob.

• 1:19:20Speaker 04

  Let people know where we started here with your report before the changes arrived. A federal budget deficit projected to be 1.9 trillion dollars in 2026, rising to 3.1 trillion by 2036, debt held by the public growing from 101% of GDP to 120% in that period of time. So take away some, if not all, of the tariffs, those numbers get better, add the war in Iran, it could be a wash. Do you have any way of thinking about this now? Yeah. It's, I mean, so we could do some of that arithmetic. So the deficit over 10 years would be about, you know, 1.1 trillion dollars higher.

• 1:20:01Speaker 04

  Because of the net of the Supreme Court taking away some tariffs, the administration putting back some. The challenge is that the administration has a lot of authority to impose new tariffs and to change them around, so we haven't gotten to a point at which we're comfortable making that kind of long-term projection. And to create more debt while we're at it.

• 1:20:20Patrick Bet-David?

  So John, do you agree with them?

• 1:20:23Speaker 03

  About what?

• 1:20:23Patrick Bet-David?

  About what he's saying there. So, meaning that the administration still has the power to impose new tariffs even though, you know, the Supreme Court ruled against it. U.S. can still use that as a...

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  That's true. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the emergency tariffs. I forget the number of the section, but the Congress has delegated so much tariff imposition authority to the administration. So, there's about five different laws, and they're patiently working their ways through those procedures to put tariffs back in again.

• 1:20:53Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:21:22Speaker 05

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• 1:21:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Kayak searches and compares hundreds of travel sites. But unless I repeat the word kayak, Kayak thinks you won't remember that. So, Kayak asked me to say kayak as many times as possible. Kayak! Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kayak, kayak, kayak.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  Kayak!

• 1:22:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Search and compare travel deals with Kayak. Got that right?

• 1:22:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think that's not really the issue. Really, the issue is about the deficit itself. I mean, let's not get distracted on the tariffs. The tariffs are... 1.1 trillion is a big number, but it's over 10 years to begin with. And we don't like, we have no idea what that number, and that's what the CBOG guy was saying. He's like, "We can't even do a projection here because we have no clue. We don't know the legal stuff. We don't know what the effects are going to be." The much bigger problem is the deficit itself. The fact that it's as ridiculous as it is, and it's only going to get bigger, that's the problem.

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  And tariffs are very small as far as revenue. So tariffs are an answer in search of a question. One of those questions was, "Oh, we'll raise revenue." Because the federal government did raise almost all its revenue from tariffs back in the 19th century. And the federal government was about 2% of GDP back then.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  Well, you can't raise that kind of revenue on tariffs anymore.

• 1:23:01Speaker 04

  I always looked at it though as like a behavior shaping mechanism rather than a revenue source with the tariffs. You know, like the whole point of this is to get companies to come back on shore rather than looking at it as a, you know, outlet for revenue or a way to save us from our deficit. And, you know, I'm so curious what would happen if we, for a year or two, made it illegal for the government to go over the budget that it receives in revenue from the, you know, the taxes.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  What do you mean, the debt ceiling doesn't work?

• 1:23:26Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, what would be cut first? Like, I mean, what would happen if we weren't allowed to go into deficit in the yearly budget, right? Like, it's what, about 1.5 to 2 trillion per year that they go over budget?

• 1:23:37Speaker 03

  We could start by just actually using the budget process we have. There's this lovely budget process in Congress where you're supposed to say, "Here's the overall total." And then everything has to add up to that. They don't even obey that.

• 1:23:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  So, you know, whether that overall total obeys a balanced budget on that particular year, that's a fun argument to have. But let's just start with, guys abide by the overall total that you're supposed to do in the first place.

• 1:24:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. Because I think that's the root of everything. That's the root of inflation. That's the root of, you know, obviously, the 40 trillion that we're in now. So I think that's the root of all these problems that we're having.

• 1:24:13Speaker 02

  This is where the waste and fraud is coming from.

• 1:24:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Here's what Elon Musk said. Elon Musk said, "America will 1,000% go bankrupt due to debt." And here's what he claims can save the country. Is this it, Rob?

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:24:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Go for it.

• 1:24:25Speaker 06

  I think that's right. What was the point of the Doge cuts if the economy is going to grow so much? Well, I think like waste and fraud are not good things to have, you know.

• 1:24:38Speaker 06

  I was actually pretty worried about, I guess...

• 1:24:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, I think in the absence of AI and robotics, we're actually totally screwed because the national debt is piling up like crazy. Now, our interest payments, the interest payments to national debt exceed the military budget, which is a trillion dollars. So over a trillion dollars just the interest payments.

• 1:25:03Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, that was like, I was like, okay, pretty concerned about that. Maybe if I spend some time, we can slow down the bankruptcy of the United States and give us enough time for the AI and robots to, you know, help solve the national debt. Or not help solve. It's the only thing that could solve the national debt. Like, we are 1,000% going to go bankrupt as a country and fail as a country without AI and robots. Nothing else will solve the national debt. And so we'd like to, well, we just need, we need enough time to build the AI and robots to not go bankrupt before then. We can pause it right there. By the way, we got 39 trillion out of national debt. He's saying that. Jeff, do you agree with him?

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, look, historically, what we did after World War II, we got out of that debt mess by allowing a little bit of fiscal sanity from Truman and Eisenhower. It wasn't aggressive, it wasn't austerity. It was just, hey, let's not spend like we were during the 30s and 40s. And you allow the economy to grow. So what Musk is saying is like, the economy that he sees building from AI and robots will be enough economic growth and economic potential that if we pair that with a little bit of fiscal sanity, we'll solve the debt problem the same way that we did in the 1950s and 1960s before it all went to hell again afterwards. So that's, that's the only way to do this. That's the only legitimate way to do this, is to grow our way out of the deficit problem. But the first part of that is you have to have a little bit of fiscal sanity. And you have to have the political

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  will to have fiscal sanity. And in many ways, that's the hard part.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  I'll put more of an emphasis on the fiscal sanity part. Musk write that growth is the thing that solves all wounds. AI is one potential source of growth, not as fast as my Silicon Valley people trying to get your money on their IPO will tell you, but It is is one, you know, growth comes from new inventions like AI. But um, there's there's statements that this is the only thing, AI is the only thing that will save us, I think, are wrong. Yeah. Because of the size of the dumpster fires. So the the main problem is spending, and there's about a trillion dollars going down various rat holes, not not so much fraud, because it's perfectly legal fraud. We we're just talking about farm subsidies, speaking of rat hole.

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  But the, you know, the big one is social security, healthcare. You know, our government prints checks and sends it to voters more than it feels like taxing them. Our tax system is completely dysfunctional, so it it is designed to raise as little money as possible at the highest possible marginal rates. It needs the opposite. So, you know, a 1986 style tax reform, or heaven forbid, put in a consumption tax instead of the income tax. All straightforward, money would roll in, and let's fix the dumpster fires of our growth, not just hope for AI. Let me introduce you to the California high speed train example, you know. Can you do that? I mean, it doesn't exist, right? You can't. Exactly. You cannot build anything in the US anymore, which, you know, actually, I'm progressive. Democrats have figured out I can't hook up my windmills to the power grid.

• 1:28:02Speaker 03

  It takes 15 years to get the permits. Maybe something's wrong here. But there are so many just things in the way, permits in the way of getting anything done in the US that I think fixing those dumpster fires of growth, getting back to a little bit of free markets, spending sanity, reform the tax code, those are all perfectly possible of a faintly faintly competent government. And then, yes, AI largely have get out of the way. The last thing we need is an AI policy to guide the growth of AI. That'll kill it the way the Europeans did.

• 1:28:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, the way it's set right now, it almost feels like somebody who has terrible spending habits, like that's in debt with their credit cards and everything, if they were to win the lottery with like, you know, the blessing of a massive economic boom, we would handle it terribly right now because we don't have the foundation or the infrastructure to, you know, manage the economy properly of like, you know, the the spending habits of Congress today were applied to an economy where AI and robotics bring us to the stratosphere in terms of economic growth. We would still find a way to ruin it because of the habits that we have in place.

• 1:29:00Speaker 03

  Yes, they would.

• 1:29:01Speaker 02

  To spend it, yeah.

• 1:29:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we need to get that screwed. It sucks because I, you know, the way that Elon Musk responded to the dog situation makes me think that like that's the biggest, most powerful money pot in the history of the world. This this deficit like something that happens every year that something scared the hell out of money. Tried to tap into that and stop it. So he backed right away from that. And now he's just kind of taking a different approach.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  Right. And it's a power center, right?

• 1:29:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:23Speaker 02

  The bigger the government get, the more more money it has, the more political influence it has just by its very nature.

• 1:29:28Speaker 04

  Right. All that social security money, military, healthcare.

• 1:29:31Speaker 02

  The leering center up in Minnesota. Where does that come from?

• 1:29:34Patrick Bet-David?

  But let me ask you this. While he's talking here, he's saying things. He's also continued saying that, you know, saving for retirement is irrelevant because AI is going to create a world of abundance. It will not matter when he's talking about retirement. Rob, is this the clip?

• 1:29:48Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 1:29:48Patrick Bet-David?

  I wonder where you guys are at with this. Go for it. UBI. In other words, one of the questions is if in fact this future we hit massive productivity and massive profitability because we're dividing by zero. The cost of labor has gone to nothing. The cost of intelligence has gone to nothing. And we're still producing products and services faster and faster. So there's more profitability. Someone needs to be buying it and someone needs to be able to have the capital to buy it.

• 1:30:15Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, this is an important question to get to get thought through. Yeah. Well, one like side recommendation I have is like, don't worry about like squirreling money away for retirement in like 10 or 20 years, one matter.

• 1:30:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:30:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Either either we're not going to be here or. It just like it's you. You won't need to save for retirement. If if any of the things that we've said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant. The services, services will be there to support you. You'll have the home. You'll have the healthcare. You'll have the entertainment.

• 1:30:52Speaker 04

  The way this unfolds is fundamentally impossible to predict because of self improvement of the AI and the accelerating timeline.

• 1:30:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Pause it right there. Do you agree?

• 1:31:01Speaker 02

  No, no, no. I mean, first of all, you know. Is that a reckless comment to make? Yes, for, but what we're really talking about here, okay, let's assume that he's correct and then we have these labor-saving robots and it's software and everything else. But how do you distribute all of the, all of the goods that are made and all the services that are provided? You can't just eliminate the economy. You can't just say, hey, we're just, everybody's gonna have something for free. There's still a distribution mechanism and I, there's still arguments to be made about whether or not that's actually achievable to begin with. Is there enough resources to be available to, I mean, they're talking about having more robots walking around than humans. How do we get to that point to begin with? Is that something that's gonna happen in 10 or 20 years?

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  I highly doubt it. I think that there is a positive outcome here, that the human-robot partnership will make people more productive. But people stay at the center of the economy, they stay at the center of everything.

• 1:31:53Speaker 03

  Yes, that was one of the more economically incoherent things.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, John, can you pull the mic a little bit closer?

• 1:31:59Speaker 03

  One of the more economically incoherent things I've ever heard. These guys are brilliant about starting companies and AI, but not about adding together. And it's, there's the fancy word is cognitive dissonance for completely incompatible thoughts that live at the same time. So at the same time, don't worry about saving for retirement because we'll all be so bountiful, but the US government is 100% gonna go bankrupt.

• 1:32:19Speaker 02

  You noticed that.

• 1:32:20Speaker 03

  But we need, that bankrupt government has to give universal basic income to everybody because we're all gonna lose our jobs to the, to the, I mean, it just does not make any sense whatsoever. What's gonna happen? We have seen this hundreds of times before, from the invention of the printing press, the steam engine, the locomotive, the steamship, the tractor, tractor. It's 1900, 70% of Americans work on the farm, the tractor's invented. Oh no, we need universal basic income because they're all gonna be out of a job. Well, it turned out not to. You got it exactly right. This will raise human productivity.

• 1:32:52Speaker 02

  Human.

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  And this will open, this AI is special because it's going to open new possibilities. It's not, we have the old production line and we have now a machine that gets rid of three of you, go out and live in the streets. No. This opens new possibilities, new businesses, that you can radically reduce the scale of a business to get started. It, the things that humans do are gonna become worth much, much more and that's why humans will have the money to buy the stuff.

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  AI does not eliminate workers, it eliminates hours.

• 1:33:22Speaker 03

  It eliminates tasks and burdensome.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  Right, so you have spent less time doing the same amount of stuff.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  I want the AI who can answer my email and fill out my expense reports and I will have three quarters.

• 1:33:33Patrick Bet-David?

  The fact that you guys are agreeing, it is scary because you guys, you guys are not talking about your blind spots.

• 1:33:40Speaker 03

  But it will be slower. This will not come in one or two.

• 1:33:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, Brandon.

• 1:33:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I mean, each, each time this song happens, though, there's things that we'd never even thought of that we, we end up doing with the economy, you know, like jobs and tasks that we couldn't think of before because we didn't have the time to do it before. But anytime, you know, you are relying on somebody else or relying on the government especially, you're getting yourself into a trap. Like, I mean, the sad, the sad thing is that there are going to be people who listen to them here who assume they're going to be taken care of by the system or by the government. Horrible situation to be in. I mean, even let's say there were.

• 1:34:10Speaker 02

  There's retirees out there right now liquidating their stock portfolios and just going on vacations.

• 1:34:14Patrick Bet-David?

  More his age.

• 1:34:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:16Patrick Bet-David?

  I think it's guys in their twenties and thirties.

• 1:34:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:18Patrick Bet-David?

  That will be reckless.

• 1:34:19Speaker 04

  A hundred percent. There are people that will run with this. I'll totally, you know, take it up.

• 1:34:23Patrick Bet-David?

  You know why though? Because there, there is a, there's a big group of people that want to have a savior. And, and when I mean savior, I'm talking different than faith. I'm talking savior to say they're going to save us.

• 1:34:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:38Patrick Bet-David?

  They're going to take care of us financially. They're going to do this. Listen, you know, the, the old saying, pray like it's up to God, you know, but work like it's up to you. And to me, if you're sitting here saying, you can pray like it's up to Elon and all the, you know, trillionaires and billionaires that are going to take care of you, but you better work like it's up to you because it's going to come down. The, the onus is going to be on you. You got to pull your, I think it's a little bit reckless to make a comment like this, uh, because you are, you are followed by hundreds of millions of people. Some could say you're followed by billions. Maybe some people don't follow you, but billions know who you are. For you to make a comment like that, it's a little bit scary. I will say the other side as well, on what you guys are talking about is yes, the tractor.

• 1:35:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I went and we, we did an exercise together. We looked at the numbers of what tractors did and how scary it was. Forty million workers that we had and all of a sudden boom, it was like, oh my God. And not even forty million, it was forty percent of workers I think were in manufacturing, you know. But the difference is, you know, the zero to million chart that we see, you know, the zero to million, like, hey, it took Facebook this long to get to a million. Hey, it took Google this long. Hey, it took ChatGPT. How long to get to a million? If you think about inventions that disrupted our lives and it was overnight. OpenAI ChatGPT was overnight. I was like, hey, can you write a rap song by Trump? But you know, write a rap song in Tupac's voice, but as if Trump is saying it with the words that he would use.

• 1:36:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Boom, that video went viral instantly, within seconds, you got something. So I think OpenAI made things and you know, the whole atrophy conversation. You know how I tore my ACL and everybody's telling me, every doctor I meet would atrophy, atrophy, atrophy, atrophy, your quad strength is going to go away very quickly. But quad strength is one thing, I can rehab it and I'm prehabbing it right now to get it addressed. The atrophy of the brain of kids no longer need, like right now, I'm giving an assignment to one of my nephews. One of my nephews, as if I have a hundred, I have one nephew. Giving an assignment to my nephew. And the way I'm doing it is, I know you can go to ChatGPT and ask for a summary of a book, but I know the three stories of the book because I've read the entire book. And I'm going to say, what happened to such and such in the story?

• 1:36:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Because I want him to read it. I don't want him to have atrophy because he's relying on OpenAI. So then the question becomes, which we don't know. We all are, you know, senior fellow Hoover, professor, Chicago Booth. I mean, you know, the heavyweight, he's taught what, who have been your students over the years? I bet you've had some students that have been very successful in their lives that are probably famous people. Successful guy, when it comes down to money and you know, hey, you got your stuff that you've done with, you know, schooling and what you're doing now. But we don't know what life is going to be like when all of a sudden we're going to the mall. We see a thousand robots. We don't know what work is going, the part of unknown, this is why I'm part of the Andy Grove community, where he wrote a book called Only the Paranoid Survive. I think if you're cocky, arrogant, confident about anything right now, you will be destroyed.

• 1:37:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I think if you think you know it all right now because of whatever thinking in the past got you, don't get me wrong, have your values, principles, all those evergreen principles. But if you get too cocky right now, there's a percentage of things that could happen next decade or two that we know nothing about it. And you as a family, the leader of the family that's watching this content, a lot of our people that follow the content, they're business owners, they're executives, they're people that are performers or else you couldn't listen. You couldn't tolerate listen to us for too long, right? So no, look at these guys, I don't want to. So you're somebody, you're performing, you're winning and you're off. It is on us to make sure we take the lead. If we sit down, we're like, oh, my God, Elon Musk just told us this is great. Babe, let's go to Vegas and double up the money and gambling. I think there's a little bit of risk that we're facing.

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  I wouldn't worry about young people taking retirement advice from Elon Musk's tweets too seriously. Where I'm in Palo Alto, most young people are still, if they're not saving for retirement, it's because they think the climate apocalypse is gonna come.

• 1:38:21Patrick Bet-David?

  America's not Palo Alto.

• 1:38:22Speaker 03

  And, well, young people.

• 1:38:24Patrick Bet-David?

  You're living on an island.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  No, young people who've had the unfortunate experience of a fancy universities tend to believe that way. But more seriously, you know, what's gonna, what's gonna matter is people who know how to use AI. So I actually think the young are gonna be fine because they're the ones who know how to use AI to cheat on tests. They're gonna know how to use AI in the workplace. And, and think historically, everything that's come, people have always said, oh, it's gonna be, the calculator will come. They'll know, they won't know any math. The automobile will come, it's gonna destroy the morality of young America. It always worked out fine. If you worry about jobs, though, which I do, there are gonna be people who lose their jobs. There are gonna be people who are left behind. But what we absolutely don't wanna do is regulate AI or give them checks so long as they don't learn new skills and get a new job. That's the way Europe does it.

• 1:39:08Speaker 03

  You know, if you worry about jobs, worry about our education system. You worry about people who aren't able to read, worry about people who aren't taught to read in schools, who are graduated from schools, thanks to the teachers' union, with a third grade reading level ability. That's where lack of reading comes from, not because they're spending too much time scrolling AI-enabled Twitter.

• 1:39:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so let's, let's go to a story of guys in your community. Sam Altman, right? There's a lot of stuff going on between him and Elon. We're on a bunch of stories with Elon today, apparently. So Elon Musk says.

• 1:39:37Speaker 03

  He's a fun guy.

• 1:39:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Open AI was his idea before executives looted it, okay? And this is getting very, very nasty. This is a Reuters story I'll read. On what he says Elon Musk took the stand on Tuesday. Is this it Rob? Is him speaking or is just giving an update on it? An update on it. I'll just read it here myself faster. So took on the stand Tuesday on high stakes trial over the future of OpenAI. Casting his lawsuit against Chad GPT Maker. As a defensive charitable given the world's richest person is suing OpenAI. Its co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman and its president Greg Brockman. Saying they betrayed him and the public by abandoning OpenAI's mission to be a benevolent.

• 1:40:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Steward of AI for humanity and transforming the nonprofit into a profit seeking juggernaut. If we make it okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable living. Giving in America will be destroyed. Musk testified on the first day of trial. That's my concern. Musk, who founded automaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX. Characterize OpenAI as brainchild as well. I came up with the idea, the name. Recruited the key people, taught them everything I know. Provided all of the initial funding. It was specifically meant to be for a charity that does not benefit any individual person. I could have started it as a for-profit. And specifically chose not to before Musk began testifying. William Savitt. A lawyer for OpenAI and Altman told jurors during his opening statement.

• 1:41:05Patrick Bet-David?

  It was Musk who saw dollar signs as he helped finance OpenAI early growth. And pushed it to become a for-profit. One he might eventually lead as a CEO. Savitt said Musk wanted the keys. To the kingdom and sued only after he failed in 2023. He started his own AI business, XAI, and now part of SpaceX. What he cares about is Elon Musk being on top, Savitt said. We are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast.

• 1:41:48Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:42:03Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:42:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kai. Ooh. Ak. Kai, Kai, Kai, Kai, kayak. Kayak, kayak, kayak. Kayak. Search, compare, and save on your trip. Kayak. Got that right. Jeff?

• 1:43:04Speaker 02

  Uh, who the hell knows? I mean, it's a he said, he said she said. And unfortunately, you can see both sides have arguments. Because, I mean, Ilan does come across as some guy who always has to be on top, and maybe that's a true story. Um, then his point of view, you could also see that as potentially being, being the issue there. But I think the broader issue is more really about, um, who gets to control where this is going? I think it's really about, um, who, not necessarily who benefits, but who's gonna be on top as the wave continues to move? And honestly, I have no idea which, which story to believe in.

• 1:43:40Patrick Bet-David?

  John?

• 1:43:40Speaker 03

  There's nothing more fun than watching billionaires fight over money, is there? And nothing that brings.

• 1:43:45Speaker 02

  But it's not money, it's prestige, it's control. It's all the stuff that they don't get with their money.

• 1:43:49Speaker 03

  But once you got a billion, a friend of mine who's a billionaire hedge fund manager says, "It's not about the money, John, it's the scorecard."

• 1:43:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:43:55Speaker 03

  And, you know. But there is a serious issue here. The which AI question, the who controls it. AI is gonna be in our future. But which actual company is going to survive? Or which new companies are gonna come in? And every time people tell me, "Oh, the internet's a monopoly." I say, "Yeah, you know, you got it right." Yahoo. AOL, Time Warner, Netscape, they got this thing just wrapped up, don't they? There's gonna be a shakeout. These companies are all ridiculously overvalued. We will get wonderful AI, but just which one of these or what?

• 1:44:24Speaker 02

  Well, for these guys, it's a blood sport, right? It's a competition. It's a game. It's not necessarily about AI or business or making money.

• 1:44:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Which one do you use? What do you use?

• 1:44:32Speaker 03

  Oh, I use a company. I use both Chat and Claude right now, yeah.

• 1:44:35Patrick Bet-David?

  You use Chat and Claude? Which one more?

• 1:44:38Speaker 03

  Um, I've been using it mostly for writing lately, so Claude's been pretty good about that.

• 1:44:42Patrick Bet-David?

  How about yourself?

• 1:44:43Speaker 02

  I use Chat.

• 1:44:44Patrick Bet-David?

  You still use Chat?

• 1:44:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon?

• 1:44:46Speaker 04

  I started using Claude recently, like the last couple of months, phased out ChatGPT.

• 1:44:51Patrick Bet-David?

  You phased out ChatGPT?

• 1:44:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:52Speaker 02

  Why?

• 1:44:53Speaker 04

  It's not as unbiased. It isn't as structured as Claude. Claude seems better researched. And, um, yeah, Gemini is better at searching things on the internet. Like ChatGPT just seems like it's out of sync with what's actually online. Like it has like something pre-stored rather than being able to search the internet. So Claude and Gemini seem to be able to search the internet better.

• 1:45:12Speaker 03

  Grok also is reasonable on searching.

• 1:45:15Speaker 04

  It says some crazy stuff sometimes.

• 1:45:16Speaker 03

  No, they do crazy stuff. I mean, you know, as to your earlier point, yeah, they came in, we're all using them. But you can't see a bit of them in the productivity statistics yet. Getting this thing to really make a difference in actual business applications in a reliable way. Claude just goes off and hallucinates like crazy every now and then. And you can't, you can't use that in a business until you really got the process.

• 1:45:38Speaker 04

  In terms of trajectory, though, like I said to you before, I think that ChatGPT is, you know, gonna be done in five years. You know, they start off hot. Usually it's the one that's there first that ends up being the best. But I don't know, I think Claude's probably gonna dethrone it. Gemini will be around because it has the power of Google behind it to invest in it. But ChatGPT has never really been profitable. They've gotten a bad reputation. And I think, you know, just based on the tracker of Elon versus Sam Altman, a lot of the success probably was because of like, you know, the vision of Elon at first, you know, that.

• 1:46:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you met a Sam Altman?

• 1:46:09Speaker 03

  Um, no, no, we're not great. You know, we live in Palo Alto. We're not great buddies. I would challenge you, though, it's usually not the first. It's usually the fifth. You know, Google was not the first search, search engine.

• 1:46:21Speaker 03

  You know, Edison started with Direct Current.

• 1:46:23Speaker 04

  I guess I was seeing the book position that says that something usually is first, but you're right, yeah.

• 1:46:28Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, you know what was the first social media website?

• 1:46:31Speaker 04

  MySpace.

• 1:46:32Patrick Bet-David?

  No, it wasn't.

• 1:46:32Speaker 02

  Before that?

• 1:46:33Patrick Bet-David?

  No. No, it was Friendster.

• 1:46:35Speaker 04

  I've never heard of that.

• 1:46:37Patrick Bet-David?

  But they were the first. It was Friendster. And I see Jeff very active on MySpace. Very. To this day. You gotta kind of slow down a little bit, Jeff. I hear all your posts.

• 1:46:46Speaker 03

  I would also add that, you know, the big thing that I think is exciting about AI is not the large language models that we're playing with. It's the AI used in specific applications, business applications of AI. It's kind of under the radar screen, but that's what's going to drive.

• 1:46:59Speaker 02

  Well, that's the promise of AI, isn't it? It's, it's, it's not a, you know, a homogenized AI, you know, big AI like cloud computing. It's, uh, it's the ability to customize it and make it an individual experience that you can use it for whatever it is you need it to do.

• 1:47:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, in large language, it's, it's all about prediction. So it's a, it's a ability to predict what comes next, given a vast amount of data. That's useful in predicting what word comes next. It's useful in predicting what picture comes next. It's useful in, in finding out where are the, uh, where are the Russians in Ukraine? And, and all sorts of things.

• 1:47:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, let me get to next story here. Next story is the main one that California's billionaire tax could.

• 1:47:35Speaker 02

  It's not a tax.

• 1:47:36Patrick Bet-David?

  A hundred thousand California jobs and revenue. And apparently they got enough signatures to be on the November ballot. Is this it, Rob? Yes. That they're celebrating it? Go for it. The push for a new tax on California billionaires has reached a major milestone. This morning, a coalition of healthcare workers announced that they've collected enough signatures. I was about to make a comment. It wouldn't have been appropriate. To put the initiative on the November ballot. The proposal, known as the billionaire's tax, is a one-time 5% tax on Californians with a net worth of a billion dollars or more. The measure is backed by the SEIU United Healthcare Workers West. Renee Saldana is a spokesperson for the union. She says the money would go to help keep hospitals open and protect access to.

• 1:48:21Speaker 02

  Every penny.

• 1:48:22Patrick Bet-David?

  People were excited to sign this. People understood the stakes that our healthcare system is going to be stripped of $100 billion just in California. And they want to keep their hospital open. They want to keep their ER open. They want to make sure that they can still get healthcare when they need it. You can pause it right there. But even if this makes it to the. Keep it, keep it going, even if it makes it on the ballot. Expected to face a major fight. Governor Gavin Newsom. has already come out against the billionaires tax arguing that it could hurt the state's economy and budget if it drives California's wealthiest residents to relocate. Google co-founder Sergey Brin has already. Pause it right there. So they needed 875 signatures. They got 1.55 million already. So we know it's going to be on the ballot. It's a big talk with a lot of people. Lots

• 1:49:05Patrick Bet-David?

  of people have left. Sergey Brin just came out and made comments about this. He says brutal way. Google Sergey Brin told Gavin Newsom he was ditching California. California Gavin Newsom apparently felt sick literally after he found out that one of the most influential tech figures were quitting the state back in December at a treehouse party north of San Francisco. The Google founder Sergey Brin confronted Democratic governor Brin won the wealthiest man told Newsom he was leaving the state. He mentioned a proposed tax on billionaires which would hit $260 billion net worth hard. Newsom was reportedly cold and hungry when Brin and his girlfriend spoke with him at the Christmas event. He made some comments talking about is there the clip there on what he says, Rob? He said something about he left. He left a socialist. Where's the part where he says that? There's

• 1:49:50Patrick Bet-David?

  a quote about him saying there's a reason why he left the socialist state. Next story from Forbes. Next story from Forbes. I'm adamantly Brin told moved to back to trying to see where that quote is, Rob. If you want to find it, I'll read it to you. There's a quote there. He says about the socialist. Anyways, yeah, Google billionaire Sergey Brin compares California war tax to Soviet Union socialism on why he's leaving. So John, you're there. You're in Palo Alto. What are you hearing?

• 1:50:17Speaker 03

  Well, I'm hearing my colleague Josh Rao at Hoover who has done some of the best analysis of this, which is yep, the billionaires are on the way out. Don't slam the door behind you. And in fact, the state is going to lose money, not just on this tax. When the billionaires leave, you don't get to tax the future income going forward. So we're going to leave. California is so weighted towards a high income on their taxes. They're going to actually lose money on it. He had a great debate with Emmanuel Saez, an economist who was one of the big brains behind this thing. Saez was quite honest. It wasn't about raising revenue. It's about getting rid of billionaires. He thinks that if you can get rid of the billionaires' wealth, you'll reduce their political power. That's an interesting.

• 1:51:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you agree with that?

• 1:51:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:51:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Anywhere they go, they're going to have political power.

• 1:51:05Speaker 03

  Oh, well, I also disagree with the idea that what's wrong with America right now is the billionaires have political power. By the way, dear lefties, most of the billionaires are lefties. They're pushing for climate change and inequity and all the other stuff.

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  Things too.

• 1:51:19Speaker 03

  But, you know, in America, it's not, you know, look at Trump. Trump was with some money, able to disrupt a political system that otherwise would have been in the hands of a blob. If the billion, if you get rid of the billionaires' political power, what they're saying is, we want that power in the hands of the government. Which is, it's at the 250th anniversary of "That's a Bad Idea."

• 1:51:42Speaker 02

  Who was that guy that economists said that this is about? Give him credit, being honest, but this is a political move.

• 1:51:48Speaker 03

  It's, yeah.

• 1:51:48Speaker 02

  It's, we've talked about this before, you know, the demonization of successful people.

• 1:51:53Speaker 03

  They want to bring back the guillotine and that, you know.

• 1:51:55Speaker 02

  Exactly, this is about creating a villain.

• 1:51:57Speaker 03

  Get rid of the, get rid of the rich.

• 1:51:58Speaker 02

  You talk about, you know, we need to create a god and we need to have a savior. Well, the other part of that is we also need to have a villain. And politics is about crafting a story. And the story usually has a savior, the protagonist, and then there has to be a villain on the other side of it. And they've decided that the billionaires are villains.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  I want to give them some credit for cleverness. Now, most wealth tax proposals, like the French one, is we're going to take 1% or 2% of your wealth a year. Which, when you think about it, you know, if you're getting a 2% return, a 2% wealth tax, to get rid of the entire return. So it's a huge, even 2% is a huge tax. The problem with that is then people don't save and invest anymore.

• 1:52:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:52:33Speaker 03

  In economic theory, a one-time wealth tax that nobody expects is in fact a great tax. Because you can't distort savings investment. The problem is, one time. Everybody instantly chuckles when you say, "One time, we're never doing this again." So that's clearly why that's not going to work.

• 1:52:49Speaker 02

  Brandon?

• 1:52:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see the billionaires of California get together and advocate for an audit of all the things that California has, you know, wasted money on, like, all the black holes. Whether it be the high-speed railway, whether it be the 24 billion that disappeared that was supposed to go towards the homeless. Whether it be, was it the Calp, is it Calpers?

• 1:53:08Speaker 03

  85,000 per homeless person. And what do you get? More homeless people.

• 1:53:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  I wonder why.

• 1:53:12Speaker 04

  Where did that go? And the, was it?

• 1:53:14Speaker 03

  It went into the NGO industrial complex is where it went.

• 1:53:17Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm, yeah, exactly.

• 1:53:18Speaker 02

  Well, that's the lie at the heart of all this, right? The choice that they're giving these people is, either we tax the billionaires, or you have no hospitals.

• 1:53:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:53:25Speaker 02

  Which is absolutely ridiculous.

• 1:53:25Speaker 03

  Absolutely false.

• 1:53:26Speaker 02

  That is absolutely ridiculous.

• 1:53:27Speaker 03

  And it's false that Medicare's being cut.

• 1:53:29Speaker 02

  Right, right. So why not, we don't build the bullet train to nowhere and take that money? Because there's about 100 billion there, or at least there would have been.

• 1:53:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:36Speaker 02

  That would have paid for this, suppose, I mean, it's, it's all about political narrative and story.

• 1:53:40Patrick Bet-David?

  What could happen for you to leave California? Anything? You've got four kids, two grandkids, you've got a family, would anything happen for you to leave?

• 1:53:49Speaker 03

  Yes, due to climate change, the weather in Texas becomes like the weather in Alabama.

• 1:53:57Speaker 03

  Oh, and somehow some mountains spring up and you're just outside of Austin where I can go skiing.

• 1:54:01Patrick Bet-David?

  So you would?

• 1:54:02Speaker 03

  I think it's funny that Newsom is finally, you know, he'd like to be president. And that the billionaire tax is where you can see, we can already film the campaign commercials. How about a viaduct for the unbuilt high-speed train, which will be the ruins of progressive state that our grandchildren will go see? Or maybe the houses that are still, that are burned down in the Palisades that are still completely unrebuilt because they can't get permits. Good luck Gavin.

• 1:54:28Patrick Bet-David?

  So would you, is it at a point where you're talking to your family and saying you may leave? Are you there yet?

• 1:54:36Speaker 02

  Too much inertia.

• 1:54:37Speaker 03

  Too much inertia. I love my home and I don't have a billion dollars. If you guys pay me a little more for this.

• 1:54:42Speaker 02

  If you think they're gonna stop at a billion dollars.

• 1:54:44Patrick Bet-David?

  They're coming for you too. They're coming for you.

• 1:54:47Speaker 02

  Maybe the, maybe the guillotine.

• 1:54:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Professor, senior fellow, tax them.

• 1:54:52Speaker 03

  If you work out, even before the billionaire tax, you work out with a total marginal tax rate. I earn an extra dollar, how much federal, state, local, property tax, sales tax, excise tax, all the rest of it that you pay in the high tax states, California and New York. It is just astounding how, you know, the idea there's room to tax the rich is when, then I ask people, okay, well what tax?

• 1:55:13Speaker 02

  Isn't that why they're taxing wealth?

• 1:55:14Speaker 03

  They say you should raise.

• 1:55:15Speaker 02

  You can't tax the income anymore, we gotta tax the wealth.

• 1:55:16Speaker 03

  We should raise the taxes on the rich and ask, what do you think the rich are paying now? And usually they have no clue.

• 1:55:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, the top 1% pays 41% of taxes.

• 1:55:25Speaker 03

  And that's the average. So the marginal, if I earn an extra dollar is even higher. I figure it's above 60%.

• 1:55:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Above 60% that the top 1% is paying?

• 1:55:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:55:33Patrick Bet-David?

  But the campaign, the top 1%, they need to pay their fair share, you know, that's the campaign that's happening. Let me get to the next story here. Next story is, so Jimmy Kimmel, a few days ago, makes a comment about President Trump's wife. And says, you look like, just go to my Twitter account if you don't have it, you look like an expectant, expected widow, right? And that goes viral. Everybody starts talking about it. Wait a minute, why would he say such a thing, right? That's the clip right there, it's seven seconds. So he makes this comment.

• 1:56:08Patrick Bet-David?

  We need audio, guys, in the back.

• 1:56:10Speaker 04

  Our first lady Melania is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.

• 1:56:18Patrick Bet-David?

  So he makes this comment. Then, the first lady Melania Trump responds in a tweet. And she comes out and she says, "Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about family isn't comedy, his words are corrosive, and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him. Enough is enough, it's time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community?" The president also responds to it. Then, you get, by the way, Kimmel responded back. If, just so you know, I don't know if you have the Kimmel respond back. Uh, uh, there's Kimmel responding back. Is this the one, Rob? Yep. Okay, go for it.

• 1:57:03Patrick Bet-David?

  So this is the next day after the first lady's tweet. Go ahead.

• 1:57:06Speaker 04

  I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm. And, a call to fire me from our first lady Melania Trump, saying I should be fired because of a joke I made, again, five nights ago. It was a pretend roast. I said, "Our first lady Melania is here, look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow." Which, obviously, was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they're together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am. It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination. And they know that.

• 1:57:50Speaker 04

  I've been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence in particular. But I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend, is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do, and I think a great place to start, to dial that back...

• 1:58:11Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:58:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid and risked 350,000 Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Kayak searches and compares hundreds of travel sites. But unless I repeat the word kayak, Kayak thinks you won't remember that. So Kayak asked me to say kayak as many times as possible. Kayak. Kayak. Kayak.

• 1:59:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kai. Ooh. Ak. Kai, Kai, Kai, Kai, kayak. Kayak, kayak, kayak. Kayak. Search, compare and save on your trip. Kayak. Got that right.

• 1:59:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so that's that. That causes FCC to call on Disney stations for early license review in wake of Kimmel saga. The FCC is expected to call the license Disney for license review as soon as Tuesday, which was yesterday, marking significant escalation tensions between the media giant and Trump administration. Disney's owned ABC affiliates will have to prove FCC Chairman Brandon Card that they have been operating in the public interest, the license are not up for renewal for several years, but FCC plans unprecedented action to accelerate the renewal, the heels of Kimmel controversial expectant widow, citing people familiar with the matter.

• 2:00:21Patrick Bet-David?

  First reported that the FCC moved forward a review of Disney's broadcast licensing. So this is getting, this is continuing to get a little bit nastier. And the president also responded, wow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is no way funny, as attested to by his terrible television ratings, made a statement on his show, it was really shocking. He showed a fake video of First Lady Melania and our son Baron, like they were actually sitting in the studio, listening to him, which they weren't and never would be. He then stated, our First Lady Melania here, look at Melania, as beautiful as Ms. Trump, you look like a glowing, okay. So he makes his comments of where he's at. FCC comes out. One, Jeff, how do you feel about the comments that were made by Kimmel? Two, what do you think about FCC making a call to Disney to threaten Jimmy Kimmel's job?

• 2:01:01Speaker 02

  Oh, Kimmel's just doing what Kimmel always does. And it wasn't really a joke, let's be honest about it. It was an attempt at a joke. I mean, one of the problems with late night television is they traded jokes for just applause. I agree with what Jimmy Kimmel says, I hate Trump, therefore, I'm just going to applause because he said it. However, the response to it, I think, has been playing right into his hands. Don't make the guy a martyr. Don't play, don't make the narrative that Jimmy Kimmel was taken out by Trump, who's acting as an authoritarian. Call out his behavior, say this wasn't really a funny joke and it was bad, but then just let him go back to his, you know, late night show that nobody ever watches. It's gotten to the point where late night television is simply like rage tweeting on Twitter, just trying to get engagement. You're giving the thing, the thing that he really wants, which is attention.

• 2:01:45Speaker 02

  So I don't think the government should be responding to it at all. And I don't think they should really make a big deal out of it because the best thing that could happen here is just people just ignore the guy.

• 2:01:55Speaker 03

  The First Amendment is there to protect idiots from the government, idiots with particularly ill-timed, bad jokes. I think the joke was made before a shooter actually came in and tried to assassinate the president. So particularly ill-timed, bad joke, but that doesn't mean the FCC should go after him. This isn't, now, before we get all Trump, Trump, Trump, you know, the Biden administration had the Twitter files, the attempt to use government regulatory pressure to censor media and to censor Twitter. We've been after it and this, this is- There's a one upmanship that that needs to stop. The government needs to get out of the business of using legal pressure. There's plenty of social pressure, plenty of moral

• 2:02:39Speaker 03

  pressure. Jimmy Kimmel, obviously, is not not going to do great. But we're not, we are normalizing violent talk, which this was not. The New York Times, a new word has come from the progressives. You've got to keep up on your progressive vocabulary. Social murder. I'm way behind. There was social justice, and now there's social murder, which the New York Times is is normalizing as as something okay to okay to shoot health insurance companies because you don't like capitalism. We got to stop this.

• 2:03:08Speaker 04

  I'm with you, guys. I mean, I, I, I think he's a nasty guy, Kimmel, but I mean, I'm much more concerned with the precedent of going after like somebody who's an entertainer, who has a TV show, who's a network. I mean, I think we should be putting more energy into righting the wrongs of the Biden administration, holding people accountable who were doing things like the Twitter files, where they had a portal with Twitter where the government could submit requests to take things down. Like, I think those things need to be protected against. So I'd like to see legislation that protects against that rather than, you know, proactively going after somebody with the force of the government. Because, I mean, what's Gavin Newsom going to do if he gets into office or AOC, you know, if some people are talking about them on YouTube or on TV? So.

• 2:03:47Speaker 03

  Hey, in Europe, you go to jail if you use the wrong pronoun.

• 2:03:49Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 2:03:50Speaker 03

  That that's coming. Two and a half years.

• 2:03:53Speaker 04

  So, yeah, the fight like hell to protect against that instead of using the government as a weapon for the short amount of time that he's in office.

• 2:03:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, look, I have, I have, I'm with that on what the FCC is doing. I will tell you, there's a group of people that are also, you saw the indictment on Comey yesterday came out with Todd Blanch. Hey, they're going, this is the second time for the 8647. I don't know if you saw that, Rob, if you want to pull it up on what he said. To me, there is a group of people that voted the president in to go after the criminals, okay, to go get them. Like, hey, Jim Comey, what did he do? 8647. That's not acceptable to say that.

• 2:04:26Speaker 04

  He is different, I think. I put him in a different category than Kimmel.

• 2:04:28Patrick Bet-David?

  But but the but the part where I'm going, and I understand, I understand what you're saying. I'm just telling you, there's a community that's sitting there saying, hey, we were getting, what do you call it, strikes on YouTube for just questioning, putting on a mask. That's all we did. Doctors were being interviewed when viral 15 million views saying, hey, we just don't think we need to make it mandatory for everybody to get a vaccine. 67% of Americans ended up getting the vaccine. I think the number right now is 72, 73%. Military guys being kicked out and you would put them on the podcast, you get a strike. And so what, we have to move on that quickly? So there's a lot of people that are saying, and another story came out, we probably will talk about this on Friday, is this story, which is not a big story. There's so much stuff going on that this story just kind of goes under the radar.

• 2:05:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Former Fauci advisor indicted on COVID-related charges? What? It's not even a main story? No. It's not that big of a story. So there is a group of people that are sitting there saying, hold them accountable because they freaking got you a mugshot. They tried to bankrupt you, they tried to destroy your life. You have the moral authority to go after them. And he's not aggressively going after anybody, if you think about it. He himself. Who is he aggressively going after? Not anybody.

• 2:05:40Speaker 03

  I want to push back on that. I know a lot of Trump voters, one in particular, who did not vote for Trump to go after his political enemies, but to stop the lawfare that Trump was unbelievably the victim of. At some point, we got to stop tit for tat.

• 2:05:55Patrick Bet-David?

  And I think.

• 2:05:55Speaker 03

  And we got to put this sword back in the shield and get rid of it. Comey is guilty of 100 things, but not the thing he's being charged of. And I'm sorry, you got to charge him for something he's actually guilty of.

• 2:06:06Patrick Bet-David?

  So I'm going to unpack that. He's not guilty for the 86, 47?

• 2:06:10Speaker 03

  For putting, you're really going to unleash the Department of Justice on a tweet to some shells on the beach? No, that Russia collusion hoax that, you know, but that.

• 2:06:21Speaker 02

  Going after parents who are questioning local school boards, that kind of stuff. I think that's why people elected Trump and they were hoping that he would either investigate.

• 2:06:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Am I living in La La Land? Like, the director of FBI tells the world, kill him.

• 2:06:38Patrick Bet-David?

  And you guys are saying that's not a, like, are we getting to this point that we are so immune to death threats from the Director of FBI?

• 2:06:45Speaker 02

  It's not immune, it's not being, normalizing that behavior. It's like, look, there's bigger stuff that he should be.

• 2:06:51Patrick Bet-David?

  I get that, there's a lot of other stuff that he can get into. And for me, you know, when they did the Twitter files, you kind of brought up the Twitter files earlier? You know what I wanted when, when he won the election? I wanted FBI files. I wanted FBI files. I want to know what the hell they're telling each other. I want to find out what they're using the power to go after the President. So, so to me, to me, do you think, like, bring down the temperature, like your friend that you said was a Republican that voted for? Okay. Do you think, you know, I'm more from the thought of, let's not retaliate that much, let him kind of go, but some people need to be held accountable. Do you think, like, being the tolerant Christians? Let's be tolerant. Do you think us going that direction, John?

• 2:07:36Patrick Bet-David?

  If AOC and Newsom, you think they're gonna follow our example of nobility and follow the same lead? You think they're gonna follow your example of nobility?

• 2:07:44Speaker 03

  No, that's the danger. And this is the way third world countries work. That when you lose an election, the entire, you go to jail, you're lucky if you keep your life, you lose your business, your family loses your business, your supporters lose your business. And what do you do? You make darn sure not to lose an election. The key to democracy is the ability to lose an election and just lick your wounds, go back and try again the next time. And as we go to tit for tat escalating lawfare on both sides, then that's, you know, you worry about ends of democracy, that is a really dangerous one. So, you gotta have both sides stopping.

• 2:08:19Speaker 02

  One thing here, I don't know if you saw the comments from Dan Bongino, the former second, number two at the FBI, and how he said that there's basically two FBI's? They found very quickly that there was one FBI that was just, you know, we wanted, that's what we need to be focusing on. Not whether or not Comey said 86, 47. It's what did he do while at the FBI to create permanent power structures that are gonna linger on long past we have?

• 2:08:42Patrick Bet-David?

  How many Presidents have we had that have had three assassination attempts?

• 2:08:46Speaker 02

  Not many.

• 2:08:47Patrick Bet-David?

  How many? Not many. I don't know how many. Obama never had an assassination attempt. God forbid if they did, we would be in a, so this guy-

• 2:08:54Speaker 02

  Why do we know anything about those?

• 2:08:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, why do we know anything about-

• 2:08:57Speaker 02

  Why don't we know anything about Butler? Uh, what happened there? I mean, where did that go?

• 2:09:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I mean, think about it. It took them one year to go after the 86, 47. The speed is never gonna be at the speed that you and I wanted, so I don't know what the story behind that is.

• 2:09:09Speaker 02

  Two years ago.

• 2:09:09Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree. I agree. That was one of the main things I asked when I said, "How come we don't know what it-" Cause Kirk, Butler-

• 2:09:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:09:16Patrick Bet-David?

  We know more about the, the other guy at the Palm Beach, uh, uh-

• 2:09:20Speaker 02

  Ralph, the Ukraine guy?

• 2:09:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Ralph, what his name is, yes.

• 2:09:22Speaker 02

  Ryan Ralph.

• 2:09:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, Ryan Ralph. So, I agree. I just think the temperatures have been raised. I also know when they get back in, they will forever use that card. Forever. You know what I don't like the most? I don't like presidents pardoning their entire families. That's what Biden did. Guess what Trump has to do? What do you think are the likely that Trump pardons his entire family? Eighty percent? Seventy percent?

• 2:09:43Speaker 02

  What's the likelihood that the minute they get in-

• 2:09:45Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I'm saying. But what, I don't like that, but we've gotten to a point that they're gonna target them. And so, what a, what a strange place to be in. Anyways, uh, really enjoyed the podcast. John, thank you for coming down. This was great, getting your insight. Uh, you're not always right, but it was some very good insight that you shared, and I'd like to push back and your extreme hardcore support for NATO-

• 2:10:05Speaker 02

  You were not nearly grumpy enough. Where's the grumpiness?

• 2:10:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Folks in NATO know how, how, you know, supportive you are of them. Snyder, as usual, you're phenomenal. And Brandon, uh, it's good to hear the perspective of somebody in their 30s. Something I haven't been for nine years, or eight years. I'm 47 today. But, uh, folks, go support John Cochrane's, uh, podcast that he has, not his podcast, the Substack that he has. The Grumpy Economist, Rob, can we put that link below? Let's make sure we put that down, uh, there as well for them to go find. As well as Jeff Snider, he, he's a fan favorite. Jeff has done gr- great work, Euro Dollar University. Put the link below for people to go support as well. And Brandon Aceto, if you wanna learn more about David Consulting, Brandon, why don't you give them your cell number?

• 2:10:47Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 2:10:50Patrick Bet-David?

  That was a joke. That was a joke.

• 2:10:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, Apple took me away.

• 2:10:55Patrick Bet-David?

  It's okay, it's okay, so-

• 2:10:56Speaker 02

  You were about to do it. Wouldn't matter.

• 2:11:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Anyways, take care. Tonight, uh, I believe Governor Wes Moore is flying in. I'm gonna be doing a sit-down with him. What time is that one, Rob?

• 2:11:07Speaker 02

  Five to seven.

• 2:11:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and then we'll release that probably here soon. Uh, with that being said, take care, everybody. God bless. Bye-bye, bye-bye.

• 2:11:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, theHouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 2:11:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Get double points on every qualified stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.