This Is How Empires Fall: Tariff Wars, Court Battles & What Happens Next | The Tom Bilyeu Show

In this episode, Tom and Producer Drew guide listeners through the complex maze of the US immigration debate using the recent high-profile case of Senator Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador. Tom and Drew analyze Supreme Court rulings, break down the spin from both sides of the aisle, and explore the larger implications these decisions have for American governance. They set the scene for why the legalities behind hot-button political issues demand a closer reading, not just reliance on headlines. SHOWNOTES 00:00 "Red Light, Green Light Capitalism Impact" 04:13 Misguided Determination or Meaningful Gesture? 09:02 Federalist Papers' Role in Constitution Interpretation 10:42 Supreme Court Partially Overrules Undercourt 15:11 Supreme Court Immigration Ruling Error 16:42 Executive Deference in Foreign Policy 23:15 "Supreme Court: Values and Society's Balance" 24:30 Balanced Supreme Court Idealism 29:18 Debating Strong Executive Power Origins 34:32 Trump's Economic Strategy and Debt 38:07 Balancing Employment and Inflation 41:33 Trump's Economic Strategy Balancing Act 44:40 Tariffs' Impact on Pricing 47:44 CPI Basket and Economic Essentials 48:58 "Interest Rate Cuts and Currency Impact" 54:34 The Universe's Massive Odds 55:23 Space Exploration Risks and Simulations CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Audible: Sign up for a free 30 day trial at https://audible.com/IMPACTTHEORY https://audible.com/IMPACTTHEORY1 Vital Proteins: Get 20% off by going to https://www.vitalproteins.com https://www.vitalproteins.com/ and entering promo code IMPACT at check out Kettle & Fire: Get 20% off your first order at https://kettleandfire.com/impact with code IMPACT Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impact Thrive Market: ​​Go to https:thrivemarket.com/impact http://thrivemarket.com/impact for 30% off your first order, plus a FREE $60 gift! American Alternative Assets: If you're ready to explore gold as part of your investment strategy, call 1-888-615-8047 or go to https://TomGetsGold.com https://tomgetsgold.com/ Tech Unheard: Tune into Tech Unheard from Arm and NPM—wherever you get your podcasts. iTrust Capital: Use code IMPACTGO when you sign up and fund your account to get a $100 bonus at https://www.itrustcapital.com/tombilyeu Mint Mobile: If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at https://mintmobile.com/impact. https://mintmobile.com/impact DISCLAIMER: Upfront payment of $45 for 3-month 5 gigabyte plan required (equivalent to $15/mo.). New customer offer for first 3 months only, then full-price plan options available. Taxes & fees extra. See MINT MOBILE for details. What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business:see if you qualify here. https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:sign up here. https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,Tom Bilyeu’s Mindset Playbook https://open.spotify.com/show/47VE90Cittmo6TGGFqg2xf —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** Join me live on myTwitch stream https://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJ. I'm live daily from 6:30 to 8:30 am PT atwww.twitch.tv/tombilyeu https://impacttheory.co/4fitmnJ ********************************************************************** LISTEN TO IMPACT THEORY AD FREE + BONUS EPISODES on APPLE PODCASTS:apple.co/impacttheory http://apple.co/impacttheory ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. A US senator traveled to El Salvador to free Abrego Garcia. The Supreme Court made their feelings on the matter clear for anyone willing to read it. Trump harangues Powell to lower rates. Powell continues to ignore him. Gavin Newsom soothes Trump on behalf of California. An alien life may have actually been discovered without needing to rely on shaky handheld footage.

• 1:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Drew, the immigration debate continues to rage on in crazy fashion. Shall we jump right into the messy middle of it all?

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Let's get messy. My favorite line of yours is we are sexually pole dancing along the middle. So, you know, we're gonna piss everybody on the left and right off.

• 1:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's do it.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  I really wanted to do our Supreme Court breakdown because once you read the opinion and kind of gave me the response, it completely blew up every narrative I've heard in the last like 72 hours. So I definitely want to get to that. But first, covering recent news. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland went to El Salvador. He was trying to get access into C E C O T.

• 2:05Tom Bilyeu?

  This is so crazy. This is the most American thing I've ever heard of in my life. Knock, knock, American here.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me get inside the prison. Give me the keys. I want to go check on somebody.

• 2:14Tom Bilyeu?

  I've been this guy. I hate to say it, I am the most brash American ever. So it's like, on the one hand, I'm like, all right, respect, this is seriously American. And on the other, it really is cringe worthy.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  On one hand, I respect a US politician that puts, you know, his money where his mouth is. He got on a plane, he went, he tried. I'm hope it's not grandstanding, but he tried to get there.

• 2:34Tom Bilyeu?

  It was grandstanding, I assure you. But maybe also, true. It is a little, though, sus, given that the woman who's also in Maryland, whose daughter was beaten to death and raped by an illegal immigrant, did not get this kind of love from him.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:52Tom Bilyeu?

  But in fairness, I do think we have to tease these issues apart.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56Tom Bilyeu?

  In terms of what we're about to talk about really hinges on the idea of due process. So, anyway, with that interruption, back to what you were saying.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  I really want to just level set on this is because, yes, he's the arrogant American. But do you think El Salvador has some responsibility, might be the wrong word, but should they have let him at least see him?

• 3:17Tom Bilyeu?

  El Salvador is a sovereign nation that should do whatever the laws of El Salvador require them to do. They should be able to make up their laws. I mean, this is the whole idea, even behind states is, oh, we're going to do things the way that we think things should be done. This is an experiment that we're running and we all get to see if this is to the benefit of their citizens or not. And if we were in a similar context, would we want to act in the same way? It's the same way I feel about China. I look at China, I do not want to live in China. That is not my style of governance. No, thank you. But I'm not going to lie about how effective Xi Jinping's version of what I call red light, green light capitalism has pulled the vast majority, the vast number of people that it has pulled out of poverty is absolutely astonishing. And so to pretend like

• 4:01Tom Bilyeu?

  there are no benefits to their system would be a mistake. And so I want to learn from a lot of different things, but the value system that my comment is writing on the back of is that sovereign nations are exactly that. They are sovereign nations and you got to give them their space. So whether I think America is the right test system or not, you can't roll up on a sovereign country and be like, hey, this is now going to be done our way.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  I know you love to quote James Burnham and man as political animals, so I'm apprehensive as I ask this question, but is this the proper use of a senator's time? Because to me, it felt like 80% grandstanding, 20% like I'm going for a grand slam win. And I felt like there was probably 0.1% that actually cared about like, hey, let me make sure the Garcia family is good.

• 4:52Tom Bilyeu?

  I'll say this, he's got his finger on the thing people care about right now. I did not expect immigration, illegal immigration, to continue to be the thing that people want to talk about. People really care about that. And you can feel when you get into a vein that like, yo, the public really cares about this thing. And so as a politician, he has good instincts. People care about this thing. He is willing to say where he falls on this. I think he's wrong. I think he is acting a bit the fool to roll up and knock on their door and make demands. But if he's rolling up and just saying, hey, I'm gonna try, I at least want to be here, I'm gonna give this a shot, and I respect that they're not gonna let me do it, but

• 5:34Tom Bilyeu?

  I really believe in this thing and therefore I'm gonna make a move and I'm gonna show my constituents who I am, what I care about, what my value system is, what my beliefs are. I love it. That's perfectly fine with me. Do I think it's a good use of his time? No, I don't. I think that he should really be looking at what is the thing that's gonna make life better for my constituents? And I don't think this is the play. But anybody that puts their finger on due process is like, the thing that I'm gonna rally around? I get it. I think it's a big debate. I think it's very important. We're gonna go through what the Supreme Court actually said, because they are trying to keep this grounded on this is about due process. Due process. And you either are or are not adhering to the laws of the United States, you either are or are not giving people the due diligence.

• 6:18Tom Bilyeu?

  And there's an interesting collision here with JD Vance. So JD Vance, and I, when I first read it, I was like, man, I really get where he's coming from. And so my sort of knee jerk reaction was that JD Vance saying that the Biden administration has overwhelmed our court system and it, we just cannot go forward like this. I was, my impulse was, yes, that is correct. He is reading the situation in the right way. But my- More thoughtful analysis of the structure of our government is that we have three competing branches that are meant to create tension between the three. That was put in place for a reason extremely intelligently by the framers of the Constitution.

• 7:01Tom Bilyeu?

  I think we, we should want the tension between those. And as we will see in a minute, the Supreme Court is not being wishy washy about this. And we are being spun to high heaven about what the Supreme Court actually said. And so I was very, I love doing the lives and admittedly in the lives, I sound very different than I sound in these, which we call our tight sixties. And the reason that I love doing the lives is it really gives me a chance to say out loud the emotions that I have, which forces me to concretize a feeling into a concrete string of logic. When I'm doing that, I can feel when I get to the edges of what I understand.

• 7:44Tom Bilyeu?

  And over the last few days, I keep going, man, I'm taking the headline level about the Supreme Court and I'm getting these two very opposing views. 9-0 victory for Trump, 9-0 defeat of Trump. They can't both be right.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:00Tom Bilyeu?

  And so finally today, I was like, after today's live, where I could feel myself continually bumping up against the, there's something wrong here in my analysis. I need to go to the source material. And the source material is very revelatory.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  During the live today, we went everywhere from the 14th amendment to the fifth amendment. People were arguing about articles. So I think the opposite approach that we're taking now is like, okay, instead of arguing which part of the Constitution Trump violated, what did the Supreme Court actually say?

• 8:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Given that their job is to interpret the Constitution.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's the perfect time to jump into it.

• 8:34Tom Bilyeu?

  The first thing I want people to understand is that the Supreme Court is publishing this stuff. So you don't have to guess that what the Supreme Court says, they are actually going to write it. And please, I would like to remind everybody, you live in the era of AI. So AI will help you understand this. So I am by no means a constitutional scholar. I am not super familiar with the intimate workings of the Supreme. Supreme Court, like most people, I've gotten to this stage in my life being like, oh, politics and Supreme Court's a thing that happens over there. And then I just operate within the framework. Now that I'm beginning to talk about the stuff and really piece together the chain of logic to figure out how all of this stuff actually works, which, again, for anybody new to me, that that is the thing I'm trying to model for people. I'm not trying to give you final answers. I'm giving you my sincere take.

• 9:19Tom Bilyeu?

  But in no way would I even want people to simply take what I say and go, well, then this must be the thing. Because I have found Tom and Tom is always right. I'm saying Tom is like everybody deeply flawed. I am well aware that the way that my mind works, I'm going to draw conclusions that are not useful. Now, my barometer is utility. So if I believe this, does this move me with high efficiency towards an honorable goal? I won't bog us down in all my definitions, but that's what I'm always trying to do. So now my chain of logic here is, okay, the Supreme Court publishes their decisions.

• 9:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Their job is to interpret what was a, an intentionally very high level constitution. When you read the constitution, you realize there's not a lot of words. Like this thing is brief and it has given you this extraordinary country. But coupled with the constitution was the Federalist Papers, which were written, by the way, to convince these states at the time, the 13 states, to come together and say, um, we do or do not want to be a federal system. And obviously in the end, they decided that they did, but to understand that it's like a non-official, but highly informative

• 10:40Tom Bilyeu?

  document that explains to everybody, um, what the constitution, the way in which the constitution should be interpreted. There is no document that has been quoted more times than the Federalist Papers in Supreme Court decisions as of 2000. It was like, uh, 291 times at an increasing rate. So I'll assume that we're well over 300 citations now at this point, but I don't know that. I only know the number as of. Okay, so with all of that in mind, then you can drop these documents into AI. You can start asking it questions. The first thing I asked was, is this really the sum total? Because this is pretty brief. It's only four pages long. So I was like, is this really it? ChatGPT swears up and down that yes, that is indeed it.

• 11:24Tom Bilyeu?

  If you go to their website directly, that is all you're going to find. So I will assume that this really is the sum total, which you can find on the Supreme Court's website itself, which is where I read this. And I read it word for word multiple times. And at a high level, what it says is, the, we agree with the under court in part, but not in full. And that, given that the Supreme Court decided to pick this up, the timeline that the under court put on this has expired. And so the, Trump is no longer held accountable to their ruling. And the Supreme Court ruling is broken into two parts,

• 12:08Tom Bilyeu?

  which you will see, it's very clearly expressed in the document itself. There is the overall ruling that has the nine O stance. And that overall ruling is exactly what I just said. We agree with part of this, not with the other part. And this is going to need to be kicked back to the federal district court that made the official ruling because they have a word in it,

• 12:33Tom Bilyeu?

  which effectuate. And they were unclear as to what they mean by effectuate. And if you can highlight this part, because this is very important. It says, "The intended scope of the term effectuate in the district court's order is, however, unclear and may exceed the district court's authority." Okay.

• 12:55Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:38Tom Bilyeu?

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• 14:22Tom Bilyeu?

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• 15:11Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, we're back. Let's get into it.

• 15:14Tom Bilyeu?

  This is the part that the Trump administration is saying, hey, 90 in our favor because the district court should clarify its directive with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. Now, that's all it says. I want to be very clear about that. That's it. Now, the administration is like banging a drum. They're totally on our side, bro. They said that the federal district court has overstepped. No, I just read you verbatim what they said.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:49Tom Bilyeu?

  That you may have overstepped, that you definitely owe them deference when it comes to foreign affairs. Now, after that, you're in the land of spin and the Trump administration, in my opinion, is going way too hard, saying that these guys, that the Supreme Court has 90, said, you guys are correct and what you did is fine. Now, there is something called a statement of concurrence or a concurring statement. So you get a dissenting opinion, but you can also have a concurring opinion. So there is a concurring opinion written by Justice Sotomayor, backed by Justice Kagan and Jackson. Now, I just don't know how to interpret the fact that only three of the justices, three of the nine justices, have signed off on this.

• 16:32Tom Bilyeu?

  So I don't know if we read that as the other six are like, yo, you do not speak for me. This is not why we said what we said. You're overstepping. Or if they're just like, oh, yeah, I just didn't have time to say, I don't know. So let the facts of my stance be known. But given that, they go on to say that deporting him was an egregious error that should not have been made, that Trump should, in fact, get this person back with due deference to, you may not be able to do that, Trump, because El Salvador is a sovereign nation. This is not a citizen of our country. We cannot go and insist that we get them back is the implication or what I infer from this.

• 17:14Tom Bilyeu?

  But they're very clear that Trump's argumentation, the argument that they're using, does not concur, in my read, with what they're saying. They are saying this person was owed due process even as an illegal alien. Now, they never say illegal. They say immigrant. In fact, do me a favor. Do a search for illegal and see if that word shows up. My reading was that they're just saying regardless of their immigrant status, they are owed due process. This is where, yeah, the word illegal doesn't-

• 17:46Speaker 01

  It appears one time that the rumor was therefore illegal.

• 17:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, but they're just talking about as a rumor. They're just saying immigrants, so maybe they feel differently if it can be proven that he's an illegal immigrant. But they're saying his due process was not given to him, that this has already been adjudicated, and they cite the case in there, and the way that Trump handled this was an egregious error. Okay, so armed with that, all of the like, this is 9-0, they totally agree with us, this is a victory for us, that does not feel true. And so I think we're going to see this go through a process again where it's gonna go down to the lower court. The lower court may just give up on that word and say, it never should have happened this way. We accept that our timeline ran out, but it shouldn't have been done this way. Moving forward, this is

• 18:32Tom Bilyeu?

  a clear violation of previous Supreme Court decisions. So moving forward, there's no universe in which illegal immigrants should be treated like this again in the future. And that word illegal is gonna have to like have adjudication somewhere somehow. But to Vance's point that, hey, the system is overwhelmed and we're just gonna have to do this stuff, that is gonna have to go through the courts. Because my read of this is the court is saying, hey, you made an egregious error. You cannot do this. And so even though my sort of emotional impulse as an American citizen who does believe that having let however many tens of millions of illegal immigrants into the country makes it functionally impossible for us to try all those

• 19:13Tom Bilyeu?

  cases, you have to adhere to the fucking Supreme Court. Like, you can't just say, meh, we don't like it. So this needs to go through a process. I think you are at high risk of, what's the right way to frame this? Trump is pushing hard to find the edges of what he can get away with from a legal perspective. Do I think we're in a constitutional crisis? No. But I think that depending on how-

• 19:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Much Trump is going to push and ignore, it could become a constitutional crisis. And I absolutely, now that I've read this, I hate the way that they're framing this as like a 9-0 victory for us. It is, I would say, a 9-0 victory for the lower courts, the courts, full stop. The courts owe the executive branch deference on foreign policy. Okay. Now, you can't just lump everything into that, but you can't, as a senator, roll up, or even as the president, roll up in El Salvador and say, "You're going to give me this person back." Just as a quick plant, I also don't want to pretend, I think Trump

• 20:22Tom Bilyeu?

  and Bukele are like, "Hey, bro, let's like, pinky swear up on this one." Uh, don't send them back. And just say that you, "This is a citizen of our country, we believe that he's a gang member and we're going to keep him." And I think that there's a ton of political will on Bukele's part to be like, "I want Trump to feel like I'm on his side, so that if I need something, I'm going to get something." That's just smart politically. So you now enter into the James Burnham territory of, "This is political, people gonna politic."

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and now he's a political prisoner, unfortunately.

• 20:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, now the question becomes, "Does he deserve to be?" So, is this guy MS-13? Uh, the Supreme Court, by my read, is saying, "It doesn't fucking matter. He is owed due process. He was not given that due process, and therefore, this is a problem." So, we're going to see this work its way back through the courts. Uh, this does not strike me as a clean victory that Trump would have you believe it is.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's two things I want to highlight, because to your point, they have that decision of what they thought about that the, um, lower courts ran out of time to adjudicate this position.

• 21:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Which is good politics, smooth move.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  But then the second order, to your point, is like, they also wanted to make sure that this is not setting a precedent.

• 21:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Three of them, let me be clear, three of the justices want to make sure that that is spelled out, that it is very clear. Now, they cite Supreme Court decisions. So, I think we're going to see it bubble up, back up through the court as to what any administration can do moving forward, uh, in this situation. And the thing that they're going to have to, and by this situation, I mean where you have so many illegal immigrants in the country, that the odds of you being able to give them a trial of peers is basically zero. And the Supreme Court... Three of them are making it very clear. I don't give a fuck. They are owed due process.

• 22:15Tom Bilyeu?

  And if they don't get that due process, they stay. Like, that seems very clear to me, what they're saying.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and these are the two point, like, sentences I kind of want to jump dive in on. Um, this is part of Sada Mayor's, uh...

• 22:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Concurring opinion, concurring, not dissenting.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  The only argument that the government offers in support of its request that it cannot bring, uh, Garcia back is that the United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border is plainly wrong. The government's argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including US citizens, without legal consequence, as long as it does so before a court can intervene. So to our point that the lower court ran out of time to fully adjudicate this, we don't want to set the precedent that now the government could just...

• 22:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Go fast, get him out.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  If we get him out before the courts get to it, then that means we did it because we got away with it once. So I do want to highlight this because this, the next question that people are asking after this Garcia decision is, is this opening it us to fascism? Is this opening us up to, like, authoritarian kind of practices where we're just going to round up a gang of people and get them out of there? Um, so the Supreme Court is fighting and outlining it that this is not a precedent-setting, uh, decision. This is just a decision that, yes, the lower court got some things wrong. I'll put it that way.

• 23:30Tom Bilyeu?

  The next question is, what does it mean that the other six people didn't sign this? So, and this is where, hey, welcome. Um, I'm learning this stuff in real time. So that'll be the next area that we have to dive into to figure out exactly what that means. Um, because you also, this is Tom Bilyeu speaking, you don't want to set the precedent that you can bring anybody in the country. And as long as you get them here, uh, then now they're here forever because we have a system that's overwhelmed. That is also horrific. So you have two horrific things colliding together. Uh, and the right way for this to be handled is the Supreme Court. And so I am perfectly happy to abide by whatever the Supreme Court says,

• 24:13Tom Bilyeu?

  even if I, um, feel like it's the wrong answer. Like, I am not here to dis- The three branches of government. So I like hearing that they're saying that there is a certain amount of deference that's owed to the executive branch. I like that Supreme Court decisions make clear where those lines are. And so I want to see this process continued to be used. So we'll see how this plays out.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 24:41Tom Bilyeu?

  You're looking up, what does it mean that only six people?

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so according to Gemini's AI, it's saying that not all the Supreme Court justices necessarily offer opinions after a case. The majority opinion therefore is a majority viewpoint of the justices. The dissenting or concurring opinions can be written by individual judges. So with it now being a nine oh victory, plus three of them have dissent or concurring opinions.

• 25:08Tom Bilyeu?

  But it's concurring opinions with additional details. So the part that's in the nine oh simply says this must go back to the federal district court. And they need to get more clear about what they mean by that word that we were just talking about, which.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Effectuate.

• 25:26Tom Bilyeu?

  Effectuate, thank you. And that they need to show deference as it speaks to international affairs. So that's the only thing that all nine of them are saying, my stamp is on this. Now, all the other stuff about this case, something Rumsfeld. That that clearly outlines that Trump was out of his mind and made this egregious error and all that. That doesn't have the stamp of all nine of them. So that's what I'm saying, like you, I don't know what to make of that. I think that means you're going to have to see all those additional details adjudicated. That's my instinct.

• 26:08Tom Bilyeu?

  So we'll see how this plays out, but that's my read.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  It should be read that the three justices who left.

• 26:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Concurring opinions.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Concurring opinions, thank you. Were three liberal judges, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson. They both are typically more liberal.

• 26:27Tom Bilyeu?

  I get that.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  So I don't know, that's what I mean, I don't know if it's a party lines thing, they just want to make their appoint made or.

• 26:32Tom Bilyeu?

  But I think by the time you get to the Supreme Court, you should be looking at them not as political appointees, but people that have a.

• 26:44Tom Bilyeu?

  They have a value system bent in one direction or the other. Uh, so this is a long time listeners of the show will have heard me talk about this a lot before, but if you're just encountering me, I have a belief that the reason that societies have a left and a right is because for humans to cooperate flexibly in large groups, you need the tension between people that come with a compassion first approach to life. Like they are literally hardwired to see it that way. And then people that are personal responsibility leaning because for a society to function well at a time where you're just at constant risk of, um, running out of food, being attacked by a neighboring

• 27:26Tom Bilyeu?

  tribe, um, famine, disease, all of that stuff is just life is hard. Like you've got to have people that say, um, you can't freeload on the system. And then you've got to have people that say, we've got to take care of each other. You need both of those impulses in dynamic tension. And the second that dynamic tension breaks, both of them steer towards pathology. There is pathology on the left, there's pathology on the right. Uh, so when I look at a Supreme Court justice to go, who appointed them only says, what value system do they lean more towards? I don't go, oh, this person is a political hack. Now, I think a lot of people do lean that way. Um, I think that's the wrong way to look at life.

• 28:06Tom Bilyeu?

  I think the wiser way to look at life is, uh, they sincerely believe that thing. And you don't want a Supreme Court that's like smashed hard left or smashed hard right. You want a Supreme Court where very sincere, very intelligent, very knowledgeable, people that want the best for America are going to do ideological battle with each other. And try to steer us all forward well. So I wouldn't want a Supreme Court that's stacked in either direction. Agreed.

• 28:41Tom Bilyeu?

  Quick break, but don't go anywhere. There's more to come after this short break from our sponsors.

• 28:47Speaker 02

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• 29:17Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, we're back. Let's get into it.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  In other law news, I try. Gavin Newsom is suing the Trump administration over tariffs. He claims terrorists are a lawnmower and are wreaking chaos. He put up a video on his X account.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Today I announced the lawsuit on behalf of the state of California suing the Trump administration. California is the largest manufacturing state in our union, one of the largest training partners around the globe. No state will be impacted more than the state of California as it relates to the unilateral authority that's been asserted by the Trump administration to impose the largest tax increase in modern American history.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  How do you think this will impact the trade war that we are in the middle of?

• 30:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so the legal challenges are good. You want friction. You want people to challenge the stuff. What's interesting is if you read the Constitution, the Constitution is very clear that Congress has the right to levy taxes and duties. The executive branch does not. But there are things like the Emergency Economic Act, the I E E P, something like that. And that's what Trump is claiming. Trump is saying, look, there's historical precedent for this. I'm calling on, there's actually a few different acts that in certain circumstances give the president the ability to levy tariffs specifically, just to keep it about that. So now they're going to debate whether those things apply to the way that Trump is moving right now.

• 30:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Trump isn't saying, oh, no, the Constitution does say that. That I can do this. He's just saying that there are acts that have been signed into law that Congress has put forward and I'm simply using those in good faith. And so this lawsuit is going to be, no, you're not, you're not using them in good faith. You do not have the right to do this. This should not apply, that act should not apply to your behaviors for this reason. And that's the precise thing that's going to be adjudicated. This is a system working as it should, in my opinion. And this is how we built it. So this is the tension between the sides working the way that one would expect them to. And so we'll see, the courts will make their ruling.

• 31:28Tom Bilyeu?

  As one citizen of the United States, I'm perfectly happy to abide by what the Supreme Court decides. I don't know how popular that is. People seem to really like picking a side and being like, I know better than the Supreme Court. And so this is how it should be. But people should have their voice. They should be able to say what they want. But may I represent the side that recognizes how fallible humans are?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Does this empower China, who is our adversary in this trade war? Are they looking at this and saying, oh, this is gonna, like, we can just wait this out. They're about to eat each other alive.

• 32:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, as China, I'm gonna look at the world and go,

• 32:06Tom Bilyeu?

  you guys had your moment. Democracy works ish, but it's not as effective as red light, green light capitalism. And when you can just have one guy who is

• 32:20Tom Bilyeu?

  so smart, like you don't have to worry about him making bad decisions.

• 32:25Tom Bilyeu?

  He's gonna decide that is gonna be the thing that's best for us. And now we're all moving in one direction. And as a business leader, I get it. That is how businesses are run. It's like, I'm gonna listen. I want to know what people think. But at the end of the day, I'm gonna make a decision to ensure we are all moving in the same direction. And That's how they run their country. And so, again, I wouldn't want my entire life to be run like that. And at the same time, I recognize how much momentum you can create when you can do that. The problem is, you can get a lot of momentum going in the wrong direction that takes you off a cliff. You don't have to look any farther than 1960s China itself.

• 33:07Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, so it, it is a, um, it is a system that says, if you have a good leader, you can get a lot of momentum going, but if they are blind to something and they cannot be convinced otherwise, they will literally run you off a cliff. And our system was created at a time where the Americans had had enough, uh, that sure, if you have a good king, things can go well for a while, but they're likely to run you off a cliff, that power is likely to corrupt. And so they did their best to come up with a system that had checks and balances for that, to ensure that that wouldn't happen. But one of the biggest debates that happened at the time of framing the constitution was, uh, a strong executive branch, sounds a lot like a king. And so we want to weaken it.

• 33:49Tom Bilyeu?

  And Alexander Hamilton was the biggest proponent for, we want a stronger executive branch, which is why he was accused of being a secret, um, supporter of monarchy. And that was like the big, like, if you're trying to dish on Alexander Hamilton, you were like, he's unfaithful to his wife and he secretly wants a monarchy. And that's exactly what he was drug in the mud over. And he fought against it his whole life and was like, no, that isn't why I want a strong executive. Um, and he believed that to get the momentum, you needed, I forget the word he used, I think, active. You needed an active executive. You needed somebody that really had a vision, that really was pushing something forward, that wanted to create something and get something moving. So he understood the advantages, in my opinion, the advantages of a king,

• 34:33Tom Bilyeu?

  and understood how despotic that can become and that that had to be checked. And that if you were going to, um, balance, you balance with the check. Um, but you don't want an inert person at the top who can't affect change.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  We'll see how it's impacting the economy, but that's already going through some things right now as the tariff war is ripping through the stock market and other places. Trump tweeted from Truth Social, "The ECB, the European Central Bank, is expected to cut rates for the seventh time, and yet too late." Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always too late and wrong, yesterday issued a report which was another in typical complete mess. Oil prices are down, groceries, even eggs are down, and the USA is getting rich on tariffs. Too late should have lowered interest rates like the ECB long ago, but he should have certainly lowered them now. Powell's termination cannot come fast enough." He tweeted that on April 17th at 6:12 a.m.

• 35:33Tom Bilyeu?

  I just wish that Donald Trump would say what he really means and like stop with all this hedging and soft mushy talk. Like for once, Donald, can you just say what you mean? Please, Jesus, man. I don't know what to do. It is amusing, the way he talks. It is certainly direct. So, okay, first, before I harangue him too much for the way that he interacts with the world, is he right about this? Sort of. I'll take the Supreme Court. He's right about some of it, he's wrong about others. He is pretending.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Is it dissenting or what kind of opinion is it?

• 36:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you want me to agree with him first or disagree first? I'm going to do both.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  You said Supreme Court.

• 36:16Tom Bilyeu?

  Which side would you like? Well, the Supreme Court said the same thing. The district court was right about some things, wrong about... That's literally like the first sentence is. Yes to some, no to others. And that's my take on the way that Trump is pushing Powell right now. Okay, so if you look right now, the cost of essentials, some essentials are going down. Energy costs matter a lot, grocery matters a lot, housing matters a lot. And if you zoom in on those three things and the debt, the national debt matters a lot. So Trump, I think, is pushing on the right things, but he is admittedly, I think I'm mind reading admittedly, I have a feeling he is aware of all the things I'm about to

• 37:01Tom Bilyeu?

  say, but he knows that he can't say one of them out loud. And the one that he doesn't say out loud is the very thing that makes him seem unhinged to some. So the, here are the parts.

• 37:13Tom Bilyeu?

  Many of your essentials are going down. The reason they're going down is because I'm weakening the dollar by being an agent of chaos. And I am freaking everybody out. And because I'm freaking the markets out, I should be more clear. Because I'm freaking the markets out, the dollar is weakening. Because of that, interest rates are in a position where you could lower them because the dollar is becoming weakened. And given that the dollar is weakening, the cost of things is going down, that now you have an opportunity where you, he's asking you to read those signs as see inflation doesn't matter. Okay, just to put them in direct conflict, what Powell is saying is maybe they don't matter right now in like a month snapshot.

• 37:57Tom Bilyeu?

  But we don't know anything about where this goes long term. And Powell in his speech, which we'll play in a minute, is saying very clearly, I expect long term, the prices to go up because I think the tariffs are going to have that impact on the economy. Now, the reason, I don't think Trump is oblivious to that. In fact, I think Trump believes that that is true. I think Trump knows that now there's a difference between some prices go up and inflation. But we have a global enough economy that a lot of prices are going to go up. We'll, we'll get into the nuance of that in a minute. But for now, I don't think Trump is blind to the threat of long-term prices going up across enough things that the average person will just be like inflation. Because the things I'm paying for are bad.

• 38:39Tom Bilyeu?

  What I think Trump is focusing on is I have intentionally driven down the costs of things like energy. I've weakened the dollar and I'm doing those things for a very specific reason. We must, and I mean must from Trump, we must re,

• 38:59Tom Bilyeu?

  re-up our debt at a lower interest rate. So I've done all the things I need to do, but Powell won't do the thing he needs to do, which is at least give me temporary reprieve on the interest. So I can refinance this debt that we have as a nation that is going to hit us in the face like a fucking sledgehammer. And this is, this is why I voted for Trump. He was being very clear-eyed, in my opinion, about how devastating the debt was. It's one of the reasons I should say. And he's actually got us, even if it's only for a minute. He's got us to the point where he could say,

• 39:36Tom Bilyeu?

  Convincingly that lower the rates, always raise them again. Lower the rates, motherfucker, so that I can refinance this debt so that we don't drown in our debt burden, which right now is at much higher rate. Now, if you think of Trump as a real estate guy, you will understand this is the game. You build on debt, you leverage yourself into building this incredible building, and then when rates go down, you refinance like as fast as you can. You don't care if the rates go down that low for a week, a year, 10 years, doesn't matter. They're low now, I'm going to take advantage of this. I'm going to lock it in for 10 years, whatever, and now I'm in a much better position. And on that, I'm with him. I'm like, that would be amazing.

• 40:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Lower the rates, even if only temporarily, let us refinance the debt, and then we can, if we see that actual inflation does start going up, then we can go, okay, cool, we've got to raise rates again, and you should be able to cool the economy back off and stop inflation from going ham. But if this moment is temporary, then Trump's behavior makes more sense, not less, because you have somebody who realizes, I have urgency, this has got to happen right now. And he is acting like somebody who believes this has got to happen right now. So, all of that makes sense to me. Now, when you have somebody at the Fed, you want them to be more cautious.

• 41:01Tom Bilyeu?

  So, it's one of those where I'm, again, there's a reason that we have, the Fed has political independence. I am not voting for the Fed. I think the Fed is...

• 41:14Tom Bilyeu?

  It is very easy for me to get on a moral soapbox and say they've created an immoral situation, which they have, but because we are in the middle of it, I do not want to pretend that they're, when you're in the middle of the system, you don't want to suddenly like poof, it's gone, and now it's like, oh, fuck, like you could have catastrophic problems happen all at once. You're in this situation, you want to manage your exit out of it. So, given that we have a Fed, I want a conservative Fed. I don't want them throwing money around, I don't want them whip sawing the rates everywhere, but... Given that we have this looming specter of the debt, this is one time where I could see moving with some urgency because you can always raise it back up. But this is at least let us refinance the debt.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Before we jump into Jerome Powell's actual words, what do you think is his cautiousness coming from raising or lowering the rates? Like, what is he trying to hedge against?

• 42:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Congress has given us a dual mandate to keep us at full employment and low inflation, 2% inflation. And to do that, we have to be cautious because if the long term rate begins to, if we take it down and then inflation begins to skyrocket because of that, well, now we've broken our mandate to keep the inflation down. So the part that is definitely over my pay grade, but the part that I'm looking at going, but you can always raise the rates again. So it just comes down to what, what is whipsawing? Like, would they be creating more drama by lowering and then raising fairly quickly?

• 42:48Tom Bilyeu?

  Or would it be like, thank God, we lowered them, lock that in before the inflation kicks up if it's going to? And again, I don't know, long-term listeners of the show will understand that I draw intentionally a distinction between rising prices and inflation, which are two slightly different phenomena. Because inflation is across the board, prices are going up because the value of your dollar is going down. It's very different than we put a tariff on things coming out of China. And now the things coming out of China are more expensive, but there could and should be in the long term, American alternatives. And so that would be a temporary thing where as we improve our

• 43:31Tom Bilyeu?

  supply chains and our manufacturing here in the US, those prices would naturally come back down. Whereas inflation tends to be a one-way street. Prices only go up, they don't ever come back down.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Copy, copy. All right, let's jump into Jerome Powell's speech that he gave yesterday in at the Economic Club of Chicago.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Looking ahead, looking forward. The new administration is in the process of implementing a substantial policy changes in four distinct areas. Trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulation.

• 44:03Speaker 04

  These policies are still evolving and their effects on the economy remain highly uncertain. As we learn more, we will continue to update our assessment. The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  Both survey and market-based measures of near-term inflation expectations have moved up significantly, with survey participants pointing to tariffs. Survey measures of longer-term inflation expectations, for the most part, appear to remain well anchored as well. Market-based breakevens continue to run close to 2%.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  So, as we gain a better understanding of the policy changes, we'll have a better sense of the implications for the economy and hence for monetary policy. Tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. Inflationary effects could also be more persistent. Avoiding that outcome will depend on the size of the effects, on how long it takes for them to pass through fully to prices, and ultimately, on keeping longer-term inflation expectations well anchored. Our obligation is to keep longer-term inflation expectations well anchored and to make certain that a one-time increase in the price level does not become an ongoing inflation problem.

• 45:30Tom Bilyeu?

  Another thing I think is important to understand about where I think Trump is coming from is when you lower rates, you tend to increase economic activity. So businesses are able to borrow money at better rates, which means that they're able to do more investment, which means they're able to hire more people. And so if Trump is like, "Okay, I'm smashing part of the economy by doing these tariffs, and so I'm going to slow things down, I'm going to put us at risk of going into a recession." If we can up-regulate the economy and unlock growth, then we can combat the impact of the things that I'm doing. So needless to say, if Trump was able to do this himself, that's exactly what he would do, is he would break part of it and quote-unquote "fix" another part, so that they would sort

• 46:14Tom Bilyeu?

  of come out in the wash, that he would increase the growth internally while breaking, while making certain items more expensive. And so he'd be able to balance those two out by saying, "Yeah, some things cost more, but you're making more money."

• 46:29Speaker 01

  And then Powell uses interesting language calling rising prices inflation. And I know you and some others kind of hate when he bangs that drum. Can we kind of spurs out the difference between parse out the difference between inflation and rising prices?

• 46:42Tom Bilyeu?

  So I was alluding to it a few minutes ago. So the way that this works is inflation, the phenomenon of inflation, the reason that it gets the name inflation is because you're inflating the money supply. When you inflate the money supply, every dollar in circulation is worth less. So assets appear to go up in value, but for the most part, it's an illusion. You can have a concurrent rise in the actual value of an asset. So take Austin, Texas. People moved to Austin, Texas. Prices went up because there was higher demand for a scarce resource, the houses that already existed. And so those legitimately did go up in value.

• 47:22Tom Bilyeu?

  For anybody paying close attention, you will note that the free market worked and the prices ended up coming back down, which didn't happen in California, but that's that fractal. So we'll hold off on that. So but there are times where prices can legitimately go up because the value of that thing has increased because supply and demand has changed. There's more demand for a constant supply. But inflation is I'm weakening the value of every dollar that's out in the market. So what used to take a hundred dollars now takes 110 or 120. And so it looks like the value of that asset, your house, went up, but it didn't. The dollar went down in value.

• 48:05Tom Bilyeu?

  And that it's nuanced, man, and it's very hard for people to hold in their heads. So when prices go up versus the dollar weakening, when a price goes up. So his tariffs will, anything that was being shipped to us from China, if there is no alternative, the price of the things coming in from China will go up by some amount. Now, Besen is very careful to point out that in Trump term one, he raised the tariffs by, I think, 10% and the price only went up by 0.7%. So it is not a one for one. Whatever you do on the tariffs, then the price that you have goes up by that exact amount. Uh, for a couple of reasons. One, the tariffs are not paid on the final sales price of the good.

• 48:50Tom Bilyeu?

  So like, as people are pointing out, hey, that Birkin bag that you're paying thirty thousand dollars for, whatever absurd price it is. Uh, we're making that for twenty dollars. So the tariff is on the twenty dollars. So you can imagine, if you've got that kind of insane margin, you don't have to pass that on to customers. You can just eat it. It literally doesn't matter. If something is like, hey, we don't have those kind of crazy margins, you as the company are going to eat some of it. You are going to, um, force your supplier to eat some of it. And then you're going to ask the customer to eat some of it. This is why we talked about this several episodes ago. Where I said, part of the reason that tariffs become a popular form of tax is it is a tax that's shared across multiple people.

• 49:35Tom Bilyeu?

  It's not a tax that the end consumer pays by themselves. And so it's yet another way to get the tax revenue without putting all of the burden just on the end consumer. And so people are talking like, oh, the tariffs are a hundred and forty-five percent. Therefore, the goods that you buy are going to be a hundred and forty-five percent more, uh, expensive. That's not true. But businesses that have tight margins will go out of business. Uh, so you'll get like those small mom and pop, like importers and stuff. They're just like, we just can't do it. We can't eat it all. We don't have enough power with our distributor to get them to eat any of it. Cause the distributor is going to be like, sorry, it's your problem. And so we are going to have to pass it all on to the consumer. And then the consumer goes, sorry, you're a luxury good and I just can't afford this anymore. And so poof, you cease to exist.

• 50:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Um, so there are real things like that that are going to be brutal, but it won't be a one for one. But at a hundred and forty-five percent, it's brutal. Okay, so you've got these things that are going to get more expensive. So if you're getting it from China, it is going to be more expensive, almost certainly, by some amount. How, what percentage? I don't know, but some percentage. Uh, so.

• 50:41Tom Bilyeu?

  That's very different, though, than everything that you have to buy having that problem. Energy costs people should care about and do care about. I don't think anything matters as much to people as the cost of energy. First of all, I just, it impacts everything. So if he keeps energy costs low, he's driven them low right now. But if he keeps energy costs low, that'll be a huge win. Huge win. I can't overstate that one enough.

• 51:07Tom Bilyeu?

  Essentials. So keeping the cost of food low, which keeping energy costs low will impact the cost of food because it all has to be transported. So even if it's made here in the US, if energy costs are high, then food costs, even if your supply chain is entirely US to US, it's still gonna be a problem. Energy costs low, if the good is made in the US, and if the vast majority of its supply chain is made in the US, you're in a great position. So if he can be selective with tariffs, which is not in his personality, certainly not with China, he's just break everything. So I'm not blind to that. But what you wanna see is when the dust settles, that this is done far more specifically. So that essentials are not impacted at all, or very little.

• 51:52Tom Bilyeu?

  Energy costs are going down, housing prices coming down, which again, if you can lower rates, that's gonna wildly impact housing prices. Another reason why he's beating that drum with Powell to get him to lower the rates. So that the basket of goods that people really care about go down. And this is why I get so annoyed when governments change what they have in the CPI basket. Because when you start taking out energy and housing, which they do, because they're like, well, those prices swing. Yeah, but they're also the things people care the most about. What the fuck? So energy, food, housing, healthcare, like, those are your big ones, man. And if you can keep those static or down, people will forgive the rest. If those go up, they're not gonna care. You will lose the midterms. Game over.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  So Anthony Papliano, a friend of the show, tweeted this earlier that trueflation shows inflation is 1.3% today. Real-time inflation has been crashing since tariffs were announced. Tariffs are deflationary, not inflationary. The Fed should be cutting right now. That's his kind of hot, strong take. Do you agree that Fed should be cutting right now with where the market is today?

• 52:55Tom Bilyeu?

  I mean, for the reasons that I was saying, I would love to see the Fed cut temporarily because I want us to refinance the debt. The fact that it's 1.36 today doesn't mean it's going to be 1.36 tomorrow. I mean, you don't have to look very far back on that trueflation graph itself to see how recently, I mean, we're talking back in January, back in February, the numbers were a lot higher. So this stuff can fluctuate very quickly. This is exactly what your own pal is saying is, hey, sure, right now they're down, but if you look long-term, the odds that these tariffs drive costs down is effectively zero

• 53:32Tom Bilyeu?

  on some goods. Now, what I think Pomp is trying to get to is Trump has actually intentionally or unintentionally, he has weakened the dollar, and that's great for exporters, bad for people that are trying to send goods to us. So the US sending our goods elsewhere, people like, oh, my God, these have gone down in price. This is amazing. So it offsets some of the tariff wars for people that are trying to reciprocally tariff us. So that is a good thing. But when you're bringing something in from China, it's going to make that thing even more expensive. And so, given how much we import from China, I think that in the long run, Pomp, that's going to be a slightly misleading statement, that there are going

• 54:16Tom Bilyeu?

  to be a lot of things that go up in price. And it isn't purely deflationary. Some things will go up, some things will go down. For China, it will be deflationary in a bad way because they're going to be dumping a bunch of goods in their hometown. Right now, I think what you see is just people panicking. And so, people aren't buying. And so, rates, prices are coming down because they're trying to incentivize people. But in the long run, what will happen is they just stop making as many things. They start laying people off like crazy, and it really does have a negative impact.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Nice, nice. All right. It's time to go into a galaxy far, far away.

• 54:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's do it.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Let's hop into Millennium Falcon. Um, according to a study from the University of Cambridge Institute of Astronomy, they have found gases in an alien planet K two dash one eight B. It's about 2.5 times the size of Earth. It's a water, it's a water world with a hydrogen atmosphere similar to Earth. And they found some very specific, uh, gases that on Earth are used to produce life. And those gases are dimethyl sulfide.

• 55:15Tom Bilyeu?

  On Earth are present due to life. I think is probably a more accurate way to say that.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, on Earth, they are only produced by life. Yeah, yeah. Um, so it's dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide. Um, and this is 124 light years away, this planet. Is this a telltale, a telltale sign that there are aliens in the universe?

• 55:39Tom Bilyeu?

  I can promise you that this is going to end up being debated.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, but I mean, the article right there says this is a revolutionary moment. So some scientists are going to be like, oh my God, what else could it be? But all too often, things like this end up being a huge nothing burger. And it makes me very sad. I want to believe, uh, more than, uh, my man on, uh, X-Files, but I don't know. I don't know is the only honest answer. It's very exciting. I'll be paying attention to see what happens, but we've had stuff like this before where it's like, oh my God, this is like a sign of life. And then you look closer and it's like, nope, psych, just kidding. Uh, so we'll see how this plays out, but, um, there are few things that are more intriguing to me than life on other planets. Like I am a total sci-fi psychopath.

• 56:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Like I just am enthralled by this stuff. So fingers crossed, I hope it's real. That would be amazing, but it's too early.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  All right, three lightning round questions. All right. Do you believe in the entirety of the universe, there is other living like life? Like advanced societies, they cars, they work, all that stuff. Got it.

• 56:43Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, are they active right now? That I don't know.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 56:45Tom Bilyeu?

  So I have always loved about Star Wars. Shout out to my man Lucas in a galaxy, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. A long time ago, this was meant to be something that happened, oh God knows how many eons ago. And that civilization may not even exist anymore. Uh, that's the other thing about just how. The universe is, and that's the visible universe, there could, I mean, it could just go on and on and on and on and on forever. And we're just talking about the part that we can see, like, we could just be some ejection out of a black hole somewhere else, and that's what we call the Big Bang. And it's just like some small part of the universe somewhere. And to us, it's everything, but really, it's just the part that we can see.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Do you think that any human has ever made contact with a extraterrestrial?

• 57:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Definitely not.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Zero percent?

• 57:33Tom Bilyeu?

  I think zero percent.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Okay, and then so that also means we've never seen a craft, Area 51, there's no space technology on Earth.

• 57:39Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm giving you pure emotion.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 57:41Tom Bilyeu?

  Based on all the things that if they were actually coming here at this point, I think that there would be evidence that would be irrefutable.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 57:51Tom Bilyeu?

  And it's still always shaky, blurry, over a military base, like, you know what I mean? It's one of those, I so want to believe that I admit I dial up my disconfirming evidence to a thousand to make sure that I'm not just chasing vapor. But yeah, my instinct is I can't build a chain of logic that makes me go believing that they exist and that we've encountered them predicts what I see around me. Believing that they exist just because the vastness of space says that, well, we're here. So we know life is possible. What are the odds that something so random

• 58:36Tom Bilyeu?

  happened here and it didn't get like extinguished? It seems like this has to be something that when you find something in the quote unquote Goldilocks zone, that it then becomes likely to happen. That would be the way that I would put together the chain of logic, therefore, given the scope and scale of the universe. Like, the one that always freaks me out, you look up into the sky, those points of light that you see are not stars, they are galaxies. They are collections of billions of stars. Bro, like, it, the number is just so massive. And then, because I believe that we are either in a simulation.

• 59:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Or that advanced civilizations are far more likely to create simulations that people then go inside of. I don't think people go explore space unless Eric Weinstein or somebody like him is right that there will eventually be what he calls pinch to zoom where you just rip and you then can travel light years. But my thing is like going from Europe to America, we just killed everybody with smallpox. Just like you dead, you dead, you get a death, you get a death. Everybody gets a death. And if you roll up on another planet, like dude, that's the highest risk shit ever. Like just having the wrong atmospheric pressure, your dust, let alone microbes that you're not ready for, it would just wipe you out. The radiation in space, like all of it's crazy.

• 59:55Tom Bilyeu?

  So I have a gut instinct that simulations will become so compelling and indistinguishable from reality, that if you said, hey, Tom, I can genetically alter your physiology so that you can spend god knows how much time traveling through space, high risk, high risk in the fucking extreme. Or you can go into a simulated world where from one minute to the next, you can decide like right now I want to be a spy on a planet full of robots. And the next minute I want to be fed grapes by a harem of the most beautiful, whatever, like you can just run simulation after simulation after

• 1:00:36Tom Bilyeu?

  simulation. It does not strike me that the vast majority of people will go explore the cosmos. The only impetus for that that I can see is Elon's thing of being multiplanetary so that you can't as easily wipe people out. But I just have a feeling that the answer is we collapse inside. Now that is me projecting because that's how my imagination works. But the string of logic makes more sense to me.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Wow. Video games are going to kill space travel. Who would have thought?

• 1:01:03Tom Bilyeu?

  There it is.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  That's all I got.

• 1:01:04Tom Bilyeu?

  If you guys aren't already joining us for the lives, make sure you do. They are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 6am Pacific time. Here is highlights from today's live. So due process for citizens. I have a screaming alarm bell. You absolutely have to have it. It seems worthy of debate below that.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  I think we're entering that territory where we kind of have to draw the line of is the Constitution for persons, is it for American citizens, is it for?

• 1:01:32Tom Bilyeu?

  It's for American citizens.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  It's for American citizens.

• 1:01:34Tom Bilyeu?

  I'll just help you out right there.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  It's for American citizens.

• 1:01:36Tom Bilyeu?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I'm, as much as I hate that, when they wrote the Constitution, they weren't even talking about all the citizens in the country. So now to act like in 2025, they were including illegal immigrants is kind of a stretch when they weren't even including the population of the current like country. But yeah, it feels icky though. And I just have to acknowledge that, that.

• 1:01:56Tom Bilyeu?

  It does. This is one of those, there's not going to be a clean solution. The problem is that you let a bunch of people in the country illegally. You had an effective strategy, whether it was the intentional strategy or not, is a totally different question, but you had an effective strategy of unfettered illegal access to the country at, there might have been times in history where that's less problematic. Maybe not. I'd have to think through that. But certainly right now, you can't have that. You, you absolutely cannot have that.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Bazimayan, Bazimayan, I hope I'm saying this right. It's a very easy moral question here. If you support Garcia being sent to El Salvador or death camp with no due process, even though he was here legally, then you'd be a Nazi in a previous life. I feel like the legalese where I'm learning, like I'm honing in here. Cause on one hand, he was, he was told that he couldn't be deported because of former gang, he would be, his life would be at risk. That gang is now no longer like, I guess around and the protection order was rescinded. So if you rescind that initial order, that would make him being here illegally. So technically like, I don't want to act like he deserves to be in America. It's his

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  like God given right or anything like that. Would you, would you have sex with a sex bot?

• 1:03:14Speaker 05

  Would you have sex with a sex bot?

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  If nobody, if nobody would find out, would you have sex with a sex bot?

• 1:03:20Tom Bilyeu?

  And it's non sentient.

• 1:03:23Speaker 05

  Hold on that.

• 1:03:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Would you have sex with a non sentient sex bot if nobody would find out?

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  Sentient.

• 1:03:30Tom Bilyeu?

  It's a good one.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Somebody didn't even wait for the poll. So I was like, yes.

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  If nobody could find out?

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Eight o'clock and board it.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  If nobody could find out?

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, if nobody will know. Nobody will find out. Nobody will know.

• 1:03:40Speaker 05

  Right. We're doing just yes and no.

• 1:03:41Tom Bilyeu?

  Skurba wants to know just one time? Just one at a time? Damn, Skurba.

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  Skurba horny.

• 1:03:47Speaker 05

  I didn't put not sure because I don't want the not sure.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Man, you guys are icy to the not sure crowd.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:03:53Speaker 05

  I mean, for this one, it's kind of like.

• 1:03:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Pedro, just once. Yeah, just once, just once, just once.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  If it's amazing, I'm telling everyone.

• 1:04:00Tom Bilyeu?

  That's good, Ricky. That's good. Brian, yes, we'll assume you find the sex robots super attractive.

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  Technically, isn't that already there?

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:04:09Speaker 05

  A non sentient.

• 1:04:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Selena wants women to rule the world if we're even asking this question.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:04:14Speaker 05

  They already make the.

• 1:04:15Tom Bilyeu?

  Ex Machina level.

• 1:04:16Speaker 05

  They already make the mechanical ones that move and stuff and people already buy those.

• 1:04:19Tom Bilyeu?

  No, not lame ones, like proper, like this is like a human.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm talking about like.

• 1:04:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Every level they pass the Turing test.

• 1:04:26Speaker 05

  So they can talk to you?

• 1:04:27Tom Bilyeu?

  But they are not, of course.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, they could talk to you. They're chat GPT.

• 1:04:30Speaker 05

  We're almost there, though. People are already having sex with the ones that can't talk.

• 1:04:34Tom Bilyeu?

  But we want to know where chats are.

• 1:04:36Speaker 05

  People put little things in there to push on them and make them talk. You know what I mean? So like.

• 1:04:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Put things in there?

• 1:04:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, like the little buttons that you could press and you record a little voice line. It's like a Build-A-Bear, but a Build. Build-A-Babe, you know?

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Miss, miss.

• 1:04:48Tom Bilyeu?

  I saw what you were trying to do earlier.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  Mystic Gardener, you, you, you went exactly where I want to go. She says, I'm a female, live alone, and voted yes.

• 1:04:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's go.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  I think like sex bots isn't going to be the sexual revolution that men think it's going to be. Like, I think men are going to be like, yeah, I get to have all these big titted women that are just gonna love me, da, da, da, like. Eighty-five percent, seventy-five percent of women never orgasm with their partner or something crazy like that. Like. I think women going to sex bots is going to be a way bigger phenomenon than is currently being talked about. Like, all the incels will definitely be phase one and they're gonna buy them and they're gonna drive the market share up. But I feel like phase two, phase three, kind of like the iPhone seventeen of this, of the sex bots, is gonna be some suave Fabio dude with, who like, doesn't get soft.

• 1:05:32Tom Bilyeu?

  And I was like, no, I actually believe it. Cool. Uh, started interviewing and hiring, um, drug dealers, gang members, blah, blah, blah. And come smack, uh, into the reality of,

• 1:05:48Tom Bilyeu?

  oh my God, some of these people are some of the most incredible. Kind, smart, amazing people I've ever met. And I'm like, damn, like you took this job as a front for your drug money? Because you needed to prove to your parole officer that you could be making the money that you're making. But you're telling me that because you now believe that your life can be something different. And I'm like, yo, this is crazy. And you go to the baby showers, quinceañeras of these people and you get to know their

• 1:06:33Tom Bilyeu?

  families and you're like, yeah, I was right to believe that people deserve a second chance. And you also come smack into the reality that the vast majority of people waste that second chance and they keep doing ridiculously dumb shit. And you're like, fuck, I hate that this is true because there are some people that violent true. Like if I described the things to you, which I will never, you'd be like, that's a bad person. But I got to know them up close. They were dope.

• 1:07:17Tom Bilyeu?

  So I have the chills because this is the hard reality. Some people really can make that U-turn and you want to do anything and everything you can to help those people. But in my N of one experience, the vast majority of people, they're baked. All right, guys, if you haven't already, be sure to give us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care, peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do? You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything.

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