Trump vs Zelensky, Epstein List Letdown, Stephen A. Smith for President?

YERRR we had to get Saagar Enjeti to come explain some political happenings to us this week - we get the breakdown on Zelenskyy's WW3 rhetoric in the White House, DOGE's real happenings, Dems next big shake up candidate and why Epstein's list is less exciting than we thought. All that and more on this week's episode of FLAGRANT. INDULGE 00:00 Life is out now 00:55 Tate brothers are home + American is global citizenship 5:46 Zelenskyy hates JD Vance + Why it went wrong? 14:55 Ukrainians are against the war + Triggering Trump 20:59 Capacity for suffering + Pum Pum paradise 25:26 Why are North Koreans involved? 28:38 Chinese EVs are incredible 29:28 Talking ish, Euro can't support + Trade deal is protection 38:24 We never ratified protecting Ukraine 41:53 Putin's expansionism + Near future predictions 46:46 What interest does US have in Ukraine? 52:54 The world is multipolar again + US Influence 1:01:48 DOGE + People don't trust Musk 1:10:53 Trump isn't in control of his Presidency 1:15:55 Bannon's view + AOC seems credible 1:20:36 Democrat Party's problems + Age of acrimony 1:25:55 BIPOC + 0 credibility 1:28:30 NBA won't get behind Tatum 1:34:16 Stephen A to become President? 1:38:47 What about Jon Stewart? Stephen A wants it 1:45:44 Any other candidates out there? WE ARE ELITE 1:51:20 Self loathing or good marketing? 1:53:42 Barstool Republicanism has taken over 1:55:55 Americans are dreamers + EGGS ARE A DOLLAR 2:01:26 We need Andrew Cuomo on the show 2:07:39 Democrats need to listen to us 2:09:44 Views on Gavin Newsom 2:12:15 Epstein Reveal was a disaster + There's no smoking gun 2:20:25 Conspiracy Theories are a psyop 2:23:41 Tates tucking their tails? 2:25:10 Europeans can't do coffee + Incredible ingredients 2:30:57 Tokyo might be the best city 2:34:44 Saagar ain't Indian + Japanese As3xuality 2:42:59 Trump's economy + clarifying events 2:49:38 Bezos edict on Washington Post + Return to normal 3:00:03 Being biased is being honest Follow us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/Flagrant Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mark Gagnon?

  Honey, that flu keeping you up? Yeah, I don't got this. You need NyQuil Intense Flu.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Undo your flu symptoms with NyQuil Intense Flu. The nighttime sniffling, aching, aching fever best leave with a flu medicine. You do got this. Uses directed, keep out of reach of children.

• 0:14Speaker 02

  Flagr Family, hello, how are you? I'm very excited for this episode, not only because of our illustrious guest, but also because right now, March 4th, my Netflix special, Life, is streaming currently, right now. You can go watch it, you can watch it right now, you can watch it after the episode, halfway through, however you want, whenever you want. I just want to say thank you so much to everybody who came out to the tour. Thank you so much, everybody came out to the tapings. I'm really proud of this piece, man. I worked really hard on it and I hope you go and you get something out of it. You get some laughs, get some feels. And if you want to spread the word about it, that'd be amazing, that'd be incredible. Let's blow this thing up, man. Let's blow it the fuck up. Yeah, let's set some records. I want to set some damn records, so spread the word, scream it from the rooftops.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  And again, thank you guys so much for all the support throughout this entire process. I love y'all, now let's start the show.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  What's up, everybody? Welcome to Flagr. And today we are joined by, I would say, the perfect guest to explain all the chaos happening around us. We have Sager back in the building.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  We have a lot of things we need to discuss. We got Zelensky. Yes. And Trumpito and Vance. Vance making a big move. The Tate brothers coming back to daddy. Yep. The Tate brothers come back to the West. Shout out the West. Welcome home. Welcome home. They're like the new Brittany Griner.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Whatever y'all said about Brittany Griner, y'all better keep that same energy about it, Vance. Yes or no?

• 1:41Mark Gagnon?

  A weed pen versus human trafficking.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  She did that, though. They're innocent. What I'm saying is you call daddy when you get in trouble abroad. I just don't like these Muslim refugees coming in our country. Yeah, you're exactly right. We had enough Muslim refugees coming in our country. I saw Trump was putting an end to this. Another great point, if you got an issue with the Muslim migrants, keep that same energy. That's right. Now, what we can say on this pod is that's an American struggling abroad that needs our help. And we gotta go protect those Americans. He's a dual citizen, though. He's an American.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  He's American, he's also Romanian. So it's like, well, which law triumphs?

• 2:13Speaker 02

  American. What's your American, you're always American?

• 2:15Speaker 03

  Alright, alright. That's like in Rome, it's like he, if when you have the, when you're a Roman citizen, nobody fucks with you.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Is that, that was the rule?

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Do you guys ever watch the HBO's Rome? You don't talk about it? There's a great, spoiler alert, sorry, I came out 20 fucking years ago.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, they're higher ended?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Where I think it was, it was Pompey got his head cut off by, I think it was Cleopatra or the Egyptians.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  And Caesar arrived and they're like, we cut his head off and they're expecting him to be happy and they're like, nobody executes a Roman citizen, except for another Roman citizen.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  That's fire.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  I fucking love that.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  I like that, yeah. So we are the go, so if you're American, you're American always.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  There you go. Okay, alright, we'll see.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Even if you go get that other certain little citizen.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  We might as well start acting like the Romans.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Yes, like, let's be honest, if you saw two passports at the airport and one was the American one and then the other one was like magenta, whatever colors, the other people's passport, which one are you taking seriously?

• 3:04Speaker 03

  I'm taking America. I mean, I don't even believe in dual citizenship, to be clear, so I think, I don't even think it should be allowed.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Can I go one further?

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  I don't even believe we need passports.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Okay, why not? Oh, it's Americans, it's Americans, yeah, you're right.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  What are you talking about? I'm thinking we're gonna move over here? We're coming back. Don't ask me what, I'll tell them I'm staying there.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  It's like when you go to Thailand and they're like, you gotta get 45 days. I'm like, what are you fucking thinking? I like it, don't get me wrong, but I'm coming home.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  I'm gonna give you $20 and you shut up. How about that? I don't wanna get nothing from no official anywhere in the world.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  You're totally right.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  We should be able to go wherever the fuck we want. It's insulting when I show up to even Canada and they ask me about passports.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Especially, right.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  I feel insulted.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  How long are you gonna stay? As long as I please. As long as I please.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  You're in the 51st state now, so it doesn't even matter.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Listen, Greenland, I don't even know if I want Greenland the way they're acting.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  You want Greenland.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, but the way they're acting, I did wanna give them the opportunity to be American.

• 3:57Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 3:57Speaker 02

  And the fact that I don't see a lot of like tweets on like Greenland Twitter or whatever like that, I need to see more energy and excitement.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  Why not? I mean, they wore their MAGA hats for Trump Jr.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  Did they really?

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, there's controversy around it.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Well, cuz they're saying that they rounded up a bunch of homeless Greenlanders and gave them MAGA hats. I don't know if that's true. They, they say that it's not true. There's homeless Greenlanders. That's what I was thinking, I was like, there's only 50,000 of you. It's not, it's a huge place.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  Greenland, Greenland, Greenland. We're gonna give a quarter pound of whale blubber to anybody who votes to join America, okay? You can cut it open with that little, uh...

• 4:28Speaker 03

  I mean, what is it? Fifty thousand, one million dollars each? How much is that?

• 4:32Speaker 04

  I mean, what is that, like, five? Either, what, five?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  We're not paying anybody to be in America.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  That's too much math.

• 4:38Speaker 02

  We don't, we don't pay anybody to be in America. Look at that. That's what I'm talking about. That guy looks American.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  He looks great. That's a Greenlander. Yeah, that's a Greenlander.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that looks like, he looks like a Dagestani wrestling...

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Anyway, uh, listen, we got a lot, well, what, no, what else we got? We got a Doge. We need to explain Doge.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Sure. Well, you're the expert on Doge now.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Apparently.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, you're the Doge guy.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Apparently, I'm the expert. I actually, I have no fucking clue what's going on. I really have no clue, but you came in today, like, I think, you, what did you say?

• 5:08Speaker 03

  What did I say?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  That I'm going viral.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Oh, that you are going viral, yes. You're, you and Charlemagne's back and forth on Doge has been, I, I've seen it everywhere. That also could be my algorithm.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  We're the top political analysts in the world, no offense.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  No, no, no, I'm taking, I'm taking, sir.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  But when people wanna know what's happening in America...

• 5:23Speaker 03

  You're the top MMA journalist, you're the top political commentator, you're the top comedian, you're top everything. It's just too much.

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Now it feels like I've been bragging or something. You're like a polymast, you know?

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm that.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  You and Charlemagne are kind of breaking points, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, no, it's the same concept, that's true. It's the same concept. I'm liking it. Yeah, dude.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Did you steal our shit?

• 5:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think I did.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  For smart people?

• 5:44Speaker 02

  You're just brilliant brilliance. Okay, um, and then we got more. Like, there's a bunch of things that you are absolutely perfect to explain to us. Oh, the gold card citizenship, I wanna know. I, I wanna know, like, why Steve Bannon's back arounds? Like, I, I just wanna know all these things. So where do we wanna start? Obviously, the Zelensky thing is the biggest.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  Probably, yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Did you watch the whole?

• 6:04Speaker 03

  I watched the whole thing.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  Can you give us your honest breakdown of it?

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Sure. I mean, I, well, let me disclose my bias. I've been very, uh, I've been very against more aid to Ukraine, been for a settled, you know, a settlement of the conflict now for quite some time. So, my bias, like, totally upfront. And so, seeing that all happen was very, like, very pleasing to me. But I'll try and be just like neutral. So, it was a 53-minute interaction. Uh, it was during something called a pool spray. Which is, so I used to cover the White House. The way that these things usually work is you have the king chairs where Trump was in that chair and you have Zelensky here. It's like the head of state chair. We usually, the cameras, so like if you and I were sitting, the people who are watching, there'd just be a wall of cameras right here. And it's supposed to just be diplomatic fineries. Like it's supposed to just be like, yes, Mr. President, we welcome you to our country, blah, blah, blah.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  For about 40 minutes, it mostly was totally chill. Even Trump was like, you guys have been very brave. If you watch a lot of this, he was very much trying to keep things under control. But there was this moment, and what happened is that, is that Zelensky hates J.D. Vance for a variety of reasons. Well, back when J.D. was a Senate candidate, so 2022, had a viral moment where he was like, I don't care about Ukraine at all. He said that on camera. It became a huge controversy, obviously became a villain inside Ukraine. But he's also been kind of a chief opponent of more military aid to Ukraine, or what I would call is like the Atlantic religion, like this idea that the United States and Europe are inextricably linked, that the invasion of Ukraine is not only an attack on democracy, it's an attack on America itself.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  So that's kind of the Eurocentric Atlantic mindset, very Cold War mentality. All right, so Vance is somebody who's much more of a realist, like he thinks that there are checks and balances and that stockpiles are my, are, are actual trade-offs, right? So he's like, we can't just ship unlimited weapons to Ukraine because we have to worry about our own stuff, or we need to worry about Taiwan, or we need to worry about any other ally. Pretty reasonable. I would say it's quite reasonable, but you know, that's, that they would say otherwise, and that's fine, it's a democracy. But anyway, so put that all together, J.D. I think was making a statement about bringing peace. And it was at that moment that Zelensky really, you could see him lean forward the way I am right now, and he's like, let me ask you a question, J.D. And that's when I was like, oh shit. Because, well, first of all, J.D.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  was calling him Mr. President, he's calling him J.D. He's got a lot of hatred there. Don't forget either, Zelensky came to Pennsylvania and as J.D. called him, yes, for Josh Shapiro. Not only that, he gave an interview here on U.S. soil attacking J.D. Vance, saying, I forget, you might be able to find it, Mark. He either said he was too radical or something like that. So Zelensky's had it out for J.D. for a long time.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Your comfort telling Mark to go look some shit.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  I'm saying, if you don't mind, yeah. I was gonna say last time.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Yo, you know Siders making money when he's telling white people shit. He's in comfort.

• 8:50Speaker 03

  That's our natural state. That's what Vivek showed, right? As Indians, our natural state is to tell you what to do.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. Sell that low caste piece of shit. Go Google something, man.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  What do you got?

• 9:06Speaker 03

  He's too radical. There it is. All right.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Google Waller.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Zelensky.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Oh, man. Zelensky calls Vance too radical, suggests that he needs to study World War II. Yeah, so that was September. That was right before the election. And they start bickering, basically, over the terms of the 2014 ceasefire. And it was then that this all starts to get very, very contentious.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Can I ask a real quick question?

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  This whole meeting, was this to present the agreement on the ceasefire? Is that the idea?

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Well, there's no ceasefire yet, so it's called the minerals deal. So over the last, we'll say, couple of weeks or so, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besson went to Kiev, basically to negotiate this long-term minerals deal. The terms of the deal are, it was kind of complicated, but like, basically, it would give the United States rights to Ukrainian rare earth minerals, and US companies would effectively have a monopoly over that. In exchange, there would be an interest from the United States in a free and a sovereign Ukraine that would not be attacked. Now, Zelensky wants something called an explicit security guarantee.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  If you attack us, we start banging on the ops.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Exactly. So he wants his full-blown NATO membership. That's not gonna happen, because it would mean Article 5 get triggered. That would obviously bring the United States into a nuclear war. He's willing to settle, of course, settle for an explicit US guarantee over what I think Ukraine controls now, although he's never even said that. That would be a concession for him. So this was supposed to be a meeting of fineries. We're like, yep, we're here. We're here to work together. We're here to work towards peace. Zelensky just loses it over a couple of things. One was Trump being like, this guy can't even say anything about peace with Putin. Which, you know, I mean, let's give Zelensky the benefit. of the doubt and all this, his country's been invaded, he's been at war, his people are being killed. So that's probably a lot to swallow. But the thing is, is that from a pure diplomatic

• 10:57Speaker 03

  point of view, there's a, there's a template for all of this. The king of Jordan was here two weeks ago. Him and Trump are huge differences over Gaza, right? Trump controlling Gaza and Trump says all this, oh, we're going to control Gaza. Yeah, Jordan, they're going to give in. I mean, that Trump Gaza IG post was. I mean, it was wild. What the fuck?

• 11:16Speaker 03

  Even the guys with, the women with beards. Yes, those women with beards, I think were great. I mean, it's a very progressive Gaza. That's right. Gaza's gotten woke. Maybe that's why they cover them up. Okay. All right. So what happened? But the king sits there, you know, it's all diplomatic fine. And then afterwards, he releases a saving. We had great discussions, but, and he just lays out his terms. So that's an idea of contentious meeting, US ally, but Jordan, you know, at the end of the day, we're receiving a shit ton of USAID. We're a major guarantor of their security. Zelensky just can't take it and he breaks down. So you can even see his posture. He starts going at JD, both over a ceasefire, and he starts questioning basic facts. So the fact that really

• 11:55Speaker 03

  set Zelensky off is when JD said, you are pressing your own male population into forced conscription because you don't have enough manpower on the front lines. That is an objective fact. The average age of the Ukrainian military is somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, which is insane. That's like late stage Nazi Germany fighting in World War II. That's the civil war, the Confederate military, the Confederate armed forces at the siege of Petersburg. Who's left. Yeah, exactly. But that's actually a key point. Remember, the Ukrainians refuse to drop their draft age from, I think it's 25 or 27. I'm not exactly sure. There's a whole generation of 18 to 25 year olds or 27 that are not currently eligible for the Ukrainian draft. And it's

• 12:38Speaker 03

  because it's massively unpopular in Ukraine. So out of both sides of their mouth, they're like, we're total war, we're throwing everything we got this. On the other side, they're like, well, we're also preserving our prime age male population to repopulate the Ukrainian state in the future. So they're not really throwing everything that they do have here. And in fact, previously, one of the US demands was, hey, you guys got to drop your fucking draft age down to 18. The reason they don't want to do that is A, the guys don't want to fight because they've watched probably a million or so people get killed, is B, they're just gonna flee. I mean, if you guys go, so I was in Hungary and in Budapest, my guide, we walked past the Four Seasons Hotel, and he's like, "You see all these license plates?" And I was like, "Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine." These are all filthy rich Ukrainians who've been living in the Four Seasons Gresham Palace

• 13:23Speaker 03

  in Hungary.

• 13:24Speaker 05

  Until it's over.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I go to Vienna, and same thing. My guide is like, "Our strip clubs have never had better business than..." And he's like, "They've been just throwing..." He's like, "These Ukrainians have been throwing money around." They don't want to fight. I mean, a huge portion of their population is gone. So, there's, all of that came to head when JD was like, "You're forcibly conscripting people." Empirically true, there are videos of people, dude, sadly even people who are mentally retarded, who've been pressed into service.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  Probably the strongest of soldiers.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  It's horrible.

• 13:53Speaker 05

  But I mean, they can probably do a lot of like...

• 13:55Speaker 03

  No, dude, but you can also look at the amputation.

• 13:56Speaker 05

  They don't even need a gun. You just send them out there. They're just ripping Russian stuff off with their bare hands.

• 14:01Speaker 03

  This is some Soviet, this is like Soviet Union, 1943 shit.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  I'm just saying, if you want to put, what does a coach do? He finds the rule. You're gonna throw...

• 14:12Mark Gagnon?

  They got helmets on all, right?

• 14:15Speaker 05

  Guys, dates, first of all, thank you everybody who came out to Zany's, six sold-out shows, so fun, Nashville, underrated city. March 14th and 15th, I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tickets aren't really moving there, so buy them. Omaha, Nebraska, March 21st and 22nd. Columbus, Ohio, these tickets will sell out, March 28th and 29th, make sure you buy them. Also, April 10th through 12th, we are making up for the shows that I missed in Tampa. Those tickets are already almost gone, hurry up and buy them. Also, 4/20 shows in Denver, I'm hyped for this. You know what I do on 4/20? I get high. So, April 17th through April 20th, Denver, Colorado, at Comedy Works, we're gonna be at both locations. Those dates and more at akashsingh.com, I love it.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Suck his dick.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Hell yeah, you'll finally meet somebody!

• 14:56Speaker 04

  What's up, guys? World's fastest ad read, Rochester, New York, March 26th, April 27th, Portland, Maine, I'll be there, Joey Avery.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  I'm in Portland, girls can suck dick!

• 15:03Speaker 04

  That's Portland, Maine, not Oregon. I'll see you guys there. Let's get back to the show, thank you all so much, bye.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Feeling or the sentiment is at least online that the the the population is fractured in terms of their support of the war.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Which is not uncommon with countries at war. I mean, America, Vietnam, right? It was probably divided.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Even in an invasion, you have to remember, this is a country which as a polity like was very torn apart. Like it is significant portion of their population which spoke Russian, had affinity for Russia. That's largely part that Russia kind of controls right now. But then you also have, yeah, the Donbass region, you're right, the Donetsk. But also you have this new Ukrainian identity, which has really emerged a very distinct from how it used to be in the Soviet times. And others. So anyway, it's fascinating. No, I've never been to Ukraine. I've been to all around Ukraine, but never actually.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Ukraine is awesome. Like Kiev is awesome. Yeah.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  When did you go?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  We went during the last war.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Which one?

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Crimea.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Oh, okay. So 2013?

• 16:03Speaker 02

  I don't know if it was that far, something like that. But it was like, we, I got like, I knew something was up because I got an email from Expedia. And they were like, by, by the way, it was something like, it was a, would you like to rent a car for your trip? By the way, this is an active war zone. Be safe.

• 16:23Speaker 02

  But no, we were there and it was, it was unbelievable. Food was amazing.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  I've got nothing against Ukraine or Ukrainians.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  The food was incredible. Food was incredible. Food was incredible, yeah. Prostitutes were just so, it's just incredible. Like the girl I saw at the strip club.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Sad part of it.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  What is that?

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Just the number of Ukrainian women who apparently are being human trafficked all over Europe. Apparently it's a disaster, like all over Hungary, Vienna, all in terms of prostitution, they're being totally taken.

• 16:50Speaker 06

  We're trying to figure it out.

• 16:54Speaker 06

  We're trying to figure it out. It's easier with the retards.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Listen, that is, that's fucking horrible. But these were in Ukraine. Do you know how fucking miserable those people in those countries they're going to are gonna be? Those people are gonna be fucking furious. Cause I saw a girl who had areoles like church wafer. They were, they were the whitest areoles I've ever seen in my entire life. And I had to go to four different ATMs to get enough money I could pay for it.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  No, but salute to her, salute to her, man. You know, shout out Zelensky. Anyway, um, okay, so, so it seems like there's waning support. It seems like there's waning support. Cause they're all in this strip club with the white nipple chicks. 18 to 25, they're in the strip club, bro.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Or they wanna leave. No, so, anyway.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  I had to fake an orgasm with her.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  It's a problem. So, in the...

• 17:46Speaker 02

  I had to fake an orgasm. Cause I had sex once and then my boy had a girl and then he had sex and then he went back for number two. And I'm just sitting on the couch with this poor girl. I don't wanna hurt her feelings. So I take her back and I got the udon noodle. My shit is not even close to hard. And then I just, I just kinda pumped away for a little bit and then I was like, "Alright, ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire!"

• 18:12Speaker 03

  A ceasefire Ukrainians can support.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Exactly, yes. Okay, so you were saying?

• 18:15Speaker 03

  Okay, so, in this meeting...

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Also been to Russian strippers, too.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  I didn't do anything. Didn't touch them at all. Just wanna let you know.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Well, you probably should. You should say anything.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  I wouldn't.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  Alright, so what we have in this meeting is not only all of this beef around conscription, but really what happened is that Vance started to get very frustrated. And he was like, "You come here to the Oval Office of the United States. You disrespect this office."

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  The worst mistake Zelensky made is that as Trump is getting furious, Zelensky...

• 18:44Speaker 02

  This is the line.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  This was the line. Yeah, he's like, "You have no cards. You have, you remember this?"

• 18:49Speaker 02

  The line to me was, the line to me that ended it was, um, "You, you don't have to worry now, but in the future..." "You have an ocean, so you don't have to worry now, but in the future you will worry," or something like that.

• 19:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. He was like, "Don't tell us what to be afraid of." I mean, that's, this is Trump. Like, Trump is not only transaction, it's about respect. Apparently, they told Zelensky to wear a suit before he came. And Zelensky decided not to.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  So, he's, Trump called him out.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  He's an actor.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Did you see Trump call him out?

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, he goes, "Oh, you're dressed up." What did he say? He's like, "You dressed up."

• 19:17Speaker 02

  He dressed up. Yeah, that's right. But that line to me is where he lost everything.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Because you're threatening. You're basi-, he's basically acting...

• 19:25Speaker 03

  He's been acting this way for three years. That's the shocking part of it, is he has this false... Oh, look, I mean, this is where... I'm gonna put my own bias on the table.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Let's look at all of the arguments for supporting Ukraine. Number one is that we need to defend NATO. And you're like, okay, well Ukrainians are, or Ukraine's not in NATO.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Okay, got it. Two, we need to defend democracy. It's like, yeah, I mean, it's a democracy in the way that any corrupt Eastern European country is. Zelensky's canceled elections, their parliament, or their constitution says they can't even hold an election. During wartime, he has banned opposition parties, censored the media. I mean, it doesn't look that democratic to me. And actually, one of the core demands of the United States is like, hey, you need to hold an election. And he's like, no, we can't do that.

• 20:04Speaker 02

  We can't possibly do that.

• 20:06Speaker 03

  We can't have that until, even in his, even in his interview on Fox News afterwards. They're like, would you resign? He's like, that is up to Ukrainians. I'm like, how? They can't vote, dude. Yeah, it's like, how does that work?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:18Speaker 03

  Three was, okay, and this is the most sinister and the disgusting one, is, well, we need to support Ukraine because we're weakening Russia, which means what? Which is that we are forcing the Russians to pour millions of men into Ukraine and kill as many Russians as possible. And somehow, that's in the national interest of the United States, is that we're weakening Russia and we're making their economy poorer. Here's the thing, Russia's not like here. It's also not a democracy in a sense. They don't give a shit about a million guys who got killed. Go look at their history. What always happens? The war's a disaster, it's a total shit show. They make up for it with the vast, you know, population that they have. They pour as many people in there, very inefficiently, they kill a shit ton. And for some reason, the population, I mean, they don't love it,

• 21:02Speaker 03

  but they're not rioting in the streets in the way that, I mean, in America. Yeah, it's like, dude, it's part of their lore, like in the Soviet Union. They lost almost 20% of their population. That's a foundational myth of their country.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  We went to Russia as well. We did comedy, we did comedy in Russia, not what

• 21:18Speaker 03

  That actually must be hard.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  What we did in Ukraine. And so basically, when I was asking them about this, and I think that what they have culturally is a lower expectation of happiness.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  Absolutely, you're absolutely right.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  And the advantage of that is, there's like a suffering built into the culture.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Yes, it's in their story.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Like their story going back to the 1600s is just invasion is projected. All of Russian national security policy, all the way back to the time of the czars, is what? Defense through depth, is vastness.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Our population, we conquer as much as we can, force the population to come through. I mean, they've had horrible episodes. They were conquered by the Mongols that went through and devastated all the way up to Kiev. I mean, obviously invaded by the Nazis, invaded by Napoleon. Their strength is their vastness, is their population, and their just capacity for suffering.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  Capacity for suffering is huge. It's built into the culture, it's built into their literature. There is this understanding that one does suffer.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  And something very powerful about that, and I think this is something that like Americans maybe do not have, right?

• 22:22Speaker 03

  Not at all.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Since we haven't seen war on our front lines, and I'm talking about actual war since the Civil War.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, that's the closest we ever came. And remember, what was that? 2% of the US population was killed. Remember, they got 20% of their population that was killed. They had general orders during Stalin, the not one step back policy. Stalin's son was captured, and he threw his daughter-in-law in prison. Because they said, any person who gets captured, your whole family is going to the Gulag. That is the DNA of the Russian state.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  I don't know if this is like a benefit to this, but what happens when 20% of your population dies, and it's men?

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Is that any man that's alive?

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Is like an absolute.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Has six women.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  And this is why there was no standard for like not being an alcoholic, or not being a piece of shit.

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Interesting, yeah, that's true.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  It literally, because if you had a cock that worked, that was the only way to continue procreating. And I spoke to a guy who was like taking us around Ukraine. He was like essentially our fixer right there. And he was, and that's what he does. He like takes people around these places where you might feel a little uncomfortable. And he's like, yeah, there was a time where like six is an understatement. You could have 12 different girls. If you had a job, you could pay the bills and you could feed them, and the girls had to kind of put up with it. Now, they get upset with that. So what happens when they get upset about it? There is a sexual revolution because you have to compete for the guy. You're not in the position to be like, yo, I'm keeping my pussy tight, because seven other girls are like, I'll open it up for whatever. So now you have this like, yeah, 20% of the guys die. But the guys who are alive are like, it's party time.

• 23:55Speaker 05

  Not even 20% of the guys.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  They just lived.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  War was probably only women, right?

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Dude, and they just lived. They're the worst conflict. I actually read a book about what Moscow was like when they thought the Nazis were about to come. And it was the most debaucherous, like, party that Moscow apparently had ever seen. Like, people were just housing vodka, like, having sex in stairwells and...

• 24:17Speaker 02

  They were right, they were excited for it.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  They were, there was just like, this is it.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  They're about to die.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  We're all about to die. And so, they just, it was crazy, man. It's the same way, if you read about how our guys behaved in London, the airmen, in World War II, you're like, yo, dude, this is, this is disgusting. You're like, this is, this is bad, man. Like, the US Army's like, trying to find prophylactic kits that will actually work. The entire Piccadilly Circus was a literal whorehouse for US soldiers. Dude, they had, this is part of the World War II.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  They've been doing this nonstop, okay? My grandmother survived World War II.

• 24:59Speaker 06

  I want British pants.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  She survived.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  Barely survived.

• 25:06Speaker 03

  She was in Piccadilly Circus. She was in Piccadilly Circus.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  She was in a bunker. She was in a bunker.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  She had nice stockings, apparently that's what they really liked.

• 25:14Speaker 04

  Don't you dare.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Dude, US soldiers were paid fucking... US soldiers were paid five times the wage of a British soldier at that time. The guys had no chance. The Brits were furious about it. They're like, our invasion is here, all these yanks. They're like, yeah, they're oversexed, overpaid, and over here. That was like, the worst thing.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  All my family was over there at that time?

• 25:39Speaker 06

  The boys!

• 25:40Mark Gagnon?

  Wait, you said Russia doesn't care about losing people, but why did they...

• 25:43Speaker 03

  They don't care as much about it.

• 25:44Mark Gagnon?

  As much, but why did they recruit, uh, North Koreans to fight for?

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Well, uh, that's actually an interesting thing. So first, I think the North Koreans want battle experience because they have one of the world's largest militaries. But two is the North Koreans have tons of ammunition. They have a stockpile. And actually, this is a useful thing for geopolitics. Tweet today, they're like, why is the world take Russia seriously like smaller GDP than Texas? You know, all of this. And I was like, oh, the answer is like 9,000 nuclear weapons.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  The same thing with North Korea. I don't even know what the North Korean GDP is like, probably a county in

• 26:15Speaker 02

  And natural resources.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Mississippi.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  It's nuclear weapons and natural resources.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Because if you just have one, you can't really compete on the global stage.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  But when you have nuclear weapons and you have oil and gas.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 26:27Speaker 02

  No one could really tell you what to do.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Bro, I was in Istanbul.

• 26:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  And I saw the Russian oil ships, ships coming through because they have to go through that.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 26:36Speaker 02

  What is that little?

• 26:38Speaker 03

  Bosporus.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Bosporus, yeah.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  I think that's what it is.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  And they basically took away the Russian lettering on the side of ships.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  So that's like, remember there was a good oil embargo, nobody's gonna buy Russian oil.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Total bullshit.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  They just painted over the side of the ships and then Russian oil became.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  Well, this is a very useful exercise in like how power works. So America, like our economy doesn't do, we don't produce anything. We're a service based economy.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  We consume.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  And so we were like, oh, well, we're cut the Russians off from here and we're gonna fuck them over. And it's like, oh, Russian GDP is exploding, their war production is incredible, they've increased year over year, their GDP is expand, or their economy is expanding because of war production.

• 27:13Speaker 02

  We tried to Karen them, we canceled them.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, we literally tried to do that.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Dare do business with Russia.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  We went woke and they made a lot of money.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  And they made a shitload of money. And actually, the European Union has spent more in year three just on Russian oil than they have given to Ukraine. So there's a lot of talking

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's all bullshit.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  Out of all sides of their mouth. But this is a very less useful lesson for America. Guns, bullets, oil, that's the only shit that matters. That's all that matters. Oh, Nvidia stock or what? It's bullshit. It means nothing.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Yo, yo, yo, chill, chill, chill.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  In a war, it needs not to hold.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  We need this market to hold.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Well, actually, I don't think it's gonna hold, man.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  We need this market to hold.

• 27:48Speaker 03

  There's some bad signs on the horizon.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Stop it.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. What's happening?

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Oh, goodness.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  I mean, check the, what's the S and P 500? Oh, God. I don't think it's good. It's been dropping like 1.5%.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but Nvidia shows big earnings and they have a new chip that's gonna do really well.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Actually, but

• 28:01Speaker 02

  I lost a lot of Bitcoin I need to buy back.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  Look over the last month.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  I lost a lot of Bitcoin I need to buy back.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  The S and P is flat on the month, which is not great, but it's been dropping a little bit from some

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's some signs that it looks like there might be.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  I mean, don't get me wrong. It's like, we're still doing fine.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  I had my guy and I was like, are we selling? Say again?

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Crypto's in the tank?

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, crypto's in that guy.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  Okay, not really, though. It's like when Bitcoin crashes from 100 to 80, you're like, come on, bro. Like, you know what I mean? It's like. Two months? That's kind of crazy. Okay, sure, but I'm not saying, okay, it's like, what does crash mean? Like, and this is also where we should be honest about the S and P, where it's like, look, it's still up 20% on the.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Don't even talk about S and P. Just talk about Nvidia. Like, you gotta speak about Nvidia.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  What is Nvidia right now?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  But you gotta speak about it in the same way as Bitcoin, then.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah, absolutely.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Because if you're gonna look at that exponential growth over the past decade.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Listen, I'm saying in terms of like, national character. Like, for example, I've been thinking a lot about this with cars. With, look, American cars, like, if we're being honest, and if we had a totally free market, I'm buying a Chinese EV yesterday.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Wait, what?

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Are you kidding me? They're incredible. There's this guy, Forrest, Forrest Auto Reviews. He's so good. He does all these videos showing BYD, the Xiaomi cars. The BYD just rolled out full self-driving for even their car that costs fucking $10,000. Like, if you buy a Tesla, FSD will cost you an extra eight. No, no, no, I want, I don't want these to be sold here. I don't want them to be sold here. But that's my point, is that we have to recognize our cars, even though they suck. This car industry, it's not only jobs during World War II. What did we do? The Ford factory, that's rolling tanks off of there, right? That's what the Russians have. The Russians don't prioritize economic growth. They prioritize guns, bullets, and strategic autonomy.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  So, this is also the problem with Ukraine. Ukraine does not have any of that. They're totally reliant on the United States and on Europe.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  So why is he pulling up, talking shit?

• 29:49Speaker 03

  That's, that's my point. I just don't understand why he would do this.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  You're giving us the facts, you're giving us like, the truth behind it. You're acknowledging your bias 100%, but I think most Americans are just reacting emotionally to this.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Right, of course, which they always do.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Of course, as people do. And it's important to speak to them at the emotional level, because that's where most people lie. So, the idea that we have here is, hey, we've been giving you billions of dollars, and then you came up and you were kind of talking spicy to the person who's feeding you.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Now. I don't know why he thinks he can't just come kiss the ring. Does he think he'll lose the support of the people in Ukraine if he does it?

• 30:25Speaker 03

  I think he's

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Why does he feel like he has leverage?

• 30:27Speaker 03

  I think he's been huffing European glue. So the thing is, is that if you look right now, so right now, literally as you and I are speaking, they're in London crafting a peace agreement, which they're going to propose to us. But this is where it's all bullshit. So the France and France and Germany came up with a peacekeeping plan. We'll have 30,000 troops there. You don't have to do anything. No, no US troops on the ground. I'm like, okay, good. They're like, but you have to pay for it. You have to provide ISR, which is intelligence support, you know, and all that. You have to do your ISR. You have to provide all the bullets. You have to pay for it. And so what are you revealing to us? Is that France and Germany don't even have the capacity to forward deploy 30,000 peacekeeping troops in a tiny country like Ukraine. I'm saying compared to the rest of the globe. What should that tell you? These militaries are nothing.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  NATO's own chief says that the Russians produce more ammo in three months than all of NATO combined in an entire year. That's with the United States.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Zelensky is acting as if there's another option.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Yes, he thinks that the

• 31:24Speaker 02

  He can't be so naive.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  He is, oh man, I think he is. The rhetoric that's coming

• 31:28Speaker 02

  Is he trying to do a deal?

• 31:30Speaker 03

  He, he wants the UK and France and Germany and all the other NATO countries to give him a security guarantee before he will provide, or he will sign any ceasefire or any deal. But again, as I just told you guys, any peacekeeping deal signed by France or Germany is bullshit.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Because there's nothing to come back

• 31:47Speaker 03

  They don't have anything.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  So here's the thing, why

• 31:49Speaker 03

  They're paper tigers.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  I heard what he said. I heard what he said in it where he's essentially like, hey, we could do this ceasefire agreement, but they haven't respected ceasefire agreements in the past.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Which I understand his point.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  No, he's actually correct about that.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  So, so, so he's like, why would this matter if I do a ceasefire agreement? If we know for a fact that they don't respect them in the past?

• 32:05Speaker 03

  It matters because Uncle Sam is the person who is signing underneath it. That's the fundamental difference.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  We've also signed protections before for the Ukraine, if I'm not mistaken.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  You're talking about Budapest?

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Um, well, was it in Budapest that we decided if they would relinquish their nuclear weapons? Who would support them?

• 32:19Speaker 03

  Okay, so let's talk about that too. I hear this a lot from the pro-Ukraine mob.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Before, before we go back to, before we get to that one. Again, I'm not trying to like catch you here. What I'm trying to do is somewhat understand his Perspective and this is what I thought because there's a part of me that goes listen as long as Trump is in office. Russia is not doing a single thing if this is agreed upon.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  The nothing's and if Trump was going to be in office for the next 40 years. This version of a ceasefire where it doesn't guaranteed American muscle behind it. This version of ceasefire Russia is going to respect 100%. Here is my concern if I am Ukraine.

• 32:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Or if I am Zelensky and I think he handled horribly in the room. There's a much better way to say like if I was him, if I did want to litigate in the media as J D Vance said, what I would say is this. I know I could sign this deal with you and you would protect us and I know that. Russia would not mess with you because they take you seriously and they would not. But what happens if next election? We get the same people back that they did not take seriously and they're not afraid of.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  How do I get security? I go, I'm not worried about the next four years because I know that Putin would not be stupid enough to mess with Donald Trump.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  I would keep on going that he would be crazy because you would do the ultimate thing.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  But in four years, according to your laws, you're not going to have Donald Trump. We don't know what would happen and now we're left in the dark and the next administration. Could have the same sway with Putin as the last one did, which is Putin is not afraid with him. He'll do what he want.

• 33:45Speaker 03

  You're not, you're not wrong at all. And that's why you should have shut your fucking mouth and you should have signed that minerals deal. Because in that minerals deal, it was in strategic interest for the United States to have a free, a sovereign Ukraine, a business relation. For example, why do we care about Europe or Taiwan or any of these places? You think we care about fucking democracy? We care about the TSMC chip in Taiwan. Okay. Why do we care about Vietnam? Because they make all of our clothing. Why do we care about Germany? How many German cars are on the road? All relations between states come down to trade. That is a fundamental insight. The problem of the post World War Two order is what's led to this is that we have decided. Oh, it's democracy and feelings and all this other bullshit. It's like, no, the purpose of a navy.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  So you're saying the trade deal would incentivize the United States to protect them because if Russia.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Invaded any further and it negatively impacted.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Bingo.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Our resources.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Economy. Yes.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  Now, what if they? Invaded further, but it didn't impact the places where our resources came from.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, this is a, well, that's a bigger question of whether we should even have NATO membership for a lot of these countries. Look, it's settled, it doesn't matter. The US Senate has ratified the treaty. But there were a lot of people in the 90s when they were talking about NATO expansion into Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, were like, guys, this is in the traditional, not only sphere of influence, but what compelling interest does the United States have in these three countries? Like bilateral trade of those three probably does not even equal bilateral trade between us and a single province or a single state in Mexico. Like, and see, this is the thing, we don't want to talk in balance sheet terms, and it's important. But coming back to your point, you're right, but here's the problem. You have no leverage. And at the end of the day, you do not matter to the United States.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  And this is, this is my bias again, but at the end of the day, the United States has no compelling interest over who compels the Donetsk region of Ukraine. They just don't. In fact, all of Ukraine, even before the invasion, ranked like 50 some billion bilateral trade with the United States. That's one-fourth of what we do with Brazil. If Brazil was invaded by Argentina, I'd be like, see ya. I was like, good luck. Work it out. I'll buy my coffee from Columbia. You know what I'm saying?

• 35:48Speaker 02

  It's amazing, the arrogance. He must know something we don't know.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  By creating a financial alignment, I feel like he loses even more leverage. Like, by creating an ideological position.

• 35:57Speaker 03

  You're exactly right.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  It gives him more of a position.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  Well, because on that plane.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Can you explain that, Mark?

• 36:02Speaker 04

  Well, in my mind, like, if you're just purely financial, then Russia could now broker it down and be like, hey, if we can.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  Which they did. They said that. They were like, hey, we have rare earths too, by the way, in Russia. Which they do, they actually have a lot more.

• 36:11Speaker 04

  So by making it purely, like, financial, now Russia could just come in and be like, hey, it's a race to the bottom. We'll just beat them on price.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  Or Russia could go, we're gonna invade, we're gonna take over those resources, and we're gonna give them to you for half price.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  And you know what we would say? Russia just got a little bigger, bro.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  And so Zelensky knows this, it's a race to the bottom, so then now he has to say it's ideological, we have to protect democracy. Yes, that is double click, everybody on that one.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  So we have to, so we have to protect democracy even though he is not protecting democracy within his own country.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  It falls apart on its very own line.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Sure, but emotionally, he's doing the right thing to protect the longevity.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  He's played his cards incredibly.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  But not this moment.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  No, not this. Up until this, you will study Zelensky, and I do not like Zelensky, I think he's taken advantage of the United States, I think he's an arrogant prick, all of this. The way he handled himself immediately after with the media, by convincing the West and others that there is this compelling interest, he was managed to get $100 billion from the world's superpower, more than we spent on 20 years of the Afghan National Security Forces we have sent to Ukraine in three years. Think about that, that's fucking insane, the greatest transfer of military aid in modern US history. On top of that, he convinces all of these European nations, Germany, France, the great powers, not only to come to his defense, but to tie his borders to their own and say it is the strategic interest of the French, of the German, of the UK people to make sure

• 37:35Speaker 03

  that we're compelling. And, you know, in the beginning, a lot of them did support that, but, and this is where it all starts to fall apart, now we're watching what will actually happen with a Europe led by Europeans. So when we look at the polling that's in the UK and France and in Germany, they're like, support for Ukraine was sky high. Now they're like, should we continue or should we have a deal? In almost every country, it's flipped. So Europeans are now in a position where they would probably have to increase military aid to their maximum capacity, give them everything not stripped down to the ground, and they would still maybe, I don't know, maybe one sixth or something like that? And it wouldn't matter to Russia, because Russia just enjoyed body checks. I mean, already the United States, we have given Ukraine $67 billion in military aid, that's more than every other country in the world combined, right?

• 38:20Speaker 03

  The Europeans are like, oh, we've given Ukraine a bunch of aid, it's like, bro, you bring them fucking refugees. Yeah, but I'm saying, guns and bullets are the only thing.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  You can throw 10 trillion at Ukraine and Russia will just match it with dead bodies.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, almost certainly. I mean, it's a little more complicated than that, I think the only thing that would really change is nuclear weapons. On the ground, but which is not happening, but that's actually let's return to that because one of the ways that the Ukrainians often bring up why America not has to support them and not just should is the Budapest agreements and back the Budapest memorandum, which was in the 90s, where they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons. And in exchange, the United States was like, yeah, we'll, you know, think about protecting it.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  Oh, it's not, we're gonna protect it?

• 38:58Speaker 03

  No, no. And even if we had said that, it was never ratified by the US senate. And this is where you have to flip it and think about the Russian justification for invasion, where they said, your secretary of state said, we will not expand NATO. That's true. Our secretary of state, Burns, under George H. W. Bush, he was like, look, we're not gonna expand NATO. Don't worry about it. They were like, okay, that's the position of the US government. Well, what changed? They lost, they lost the election. Bill Clinton came into office. George W. Bush came into office. They changed the policy. But the thing is, is that the Russians are like, but you said it. And what we would say is, yeah, the, what you just said, the administration at the time said it. That didn't make it the treaty binding obligation of the United States,

• 39:40Speaker 03

  where two thirds of the United States senate ratified, we will never expand NATO. So no, it's not fair to say that America guaranteed. That's not how our system works, nor should it, right? The word of the president. It's not a king who sets foreign policy for all time. Exactly. And so the Budapest memorandum, yes, it was a policy document, but it provides no obligation from the United States to lift one finger for Ukraine. And if we think about, again, where the Russians are coming in, they're like, okay, so in the post Cold War era, you guys bombed Kosovo. Is that in NATO? Why was that a NATO operation? You guys NATO literally took out Gaddafi. You know, one of the things that the North Koreans always tell us, because

• 40:22Speaker 03

  we're like, hey, give up your nukes. They're like, I'm not giving up my nukes. Gaddafi gave up his nukes. You've shoved a rod up his ass and blew the shit out of his own country.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  What a dumb idea to give up your nukes.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  Do you think they would ever?

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Don't give up your nukes.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Kim Jong-un will never give up his nukes. If I was them, I'd be like, fuck you.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  If I was any country in the world right now?

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Why would you?

• 40:40Speaker 02

  I would be trying to develop them.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  In spite of whatever agreement is going on. It's the only thing that maintains your security.

• 40:46Speaker 03

  You're absolutely right. And Libya proves that. Iraq proves that. The North Korean regime surviving to this day proves that. Like, and Russia, its ability to invade Ukraine and frankly, get away with most of it is what? Nuclear weapons. I don't love that reality, but it's just true.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  For Zelensky then? If we cannot trust?

• 41:05Speaker 02

  The daddy country, i.e. America, in this situation to protect, then why make a deal that you know that they won't reinforce?

• 41:13Speaker 03

  So then you're just gonna fall apart without us.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  Don't fall apart. Say, "We will..." Say, "Give us nukes."

• 41:19Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, he can say that. We'll just say, "No." Yeah, like, "No, next question," right?

• 41:22Speaker 02

  "Give us nukes."

• 41:24Speaker 03

  You know what I would say? Develop it yourself, then. If you're so great, you have all these great scientists, all this. Go ahead. Nothing's stopping you. You can do whatever you want, alright?

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Oh, usually we do stop them, but if...

• 41:32Speaker 03

  Well, I mean...

• 41:33Speaker 02

  If they're trying to enrich-

• 41:33Speaker 03

  I'll tell them this. If you guys wanna go for it, go for it. I mean, you literally will... First of all, you're being invaded. Second, I mean, your country, their own analysts tell us that they'll fall apart in three months after the cutoff of USAID. This is, again, just where we have a small nation that thinks it's a great power and can dictate terms-

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Why do they think that? That's what I don't understand.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  I think it's the Europeans. I really do.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  So the Europeans are propping him up and thinking that they're like the last line of defense for democracy. I can't fathom-

• 42:01Speaker 03

  How do you not read a spreadsheet? That's where I do... I'm like, "Bro, look at the number of bullets coming in." I'm just a mor-

• 42:05Speaker 02

  I'm not even talking about the spreadsheet. I'm talking about like, what interest does Putin have in expanding Russia into Europe?

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Well, that's... Well, here's the thing. Look, does he have an interest? In tradition, like, you know, Russia controlled vast swaths of all that territory, Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia. All of these parts were a traditional part of the Soviet Russian Empire. But here's the thing, three of those countries I just named are in NATO. So the interest you have to not do it is to avoid nuclear war.

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Also, Russia's a Christian nation.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  So I don't understand why he would expand west into Europe with all these Muslim countries, like England and Germany and France.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead and tell them.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Why do you want Muslim nations added to Russia?

• 42:46Speaker 06

  Crusade Part II.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Okay, got it.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  He actually does use a lot of that, though.

• 42:50Speaker 02

  Really?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh yeah. He talks a lot about the Orthodox Church and about how Ukraine is attacking the Russian Orthodox, which is true. It actually has been happening. And like, they're attacking the Russian Orthodox and how it's like a defense of Russian, whatever. I don't like that stuff.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  So, okay, what do... So the... How does this... How does this play out in the very near future? What do you think happens?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Near future, what's going to happen?

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Does he tuck his tail and then-

• 43:14Speaker 03

  He refused to. He'd have- Fox interview immediately afterwards. He had hours to think about it. He did it live. It was four hours in between to apologize. He didn't apologize. He just said, no, he's like, we had to have honest dialogue, like he's huffing the European, like he believes that Europeans can protect him. He's in London, literally, as I said, as we speak, and the near future is they're going to propose some peacekeeping plan. America's going to say, no, why should we pay for that? Why should we continue to do it? And it'll be, look, it's up to Trump, too. I mean, if I were Trump, to continue weapons flowing into Ukraine, when they're actively working against your policy is ridiculous. Like, I think that Zelensky needs to find out tomorrow what reality, and this, again, this is my personal opinion, moving from analyst.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  This country, its greatest victory is survival. You get to live. Do you know how lucky you are?

• 44:06Speaker 02

  That's what I'm trying to say. Somebody's drinking a Kool-Aid over there. I don't know what the fuck it is.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  I don't get it.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  But, yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  I mean, I do get it in a sense. Would I accept that? No, but I'm an American citizen. We have nukes. We have the greatest military in the world has ever seen.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  I want to hear it too. I don't get it because, let's just be honest here. There's only a few countries. Every other one exists based on the relationship.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Spears of influence theory. That's what you're talking about.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Exactly. China's a real country. Russia's a real country.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  China, India, Russia, the US, UK, Germany.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  UK, Germany. I don't know if they're real.

• 44:44Speaker 03

  They have nuclear weapons, so like, you know, it buys you something, okay? And they have the what, G7 economies? Like, they're not, they're not ridiculous and low, but they are definitely going downhill.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  If you can't bang on your own, you're not a real country.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  I agree with you, by the way. I'm totally with you. Yeah. But I think when you have a nuke, you can do something.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. But now, does it, real quick, real quick. So, the point I'm trying, the point I'm trying to say is like, if Ukraine cannot defend itself.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Yes. Empirically, they cannot.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  From Russia. There's no chance without the support of these other countries. You can't dictate to those other countries what the policy is, right? Because you don't have sovereignty.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  You're not really a sovereign nation.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  You are a sovereign nation as much as someone.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  You are a vassal state. Yes, you are a vassal state. If we think about the old. This is, uh, this is the issue with the way that we talk about this stuff is that Americans, and unfortunately, a lot of people don't want to speak in reality. Is America, you know, rules breaks international order. Is that for the benefit of everybody else? Or is it the benefit of the United States consumer? Like, let's all be honest here. Like, let's be, that's one of the things I actually love about Trump. Trump is a mercantilist. He says shit where he's like, "Yeah, we'll protect you. You have to give us 500 million in minerals," or billion in minerals. People are like, "What? No, democracy, all stuff." It's like, "Guys, oh, we protect democracy, but one of our greatest allies is Saudi Arabia, which fucking kills gay people? We don't give a fuck." Like, yeah, it's like, it's like, "Oh, you have oil? Okay, let's go."

• 46:08Speaker 02

  They don't kill gay people anymore, okay? They're promoting a lot of baki matches.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  They're doing great work over there.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  I apologize, Sheikh Mohammed.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Sheikh Said, please.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  They're doing fantastic work over there, okay?

• 46:22Mark Gagnon?

  It's just, um, we've been told for the longest, Russia's the enemy. Russia's bad. Why all of a sudden are we okay with just like, "Hey, Russia, you can invade another country and take their land?"

• 46:31Speaker 03

  I think that's a fair question, and it comes down to, uh, I feel bad for the, I feel bad for the people who really believe that and are now watching how geopolitics works in real time. Like, the idea that the United States, who invaded Iraq for literally no reason, is going around dictating, you know, illegal and ille-- that's one of my favorite things, by the way, is Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. I was like, "What's a legal invasion?" I was like, "There's just an invasion. There's just an invasion." There's like, there's just a successful invasion or an unsuccessful invasion. Uh, but to return to your point, that goes to the religion. That's what I was talking about, the Atlantic religion. This idea that all borders are sovereign, that they do not change from post-World War II. Countries don't just invade each other, and I don't think they're wrong.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  The real politic answer for that would be invasion, all of that is bad for business. But the point that comes down to it is, what compelling interest does the United States have in continuing this war? Not only for our economy. You know, the United States consumer probably paid an extra buck fifty for gas for two straight years because of Russian sanctions. It was a disaster for our economy. I actually think it's a huge-- reason Biden lost the election. If you think about a lot of the inflation, where that came from, but even more so, what we, what we know at the end of the day is that we cannot change the reality of this war without direct United States intervention. But shouldn't it be the interest of the world to not let countries do that? There's no such thing as the interest of the world. Just keep doing this. Well, that's what stops Russia.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  Well, NATO, actually, is that we have NATO membership around, around all of these other countries and they're not going to invade because we're going to nuke them. But every other country in the world is like, we, first of all, we have no obligation to do it. But second, what is the impact on America?

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Do some deals.

• 48:15Speaker 05

  I think Sagar's point is.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Buy some Russian oil.

• 48:17Speaker 05

  All this shit is propaganda, like all this, and the US is kind of a victim of its own propaganda.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  It doesn't need to be our enemy. There's no reason in, since 1991, there's literally no reason.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying. Like, why are we at, like, let's, let's, what is that, uh, what is it, the McDonald's theory or whatever? Like two countries with a McDonald's haven't gone to war, which I think they have now, but.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Kind of stupid, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  But the idea is like this, uh, mutually assured success. Like, let's give each other pockets.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  Well, actually, I disagree with that theory.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Really?

• 48:41Speaker 03

  It's called democratic peace theory. It's the idea that democracies don't go to war with each other. But there's also beyond that is like countries that trade and become more westernized. It's like, well, China's got a lot of McDonald's and they've actually become more authoritarian, like the more.

• 48:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, but we're not going to war with them.

• 48:54Speaker 03

  No, I agree, but my point is that it's, it doesn't lead to democratic outcomes per se.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  I don't care if they have them. I'm done.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Okay, fine, yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  I'm done with everybody having democracy.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  Okay, good. I'm done.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Democracy is hard. Like, I hate this idea, like, a country got to get a democracy and within 10 years figure it out. We had a whole civil war over democracy. This shit takes hundreds of years. And even then, every election, it's good versus evil.

• 49:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  And presidents are getting shot at. Like, let's stop acting like they got to figure it out immediately. And if they don't want it, fine, you don't want it.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  But this is what happens. Whatever we say goes. That's the rule.

• 49:27Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  That's the rule.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's not happening.

• 49:30Speaker 05

  No, but what I think, I think what Sagar's saying is throughout history, it's never actually been about that.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  We didn't give a fuck about Vietnam having democracy. There was some other resource we wanted. We didn't give a fuck about Enoch having.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Stop communism.

• 49:42Speaker 05

  We wanted oil.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  Yes, but that was a good.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  That's more of an idea.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  But see, that's a very good example is that was when ideology trumped national interests. Ukraine, Vietnam, uh, Ukraine, Vietnam, Iraq, all have three things in common. They are wars not of national interest. They are wars of ideology. That's where the American people see through it clearly. We're good. We're nice. We want to protect and stop bad things from happening.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  Is that front facing ideology or is it actually ideological reasons? Cause what I'm picking up from you is, what I'm picking up is we give the American people this ideology and that's why we need to invade and maybe not Vietnam. I don't see it, but Iraq it was oil. It was whatever get back for George senior. Who knows? There was another real reason and it's probably what Trump seems to be kind of cutting through is like, I don't give a fuck. I'll give you freedom. It's not about your freedom. It's about what you can do for us.

• 50:28Speaker 03

  That's exactly right.

• 50:29Speaker 05

  And that seems to be what it actually has always been about what I'm picking up here.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  When you look at liberals and their main concern right now, they're like, America did not vote with the rest of the United Nations. I'm like, so who gives a fuck with the United? Oh, so the UN had a resolution condemning the invasion of Russia.

• 50:44Speaker 05

  I'm over all that.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  And they're like, oh, America did not vote. And I was like, okay, so Montenegro voted for it. I'm like, why should I give a fuck what Montenegro thinks? It's like, what are we doing here?

• 50:51Mark Gagnon?

  This is so un-American, just rolling over and letting motherfuckers just take other countries like this grave.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  But what is that? But see, you say un-American where it's like, well, for example, like what is un-American about Russia invading a territory which has been disputed by their own population, you know?

• 51:08Mark Gagnon?

  Cause we say so.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  But okay, but we didn't really, I mean, we didn't have a treaty. We don't have a treaty saying that we care about Ukraine. If we did, I'd say, look, let's go for it. We have to honor our words, but that's not the same thing.

• 51:19Mark Gagnon?

  Now they take over all their resources. Now Russia gets stronger. Is that advantageous to us?

• 51:25Speaker 03

  It depends, right? It depends on our relationship with Russia and how, what we want out of it. I want us to reduce our nuclear weapons pointed at each other and actually focus on where the real economic growth of the world is happening in Asia. So this is a very Obama like idea. They pivot to Asia. Is that Europe? Is it declining continent empirically true? If you look at their economic growth versus ours, 50% of global GDP will be in Asia by 2030. Not that long ago, only five years. If you look at the concern that American foreign policy Elite has for Germany, for France, for frankly, these countries where, you know, they're basically have chosen their social welfare state, fine, but they have not backed up their defense or ability to protect themselves. We pay for French healthcare, you know,

• 52:09Speaker 03

  whether people like it or not, like, we protect them so they can have their nice socialist beliefs, or Germany, or any of these economies.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  You're saying if they had to pay for their own military, they wouldn't be able to have this?

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Impossible. Look at, look at the way that's done. I mean, think, look at their militaries and their inability. They say this is such a compelling interest. I'm like, well, fucking fight for it then. Go ahead. You won't do it. And you think the average Frenchman will give up his healthcare to protect Ukraine? No! That's another reason why it's all complete bullshit. But my point is just rebalance for what's important for us.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  And I think that that like changes, I think it changes your opinion emotionally. Now, there is, there are certain advantages to having this type of leverage on the world.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Right? Like, obviously, if these countries cannot defend themselves, they have nuclear weapons, France has nuclear weapons, but if they cannot defend themselves on their-

• 52:52Speaker 03

  They can do it in a, in like a very dire situation, but I'm saying in a situation like Ukraine, it's like, bro, fuck off. You know, 1 billion euro to Ukraine, it's like, piss off, bro. You have nothing. What military do you have? It's a joke.

• 53:05Speaker 05

  The ideological thing of like, how can we let this happen is like, what do you mean?

• 53:09Speaker 03

  I actually think it's kind of chauvinistic to say that we have the ability to conduct all of the affairs of the world. Like, rarely what's happened, that might have been true in 1991, in what's called the unipolar moment, when the United States was the sole superpower. That's just not the case. Like, we have a total return to multipolarity, where you have the rise of China, of India, of, you know, even Russia continues to punch above its weight, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, all of these countries. This, this idea that I think is actually un-American is that we should be conducting all of the affairs of the world. Instead, what we should return to is a hubris, is to lose some of our hubris and actually say, okay, what's actually important to us?

• 53:51Speaker 03

  What are we gonna do? This is the line, right here, and this is traditional American foreign policy, going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was, you guys do whatever the fuck you want, just don't come over here to the Western Hemisphere. This is ours. Right over here and we acknowledged the great powers of Europe and from that point forward, even in the Cold War, we're like, look, it sucks that Hungary is communist, but what the fuck are we gonna do about it?

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Hold on, hold on, let's not go crazy.

• 54:18Mark Gagnon?

  We're bending over, right?

• 54:19Speaker 03

  Stop bending over.

• 54:20Speaker 02

  No, no, stop bending over because we're not taking anything, but I like the idea, this is what I like the idea. I like the idea of extending our influence around the world as far as we want to go with it. But I don't want that influence to be like plays or whatever.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  Well, that's a great point.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  I don't care about identity politics influence. I care about geopolitical influence. I care about pushing certain countries to agree with us on certain deals that are advantageous to us. I want the best deal that we could possibly have for America with every single country in the world. I don't care if you're a democracy. I don't care if you're a dictatorship. I don't care if you're pro-trans. I don't care if you're anti, none of that personal shit I give a fuck about. I just care about the money. But I do want to exert that influence around the world because that influence benefits Americans and that's what I care the most about.

• 55:06Speaker 03

  But that's, I think the problem is that right now we piss all this money and influence away. For example, the United States, the blue.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Oh, can I say one thing real quick? I actually think that it reduces our global influence.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  Yes, you're right.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  When we're trying to push these identity politics issues to these other countries that resist it culturally, where back in the day, I think that we had so much gravitas with these other countries because they looked at the West, especially America, as this like beacon of hope. When you're seeing a guy on a fucking horseback with a revolver going around and shooting, you're like, oh my God, America looks kind of cool. Now, when you see some like neutered cuck telling you that like his four-year-old daughter is actually a boy, you're like, I don't know if I want to be American anymore.

• 55:46Speaker 03

  First of all, you're nailing it. I'll give you a perfect one on this. Our ambassador under Biden to Japan was Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel inserts himself into a gay marriage debate in Japan because Japan was having a debate about gay marriage. The Japanese Conservative Party is furious. I go, oh, the US ambassador to Japan has one fucking job. How many Toyotas are we making there? That's it.

• 56:08Speaker 02

  The irony that Rahm Emanuel was just on Bill Maher's show and he was, and he said this sentence. He goes, Uh, we need to get back into the education of the kids in schools. He goes, he says this specifically because they were talking about like, uh, Chicago and all these like Dem cities that were like kind of struggling. And it wasn't posed as like a lib suck. It was like, what do you think about this? You've run a city. And, uh, he goes, uh, he says, uh, he goes, uh, "We need to get into the classrooms and out of the bathrooms."

• 56:39Speaker 02

  The irony.

• 56:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 56:40Speaker 02

  He's petitioning for gay marriage. I don't care what you guys do with your gays over there. Matter of fact, if you've got some really talented gays over there and you want to kill them, let's bring them over here. We do great shit with our gays. Gays flourish in America, right?

• 56:54Speaker 03

  It's just my point, which it's like Japan, third largest economy in the world.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  They're all gay.

• 56:58Speaker 03

  Our concern with Japan is one thing.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  How do you find a gay guy?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  You know, Toyota, Panasonic, any of these other countries. That's it. That's all we should be fucking caring about. You, are they coming over here and saying, oh, you guys do this? No, they don't give a shit.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  Well, they don't have that influence. But that's the influence. And I think that's where it's like, we have to have some restriction. I love our influence, especially through like cinema, TV shows.

• 57:21Speaker 03

  Soft power.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  I love the soft power. I love it through social media. I love that. As long as it's not, um, as long as it's not, um, taking away from our ability to, to have advantageous trade deals.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  So if, if you wanting to be American makes you want to be capitalist, makes you want to be an entrepreneur, makes you want to be a hustler, and that in some way gives you empathy for our culture, and now we have some leverage in your country, that's awesome.

• 57:48Speaker 03

  Awesome.

• 57:49Speaker 02

  The second our American influence starts to make you feel uncomfortable, like it has in the Middle East. Listen, democracy doesn't work in the Middle East. Let them do what the fuck they want to do.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Once they get addicted to money, democracy, it's not going to be democracy, but we're going to get everything that we want out.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  My point is just let them do whatever the fuck they want to do. All right? So like I've lived in Qatar or whatever. It's like, yeah, it's a literal monarchy, an actual religious monarchy. It works for them. It's like, okay, I wouldn't want to live there. I didn't like it there, to be honest. But do whatever you want.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  I don't care.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  That's, that's, that's all I really, that's how I feel about Japan, about any of these other countries is it's all just about us coming together. And this is the, the world order. This was the point of the construction.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  When do you have to leave, by the way?

• 58:31Speaker 03

  Uh, probably like 2:30.

• 58:33Speaker 02

  Okay, we got some time. We have other topics. Okay, we got a lot that we got to talk about. Okay, so that's a little.

• 58:39Speaker 03

  We can stop this, yeah.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, okay, that's a little, okay. All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. Unbeknownst to him, maybe, I don't even know if he knows that there's 28 million people employed by this TikTok. It seems like TikTok does good for them.

• 58:52Speaker 03

  It seems like it.

• 58:53Speaker 02

  I think that's what they want us to communicate with this ad. The only thing I care about is TikTok is paying me money to say this.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  They're paying you money and you money and you money too.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  It's good for our small business.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  If they, TikTok is supporting our small business. Finally, TikTok. We've been waiting for this. But if you'd like to learn more about TikTok's contribution to the US economy, and most important, flagrant, you can go to tiktokeconomicimpact.com. Did you know that? Now you know. First thing, just discussing Doge really quickly. I think that there are very few Americans that would say that they do not support a reduction in waste and inefficiency.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  Especially when it comes to government institutions. So this is a bipartisan, uh, measure.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:40Speaker 02

  That, that, Americans are supportive of. Doge has become incredibly partisan. First, can you tell me why you think that is?

• 59:50Speaker 03

  I think it is about wars of credibility of institutions and of process. So something I think is really...

• 59:58Speaker 02

  What does that mean?

• 1:00:00Speaker 03

  This is really...

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  And speak to me emotionally, like, why, why does, I'm not talking about, like, politically why it has, I'm talking about why the average person on Twitter feels compelled to be so critical of Doge. Like, what do you think is, what being communicated to them? And why are they having such a knee-jerk reaction to it, knowing that they do want to reduce government inefficiency?

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  For them, it's about Elon's complete and total judgment over this. They don't trust Elon. I, I would say that's it.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  And is that fair?

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, I do think it's fair. I, I do think it's fair for a number of reasons.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  What's the steel man against?

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  The steel man against Doge is that you have a person who is unelected by the United States, who is a sole power over what gets cut, which violates the Constitution, because the Constitution, the power of the purse, is within Congress. Congress gets to decide what programs get cut or not. He is, according to them, illegally shutting off and doing these things, and also, at times, has conflicts... Major conflicts of interest in many of the decisions.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  What is an example of those?

• 1:00:59Speaker 03

  The perfect example is right now. State Department was my friend Ryan Grim. He works with us at Breaking Points, broke a story about there was originally going to be some State Department contract awarded to Tesla for, I forget the number, it was like maybe four million or something. After Trump got elected, that contract went up to 400 million for Tesla's armed up cyber trucks. And then they actually took the word Tesla off the website and changed it to electric vehicle.

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  Now, okay.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  That's not great, right? Can we all admit it's not great?

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  So, so this is, this is, this is good. Before we move on.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  We gotta appease people emotionally who see things like this and go, hey, this doesn't feel constitutional.

• 1:01:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  This feels manipulative. We feel taken advantage of. That's a pretty steel steel, man.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  Pittsburgh Steel.

• 1:01:46Speaker 05

  Bethlehem Steel.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  So it's like, that's why like, I feel like there's a lot of gaslighting going on. And as much as we all agree, we want to reduce government efficiency. I mean, like Akash hilariously says it every single week here. He's just like, fire them all.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  Ninety-eight percent of them can go.

• 1:02:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  Ninety-nine. There is that feeling, but we have to give some credence to a situation like that. And there might be more context to this. There might be a more nuanced take to it. I get it. Maybe Elon could describe it. Sure. But on the surface, people acting, reacting emotionally to it. That does look like corruption in another way.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yeah, like the Charlemagne thing. I heard, I heard your argument about this.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  What was that?

• 1:02:26Speaker 03

  Well, I thought it was interesting where you were like, hey, when, if you're a cop and you come to me and I'm like, yo, don't look in the basement. You're like, there's some shit in the basement. There's some shit in the basement.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. So, so, but also just the idea of like government spending.

• 1:02:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Going to certain people, like this happens on like a municipal level where like the mayor is friends with the person that has the construction company and that construction company gets the rebuilding project for the local bridge.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  And then he gets a kickback.

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  Now, we know that that's a form of corruption. When we see this, it's okay for someone to look at it and be like, that kind of feels like the corruption you're trying to scrub out.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Now. He might make the best vehicle for that job.

• 1:03:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  It might be right to increase that spending.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  But I also need some transparency there. And you need to come out ahead of it, not wipe Tesla off the car. You need to come out ahead of it and gain my trust as an American and go, hey, this was the original deal. This amount was going to be spent over here. We think that this is better for these reasons. And that's why more money is spent there. And I totally get why you think this looks like a favor, hand it over.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Like, stop. The American people are done being lied to.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  And when we see shit like that, we have such little trust. It's almost like a girl who gets cheated on by every boyfriend.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  They kind of should have little trust. They're not wrong. They're correct.

• 1:03:42Speaker 02

  The girl that gets cheated on by every boyfriend. The second a dude is talking to a waitress and she's laughing, the knee jerk reaction is, oh, that motherfucker's cheating too. So that's what we feel like when we see that.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, you're right. And I think it is important to talk about it in that way. And that's where it comes back to process. So like you said, we've got Doge, which is kind of unilaterally deciding what and what is not, gets to be spent according to them. And so one of the interesting things I took away from your thing with Charlemagne, and if I were Charlemagne, what I would have said is, Andrew, it's fine to look, but they're not looking, they're actually acting. And the acting is the part where I think a lot of the liberals are, I think correctly upset. I mean, let's be honest, like if George Soros or whatever was deciding what is what not is getting spent. I mean, we would freak the fuck out.

• 1:04:21Speaker 02

  You're okay with it. You be, not you, but like, let's say conservatives are more okay with it because your guy is doing the cuts.

• 1:04:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  But if it was, George Soros is a perfect example.

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, they would.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  The right would rightfully.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it'd be, they'd be like, this is a constitutional crisis.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  They're like, we need January 6th again. You know, and like, it would be watched.

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  So that maybe the best way to do this is have Doge look into it, share the findings transparently, what they are doing, and then hand it over to.

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  It would be Congress.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Congress to make the cuts.

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  Do this like, and this is, you remember when I said process?

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  That is actually a huge part of it. Because the real problem that they have is the unilateral decision making, the conflict of interest possibly being over. I mean, there have been a ton of shit like that, like the NLRB and other things. I'm sounding like Crystal right now. She's got a, she's got a list like 15 pages long of all this conflict of interest stuff. And you know what I have to say? I go, yeah, you're right. I was like, you know, empirically, this is not. Good, like when you look at it in that way. And now if he had sold all of his Tesla stock, if he had actually offloaded all of this and he was still doing it now, I would have a lot more trust in that. And I think most people would do.

• 1:05:27Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  And I think, I don't think that members of Congress and others should be allowed, anybody in the government should be allowed to be able to even have the appearance of corruption because of the way that corruption is now so bedrock into our institutions.

• 1:05:40Speaker 05

  I was very hopeful for Doge and then I feel like honestly they just kicked the wrong person out.

• 1:05:44Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, not even just, I mean, obviously I'm biased toward him, but like, his entire thing was I'm gonna use the Constitution. I'm gonna do this in a way that is palatable, but it's gonna be uncomfortable and he was upfront about all that. And Elon is just kinda like...

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  What shocked me about it is Trump's deference to Elon. I think that's the part where, maybe you guys can help me understand it because I don't, first of all, it drives me fucking crazy when Elon's in the cabinet room wearing a fucking t-shirt and hat and everybody else is in a suit. And he's standing in a room where, if you guys have ever been in the cabinet room, the president's chair is bigger than everybody else's chair. No person ever is supposed to be higher than the president. There's a rule, there's a famous scene in The West Wing. It's like when the president stands, nobody sits. And in my opinion, when the president sits, nobody should sit. Why is he not standing? Why is he? It just, to me, it's like, this is where the libs are correct, dude. Like, there's some weird shit going on here. I don't really get it.

• 1:06:35Speaker 05

  I don't like it.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  I can tell you, it's my fault.

• 1:06:38Speaker 02

  Like, from talking to Trump,

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  if Trump feels like someone has information that he does not have, he becomes a listener.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's a deferential. You're right, you're right.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  The second he's like, you know something I don't know, and I think that's what makes him so much better than anybody that the Democrats had in terms of understanding the problems of everyday people.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  Oh, sure.

• 1:07:04Speaker 02

  Because unfortunately, I think, and the Republicans too, like remember, he's not like a traditional Republican guy. So it's like... Politicians in general, there is a snobbishness to them. This feeling of like, we know what you need. Let us handle it. And he's the type of person, just from that interaction that we had, who's like, the second you have information he doesn't have, he gets quiet and he kind of keys in.

• 1:07:28Speaker 05

  Even if it's, what is the life of an everyday American? Because I don't live that life. It doesn't have to be, what's the science behind blah, blah, blah.

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  You see this all the time. When he's in the barber shop or whatever, he's a genius. Because what he does is he'll take your problem and he'll turn it around into the campaign. And he's like, that's what the greats, the greats always do this. Is that they take the question.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  Listen to what people are struggling with.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  They go to the essence.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  How low is the bar for politicians that were like, oh wow, this guy listens to us. He's a genius.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  Well, what they do is they take you seriously, but not literally. So my favorite moment in a debate is when some lady in the 92 campaign asked Bill Clinton about the national debt. And it's like, she didn't really know what she was talking about. And he's like, she's talking about the economy. He's like, we've had four years of trickle down economics. It hasn't worked, you know, all this. He didn't ask your same question about the national debt. But the point is, is that, he's like, she's talking about the economy. Like, he can see the truth, the truth behind it. Exactly. And that's what Trump, I think, is very good at. That's what all the greats are very good at. And yeah, I mean, continue, like, the Elon thing to me, I, and this will make me very unpopular, I think it's becoming a problem. I think that this liberal, uh, no, because right now, there's a narrative online, which is, in my opinion, cope, is that a lot of these liberals,

• 1:08:40Speaker 03

  like cope as in like, they're coping that, they're coping, they're getting an excuse, they're living in denial. There's a cope right now from the right that all of these liberal gatherings are astroturfed. And you know what? You're right. But the thing is that you actually-

• 1:08:55Speaker 02

  There's a lot of terms that some people might not know. So, um, an astroturf is essentially a fake-

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, fake grass, right? So like, what it means is that a large, is, people are being paid to protest. I do not think that's true. I think that these groups-

• 1:09:09Speaker 02

  This has happened in the past.

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  This has happened in the past. And it is an integral thing. But that's actually what a lot of liberals said about the Tea Party back in 2010. They're like, the Koch brothers are paying for it. I'm like, yeah, bro, but you can't just pay people to show up and be angry. And you still got blown the fuck out in the- 2010 elections, what I'm worried about is the perception, perhaps correctly, that Trump is not completely in control of his own presidency. And we do see some of that, like in terms of the priority. The priority right now is not only with Doge, it's like the media capture around this Elon as the force, where I think it should be on Trump. And Trump has, in my opinion, a 10 times better political understanding of America. Like, I think if he, his narrative of the election was about immigration, and it was about the economy,

• 1:09:52Speaker 03

  what I worry about right now for Trump is he's absorbing all of this pressure, where Elon is, you know, slapshot, cutting this, bringing people back. By his own admission, I'm not making this up. Like, he's like, "We fired people who were doing Ebola, we brought them back." Right now, they just fired a bunch of people from NOAA, the National Oceanic Administration, which, those are guys who fly into the hurricane and be like, "It's a category four," or whatever. And it's like, dude, I've seen politics in the past, like, the most dangerous thing a politician can do is misinterpret their mandate. So, the most recent example we have is 2004. George W. Bush, the last Republican to win the popular vote. A Republican, he wins that popular vote for one reason: keep us safe. Yep. Iraq, 9/11. You know what he does? "Let's privatize Social Security." He's like, "Yeah, the American people voted for me? I want to privatize Social Security."

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Blown the fuck out in the 2006 midterm election. Not only that, Katrina. And what I'm worried about for Trump is, dude, even if it's not your fault, if there's a natural disaster, and the Dems can point to NOAA getting it, you're about to get fucking crucified, dude. Same with, you know, you know how lucky they are that crash happened in the first week of the Trump administration? Can you imagine if that happened a year from now? After some Doge cuts or whatever with the FAA? They would be destroyed. So, they will be responsible. I am very worried for them, that they're hitching their entire political reputation, and the most critical part of your presidency, the first 100 days. If all, all history of a presidency is almost certainly the first 18 months, and of those 18 months, always the first 100 days.

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  We're about 30-some, 7 days or whatever, when you're talking. Right now, it's not that much longer to go. And in that first 100 days, Elon has been the number one story. If I were Donald Trump, or whatever... I will want my number one story to be historic or whatever executive action on inflation. I'd be having inflation press conferences every single day and Tom Homan and mass deportation. That's all I'm doing. I'm just talking about Mexico. I'm talking about shutting down the border. I'm having Tom Homan on television every single day, not to say he isn't, but he's drawing away.

• 1:11:49Speaker 05

  Take control of the narrative. Elon has taken control.

• 1:11:52Mark Gagnon?

  I think it's brilliant that Trump.

• 1:11:53Speaker 03

  Right now is the number. So I, I thought that for a time. Tell me why, tell me why you think that.

• 1:11:58Mark Gagnon?

  Elon as a shield. Let Elon, because all these cuts are gonna be difficult.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, but at the end of the day, he's still absorbing all of that like energy.

• 1:12:05Mark Gagnon?

  But right now, everyone's looking at Elon doing that.

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  That's very true. I, I actually thought that for a while. I was like, maybe Elon is the whipping boy to like sit there and absorb. But I'm very worried that Trump and losing, this is why you were asking me about Steve Bannon. There's a reason, dude, I think Bannon is the smartest person in the MAGA movement. And Bannon is a person, oh absolutely.

• 1:12:26Mark Gagnon?

  Talk that shit.

• 1:12:27Speaker 03

  Absolutely. 100%. He was MAGA before.

• 1:12:30Speaker 05

  Real quick, before we get off this, if, if I felt like these were Trump's ideas to cut these things and Elon is doing it, I would be on board with you. These don't seem like Trump ideas. They seem like Elon.

• 1:12:39Mark Gagnon?

  No, no, I got it.

• 1:12:40Speaker 05

  And that's why I don't agree.

• 1:12:41Speaker 03

  Can I double click on that quickly? Because there's a very important.

• 1:12:47Mark Gagnon?

  I like that.

• 1:12:48Speaker 05

  I love that.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  Indians, we talk tech.

• 1:12:52Speaker 03

  We're talking tech. Yeah, that's right.

• 1:12:56Speaker 05

  You said that earlier.

• 1:12:57Speaker 03

  I can't say that earlier.

• 1:13:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:01Mark Gagnon?

  All right.

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  For all our young listeners, back in the day, you had to click something twice in order to open it. Now I think we just have.

• 1:13:08Mark Gagnon?

  I thought he meant that as liking it.

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  Well, I meant like expand.

• 1:13:12Mark Gagnon?

  You must be too young.

• 1:13:16Speaker 02

  Okay, go, go, go. Open, open that file.

• 1:13:18Speaker 03

  This is why I was talking about Bannon. There are multiple theories which intersect. Like if you think of, what am I thinking? Venn diagram. Like the Venn diagram is that Elon is part of libertarian right. Like cut the government to the end of cut the government. Now Bannon would say attack the administrative state to replace the administrative state. As in the government itself should be the power, the determination of the path of the. Of business of breaking up the centers of gravity that are non-governmental powers, Facebook, Google, etc. Elon is somebody who's very against something like that, much more like an anarcho-capitalist. And on top of that is like traditional conservatism, which agrees a little bit with this, but is also obsessed with like the religious right,

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  constitution, etc. So like right now, my fear is that MAGA, while it definitely agrees with administrative state here, is that they are losing the capacity to make their argument that, no, actually, and this is what Trump and JD, I think, believe, is that the government itself should have power over the direction of the country, should have the ability to tell social media companies, don't censor, as opposed to having a billionaire buy it. Like, that's a nice workaround, but, look, I mean, Zuck went on Rogan and said, oh, we're not going to fact-check anymore. I did a post about Lyme disease, it got fact-checked the next fucking day, and it's still not down, right? And, you know, there's no enforcing mechanism within that. Only the government can fix that problem for me, or for all Americans. So, that's where I would say is like, there's important theories of government, which are very at odds right now.

• 1:14:41Speaker 02

  So there is that, like, Bannon group, like, and again, I don't think Bannon actually cares about the country as much as he likes, like, rallying people up for attention.

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  I think he's a really, I think he's an acute listener. So I think he can, like, spot trends early, and I think that he's a good enough communicator that he can fan the flames of those trends early. And those things can grow to be bigger things. Now- Like the Nazi salute. Sure, sure, exactly. That's like a perfect example of, like, he probably knew what he was doing, and he didn't do it enough.

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  He definitely knew.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So it's like, but there's a perfect example, like, he's not actually trying to, like, make it better. Like, if you really cared about American patriotism, you're not throwing up a Nazi salute, because you would have some respect to all the Americans that died fighting the Nazis.

• 1:15:24Speaker 03

  Well, I think he hates liberals, and he wants the media to-

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. But again, I think it's just an attention-seeking thing, and like, he's gonna, it's dog whistles, like, how can I throw up? Now, I think there are ways, that's why I don't take him, like, seriously, as someone who actually cares about America, and more someone who just cares about, like, causing ruckus, and like, getting some attention in the midst. Now, what I would say is that it's very easy to pacify the base that he's riling up. So anytime he riles some people up, you just need a headline to be like- Disney cuts all D I programs and then they go, all right, well.

• 1:15:55Speaker 03

  We're winning.

• 1:15:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. Anytime they start rallying up, you just need a headline that goes Doge to give back $5,000 every single minute and then they calm down. It don't matter how many fucking.

• 1:16:04Speaker 03

  Which is not even gonna happen.

• 1:16:05Speaker 02

  Which of course, but neither is anything that Bannon says.

• 1:16:08Speaker 03

  Oh, well, I don't think that's true. I mean, like what? Like what does he say?

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  What's gonna be executed?

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  Well, what about mass deportation, dude? Like what about Trump literally ran on it? He could do it if he wanted to.

• 1:16:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. No, no, no. Again, when I say like anything that Bannon says, of course, there are things that he's supportive of. Like, I don't know, like the all, every single belief that he has or everything that he's ran on.

• 1:16:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  And I'm sure that certain things like deportation is not a specifically Bannon thing. I think there's a lot of support for it.

• 1:16:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  What I'm trying to say is there are gonna be these people that can rally the support of the disenfranchised and he's incredibly good at it.

• 1:16:40Speaker 03

  He is good.

• 1:16:41Speaker 02

  This is one of the things that like, I don't want to get away from Doge right here, but this is one of the things I think the Dems really struggle with. Is that like, they could very easily win the next election if they made this a class issue. Like they just need to make it a class issue.

• 1:16:53Speaker 03

  It's tough for them though.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they're in the pockets of the rich and all the people that are running the party are these Ivy League trust fund babies. So if Ivy League trust fund babies are the people making the intellectual decisions for your party, you can't speak to the poor. Now, like her or dislike her AOC, it doesn't matter your thought.

• 1:17:09Speaker 03

  I get it.

• 1:17:10Speaker 02

  People fuck with her because they think she's trying to help.

• 1:17:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:13Speaker 02

  You might disagree with how she's gonna help, but she comes across as a working class girl that wants to help. That's what Dems need.

• 1:17:20Speaker 03

  And she outran, she outran Biden in her district. She had a lot of, I interviewed, or on our show, not me, but our team. We interviewed a ton of AOC Trump voters and they were like, yeah, I trust them both to fight for the working class. I thought it was actually fascinating.

• 1:17:32Speaker 02

  So the Dems should look at that specifically and be like, oh, wow, she's locked in and people believe she wants to help them. And they don't really, they've become disillusioned with these other figures. They're, in my opinion, they're probably in the pockets of billionaire class a little bit too much, so they can't make it about money, which they could make it about money so easily and regain the working class in a heartbeat. They have to make it-

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  I'm not so sure about that.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  Okay, maybe not, but, but, but they'd have a better chance than making about identity politics.

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  I agree with you.

• 1:18:00Speaker 02

  Which they did make it about before. And now it seems like they're, even Rahm Emanuel is moving away, "Let's get out of the bathrooms."

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  And they're like, look, they say a lot of, there are political realities that are huge problems for Democrats. Number one, rich white people are now Dems, right? The base of the Democratic Party-

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  It's not, it's not, it's a very, it's more nuanced than that. It's Ivy League educated nepo babies.

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  I was about to get to that, yeah.

• 1:18:20Speaker 02

  There are, there are tons of rich white people that are like, "Yo, I'm over this shit." It's the specifically Ivy League, like, four generation money-

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  Sheltered.

• 1:18:29Speaker 02

  Sheltered, they've never had a real job.

• 1:18:31Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  Those are the people out there that are like, telling you what you should feel and how you should vote. And real working class people, like, people who've actually had a real fucking job in their life, do not want some trust fund kid telling them what they should vote for.

• 1:18:43Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:18:44Speaker 02

  It's pretentious.

• 1:18:44Speaker 03

  What I was gonna get to is, when I say rich white people, I mean a very specific class, where one of the number one determiners of how you vote and party ID is four-year college degree. So, if you attend a four-year college degree institution, which also correlates very much with income, then you are much more likely to be a Democrat. And that's why, you know, even rich white is not exactly the right term, because we all know blue collar trucker millionaires down in Florida. They're fucking Republican as shit, right? But these guys did not go to college necessarily, and they have very different cultural attitudes. I think I talked about this the last time I was here. Charles Murray, one of my favorite books of all time, is called Coming Apart. And it's exactly about how Americans with college degrees have concentrated themselves in something called super zip codes. You know, the Whole Foods index, like, if you have a Whole Foods, you're much more likely to vote for a Democrat.

• 1:19:27Speaker 03

  If you have, whatever, generic or Aldi, right? You know, much more likely to vote Republican. What's happened is that America is culturally separated, probably more than ever before. Are we all watching White Lotus? I am, I love White Lotus. That's actually a signifier of like, you're out of touch, right? The most popular, the most popular show in the country is Lawman. NCIS, alright? Or Landman, yeah, Landman. Which, oh my god. Okay, I, I love parts of Landman, but dude, what a fucking disaster. We could talk about that.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  But there's a very big example, it's like, some people, it's elitist.

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't think women act that way. I, maybe that's just me, I genuinely-

• 1:20:02Speaker 05

  Why are you like, rational on the show, or what's going on?

• 1:20:05Speaker 03

  It's like, they're like, it's like a-

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  Billy Bob, you need your dick sucked.

• 1:20:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, your dick sucked.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  Why are we recycling when I could be sucking your dick?

• 1:20:13Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm glad you feel this way.

• 1:20:15Speaker 06

  This sounds like a great show.

• 1:20:16Speaker 03

  No, yeah, for some guy who's like, "Yeah, this is how women talk." He's like, "What the f-" What the fuck is going on here? Why is a 29 year old playing a 17 year old in panties? What is happening?

• 1:20:26Speaker 02

  Fire.

• 1:20:27Speaker 03

  Uh, anyway.

• 1:20:28Speaker 02

  I mean, not fire.

• 1:20:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. Most popular show in the country, so what the fuck do I know? But like, uh, my point is exactly about the cultural separation is why it's hard for Democrats. And I think even for AOC, AOC and them may speak in the language of the identity politics and also hold class politics. And what I really have come to believe is that we live in a cultural moment. So there is, uh, so previously, 2020, well, I'm fascinated by that election. The highest turnout in modern history. Equivalent turnout not seen since like decades. And if we read about other high turnout elections in American history, it was in something called The Age of Acrimony. That's a book I really recommend, which is-

• 1:21:09Speaker 02

  What does that word mean?

• 1:21:10Speaker 03

  Acrimony is, uh, acrimonious would mean like, uh, tension of fighting. It's a very, uh, it's a- Lacrimony, I think, means crying in Latin. Acrimony would, an acrimonious place would be-

• 1:21:21Speaker 02

  Stout.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  It would be all of us yelling at each other.

• 1:21:24Speaker 02

  Sometimes you're smart, bro.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  Anyway, so the Age of Acrimony-

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Dumbass idiot.

• 1:21:32Speaker 02

  Finally!

• 1:21:36Speaker 06

  Hit you with the laugh.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  Yo, Mark, Google something.

• 1:21:46Speaker 06

  Go, go, go.

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  Alright, Age of Acrimony is the 1890s and unfortunately, that was also when? The Gilded Age. Now, why was America all up in arms at that time? Bro, it wasn't just, it wasn't really about class. That's when all the rich people really took advantage. It was basically like, should black people have civil rights or not? That was like the number one animating issue of the South. There's an entire thing called Southern populism, which is basically just like whipping up poor white people against blacks so that you can prop up a new plantation class of rich people from the post-Civil War. And even in the, in the Northeast, like where we are here, that's how the robber barons and all them came to power and they funded a lot of this culture warfare and benefited from it.

• 1:22:28Speaker 03

  And it wasn't until Teddy Roosevelt and the progressive era started, they were saying, "No, the real problem here is combination, is all of these Standard Oil trusts taking advantage of us." And that was a complete reverse of the way things were.

• 1:22:40Speaker 02

  Real quick, slow down. So essentially what- What the, what the southern populism was doing and the robber bands were doing was essentially saying, yo, your life was way better back when.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  No, they had, they had the population fighting over black civil rights.

• 1:22:52Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying. So, and the way they did it is said, hey, your life was way better when these black people didn't have all these rights.

• 1:22:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:22:57Speaker 02

  Having all this rights and this upward mobility is taken away from you.

• 1:23:00Speaker 03

  Bingo.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  And then Roosevelt on some Bernie Sanders came in, shit, came in and was like, yo, it's not about black and white. It's about these billionaires.

• 1:23:07Speaker 03

  Roosevelt, it was Wilson. These guys came in.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying the Democrats should do.

• 1:23:10Speaker 03

  I agree, but it's very difficult because the problem is.

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  They're in the fucking pockets. That's why it's difficult.

• 1:23:14Speaker 03

  Well, not only pockets, it's not only they're controlled, but they speak in the language of exactly the private people.

• 1:23:20Speaker 02

  Gay people. No, they speak gay. And, and, and it is true. They do speak that way. Well, I mean. They're out of touch.

• 1:23:25Speaker 03

  Everyone should go watch AOC's 2020 DNC speech. She was like, for black indigenous, for, you know, land acknowledgement, BIPOC.

• 1:23:34Speaker 05

  If I see BIPOC, I'm out. And I think I'm a moderate.

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  Yo, I'm calling Tupac BIPOC from now on. You see him in the ballet recital, that is BIPOC.

• 1:23:42Speaker 03

  What is BIPOC? Oh, black indigenous people of color. Have you not heard of this, man? Come on.

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  Well, cause I like women.

• 1:23:48Speaker 03

  This is old school. This is old school.

• 1:23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had never heard about that.

• 1:23:51Speaker 03

  BIPOC is huge.

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  Indigenous people of color.

• 1:23:53Speaker 03

  That's right. It keeps people like Akash and I out.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Fair enough.

• 1:23:56Speaker 03

  And Mexicans.

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  Oh, I thought we were people of color.

• 1:23:59Speaker 03

  Cause it's not about us. Huh?

• 1:23:59Speaker 05

  I thought we were people of color.

• 1:24:00Speaker 03

  No, it's black indigenous people of color.

• 1:24:01Speaker 05

  Only them.

• 1:24:02Speaker 03

  We're not, yeah, it's only, no, it's only BIPOC. It's not us.

• 1:24:06Speaker 02

  What's a black indigenous person of color?

• 1:24:08Speaker 03

  No, it's saying, black and indigenous people of color. As in like, it's a specific, it's a way to keep people like us out. Like the Asians and the Mexicans.

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  A white passing.

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  It's a divisional, it's like a divisional.

• 1:24:20Speaker 02

  I can like it.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:24Speaker 02

  This is interesting. What this is, this is a mirror image of what you just described with the Robert Barrens and with the southern populism.

• 1:24:33Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:24:33Speaker 02

  It's just flipped. That was his whole point.

• 1:24:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24:40Speaker 04

  BIPOC is an acrimonious of black.

• 1:24:44Speaker 02

  Okay, I got that shit now. Okay, so that's genius. Again, you're so you're just flipping it and it does feel good. It does satisfy you in that moment. You're like, I don't have something. They're the reason why I don't have it. But they're unable to execute the task at hand, which is really, hey, there's a lot of people who got a lot of money. They could be fucking Indian, they could be white, they could be Jewish, they could be whatever the fuck they are. And in order for you to get some money, they're gonna have to have a little less of that money and influence, potentially. Yeah, even if that's wrong, if they run on that, it is so much more digestible.

• 1:25:15Speaker 03

  And they need credibility.

• 1:25:15Speaker 02

  Now, where do you get the cred from?

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

  That's the problem is that I think that AOC and a lot of these other people are so, you know, these statements in the past, this is what fucked Kamala. Kamala has been so fucked from those 2019 press conferences. We need a healthcare for all illegal immigrants. I'm like, yeah, why don't we just start with healthcare for America?

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  You need Luigi. No, but that's interesting because the second AOC runs for president, they're gonna run the BIPOC.

• 1:25:41Speaker 03

  It'll be everywhere.

• 1:25:43Speaker 02

  And you know what? That will affect our go-go.

• 1:25:44Speaker 05

  This is where you're kind of fucked in a primary system where you have to appease the most extreme voters because they'll come out in the Democratic primary. Yeah, and then as soon as you run generally, people are gonna be like, look what this bitch said.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  That's why I think the next Democrat has to come from fucking nope.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:59Speaker 03

  I want to know what you guys think. Stephen A.

• 1:26:02Speaker 05

  Real quick, Miles had a very interesting take from, what was it, Colin Cowherd?

• 1:26:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Speaker 05

  Basically, he said, picture LeBron. You think about LeBron, no, like, great passing, great this, great that. Picture MJ, ultimate winner. Picture this guy. Now he goes, now picture Jason Tatum. Nothing. And then you had a point from Gilbert Arenas that you were talking about earlier, where you said, the league, they just, the league just won't give him, they just won't get behind.

• 1:26:25Speaker 02

  And I might be misquoting Gilbert, but it seemed like he was trying to say the league won't get behind Jason Tatum, despite him having all the intangibles.

• 1:26:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  Like, he got the skills, he got the ring.

• 1:26:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think he's just, he's not likable. There's nothing like, you don't like this guy. He is, I think I said this to you, oh, yeah, this is the post-game, when he won the championship, finally. He didn't play great. And then his speech is just like copying everybody else's. And I think everybody was like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're just light-skinned. You're just light-skinned.

• 1:26:56Speaker 02

  So I agree with everything you're saying. But the league does seem to get behind the guy who was suspended for shooting people.

• 1:27:04Speaker 05

  Because he's exciting.

• 1:27:06Speaker 02

  So they don't really care about if you break the law anymore. I guess not. I think we don't care. And Edwards got a bunch of baby mamas he's trying to abort, like the guys who are taking over the league, they don't exactly fit the mold of what the league would get behind. Yes. Say whatever you want about Michael Jordan and like gambling. Nobody knew any of that shit. They kept it out of the news. He was the face of the league and also he was never in trouble about anything. Is this LeBron? LeBron. Model citizen, all things considered. Steph Curry. Model citizen for real. Jason Tatum is a model citizen. Yeah. Why not give him the league? Because I think the league reflects what we want to support.

• 1:27:44Speaker 02

  So they're doing, they're doing the wrestling thing now. David Stern would be like, I'm going with who's the most professional and who's gonna be, you know, match the character of the league. Whereas Adam Silver is like, what do the people fuck?

• 1:27:56Speaker 04

  Luca needs to go to the Lakers? Alright.

• 1:27:59Speaker 02

  That works for us.

• 1:28:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:00Speaker 02

  Fucking. Yeah, that trade might not get pushed through back in the day.

• 1:28:03Speaker 04

  We were just talking about that.

• 1:28:04Speaker 02

  That's Vince McMahon shit.

• 1:28:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would have stopped.

• 1:28:06Speaker 02

  Hundred percent.

• 1:28:07Mark Gagnon?

  What is Tatum exceptional at?

• 1:28:08Speaker 02

  Stupid fucking idiot dude made.

• 1:28:10Mark Gagnon?

  What is Tatum exceptional at?

• 1:28:11Speaker 02

  He's very well-rounded. He's a great scorer, good defender, like.

• 1:28:14Mark Gagnon?

  Well-rounded.

• 1:28:15Speaker 02

  He's good. No, no, he's like, he's an unstoppable scorer.

• 1:28:17Mark Gagnon?

  But that's what I'm saying.

• 1:28:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:19Mark Gagnon?

  Oh, if you say he's an unstoppable scorer, then maybe.

• 1:28:21Speaker 02

  And like a guy who's, you go, go.

• 1:28:23Mark Gagnon?

  I just don't feel like he has something in his game that's just so out of this world, the way like all the other people you named.

• 1:28:30Speaker 02

  I think, I think what Alex is saying rings true, which is like, we relate to disruptive play. So Steph Curry was disruptive. Allen Iverson was disruptive.

• 1:28:40Mark Gagnon?

  LeBron.

• 1:28:40Speaker 02

  And Edwards is disruptive. LeBron, like weirdly, I think LeBron was so disruptive, to be honest, because of his passing ability too. If he was just like a guy who's dunking on you. Same with Luca. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. But I also think if, I think we're forgetting that. Also Luca's white, I'll be honest with you, like, if Luca's not white, his style of play, I don't know how marketable he is. I think he's less marketable. But if he was black, he would be in better shape. Yeah.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Doubt. He'd be dunking, he'd be leaping. Hundred percent. He'd be leaping. He'd be leaping. He'd be LeBron. But do you hear what I'm saying? Like, he's kind of like slow and plodding, like. It's easier to get behind that for a white guy. You don't expect athleticism. I mean, do we look at Luca as Tim Duncan if he's black? Yeah. Isn't that interesting?

• 1:29:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:29:35Speaker 02

  And Tim, yeah, go.

• 1:29:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, and they'll both talk shit, actually. Tim Duncan would talk, I guess his shit talk was funny, but he'd be like, "Nice try." Have you ever heard Kevin Garnett talk about how Tim Duncan would talk shit? He'd be like, "Almost got me." Like, little things like that. There you go, that was good effort.

• 1:29:49Speaker 02

  No, I will say, Tim Duncan is in the post, and it's a little bit more boring style of play, like Luca's doing step-back threes. So the game has definitely changed. But in terms of being like, he's not very like, like flash and excitement.

• 1:30:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  He's really using speed and the ability to slow down. And he's using his body weight to score. And I'm trying to find a black player that's like that.

• 1:30:11Speaker 05

  Harden.

• 1:30:11Speaker 02

  Huh?

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  Harden.

• 1:30:12Speaker 02

  Nah, Harden athleticism and just fucking.

• 1:30:15Speaker 05

  I think as Harden got a little older and, you know, didn't take care of his body.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  I'm saying in the heyday of Harden, yeah.

• 1:30:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just, I hate making that argument, but you have to calculate race in this somewhat. And he's not like, excited, like, I don't want to shit on Luca, but he's not like, "Oh, my God." When you watch step-back threes, "Oh, my God."

• 1:30:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, fun, but not like Steph. But I will say also, I think the reason David Stern cared more about character is the United States is more puritanical and cared more about character.

• 1:30:43Speaker 02

  And now they...

• 1:30:44Speaker 05

  Like, now we don't give a fuck if you gamble and you fuck girls. And Trump has shown us, if you are funny and engaging, we'll get behind you.

• 1:30:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:30:50Speaker 05

  In this day and age. So I think the league is like, "All right, Jason Tatum, you're a model citizen, but you're not as funny and engaging as these other guys, and that's who the people are getting behind, so that's who we're getting behind."

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  It's interesting.

• 1:31:01Speaker 04

  And Jordan's gambling issue, I feel like the only issue is that he didn't do steak.

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, because if he did steak, like, if he used like the leader in global betting in US social casinos.

• 1:31:10Speaker 04

  Oh, my gosh, he would love a social casino.

• 1:31:13Speaker 02

  Bro.

• 1:31:13Speaker 04

  Dude.

• 1:31:14Speaker 05

  That's the only reason the Browns better.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  It's, it is, wait, no, I'm not, I am not.

• 1:31:19Speaker 04

  Oh, you almost got him.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  You almost got him.

• 1:31:22Speaker 04

  He was nodding his head.

• 1:31:23Speaker 02

  You almost got me. Now, I know that Jordan did like to like take some time on his own. And I'm sure at that time, steak would have like an antisocial casino, but right now, they are the leader in US social casinos. And you can bet on top sports and political events and use the promo code FLAGRANT, and you're gonna get your welcome bonus. Did you know that?

• 1:31:40Speaker 05

  A welcome bonus?

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  You're gonna get a welcome bonus.

• 1:31:43Speaker 05

  Welcome.

• 1:31:44Speaker 02

  And you're gonna get your bonus. Go get your bonus. Go get your bonus. Let's get back to the show.

• 1:31:49Speaker 03

  I wanna know what you guys think. Stephen A., do you think he has a chance?

• 1:31:52Speaker 02

  No. I think he has a chance.

• 1:31:53Speaker 03

  He, he wants it. He's real. He's coming on the show.

• 1:31:56Speaker 02

  He wants it bad.

• 1:31:57Speaker 03

  He's coming on the show.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  He wants it bad, but no chance.

• 1:31:58Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  No, he's, he's a great communicator enough. Like, he has the communication skills and he has the star power. Cause you do need the star power. He has like that centrist, like, he's relatable because every, all the men that like, let's say voted for Trump on masculinity, will see that in him.

• 1:32:13Speaker 03

  I totally agree.

• 1:32:13Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 1:32:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:14Speaker 02

  But like, he doesn't have like the, um, emasculated, uh, ugh, this is gonna drive fucking Democrats crazy. But like, they do have this deep insecurity about looking emasculated. Like, I said that thing on fucking, on Brilliant Idiots, where I was like, I don't know, like, a guy who identifies as a Democrat over 5'9", and that fucking riles up. They, I've never seen so many people, and I think it was just emblematic of this feeling, like, people going, they think we're, they think we're bitches.

• 1:32:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:32:44Speaker 02

  And, and, so deep down, they had that thing. That's so funny, cause Al pretend he's 5'11", but he's 5'9". Yeah, a hundred percent. 5'9 and a half. Yeah, you got the list, though. That's so funny. But it is, but that, here's the thing. That wasn't always the case. Don't get fucked up. Yo, think about it. You laughing a little too hard. No, but think about it.

• 1:33:00Speaker 06

  He wears a list.

• 1:33:02Speaker 02

  Insult. The conservatives, the conservatives, when I was growing up, got no pussy. They got no pussy. They had gay relationships on the side. They weren't getting anything. They still do. They crashing grinder. Maybe, but Elon got 17 kids, like, where.

• 1:33:17Speaker 03

  He just had another one.

• 1:33:18Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, you guys see that?

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  Bill Clinton was getting head in the Oval Office, right? Like, Democrats were the ones that were actually cracking cheeks. They were winning the culture war. 1,000%, yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  That's true. The cool war, Democrats.

• 1:33:29Speaker 02

  That is kinda flipped because the Democrats now happen to be like so concerned now Stephen A. doesn't have that. Stephen A.'s out here like, yo, Latinos got big asses and I like Latinos. Why do you think he has no chance? Yeah. I just don't think that.

• 1:33:40Speaker 03

  He doesn't have the same baggage, dude. Like, whoever comes next, it has to.

• 1:33:43Speaker 02

  Obama came out of nowhere.

• 1:33:45Speaker 03

  1,000%. Because he didn't vote for Iraq. Like, you have to have somebody who has got credibility.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  Or you have to have somebody who doesn't give a fuck. Cause look at the amount of baggage Trump had.

• 1:33:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, but yeah, but the thing is, his baggage.

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  Let me take away no chance. Yeah, he has a chance. He has a chance. I need to see some, I need to see some credibility. Like, like, I think what worked for Trump. Even if it doesn't even make sense, but we could bridge the gap, like the cognitive dissonance in our brain evaporated when, when we're like, well, he's made these deals, he likes making deals, he could make deals abroad.

• 1:34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  I need to see Stephen A., I need to believe that Stephen A. could talk to Putin, talk to Kim Jong, and make some deals go through. And I understand what I'm saying.

• 1:34:28Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 1:34:29Speaker 02

  Sounds crazy, but a lot of-

• 1:34:30Speaker 05

  No, I understand that, but what I think could help him in the primary is, I think he can beat whoever the Republican-

• 1:34:36Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:34:37Speaker 05

  So in a primary, he's good at arguing.

• 1:34:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:34:41Speaker 05

  He doesn't give a fuck.

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  Dude, he goes on Hannity, actually does pretty well.

• 1:34:43Speaker 05

  I can see him arguing whatever Republican doesn't give a fuck.

• 1:34:45Speaker 02

  I like that.

• 1:34:46Speaker 05

  And then maybe in the election, the general, you say, I don't know if he can do politics, diplomatic shit, whatever.

• 1:34:51Speaker 03

  Watching him on Hannity, that's another thing I- That's a good point, that's a good point. All politicians need this, you need a love of the game, dude. And Stephen has-

• 1:34:57Speaker 02

  He likes it.

• 1:34:58Speaker 03

  The love of the game. I mean, think about it, like, you wanna give up, like, your wife's, or your wife and your children's future to be in a Secret Service bubble, like, do you know how narcissistic you have to be to actually pursue this? Like, you have to be kinda fucking crazy.

• 1:35:09Speaker 02

  I won't do another podcast a week.

• 1:35:11Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:35:12Speaker 02

  I wanna go to my daughter's gymnastics class.

• 1:35:15Speaker 03

  Bro, and that's normal, right? Like, that's what normal people do. I wouldn't do it, but having spent some time around these people, like, the burning need for attention, you need a black hole inside your chest that can never be filled, like, and when you read all these guys, Clinton, you're like, oh, he had four stepfathers, he used to beat the shit out of his mom, and what did he need? He needed affirmation from women, from people, so he's always running, freshman year, he runs for president. JFK, same thing, he's like, watch all this insanity at home and all this, he needs women the way that his father needed women, he needed the love of the people as the second son to the first son.

• 1:35:49Speaker 05

  His dad didn't even want him to be president, right? His dad wanted the older brother to be president.

• 1:35:52Speaker 03

  His first son, yeah.

• 1:35:53Speaker 05

  Didn't you always say that?

• 1:35:54Speaker 02

  No, that was JFK.

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right.

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  I thought it was Clinton.

• 1:35:57Speaker 03

  No, no, Clinton too.

• 1:35:58Speaker 02

  I said, the dog. He talks so well.

• 1:36:00Speaker 05

  It is a lot, you're so smart that it takes, it takes us a second to catch up.

• 1:36:04Speaker 02

  Who had four dads?

• 1:36:05Speaker 03

  Oh, Clinton has.

• 1:36:06Speaker 02

  Okay, that was Clinton. And then you move to Kennedy, I was still on Clinton.

• 1:36:09Speaker 03

  No, I'm saying, these guys have, even Trump-

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  The fuck is going on?

• 1:36:12Speaker 03

  If we're being honest with Trump too, like, Trump's entire desires, what, please his father and his mother, right? It's like, that is, that Oedipal, like, need is like, deep inside.

• 1:36:22Speaker 02

  What about Jon Stewart?

• 1:36:23Speaker 03

  I think Stephen has that.

• 1:36:24Speaker 02

  What about Jon Stewart?

• 1:36:25Speaker 03

  I like John, I think he's brilliant and I think he's a great critic. I don't know if he has that. I don't know if he has that same love of the game. And I mean, again, we have to think about what are you giving up?

• 1:36:36Speaker 02

  John is a complete human being.

• 1:36:38Speaker 03

  You will give up everything forever. John is a great communicator, but I don't think that he has that same desire to play. I mean, the politics is also a coalitional sport. You have to say something and then meet with somebody who totally disagrees with you. And then go on a stage and be like, we're the best friends ever, right? Like, that requires kind of some self hatred and like some weird shit to do like and absorb all of that. And I think John is almost too honest and like too good of a guy.

• 1:37:05Speaker 02

  And that's why, that's why he has our trust. He has.

• 1:37:07Speaker 03

  I love John.

• 1:37:08Speaker 02

  He has the level of trust that we need, but you're right, he might not have that deep black hole.

• 1:37:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:37:13Speaker 02

  That is needed to go out there and give everything up.

• 1:37:16Mark Gagnon?

  Are you saying, are you saying he couldn't win or you're saying he would never run?

• 1:37:20Speaker 02

  He might not want it enough.

• 1:37:21Speaker 03

  Maybe either. I mean, and, and actually.

• 1:37:23Speaker 02

  No, he could win.

• 1:37:24Mark Gagnon?

  I think he wins landslide.

• 1:37:25Speaker 03

  I don't know, man.

• 1:37:26Speaker 02

  The Democratic nom, yes.

• 1:37:27Speaker 03

  You have to put, yeah, yeah, that's different, but like, and actually even then I'm, I'm still not quite sure. Like what you need, you need a fighter. Like, look at the liberal energy right now. I mean, frankly, like I kind of make fun of them because they're like, these guys are going viral and from town halls. They're like, get up there and get yourself arrested in the Department of Education. I'm like, bro, what the fuck is that gonna do? Like, what are we doing here, man?

• 1:37:48Speaker 02

  Did that make you feel bad that he like lifted his voice an octave since talking about that? Like, he didn't even know he was doing that. He raised his voice an octave. That's a problem.

• 1:38:00Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:38:01Speaker 02

  No, no, seriously. And I know obviously you're gonna have some bias, but like they have to.

• 1:38:04Speaker 03

  And yes, I am very biased.

• 1:38:05Speaker 02

  They have to, but, but I speak about, I speak about this like purely culturally. Like, they have to address that issue so that they can become more relatable. And I think Stephen A. addresses that. There's no guy that looks at Stephen A. and thinks of like an emasculated.

• 1:38:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's not a bitch.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  Jimmy, I'm just like, you're not a bitch.

• 1:38:21Speaker 05

  There's a clip I know you've seen. This is where John Stewart, I don't think wants to, but he would win. Tucker Carlson.

• 1:38:27Speaker 03

  Oh, the 2000.

• 1:38:28Speaker 05

  Got his high voice out, talking all this ranting and raving.

• 1:38:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:32Speaker 05

  And I know that's your boy. I don't like him. But then John just goes, Tucker, you wear a bow tie. Done.

• 1:38:38Speaker 03

  I do.

• 1:38:38Speaker 05

  That's the shit Trump does when Trump is in a debate and he just gets you.

• 1:38:42Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:38:42Speaker 05

  John, by occupation.

• 1:38:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:38:44Speaker 05

  We'll do that.

• 1:38:45Speaker 03

  And a lot of these guys. When John wants to, when, when, remember when he destroyed, was it Jim Cramer?

• 1:38:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, my God.

• 1:38:51Speaker 03

  Kramer O'Reilly. Most like devastating take down.

• 1:38:54Speaker 05

  Kramer was like.

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  Uncomfortable. Yeah, he was like almost crying. He became a joke after. He is, I mean, he's. Well, yeah, it's a joke, but still like. It was like the moment where everyone realized, oh, wow, this guy's a joke. Exactly. I mean, look, I, I, I like John. I think he could do well. Steven, to me, rees with the liberal base wants. Another, oh, and by the way, the, when I said the Democratic base, I didn't get to finish. It's also old black people, like elderly black people are the absolute, like most loyal people to the Democratic Party. Remember, they showed up for Jim Clyburn and Joe Biden. They saved Joe Biden's ass in South Carolina. They're the people who gave Obama the presidency after he won in the Iowa caucuses. Basically put him on the path to victory. So I think Steven embodies their like want to fight. And like the fight is the same thing for Trump.

• 1:39:40Speaker 03

  Like Trump animated the Republican base and all of these working class whites who are like, he's standing up for us against these corrupt Ivy League fucks who I fucking hate. Yeah. So his mere existence. Yeah. His, his occupation of the Oval Office is enough for me to see these people scream, to tire, to go out to the streets. I, you know, it's the Eric Cartman licking Scott Peterson's tears, you know, from South Park where he's like, oh, Scott, I'm licking your, he's like licking his tears. So I forget, Scott Tederman must die. It's a great South Park episode. I don't watch it. They make fun of black women. Bro.

• 1:40:16Speaker 03

  Anyway. I just that's that's what Trump is to me and like this is part of the problem for the Democrats. Is when you have a group that is explicitly hatred of your leaders of your of the cultural elite, of which you are one, no matter what you think, you have a huge messaging problem. That's part of the reason why I think that Stephen could be powerful, though, because he's not connected to that in the same way.

• 1:40:39Speaker 06

  And he gets some of the sports fans from the other side.

• 1:40:41Speaker 03

  Dude, of course.

• 1:40:42Speaker 06

  I've watched this guy for years.

• 1:40:43Speaker 03

  A fucking year. Yeah, think about his name ID forever.

• 1:40:46Speaker 02

  Also, he's cool as shit. Yeah. You need that. You need cool. No, you need cool. Yeah, he's cool.

• 1:40:51Speaker 06

  I agree. You went from no chance to like.

• 1:40:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go. You see, listen, I'm a plastic bag in the wind. He gave me two good points.

• 1:41:03Speaker 02

  Man, we about to have our second black president.

• 1:41:06Speaker 04

  The fact you said no chance makes me think he has a chance.

• 1:41:09Speaker 02

  By the way, Netflix is dead. But if it's alive, March, March 4th.

• 1:41:16Speaker 02

  So, okay, so, yeah, wow, that's that's really interesting. And I think it solves a bunch of problems. It solves the masculinity issue. It solves centrist trust. 100%. He's the outsider, so you don't have him saying a bunch of other shit on record.

• 1:41:27Speaker 03

  Like stupid shit.

• 1:41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, wow. And and he does want it.

• 1:41:32Speaker 03

  He wants it.

• 1:41:32Speaker 02

  He said something.

• 1:41:33Speaker 03

  And he has the fire. Yeah, more than when I see his eyes twinkle. When he's going at Sean Hannity, I'm like, this fucker loves the game. And like, he's just like Trump. All the greats, they live for those moments. Like Clinton said, the most depressed he ever was when he had to leave the White House. Like, that's who they are, dude.

• 1:41:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, we need to stop at a red light for the first time. Like, that's that's what they live for.

• 1:41:55Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? But like, that's that's what it takes.

• 1:41:59Speaker 05

  You know what's crazy? For three years before that, every day he was going home to his daughter.

• 1:42:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:42:05Speaker 05

  Looking at him as he's having this cheating scandal. He's got to talk to her. He's got to go lie to the entire country. He's the worst man in his life. Is I have to leave all of that.

• 1:42:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:42:15Speaker 05

  I have to leave all of that behind.

• 1:42:18Speaker 03

  He's like, first time I walked into a room.

• 1:42:20Speaker 06

  That's genius. The most depressing, not when I have to look my daughter in the eye. Have to get my dick sucked by the internet.

• 1:42:26Speaker 02

  That was fun.

• 1:42:27Speaker 03

  Again, Pete, that's fine.

• 1:42:29Speaker 02

  He's like, I'd walk in a room, they wouldn't play Hail to the Chief, I didn't know what was going on. It's like, hey, like this.

• 1:42:35Speaker 05

  That's who they are.

• 1:42:37Speaker 03

  And listen, they're great. You know, that's why we need them. We need somebody else to absorb all this bullshit. Because the rest of us want to go to our daughter's gymnastics class.

• 1:42:45Speaker 02

  That's a great observation from, obviously, being, you know, years in politics and understanding like the constitution of the person that's gonna do the job. They do need that burning desire for approval and the need to fight. Yeah, that is.

• 1:42:59Speaker 03

  I think Stephen has that. And that's why when I look at, I don't, and Kamala, of course, never had. She had the narcissism and all of that to pursue it, but she didn't have.

• 1:43:08Speaker 02

  She wasn't a star.

• 1:43:09Speaker 03

  She, yeah, she just was, she couldn't convey that. She couldn't combine that, I guess, for greatness. She's got horrible baggage. She'll never make it, in my opinion.

• 1:43:18Speaker 02

  Who else? Is there anybody else, any other outsider that's interesting?

• 1:43:20Speaker 03

  I would have made a case for Dean Phillips, the guy who ran against Biden in the primary, only because he has the Obama, he has the same thing Obama had in 02. So in 02, Obama, fucking nobody, literally gives a speech outside the state senate against the Iraq war. Dean is the only establishment Democrat who can credibly say, "I called out Biden's age before it was obvious to the world." Because he ran against Biden in the New Hampshire primary. He's made some weird, like, moves since then. The other thing is, Dean is filthy rich, so that's, that helps, right? You can self-fund a campaign, you can get your name ID out there. But, again, he's the same Obama thing of, "I told the truth when it was uncomfortable."

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  He even, didn't even run for Congress again. Like, he lost his political future and got blown out in the primary on a single message of, "We cannot win with Biden," and he was empirically correct. So I think Dean, I mean, I don't know if the Democrats will reward him in the same way, but Buttigieg, I mean, he wants it, he's desperate, he has the need, he has the black.

• 1:44:20Speaker 05

  I like Buttigieg.

• 1:44:21Speaker 03

  But his problem is, he's, he's got the baggage, dude. He's got that 2020 primary stage. "Raising my hands for illegal healthcare" and all this. It's like, dude, that stuff is just cancer.

• 1:44:31Speaker 05

  Here's what I would say about him. Here's what I'd say about Buttigieg. He will engage the other side. And I think that is refreshing.

• 1:44:38Speaker 03

  Well, he has the appearance of a gift.

• 1:44:39Speaker 05

  He has the appearance of.

• 1:44:40Speaker 03

  On Fox News. You know what? You're right. He loves the game too. He loves to go on Fox, he likes to combat with Sandra Smith or whatever, right?

• 1:44:46Speaker 02

  He's smart.

• 1:44:47Speaker 03

  Well, he has the appearance of smart, but yes. And that's important?

• 1:44:50Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. Okay, let's talk about that. The appearance of smart is more valuable than actual intellect.

• 1:44:58Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:44:58Speaker 02

  When it comes to running for public office.

• 1:45:00Speaker 03

  No question.

• 1:45:00Speaker 02

  Michael Bloomberg. Is objectively smarter than everybody on that stage. Yeah. He could not communicate that intelligence in a way that was effective in convincing us. Now, we loved him as mayor of New York. Right. Mayor of New York is second most powerful position in the land. Like, let's just be honest, like, you are the mayor of New York, you're really the president. Like, I don't really care. Do you know what I mean? You're really the president. Basically, the president, like. Yeah, Eric Adams is the president.

• 1:45:26Speaker 06

  He's doing presidential things right now.

• 1:45:29Speaker 02

  Keep it a buck, this is the proof right here, right? Mayor Adams, the entire state comes after him, right? What's happening right now? What happened to that? What? Nothing. Yeah. Charges dropped, because you're the real president. Well, that's because the real president part, basically because the real president told the DOJ not to go after you. The second president's a part of the real president. When you're president of New, when you're mayor of New York, you're the real president. Position.

• 1:45:52Speaker 02

  When you're the mayor of New York, you're the real president.

• 1:45:54Speaker 05

  Stop derailing the real point, because you gotta defend New York. Go to the real point. He forgot it, he forgot his real point.

• 1:46:00Speaker 06

  We're getting the migrants out of the hotel.

• 1:46:02Speaker 05

  The appearance of intelligence.

• 1:46:03Speaker 03

  I actually do think it would be nice to have, like, shitlibs stand up for their city. Because there is like this weird, because you guys notice this, I'm sure too.

• 1:46:12Speaker 02

  What's a shitlib?

• 1:46:13Speaker 03

  Like, just like somebody who's, uh.

• 1:46:15Speaker 06

  Did you just call him a shitlib?

• 1:46:16Speaker 03

  No, not, not him. No, no. I guess shitlib to me is, is like the classic, the pink hair, the pussy hat, like, like that. But for me, it's like, there is something annoying.

• 1:46:25Speaker 02

  We should call them the coffee party. Like, because they're the barista equivalent of the T-Pal. The T-Pal and the coffee party.

• 1:46:36Speaker 03

  I mean, doesn't it annoy you when some guy in, like, Alabama's like, man, crime in New York is out of control? And you're like, dude, shut the fuck up.

• 1:46:42Speaker 02

  Every time I go on Rogan, I have to tell him, New York is still dangerous. It's always been dangerous.

• 1:46:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's also not that dangerous. I mean, empirically, it's just like, not that, it's gotten worse, for sure.

• 1:46:53Speaker 02

  It's dangerous for them.

• 1:46:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, fair enough, right? If you live in a suburb, sure, but any city is dangerous for anybody who lives in a suburb.

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  But that's what I'm saying, like, the delta is minimal.

• 1:47:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree. My point is just, I do think there would be something, people need to stand up for America's cities. Because I think what's unfortunate right now is that a lot of Republicans have, like, psy-op themselves, especially younger guys. Like they don't want to come move to a city anymore and I'm like, no, like the city is the greatest place that you should move to. That's where commerce, connection, that's where you're gonna meet everybody. You're young, you can meet your wife, whatever. Like, that's where you can get shit done, you can go out, you can have a good time.

• 1:47:24Speaker 06

  You want to compete?

• 1:47:25Speaker 03

  You can move to the summer later, but like, this is where shit happens.

• 1:47:27Speaker 06

  This is where you compete. This is where you compete against the best of the best.

• 1:47:30Speaker 05

  That's why I moved here.

• 1:47:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, you guys all did the right thing.

• 1:47:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:34Speaker 06

  No, it's a, uh...

• 1:47:36Speaker 03

  Like, I want somebody to stand up, and this is like, almost a liberal, but like, I want someone to stand up for fucking America's cities. I want, like, Chicago.

• 1:47:42Speaker 06

  I'm doing it right now, you just called me a cop.

• 1:47:44Speaker 03

  No, no, I'm saying it's a good thing. I think liberals need to do it in a more credible way. Instead of being like, actually, crime statistics is like, no bitch, like, New York is fucking awesome.

• 1:47:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's awesome.

• 1:47:55Mark Gagnon?

  But don't they get identified as city elites and who can't relate?

• 1:47:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, we're elite, we're elite. Why are we afraid of being elite? That's not the time to be crazy. We think we're better, we do. And when you move here, we don't even consider you from here. We treat everybody who moves to New York like an immigrant. We go, there you go, I'm from New York, we go, well, when did you move here? And they go, oh, seven years ago. You're like, ah, you're from Montana, fuck you.

• 1:48:20Mark Gagnon?

  But that pisses off the rest of the country.

• 1:48:22Speaker 06

  And so they move here, and they want to be from here. I would be pissed off if I lived where y'all live too.

• 1:48:28Speaker 06

  I travel the country, I know what it's like. We are elite and it's good that we're elite, I agree, there needs to be this confidence moving again.

• 1:48:34Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:48:34Speaker 06

  A hundred percent, get the migrants out.

• 1:48:38Speaker 06

  When I'm talking about migrants, I mean, everybody from Maine, everybody from New Hampshire, everybody from Pennsylvania.

• 1:48:48Speaker 06

  Marcus is cool, Marcus is cool.

• 1:48:53Speaker 05

  You know, the problem with the coffee party, though, is self-loathing is intrinsic to their existence.

• 1:48:58Speaker 03

  That's exactly what I'm talking about.

• 1:48:59Speaker 05

  They cannot exist without hating themselves and everything about them. So, I have to hate New York City even though I live here, I have to hate America even though I live here, because I hate myself.

• 1:49:08Speaker 02

  Well, can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question about that? Does it come from, and I'm curious about this, does it come from actual self-hatred? Or does it come from a need to be liked and accepted? And the feeling of, if I shit on my existence... These minorities might accept me.

• 1:49:26Speaker 05

  Aren't those kind of one in the same? Doesn't one feed into the other?

• 1:49:28Speaker 02

  Again, I don't know chicken or the egg, but I don't think that they're doing it just because they hate themselves. They might hate themselves, but they desperately care about the approval, because people who hate themselves, they just kill themselves. And it's like, you know.

• 1:49:43Speaker 02

  I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. I'm not saying you should do that, but if you just have this pure hatred for self.

• 1:49:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:51Speaker 02

  But I, don't you feel like sometimes there's like this like a need of approval?

• 1:49:54Speaker 05

  With the appearance of self-loathing.

• 1:49:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:56Speaker 05

  It is diametrically opposed to stand up for a big city.

• 1:49:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:49:59Speaker 05

  When you're like, your whole existence appears to be shit on everything that is of my existence.

• 1:50:04Speaker 03

  I also think it might be education, like there's this guilt that is like ingrained in you in the college system, right? Like, America's bad, you know, it's like the existence of the country is bad, like the things that we do are awful. And there's like this thing that gets embedded in within you, whereas like a working class kids or whatever, built with much more patriotism, both in the home and probably just around, like the way that they think about things. They're like, yeah, we do bad stuff, but it's a great place.

• 1:50:27Speaker 05

  The easiest way to deal with privilege is to apologize for it and not actually do anything to help. It's just to apologize for it.

• 1:50:33Speaker 02

  It's the bad day.

• 1:50:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. Whereas people like, I didn't grow up poor by any stretch, but I feel like I worked up. I started in comedy, blah, blah, blah. So I don't feel like I have to apologize for this.

• 1:50:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:50:42Speaker 05

  If I, my kids, God willing, I'm successful, I wanted, they might feel a little bit apologetic, I didn't earn this. So you know what? Instead of actually like going on doing community service, why don't I just apologize all the time for my existence?

• 1:50:52Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:50:53Speaker 05

  And I think that's a lot of times why those guys are the loudest ones in Democratic Party and they've taken control of the narrative.

• 1:50:59Speaker 03

  Well, a lot of it is also about like this, this need for control. Like, that's where I think the, if you were talking about how the right wasn't cool in the mid 2000s, like, because they were trying to tell people what to do.

• 1:51:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:09Speaker 03

  The modern right has basically become a socially libertarian right.

• 1:51:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:51:12Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't think he likes when I say this, but for years I've been like, I think Dave Portnoy is one of the most important political figures in the country.

• 1:51:19Speaker 02

  He would love this, go on.

• 1:51:20Speaker 03

  No, he would not. I don't think he likes it because I think what I always say is like Barstool Republicanism is the new, basically wave of conservatism in America, which is you do what you want to do, but don't fucking tell me how to speak. Right, because

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  I think Dave would love that.

• 1:51:34Speaker 03

  And I don't know, I'm not sure.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  Republican and Democrat.

• 1:51:37Speaker 03

  Well, that's what I'm saying. He doesn't want it to say Republican, but like they are Republicans.

• 1:51:40Speaker 02

  Cultural influence?

• 1:51:41Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:51:41Speaker 02

  I think that he would really appreciate that. I think you're right. That guy could be precious.

• 1:51:44Speaker 03

  Is like, the thing about Portnoy, Barstool, whatever, is it's about, it's about saying fuck you to the man. And like in the 2000s, the man was George W. Bush in the church trying to tell us we're gay people or whatever.

• 1:51:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:57Speaker 03

  Not to get married. Now it's, oh, you don't know BIPOC, you fucking racist? Or like, you're not just racist, you're not just, you can't just be, not be racist, you have to be anti-racist. You have to read this stupid fucking book by this grifter, Abrahim Kendi, and all of a sudden nonsense, right? And America is very socially libertarian because we're not really religious anymore. And so now, we're like, oh, I'm gonna live my life, like all the grilled dad conservatism, there's a lot of different like words for it. But it's like, just fuck off and don't tell my kids about transgenderism or whatever at age seven. And I think that like Barstool kind of, the brand exemplifies what I'm saying, which is saying fuck you to the cultural elite.

• 1:52:33Speaker 02

  Well, Americans in general love to say fuck you.

• 1:52:36Speaker 03

  Of course, that's who we are. That's literally who we are.

• 1:52:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, we love rebels. And we also love, and this is something I hope Democrats start to understand, is we love abundance. You have to sell us on abundance.

• 1:52:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:52:46Speaker 02

  And I think that's one thing that like, the Democrats haven't done, what they're, what, what

• 1:52:49Speaker 03

  Oh, you would love the new Ezra Klein stuff. They're writing a book about abundance.

• 1:52:53Speaker 02

  Okay, so I want to talk to this guy.

• 1:52:54Speaker 03

  You should have him on.

• 1:52:55Speaker 02

  I would love to have him on. I'd love to go on his show.

• 1:52:57Speaker 03

  His co-author is named Derek Thompson.

• 1:52:58Speaker 02

  Fuck, fuck that guy. Fuck him.

• 1:53:00Speaker 03

  No, dude, no. He's got a great podcast, Plain English, Shallow.

• 1:53:04Speaker 02

  Oh, that is a great podcast.

• 1:53:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a great podcast.

• 1:53:06Speaker 02

  I'd love to go on.

• 1:53:07Speaker 03

  That's not shout out of the podcast.

• 1:53:10Speaker 02

  He's a liberal, he's obviously a liberal, he's a guy.

• 1:53:12Speaker 03

  They're Democrats, with capital D.

• 1:53:13Speaker 02

  I think it's, there's one thing like, and again, I get away from like Republican, Democrat, it's like, let's just talk about like culture, because obviously things shift, right? If Republicans were the party of censorship and now they're the party of like libertarians, it's not really a damn Republican thing. It's just like, which party is accessing the things that Americans need or care about?

• 1:53:28Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:53:28Speaker 02

  And this idea of like, we're dreamers, right? It's like, in our DNA, we are risk-taking dreamers. We need people who are talking shit and willing to take risks.

• 1:53:37Speaker 03

  We're the frontier. That's who we are.

• 1:53:38Speaker 02

  Everybody in our family, if you go back a generation, left their entire existence to just try to make it here, right? So, when a Democrat is coming in,

• 1:53:47Speaker 02

  I need them to say some wild shit. I want them to say, listen, there are all these developers in New York and they're trying to put these fucking buildings up. So yeah, we're dead in that. Matter of fact, we're gonna take that land over there. We're gonna build 10,000 fucking units. That shit is gonna be cheap. And now you can live in Manhattan for under $3,000. Even if they don't do it.

• 1:54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, people.

• 1:54:06Speaker 02

  Tell me that.

• 1:54:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:54:08Speaker 02

  If Trump can say, we're taking Greenland, you could say you're taking a little patch of land in Manhattan and building affordable housing. Say some wild shit that makes people go, whoa, whoa, that kinda sounds, that sounds fire.

• 1:54:19Speaker 03

  I totally agree.

• 1:54:19Speaker 02

  And don't make it, yeah, we're gonna shoot every kid up with the fucking hormone or whatever the fuck that they don't actually say that, but that is the rhetoric. But there's a tacit acceptance of it. There's an acceptance of it.

• 1:54:28Mark Gagnon?

  Then you have politicians who just make a bunch of bold claims that they never do.

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  Oh, welcome to America.

• 1:54:35Mark Gagnon?

  Then we go right back to losing trust in politicians.

• 1:54:37Speaker 03

  Hey, you gotta do some of it.

• 1:54:38Speaker 02

  The trust is zero.

• 1:54:39Mark Gagnon?

  The trust is zero. Trump is at least doing the shit that he's gonna say, even if he like it or not. He's doing it.

• 1:54:45Speaker 03

  I, I wouldn't say that, man. I, I actually am not like, the real, that's my problem with Doge is I feel like the whole Doge thing is not really how it was sold to me.

• 1:54:54Speaker 02

  What's the Democrat build the wall? There's no wall.

• 1:54:57Speaker 03

  Uh, healthcare, but for, the problem is I go, okay, what about illegal immigrants? So like, uh, and I go, is it gonna cover transgender? Uh, is it gonna cover abortion?

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, it's like low key, you almost gotta stay away from healthcare because they're all in the pockets of healthcare. Give me the Democrat build the wall. If, if Democrats go, yo, eggs are a dollar. That's it. Don't even tell me how you're gonna do it. Eggs are a do- we subsidize corn, we subsidize milk, we subsidize all this other shit. We're subsidizing chickens. Eggs are a dollar. And then have Republicans go, oh, well, well, actually. Price control. We can, that's ridiculous. And then you go, you sound gay. Eggs are a dollar.

• 1:55:33Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah, I think tax, tax the rich.

• 1:55:35Speaker 03

  Call this man.

• 1:55:37Mark Gagnon?

  I think tax the rich would be.

• 1:55:38Speaker 03

  See, I actually think his is better because it's tangible. Like build a wall with something you could point to. As opposed to tax the riches is, it could be, it's been too coded and it could be attacked.

• 1:55:48Speaker 02

  They've been crying about it for years.

• 1:55:49Speaker 03

  This right here is just like.

• 1:55:49Speaker 02

  You're not gonna tax the rich. They're gonna find a way to get out of it. And also every.

• 1:55:53Mark Gagnon?

  That's what you just said. Say some shit that's not gonna happen.

• 1:55:55Speaker 02

  This is a really important cultural distinction. Every poor American, not every, but most think they're gonna be rich.

• 1:56:00Speaker 03

  That's the problem.

• 1:56:01Speaker 02

  So if you start saying tax the rich. I'm gonna be rich one day. Wow, damn fucking taxes. Eggs a dollar right now? Say this in New York. Yo, New York, we gotta rule eggs are a dollar. Just say it. Whoever says that first win, if Stephen A. Smith goes, yo, eggs are a dollar.

• 1:56:14Speaker 03

  Hey, listen, Stephen, call him.

• 1:56:16Speaker 02

  It's that simple. I need Democrat build a wall. Give me, give me five build a walls for Democrat. Eggs are a dollar.

• 1:56:24Speaker 04

  But you're touching the class problem, and I think part of the self-loathing is the, the social problem that they've been addressing for the last 10 years.

• 1:56:30Speaker 02

  Bring, bring that, bring that.

• 1:56:31Speaker 04

  Like, they're, the, I think the, the internal self-loathing we're talking about from like the left comes from this idea of, oh, we are, we're elitist, so we need to like bring ourselves down and we need to ingratiate ourselves with the disenfranchised, the trans, the BIPOC, all that stuff. When the real problem underlying all of it is the class issue that eggs are too expensive and that there's no affordable housing.

• 1:56:49Speaker 03

  Well, I would say housing is number one. I actually think what you were saying, I, I would, mortgages or something like that, I'd be like, all mortgages are 2% from now on.

• 1:56:57Speaker 02

  Done.

• 1:56:57Speaker 03

  JP Morgan, fuck you.

• 1:56:59Speaker 02

  Done.

• 1:56:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, and everyone would be like, what?

• 1:57:01Speaker 02

  Figure it out.

• 1:57:02Speaker 03

  Figure it out. No, that's not possible. Jamie Dimon's gonna be on CNBC, be like, well, actually.

• 1:57:07Speaker 02

  I'm gonna take all these eggs that are a dollar, I'm gonna throw them at your fucking belly.

• 1:57:14Speaker 04

  We had this, we had this. You remember the guy that was running, yo, the rent is too damn high?

• 1:57:18Speaker 03

  I do remember that.

• 1:57:18Speaker 04

  One line, the rent is too damn high.

• 1:57:19Speaker 02

  And he was forever. People loved him forever. He was a celebrity.

• 1:57:24Speaker 03

  Well, he lost, he lost. Well, he was part of that fringe party, became nationally famous.

• 1:57:28Speaker 02

  He had nothing else.

• 1:57:29Speaker 03

  I didn't even live in New York, I know about this guy.

• 1:57:30Speaker 02

  He was, he was a homeless guy that ran and almost won off of one line.

• 1:57:35Speaker 04

  He didn't almost win, he lost really bad.

• 1:57:36Speaker 02

  He lost really bad. He's a homeless guy, it doesn't matter.

• 1:57:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:40Speaker 02

  But I'm just saying, of course, rent is too damn high, you're homeless. That makes sense. The point of trying to say-

• 1:57:44Speaker 04

  But that's proof, I think that's proof of the point. If Stephen A. says rent is too damn high and also has some fucking policy in his little salad, and eggs, we're gonna make them a dollar.

• 1:57:52Speaker 03

  I love that build a wall point. I think you're absolutely right. That's one of the genius, the other thing about Trump, and part of the reason the Democrats-

• 1:57:58Speaker 02

  Sorry, sorry, country, but like the guy from Squid Game, they tell you he was gonna give a thousand dollars to every person.

• 1:58:02Speaker 03

  Oh, that's right, yeah.

• 1:58:04Speaker 04

  Wait, which one?

• 1:58:05Speaker 03

  I mean, not exactly, but.

• 1:58:06Speaker 04

  Andrew Yang?

• 1:58:07Speaker 02

  Andrew Yang! The guy said he was gonna give a thou- he said he was gonna give a thousand dollars to every New York-

• 1:58:12Speaker 03

  I thought you were talking about the actual Squid Game. In the new season. And I was like, well, they kinda did say that because they were giving, they're gonna split all the money.

• 1:58:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like, number 351 was running for president, he said he was gonna give a thousand dollars.

• 1:58:26Speaker 04

  He was never in Squid Game.

• 1:58:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58:29Speaker 04

  I don't think he was.

• 1:58:29Speaker 02

  Mark, stop fucking talking shit up.

• 1:58:31Speaker 03

  You should have him on here.

• 1:58:32Speaker 05

  Yo, you know why he's bitter? Cause we wanted him on when he ran for New York and he didn't come because it was risky.

• 1:58:36Speaker 03

  I'm not bitter.

• 1:58:37Speaker 05

  And then he lost.

• 1:58:37Speaker 02

  I'm not bitter.

• 1:58:38Speaker 05

  And that's why, that's why he got killed in Squid Game.

• 1:58:40Speaker 02

  Oh, of course he's here. Now, he needs it. What I told Andrew Yang is, you cannot win, you cannot become mayor of, he's 351.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  Oh, that was Andrew Yang.

• 1:58:51Speaker 02

  That was Andrew. You cannot become mayor of New York without coming on this podcast.

• 1:58:54Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:58:54Speaker 02

  It's a simple fact.

• 1:58:55Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:58:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:58:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:56Speaker 02

  Most people that voted for Eric Adams think it's Alex Mead.

• 1:58:59Speaker 03

  You gotta get Cuomo.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  Oh, is he running again?

• 1:59:01Speaker 03

  Dude, he just announced yesterday. You gotta get him on.

• 1:59:04Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, I would love that.

• 1:59:05Speaker 03

  That would be fucking incredible.

• 1:59:06Speaker 02

  Which one is the Cuomo? Which Cuomo is this? Andrew.

• 1:59:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, the old governor.

• 1:59:10Speaker 02

  He's going from gov- see, that's the thing. Governor of New York-

• 1:59:12Speaker 05

  Chick Nipple Sauce Monkey?

• 1:59:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I call him a Chick Nipple Sauce Monkey, yeah. I did call him a Chick Nipple Sauce Monkey, but then, he doesn't have Chick-

• 1:59:19Speaker 03

  That was during the Covid thing, right?

• 1:59:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. That's how powerful Mayor of New York is. You go from governor to mayor, that is an upgrade.

• 1:59:26Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:59:26Speaker 02

  I don't know who the governor of New York is, I'm gonna be completely honest with you.

• 1:59:29Speaker 03

  Come on, you fucking idiot.

• 1:59:30Speaker 02

  We have a woman running this?

• 1:59:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:37Speaker 02

  You can't be telling me to die.

• 1:59:38Speaker 03

  You know who the governor of New York is.

• 1:59:40Speaker 02

  The last governor I knew was the blind guy. That was the last governor of New York.

• 1:59:43Speaker 05

  Eli Spitzer in New Jersey?

• 1:59:45Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. There was a blind guy that went to the Yankees game.

• 1:59:48Speaker 04

  The black guy, right?

• 1:59:49Speaker 03

  Wait, what are you ta- Dinkins?

• 1:59:50Speaker 02

  No, there was a blind guy that took over after somebody stopped and he was blind and they brought him to the Yankees game and gave him a fucking-

• 1:59:56Speaker 03

  What the fuck are you talking about?

• 1:59:57Speaker 02

  What is his name?

• 1:59:58Speaker 04

  David Patterson?

• 1:59:59Speaker 02

  David Patterson.

• 1:59:59Speaker 04

  Oh, Patterson.

• 2:00:00Speaker 03

  Oh, man, when was that?

• 2:00:01Speaker 04

  Dude, do your research.

• 2:00:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought you know shit.

• 2:00:03Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't fucking live in New York, dude. I don't think, it's not the capital of the world.

• 2:00:07Speaker 02

  Look at that fucking-

• 2:00:08Speaker 04

  It is the capital. It's the capital of the world.

• 2:00:11Speaker 02

  That was the governor of New York.

• 2:00:13Speaker 04

  Nah, he's Stevie Wonderblind, he's faking it.

• 2:00:14Speaker 03

  When was this?

• 2:00:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I remember this.

• 2:00:17Speaker 03

  When was his term?

• 2:00:19Mark Gagnon?

  I had no idea.

• 2:00:20Speaker 03

  Come on, man, just hit backspace.

• 2:00:21Mark Gagnon?

  The bester.

• 2:00:23Speaker 03

  Goddamn, Zog.

• 2:00:26Mark Gagnon?

  Golly.

• 2:00:28Speaker 06

  These fucking shit niggas.

• 2:00:31Speaker 06

  What the fuck is that? Free Luigi.

• 2:00:36Mark Gagnon?

  We need the Ouija bag, what the hell?

• 2:00:38Speaker 02

  Alright guys, let's take a break for a second. Show, we have limited time here, so do we, do you think that we got to something from Doge? I think we did.

• 2:00:45Mark Gagnon?

  I think we fixed the Democrats.

• 2:00:46Speaker 03

  I think so. Yeah, I also think, I honestly think a lot of Democrats should listen to this. And if you're a Democrat or whatever out there, you should send it to people.

• 2:00:51Speaker 02

  Oh, Pat Ryan?

• 2:00:52Speaker 03

  You know what's also funny?

• 2:00:53Speaker 02

  I try, like, I try to, I mean, we had the conversation on Brilliant Hits the other time, we talk about it here. What I realized is I gotta go on more, uh, I was telling you this, I have to go on many more left-leaning shows and I realized this, even when I was doing some press for, for the pod, is that, one, those conversations are so much better because there's, there's a perception, I guess, of me, and once they actually have a conversation.

• 2:01:17Speaker 03

  They think you're literally MAGA. Yeah, they literally think you're MAGA.

• 2:01:18Speaker 02

  And here's the thing.

• 2:01:18Speaker 03

  People ask me that.

• 2:01:19Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 2:01:20Speaker 03

  I'm like, dude, I don't know what you're fucking talking about.

• 2:01:21Speaker 02

  But I have empathy for them. No, I have empathy for them because I'm sure like the way I think of anybody who I've only, you know, seen a headline of and then I see like one little clip of, but in, in my mind, like, we do, we kind of work really hard to make sure that we have diversity in guests here. Obviously, never a woman, but, but in terms of like, in terms of the male guests, right? We have a lot of diversity, but all that does is just reminds our base that we care about these different opinions and then we have these conversations, right? I could be on a podcast with Charlemagne, who is literally riding so hard for the Democrats and comma, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is when you go into their territory and have those discussions and then they get a different sense of you.

• 2:02:00Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 2:02:00Speaker 02

  And I think that's what works so well with John. I think when John would go on Fox News, it's not about having the Fox News guys on his program, he would go over there because you're going into.

• 2:02:10Mark Gagnon?

  The lion's den.

• 2:02:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, you call it the lion's den, but then they get a sense of you. So it's something that I realized this time, I'm gonna make more of an effort and we should all do, uh, going on other pods. I assume just having diverse of guests over here, all those people would listen, they don't.

• 2:02:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:02:23Speaker 02

  It's our listeners.

• 2:02:24Speaker 03

  Bro, think about how much content is out there.

• 2:02:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 2:02:26Speaker 03

  How much other shit do you really listen to?

• 2:02:28Speaker 02

  No, you're right, you're 100% right, you're 100% right. Anyway, you were saying.

• 2:02:30Speaker 03

  Oh, man, I don't even fucking remember. I'm trying to think of it.

• 2:02:33Mark Gagnon?

  How do you feel about Pat Ryan? Do you think he'll have a chance to run?

• 2:02:37Speaker 03

  Pat Ryan?

• 2:02:37Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:38Speaker 03

  Who am I, I don't know.

• 2:02:39Mark Gagnon?

  He's a black guy, probably. No, he's actually not. Really?

• 2:02:42Speaker 03

  Oh, the representative?

• 2:02:43Mark Gagnon?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:02:44Speaker 03

  No, dude, no.

• 2:02:45Mark Gagnon?

  He

• 2:02:45Speaker 02

  To us.

• 2:02:46Mark Gagnon?

  I heard you talk a few times. What about Newsom?

• 2:02:50Speaker 05

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 2:02:51Speaker 03

  I um, I think he's got too much baggage. French Laundry is just so fucked. It's so bad. He's got the same problem.

• 2:02:59Speaker 02

  Can you explain that to everybody who doesn't know?

• 2:03:01Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry. He dined at the French, which is like one of the three star Michelin restaurants.

• 2:03:05Speaker 02

  I think it's Thomas Keller, right?

• 2:03:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, he dined at the French Laundry. He was indoor dining when all of the rest of California had non indoor dining. During COVID, it was a huge scandal, rightfully. It was ridiculous. They shut down all these businesses. I think shit like that. He reads to me as too elitist. He's got too much of the baggage. And he's also trying too hard. He just started his new podcast. I'm like, ugh, like, he gives me the fucking ick, dude. Like, you know, with the

• 2:03:28Speaker 05

  I agree.

• 2:03:29Speaker 03

  With how desperate he's contorting himself. It's just too much. That's why, again, I come back to my, it has to be an outsider.

• 2:03:34Speaker 02

  Also, it's not like

• 2:03:35Speaker 03

  And the way Trump broke the Republican Party has to come from outside. Obama, like

• 2:03:39Speaker 02

  The state, the perception, the state could be flourishing, but the perception of the state from the outside is that it's struggling.

• 2:03:44Speaker 03

  I mean, empirically, they lost, what, half a million people? It's just true.

• 2:03:47Speaker 02

  But even if, even if they were doing really well.

• 2:03:51Speaker 03

  Totally, yeah.

• 2:03:51Speaker 02

  The perception is so important, and not being able to control that perception. I guess what he shouldn't be doing is starting his own pod. He should be going on Rogan.

• 2:03:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:03:59Speaker 02

  He should be going on any right-leaning pod that he possibly can.

• 2:04:02Speaker 03

  They're pussy, dude. They're just afraid. Like, they're, you know, and that's the funny thing about

• 2:04:05Speaker 05

  But that is, that is

• 2:04:06Speaker 03

  People have done Rogan. I'm like, dude, he's not gonna attack you. Like, shut up.

• 2:04:08Speaker 02

  He's gonna fucking talk to you and try to understand

• 2:04:10Speaker 03

  He let Fetterman talk, and the guy can barely fucking talk. Like, what the fuck?

• 2:04:15Speaker 05

  And to be honest, I think if Fetterman didn't have that stroke, I think he would have a chance for the Democrats.

• 2:04:18Speaker 03

  Maybe. He was, he was, uh, he was very talented. The clothing thing drives me fucking crazy.

• 2:04:23Speaker 05

  I know, drives you crazy, but it reads, it reads every man, blue collar, not super cucky, social. To a Democrat, it reads, a blue collar Democrat, it reads like, that's our guy.

• 2:04:31Speaker 03

  I don't know. To me, he's like the costume of the working

• 2:04:35Speaker 02

  I thought that exact thing until I saw him at the inauguration.

• 2:04:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:39Speaker 02

  Still wearing the sweatpants and the shorts. And I was like, oh, you're just putting on an outfit so that working-class people will think that you are them? And now it lost all inauthentic, it lost all authenticity. It felt so inauthentic. I really believed it until that moment.

• 2:04:54Speaker 03

  Okay, good.

• 2:04:54Speaker 02

  You knew the inauguration's happening. You can rent a suit for fifty dollars.

• 2:04:57Speaker 03

  Bro, he wore a suit when Bibi visited the Senate. It's like, what the fuck? You know, so it's like, you can't wear a suit. I'm just saying, it's true. Empirically.

• 2:05:03Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 2:05:04Speaker 03

  They wore a suit when Bibi came to America. I'm like, you don't wear a fucking suit when the United States president is being inaugurated?

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  I wonder what the conspiracy theorists are saying about that? Okay.

• 2:05:13Speaker 03

  And he can wear the suit when he wants to.

• 2:05:15Speaker 02

  Okay, okay, okay. We have a very boring reveal about the Epstein list.

• 2:05:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 2:05:24Speaker 02

  Can, can you explain, or any, anybody who knows here, I, I haven't really been keeping up to date on it. Why was it underwhelming? And what is the future of the Epstein?

• 2:05:34Speaker 03

  Well, it was all publicly available. And the rollout was a disaster. Like, let's just, you know, like, Can you discuss that? Why it was disseminated in that way? I, I, according to the people there, they would not expect it to be photographed immediately. So let's, for people who haven't even seen all this, here's what happened, is a bunch of conservative influencers, or whatever, were at the White House, they were given binders that said the Epstein files on them. They come out of the White House, they're photographed, and tweets start going around of them holding up binders that say, "The Epstein files." People are like, "Hey, hold on a second. Why are you giving this to some conservative journalist? Like, this is supposed to be just posted online for everybody, right?" So then they were defending it. The other thing is, it starts to leak out that everything in there is already publicly available information. The only new thing that

• 2:06:16Speaker 03

  came out of the Epstein files was a claim by the Attorney General that the FBI is currently covering things up. But like, that's just a claim, that's not a file, right? So there's redacted info. They actually redacted some stuff, which is publicly available already. Fucking hilarious. So like, in some ways, there's actually less information in this. And they also, the House Judiciary Committee, GOP, posted a link, being like, "Here's the Epstein files." And it was a literal rickroll, like they, a link to rickrolling. And it was like, dude, we're talking about children who were sex trafficked, like a dangerous pedophile. Like, you're turning this into a meme? And the whole point is not a meme? You should never joke around about it. Nobody can make jokes about that. If you're a professional comedian, you can joke about it. If you're the House Judiciary,

• 2:07:00Speaker 03

  or you're like, "Ah, like, this is actually serious. This is like, real shit." So, like, what does all this shit mean? Like, I mean, first of all, I'm starting to doubt whether the Epstein file is real, like whether it even exists. Like, at this point, why would the FBI, I mean, they burned all the JFK stuff, they burned all the, a lot of the UFO stuff, or they've covered it up. Like, is it even in physical format? Can it be released? But also, do we also, I think we need a lot of, oh, we already know what a lot of what we need to know, that the Israeli Prime Minister, Ayud Barak, was like, sleeping in this house multiple times, that Bill Clinton's flying on this guy's jet, that Bill Gates is asking this dude for marriage advice, or whatever. Why did Epstein have the connection to get Bill Gates a Nobel Prize? I'm like, I think we know. The only thing that needs

• 2:07:43Speaker 03

  to be declassified is some of the intelligence connection, which they admitted was part of the reason that they pushed through the 2007 plea deal with Epstein. And so, anyway, my Epstein files is get Alex Acosta, who was the DOJ, the US Attorney, and then the Secretary of Labor, who resigned over this. Let's sit him down. We give him immunity. And we're like, what actually happened? Who called you from the CIA? Because he gave a quote, back at that time, where he said, somebody, intelligence called me, and told me.

• 2:08:15Speaker 02

  Mossad or CIA?

• 2:08:16Speaker 03

  Well, nobody knows. I mean, it could be CIA or the Hamas Mossad, nobody knows. What is the quote?

• 2:08:19Speaker 04

  The intelligence told me to let it go.

• 2:08:22Speaker 03

  That's right. They said, let it go, with Epstein. That's what, he said that.

• 2:08:25Speaker 02

  So we give Alex Acosta immunity?

• 2:08:26Speaker 03

  We go, look, you have total immunity. Just tell us what happened. And Ghislaine, we need to get Ghislaine, same thing. We're like, look, you're already locked up for life, whatever. And all of that, you have immunity at this point from prosecution. Tell us everything. Is this possibly even being discussed? No, I mean, I haven't heard it. I'm saying, this is my solution.

• 2:08:43Speaker 02

  First of all, it's a great solution. I also think, I'm not saying these people are gonna be heroes. I don't think there's any world where Ghislaine's a hero, right? Alex Acosta, there is a version where your entire identity doesn't become hiding child sex traffickers, and allowing them to.

• 2:09:04Speaker 03

  Dude, he's gotta carry this shit on his chest for 20 years. It cost him the Secretary of Labor.

• 2:09:07Speaker 02

  If he does it, if he goes out and does it. And then somebody kills him afterwards?

• 2:09:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09:13Speaker 02

  He'll at least die.

• 2:09:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. He'll die a hero. Dude, I sat next to him on a plane. I'm still ashamed of myself.

• 2:09:18Speaker 02

  And you didn't ask?

• 2:09:19Speaker 03

  Dude, it was like, it was like a nine, a fif- 11:15 PM flight from Miami and it was dead silent. And I was just like, I'm like sitting there like itching and all.

• 2:09:27Speaker 02

  Right next to you?

• 2:09:28Speaker 03

  I was like, I was mad. Dude, right fucking next to me.

• 2:09:31Speaker 02

  Gotta get him some drinks?

• 2:09:32Speaker 03

  I know.

• 2:09:33Speaker 02

  Same thing you probably did to your mother.

• 2:09:35Speaker 03

  I would have been talking. But I was like, I didn't want to be the guy that was like, ah, excuse me, you know, like, so, and all the, and it's one of the great regrets of my life. I didn't say anything.

• 2:09:43Mark Gagnon?

  You don't want to know who's on the list?

• 2:09:44Speaker 03

  No, I don't, I'm not sure the list as we understand it exists. Like, I think a lot of the list is, bro, the list, as it- Yes, he wants to know. The list, of course, but I'm saying the list, we already know Leon Black, the head of Apollo Group, who had to resign, the most powerful private equity firm in the world, fucking Dershowitz, like, who else? Ayud Barak, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Ghislaine Maxwell, every person who was ever at the, Reed Hoffman, all of these folks, it's like, it's out there, it's public record. And they all give us this, or Les Wexner, actually, that's another one. We need, he needs to get immunity too. We're like, Les, how old is he? Fucking 90 years old or something? We're like, just say it, dude. You know, tell us what the fuck happened here.

• 2:10:23Speaker 02

  What were you bankrolling?

• 2:10:24Speaker 03

  Why? Why? Like, what the fuck was going on?

• 2:10:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:26Speaker 03

  That's what I think.

• 2:10:27Speaker 02

  So Alex Acosta is the key figure. If we give him immunity, I don't even trust Ghislaine, to be honest with you.

• 2:10:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, fair.

• 2:10:33Speaker 02

  Because she's too incentivized to lie. Exactly. So I think it's Acosta. Acosta says what intelligence told him, or whatever it is.

• 2:10:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:10:41Speaker 02

  Maybe then you give immunity to Ghislaine to just figure out exactly what's going on, but I think, I think that that would pacify the American curiosity.

• 2:10:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it should.

• 2:10:52Speaker 02

  It might not satisfy us, but we'd at least go, okay.

• 2:10:55Speaker 03

  We need to get Cash Patel on the show. We need to, we need to get him. But that's my thing is I don't even know if Cash could, it's, people say this, I mean, she's a UFO guy too. People are always like, oh, does the government have the truth about UFOs? I'm like, yes, but not in the way that you think, man. Like, it's not, there's no smoking dog.

• 2:11:08Speaker 02

  Way more boring.

• 2:11:09Speaker 03

  It's just like, it's all within layers and- The radar blip. Bro, if you're into JFK stuff too, like, you know this already. You're like, look, we already have it. Like, we know-

• 2:11:17Speaker 02

  What is it? What happened?

• 2:11:18Speaker 03

  Or we already know that the CIA- Assassin or was complicit in assassination plot against John F Kennedy. That's all on the record, all of the official evidence, it doesn't matter. We know about the Bay of Pigs, about the elements within the CIA. We're upset about getting cut off the Bellas Brothers, Jack Ruby. All of this is, this is like, it's been proven, it's been decades, right? Where we can lay out all of the holes in the official narrative, magic bullet, right? Like, it's all bullshit, but is there a file in the CIA that's like, we killed John F Kennedy? Never. No, what it is, is you will find a file talking about these Cuban elements or whatever, who had access to stockpiles and maybe just like 9/11 where the FBI had knowledge or the CIA had knowledge of these people being in the country, but didn't do anything about it? That it was more like, yeah, we were aware, we didn't think they were going to do anything

• 2:12:02Speaker 03

  serious or whatever, and then we're like, oh my God, we're going to cover this shit up immediately. Like, that's kind of how it all went down. So, the information's there, like on Charlie Manson, read the Chaos book, it's there, like, we know. What's the Charlie Manson thing? That would take me hours to explain, but the Charles Manson chaos, highly recommend the book. Tom O'Neill spent 20 years on it. Charlie Manson was a CIA asset, he was part of the mind control experiments by the same guy who wiped Jack Ruby's mind. Jolly Swift. Jolly Swift, that's, yeah, that's right. He was the LSD CIA advisor on all of those like brothel plans. Jolly West, no, Jolly West, that's his name, Jolly West. Jolly West was the person feeding LSD to Charlie, the Manson family and all that, was part in FBI plot to instigate like a race war. That's one of the things that they wrote on the, on Roman Polanski's wall,

• 2:12:46Speaker 03

  was trying to instigate this and it was all part of this crazy shit that was going on inside of the FBI at that time. We know this, we know all of this, even from the Church Committee onward, but it's like, people think that there's smoking guns, it's just like, that's not how it works. Like with MLK, with Manson, with JFK, UFO, etc. Like, it's all covered up and the real smoking gun stuff, those people are dead. And I think the crazy part about the Manson stuff is that even on their deathbeds, they still won't tell the truth. Who is that? The cops involved, the FBI, all of, there's been what? Why, why do you think? I don't know, man. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think either the information, it's not that it would be too shocking. It's just that don't let it ever be confirmed because only weirdos like me ever read the book and come on a show here and tell you about it.

• 2:13:30Speaker 03

  Right. It's like most people just moved on with their lives. Like, yeah, whatever Manson, is he still alive? You know, what's going on there?

• 2:13:35Speaker 02

  Is it possible?

• 2:13:35Speaker 03

  Watch the Tarantino movie, you know, it's like that's it.

• 2:13:37Speaker 02

  Is it possible that the like extreme conspiracy theories are, I don't know what the term for this would be, but they're developed by the people that are hiding the truth?

• 2:13:46Speaker 03

  Well, people think that. Yeah, a lot of people.

• 2:13:48Speaker 02

  What is that called?

• 2:13:48Speaker 04

  I mean, like disinformation.

• 2:13:51Speaker 02

  So, so the idea is like get people to think.

• 2:13:53Speaker 04

  Controlled opposition.

• 2:13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So get people to think.

• 2:13:55Speaker 03

  That's a fake one.

• 2:13:56Speaker 02

  Oh, an even crazier thing happened.

• 2:13:58Speaker 04

  Well, people say that the term conspiracy theorist.

• 2:14:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, is a, is a op, you're exactly right.

• 2:14:03Speaker 04

  Created as a psyop.

• 2:14:04Speaker 02

  So, so, so, so let's just say.

• 2:14:05Speaker 04

  It's what people say.

• 2:14:06Speaker 02

  Best case scenario. This is just best case. I don't even know if it's the best case, but A scenario. FBI is aware.

• 2:14:12Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:14:12Speaker 02

  Choose not to intervene. Really bad thing happens. Leader of the FBI goes, fuck, if people know that we were aware, this is on me.

• 2:14:20Speaker 03

  The guy who's only on the job for one week on 9/11? Oh, weird. Oh, he's like, why would he have any incentive to cover that up? Right?

• 2:14:25Speaker 02

  So, so we go, shit, if I don't cover this up, it's going to come down to all of us. We're all going to lose our jobs.

• 2:14:30Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 2:14:30Speaker 02

  And then you go to all your constituents, you, hey, guys, if we don't cover this shit up, this is on us. So let them think an even crazier thing happened, or we put that idea out there in the world. Because the truth is kind of boring and it's ineptitude, which is oftentimes how conspiracy theories work.

• 2:14:45Speaker 03

  That's exactly what happened. That's what 9/11 was. It was complete clusterfuck. Dude, we've had the information since 05, Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower. Everybody should read that book. That book lays out exactly how the FBI and the CIA had everything they needed to stop 9/11. It didn't happen because of bureaucratic clusterfuck.

• 2:14:59Speaker 02

  It's like what we do with our, our girls. Like, you know, we'll just be at a strip club and they'll be like,

• 2:15:07Speaker 02

  what are you talking about? And then someone's like, no, you were cheating with a brothel with 40 different people. Like, I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about. That didn't even come close to happening. So you just need something crazier for them to fixate on. And then you're like, there's no way it was a brothel. I don't even know any of these people. When in reality, you were just at a little Korean strip club in Hawaii.

• 2:15:29Speaker 03

  So you need a lot of first hand knowledge about this.

• 2:15:32Speaker 02

  I was just making hypotheticals, guys.

• 2:15:35Mark Gagnon?

  This is a psy op right here. Textbook psy op.

• 2:15:38Speaker 02

  Okay, now we're into-

• 2:15:39Speaker 03

  I hope your wife doesn't watch this show.

• 2:15:40Speaker 02

  Oh, she watches all the time. "I love you, baby. I'm a good guy. Samarasay, samarasay." Whatever you say when you walk into a Japanese restaurant.

• 2:15:47Mark Gagnon?

  Honey mustard, honey mustard.

• 2:15:48Speaker 03

  Will, what are you thinking? Simimasen?

• 2:15:50Speaker 02

  No, no, it's a-

• 2:15:51Speaker 03

  That means excuse me.

• 2:15:52Speaker 02

  Honey mustard. We say honey mustard, but it's not that. It's when you walk into a Japanese restaurant.

• 2:15:56Speaker 03

  Konnichiwa.

• 2:15:56Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 2:15:57Speaker 03

  Actually, wouldn't even be that, because that would be a good day. I was just there. Fucking love Japan, by the way.

• 2:16:01Speaker 02

  Really?

• 2:16:02Speaker 03

  That's why I got this watch.

• 2:16:04Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful watch.

• 2:16:04Speaker 03

  Vintage watch.

• 2:16:05Speaker 02

  I like it. Gotta go vintage. It is-

• 2:16:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Ohai go sai mas. That means good morning.

• 2:16:11Speaker 02

  Ohai go sai mas.

• 2:16:12Mark Gagnon?

  He was off, bro.

• 2:16:13Speaker 03

  No, I got mine is terrible.

• 2:16:14Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 2:16:14Mark Gagnon?

  Oh, okay, yeah. He was saying samarasay.

• 2:16:16Speaker 02

  I mean, not that. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. All right, what else? Now we're into this, now we're into this little sphere right here. Irash- oh, yeah, that's it. Irashamase.

• 2:16:27Speaker 03

  Irashimas.

• 2:16:28Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 2:16:29Speaker 03

  Can you do the vocal thing?

• 2:16:31Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:16:31Speaker 03

  Do they have that?

• 2:16:32Speaker 02

  But just guessing.

• 2:16:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:16:35Mark Gagnon?

  Boy, vocals.

• 2:16:38Mark Gagnon?

  Irashamase.

• 2:16:40Speaker 02

  Irashamase?

• 2:16:40Speaker 03

  Irashamase. That was kind of close to it.

• 2:16:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, actually, it was pretty good. Okay. All right, what else, what else, what else, what else? We can talk about Tate Brothers. We'll leave that to the end.

• 2:16:48Speaker 03

  I actually don't know a ton about the case. I'll be honest. It's one of those I intentionally, I never did the deep dive-

• 2:16:53Speaker 02

  I don't care about it.

• 2:16:53Speaker 03

  Into the fucking human trafficking shit, because when you get into, they're like, "Well, actually, I'm like, I don't know."

• 2:16:59Speaker 02

  That I don't care about. It's more this idea that like, they were trashing the West so much.

• 2:17:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:05Speaker 02

  And now, at least for me, I'm a patriot. I love America. There's nothing I love more than America. So when people shit on America, even Americans, I'm a little bit defensive. Now, as Americans as they are, I want to protect. They got to come back. I don't like this idea that they're not allowed to be here just because they criticize it. If you're an American, we got your back no matter what, and you have the freedom to say whatever the fuck you want to say. But there is a part of me that's also like- I need a, I need a little bit of a, okay, America's not that bad.

• 2:17:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:17:30Speaker 02

  Tuck that shit in a bit.

• 2:17:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:17:31Speaker 02

  You got, hey, cuz, cuz when the going got tough, you got America.

• 2:17:35Speaker 03

  The US justice system is fucking nice now, isn't it?

• 2:17:37Speaker 02

  Daddy's pretty cool, isn't he?

• 2:17:37Speaker 03

  Not your Sharia law or whatever the fuck your bullshit is.

• 2:17:40Speaker 02

  The West has fallen. It seems like the West is up.

• 2:17:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:42Speaker 02

  It seems like we're up with open arms.

• 2:17:43Speaker 03

  Well, stop using the West, America, I will say.

• 2:17:45Speaker 02

  Yo, that's what I'm talking about, bro. You know what I mean?

• 2:17:48Speaker 03

  Especially after our Europe conversation.

• 2:17:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:50Speaker 02

  Well, what's the West?

• 2:17:51Speaker 03

  We have different values. We're America.

• 2:17:53Speaker 02

  Can I just tell you something? When I say the West, I just mean America.

• 2:17:56Speaker 03

  Exactly. So just say America. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:58Speaker 02

  I never, I never met all these.

• 2:18:00Speaker 03

  Just say it then. Yeah.

• 2:18:02Speaker 02

  The Islamic countries in Europe that I traveled to when I was in college, I'm not referring to them. I'm referring to America only. I do love going there for weekends. I mean, it's beautiful.

• 2:18:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a nice place. It's great to visit.

• 2:18:13Speaker 02

  You're wrong about the coffee, a hundred percent. You're wrong about the coffee.

• 2:18:16Speaker 03

  Bro, you, we are here in Soho. This is one of the like greatest places in the world for coffee, maybe outside of Tokyo. And you think that the better coffee is in some shit hole cafe with a dopio espresso in Milan or something like that?

• 2:18:30Speaker 02

  No, no, I didn't, I didn't say, I didn't say the coffee's better. What I, what I, you said the coffee sucks. What I will say is, no, no.

• 2:18:35Speaker 03

  It's bitter. They don't even do drip. Like, America is built on the man drinking his fucking, you know, what is it? Motor oil at 7-Eleven on his way to work.

• 2:18:43Speaker 02

  Talk that shit.

• 2:18:44Speaker 03

  These fuckers are sitting there with their goddamn wafer and their little ceramic, drinking wine at like 10:30.

• 2:18:50Speaker 02

  I love that. To be honest, that sounds awesome.

• 2:18:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, because you don't fuck, they don't do anything. This country is awesome. Yeah, but that's the point, is that America's built on 7-Eleven fucking coffee, man.

• 2:19:00Speaker 02

  No, I will be honest.

• 2:19:01Speaker 03

  On the guys in line with a Red Bull.

• 2:19:02Speaker 02

  Don't use my Indianness again.

• 2:19:03Speaker 03

  Red Bull and a 7-Eleven extra large at 5:30 AM. You know how those are the men who built this country?

• 2:19:10Speaker 02

  No, I agree with you. Everything around that is better. But an espresso at a beautiful cafe in Europe is 10 times better than 7-Eleven coffee.

• 2:19:16Speaker 03

  It's a vacation. It's not the same thing. No, okay. And first of all, again, we're in Soho. Every, five of the, I literally was walking with my wife today.

• 2:19:22Speaker 02

  What's the machine that they use to make the coffee around here in Soho?

• 2:19:24Speaker 03

  Uh, wait, what do you, what do you mean?

• 2:19:25Speaker 02

  It's called a La Marzocca.

• 2:19:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:27Speaker 02

  Definitely made in America.

• 2:19:28Speaker 03

  That's if you're drinking espresso. I'm drinking fucking drip coffee, which is an American and a South American thing. Because what we want is like the pour-over culture.

• 2:19:36Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 2:19:36Speaker 03

  All of third wave.

• 2:19:37Speaker 02

  Some people call it a French press.

• 2:19:38Speaker 03

  From here. No, no, they don't call it French for that. I'm not drinking any fucking French press. This is so good.

• 2:19:46Speaker 02

  So you're talking about a friend's press coffee?

• 2:19:47Speaker 03

  I don't understand, bro.

• 2:19:48Speaker 05

  But the food quality.

• 2:19:50Speaker 02

  Give them, give them good.

• 2:19:51Speaker 03

  You live in the capital of one of the best coffee neighborhoods in the world.

• 2:19:55Speaker 05

  Here's one pushback Europe, Europe wise. The food quality, and I don't mean the cooking, but the quality of the ingredients is undeniably so much better in Europe. Cause in America, you're just allowed to do whatever. This is actually, Morgan and Morgan is doing like a lawsuit against, but like, yeah.

• 2:20:08Speaker 03

  I would say the median food in Europe is better, but the high end food in America. If you want the non-GMO food, our shit is better. If you want the pasture raised beef, our stuff is better. If you want like the, the really good stuff, but you're right. The median food of ingredients in Europe for the European is better.

• 2:20:24Speaker 05

  I don't even know if I trust American organic.

• 2:20:26Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, I'm not talking about organic. I'm saying if you want high quality ingredients in America, in America where the land.

• 2:20:32Speaker 02

  The best restaurants in the world are here.

• 2:20:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:33Speaker 02

  Of course, Simon's Club.

• 2:20:34Speaker 03

  New York, Los Angeles.

• 2:20:35Speaker 02

  By here, stop with the Los Angeles. It's New York only. No, no, no. Restaurant, Los Angeles is not like a foodie destination.

• 2:20:41Speaker 05

  Dude, no, I don't think.

• 2:20:42Speaker 02

  Any restaurant that's popped up in Los Angeles started in New York.

• 2:20:45Speaker 03

  Unless it's a taco truck.

• 2:20:47Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:20:48Speaker 03

  Unless it's a taco truck. I think the Asian food in Los Angeles might be better. In San Francisco and LA.

• 2:20:52Speaker 02

  And whose idea was it to bring them here?

• 2:20:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, it's from, from New York.

• 2:20:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:20:56Speaker 05

  Nah, bro.

• 2:20:56Speaker 02

  Someone needs to start the fucking train.

• 2:20:58Speaker 03

  Is there a Burmese restaurant in New York yet?

• 2:20:59Speaker 02

  Yes, of course.

• 2:21:00Speaker 03

  Are you sure?

• 2:21:00Speaker 02

  Yes, cause I used to go to it as a kid.

• 2:21:02Speaker 03

  What is it?

• 2:21:03Speaker 05

  Well, shout it out, actually. Cause I like to go.

• 2:21:04Speaker 02

  I don't know if it's still, I don't know if it's still.

• 2:21:06Speaker 03

  Cause Burma superstar, shout out, San Francisco is the best fucking food in the world.

• 2:21:09Speaker 02

  I'll tell you right now where it was. It was on Seventh Street between Third Avenue and Second Avenue. And this is a beautiful Burmese restaurant we used to eat at once a week. I would, I would have it, we would order in from there all the time.

• 2:21:18Speaker 05

  Alright, alright, you win.

• 2:21:18Speaker 02

  And we walked in.

• 2:21:19Speaker 05

  Little Myanmar?

• 2:21:20Speaker 02

  I don't know, is that, is that the one?

• 2:21:22Speaker 05

  It's on Second.

• 2:21:22Speaker 02

  City elites over there.

• 2:21:23Speaker 05

  It's on Second.

• 2:21:24Speaker 03

  Come on, man. But aren't you, aren't you in native New York?

• 2:21:28Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely.

• 2:21:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:21:29Speaker 02

  I mean, kind of.

• 2:21:34Speaker 02

  They had the tree that you would attach the dollars to.

• 2:21:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:37Speaker 02

  And it was to raise money for whatever like war they had going on in Burma at the time.

• 2:21:40Speaker 03

  And so you were actually funding like Rohingya genocide or something?

• 2:21:44Speaker 02

  I thought you could take the dollars. I didn't understand what it was. Okay, um, okay, okay, what else, what else, what else, what else, what else, what else?

• 2:21:50Speaker 03

  Whatever you guys want.

• 2:21:51Speaker 05

  Good food cities in America, New York, New Orleans.

• 2:21:54Speaker 03

  Austin.

• 2:21:55Speaker 05

  I think Philly's underrated, Austin.

• 2:21:56Speaker 02

  No, stop it with Austin. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys.

• 2:21:59Speaker 03

  It's about Mexican food, bro.

• 2:22:00Speaker 02

  Stop it, stop it, stop it.

• 2:22:01Speaker 03

  Tex-Mex, we're fucking Texans.

• 2:22:02Speaker 02

  It's different.

• 2:22:03Speaker 05

  Thousand percent.

• 2:22:04Speaker 02

  I just need, listen.

• 2:22:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:22:06Speaker 02

  Austin has great food.

• 2:22:08Speaker 05

  Your Mexican food sucks here.

• 2:22:09Speaker 02

  I'm not debating that. I'm not debating that. I'm not debating.

• 2:22:11Speaker 03

  And, and Los Angeles too, if we're being honest.

• 2:22:14Speaker 02

  I just wanna, let's just point this out, with the food culture in Austin.

• 2:22:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:22:17Speaker 02

  Austin has great food if you come from a place that doesn't have restaurants. Yes. So, you go there. Have you come from middle America? Yeah, it's, most people that move there from middle America are like, holy shit, what's a sushi roll? Like, they have no clue.

• 2:22:31Speaker 03

  That's how we're talking about the sushi restaurant.

• 2:22:33Speaker 02

  It's the most amazing, but the idea, like, I, I don't like that we're like, we're putting Austin as this like, food destination.

• 2:22:39Speaker 03

  I understand.

• 2:22:40Speaker 02

  It's not a food destination.

• 2:22:41Speaker 05

  Sushi by scratch is there, they're good.

• 2:22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, sushi by scratch.

• 2:22:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they didn't start in Austin, this is a perfect example of what we're saying.

• 2:22:46Speaker 03

  No, I would defend Austin for the Tex-Mex alone.

• 2:22:48Speaker 05

  Oh, I can agree with that.

• 2:22:50Speaker 03

  You and I are from Texas.

• 2:22:51Speaker 05

  Tex-Mex is fucking great.

• 2:22:52Speaker 03

  Dude, Tex-Mex is the best.

• 2:22:53Speaker 02

  Nobody's, nobody's.

• 2:22:54Speaker 03

  It's our thing, that's why I would recommend for Austin. I'm not putting it on a New Yorker, LA, like, plane, like, it's not the same.

• 2:23:00Speaker 02

  I understand it's very exciting if you've never eaten in a restaurant and you go there and you're like, wow, this is really good food. But nobody from New York, or Los Angeles, or Paris, or London, or Miami goes to Austin, they're like, this is the greatest cuisine I've ever had in my life.

• 2:23:15Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 2:23:15Speaker 03

  So, like, we're saying, like. Okay, I, just, oh, back.

• 2:23:17Speaker 05

  Like, Vegas gets all of America's best restaurants, but that doesn't make it a great food city.

• 2:23:20Speaker 03

  Were you actually impressed by the food scene in Paris? I wasn't at all. I did not think the food scene in Paris. This is the thing I hate about European cities, is that if you want just French food, fine, in New York, like you just said, burmese, I can go to Curry Hill and have fucking South Indian food, North Indian food, I was, I had sushi last night or whatever, here in New York, I can eat anything, same in LA.

• 2:23:39Speaker 05

  Indianapolis, Manhattan, not that good. There's, there's, bungalow was good, sema, even though I don't really like the chef, was pretty good.

• 2:23:45Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:23:46Speaker 02

  But yeah. Tamarind is phenomenal. Go to Tamarind.

• 2:23:49Speaker 03

  Oh, the Tribeca one?

• 2:23:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's a good restaurant. That's a great restaurant.

• 2:23:51Speaker 02

  It's absolutely incredible. Shout out Tamarind. But yeah, no, I mean, like, yeah, if we're talking about like the best food, and look, New York is the greatest city in the world, there's not even a question.

• 2:24:00Speaker 03

  I don't know, man. It might be Tokyo. After I went to Tokyo, I think it might be Tokyo.

• 2:24:03Speaker 02

  Listen, if you want to live in a loveless city, where people walk around like Tesla robots. No.

• 2:24:08Speaker 06

  New York's so full of love.

• 2:24:09Speaker 02

  Then Tokyo is a place. New York's the most loving, nurturing place.

• 2:24:12Speaker 06

  This is the most loving, nurturing place in the world.

• 2:24:15Speaker 03

  We have been to Tokyo?

• 2:24:17Speaker 02

  Yes, I have.

• 2:24:17Speaker 03

  Oh, dude.

• 2:24:17Speaker 02

  There's more love and more hate.

• 2:24:18Speaker 03

  I don't know how you don't love it, man.

• 2:24:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24:19Speaker 03

  In New York.

• 2:24:20Speaker 02

  It's extremes.

• 2:24:21Speaker 03

  I actually think the best-

• 2:24:21Speaker 02

  New York is bipolar.

• 2:24:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. But the thing about Tokyo is not only is the media and experience incredible all the time, their food, like if you love, best pizza is gonna be in Tokyo.

• 2:24:30Speaker 02

  I said this.

• 2:24:31Speaker 03

  I know this is fun.

• 2:24:31Speaker 02

  I've made this argument.

• 2:24:33Speaker 03

  Good.

• 2:24:33Speaker 02

  I probably went to the place you went to.

• 2:24:34Speaker 03

  Best French food in the world, Tokyo. Best Italian food in the world, Tokyo.

• 2:24:37Speaker 02

  The Japanese, their culture is-

• 2:24:39Speaker 03

  Is refinement.

• 2:24:40Speaker 02

  Built around refinement, right? So they're done making their shit, and now they're like, okay, we're gonna perfect everybody else's shit.

• 2:24:45Speaker 03

  Yes, and they just shh.

• 2:24:45Speaker 02

  And they do.

• 2:24:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:24:46Speaker 02

  They're so good. Like, there's this Japanese DJ, his name is Yosuke Yukimatsu. That was the guy who's Boiler Room Set there playing. Boiler Room Set is amazing. Oh, that was insane.

• 2:24:54Speaker 03

  Oh, was that your playing this morning?

• 2:24:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. He's incredible.

• 2:24:56Speaker 03

  He's sent it up?

• 2:24:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And here's the thing, the second I, and this shows me my prejudice, the second I saw a thumbnail with a Japanese person DJing, I knew it was gonna be the best DJ set I've ever heard.

• 2:25:07Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 2:25:07Speaker 02

  Because culturally, to put themselves out in front of people with something like that, they would not do it.

• 2:25:12Speaker 03

  Unless it's five star.

• 2:25:13Speaker 02

  The best.

• 2:25:14Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 2:25:14Speaker 02

  Whereas like every like, every like female like model that turns 30 in America is like, I'll be a DJ too. Like, there's no, you know what I mean? There's no like, oh, you could give shame to your family by going to do this. So Japanese refinement, it is incredible, the best of the best. But for me, part of culture, like when I go visit these places, is I need to feel the love of people.

• 2:25:37Speaker 03

  I need to feel the affection. Like, when I go to Mexico, Mexico is the greatest, like, outside of America. I love Mexico. It's great.

• 2:25:43Speaker 02

  The love you feel, like, in Italy, when you're in Italy, just the love, the fucking passion that you feel.

• 2:25:49Speaker 03

  Maybe not Akash and I, but yeah.

• 2:25:49Speaker 02

  Oh, wait.

• 2:25:50Speaker 03

  They're like, where are you from, Libya or something like that? Like, you take a boat over here, and I'm like, no, it's US passport, actually. I'm like, I fucking own your restaurant.

• 2:25:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:25:59Speaker 06

  Shouldn't you be selling oranges on the street?

• 2:26:02Speaker 03

  It's like, I'll take two of your limoncellos, bitch.

• 2:26:06Speaker 02

  So yeah, there is. So I appreciate the refinement, but in terms of like the actual like cultural appreciation, like I got chastised at an illegal bar for kissing my wife.

• 2:26:15Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 2:26:16Speaker 02

  The bartender was like, finger waving, stop that.

• 2:26:18Speaker 03

  No, I love that dude.

• 2:26:19Speaker 02

  Why?

• 2:26:20Speaker 03

  Cause it's about decorum, man. It's about we all act a certain way. When you're on the subway in New York.

• 2:26:27Speaker 02

  I thought you were a libertarian. Get out of my business.

• 2:26:29Speaker 03

  No, I didn't say I'm a libertarian. I say I appreciate, I'm the most conservative guy.

• 2:26:33Speaker 02

  Also, I want to give a couple of quick shout outs. Uh, Grammatic, who did one of the songs for the special. And uh, he's also done music for us throughout the tour. He's absolutely incredible. Uh, he just dropped an album. So you guys can go check him out right now. He's phenomenal. Seriously. One of the most talented people I know in music. So make sure we go fuck with Grammatic. Uh, he did the closing song for the special and uh, it's, it's fantastic. So go check that, but also go check out his album. And matter of fact, go check out some of his live shows. I know he's got Red Rocks coming up. So if you're in Colorado and you want to see a spectacle, go check him out. Also the Garbage Boys, Are You Garbage just put out a really cool piece on YouTube. They uh, they were on this tour. I think they called the Route 66.

• 2:27:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:27:14Speaker 02

  Tour, if I'm not mistaken, and they put out this like great piece that encapsulates the tour. It's also got, you know, scenes from the, the live shows that they were doing and uh, yeah, it's just, it's really awesome. I love what those guys are doing. So make sure you go check that on their YouTube. And, and also our boy Chrissy D. Chrissy D. has a new special out on Hulu. So make sure you check out Chrissy's special. Chrissy's absolutely hilarious. So check out his special, check him out on tour as well. And uh, shout out to New York boys, man. We're doing it. We're doing things. So love you guys. Let's get back to the show. I love, I know, I love it when you're passionate about these things. You're a hundred percent wrong about European coffee, but, but you are right about uh, Japan in terms of if you want that like strict culture. Yes.

• 2:27:55Speaker 02

  And you want rules and everybody follows the rules. I get that. I like third world Lucy Goosey.

• 2:28:00Speaker 03

  I get it. I get it. Look, it would never work here. I'm just saying I appreciate it when I'm there. And when you're on the subway and you're rammed up against somebody and nobody's speaking, saying a fucking word, you can hear a pin drop. When people are polite to one another.

• 2:28:11Speaker 02

  I don't like that.

• 2:28:11Speaker 03

  I love, dude, when they, when they're. Hold on. I'm understanding how not Indian you are. Do you and you?

• 2:28:19Speaker 03

  It's unfucking. Yeah, you're right. These are the things I can't stand when I go to India. Yeah, it all makes sense. It all makes sense. Sorry, India. It drives me fucking crazy. No, no. I remember being in a taxi. This guy's going through a red light. He's like, only the biggest fool out of Agra stops at a red light.

• 2:28:37Speaker 03

  God's like, why are you doing this? Like, only the biggest fool in Angra would stop at this red light.

• 2:28:41Speaker 06

  What's Angra?

• 2:28:42Speaker 03

  It's where the Taj Mahal is.

• 2:28:47Speaker 06

  I gotta go to Airbnb.

• 2:28:49Speaker 03

  No, you love it. If you can get past the smell, you'll love it. I'll tell you what, it's dynamic, it's dynamic. And that's why America has to, we're a dynamic country. We don't want to be told what to do, we don't want restrictions, we don't want rules. Yeah, but when they all tell each other what to do, it's so pleasant to visit. When you, it's all clean and it's orderly and they all stop at their walk. How long were you there? Stop sign, uh, it was two weeks, two weeks. I loved it there. I was, I loved it for like the first week. I could've stayed forever, I could've stayed forever. No, but that's, he's, again, he likes, he's a conservative. No need, they don't ban, they don't even allow Sudafed in that country. You know what? Sudafed. You are. They will confiscate your Sudafed at the airport if you bring it into the. But what about the declining birth rates? Yeah, no, it's a huge problem. Why, they'll fuck. I don't know. And this is one of those things too, they have the greatest place, it's the greatest place in the world to have children. Like they have daycare, they have the incentives, they have everything going for them.

• 2:29:34Speaker 03

  Nobody's having kids. What do you think? I, I have no idea. I think, I think what it is is vitality. Come on. It's vitality. Come on. And it's like the diet, like in America, and actually, there's only one western. No primal urges, they remove every primal urge and the culture restricts it. To back, back up your point, there's only one western country in the world with an above replacement birth rate, Israel. Among, even among secular Jews. Really? Yeah, I don't know why, nobody knows why. I think it's because they're at war and it's about national survival and like all of this. America, we're low, Korea, Japan, Sweden, Finland, they all have, we all have, except America, like pretty generous social welfare. We've got a year of paternity leave, doesn't make a fucking dent. When did the birth rate in America start declining?

• 2:30:12Speaker 03

  Hungary, uh, probably, uh, it's been a while, probably 1960, I think it was the, uh, sexual revolution, contraceptive. But in terms of the current birth, what are we at right now, like 1.7 or something like that? Everyone gay marriage, we gotta legalize, we can finally get away from these hoes. Anyway, my point is, is that there's, you can throw all of the money. All of the social incentives that you want Hungary, they literally pay your mortgage if you have four children. People just don't do it like it's like there's something about it. Oh, wow, that's actually lower than I thought. That's not good. 1.6.

• 2:30:43Speaker 02

  Now we're coming back.

• 2:30:44Speaker 03

  But what's Korea at? Korea is like 0.9 or 0.8. It's so bad.

• 2:30:48Speaker 02

  It's South Korea.

• 2:30:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:30:49Speaker 02

  0.78.

• 2:30:50Speaker 03

  Disaster. That's for people who don't know, that's a total, it's the TFR is a total fertility rate, which means the replacement needs to be about 2.2 to be to grow as a civilization. Japan loses 0.5% of its population every single year, so it's a disaster. And no immigration. Well, yeah, and they have zero immigration, but that's the thing when you go there like makes sense. They're all like they.

• 2:31:11Speaker 02

  Japanese.

• 2:31:11Speaker 03

  Police each other. It's part of their culture. Yeah. That's what makes it great.

• 2:31:14Speaker 02

  You, you're, as you describe it, you like that?

• 2:31:17Speaker 03

  I mean, I.

• 2:31:17Speaker 02

  You want to be policed?

• 2:31:18Speaker 03

  There's something about it, which is so comforting. Would you raise kids like that, though? No, I probably wouldn't.

• 2:31:24Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 2:31:25Speaker 03

  Oh dude, I'm American, right? I got this frontier shit inside of me and as much as I love the rules and all of that, when somebody tries to tell me what to do or I, you know, I started my own business just like you. You know, it's one of those where.

• 2:31:36Speaker 02

  You hate not compete.

• 2:31:37Speaker 03

  Fuck, yeah. And you see those salary men walking around Japan, but it's nice. It's a nice place.

• 2:31:42Speaker 02

  And then they're going to do karaoke alone. It's one of the saddest things you've ever seen.

• 2:31:45Speaker 03

  I don't get that.

• 2:31:46Speaker 02

  Well, they, they need outlets for their passion. Like one person will just go.

• 2:31:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, they have solos. They have karaoke solos there.

• 2:31:52Speaker 02

  In their working outfit and they'll go and they'll sing fucking Bruno Mars until their fucking heart falls out of their chest. That's so sad. You know, it's incredible. There's, there's elements of if the longer you stay in Tokyo, the, the more depressing it becomes. And you start to see like the lovelessness of the culture. When you first go there, it's the most culture shock you ever experienced. And it is, I want to go back. I want to go back with you guys. It's, you're going to have the best food you've ever had. You're going to have the best massage you've ever had. You're going to have the best of every.

• 2:32:19Speaker 03

  Anything.

• 2:32:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's incredible, but when you start to talk to the people there, especially the people who speak English.

• 2:32:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:32:25Speaker 02

  And they, and talk to the women. If it's, it is the most sexist place I've ever been in my entire life.

• 2:32:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is actually the most sexist developed country in the world.

• 2:32:32Speaker 02

  It is without a doubt. It's like.

• 2:32:34Speaker 03

  Hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 2:32:37Speaker 02

  Well, here's the problem. The women have no upward mobility in terms of, not jobs, in terms of their like sexual identity. So they stop sexually aging at like 13. Old women can be cute. They can't be elegant. They can't be like beautiful or stunning. Everything is cutesy. They're just like, hee hee hee. If you go into like the nicest stores over there to buy clothing, all the women's clothing are like skirts that come down to their ankle. Yes. There's none. Now, I'm not saying women should be like revealing and slutty, but there's nothing that even wraps itself around that. So the female identity is, I'm a 12-year-old little girl with my little cartoon makeup. What do they call it? Kawaii? Uh, kawaii. What are you talking about?

• 2:33:16Speaker 04

  I think that's like the term that they use for like cute. Like everything's kawaii.

• 2:33:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So it's all about like cuteness and there's-

• 2:33:21Mark Gagnon?

  What about waifus and shit like that? Like, isn't that-

• 2:33:24Speaker 03

  No, it's bifurcated. It's like a barbell culture where it's like you either are extremely sexual or you're very conservative. And they exist in the same like plane.

• 2:33:32Speaker 02

  But even in the extreme sexual, they're being young cartoons with big tits.

• 2:33:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is weird.

• 2:33:36Speaker 02

  It's this, and then, and then you see like the relationships, you see people out eating together. I'll see a couple out eating together and both of them are on their phones playing Fruit Ninja, not even looking at each other. It is, I'm telling you, it is one of the most tragically sad places you'll ever go to, while at the same time, one of the most unique and brilliant and incredible. So there is a cost to that brilliant in the- Absolutely. And the cost to me is like the reason I like to travel.

• 2:34:00Speaker 03

  I would never give any of it up. Would I ever want that culture here? But there's something I love about it for that.

• 2:34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, go dip in.

• 2:34:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, just to come in there and just be like, man, I'm so safe. Dude, when you watch little six-year-olds go to walk by themselves to school in Tokyo with their backpacks on at night, you're like, this is fucking insane. This would never happen. Just seeing shit like that, you're like, what the fuck?

• 2:34:20Speaker 02

  You never feel a danger at all.

• 2:34:21Speaker 03

  Zero, nothing.

• 2:34:23Speaker 02

  Our boy Benuiya, he got blacked out drunk there, streets of Tokyo, fell asleep, woke up, his shoes and socks put next to him, socks folded, uh, his sweater put behind his head as a pillow and people just walking around him to go to work in the morning. It's beautiful the way that they care about each other. They're in terms of like protection and respect. Yes, but everything is about respect. It's all about respecting. But no, there's huge cost to it. But the cost to me is like- Yeah, the cost is high. Dude, you go to Mexico and you feel the love in that culture, bro. Like, it's just, it's like vibrating. Like, if you have a kid, the way that they, even when I was there with my wife who was pregnant, the excitement about her being pregnant, they want to tell you about their kill, and you're just like- Ah, it's just, it's magnificent.

• 2:35:06Speaker 03

  It's great. It's amazing.

• 2:35:06Mark Gagnon?

  But the emotional volatility is also bipolar.

• 2:35:08Speaker 02

  That is true.

• 2:35:09Mark Gagnon?

  You know what I mean?

• 2:35:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the cost. Yeah, bro, there's trade offs for everything.

• 2:35:12Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 2:35:13Speaker 03

  That's it. That's all. I, I do think more Americans should experience Japan.

• 2:35:17Speaker 02

  Agreed. Agreed. Because there's elements of it that we should.

• 2:35:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're like, hey, it's actually pretty nice to live in a city that's pretty fucking safe. Amazing things can happen. Commerce, like you can walk around, you can send your kid there. Now a wife can work if she wants to, she doesn't have to take, you know, have to worry about her kid not coming home at night or whatever. We don't deal with that.

• 2:35:33Speaker 02

  I mean, isn't that like the, I don't want to get into like fucking evolutionary biology, but like, isn't that the, isn't that what takes humans out of the chimpanzee realm? Is like, s- safety?

• 2:35:43Speaker 03

  Oh, civilization.

• 2:35:43Speaker 02

  Like, am I safe enough to develop ideas?

• 2:35:46Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 2:35:47Speaker 02

  Like, if you watch that chimp show, every second they're worried that the alpha is gonna just start a fight.

• 2:35:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's either violence or eating. Like, that's all you worry about. Your base instinct. Like, that's what all, most of the animal kingdom is.

• 2:35:56Speaker 02

  Once those are satisfied, we start building skyscrapers.

• 2:35:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:35:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, okay, there is something. Okay, okay.

• 2:36:02Mark Gagnon?

  What's your take on the economy? Do you think Trump has been good for the economy, bad, or it's too early to tell?

• 2:36:07Speaker 03

  Too soon to say, obviously. Uh, there is a problem. There's something called thermostatic public opinion, where the idea is, uh, it's like a thermostat. You can push it up or push it down. So the day, for example, that Trump took office, Democrats flipped from saying the economy was good to bad, and Republicans flipped from the economy is bad to good.

• 2:36:23Speaker 02

  Because they're like, Biden's economy was a bad.

• 2:36:25Speaker 03

  Exactly. So it's like, is it really about the economy, or was it about something else? Right? It's like, this is why it's hard to say. We have some data points. We were talking about the S and P or whatever, before. The problem right now is consumer sentiment is going down. People are a little worried about tariffs. The, we have issues.

• 2:36:39Speaker 02

  Can you explain what consumer sentiment really means?

• 2:36:40Speaker 03

  Consumer sentiment is, uh, the confidence in the ability to purchase things either, uh, consumer sentiment is like to purchase things either cheaply, or the want to consume in the future. It's actually an index that people measure.

• 2:36:53Speaker 02

  And that's based on my confidence at my, that I'll have the money in the future to buy. And if I don't feel like I'll have the money.

• 2:36:58Speaker 03

  It's that future purchasing power. That's another part.

• 2:37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if we're all restrictive in our spending, it's an indicator that we don't have confidence.

• 2:37:05Speaker 03

  Got it, got it. America is a consumer-based economy. We don't build anything. Seventy percent of GDP is literally just consumption. That's all we do here. We're very good at it. So. There's that. Home prices, sky high in January. That was a big reason that we had a correction in the market. There was, mortgage rates remain around like 6, 7% disaster. Average home price is still like 400,000 in America, roughly a million in the metro area. That's really bad. Credit card debt is an all time high. The gambling thing doesn't fucking help. Like, there's a lot of indicators there where this is why I think Trump won the election, a big reason. And if, here's the thing about the economy. Americans can deal with the economy being bad. They understand that there's no magic fix, but they need to feel as if you're

• 2:37:46Speaker 03

  doing everything about it. And this is a key point. One of my favorite books is called Freedom from Fear, and it's a history of the Roosevelt administration. Here's what conservatives even said this at the time. Empirically, the New Deal didn't work. Like, it did not work in terms of its immediate goals of making the economy better. But you know what people felt? Roosevelt is fighting for us.

• 2:38:08Speaker 02

  And that was enough.

• 2:38:09Speaker 03

  And that was it. And he was a god for that. He was a king, the last king of America.

• 2:38:13Speaker 02

  So, real quick, the New Deal, just so you can explain it. There was a lot of government work projects that-

• 2:38:16Speaker 03

  The WPA, the CCC, these were all the Work Products Administration-

• 2:38:20Speaker 02

  The most extreme example is like digging holes and then other people filling them. But the idea is get people working.

• 2:38:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, get people working. Keynesianism, injecting money into the economy. But the point was, is they were like Roosevelt is fighting for us. He's doing everything. When the Supreme Court tells him no, he does something else. He's an ideas man. He's telling Congress to do this. The rural electrification. America did not physically, economically, get all that much better. But it was about vigor. That was another thing about JFK. They used to say he had vigor. Like, he would constantly be flying around the country. And even though he wasn't particularly good president in terms of getting anything done or passing any legislation, they were like, this breath of fresh-

• 2:38:58Speaker 02

  The confidence.

• 2:38:59Speaker 03

  That's what America needs. That's where Biden's ultimate failure was. If you think about his slide, it was about, nobody said you have a magic egg button or a gas button.

• 2:39:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:39:07Speaker 03

  You're just like, you're not doing anything.

• 2:39:09Speaker 02

  We don't think you're doing anything. Can I-

• 2:39:11Speaker 03

  You're not doing anything.

• 2:39:12Speaker 02

  Okay, one thing to that.

• 2:39:13Speaker 03

  That's the danger that Trump has, is with this Doge stuff, is if we don't get to vigor, dealing with things on a daily basis. America gives you about a nine month runway. If we look at Biden- He sank in October with Afghanistan. It was really about a lot of other stuff. Trump's got about eight more months to go.

• 2:39:29Speaker 05

  You see that comment on Twitter all the time where it's like Gulf of America and then the first comment will just be like, are eggs cheaper now?

• 2:39:35Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 2:39:36Speaker 05

  And I'll have a thousand.

• 2:39:36Speaker 03

  Right, that's right.

• 2:39:37Speaker 02

  So to this, when I was looking at the market and I know nothing about the fucking market, okay, but I have some money invested, obviously. And my first reaction to someone telling me, hey, this market looks a little suspect. My first reaction was, man, Trump wouldn't let the market fail. Now, what is he, can he do anything to keep it up? No.

• 2:39:59Speaker 03

  I mean, a little bit, but yeah.

• 2:40:00Speaker 02

  Of course, of course. But there's a part of me that goes, he, in my mind, he cares so much about how that would reflect on him, that he would do everything in his power to maintain it. Can he? Who knows? But that little feeling, like you were saying about Roosevelt.

• 2:40:15Speaker 03

  Roosevelt, yeah.

• 2:40:16Speaker 02

  Is this feeling is like, he wouldn't let, or he is trying to do it. And that's really important to us.

• 2:40:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:40:21Speaker 02

  The idea that would be.

• 2:40:22Speaker 03

  That's everything. Yeah.

• 2:40:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:40:23Speaker 03

  No, that's very key, but that's what I'm saying. My worry about Trump is this distraction. And look, America, something's gonna happen. Like every presidency, nine 11, right? Nine months into the Bush administration, nine 11, all of a sudden, the whole narrative is different. Under Biden, Afghanistan, it didn't, it wasn't planned, it just fucking happened. The Ukraine, Trump won, COVID, literally changed everything, you know? Something will happen, Katrina, or whatever. And those are the clarifying moments when the magnifying glass comes on to you. And when, if the magnifying glass, if America doesn't like what it sees, they will turn on your ass so quick. George H. W. Bush went 91% to losing the election in a span of 18 months. Like, you can just get blown the fuck out so quickly.

• 2:41:04Speaker 02

  It's your reaction to that cataclysmic event?

• 2:41:06Speaker 03

  It's usually, usually that.

• 2:41:07Speaker 05

  When you say George H. W. Bush lost, you mean he won, the Republicans lost in 2008?

• 2:41:10Speaker 03

  No, in 1992, George H. W. Bush.

• 2:41:12Speaker 05

  Oh, George H. W. Bush.

• 2:41:13Speaker 03

  George H. W. Bush, who had a 90% approval rating in 1991, blown the fuck out in the 92 election. Like, again, oh, four.

• 2:41:20Speaker 05

  Was that something happened or was it Ross Perot splitting?

• 2:41:23Speaker 03

  Dude, it was just like, there was an economic modest depression at the time. People felt 12 years of trickle down economics. Like, I don't fucking trust you anymore. Boom.

• 2:41:30Speaker 02

  Safety was an issue too.

• 2:41:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, so H-

• 2:41:34Speaker 02

  Remember Clinton ran on that like, hey, we're gonna-

• 2:41:36Speaker 03

  That's right. The Cold War, whatever. They thought it was too-

• 2:41:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:41:39Speaker 03

  My point is just that America's very fickle. They will turn on your ass very quickly. Almost every president, the biggest danger, don't, you don't, uh, you read too much into your mandate and you do something that didn't people quite voted for, and then you also under-deliver on what you did. And if you fall into that trap, even at a feelings level, you lose. That's, that's the-

• 2:42:00Mark Gagnon?

  What about the tariffs?

• 2:42:00Speaker 03

  Great worry. Yeah, that's a huge-

• 2:42:02Mark Gagnon?

  With, uh, Canada and Mexico-

• 2:42:03Speaker 03

  Look, I'm very supportive of tariffs because I believe in American manufacturing, but the problem is, is that it cannot be something that's ad hoc and haphazard. It has to have a plan. We need to feel as if, yes, the washing machine will cost more. It's because my cousin is gonna get a job at this factory that's gonna be coming back to here. And when we feel as if it's like, it's coming in and it's off and it's all capricious, as in like, it's up to Trump's, like, however he feels that day, coming back and forth, and the markets are swinging like this, and I'm still don't have the plan yet. That's when people start to, and again, we still got a lot of runway. He's got runway, but you need to be careful.

• 2:42:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:42:38Speaker 03

  I'm worried about Doge. I'm worried about the tariff stuff too. We need plans. That's what we need.

• 2:42:41Speaker 02

  Recently, Bezos-

• 2:42:43Speaker 03

  Yes. Oh, The Post, yeah.

• 2:42:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, came out and said that his op-ed section of The Post-

• 2:42:49Speaker 03

  Opinion, yeah.

• 2:42:49Speaker 02

  Will now, oh, is that op-ed?

• 2:42:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:42:52Speaker 02

  His op-ed section, or his opinion, uh, section of The Post. So the newspaper operates in itself, and there's also this section on the newspaper called the op-ed.

• 2:42:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:42:59Speaker 02

  And the, the opinion part of a newspaper, and you could probably speak more to this, maybe you describe it, probably be better.

• 2:43:03Speaker 03

  Okay, so the opinion part of a newspaper is, uh, old school tradition, and it's when guys like William Randolph Hearst and similar oligarchs owned these, and they wanted to use their paper to express an opinion. Now, yeah, go ahead.

• 2:43:14Speaker 02

  When you use the word oligarch, it's like triggering.

• 2:43:16Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry. Oh, but they actually wore oligarchs.

• 2:43:18Speaker 02

  No, I know, but when we think oligarch, we think like Russian bad guy villain. Just say, he was a-

• 2:43:23Speaker 03

  Filthy, rich, politically connected person who had a agenda.

• 2:43:26Speaker 02

  He was a journalism magnet, right?

• 2:43:27Speaker 03

  Perfect. Okay. That's who William Randolph Hearst was. Uh, people, yeah. Okay, so Bezos, what he has done is he wants The Washington Post. And it's also, let me explain this about newspaper economics. The op-ed section is always the most popular. Like, the most read thing in The Washington Post is not- The news in and of itself has always been subsidized by something else.

• 2:43:47Speaker 02

  By reg, he means consumed, not politically.

• 2:43:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. Exactly. So, for example, the news itself, people don't want to pay for it. They want to pay for opinion, they want to pay for classified ads. The news has always been a secondary thing funded by something else. The problem is here is that Bezos is showing us he doesn't actually care about his business. Because the Washington Post's subscription base are people who, what? Democracy dies in the darkness. That's why 200,000 of them canceled their subscription. Whenever they didn't endorse Kamala, they just lost 75,000 more by saying, "We're only going to support free markets."

• 2:44:19Speaker 02

  So what did they say? So usually the op-ed section has differing opinions, right?

• 2:44:25Speaker 03

  Ishs.

• 2:44:26Speaker 02

  The idea behind it, let's just talk about the fair idea behind it. So it could be that your paper leans left, but in the op-ed, you would have right-wing writers, you have left-wing writers, different opinions on these subjects. So the newspaper is like, "Here's what happened." And then the op-ed is, "Here are opinions about what happened, and these are potentially differing opinions."

• 2:44:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 2:44:45Speaker 02

  And Bezos just announces that the op-ed is now going to change from that to espousing free market ideas. So essentially like pro-capitalism, and then what else?

• 2:44:55Speaker 03

  Uh, what is it? Personal liberty?

• 2:44:57Speaker 02

  And then personal liberty. So he's basically saying, "Our newspaper is going to take a specific point of view."

• 2:45:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:45:05Speaker 02

  And share opinions that reflect that specific point of view. Now, what you bring up is an interesting wrinkle. I didn't even-

• 2:45:11Mark Gagnon?

  Pretty vague, though.

• 2:45:12Speaker 02

  Say again?

• 2:45:13Mark Gagnon?

  Personal liberty, isn't it?

• 2:45:14Speaker 03

  Well, no, here's the thing. What it really means-

• 2:45:16Speaker 02

  He's calling it.

• 2:45:17Speaker 03

  What he really means is, "Let's fire all the woke people and let's get rid of the people who are Russiagators." Which is what the Washington Post op-ed page has been for the last, basically, eight years.

• 2:45:26Speaker 02

  And let's promote Bezos' agenda.

• 2:45:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:45:30Speaker 02

  Which is free market-

• 2:45:31Speaker 03

  Free market, but not anti-trust, you know? It's like that, that's a little not-too-free enough for us.

• 2:45:37Speaker 02

  So the worst interpretation of it is essentially, "I'm going to use this as a propaganda tool to protect my business endeavors and the endeavors of my, you know, colleagues, if you will, the other billionaire class." Now, that's the worst interpretation of it. It might be the truest interpretation.

• 2:45:52Speaker 03

  Well, I think, but let's take Bezos out of it. Let's look at all of the biggest news companies. That's what they are. For example, do you know, like, look at Bloomberg News. That's one of the most important things. Its job is to do what? Is to protect the Bloomberg terminal and the integrity of the US market.

• 2:46:06Speaker 02

  So, so, so this is, this is really interesting because what I believe most of us have come to learn, and I've been incredibly naive about this, is that the billionaires, so the people with immense power in America, outside of controlling the narrative,

• 2:46:23Speaker 02

  can fluctuate in that power, power based on the narrative. So the intelligent ones, like a Bill Gates, MSNBC is Microsoft NBC. What they do is they usually purchase or develop a media platform to protect their interests.

• 2:46:36Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:46:36Speaker 02

  Bezos, as he rides the superstardom, purchases the Washington Post. With that in mind, we would imagine, I don't think he's going, hey, I just want the best ideas to be out there. No, you gotta protect the fact that you're a billionaire buying a 10 million.

• 2:46:50Speaker 03

  $500 yacht, which you have to take a bridge apart for.

• 2:46:54Speaker 02

  Exactly. So it's like a bridge that was built in 1500. You gotta take it apart so it can go out. Now I'm some poor guy that can't afford eggs and I see you walking down the street. I, I'm not gonna Luigi Mangione, but somebody else might wanna do something like that. But what's interesting is, before that happened, nobody explicitly said that was the purpose. Everybody operated in this idea like, hey, we have integrity and this is the news and this is the information. The American people can decide what is true or false. He straight up said, he's not straight up saying.

• 2:47:23Speaker 03

  Can I just say this, though? This is actually a return to normal and I appreciate this.

• 2:47:27Speaker 02

  Can you explain how that?

• 2:47:28Speaker 03

  Back in the old days, newspapers were partisan vehicles.

• 2:47:31Speaker 02

  Like Alexander Hamilton ran the Post or whatever and it was like.

• 2:47:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Federalist Papers, but actually it's a little bit more past that.

• 2:47:37Speaker 02

  I thought it was, I thought it was that or the Post.

• 2:47:38Speaker 03

  No, Alexander Hamilton was founded, but anyway.

• 2:47:44Speaker 03

  All right, let me give you an example. During the Civil War, you would have papers that are like the Kansas City Democrat and the Kansas City Republican. And it was in the name, they're a party paper. And what they did is they ran news and op-eds that was like, we're fucking Democrats and fuck the other side. That is the history of the American newspaper industry. Now, what happened is, basically, you had.

• 2:48:03Speaker 02

  Founded in 1801 by Alexander Horch.

• 2:48:06Speaker 03

  The New York Post.

• 2:48:06Speaker 02

  The fuck else you think I was talking about?

• 2:48:08Speaker 03

  The Washington Post.

• 2:48:09Speaker 02

  What do I care about?

• 2:48:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:48:11Speaker 02

  What do I care about?

• 2:48:12Speaker 03

  All right.

• 2:48:12Speaker 02

  I'm on.

• 2:48:13Speaker 06

  There's one post and it's the New York Post.

• 2:48:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:48:19Speaker 03

  Alright. He was an orphan.

• 2:48:23Speaker 03

  Alright, go. Okay, so in the past, newspapers were explicitly partisan. So I mentioned William Randolph Hearst. William Randolph Hearst was like, "I want to go into the Spanish-American War. That's something I want." And so he used his op-ed and his newsmen to push that agenda. But he was very open about it. He was like, "This is my agenda, this is what I want." Later on, he wanted to keep America out of World War II. He would run a lot of Lindbergh stuff. Like, that's what his agenda was. What happened is after World War II, we had this very weird moment where you had nonpartisan media, which was still partisan, where you had... But the problem is the distribution. So you had the big papers and the big networks, the big three channels, which all Americans were watching. They had to appear nonpartisan. And so corporations could sponsor them and reach as many people as possible.

• 2:49:05Speaker 03

  And that's what created this idea of unbiased journalism. No, biased journalism is the most authentic journalism that has always existed. It's called the yellow journalism industry. And it was born on the streets of a great American city here in New York. You had the New York Herald, you had the New York Post, you had the New York Star. And they were all different, competing, both ideologies. And it was one, not only just for attention, but it was about pushing agendas. These people were open. People would love, for example, the guy who worked, who loved the Herald, I'm blanking on his name. They liked him. He was a, he was not just an oligarch, he was a society figure, a Gilded Age person. People would support him. And it was all, it was about picking teams, and I think that's a good thing. I think it's healthy, because it removes the veneer.

• 2:49:48Speaker 03

  The news was just as fake and partisan in 1960 as it was today. It's actually worse, in my opinion. And if you think about Vietnam, James Gordon Bennett, that's right, an amazing figure. But my point is like, when Walter Cronkite was seen as nonpartisan, it was easier for us to push into war in Vietnam. And it shouldn't take Cronkite, being like, "The trust has been broken, America cannot lose. A win here in Vietnam." It's like, no, we needed the grand debate, instead of the manufactured consent, which is what pushed us into all of these Bay of Pigs. I mean, this is what, they were very conscious about it. There was this controlled op-ed page in the Washington Post, which was nonpartisan, even though...

• 2:50:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. The guy, the guy who was running it, Catherine Graham's husband, is best friends with John F. Kennedy. And it just turns out that Kennedy, one of the very first stops he makes on his inauguration night is to a bunch of Washington Post columnists, who later become the chief proponents and defenders of Vietnam policy, which was Kennedy's policy to keep America in Vietnam. But they were seen as nonpartisan. It's like, no, we need to remove the nonpartisanship. Partisanship is good, actually. You just need to trust. What, anyway.

• 2:50:58Speaker 02

  What you're saying is it's good compared to the illusion of nonpartisanship.

• 2:51:03Speaker 03

  The illusion is so dangerous.

• 2:51:05Speaker 02

  And that's what we have.

• 2:51:06Mark Gagnon?

  Why is the illusion dangerous?

• 2:51:07Speaker 03

  Because, like I said, I mean, when all of America's news was telling us that the war in Vietnam was good and that we needed to go and find it, Americans believed that and they signed up to send their sons and daughters. Dude, Iraq is the perfect example in 03. I mean, we did not have, if we had what we had today, just based on the information, somebody like me, Glenn Greenwald, who was actually fighting this fight at the time, I'd be like, yo, yellowcake uranium, complete bullshit. This is wrong. The outcome of this would be a disaster. America didn't even have an option on cable television. And of course, they support the.

• 2:51:41Mark Gagnon?

  They had Roger Ailes saying, this is the real news.

• 2:51:43Speaker 03

  The real news. Did you read that book I recommended? Dude, can't recommend enough. The loudest voice in the room. Roger Ailes and how he understood, he has a great quote, which is, "People don't want to be informed, they want to feel informed." That's how he understood America.

• 2:51:56Speaker 02

  He created Fox News.

• 2:51:57Speaker 03

  He created Fox News, that's right. Him and Rupert Murdoch.

• 2:51:59Mark Gagnon?

  But then, don't you have way more echo chambers and?

• 2:52:02Speaker 03

  Yes. You know what, though? At the end, it's like the printing press. The printing press led to 30 years of war on the European continent and mass death. It was still a good thing. We have more information. Because, yes, it led to the Protestantism, it led to civil war, it led to all of these debates. But at the end of the day, it was like the Catholic Church no longer controlling the minds of the serfdom. It led to the Renaissance, it led to ideas. So, look, the internet is the printing press. We're returning to the mean, like, we have a new form of distribution. We can debate. How long have we been going here? Like, three hours? We're sitting here, we're fucking talking and all this. This would never air. Forty-five years ago, America was locked. The fuck in to bullshit.

• 2:52:41Speaker 02

  The echo chamber is already.

• 2:52:42Speaker 03

  Stance. And yet, the thing is, that echo chamber is 10 times worse than any echo chamber today. Even the most echo chambered Republican is still has access to liberal media. Even the most echo chambered liberal still has access and can go at any time they want to Ben Shapiro or whatever. Somebody's out there. Forty five years ago, there was no option.

• 2:53:01Speaker 02

  So you gotta, you gotta get a train soon.

• 2:53:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:53:03Speaker 02

  But I, just to button this, like, being biased is at least more honest. So it's an improvement on honesty, whereas before the illusion of being unbiased takes a reader who thinks he's just getting the news. Now, at least I get to look at the Washington Post and I go, okay, this is going to be maybe a more right wing perspective.

• 2:53:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:53:24Speaker 02

  I can look at, give me a good left wing outpost.

• 2:53:28Speaker 03

  Left, like actual left wing Jacobin, sure, the socialist newspaper.

• 2:53:32Speaker 02

  The socialist newspaper, what it's called Jacobin. So Jacobin, like, and if I want to get that take, I'll read the same story at Jacobin. If I want to get the right thing, I'll read the Washington Post.

• 2:53:41Speaker 04

  Or you could just listen to Breaking Points.

• 2:53:43Speaker 03

  And you get both. But no, but my point actually on that. But did you guys notice how when I was talking about Ukraine, I was like, hey, I have a real bias. Because I cannot tell you, I'm honestly, Ukraine is probably one of my top issues, like foreign policy. I cannot give you the real pro Ukraine side with the same enthusiasm that I do. I tried, I tried to do the old steel man thing, but I have a, I'm just not going to do it. Like, if you want to hear that, go to David Ignatius, go to Max Boot, go to Anne Marie Slaughter, any of these people, these real neo cons, liberal ones, they believe in this shit. Please go read them. Don't just listen to me because you need all your information.

• 2:54:17Speaker 02

  This is how you get.

• 2:54:18Speaker 03

  I agree with you. That's what I'm saying.

• 2:54:19Speaker 02

  Institution is, understand what you're digesting. If you tell me that food is healthy.

• 2:54:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:24Speaker 02

  And then I eat it.

• 2:54:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:54:25Speaker 02

  And I get some sort of disease. I stopped trusting the people who are telling me it's healthy. If you tell me something is not healthy, every cookie spot we go to, they go, yo, this is a thousand calories.

• 2:54:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:54:34Speaker 02

  When I feel like shit afterwards, I'm like, you better give me that thousand.

• 2:54:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:54:37Speaker 02

  If I feel healthy after that cookie, then you're lying to me.

• 2:54:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:54:40Speaker 02

  So, so, okay, at first I was like, I was concerned about the bias in information. As long as there are equal, I don't want to know, say equal, but. As long as there is information that's accessible out there that shows the opposition, and both are being honest about it. Yeah. Maybe this is a good thing.

• 2:54:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree.

• 2:54:57Speaker 02

  This is great, and I like the fact that you said that the the original idea of this is the information comes from wanting to sell more ads.

• 2:55:04Speaker 03

  Dude, it's only a 50-year-old idea. It's an aberration in America. America has always been, dude, we had the California Democrat, the California Republican. They're at war with their own state. How should we govern gold policy? Should we be in the Civil War? Even in the Confederacy, they had different papers being like, we need to do this. No, we don't need to do that. Like, it's the bias and the dueling perspective. That's how it's always been. The 1950s was an asterisk in an otherwise, like, a country that has always been. We've always recognized that news and information in and of itself is not actually all that valuable. As in, X, Y, and Z happened. People don't want to know that. They want to go, X, Y, and Z happened, and what did it mean?

• 2:55:46Speaker 03

  And that is what the newspaper and the information industry is all about. So I'm still very optimistic, because in the internet age, it's not just about declining trust in mainstream media. It's about an explosion of a new possibility. And there'll be a lot of bullshit out there, just like the invention of the printing press was mostly what? Pornography, conspiracy theory, whatever. It was starting wars. It was chaotic. But the net benefit was lack of control by singular institutions with their own agendas. And I think the decentralization of this will be very chaotic, and it will not necessarily be comfortable, but I think we'll end up in a better place.

• 2:56:19Speaker 02

  Sagar and Eddie, Breaking Points. Go check it out. Thank you so much. We love you, brother. We appreciate you.